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grandMA Proves Purr-fect Choice for Pussycat Dolls' World Tour
Lighting designer Scott Warner is putting the grandMA through its paces on the Pussycat Dolls' world tour, which is now playing dates in the UK and Europe. The girl pop band's tour follows the release of their album ‘Doll Domination' last year. Warner, who is the lighting designer, director and programmer for the tour, used the grandMA to control LED lighting for a previous Pussycat Dolls' tour and moving lights for Grammy Award-winner Queen Latifah's Trav'lin Light tour.
For the first time, on the Doll Domination Tour, the grandMA is controlling an all-Robe digital spot complement. "I wanted to go with newer technology," Warner says. "The whole rig is almost all Robe which is not used much by Americans yet. It's a new digital moving spot technology combined with LED-based wash lights that delivers a very high-tech design. "Pods on trusses are packed with fixtures that make it look like there are more lights than we really use," he explains. "So I can keep my design on budget but produce a very big look."
Warner reports that the tour is the biggest he has ever programmed on a grandMA. "The previous tours were smaller and supporting. But the grandMA is so much quicker than other consoles that I couldn't imagine doing this show on another console. I had only three days to program the show and didn't even know the songs until I arrived in London to rehearse."
Warner also deploys the grandMA for Lady Gaga, the singer-songwriter-musician who is the tour's opening act. "It's so easy to use that I can build a whole song with her really quickly," he points out.
Having used another console for eight years before he started using the grandMA, Warner now says: "I would never consider working with anything else. With other consoles I have to figure out what to do. But with grandMA everything is there right in front of me - it's really easy, and it's never, ever crashed."
He believes his console choice will hold him in good stead for some time to come. "Consoles change so fast -- you're always learning one you've never seen before. But once I realised I could customize grandMA, I knew I needed it. Now, there's no going back."
The equipment for the tour was supplied by HSL.
27th March 2009
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