Neg Earth Lights Up Muse World Tour

UK lighting rental company Neg Earth Lights has provided assistance on the recent world tour of rock band Muse.
The company invested in five new Kinesys DigiHoist controllers and two remote handsets which went directly out on Muse’s ‘The 2nd Law’ tour, together with a Kinesys K2 control and Elevation 1+ automation system that they already owned.
The Kinesys system was specified by the band’s Stage and Visual Designer Oli Metcalfe and automation guru Gareth Williams – who has been an advocate of Kinesys innovations for many years. Williams is operating the K2 on the tour.
A major part of Metcalfe’s visual concept for the tour are five concentric square video screens, all made up from Pixled Linx12 product each being 1.2 metres in depth. These are attached to square trusses incrementing in size and all fit inside one another forming a pyramid shape that can also be inverted.
The two larger video squares are flown from four 1 tonne Liftket electric chain hoists and the three smaller ones each from four half tonne Liftkets. All 20 motors are fitted with Kinesys Elevation 1+ vari-speed controllers and driven by one of the new standalone K2 control consoles.
Close to the K2 control position is a rack-mounted computer also running K2 in full tracking backup mode.
The screens receive playback video content and IMAG footage, with both sources output to screen via the Catalyst, triggered from Metcalfe’s Hog 4 lighting console.
Positional information from the five concentric screens is sent via K2 to the Catalyst, which calculates the image sizing required to fit in on to wherever the screen surface happens to be at the time.
One image can be fitted over all four sides of all five screens or images can be split and fragmented across the five surfaces producing stunning contrasts and the high-impact, edgy visuality for which Muse’s live performances are renowned.
"There is no other automation system available that could have done this as easily as K2," Williams said.
Each of the 20 video screen points is fitted with a Kinesys LibraCELL load monitoring shackle, so Williams can monitor the dynamic loading of all the points onscreen as they change positions.
The LibraCELL system checks for overload and underloads. This is particularly important as there is some serious cable management involved feeding the screens and the lighting fixtures rigged on the trusses, resulting in substantial amounts of cabling and motor chains compacted in the same limited area.
The five new Neg Earth DigiHoist controllers are being used to control motors for all the lighting points – 16 of them on the main grid and 15 on the sub-hung lighting trusses.
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