Ben Howard recently closed out his most recent UK tour, which included three consecutive nights at London’s Alexandra Palace, with lighting designer Andy Rowe controlling a Nitelites rig using an Avolites Expert Pro running the latest Titan V9 software.
Devon singer songwriter Howard toured 11 dates around the UK and Ireland, in support of his latest album I Forget Where We Were.
“When I first started lighting for Ben Howard, Avolites was an easy choice,” says Rowe. “I know the console inside out, it’s easy to busk on, and it goes straight into festivals. It really makes life easy, all I have to do each day is update my palettes.
“I’m finding V9 to be great,” he adds. “All the new cue facilities really suit the way I work, and Key Frame Shapes seems very cool!”
“We also ran multi user back up, and all the new networking. I love it I find it really easy to use. 2 consoles at front of house and a laptop on stage, for testing during load in.
We’ve actually been running the support band off a touch screen laptop, at the side of the stage.”
In the two years that have passed since, Rowe has improved and added to his show file, implementing the new features of Titan as they were introduced. “When I first started touring with Ben,” says Rowe, “the tour consisted of big backlight looks and lots of black and white, CTO, CTB and tungsten.”
“The show has grown a lot larger, and a lot more cue based”, he continues. “With the new songs and albums, I injected some colour in, so there’s a nice contrast between old and new.
“The latest step has been to add video to the show, so I’ve been accommodating for that in the lighting.”
Nitelites supplied the tour with a lighting package that included Mac Vipers, Pointes, Sharpys and Mac Auras. “We also had three ART2000 racks,” says Rowe. They were really reliable, patchable to anywhere you want, and really easy to use, an industry standard!”
Ben Howard returns to the UK in the summer for a flurry of festival dates including Glastonbury, Parklife, Wilderness, Eden Sessions and Citadel.