Classic American blues rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers celebrates its
fortieth anniversary and thirteen studio albums with their current five months (53-
date) tour of the US and Canada, with an additional date in London in July.

The band’s long-term lighting designer and director, Stanley A Green, who has worked
with Petty since 2001 in various roles, chose Ayrton LED fixtures as the backbone of
his lighting design. He is one of the first to use the new MagicPanel-FX and
MagicBlade-FX units, which he incorporates alongside Ayrton’s MagicBurst and
MagicDot-R fixtures to form a palette of rich colours and variety of looks and textures
that reflect the musical diversity evident in the band’s long history.

“I first experienced Ayrton’s MagicPanel602s when acting as LD for John Legend a few
years ago,’ Green says. “I wanted to use them again, so I used both MagicBlade-R
and MagicPanel-R on Petty Petty’s Mudcrutch tour in 2016. When Mark Fetto at
Morpheus Lights told me about the new “FX’ versions, I went and took a look right
away…and I knew I had to have them for my next tour. The zoom and extra
brightness make them incredibly versatile fixtures.’

Green chose to use 12 MagicBlade-FX units rigged on the downstage of each overhead
rectangular truss for audience washes, effects and a nice rich, even wash on the band,
and also at downstage left and right positions from where he uses them as low
sidelight on Petty.

Fourteen MagicPanel-FX fixtures are “sprinkled’ throughout the overhead rig and used
as main high sidelights for Petty, and as backlights for the whole stage. “I use them
as a theatrical lighting instrument, and I rarely use them as an effect,’ says Green. “I
love the thick beam I get with them. At times I use them like truss spots to follow
Mike Campbell during some of his solos, and the continuous tilt and pan is a great
way to do “big ending’ looks for songs.

“At one point I recreate the band’s rehearsal space on stage using only the
MagicPanel-FX, widened way out in a nice CTO. It’s a theatrical backlight, but it
reproduces the warm work-light feel of the rehearsal space. They are a great,
versatile fixture.’

Forty MagicDot-R fixtures act as “perfect’ as truss warmers: “In this case actually truss
border warmers,’ confirms Green, “as well as basic accent fixtures located everywhere
in the rig and have proved very useful in completing and filling out a lot of the looks.’

Green introduced 14 MagicBurst LED strobe fixtures to replace all the tour’s old strobe
fixtures and audience blinders and took advantage of MagicBurst’s graphic capabilities
to create effects he had never used for the band. The MagicBurst units have proved
themselves irreplaceable in the complete line up of Ayrton fixtures for several
reasons:

“It is important to Petty to bring the crowd in,’ explains Green. “He likes to see the
entire audience, especially in the farthest possible seats, and the people back in the
270° area. With the MagicBurst I can have a full pulse strobe at one moment, and the
next minute give him a huge, bright, solid wash of the entire audience for as long as
Petty wants.

“During “Forgotten Man’, a newer song with a cool guitar effect here and there, I was
able to create the visual version of that sound perfectly using MagicBurst’s 68
individual cells in each unit, with an individual delay time on each one. A fast, bright,
random checker-board strobe on all fourteen of them is a big moment…add the
fixture’s continuous tilt-spin, and it is huge.’

For the stadium dates, Green augments the inventory with an addition 40 MagicBlade-
R units and 20 massive MagicRing-R9. “We chose these because the stadiums are
huge and, not only does Petty once again need to reach every corner of the venue,
but we also need to fill the space and give the cameras a reference as to the size and
the location.’

Green is happy with his choice of fixtures for Petty’s largest tour yet: “As a designer, I
am always looking for new ways to do an old job – lighting an event, focusing the
audience’s attention, enhancing the audience’s experience. The nice wide beam plus
the new zoom from both the MagicPanel-FX and the MagicBlade-FX give a look you
can not achieve with any other fixture.

“As always with Ayrton, the units are built right, with plenty of control protocol
choices. They have succeeded in keeping the traditional value of a strong lighting
instrument crossed with a modern edge and extreme usability.

“For years, I’ve been trying to make this tour 100% LED as Petty gets hot on stage,
so a conversion to LED helps a lot. There are many LED products out there, but
Ayrton fixtures are the best. They are versatile and easy to program, and the build-
quality makes them truly road worthy fixtures. These are real lighting instruments.’