LONDON – LD Chris Bushell took the Avolites Sapphire Touch lighting console out with Florence & the Machine on this summer’s festival shows. The Sapphire Touch is a new step for Bushell, who until the festival season was working with his own Tiger Touch. Features on the Sapphire Touch helped him handle the frantic pace of festival shows. “I program and operate visually not mathematically,” explains Bushell. “I’m not interested in punching numbers into a desk. The Avolites consoles enable me to quickly and simply achieve what I want, whatever the nature of the job.”
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LONDON – Avolites Sapphire Touch lighting console is the control and programming tool of choice for lighting designer Chris Bushell, currently touring with Florence & the Machine. Bushell took the Sapphire Touch out on the summer’s festival circuit, where he dazzled audiences with his art deco inspired design.
“I’ve always used Avolites consoles and the new software just keeps getting better,” comments Bushell. “I started out on a Pearl a fair few years ago. I’ve tried many other consoles along the way but kept returning to Avo. I then used a Diamond 4. I was particularly thrilled when that platform was effectively put into a Tiger Touch – so much so that I bought a console of my very own!
“Although much more compact, the Tiger Touch still has the unmistakable ‘live’ Avo quality that other desks lack. Not only that Avo has found ways of making these consoles do what all other desks do, but in an easier and more intuitive way.”
The Sapphire Touch is a new step for Bushell, who until the festival season was working with his own Tiger Touch. “I program and operate visually not mathematically,” explains Bushell. “I’m not interested in punching numbers into a desk. The Avolites consoles enable me to quickly and simply achieve what I want, whatever the nature of the job. I asked to take the Sapphire out for some festivals as the dual screen and extra playbacks really lend themselves to that fast paced environment.”
On the festival circuit Bushell doesn’t always have the luxury of programming the night before or even the morning before doors. The simplistic functionality of the Sapphire Touch mixed with a bigger, more versatile platform offers Bushell everything he needed during an often frantic 30-minute changeover, where he’s invariably seeing things for the first time.
“The Sapphire Touch’s expansive workspace area can be crucial for shows featuring complex and structural lighting design concepts such as Chris’s design for Florence & the Machine,” explains Koy Neminathan, sales director for Avolites Ltd. “In particular, the Sapphire Touch offers the easy to access Quicksketch freehand tool, which enables Chris to keep control of his design in the challenging festival environment.”
Something that has also proven invaluable for Bushell is the ability to easily transpose the programmed show from the arenas to the festival circuit, as he explains, “The Titan software allows me to visually map the rig out on the screen of my console. In comparison to everyone else – who might be squinting at festival plots and trying to cross reference fixture numbers – this makes the process of copying, pasting and cloning fixtures on any Avo console a doddle.”
Bushell used the Sapphire Touch for Florence & the Machine at a number of festivals during the summer including the band’s appearance at Tennent’s Vital in Belfast in August, playing just before headliners Stone Roses. Florence & the Machine continued to tour in the US in October before returning to Europe and finally the UK where the tour ends Dec. 12 at the O2 in Dublin.
Photo: Sarah Rushton-Read
