Callum Beattie on his winter tour (photo: Fabio Constantini)
UK - Singer-songwriter Callum Beattie captivated sellout crowds on his recent winter tour of his homeland, Scotland. Supporting him with some fiercely bold visuals was a power-packed light show by Steve Mccraken of Mac-Events, who programmed the show and ran it throughout the tour on his ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M Stadium Console.
Working with a kit supplied by Limelight Event Services, Mccracken busked some manual flashes, strobes, and other looks, but most of his show was cue stacked. “We kept the looks consistent from show to show to create the experience that fans expected,” he said. “Although we had to make some changes to accommodate some venues, we remained consistent overall.”
The looks that Mccracken designed seemed to be tailor-made for his client’s genuine up-from- the-streets stage presence. For example, Mccraken created some interesting effects mixing silhouettes with wide prisms and gobos. This look was notable in the song Don’t Walk Alone, during an instrumental break down, when the band are silhouetted and many of the lights are chasing. “The band appear out the dark every second or so,” said Mccracken. “It’s a simple look and it brings so much to this part of the show.”
Given that Beattie and his fans thrive on close contact, Mccracken arranged his fixtures to maximise the artist-audience connection. “I deliberately put my front lights low, so Callam could see the crowd a little easier,” he said. “I also had blinders on during the talking sessions.”
Mccraken, who designed the show in Capture and pre-programmed on his MQ500M, explained how his console helped him. I triggered a lot of the FX in programming off macros, so I really liked how the extra playbacks in my ChamSys helped me keep everything I needed in one space rather than me having to sift through separate pages.
“I also appreciated how I could layout my desk, so I could know that the first five faders and above will be for my manual front wash, specials and so forth, whilst the next bank of five would be for my macros, then the last bank for my song stack and bump buttons.”

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