Luke Combs’s Fourth Australian Tour Packs a Punch with Ayrton Lighting, MDG Atmospherics and grandMA3 Lighting Control

Kevin Northrup, Lighting Designer for Luke Combs, chose an array of Ayrton fixtures, MDG theONE and Atmosphere HO foggers/hazers and grandMA3 consoles for the singer-songwriter’s recent stadium tour of Australia and New Zealand.  All of the brands are exclusively distributed in North America by ACT Entertainment.

The Winston Salem, North Carolina-based Northrup has been working with Combs since his headline arena show in Asheville in 2017 and was lighting designer for Combs’s 2023 Australian arena tour.  The new tour, the first for a country artist headlining a full stadium tour in Australia and New Zealand, played eight dates in January and February in Auckland, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

The show continued the look established by production designer Ollie Metcalfe for Combs’s 2023 North American stadium tour.  “We knew that looked good, would work and fit the timeline we had,” says Northrup.  “Luke likes to do really big color looks: He’s a fan of red and white and the stronger and more saturated the color the better.  He plays everything from ballads to solo acoustic to heavy hitting honky tonk, and I try to build moments and match the energy of what he’s doing while never overstepping.”

Northrup had used Ayrton Khamsin, Zonda 9 FX, Perseo Beams and Domino LTs on Combs’s North American stadium tour.  He reprised the Domino LTs for Australia, added Perseo Profiles and was excited to use Rivale for the first time after seeing them at the LDI show.

“I used the Rivale as audience eye candy and loved them,” he declares.  “We had six on each of six ladders plus 20-odd on the downstage truss.  Their color mixing was an improvement over the fixtures I’d used before, and their optics were great: while not technically beam fixtures I liked how tight they got when I used them in narrow focus.  They were way brighter than the fixtures we had previously, so they gave us extra fire power.”

Northrup mounted two lines of 34 Perseo Profiles in an arc above the set.  “They are really versatile, and I needed that here,” he notes.  “I used them as band down lights, audience light and for stage washes.  I also pulled out twelve and dedicated them to rear follow spot action.  Kind of a hallmark for Luke is having light from above that’s like an arrow pointing to where he is onstage.”

Northrup placed eight Domino LTs on the floor on each side of the stage and hung eight more, six of which acted as FOH spots and two as specials on the end of the tuning fork-shaped thrust.

The New Zealand rig was slightly different with the Ayrton fixtures consisting of Domino LT spots and Rivale mounted on ladders. 

The New Zealand and Australian dates all used MDG hazers.  Two MDG theONE foggers/hazers were deployed in Auckland and six active Atmosphere HO haze machines in the Australian stadiums.

“MDG theONE is my go-to hazer, but they were hard to get in quantity,” Northrup says of the different units used.  “theONE is built well for touring and has a variable output in fog mode.  I like to have a constant flowing haze and build in fog bursts with theONEs.”

Northrup brought a grandMA3 full-size system and two processing units from SES in the US, and added another full and a light once on site.  The full-size units controlled lighting from FOH while the light served as a tech desk.  An OnPC system ran as part of the follow spot process.

“grandMA3 has made good workflow improvements,” says Northrup citing Multitouch Gestures, Selection Grids and Recipes.  “It’s so much easier to move around and get things looking the way you want.”

Lighting in New Zealand was supplied by Spot-light Systems; lighting in Australia was furnished by PRG.  “ACT gave us good distributor contacts before we left on tour,” Northrup adds.  “Things couldn’t have gone better.  I was immensely happy with the Ayrton fixtures, MDG atmospherics and grandMA3 consoles.”