Lighting director Victor Fable used a new Virtuoso lighting control console from Vari-Lite for September's MTV Video Music Awards, which took place in New York. Using a Virtuoso for just the second time, Fable worked closely with lighting designer Allen Branton and lighting directors Tom Beck and Michael Goodwin for the live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera House. With a rig of moving lights including VL4, VL7, VL7B, VL5B, VL6 and VL6B luminaires, Fable found that the Virtuoso made his job easier. "It actually made doing a large show much easier than if I had used an Artisan console. I would have had to put the show on two separate Artisan desks and run them both, whereas Virtuoso handled 440 channels easily and managed it all quite well."He continued: "Virtuoso allowed me to load up many more chases and break up the show much more effectively and quickly. The ability to have more than the Artisan console's four submaster capacity was a lifesaver. On this show I used 16 submasters and broke it up into four areas and effects. I used a lot of macros to load in effects and I used a lot of snapshots, whether I was programming or playing back."
