Lighting Designer, Steve Bewley, is the first to tour the UK and Europe with Ayrton
MagicBlade™-R fixtures, using over 100 units for British rock-band, Enter Shikari, in
support of their new album, The Mindsweep.

Bewley has truss-mounted eighty-four MagicBlade™-R fixtures behind the band in a
curved wall which splits horizontally to adapt his design to fit any size of venue.

“My initial concept was to create a kind of “fence’ housing an LED framework in
emulation of a brain and the neuropaths within it to emphasise the idea of The
Mindsweep,’ says Bewley. “The LED strip needed more to bring it to life, so I
supplemented it with MagicBlades.

Ayrton’s MagicBlade™-R is a unique fixture which aligns seven individually
controllable 15W RGBW LED emitters, each with a tight 4.5° beam, and provides
continuous double rotation on the pan and tilt axes.

“For the first part of the year we used around 44 MagicBlades on a 3.8m high rolling
framework which fitted the UK Academy venues,’ says Bewley.

“We then added another 40 units on a flown truss to double the “fence’ to a height of
8m for this summer’s larger UK and European festivals like Download, Glastonbury
and Rock Werchter.’

Bewley chose to use the pan/tilt and continuous pan/tilt features of MagicBlade-R
fixtures copiously in his design, supplemented by a variety of static looks: “I opted
to use the MagicBlades in many visually interesting positions and patterns, and
employed the dimmer chase to emulate the music. The combination of MagicBlade’s
movement, colour, on-board macros and desk effects mean I can create something
truly different, weird and unique that people haven’t seen before. That is exactly
what I want to discover in a new fixture.’

Twenty-four more MagicBlade-R units line the stage’s downstage edge to form a
wall of light “like one big MagicBlade’ between the band and the audience.

“This groundrow acts like a huge curtain of light in the ambient haze and I use it to
create big looks across the front,’ says Bewley. “The band plays with this, sticking
their heads through the curtain of light, interacting with the crowd and with the light
itself.’

Bewley programmed the show using different layers and groups of MagicBlade-R
fixtures. “We now have two or three different shows programmed to suit different
sized venues. We use MagicBlade’s RDM function to automatically address
everything during set up which is fantastically time-saving time, and have a show
which is fast and easy to adapt wherever we go.’

Ayrton’s MagicBlade-R fixtures were supplied by for the UK and European tour by
Neg Earth.

More information on Ayrton MagicBlade-R and the full Radical Series of fixtures can
be found with all Ayrton ranges at www.ayrton.eu