The life-force behind UK lighting and production design specialist, Spirit Design, lies in the company’s unique combination of flair and innovation – a reliable approach only possible through the company’s extensive design and technical experience across all areas of the event lighting industry.
Set up in early 2001 by friends Danny Evans and Justin Adams, Spirit Design originally acted as a vehicle for them both to pursue their individual design-lead careers whilst combining their industry experience with a progressive support structure.
Since then, the company has been successful in offering imaginative and effective lighting, rigging, media and power management solutions to an ever larger and more varied client base worldwide. Spirit’s range of services includes everything from design-only projects, design and onsite crew installations, to the company's preferred approach and client favourite, a full-service model.
Spirit takes a full service, end-to-end approach to projects whenever possible. Such a model provides the company with maximum creative control and, on a personal level, creative satisfaction in seeing their designs come alive. Such an overview adds to the company’s ever-growing cache of creative and technical experience, ensuring that future designs are always solid and deliverable.
Never tied to a specific manufacturer or technical supplier, Spirit’s original design solutions are always centred solely on the client’s needs, never dictated by kit.
"We stock predominantly control equipment in-house, and have very good relationships with a large number of suppliers worldwide,” says Justin. “The equipment we use is always bespoke to the design - although, of course, we do have favourites! We also custom-make kit, the freedom in our equipment choice and an open mind allows us maximum creativity from the design stage right through to implementation.”
As part of their lighting equipment resource Spirit has always stocked and used Avolites lighting control consoles. Today, the company owns a range of Avolites control desks, from Arena to Tiger Touch Proand even a Pearl Expert Pro ‘for nostalgia purposes’!
Owen Pritchard-Smith, a Senior Designer at Spirit Design says, "Whenever possible, we use our own stock of Avolites equipment, we know the consoles. We know they’ve been serviced, how they’ve been treated and what software version they’re on. Because of this, our consoles are always extremely reliable."
So reliable in fact, that the company claims to use Avolites control on ‘99.9% of their events’.
Recent projects include the 325th anniversary celebration for KetelOne Distillery in Rotterdam (Arenas); a McLaren Press launch at the Geneva Motorshow (Tiger Touch Pro); Bondax & Friends, Europe and North America tour (TigerTouch Pro & Titan Mobile); The Little Prince Live Concert at the Abu Dhabi Festival (Sapphire Touch); the Expo2020 site Launch in Dubai (Pearl 2010) and a VMWare Europe event in Barcelona (Arenas & Quartz).
Spirit has always worked closely with Avolites with both Danny and Justin having used Avolites consoles for the past 30 years, while Owen first learned operating and programming on an old Pearl 2000 at his Student Union and has since been an Avolites devotee.
“Avolites has great products,” says Danny. “They have proven themselves to be reliable and to enhance our designs. We know that the Avolites guys are usually still up and working whenever we are. It's important to know that Avolites will support designers and operators at any time when our industry is ‘live’ - which usually entails nights, weekends and Bank Holidays
“Then there's the worldwide Avolites network and backup for the many occasions when we're abroad and need support in the weirdest locations – Oh,” Justin adds with a smile. “And then there is Steve Warren.”
When it comes to the latest features of the Avolites control products that the Spirit team use on a daily basis, they are similarly effusive.
"I love the new 'undo' features," says Owen. "I tend to get a bit excited while programming and delete things by accident. Not having the undo originally made me very quick at recreating looks though! One of my favourite features currently is Key Frame Shapes. I don’t tend to use it that often, because I know how to get what I want out of the shape generator, but I find it so useful for when you have something very specific in your head that you need to create. My favourite old-school feature is Mode 2 fader - I use it far too much!"
Asked what they would like to see from Avolites in the future, Spirit Design say, "More of the same please – great innovations at affordable prices that do exactly what is required and more! Oh, and the return of the denim jacket"
AVOLITES
EQUIPMENT IN STOCK
2 x Arena
4 x Tiger Touch Pro
1 x Pearl Expert Pro & Touch Wing
2 x Titan Mobile
1 x Titan1 Dongle
SPIRIT DESIGN CORE TEAM
Danny Evans - Designer/ Director
Justin Adams – Designer / Director
Owen Pritchard-Smith – Senior Designer
Zrinka Mehmedbasic – Office Manager & Crew Mum