U2 Lighting

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From Techietalk.com

Nova Flower 2Ks on U2

PRG Lighting’s newly purchased Nova-Flower 2Ks are being utilised on the phenomenal U2 “360″ world stadium tour, as part of show director/designer Willie Williams’ amazing lighting design.

Seven of the fixtures – specially developed by Italian manufacturer Novalight for the tour and now in full production – are positioned around the stadiums in the audience bleachers, pointing back at the stage. Say’s PRG’s group asset director Paul Weaver, “They are an incredibly powerful effect, even contending with all the other lighting and LED screens, we’re really impressed with their effect”. He also reports that they are withstanding the rigours of touring extremely well.

The fixtures were sold to PRG, U2’s main lighting contractors, by Lightfactor Sales, Novalight’s exclusive UK distributor.

Ahead of the tour, Williams initially examined the original 1.2K Nova Flowers among other products, as he wanted a powerful ‘dominator’ style effect for specific sections of the show. He liked the build quality of the units, and the Nova Flowers also had the benefit of colour mixing and various effects, but he needed something brighter than the 1.2K unit for U2.

Novalight responded by producing the 2K version. These 8 units (7 plus a spare) are the first Nova-Flower 2Ks production units out of the factory in Viterbo….. and the first in the world to go on the road.

Weaver says they were confident of Novalight products being rugged enough for an arduous tour as PRG had previously used the High Ground sister product very successfully on Robbie Williams’ 2006 tour.

Lightfactor’s Peter Coles says, “Novalight are a very creative company and passionate about their work. They were extremely keen to accommodate Willie’s specific requirements, and it’s great to work with a manufacturer who has the attitude and flexibility to deliver solutions like this on demand”.

Nova-Flower is a unique product and ideal for numerous high-impact, dramatic lighting effects like back-lighting and silhouetting of performers. It is also the first fully programmable moving yoke ‘flower effect’ with DMX controllable pan, tilt, colour and shutter, plus other standard features. It has CMY type mixing, a rotating reflector (in both directions), pan/tilt and remote lamp re-strike.

For rapid rigging onto a truss, these Nova-Flowers have been supplied to PRG in the new two way flightcase. The units can also be used in stand alone mode programmed via the display buttons on its base. It has a weather-resistant IP 43 rating.

The U2 fixtures are being tech’d on the road by Andy Beller. The PRG “360″ account handlers are Robin Wain (UK & Europe) and Tim Murch (US) and the tour’s awesome “Claw” set was designed by Mark Fisher of Stufish.

U2 tour the US for 2 months from mid September.