Porter Robinson’s Nurture Live Tour wows audiences with immersive lighting from Martin Professional
To complement the immersive video content featured on Porter Robinson’s Nurture Live Tour, Ben Coker designed and programmed a sophisticated lighting rig featuring Martin Professional MAC Ultra Performance and MAC Aura PXL fixtures controlled by a P3‐50 system controller, all provided by Christie Lites.
Coker selected the Martin MAC Ultra Performance, Martin’s next‐generation moving‐head LED luminaire, as the primary lighting fixture for the tour. Built to support the biggest live events, the cutting-edge fixture incorporates a proprietary 1150‐watt LED engine that delivers up to 46,500 lumens with high-resolution dimming, strobing and Martin’s unique Animotion effect.
“I've used a lot of the other bigger fixtures over the past several years and the MAC Ultra Performance is the nicest, brightest spotlight that I've seen,” said Coker. “For what I'm using it for, it checks every single box. It has a great gobo set, great colors, great zoom range, it's fast for its size and it’s super bright and punchy. When you iris it down, it holds its own with a lot of the beam fixtures, and when you zoom it out wide, you still have enough intensity to be able to see big gobo breakup patterns and aerials. That's really difficult to find in most fixtures.”
To enhance the tour’s immersive video content, Coker took advantage of the creative pixel mapping capabilities of the new Martin MAC Aura PXL.
“The Aura and Aura XB have been my favorite go‐to fixtures for a long time,” said Coker. “I liked their simplicity and dependability. When I first saw the PXL, I was really excited—probably the most excited about a fixture I've been for quite a while. I knew that it was going to be the right choice for the tour. The sheer quantity of individual LED diode sources inside the lens and backlight really appealed to me because it gave me a higher resolution of pixel mapping.
Coker used a single Martin P3‐050 system controller unit to map video content to the MAC Aura PXLs.
“Since we have a video floor, I wanted to be able to take that content and replicate it overhead via P3,” explained Coker. “By using the P3‐050, I could have that full pixel control and send whatever content I wanted to the lights, but I didn't have to use a ton of channels. That's a huge advantage for P3—besides ease of control, mapping and setup—not having to use tons of parameters. It would take one universe per light to be able to have that same control via DMX.”
Photo © Nancy Danh Huynh
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