Avolites joins the Bloc Party and European tour

Lighting designer Craig Allnutt is using an Avolites Diamond 4 console on the current Bloc Party UK and European tour.
The band are one of the most popular and talked about on the current UK art-rock alternative scene, having built up a loyal fanbase since their original incarnation as ‘Bloc Party’ in late 2003.
Allnutt – one of the new wave of creative young lighting designers - joined the Bloc Party team in February 2005 just after the NME tour. He’d been working with Keane before then and he was recommended for the gig by the tour manager.
Bloc Party have worked extensively in Europe and the US throughout the year, along with some UK festivals in the summer, leading up to the current autumn tour, which is their first carrying full production.
Allnutt first realised the massive potential of the Diamond 4 when using one for a Bloc Party show at Somerset House in the summer, which was also supplied by Siyan, lighting contractors for the tour. He’s always been an Avo fan, but was suitably impressed with the desk’s performance after this event to specify it for the upcoming tour. “I particularly like the way the desk is set up and the fact that you can patch anything to anywhere” he says.
He also likes multiple timings - that can be applied to any fixture attributes - and the ‘highlight’ function, which allows one fixture’s attributes to be ‘held’ on whilst any of the others are changed and recorded.
He did some training at Avolites before taking the desk out on the road, but he’s largely learnt as he’s gone along, “It’s very simple to pick up” he confirms, “Particularly if you have an Avolites background”.
The rig on Bloc Party is slightly asymmetric to match the non-conventional nature of the band and their music. The spiky, uneven and multi-layered musicality lends itself ideally to an asymmetric design. The band’s onstage set up is also slightly asymmetric.
The rig consists of two 40 ft trusses - front and rear - the upstage of which has four truss drop-beams off the bottom rail. Then there’s 5 truss towers onstage all at different heights, to ‘break up’ the overall appearance of the space.
Moving lights are 11 SGM Giotto 400 Washes and 13 CMY Spots, which are divided between the trusses, towers and drop beams.
Sixteen Atomic strobes are used with great enthusiasm – and at full power - throughout the set. They are scattered around all over the rig.
Onstage are three risers made from frosted Perspex. They are internally lit with 4 Atomics and 7 SGM PALCO floods, used to colour change and strobe the whole riser, transforming them into giant light boxes.
There’s also six MR16 light battens attached to the drop-trusses and five Lowell Omni Photofloods on top of each of the towers.
The front truss features 5 Source Fours, four bars of four PARs and four 4-lite blinders.
All of this is controlled by the Diamond 4, along with a hugely spectacular 34 x 16 ft Soft-LED backdrop, with sources stored on and run through a RADlite digital media server triggered by the desk.
The Soft-LED is supplied by XL Video. Allnutt specifically wanted a low resolution screen effect at the back. Content for 8 songs was specifically commissioned and produced by Luc Schurgers, who directed Bloc Party’s “Pioneers” promo video. Allnutt also uses one RADlite onboard tunnel effect in the show.
Allnut likes the ability to control both lighting and video from one surface with the D4.
(GB)