Leroy Bennett’s lighting design for the current Nine Inch Nails Tension 2013 tour utilises one of the largest installations of Ayrton MagicPanel™602 fixtures to date.

Following a successful summer festival tour promoting their new album Hesitation Marks across the Far East and Europe, the American industrial rock project, Nine Inch Nails, has reconfigured itself and is currently on tour, playing North American arenas in a newly conceived show under a dramatic new lighting / video rig that incorporates 126 Ayrton MagicPanel™602 fixtures.

Legendary rock production/lighting designer Leroy Bennett, whose long line of collaborations includes Prince, Tina Turner, Faith Hill, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Rammstein, Madonna, Beyonce and Bruno Mars, has installed 14 ‘pods’ above the stage on variable speed winches.  Each pod contains nine MagicPanel units in a 3 x 3 configuration.

Ayrton MagicPanel™602 is a moving head LED beam projector equipped with thirty-six 15W Osram RGBW emitters in a 6 x 6 array.  Each emitter projects a tight, powerful 7.5° beam and can be controlled individually or used collectively to produce a coherent 15,000 lumen shaft of light.  Under individual control, the emitters can be pixel mapped or driven by video via Kling-Net. To supplement to the graphic possibilities this control provides, MagicPanel 602 can be continuously rotated on both pan and tilt axes, which adds a dynamic dimensional effect to beams individually projected by mapped emitters.  MagicPanel is controllable via DMX-512 (w/ RDM capability) or Art-Net.

The MagicPanel pods formed a major component of the NIN show, as both illuminators and as graphic elements. They are alternatively positioned in near proximity to and directly above the performers, then flown out to define large architectural spaces, then used as audience blinders and ultimately interfaced with the three semi-transparent video curtains.  Coordinated video content is then pixel mapped across the collective 4536 emitters of 126 MagicPanel units.

Bennett employs MagicPanel to create many effects throughout the course of the performance: “We tried to push the MagicPanel pods as far as time allowed us but still remain in keeping with the music,” he states. “I found the MagicPanel very interesting and diverse which is why I chose to use them, and they have proved to be as bright, versatile and reliable as I had hoped.”

The Tension 2013 tour kicked off in late September and the Ayrton MagicPanel has certainly proved itself in terms of performance, design potential and robustness. Bennett states the fixture is ‘great on all levels’. “The 360° pan and tilt, brightness, pixel mapping capabilities and durability are all key to the success of these units. You’ll be seeing a very large amount being used in the next few months!”

Upstaging, Inc., of Sycamore, Illinois, supplies the Nine Inch Nails touring system.  NIN will continue touring in North America until the end of November, then will embark on an Australian/New Zealand leg in March 2014, prior to an anticipated European tour next summer.

Other news

Ayrton Diablo on stage with The Little Prince

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, directed by Stefano Genovese, made its debut appearance 80 years after its publication in a magnificent theatrical production that toured […]

Ayrton Huracan LT and Eurus fixtures play major role in worship centre renovation at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas

Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas has completed the renovation of its worship centre involving a stage remodel and lighting upgrade that marked the first major technology […]

Kinetic Lighting Expands Rental Inventory with Ayrton’s Zonda 9 FX

Glendale, California-based Kinetic Lighting, Inc. has added 80 Ayrton Zonda 9 FX fixtures to its lighting rental inventory.  ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting […]

Ayrton lights up Singapore skyline at Formula 1 Night Race

The ‘City Light-Up’ event was a celebration of light held alongside the Singapore Airlines’ Singapore Grand Prix, which culminated in the F1 night race around The Marina […]

SES boosts its lighting inventory with big purchase of Ayrton fixtures and commitment to Ayrton product line

Special Event Services (SES) has significantly expanded its Ayrton lighting inventory with additional purchases of Domino LT, Bora S, and Khamsin fixtures and further committed to the […]

Ayrton and FACE party at Zillion premiere

October 2022 saw the release of the film ‘Zillion’, a ‘warts-and-all’ account of the notoriously decadent club in Antwerp, Belgium that became ‘the’ place to be in […]