Martin Dudley Celebrates His "ChamSys Anniversary" at James Morrison Festival Show

	"We didn't even know that the stage covering was transparent until we arrived at the festival, but that allowed me to incorporate the lighting on the building behind the stage into my show," says Dudley.

Lighting designer Martin Dudley has been using ChamSys consoles for 15 years. "Now that I am celebrating an anniversary of sorts with ChamSys, I'm still very happy with my decision," he says. "The big things that about ChamSys that have really helped me over the years are simplicity of programming, portability, and the great technical support when needed."

Celebrating his "ChamSys Anniversary," Dudley lit the British singer James Morrison when he headlined the Echterlive Festival in Luxembourg. There, he unexpectedly encountered a stage with a transparent dome.

The stage offered a captivating setting with its elegant symmetry and clear view of the 18th-century buildings in Echternach's historic Abbey Courtyard. It was an idyllic setting for an outdoor festival, but it was not what Dudley was anticipating.

"I didn't deliberately set out to accentuate the dome structure, although the shape of the structure perhaps complemented some of my looks," Dudley says. "We didn't even know that the stage covering was transparent until we arrived at the festival, but that allowed me to incorporate the lighting on the building behind the stage into my show."

Dudley came equipped with some familiar tools: the ChamSys Compact Connect, Extra Wing, and a laptop PC. "I always take the Compact Connect and touchscreen laptop PC as carry-on baggage, so that if the Extra Wing, as check-in baggage, doesn't arrive at the same time as us, I can still do a show," he says. "I run the main show with a cue stack on a playback fader per song on the Compact Connect, and I like to have all my front light, crowd blinders, haze/smoke, and other stuff I need available to grab quickly on the Extra Wing."

Dudley drew on the console's familiar advantages when lighting Morrison. "It all starts with simplicity," he says. "I've yet to make the jump to group cues (but soon!), so I like the simple cloning and morphing of fixtures. I like how quick it is to add in more and different fixtures to my show and generate new effects. This matters, because every festival has a different set of LED panels/battens/blinders to incorporate into the show. It's also very quick and easy to get connected to festival lighting systems via network connections. I'm a big fan of the network port on the Compact Connect, so I no longer have to hope that a USB to Ethernet adapter doesn't disconnect itself halfway through the show. The locking USB connection on the latest Compact Connects is great too!"