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Lighting designer Miguel González, of Madrid-based Colorcode Studio, had his first chance to use the impressive new Vari-Lite VL10 BeamWash fixture, when he introduced the fixtures to his show design on the Mexico leg of Spanish star Enrique Bunbury’s Expectativas (Expectations) world tour.
Bunbury, an internationally successful Spanish language singer songwriter, regularly commands packed audiences in the Americas. The Expectativas tour, running since 2017, is Bunbury’s most ambitious, vibrant and beautiful production to date.
Colorcode Studio prides itself on offering artists a personalized service, taking their show to the highest level possible with the resources available. As a result, the company is well accustomed to sourcing the tools and technologies they need to deliver maximum impact and originality.
In designing for Expectativas, González’s task was to convey the themes of the Expectativas album to the audience, while presenting the artist in a visual environment that spoke to innovation and originality. “The adjective that best defined what we wanted to express in the Expectativas tour is ‘contemporary’,” says González.
“For this type of tour, with great visual and technical demands, we must have a guarantee of quality, so that all the demands of the show are fulfilled every night. The lighting fixtures are a fundamental part of that, they will mark the quality of what the public sees. The fixtures should always work like on the first day.”
In addition to cutting edge quality and reliability, González also looks for versatility from his lighting fixtures. “The more options the fixture has, the more it can offer to the show and, consequently, to the audience. In this type of show, you have to offer the most innovative and most visually impactful solutions.”
With the VL10 BeamWash, González has found answers to each of his needs. So new is the fixture, that González is among the first designers in the world to specify it. What’s more, its class-leading array of visual effects tools, from its rotating gobos to its beam reduction options, dual overlay prism and exclusive VL*FX animation wheel, give González no end of options for creative variety.
“I was surprised the first time I saw the VL10 BeamWash,” he says. “We have seen a continuous evolution in these fixtures, but I think Vari-Lite has managed to give the final turn in terms of power, size and versatility.
“The power of the VL10 is well above similar equipment, and the zoom I consider to be extraordinary. The uniform luminosity in the beam and color mixing remains perfect, even in a zoom of such a range. I also like a lot the ‘drawing’ and gobo animations available.”
He adds, “I needed a very versatile fixture, because there are occasions in the show that I need to ‘draw’ a scene with a beam or a very defined gobo, and other occasions when I need to bathe a large surface with light, while playing with backlight and very fast changes of scene. I needed to have all this together in a single fixture and the VL10 has been perfect in this regard. They have met my expectations 100 per cent.”
Bunbury’s Expectativas tour is currently playing in the USA, and will finish in Los Angeles in April 2019.
