Versatile: grandMA2 at Viña del Mar International Song Festival

The Viña del Mar International Song Festival (Spanish: Festival Internacional de la Canción de Viña del Mar) is a music festival held annually since 1960 in Viña del Mar, Chile, and considered one of the most important musical events in the Americas. Staged at the Quinta Vergara Amphitheatre, the festival features a song competition with two categories (pop music and folk songs), interspersed with performances by international music stars from around the world, encompassing a diverse mix of genres like rock, multi-lingual pop, merengue, salsa, reggaetón, bachata and many others.

To deal with this variety in the music lighting designer Luis Pastor trusted in a highly flexible lighting control – the grandMA2. In total he used an MA System comprised of 2 x grandMA2 full-size 2 x grandMA2 light, 4 x MA NPU (Network Processing Unit), 6 x MA 2Port Node and 2 x MA VPU plus MK2 (Video Processing Unit) to control over 270 moving lights plus plenty of LED fixtures and video screens.

Pastor explained why he strongly supports the use of MA: “This was the fourth edition of this festival in which we were involved. Like the last shows, we counted on the MA system to control all the lighting - TV lighting and moving lights, etc. This year for the first time we used an MA VPU for video control with two outputs in HD. The MA VPU provided us also with real-time SDI inputs. The capacities to adjust using this made our lives easy. The synchronicity and synergy of the console in connection over MA-Net2 with the MA VPU also made a huge difference. Furthermore, this we worked with variable speed motors that we programmed in MA 3D which also made our job easier and saved a lot of time during artist rehearsals.”

Frank Janssens worked as assistant LD, Paulo Lebrão and Juan Pablo Muñoz programmed the show with Luis Pastor. Orbita Produciones delivered the lighting equipment.

MA Lighting International, based in Paderborn, Germany, is the dedicated sales, support and service entity for the renowned control systems, digital dimming systems, networking tools and media servers of MA Lighting Technology, based near Wuerzburg, Germany. The product range offers cutting-edge solutions for control and dimming, including the award-winning grandMA2 consoles, the MA onPC command wing and MA onPC fader wing and reliable digital dimmer racks and packs. With its innovative MA VPU (Video Processing Unit) MA bridges the lighting and video worlds.

Today, MA Lighting is respected for its technical knowledge and has achieved a unique international reputation for its operational philosophy. The company offers more than 30 years experience and strictly follows a professional user-centric approach, getting as close as possible to the market via its own international offices and support centres in the UK, North America, Latin America, the Middle East/India, Asia Pacific and Scandinavia/Eastern Europe/Russia – supported by a world-wide distribution and service network.