Lighting designer Jonas König uses impression X5 Compact, impression X5 Bar 1000 and X-PAR 12Z.
The genre-defying rock-pop-punk band ENGST is continuing along its successful, upward trajectory. The new album “Irgendwas ist immer” (“There is always something”) is selling fast and the tour starting in November, through Germany, Austria and Switzerland, is already largely sold out.
The production design for the tour is the work of Jonas König of Koeniglicht (http://koeniglicht.de/), who, in addition to deploying many empty beer crates within the set, will be using exclusively GLP fixtures.
This is the epitome of stretching a tight production budget for a young, up-and-coming band. “A beer crate costs practically nothing and fits the theme quite well,” laughs Jonas. He uses a matrix made of GLP impression X5 Compact behind a central wall constructed of beer crates. On the floor in front of the wall he has placed impression X5 Bar 1000. Other crates, stationed in the rows between, house a line of FUSION X-PAR 12Z from FUSION by GLP.
“The beer crate wall is the centrepiece of a stage design, which boasts a dramaturgical structure,” explains the designer. “In other words, the wall reveals its lighting secrets step by step. In addition to the lighting, we also project onto the front.” He developed the content for this himself.
The impression X5 Bar 1000 on the floor illuminates either the wall from below or, thanks to the tilt, gives a very flat, dramatic backlight to the band. The side (alley)-lighting is delivered from the FUSION X-PAR 12 Z.
“This simple wall is extremely versatile and super easy to assemble and dismantle,” notes Jonas. “With the help of the lighting and projections, we generate a wealth of beautiful, strong looks with clean lines, which creates a very tidy look on the relatively small stages.”
Basically, the designer for the ENGST tour was looking for fixtures that weren’t too big. He had been flirting with GLP products all along. “Since I’m not accompanying the tour myself, I wanted the reassurance of having all the lighting from a single source. At GLP I know from experience that I will get quality, and not much can go wrong.”
So far, the designer has mainly used impression X5 Wash from GLP’s X5 series. With ENGST, due to limited space, he has opted for the smaller impression X5 Compact. “The impression X5 Series is great, the brightness and colour rendering of the devices are simply fantastic. The X5 Compact in particular can be used very flexibly.”
The main advantage of the FUSION X-PAR 12Z was the fact that they fit well into the beer crates that characterise the set. “They are also very bright and offer a nice zoom,” notes Jonas.
The designer is also using the impression X5 Bar 1000 for the first time with ENGST. “So far I have only seen this fixture at a trade fair. I especially like the fast, tight zoom, and added to this is the consistent light quality of the impression X5 Series. I look forward to seeing their qualities in action with ENGST.”
The operators of the recently completed tour were Oliver Thomas and Simon Matuszczak. Thomas Haine was the technical director. A&F audio+frames Veranstaltungstechnik GmbH from Berlin provided technical services for the production.
Photo: © Sascha Göttsche