The smallest pair in the Jands Vista lighting and media control range won the award for ‘Best Moving Light Console – Small Format’ at the 2011 WFX expo in Dallas, Texas, USA.

The portable and compact Vista M1 and Vista S1 shared the spotlight, together with the second generation of software for the range – Vista v2 – which was launched earlier in the year.

The Awards are an integral element of the high profile annual WFX show, and are designed to honor the most innovative products available. The winners are selected by a panel of industry experts.

This is not the first time that the Jands Vista family has received one of the prestigious awards from WFX, in the past being honored not only with ‘Best Automated Lighting Controller’ but also ‘Best Overall Lighting Product’.

The 2011 WFX Award was collected on behalf of Jands by VP of sales and marketing at North American distributor A.C. Lighting Inc, Fred Mikeska. On accepting the award Fred commented “The team at Jands is really in tune with the market, they listen carefully to all of the input and feedback they receive from our extensive list of users. The Vista range is a great example of a company listening closely to its user base, then delivering a product that meets their needs. Vista v2 gives users of all levels the tools to deliver great looking events quickly and easily without having to resort to hours of complicated programming. A.C. Lighting Inc. is honored to receive the WFX Award on behalf of Jands.”

The Jands Vista control system has been enthusiastically adopted by many users, where its combination of simple, fast and flexible access with the power of controlling fine detail has made it a winner with users looking to deliver great looking shows quickly and efficiently.

Vista v2 was designed from the ground up to allow all levels of user to get the most from whatever mix of technology they have available, whether dimmers, moving lights, LED or media.

Vista continues to make a big impact worldwide with recent tours and shows including Third Day, Sara Bareilles, Adele, Pulp, The ‘Year of the Forest’ WWF Fund, Vienne Jazz Festival and Finland’s European Capital of Culture Opening Ceremony.

Lighting designer and long-time Jands Vista advocate, Rob Sinclair specified a Vista S1 console with two M1 wings to run lighting for Grammy Award-winning UK singer-songwriter Adele’s recent 2011 international tour.

The system ran Jands’ next generation Vista v2 software, and on some sections of the tour operating duties were taken on by John Barker while Rob fulfilled other design commitments on his busy schedule – including tours by Peter Gabriel and Goldfrapp also utilising Vista systems.

Rob’s classy, innovative design for Adele was sculpted using entirely white light, a bold aesthetic move which has won considerable acclaim. None of the moving lights were seen to move, there was minimal flashing, and was a real case of subtlety and suggestion to augment Adele’s powerful performance and natural stage presence.
There was a distinctive back wall of 96 cone-shaped lampshades each illuminated from behind with a 60 Watt incandescent household light bulb – all individually dimmed. These had been dipped in a special rubber solution treatment to make them break-resistant.

The Matrix facilities on the Vista S1 – one of the many tools added with the Vista v2 upgrade – made mapping and programming this unique arrangement of lights extremely easy.

The lighting rig echoed the simplicity of the show’s concept. Rigged across three overhead trusses were seven Robe ColorSpot 2500E AT moving lights and 20 ETC Source Four profiles, and on the deck were 16 Martin Professional MAC 2K Washes, all supplied by Neg Earth Lights.

Commenting on the Vista v2 software, Rob says, “I really like it. It is very solid and a marked step forward from V1. It feels almost as if the console directly connects my brain to the lights”.

In addition to Rob’s Vista systems being used on Adele, Pulp, Peter Gabriel and Goldfrapp tours throughout 2011, one has also just gone out on Will Young’s latest UK tour, operated by Jason Hynde.

The next generation Vista v2 software was designed from the ground up to allow all levels of user get the most from whatever mix of technology they have available, whether dimmers, moving lights, LED, or media. Available in a wide range of hardware Vista v2 offers both the simplicity to work fast, with the power to control the finest details, so everyone can focus on creating a great looking show rather than on programming a desk.

Jands Europe’s Neil Vann commented, “Rob’s designs are always interesting, fantastic looking and very precise. Vista v2 offers the perfect balance to get the detailed control he demands, with the simplicity to get the most from the tight timeframes that today’s productions have to work to. If you haven’t taken a look at Vista v2 for yourself yet, take the chance to see just how much you could be getting from your time……”

Gallery

Photo courtesy of Rob Sinclair - click to open

Adele’s recent concert at the Royal Albert Hall was filmed for an upcoming DVD and LD Rob Sinclair laid in some extra control for the night. Pictured from left to right:

>> Vista T4, running all audience lighting
>> M1 running group masters as inhibits for the film lighting
>> M1 attached to the T4 putting keylights within easy reach
>> Rob’s own S1 and 2 M1s to run the regular show lighting

Following her sold out tour in April and the success of her second album ’21′ Adele is currently playing more shows across the UK.

She has now become the first solo female to score eleven consecutive weeks at the top of the UK album chart, as well as being the first female artist to have two records and two singles in the UK top five at one time.

One of the most popular events at this years Vivid Festival was FireDance, an incredible performance of dancing flames choreographed to music, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Australia before.

Using forty jets of flame that rose higher than a three-story house, FireDance exploded several times a night, at Campbells Cove, in Sydney’s historic Rocks district.

FireDance featured two different shows, that alternated with each other on each night of Vivid Sydney. One show was more pop music with the firejet flames dancing to the Katie Perry hit Firework, remixed by renowned artist Peewee Ferris, while the other show saw them in a choreographed balletic performance to the magic of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.

FireDance was created and produced by Howard & Sons Pyrotechnics, a fourth generation family business and leading exponents of flame-projector technology. FireDance uses a pressurised non-toxic hydrocarbon liquid in its FireJets, and its poetry and warmth could be felt tens of metres away.

Howard & Sons trialed a new method of flame delivery; ripping the optics out of some inexpensive moving head fixtures and mounting their flame heads in them!

“It was pretty challenging but now we’ve proved it can work we will probably do it with a better quality moving head,” explained Stuart Bensley, Designer and Project Manager of Fire Dance. “The Jands Vista was controlling all the flame heads and moving heads; about 160 channels of DMX to control 38 Flame heads and 4 moving head fixtures. We had a Vista S1 connected to an iMac and also a full redundancy system so we could swap over if needed.”

Stuart further explains that timing is extremely intricate with the FireJets and that an on and off command 15/100th of a second apart produces a completely different effect.

“That’s why the Jands Vista is so good,” he remarked. “The way the timeline works is perfect for this as you can manipulate the FireJets very quickly and accurately. Each show has thousands of cues in it and is very complicated. I did discover that programming moving lights is a hell of a lot easier than programming the flames!”

The show proved so popular, more and more show times were announced throughout the festival and ultimately over 250 shows were successfully staged.

“We didn’t have one technical problem and didn’t miss one show due to weather,” said Stuart.

Geelong-based Total Events provided lighting, staging, transport, rigging and AV requirements for the festival across six venues. 2011 was the 35th year of Port Fairy Folk Festival and Total Events managing director Scott Parker has provided various levels of production to the event for over fifteen years.

Lighting consisting of approximately one hundred LED fixtures, fifty moving head fixtures and a hundred dimmer channels plus operators, was supplied for four of the venues which were all controlled by Jands Vista with combinations of I3, S3, S1 and M1 consoles.

“Having the same control platform across all venues meant easy transitions for relief operators who had to fill in on all four venues,” commented Scott. “It also meant easy file management for creating and distributing show files and backups. Use of Vista meant controlling the different types and brands of fixtures was simple.”

According to Scott, all systems performed flawlessly over the seven days onsite, with temperatures and conditions fluctuating significantly, as often happens in seaside towns.

“We’ve been a long time user of Vista and when it came to a choice of console to put into every venue, there was no discussion to be held,” stated Scott. “Operators that were new to Vista had no issues becoming comfortable within a few hours of programming, resulting in lightshows that were always fitting to the diverse range of music presented at the festival.”

All dimming was Jands, using HP and the new HPC ‘Air Gap’ dimmers running in both dimmer and 240v distribution modes for the moving lights.

“The HPC dimmers are new to our hire stock but will soon be the only dimmer and 240v distribution we stock due to their versatility,” added Scott.

tobyMac ©Jeff Culmer

Lighting and video designer Nick West specified a Jands Vista T2 console to provide lighting, IMAG and video control for the recent tobyMac annual Winter Wonder Slam tour. The American Grammy award-winning gospel rapper’s explosive show featured Diverse City, his 8-member touring band, and played a series of US Arena dates throughout November and December. The touring schedule re-commences in March to promote the launch of tobyMac’s latest studio album, Tonight.

Tour lighting was provided by Axxis Inc., with lighting design, direction and programming by Nick West. Video was provided by Big Picture.

When it came to specifying lighting control for the tour, the Jands Vista was Nick’s desk of choice. Nick is an experienced user of the Vista range, switching between a rented full size T2 console for tours and his own S1 control surface for fly dates or using as a wing, which he takes on every show.

He commented: “When I saw the Vista, the timeline and ability to swap fixtures were major selling points. Often I fly to a show that morning and I may only have 30 minutes with the rig before we play, which gives me just enough time to focus. With the Jands Vista’s Mac or PC based offline editor, one quick advance call to get the fixture types and addresses from the local company and I can have the console ready to go before I even show up on site.”

The tour rig centered around a Barco Slite LED video wall upstage for IMAG and a low resolution Barco MiStrips LED wall in front of a 40 foot wide by 5 foot high riser.

120 Par Cans arranged in a 30 by four configuration were also flown in and out during the show, providing a major set piece used to spell out words. Nick was originally going to pixel map the Par Cans, but after starting to pre-program them on the Vista he found the console’s graphical based approach to programming made it very easy.

He commented: “The show starts off with ‘TOBY MAC’ spelled out in the Par Cans. After a couple of shows, Toby asked if I could do something specific with them, such as having them come on as if someone was writing it. I was able to instantly grab the fixtures, work with them in the timeline and have the effect within 30 seconds of him asking for it.”

The rig also included 22 Martin Mac 700 profiles, ten 26 degree Source Four Lekos, three ETC Sensor racks and two Motion Labs 220V Distros. Video came from a Catalyst HD media server. The lighting, video and live camera feeds were all triggered from the Vista T2 console.

Summarizing his experience of the Vista, Nick commented: “I use the Vista for anything and everything I do. It’s great having on-board visualization of your fixtures and the flexibility to layout the console to your specific needs. The Vista is great for controlling lights, IMAG and video. Technical support for anything is very quick. Jands listen to their users and continually make requests and ideas happen.”

Other production staff on the tour included Tour Manager Ryan Lampa, Stage Manager Sam Shifley, Lighting Crew Chief / FOH Cam Anthony Morgan, Lighting 2nd John “2Tone” Sumitra, LED Tech / Robotic Cams Jeff Culmer, and Shoulder Cam / Video Tech Nick Bush.

Indiana based Grace Community Church has invested in a range of Vista lighting control solutions as part of a multi-million dollar expansion of its worship facilities. Models purchased include the full-size Vista T2, the portable Vista S1 and the playback-only Vista M1 consoles. This is to expand the church’s capacity to three weekend worship auditoriums, to accommodate as many as 6,000 churchgoers on a typical weekend.

The Church relies on a team of over 100 volunteers to assist the paid production staff during services, which can run simultaneously in up to three auditoriums. Senior Director of Production, Daryl Cripe, therefore felt it was essential to invest in a lighting console that the inexperienced volunteers could easily understand.

He commented: “For our Church’s philosophy, I had equal desire for functionality and ease of use in our choice of lighting console. Instead of being like a typical theater or concert, where a single person is responsible for all lighting, we are passionate about allowing volunteers, all of whom have no previous lighting experience, to be trained on and operate our theatrical lighting system. As such, yes, we need a lot of features and stability, yet we also need a console that is visual, easy to train on.”

Daryl and his production team utilized or tested various consoles, yet nothing they tried in their opinion compared to the Vista in terms of ease of use. He commented:

“From our volunteer’s perspective, the Vista is VISUAL. They can look at a screen and see what they are doing. It feels very familiar to navigate, so they can use their existing computer knowledge. We can configure the Vista screen to look like our lighting layout in the room. The ease of creating groups, presets, cues etc. is all so simple. In addition, patching fixtures in Vista is incredibly simple. I recently showed the Technical Director at another Church our T2 console and when I showed him how to patch an automated fixture, his mouth dropped open!”

Whereas most traditional full-scale lighting desks rely on number-crunching to program shows, the Vista utilizes a graphic based interface. As a result, users can work visually and get on with designing better shows, rather than getting distracted by the actual programming process itself. It makes programming extremely fast and getting to grips with the console a relatively short learning curve.

The lighting console’s ease of use would mean absolutely nothing if it wasn’t up to the job of controlling the state-of-the-art lighting system in the Church’s main auditorium; the centrepiece of their expansion program. Featuring a large 80ft by 40ft stage and seating in a 270° configuration, the Church uses high production values to emphasize the themes of its services via an eclectic mix of music, drama and video. The venue’s extensive lighting rig includes over 850 LED, moving and conventional fixtures controlled using six universes of DMX and over 2,700 DMX channels.

Daryl was looking to bring his creative vision for the services to life using the rig’s many cutting-edge LED fixtures; to literally paint the whole room with light. A full-size Linux-based Vista T2 console provides seamless automation of the auditorium’s lighting rig and blackout window shutters. LED fixtures provide color changing wall uplighting either side of the stage area, while a mixture of moving lights, PARs, ParNels and conventional fixtures provide theatrical performance lighting for music and drama during the services.

In addition, smaller 1,100-seater and 400-seater auditoriums are controlled using the Vista S1 and M1 PC based consoles. The two control surfaces are designed to be used with either a Windows PC or native Mac laptop and DMX channel dongle package, providing portable and affordable Vista solutions.

The ability for volunteers to be able to switch easily between consoles in all three auditoriums was another key factor in Daryl’s decision to choose the Vista. All models share exactly the same visual interface and controls, making a transition between models seamless.

Daryl commented: “Frankly, I cannot overstate how important this consistency is. Going back to the reality of utilizing volunteers, of DESIRING to use volunteers, the ability for those volunteers trained on the T2 to walk into a room with Vista PC and S1 / M1 and sit down and get to work creating… that is extremely valuable! In addition, if someone was trained on Vista PC, it’s not difficult for them to then utilize the T2. Also, we have had volunteers take Vista PC home, to experiment with it on their own. Again, it’s a great value to our philosophy and a great opportunity for our volunteers!”

Another labour-saving feature of the Vista, its innovative timeline editing function, is proving invaluable to helping the volunteers understand how to program a show. The timeline gives users the complete picture of their lighting events, making it easy to make sense of complex changes and put the finishing touches to their show.

The Vista’s intuitive interface is proving popular with leading US houses of worship. When launched, the product was voted ‘Best Automated Lighting Controller’ and ‘Best Overall Lighting Product’ by an expert panel of judges at the 2006 WFX Show New Product Awards in Dallas, due to its suitability to the industry’s unique production environment.

Grace Community Church Senior Director of Production, Daryl Cripe, commented: “While a few ‘big name consoles’ often get most noticed in the touring world, the reality is that nothing I have seen compares to the combination of functionality and ease of use that the Vista series provides. We still need a robust console based on our lighting rig, but it is critical that it is easily trainable to volunteers. These consoles allow us to push our creativity and ultimately, our volunteers have the joy of combining creativity and support of our services. We want them to be spending their time having fun programming, not trying to figure out some complex function on the console itself. ANY church that desires to use theatrical lighting and wants to provide volunteers the opportunities to create should be examining this series of consoles. We love our Vistas.”

Feature photo – the Grace Community Church lighting team. Courtesy of ©Kris Rinas

At ‘The People’s Opening’, in Liverpool, Stephen Page of DBN Lighting controlled the main stage with a Vista T2 while Rob Sinclair used his new suitcase-sized S1 for the CBS broadcast of their ‘Good Morning America’ programme.

From etnow.com News
HSL supplied all lighting equipment including over 200 moving lights and 12 crew for ‘The People’s Opening’ extravaganza that launched Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture year. The spectacular event was staged at – and around – St George’s Hall in the city centre.
The performances involved approximately 700 people including Ringo Starr, Dave Stewart and local upcoming indie stars The Wombats, all of which took place on eight surrounding rooftops including the Walker Arts Gallery, St John’s Beacon, the Empire Theatre, Lime Street Station, etc. as well as on top of and in front of St George’s Hall.
The site was hugely challenging on which to work. Lights had to be craned into position and rigged at all these locations, and also onto a series of scaffolding constructions around the main area.

The get-in started on the Monday for the Friday show and the HSL team, project managed by Mike Oates, battled with high winds and driving rain throughout the whole period. The hostile weather forced the cancellation of all but one night of full rehearsals before Friday night’s stunning show.
Lighting designer Stephen Page (a director of Manchester based DBN Lighting) was “extremely pleased” when HSL won the tender to supply the lighting kit. “They have been brilliant,” he says, “The crew have all worked very hard in difficult conditions on a complex site to deliver what I needed.” He has known HSL for some years, but this was the first time he’s worked with them in this context – as his equipment supplier.
Page was involved in the creative process that has evolved into The People’s Show from an early stage, working closely with producer John Wassell, co-directors Nigel Jamieson, Jayne Casey and Mark Murphy along with production designer Dan Potra. The event was production managed by Simon Barrington.
The industrial look of the site, which integrated technical support structures constructed from freight containers, assorted scaffolding towers, cherry pickers and scissor lifts, was juxtaposed against the neoclassical elegance, pillars and arches of St George’s Hall.
Page lit the Hall with a combination of Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200E AT and Studio Due CityColor fixtures. Forty CityColors provided the basic wash along the 170-metre front and the south façade of the building, while the 18 metre pillars were highlighted with 30 Robe ColorSpot and 40 ColorWash 1200s.

On top of St George’s Hall and on all the surrounding rooftops, HSL provided approximately 40 Robe ColorSpot 2500E ATs, chosen for their high power and brightness and their ability to produce searchlight type effects. About 100 JTE PixelPAR 90s were also used on the various rooftops for general illumination of the performers.
Over 70 Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 700 Series fixtures were dotted around the main stage and on the site lighting structures, used for lower level coverage and short throw applications. Page comments that these were also very bight and ideal for the task. Seven sets of Studio Due CS4s on scissor lifts were placed in between the main run of St George’s pillars, rising up and down during the show.
A selection of PARs, profiles. blinders and 40 Fuzz Lights were positioned around the stage on St George’s Plateau and on the scaff structures, providing stage and general areas washes and coverage plus audience illumination.
HSL also supplied six followspots, four on scissor lifts in front of the building, one on top of the Empire Theatre and one on the concourse in front of the site.
The show was enjoyed live by 28,000 people and broadcast on several networks.
Mike Oates comments: “We certainly had to think on our feet on this one, and together with Star Events (structures), UK Rigging (production rigging/rooftop safety) and the Event Safety Shop (production H&S management), come up with a series of creative scaffolding solutions for lighting in all locations. Some of this was done in advance – but much had to be improvised on site!”
The light-show was operated by Page from his own Jands Vista console. HSL ran two Luminex radio DMX links – from the main site at St George’s Plateau to the St John’s Beacon car park, and another from there to the top of the tower. All other links were wired. All lighting kit was powered from generators supplied by Buffalo.
HSL also supplied lighting equipment, LD Rob Sinclair and crew to US broadcaster CBS for their ‘Good Morning America’ programme. This was beamed live from St George’s Hall’s famous Concert Hall and included a three-number performance from Ringo Starr.
Lighting consisted of Robe 1200 Spots, i-Pix Satellites, 2k Fresnels, Source Four PARs – mostly rigged on a series of stands around the balcony of the attractive circular Victorian room. Sinclair also used his new suitcase-sized Jands Vista S1 console.

The Vista S1 – the console for the jetset.

Designed to be used with a laptop, the S1 is a powerful and flexible live console that’s compact enough to qualify as carry-on luggage. But don’t be fooled by its size: the S1 gives you five playbacks, including faders and flash buttons, a complete programming section with three encoder wheels, a rotary master fader, two LCD displays and lots more to make controlling your show a breeze.

S1 Product page

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Excerpt
With Heartland’s track record of “changing things up,” the auditorium’s lighting configuration both reflects and enables their innovative style. A favorite among Heartland’s technical team is Jands’ Vista lighting console platform. According to Hayes, a huge advantage is the console’s operating environment, designed around a timeline concept as found in a video editing system, making it more volunteer friendly. “The ability to cross train volunteers to all three levels of lighting boards (a different model of the Vista console is installed in each of HCC’s three venues) sold us on Jands