Austin Zangi Runs Unique Looks for Bleed From Within and Sylosis with ChamSys

	"The timeline workflow let me program very precisely to musical moments, but still make fast edits on the fly," says Zangi.

The Seattle-based lighting designer Austin Zangi just wrapped up the 27-date North American Zenith Tour for his client, Scottish metalcore band Bleed From Within, during which he not only ran their show, but also that of their main support act Sycosis. For added good measure, he served as the tour manager, too.

"The biggest thing for me was making sure each band had its own visual identity even though they were sharing the same rig and production environment," says Zangi, who ran the tour's show on a ChamSys MagicQ MQ250M alongside his GeNetix GN10 nodes and GeNetix GS8 switch. "I wanted anyone to be able to walk into the room and instantly feel which band was on stage purely from the lighting."

For Bleed From Within, Zangi's design leaned toward the atmospheric with wider looks, impactful silhouettes, and dynamic movements that supported the "emotional rise and fall of the set." The looks he created for Sylosis tended to be darker and more aggressive, with faster cueing transitions and sharper movement.

Zangi credits the timecode feature in his ChamSys console with helping him maintain consistency as he moved from one band's show to the other's. "ChamSys made the timecoding process really efficient because of how flexible and tour-friendly the platform is," he says. "One of the biggest advantages was being able to build and organize cue stacks quickly while still keeping everything easy to edit and adjust during rehearsals and show days.

"Also, the timeline workflow let me program very precisely to musical moments, but still make fast edits on the fly. Another thing I relied heavily on was group cues, which helped speed up programming and patching house rigs. Whether we were in smaller clubs or larger venues, the group cues feature made it easy to adapt positions, timing, and fixture layouts without rebuilding entire sequences. That flexibility was a huge part of keeping both shows consistent."

Maintaining consistency was made more challenging by the wide variety of venues on the tour, which kicked off April 2 at the Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts, and concluded May 7 at New York's Gramercy Theatre, with stops at LA's The Regent Theater and Chicago's House of Blues along the way.

"I worked with Squeek Lights to create a compact rig that would work most places, but we still had to make adjustments along the way," Zangi says. "My ChamSys setup made a big difference, since it's intuitive and fast. Having a console that allows you to work quickly and confidently is incredibly important. The workflow feature played a huge role in allowing me to balance multiple responsibilities throughout the tour. The efficiency and reliability of the software meant I could spend less time tied to the desk and more time focusing on the tour management side of things."

Although each of the two shows Zangi ran with this ChamSys console had distinct personalities, they did share a common underlying quality. "My goal for both was to create something that felt heavy and immersive without just blasting away. I had the band members stand out while still maintaining a dark and aggressive aesthetic that suited both bands in ways that were individual and unique."