Photos: Markus Wilmsmann 2016

German rock band, Silbermond, has embarked on a live tour in support of its recently released, fifth studio album, Leichtes Gepäck. Lighting Designer, Stephan Aue, has opted for two dominating lighting products from Ayrton, supplied by VisionStage of Germany, to play alongside them.

Ayrton IntelliPix-R and Ayrton MagicRing-R9 create the mainstay effects in the lighting set as the tour takes in major arenas across Germany, Switzerland and Austria, with technical provision from TDA Rental, Bottrop.

Aue took the album name quite literally for the creation of Silbermond’s live look and aimed convincingly to travel with ‘light luggage’.

He explains, “I wanted fixtures that would give me a lot in a small package – and the Ayrton products do just that – it may look light but the effect is, nevertheless, powerful and heavy enough to convince in the big arenas.”

The tour kicked off in May with a sold out performance by the band in Hannover, Germany, where the set was revealed. Between stage-to-ceiling videowalls, the Ayrton fixtures formed the beating heart of the 10m x 10m stage set: this included just three of the mighty Ayrton MagicRing-R9 – for very good reason.

MagicRing-R9 boasts an overall flux of 26,000 lumen and a centre beam intensity of more than 2,730,000 candela. Sixty-one, individually controlled, 15 Watt RGBW LED sources, arranged in four rings with a minimal gap between the optics, provide numerous new graphic options and make it a powerful and extravagant luminaire reserved for extreme and unique use and special effects.

To mirror the iconic look of the music video for the single, Leichtes Gepäck, where pendulum lights puncture the atmosphere, Aue looked no further than the MagicRing-R9.

“I needed to reassert the dominance of the pendulum light, yet I also wanted it to do more. The MagicRing-R9 is so versatile and so powerful, I needed little else. As a design element, the fixture is more than capable of delivering all I need in terms of the set ‘look’– and it illuminates the musicians too.”

Providing the lifeblood of the set, however, are four matrixes of Ayrton IntelliPix-R, each composed of 16 individual units. The Ayrton IntelliPix-R is a semi-transparent modular beam projection panel with a 5 x 5 array of independently controllable 15W Osram LEDs that project volumetric colour graphics and media far into the air.

Positioned independently above the four musicians, the IntellPix-R matrixes are rigged on motorised hoists, and thus fully repositionable, to provide a host of looks from this most flexible of lighting designs.

From a horizontal ceiling position, the IntelliPix-R matrixes punch out beam ‘cages’ to surround the musicians; quick change to a vertical or diagonal position at the back of the set and pixel-mapped designs depict a new song.

Aue was very impressed with the scope he achieved with the IntelliPix-R, stating, “We were able to reposition the fixtures to constantly create new looks on the stage. We got so much from those matrixes.”

He continued, “One particularly successful look was to map the profiles of the musicians onto the matrixes. The units were very simple to pixel map and we created a number of different looks that way. They also became blinders and lighting cages, so we really took a lot away with us in that fixture.”

In his final assessment of the Ayrton fixtures, Aue praises the design philosophy behind the brand: “We were able to create incredible effects of huge proportions from a very few tools that were more than capable of competing with the video walls.

“The versatility and power of the Ayrton fixtures, along with their perfect colour mixing capabilities and accurate control, meant we could devise a wide variety of looks which are as stunning in the large arenas as in the smaller venues on this tour. Consequently, I have been able to make my design supremely transportable without any compromise in substance or quality.”

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