Clearwing's Full grandMA2 Kit Takes Center Stage at ATV Dealers' Meeting in Phoenix

	MA Lighting's grandMA2 onPC command wing

When a major ATV manufacturer wanted to generate excitement at its annual dealers' meeting, Clearwing Productions, Inc. turned to MA Lighting's grandMA2 onPC command wing with grandMA2 onPC fader wing to program 70 moving lights and 48' of Color Kinetics' ColorBlaze units and a grandMA2 light to run the show. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of MA Lighting products in North America.

The meeting in the ballroom of the Phoenix Convention Center drew 1,5000 dealers to presentations, effects-filled product reveals, an awards ceremony, and mid-show entertainment. The Phoenix office of Clearwing, which provides sound, lighting, and services, includes a grandMA2 light, grandMA2 onPC command wings and its new grandMA2 onPC fader wing as part of its standard kit for live staging jobs.

"I've been using the grandMA2 light for the last two years and would never go back to another console," says Aaron Hubbard, Clearwing's director of business development and the lighting programmer for the dealers' meeting. "The command wing system is typically our back up system. In this case we actually needed to program the show from the command wing because the position of the MA2 LIte desk was pretty far away, and with this small platform you can get right up front witch makes it's rather convenient. "Running three touchscreens from the windows system using a simple USB>VGA video driver allowed me to use an un-modified user profile"

MA's onPC command wing is a portable solution offering real-time control for 2,048 parameters in combination with grandMA2 onPC. Designed as the perfect hardware expansion to the grandMA2 onPC software, grandMA2 onPC command wing enables the look and feel of the software to be as close as possible to a real grandMA2 console.

Lighting designer Michael Murnane of Footcandles LLC teamed with Clearwing Productions, Inc. on the dealers' meeting. While the show itself ran from the grandMA2 light the wings remained on the active network as a tracking back up, Hubbard reports. "Until we opened the house, I had the command wing front and center in the ballroom for any adjustments and aerial positioning. I preferred to come down from my crow's nest to use the wing and be at the center of the stage so I could see symmetry."

One of the biggest advantages to grandMA2 onPC command wing and grandMA2 onPC fader wing is their portability. "They're small enough to get into some interesting places," says Hubbard. "We could move them up into the bleacher seats to program from that perspective. We could move them anywhere and program from that vantage point."

In addition, "since the system is on a PC, I can use an iOS remote desktop connection app to control any functions directly from my iPad," he explains. "Of course allowing me to ability to play back cues from the iPad is a huge benefit."

See Clearwing and MA Lighting at PLASA Focus: Orlando, May 15-16, and PLASA Focus: Austin, Spetember 10-11.