The Hartwall concerts were a one-off event, 50 Cent was not on tour, and assuch his Production called upon Akun Tehdas, Finland's leading equipment rental provider, to supply all of50 Cent's sound requirements. "This was a typical large scale event for us,"said Timo Liski of Akun Tehdas, "that meant 100% attention to detail."
Thecompany had just taken delivery of their brand new J-Series line arraysystem from d&b audiotechnik in Ge
Twenty thousand people moved, grooved and kicked 2007 off at the fantastic New Year's Day event, Norman Cook's first public performance on the beach since his ground-breaking Beach Party of 2002. To avoid a repeat of the chaos caused when 250,000 people descended on the south coast resort, this time around, the audience was very tightly controlled, and ticket sales were restricted to people with a local BN post code.
Summit was asked to provide the SmarTmasts by audio suppliers Britannia Row. Brit Row's Roly Oliver and Summit's Jay Call co-ordinated rigging the masts and the main Outline Butterfly line array PA system that was flown from them. They were positioned either side of the stage, 16 cabine
PSL Music's Pod Bluman, says: "Production screens are getting bigger all the time, and the giant central screen for the Nutty Boys uses 80 panels of Lighthouse LED screens in 16:9 aspect ratio." Weighing in at 5.5 tonnes, the screen is of such a size that, in some of the smaller venues, PSL video rigger Chris Harris has had to put extra trussing into the roof spaces to hold it up.
To match the show concept, developed by production manager Lee Charteris, the screen carries a spectacular combination of live footage and graphic content, designed by vision director Tim Fleming. PSL provided a 3-man digital PPU travelling with the tour, all using Sony DXC-D35 cameras, with four additional fixed Sony cameras, and J
The lighting for Underwood's show was built in rehearsals with a grandMA console by lighting designer Seth Jackson. Bandit Lites' lighting director, Drew Gnagey, who partnered with David Convertino to program and direct the show, is touring with Underwood armed with a grandMA light. "We programmed on a grandMA full-size and took a grandMA light on the road and it's been seamless," says Jackson. "It's as if it's the same console." Jackson and his team programmed the show so it not only includes the lights they're travel
The lighting kit was supplied by Lisbon-based Insom, and Vidigal's design utilised 10 Robe ColorWash 575 ATs and 12 ColorSpot 575 ATs positioned on the back truss and floor, "I wanted to have a lot of power from the back of the stage" he explains. The tour itinerary included a great variety of venues, and "The 575 is a neat enough fixture to fit into the medium sized and smaller venues on the tour, but it's output is incredibly bright, so it was the ideal solution for the specific 'look' I was trying to create for Monica."
He's first used Robe fixtures on Sintra's 2005 tour, and was impressed; he now always requests
Basement Jaxx's largest tour to date, amalgamated the talents of their LD Jonathan Armstrong and video director Nick Fry into a dynamic creative team. The two worked very closely in their respective departments to produce energy pumping show visuals that matched the band's full-on, action-packed dance attack.
XL project manager Des Fallon says: "Once again it's refreshing to see something truly original and unique happening through the close collaboration between video and lighting."
It was Jaxx 'ringmaster' Felix Buxton in particular who initiated the idea of an upstage video screen. He specifically wanted a light source that could be used to silhouette the band, and has al
The courses will be held from 10am - 5pm at Prince George's Community College in Largo, MD (12 miles from Washington D.C.) and are sponsored by The ESTA Foundation's Seminars and Training Committee and Theatre & Entertainment Technology at Prince George's Community College.
The schedule of classes is as follows: Monday and Tuesday offers an Entertainment Electrician Seminar, led by Richard Cadena. Basic Electricity for Theatre and Stage Power Distribution, taught by Richard Wolpert, takes place on Wednesday
Both companies were set up as associate business units to the successful rental production company Canegreen Ltd, established by Yan Stile and Pete Edmonds back in 1982. In 1996 Andrew Frengley spearheaded Canegreen's expansion when the new Canegreen Commercial made an instant impact in the corporate event market. In 2001 Green-i, under Ian 'Woody' Woodall further underpinned the expansion with a vibrant installation division in the industry's growing leisure hospitality sector. Concurrently Richard Brooker Sound Design added a third string to Canegreen's bow.
The new Green-i executive brings the two successful former ind
Delighted by the success of the black-tie and flamboyant themed evening, Bryan Grant, managing director at Britannia Row says: "Around 1,200 friends and clients attended the ball during the course of the evening. This was twice the number of guests who were present last year and everyone was expecting it to be at least as successful. Big stress, but our merry band of rascals pulled it off - it was twice as good!"
Jim Baggott used his creative and directorial talents to design the party. Lost Vagueness provided the live entertainment which included Santa's Grotty, The Laundrettas, Dynamo Rhythm Aces, The Fat 45s, Gurlesque and Anna Piana.
Special th
Ruben Caruana, managing director of the Maltese events company Sign-It, was impressed by the TFS when he saw it in action, hosting concerts of up to 10,000 fans, when it was used as the temporary Wembley Arena Pavilion venue during the refurbishment of Wembley Arena, London. At the time he was researching solutions for a large exhibition, conference and concert venue in his Malta.
Arena's account director, Simon Marsh, supervised the removal of the TFS from Wembley and its delivery in Malta. At the same time, Arena dealt with the arrival of 20,000sq.m of temporary structures' equipment from other clients, including t
Throughout the tour, three DiGiCo consoles have been the beating heart of the audio system - a D5 Live on Front of House, another for George Michael's monitors and a D5T for band monitors.
Andy 'Baggy' Robinson has worked with George Michael for the past three years. He is the tour's head of sound and Michael's monitor engineer. He says: "Early on it was obvious this show was going to need a digital desk solution. With 15 in the band, including six backing vocals, plus the lead vocal who has very exacting monitoring requirements and needs large amounts of time devoting to him, it swiftly became ap
Since visionary composer Paul O'Neill formed the TSO back in 1996, db Sound has brought their sound to legions of fans with EV's X-Array loudspeaker systems, providing a balance of rugged reliability and warm, musical reproduction that have made the db crew and their EV systems a fixture on the t
For NAIAS 2007 the Ford Motor Company made some changes to the previous year's enormous 110,000sq.ft. ceiling structure, with the entire ceiling moving 15ft. upstage to allow lighting troughs to be repositioned over the new floor layout.
One of the cross stage trusses now fell under an air-wall and the top of the truss at trim sat above the low position of the air-wall track. Total Structures had to make a 240ft. dummy truss 2" thick (essentially a ladder ly
Independent owners Stuart Hayles and Ian Fell, who also own The Castle pub in the town, spotted a gap in the market that they thought they could fill with their brand new 300 capacity venue concept, sited on first floor a former bank.
They wanted to combine high production values with a friendly and chilled vibe, and were also keen to utilise other local businesses and skills, so asked i-Vision's Luke Dodd to design, specify and supply environmental lighting. He had previously produced a small mood lighting scheme for the pub, which had made a real difference to the atmosp
The two new rooms were added on to one of the existing buildings at the CIM,with the recital hall on the front and the control room on the back. "Thenew control room was designed and built from the ground up to beacoustically precise," says Egre. "We didn't have to try and fit a squarepeg into a round hole, so we were able to avoid some of the more commonpitfalls of re-fitting an existing space. The institute was ve
Lighting designer Scott Warner has worked with the band since March and they have been performing shows all over the world. The lighting rig has developed along the way and now boasts a battery of Martin fixtures and 35 PixelLine 1044s.
Warner actually first discovered PixelLines purely by chance. He explains: "When we first came to the UK I was using a different LED fixture that wasn't available in the UK. The rental company asked if I would like to try PixelLines - and I was hooked!"
Warner wanted a clean look with a disco feel and was happy that the budget allowed him to creative a stunning show that would complement the sexy movement of the ban
The goal of lighting the DVD was to provide an upbeat, theatrical, yet calm atmosphere to the living room set where Grant performed. "It had a very 'MTV Unplugged' feel," says lighting programmer Demfis Fyssicopulos of New York City and Florida. "Lighting designer Sparky Anderson had to light for the concert audience as well as for the film cameras. In addition Anderson accentuated the breath-taking architecture of The Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, TX, where the shoot took place."
Gemini Productions supplied the lighting complement which had grandMA controlling 20 Vari*Lite VL2500 spots, 10 Vari*Lite VL3000 spots, five Vari*Lite VL3000 washes,
Luminar Leisure's CEO, Steve Thomas had been investigating the idea with Eminence Leisure CEO Martin King, sole suppliers of acts to the company, for the past 18 months. Into the equation came the Connecta Group, whose subsidiary Tactectic Ltd had acquired a five-year exclusive license for Wonderworks Media Ltd's radical Eyeliner® Foil System technology for live entertainment venues in the UK, Channel Islands and Eire.
The Eyeliner Foil System provides the virtual 3D imaging which can be choreographed to incorporate, and integrate with
Hangar 2 at Berlin Tempelhof airport, with a cantilevered main hall of about 5,000sq.m (55m wide, 98m long and 21m high) and an additional gallery (660sq.m) provided an appropriate location for the 3,000 invited guests. Claus Breidert and Martin Steinfels of Multisound set up the main sound reinforcement for the event, choosing K.M.E.'s PANO line array systems.
As the main stage was on the long side of the Hangar, the pre-planning made a separate PA for the side area necessary. In the following simulation with PANO Focus, the number of K.M.
The hotel is owned by Per Gessle, of Swedish pop duo Roxette fame, and his business partner Björn Nordstrand. The pair have taken what was an old beach hotel and invested millions of Swedish Kronor to create an exclusive property that provides the best spa experience in Sweden.
With a musician at the helm, the audio installation was an extremely important part of the mix and, as equipment supplier New Musik's sales manager Håkan Sjöö explains, was based around a Turbosound loudspeaker system.
"While the hotel industry is not a new end-customer
The company says that their ConTour Array bridges the gap between conventional PA systems and large touring line arrays. Whereas full-on line array rigs for smaller applications are not a cost-effective proposition, ConTour Array is the first of its kind to put the technology to more efficient use, and is applicable to a variety of sound reinforcement situations, including such medium-sized club gig
With a choice of music heavily influenced by the UK club scene, the audio system needed to be versatile and high quality, in order to complement the rest of the facilities, and XTA's DP series processors were the choice of local audio specialists Reference Audio.
"The décor features heavy drapes and furniture everywhere," says Reference Audio's Brent Davenport. "Our brief was that we could not fly any loudspeakers above the dance floor. Everything had to be in a place th
One of the attractions of the evening was the colour-changing floor. Located at the entrance and surrounded by three video walls, the floor was comprised of different panels that changed colours as a "Bond girl" danced on them.
The chameleon-like
For the South American leg of the tour, twin Digidesign Venue boards for FOH and Monitor mixes, effects, in-ear monitoring and microphones were supplied directly by Clair Bros. At the FOH console was engineer Brad Madix who has worked with bands such as Psychedelic Furs, Def Leppard, Queensryche and Marilyn Manson. For monitor engineer Vish Wadi, this was his second tour with Shakira after previously having worked with Sting, Mariah Carey, and Madonna. Buenos Aires based sound reinforcement company Teddy Goldman supplied the PA composed of 48 Aero 38A along with 18 Aero 28A powered line
