Ayrton’s Cobra strikes the right light for Luciano

Throughout February 2024, German Rap artist, Luciano, worked his way across Germany, Switzerland and Austria on his Seductive tour. One of the first German-speaking rappers in the UK Drill style, Luciano was Germany’s most streamed artist on Spotify in 2022, and deserves nothing but the best for his music and outstanding live shows. 80 Ayrton Cobra fixtures were duly supplied by TDA CLAIR GmbH for this year’s tour and they proved to be a brilliant success for the show.

Cobra is Ayrton’s first IP65 laser-sourced fixture. Designed for rendering a D65 white point that allows perfect colour reproduction, Cobra has an incredible output of 386,000 lux at 20m, an unprecedented 38x zoom ratio and an incredible zoom range of 0.6° to 23°. It also sports a highly innovative colour section, unrivalled graphics capability and continuous pan and tilt.

The Cobra fixtures were specified by Stop Making Sense’s Timo Martens who created the lighting design for the tour with great support and cooperation from Bertil Mark (also from Stop Making Sense), and Raphael Demonthy. The Stop Making Sense design collective was responsible for the entire realization of the stage, the lighting, the content production, as well as the programming and supervision of the project.

Martens explains why the Cobras were chosen for this tour. “In order to create the greatest possible impact with the lamps, so that we could practically make backdrops out of light, we needed a moving light that would provide maximum output with a low weight and a great CMY colour mixing. We compared a lot of moving lights and finally decided on the Ayrton Cobra, which we have not regretted.”

48 Cobra units were rigged around a specially made 10m circular truss upstage and 16 Cobra fixtures lined the catwalk. “The Cobras in the circle were primarily there to draw shapes and lines in space,” explains Martens. “The basic idea was to create backdrops of light that extend across the entire width of the venue, or to be able to create a tunnel of light that extends through the whole venue, no matter how large it is. We placed the remaining Cobras on the stage to use as floor lamps to provide additional options that gave the show even more variety.”

The technical team and lighting designers were extremely pleased with the overall performance and versatility of their choice of light. “In the end, it was a very good decision to put our trust in the Cobras, because the concept worked out perfectly,” confirms Martens. “We didn’t have a single breakdown on the entire tour. The Cobra light beams looked sensational and we have never regretted our decision.”

There was praise too for the service and back-up from both supplier and manufacturer: “We have always received friendly, excellent support from Ayrton and are very happy with such good cooperation. However, because the Cobras were so reliable, we didn’t have to put too much strain on customer support! TDA Clair always had an open ear for us and left nothing to be desired. We felt well looked after and supported at all times.Special thanks also to Captured Live for their trust in us, as they were responsible for production management and implementation.”

Project credits

Lighting Design: Timo Martens/ Bertil Mark and Raphael Demonthy.

Design Collective: Stop Making Sense.

Production Management: Captured Live GmbH.

Technical service provider: TDA CLAIR GmbH.

Rigging: Big Rig GmbH.

LED walls: Faber Audiovisuals GmbH.

Special structures: Satis&Fy AG.

Pixera media servers: Rec Tec AG.

Pyro FX: FOG SFX GmbH.

Images: © Simon Kropp.