Perth band Karnivool brought a striking light show to Brisbane’s Riverstage during their In Verses Australian tour. Designed by Sam Jarousek, the rig featured IJS Productions’ new Martin MAC Viper XIP fixtures.
Having already invested in 24 Martin MAC Ones, IJS has expanded its inventory with 24 MAC Vipers, creating a strong all-round lighting package.
“We had a gap in our inventory and kept hearing great things about the MAC Viper XIPs,” said Jay van Lieshout, General Manager. “They have been appearing on more riders, and we were reaching the point where we could no longer substitute them in increasing numbers, so buying made sense.
“We made the decision to invest in our own inventory rather than subhire. Everyone loves the colour palette and the brightness, so it certainly seems like it’s the light to have!”
Jay says feedback from his lighting team has been excellent, highlighting the MAC Viper XIP’s smooth dimming curve, wide zoom range, and fast colour changes.
Jay explains that the initial purchase of 24 MAC Ones and 24 MAC Viper XIP is only the beginning and plans to add more to inventory in the near future.
“Our MAC Ones have been very popular, and again, it’s about numbers,” he said. “We regularly see riders asking for 48 plus; it seems to be a trend for lighting designers to use sizable numbers of that fixture, so it makes sense to grow our inventory to be able to cater to the market”.
Lighting designer Sam Jarousek remarks that the MAC Viper XIP is simply an excellent all-round fixture and for this tour, they formed the overhead lighting package.
“We used two 45-degree V trusses with a gap between them,” he explained. “The setup included a smaller centre section and larger outer sections, with MAC Ones on the front chord and MAC Viper XIPs on the back chord. The goal was to create an overhead look that echoed the riser design and layout. It worked well because I’m often hesitant to build overly complex shapes overhead.”
Sam particularly likes the colours from the MAC Viper XIP, describing them as gorgeous and flat, adding that you don’t get ‘the little colouring around the outside’.
“I also like the size and weight of them, the fact that I can pick one up relatively easily, whereas I used to struggle to wrangle a classic Viper,” he said. “What you get in the size of this fixture is fantastic.
“The zoom range is incredible. It moves from a tight beam to a beautiful wide look, and the speed is just as impressive. With Karnivool, I often use ‘strobe zoom hits’, where the light comes on narrow and snaps wide. Because there’s no fade time, the move needs to feel instant, and many other fixtures are too slow to achieve that effect properly.”
Sam remarks that the MAC Viper’s gobo set may not be his favourite gobo set, but he can still create a myriad of stunning effects.
“One of my favourite features will always be the Martin animation wheel,” he commented. “Even back with the MAC 700s, the horizontal animation wheel could create a rolling cloud effect, depending on how it was used. I used that look extensively on previous tours. I didn’t rely on it as much for Karnivool, where the design focused more on gobo textures than animation, but it remains one of my favourite effects.”
The Martin MAC Ones provided the overhead wash, while Sam moved away from a traditional wash/spot arrangement in favour of clean lines of spots and washes. The overhead rig comprised two trusses of eight fixtures and two trusses of 16.
“Because of their size, the MAC Ones look fantastic in large clusters or long lines,” he added. “They created beautiful, uninterrupted lines of wash overhead.”
For control, Sam used an MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size running in MA3 mode.
“I’m firmly on MA3 mode now, and if I had to go back to MA2, I’d start crying!” he stated. “I’m so used to all the MA3 workflows now. It makes cloning into a new rig so easy. Since the show’s 100% recipe-based, I just do the basic clone and then store it in the groups. The console basically then takes control of everything else. Thankfully, there were no fixture drops, so it was like a one-to-one fixture swap going from the previous shows into the Brisbane show. That meant the console didn’t have to do much work, like recalculating pixel orientations or pixel counts.”
IJS Productions sub-hired extra MAC Viper XIPs and MAC Ones from ResX for the gig.
Photographer: Matthew McFerran, Gold Coast Studio
