When Swedish House Mafia decided to make their long awaited return to dance music it was only right they did it big in Miami at Ultra Music Festival, the same stage that they closed out their iconic tour 5 years go. They entrusted production designer Andy Hurst to make the special occasion a massive success as they were the closing act for the mainstage. He was the logical choice for them as he is also the show production designer for Axwell and Ingrosso. After receiving the call he quickly went to GLP’s LED catalog for the job, acquiring 60 JDC1 hybrid strobe lights and 96 impression X4 Bar 20.
“As the festival main stage design was changed one month before the show we had to work quickly to get a new SHM design signed off and ready in time,” Andy Hurst explained.
One of the biggest hurdles was to incorporate his custom setup with Ultra mainstage’s rig. “We had to have our entire system set in 35 minutes. In that time we had to fly our back wall, set our custom DJ riser and roll in our lighting, laser and pyro package.”
Hurst has become a full fledged expert with GLP’s advanced technology, having previously used their products for years on other artists such as Prodigy and Faithless.
“I had seen the JDC1 at LDI and was impressed with the brightness and ability to provide lots of different effects,” he said. “We ran them in full 68-channel mode using all the attributes. The strobe effects were used to drive beats and nuances within the tracks, which they did perfectly.”
Andy Hurst was also given the opportunity to pre-program the show at DMD Studios with a full size virtual rig and fixtures to check the programming in real life. It’s no doubt a lot of hard work and preparation went into SHM’s performance this year. A truly historic set.