The 16th edition of the festival featured seven evenings of music in the fascinating setting of the Théâtre de la Mer, an amphitheatre with a breathtaking panorama of the Mediterranean right behind the stage.
Fiest'a Sète stage was lit with the new Jack and NRG 1201 high-power compact moving heads by D.T.S., provided by ESL. Lighting designer was Sebastien Serra.
(Jim Evans)
Kath Mainland, chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, said it was "in fantastic health", with more than 1.8 million tickets sold. She said there were also more than 800 free shows at which attendance could not be measured. However, it is only the second time in more than a decade that ticket sales have fallen from the previous year. Sales fell in 2008 due to the disastrous implementation of a new ticketing system. Mainland said, "The Fringe has shown its resilience in responding so positively to the unique challenges of 2012."
Viva La Vi
With UK and worldwide bookings well up on last year and with a strong international flavour to its speakers and seminar sessions, the PLASA Rigging Conference confirms its status as the premier event worldwide dedicated to all things rigging.
Opening with an unmissable speech from original 'Disney Rigger' Roy Bickel, one of the founders of the modern rigging industry and closing with 'Question Time' hosted by Alan Jacobi LVO, MD of Unusual Rigging, the Conference is packed with sessions from industry experts.
On Monday 10 September, the thorny issue of developing standardised Common Practice will be debated by Rinus Bakker and Roy Schilderman from ARGH in Hol
Crow is based on a series of poems by the late poet laureate Ted Hughes, with the Handspring Puppet Company accompanying the telling of their stories through the medium of puppetry. Says Illuminate Design's co founder Ben Payne, "Handspring did such an amazing job on War Horse, that we all knew we had a lot to live up to. The poems can be quite dark, and so we wanted something suitably intimate."
Illuminate began by reversing the Borough Halls' traditional layout, with bleach
A concept of VJ Morgan Lavery, owner of Infinight Productions, the idea of the Borgore Cream Machine is to make Borgore look like he is driving inside an ice cream truck, equipped with real 30-inch rims that move and spun around on motors.
Forty-seven MVP 18 panels cover the main façade of the truck and 18 make up the rear screen behind the DJ booth, while two
David Liles is set to manage the company's New York office which will be opening shortly. Liles is currently undertaking FOH duties for Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings.
The Railway in Bolton has just upgraded to the LS1000M monitors from the Tannoy units previously used.
Sneaky Pete's in Edinburgh has ordered LS1000M floor monitors to replace their Logic Systems units. The new monitors are shipping next week.
Several other venues in New York State are about to close contracts to upgrade to LS1000 systems. Watch this space for these and other exciting develop
Pete's Big TVs has worked on many past Elvis in concert tours and anniversary shows - again with producer Stig Edgren Productions.
This year, Pete's Big TVs supplied 324 panels of the new digiLED MC7 high resolution video tiles to comprise all video screens in the show. The MC7 emit no radio frequency interference, making them a popular rental item in Pete's Big TVs' inventory.
The panels were split up into four screens. A screen over the stage displayed the show's EP 35 logo and IMAG. Of the three screens on the upstage, measuring 18ft tall,
Paradise, presented by Hot Creations, is one of the coolest club nights on the island and includes a residency by Hot Creations label owner, Jamie Jones, along with guest appearances from some of the best names in electronic music, including DJ Harvey, Soul Clap and Damian Lazarus.
XL Video is supplying a backdrop for the DJ booth constructed from Martin LC 2140 transparent LED, to complement the look of this unique club night.
This residency, along with other shows and events in Ibiza this summer including the International Music Summit, and Ibiza 123, reinforces XL Video's commitment to working with electronic dance music artists and clubs to help enhance their performances with the creative use of video technology.
Positioned at the top, smoothing out the colour, are 14 COLORado Batten 72 Tour linear wash lights while 44 COLORado 1-Tri Tour and 19 COLORado 1 Tour static wash lights light up the wider set pieces found between the ÉPIX Strip fixtures. For dramatic flair, studding the ÉPIX array, are simple incandescent work lights clipped into place. As side lighting fo
"Our Shure UHF-R systems will service many of our premium gigs," remarked Darren Russell, Elite's managing director. "So far we've found them to be very good, reliable and provide very stable RF performance. The Shure UHF-R's user-interface is very friendly and easy to follow. We really like the simplicity of use and the fact that they come with all the inter-connect cables and accessories in the box - with some other brands you have to purchase them as a separate item. It's great that you can easily patch up and configure your system straight out of the box. It's really all quite self-explanatory to set up.
"The Shure Wireless Workbench software with the network is
Among the biggest, best known and most popular metal fests in the world, over 80,000 rockers gathered over three days to enjoy a wide selection of metal genre artists which included headliners The Scorpions, Machine Head, Sepultura and many others.
Lighting for the double-staged Bullhead Arena was supplied by Crystal Sound based in Karlsruhe.
An impressive cityscape set was designed by Thomas Bartz from Konzeptsache Berlin.
The two stages were positioned side-by-side with a mesh-clad Layher scaffolding structure in the middle, complete with a boxing ring coming out into the audience. Artists used this to tease the crowd and strut their stuff.
The stages were operated in 'flip-flop' style to ensure that the
HSL has worked with Production North on many different projects. Once again, Mike Oates project managed for the Blackburn based company, with set, visuals and lighting designed by Peter Barnes, working in close conjunction with Diversity's creative director and leader, Ashley Banjo.
On the road, lighting was looked after and operated by Neil Trenell. An HSL crew of six took care of lighting and video and the Kinesys system, together with rigger John Ashton, who put in the 58 points each day.
Sarah Hollis, production manager for Production North, remarked that it was "Excellent" to deal with one company an
"We look forward to celebrating with all our friends in the lighting industry and invite everyone to our stand for a chat and a celebratory drink and not least the chance to get an up-close look at the new MAC Viper series and other innovations as well," says Martin UK sales director Mike Walker.
"The feedback we've received on the Viper series has been unprecedented as our pre-sales numbers attest to. It is truly a ground-breaking moving head and contains all of our accumulated knowledge over the past 25 years. It is nothing short of spectacular and we are confident that lighting designers will feel the same."
Martin will be showing a
With UK and worldwide bookings well up on last year and with a strong international flavour to its speakers and seminar sessions, the PLASA Rigging Conference confirms its status as the premier event worldwide dedicated to all things rigging.
Opening with an unmissable speech from original 'Disney Rigger' Roy Bickel, one of the founders of the modern rigging industry and closing with Question Time hosted by Alan Jacobi LVO, MD of Unusual Rigging, the conference is packed with sessions from industry experts.
On Monday 10 September, the thorny issue of developing standardised common practice will be debated by Rinus Bakker and Roy Schilderman from ARGH in Holland along with panellists Cris
Including Nortek's Aton, BlueBOLT, Elan, Furman, Niles, Panamax, Proficient, SpeakerCraft, Sunfire and Xantech brands, Core Brands has more than 190 years of combined experience in the residential, commercial and professional markets and over 4,300 direct customer accounts in multiple distribution channels in the US and worldwide.
Core Brands will be based in Petaluma, Calif., with offices in Carlsbad and Riverside, Calif., and Marblehead, Mass. Bill Pollock, who has served as president of Panamax, will lead Core Brands. Dave Keller, vice president of sales and marketing for Panamax/Furman, will handle worldwide sales. K
As part of a national programme of investment in infrastructure by Network Rail, who operate and are responsible for Glasgow Central, a new public address system was required as part of a wider renovation of this important transport hub. Previously, the station had a long-standing problem with intelligibility due to the cavernous nature of the iconic structure and its architecture, with expansive reflective floor surfaces, sandstone walls and a glass roof all contributing to a very lengthy reverberation time.
To handle the extensive audio upgrade, Network Rail and main contractor Babcock brought in respected UK-based sound and communications company TG Baker, having developed a strong working relationship with them over previous rail networ
Hailing the Viper Profile as the fixture he has been waiting for, Mawdsley covered the venue's dome ceiling and stage in images and patterns. Lighting rental company Stage Electrics supplied the Vipers and other lighting for the event.
"The MAC Viper Profile is really bright and produces perfect colours with really sharp image quality," he says. "I had many people ask what the lights were because of the gobo sharpness and brightness. I've never had that happen before."
Badminton England and Red Bull China hosted the special event, which showcased some of the best amateur b
Part of a five-year programme to restore and improve the station, the Western Concourse delivers the biggest transformation in the 160-year history of the Grade-I listed station to date, marking the completion of yet another element of Network Rail's plans for the future of rail travel in the UK.
The stunning new roof structure has been cleverly blended with the station's heritage to create a space for passengers that is three times larger than the 1970's concourse, with improved transport links.
More than 47m passengers a year travelling through the Kings Cross interchange will benefit from a raft of improvements, including the new li
The Queensland School will now be able to engage their students through the performing arts as well as through vocational education with students able to complete a Certificate II in live production theatre and events, as well as technical operations, and a Certificate II in set production and prop making.
As a blackbox theatre, The Bird's Nest has the flexibility to host any kind of performance, ranging from traditional theatre set up, theatre in the round, or they can run conferences.
The lighting installation was installed by Macrosphere. The
An established leader in beam steering, Pan Beam's range of self-powered, DSP controlled column loudspeakers are designed to provide solutions for speech and music even in the most difficult of surroundings, delivering optimum sound quality in halls and other reverberant spaces.
Stuart Thomson, MD of CUK Audio explained their choice of Pan Beam, "With steerable columns being established in the market place over the last 10+ years, many companies have engineered their own solutions as part of an existing range of products in an attempt to tap into the growing market. We have looked at the various solutions appearing in the market and all had their strengths and weaknesses. We were looking for a company that specialised in
A few years in the making, the Agua Luces project complements The Tampa Riverwalk expansion with a paved walkway on the eastern side of the river that highlights specific vistas of the city, river and newly lit bridges. Designing the lighting aspect of Agua Luces is Tracey Dear of Chicago-based Dear Productions. Dear, known for illuminating Chicago's bridges, specified the outdoor-rated, LED-fitted I
"It's an older structure, and it has some history, and they didn't want to just tear it down and build something bigger," says Harper. "So they opted to renovate the original building and also build an event centre, which could handle the overflow, as well as other functions."
Using the seasonal population shifts to their advantage, the project was carried out in two phases. "The first summer, they used the
The new large-scale community opera was a collaboration between Huddersfield based theatre company Proper Job and Scunthorpe Cooperative Junior Choir.
Directed by Jamie Beale, it told the emotional and compelling story of Albert 'Lal' White, Scunthorpe steelworker and winner of countless cycling trophies including an Olympic Silver medal in Antwerp in 1920.
dbn's Pete Robinson was asked to create a lighting scheme for the show which took place over two nights to completely sold out audiences. It featured a stark atmospheric distressed industrial set designed by Rhys Jarman, a cast of hundreds and t
Rewind attracts a wide demographic, from legwarmer-toting 40 and 50-somethings keen to recapture their Pac Man-inspired youth for a weekend, to their children and many younger people keen to discover if the music of the 1980s stands up to 21st century scrutiny.
Despite acts on this year's bill like OMD, Midge Ure and Big Country still commanding a fair amount of respect amongst fans, the festival's emphasis is very much on fun, with the likes of Right Said Fred, Village People, Chesney Hawkes, Sinitta, Jimmy Somerville and Five Star delivering the requisite amount of tongue-in-cheek cheese.
Capital Soun
