Clay Paky is "Perfect Fit" for Nine Inch Nails

	Nine Inch Nails on tour with Clay Paky. Photo: Rob Sheridan

This summer saw industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails (NIN) on their first European tour in six years, with an array of Clay Paky Sharpy and Sharpy Wash 330 fixtures delivering striking brightness and moody colors to help bring the band back with a bang.

Lighting designer Paul Guthrie specified the Clay Paky fixtures, supplied by Ampco Flashlight, to hold their own against the elaborate production, and provide maximum impact.

"With Nine Inch Nails, we wanted to give the audience an incredible show, that went from dark, moody, and soupy to face-welding annihilation," explains Guthrie. "We see it as: if they're not convulsing afterwards, we're not trying hard enough. The Clay Paky fixtures allowed us to achieve this with their rapid movement and intense brightness."

The company says the Sharpy and Sharpy Wash 330 are both fixtures that deliver brightness usually only achievable with far greater wattages. The Sharpy Wash 330 is a 330W washlight, with the luminous efficiency, graphic and optical performance of a 1,000W fixture, while the Sharpy produces a perfectly parallel, laser-like beam and delivers fantastic aerial effects through its fast movement.

"The Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures were specified by LeRoy Bennett for the original design," continues Guthrie. "Their speed and quality of beam is a perfect fit for a Nine Inch Nails show. We incorporated the Sharpy Wash 330s as main band side light because of their fantastic brightness, and their compact size is perfect for the scale of the production on this European tour."

Both the Sharpy and Sharpy Wash 330 are compact and lightweight fixtures, with the Sharpy weighing 19kg and the Sharpy Wash 330 18.5kg, making them ideal for concert touring of all sizes and scopes. The Sharpy Wash 330 has a complete CMY color system alongside extra special colors. "The colors offered through the Sharpy Wash 330's CMY color mixing are definitely one of its best features," says Guthrie.

NIN's European arena tour culminated in a show at The Forum in Prague before the band moved to the US and Canada throughout July and August.

See Clay Paky and their North American distributor, A.C.T Lighting, at PLASA Focus: Orlando, February 17 - 18, 2015.