UK – Jands Vista v2 has been specified to provide control for all lighting aspects of ‘LEGO® Friends to the Rescue’, an all-new live show spectacular which recently opened at the LEGOLAND® Windsor Resort.

‘LEGO® Friends to the Rescue’ is set in the Resort’ s brand new land, Heartlake City, which recreates the fun and colourful world of the popular LEGO® Friends toy range.

During the show, guests join Heartlake City’ s five female characters on an action packed adventure which is full of music, dance and special effects. Dominating the effects is the harbour’ s lighthouse, which is pixel mapped with over 700 RGB LED emitters using a Traxon Dot media string wrapped around the structure.

Lighting contractor, A.C. Special Projects Ltd. (ACSP) specified the Jands Vista S1 console to control the lighthouse LEDs in addition to the stage lighting. ACSP Director, Lance Bromhead, commented: “Vista was ideal for this project – primarily as it has an incredibly powerful FX engine capable of pixel mapping stunning shapes and animations with ease. This meant that there was no need for additional products such as a dedicated media server, which kept production costs down whilst still delivering on the client’ s requirement for striking visuals.”

Secondly, to reflect the energy and vibrancy of the action on stage, the show required complex lighting sequences played back through 100s of cues. These cues needed to be recalled accurately, without the use of external triggers such as timecode. Vista again had the answer to this. The show is utilising a feature called Learn Timing, which recorded the exact timing between cues the first time they were played back. As a result of this, the operators only have to press a single button and the sequences play back exactly as intended, allowing the technicians to concentrate on other show aspects such as the sound and stage automation.

Finally, ACSP had to take into account the limited amount of space available within the control booth. They needed a small console that didn’ t compromise on power, features or performance. All Jands Vista products run the exact same software and offer the full feature set as found in the range’s largest consoles, so the S1 connected to a laptop provided this small footprint solution.

Laura Jackson, Project Manager for the Resort’s chief production contractor, SGA, commented: “Jands Vista is really proving to be a great choice for the show’ s control requirements. Not only has it exceeded everyone’s expectations in making the lighthouse and stage area look fantastic, it actually proved just as useful during the show pre-production process – because Vista is so visual, it was possible to program part of the show ‘blind’ before some fixtures arrived on-site, saving valuable time in production rehearsals.”

‘LEGO® Friends to the Rescue’ runs several times daily and has been attracting packed out audiences.

Photo: AC-ET’s UK Sales Director, Jonathan Walters and Amanda Thompson, Managing Director of Blackpool Pleasure Beach and President of Stageworks Worldwide Productions.

Top UK amusement park, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, are using Jands’ flagship Vista L5 console to control the lighting on their latest production of the world-famous ‘Hot Ice Show’ ice skating spectacular.

One of the UK’s most popular attractions, with nearly 20,000 visitors per week, skaters travel from across the globe to take to the ice in Blackpool for what has become the world’s longest running ice show. Included in the impressive line-up are stars from ITV’s ‘Dancing On Ice’, as well as Olympic and professional skaters.

‘Hot Ice Show’ is created, produced and directed by Amanda Thompson OBE and presented by Stageworks Worldwide Productions at the Pleasure Beach’s ice skating theatre, The Arena.

To create the production’s dynamic and highly theatrical feel, a spectacular light show, explosive pyrotechnic fire effects and a dramatic music soundtrack complement the skaters’ jaw-dropping moves.

Amanda Thompson, Managing Director of Blackpool Pleasure Beach and President of Stageworks Worldwide Productions, said: “Stageworks was already using the venue’s in-house Jands Vista T2 desk, which had been purchased in 2011 for the then production of Hot Ice Show.”

“We decided it was time to upgrade to the Vista range’s latest L5 console, to take full advantage of its increased power and feature set for Michael’s more ambitious 2014 show lighting design.”

Michael Seaman, LX programming/technical co-ordinator for Stageworks, said: “I’ve been using the Vista system since 2011 and absolutely love it. For past Hot Ice Shows we’ve used a big generic rig of Par Cans with gobo effects, so this year we decided to raise the bar by adding some LEDs to create beam lights and various other effects. The L5’s much larger screen is a massive help, as it makes being able to see the whole arena rig at the same time, including the extra LEDs, much easier. It’s a very responsive desk with impressive and fast processing capabilities.”

The Vista is controlling over 250 ways of dimming plus Prolights Prime beamlights, Martin Mac2000 profiles, Robe Robin 600 spots, Showtec sunstrips, and Prolights ArcLed 8107Q LED Pars.

Designed to cater for the ever increasing use of both media and LEDs in shows, the Vista L5 features a 21 inch High Definition Wacom display that provides a crisp, detailed image showing a huge amount of information in a flexible, clear and easy to understand way.

Underneath, the Vista L5’s powerful engine is provided by a Linux Operating System, Intel Core i7 processor and 8GB of Dynamic RAM, ensuring it’s able to deal with even the most demanding shows long into the future.

Stefano Visintin, Sound/Light and LX programmer for Stageworks, said: “The extra playbacks on the L5 are another big bonus for busking on the go, as we get a lot of one-day dance shows which we do on the fly. Along with the intuitive Vista v2 software and the L5’s large, backlit screen, plus the full size keyboard, it’s a great desk to use.”

Equally at home on tour or as a venue’s house console, the Vista L5 is ideal for arena touring, lighting companies, AV companies, venues and rental, not to mention a fantastic investment for a designer.

The L5 console was supplied to Stageworks Worldwide Productions by Jands UK dealer, A.C. Entertainment Technologies.

Currently in final production rehearsals, ‘Hot Ice Show’ begins its 100-show run on July 3rd at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. After the ‘Hot Ice Show’, the console will be used for various other productions hosted at the Blackpool attraction.

The Vista range includes a choice of portable, flexible control surfaces and self-contained consoles all running the same Vista v2. Jands’ award-winning lighting & media control system has been embraced by leading designers, companies and venues all over the world on a wide range of shows. Covering entertainment, education & drama, installations, corporate, events and worship, there’s a Vista system to suit all levels of user and almost any scale of show.

Recent shows featuring lighting or media control by Vista include international concert tours by Peter Gabriel, Fall Out Boy, Bloc Party, Deftones, Dierks Bentley and Little Big Town.

The first Jands Vista T2 lighting desk and Jands Vista M1 control console with the Vista v2 ‘Byron’ operating system to be sold in the Middle East by the new IBS Group division, IBS Solutions, are already proving to be a great purchase for Lighthouse Productions, according to its MD.

Terry Miranda, managing director and chief lighting designer at Lighthouse Productions visited the IBS Solutions stand at CABSAT in February, and said he found exactly what he was looking for in the Jands Vista with the new Vista v2 software.

“In the past two years I have had my eye on the latest developments in lighting consoles in order to purchase something that fit my idea of what a lighting desk should be. Having seen the first demo of the Vista v2 Byron operating system at PALME 2010, it had piqued my interest till it hit the sweet spot in 2011. The system allows a designer/ programmer to dictate terms to the programming aspect and to decide how simple or powerful it should be,” said Miranda.

“I would say the new Jands Vista is one of the finest, most intelligent lighting desks the industry has seen.”
Gavin Coxon from IBS Solutions, the official UAE distributor for Jands, added: “”With the new Vista v2 Byron, Jands has an even stronger product range to compete with the other top lighting consoles available on the market, we expect big things from the range in the UAE.”

Lighthouse Productions created the design for the BURDA event held on February 15 at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, where the new console took centre stage. Using the mosque as backdrop to the main stage Lighthouse used a Watchout system and bitmapping to project the images onto the entrance of the mosque, using the Jands for all the lighting cues preprogrammed via wysywig.

Also included in the sale were custom-built flight-cases for each console, manufactured and supplied by IBS Flightcase, another IBS GROUP company.

Lighthouse Productions used the new equipment again at the Zayed International Prize for the Environment on March 14 at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The JANDS Vista was utilised to the maximum with all the lighting cues as well as a Wi-Fi link with an iPad for focusing and fine tuning while walking around Rashid Hall.

Mcgriff Mascarenhas, assistant lighting designer at Lighthouse Productions is also very happy with the new equipment: “JANDS Vista is one of the simplest operating desks that I have ever used that allows me to think visually and work visually.”

© Dabney Forest

Once again, a Jands Vista T2 console has provided lighting control for an event winner at the InfoComm / LSA Staged Events Awards. Freeman received the 2010 ‘Best Overall Staging for a Corporate Industrial Entertainment Event’ award for their work on the American Library Association’s Annual Conference.

The annual awards are held at the InfoComm tradeshow and represent achievements in AV excellence in some of the most unique and challenging environments. One judge commented on the winning Freeman event:
“It is difficult for a lighting submission to grab attention when it’s up against so many great total staging projects with video. But lighting is one area that can own a show if it is done properly and this event exemplifies the power of light over the audience.”

Freeman, a world-leading provider of integrated services for face to face marketing events, provided full lighting, audio, video and scenic elements for the winning conference. The multi-day event featured 20 guest speakers discussing their works as well as an awards ceremony.

The event lighting design was by Freeman AV Chicago’s in house LD, Anne Sedlock with programming by Dabney Forest. Anne let Dabney choose her console of choice, the Jands Vista T2, a popular choice in Freeman AV Chicago’s rental inventory. Anne commented:
“We use the Vista T2 on almost all this style of show. It provides us with the flexibility and the ease of use we need to get our shows up and looking great in very little time.”

The challenge was how to give the single stage a unique look for each day of the conference presentations, as well as for the awards ceremony. Anne’s lighting concept was to make the stage scenic elements really stand out by using numerous unique looks to keep the lighting fresh.

For the main scenic element, a massive curved frame covered in white spandex material, Anne used Chroma-Q™ Color Split™ LED fixtures to provide subtle looks of gradiant color uplighting from the base of the structure. Chroma-Q™ Color Block™ compact LED units were used to get into the many curves of the scenic piece and add highlights where needed, as well as adding a hint of colour to the drape line upstage. In addition, Vari-Lite VL3500 Spots provided a layer of downlighting and texture. All fixtures were chosen from Freeman AV Chicago’s in-house inventory.

Summarising her experience of the Vista, Dabney commented:
“It’s not often we get such a great canvas to paint our lights on. As with many shows, for the ALA we got very little time to program. The Vista allows me to create looks efficiently and quickly. I know I can rely on the speed that the Vista’s interface offers to do the things I need to both fast and easily, whether ‘drawing’ precise shutter cuts on my VL3500s, quickly moving icons around my layouts as the rig changes, or copying whole looks across different fixture types. Then of course, there’s ‘extracts’. In the current economic environment, it’s rare for a show to allow for the kind of programming time that was standard in years past. Frankly, without the Vista I could not have made the intricate looks the show needed in the time I had available.”

Lighting designer Dave Boser of Image Technologies Corporation specified a pair of Jands Vista I3 consoles to provide lighting control for the Silpada Designs 2009 National Convention in Missouri. Silpada is one of the nation‘s largest sterling silver jewelry home party companies, with over 28,000 independent representatives. This year‘s three-day annual conference at the Kansas City Convention Center attracted nearly 6,000 sales representatives and featured presentations, an awards night and an entertainment night.

The live event was produced by Doug Flory and production managed by Bob Casey, with technical direction by Mark Scanlon. Lighting design / direction / programming was by Dave Boser, and master electricians Nick Wisdom and Michelle Morin assisted with the rig install and strike. Image Technologies Corporation provided all lighting and rigging equipment for the event.
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Visitors to the MINI Stand at the 2004 Birmingham Motor Show were treated to a truly unprecedented light show, courtesy of Essential Lighting and the revolutionary Jands Vista console.

EL‘s Managing Director and Lighting Designer Martin Locket (right), together with Moving Light Programmer Martin Seymour (left), were looking to do something totally different with this show:

“The Jands Vista opened up lots of new possibilities. We were able to create all sorts of effects such as multiple offset wipes incredibly quickly. We had 300 cues in an eight-minute show, and some of those we would simply never have attempted on any other console.

If you want to create a truly innovative show without hours of number crunching, the Vista is the only console for you.”

Click on thumbnails for more images

Lighting & Sound International reviews the Vista‘s impressive performance at this year‘s Mini Convertible launch.

Martin Locket, the show’s Lighting Designer and MD of London based live events specialists Essential Lighting, decided to use the revolutionary new Jands Vista console after seeing a preview of the desk at PLASA 2003. Locket was keen to try the console as an LD and also investigate it as a potential new rental product. Working with Jands exclusive European and North American distributor A.C. Lighting, he chose the MINI show as the ideal event to debut the Vista.

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