Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

Business

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UK - Blackout continued its longstanding relationship with Somerset House, supplying rigging and drapes for this year's Summer Series and Film4 Summer Screen events during July and August.

Blackout worked alongside production manager Jon Howes, within a team of contractors, who year on year collaborate with the venue's management and sponsors. The team work to facilitate both events and aid Somerset House's transformation into a concert setting and then an open air cinema.

This is the eleventh year running Blackout has worked on the Summer Series concerts, supporting promoters Metropolis Music. This year the concert featured performances from Passenger, George Ezra and Jessie J and attracted crowds of up to 3,000 people.

Blackout provided all of the stage rigging as well as two truss wings, which flanked either side of the stage, to hang the PA systems and branding, negating

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USA - Lighting designer Herrick Goldman recently designed Evita at the Cape Rep Theatre on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and turned to Elation Professional's Platinum Profile 35 Pro moving head light to create the compelling mood lighting. Herrick and his associate Susan Nicholson designed both the lighting and the projections for the production, which is directed by William Roudebush with scenery by James Dardenne.

Using four Elation Platinum Profile 35 Pro fixtures amongst a plot of LED lights and conventional sources, it was Herrick's task to carve out a black and white world that was later colorized by the presence and strength of will of Eva Peron, in stark contrast to the character of Che and the various political elements that she was constantly beset by.

Herrick relied heavily on the Elation fixtures to define areas of the relatively small stage and make the world of

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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South Africa - Lighting designer Peter Rieck is the owner of one of MA Lighting's new dot2 XL-F consoles. Peter, an industry professional for 15 years and one of the country's leading television lighting specialists recently launched a new company, Rieck's, headed by himself. Having been an MA user for the last seven or so years, the first thing the new venture did was purchase its own dot2.

"It made complete sense" he stated, "It's small and light enough to easily fit in my car or go on the plane, and powerful enough to run the majority of the shows on which I am currently working." Having his own console means he can always have his control platform of choice. Peter was delighted that MA's small and highly versatile dot2 was also within a reasonable price range. The console was supplied via MA's South African distributor, DWR Distribution.

"It's the

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UK - Colour Sound Experiment continued its frenetic 2015 summer festival season supplying lighting to 12 major stages, 24 smaller performance areas and eight bars at the 2015 Secret Garden Party (SGP) event staged in Abbots Ripton near Huntingdon UK.

This tightly planned and executed operation - which this year battled with inclement weather for the first time in the festival's recent history - involved the supply of nearly 500 moving lights, 228 high powered Dragon LED PARs and a mix of other kit, including LED screens for the Main stage and other areas.

Colour Sound's crew of 22 was chiefed by James Hinde and Alex Ryan. James co-ordinated the get-in and set up of all the operated stages, while Alex looked after all the other areas, and together with Woody (Stuart Wood), oversaw the whole operation during the show days.

Colour Sound regular Jon Rickets was working as techni

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The Netherlands - At 25m wide and 10m high, lighting the Nederlandse Reisopera (Dutch Touring Opera)'s cyclorama for a touring production of Orphée et Eurydice was always going to be a tall order. With a limited budget, they needed to be in and out of the venue in a day. With the help of 40 ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr fixtures with CYC adapters, and some clever rigging choices by chief lighting technician Richard ten Hof, they succeeded.

The opera, held across the Netherlands on 12 dates throughout May and in the first week of June, tells the story of Orpheus, a mythical musician, poet and prophet in ancient Greek religion, who is said to have been able to charm all living things and even stones with his music.

Ten Hof first came across the new Source Four LED fixtures a year and a half ago, when he was working with Dutch dealer Lightco. "I was amazed

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UK - Theatre and acoustics consultancy Charcoalblue, which opened its Bristol Studio in May this year, carried out acoustic testing at the city's St George's concert hall recently in preparation for a £5.5m redevelopment, with some surprising results.

The hall was built as a church in 1823 and designed by Sir Robert Smirke, architect of the British Museum. It would have been built to suit a congregation who needed to clearly hear the spoken word, but the clarity the room provides brings an unexpected benefit to 21st century concertgoers.

Ian Stickland, team leader for Charcoalblue, said he and his colleagues were initially surprised by their acoustic measurements. "Looking at the objective results of our reverberation time measurements, without knowing which room it was, we would not have rated the results very highly. However, digging deeper, we find that the clari

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USA - Lighting and visuals designer Fenton Williams and co-LD / programmer Aaron Stinebrink again collaborated to produce the production design - incorporating lighting, set and video - for the current Dave Matthews Band (DMB) US summer tour.

For the first time, they specified Robe's BMFL Spot fixtures, 22 of which are being supplied by the tour's lighting vendor, Theatrical Media Services (TMS) from Omaha, Nebraska.

The band is well known for their long annual summer tours and sets featuring involved improvisations of their songs - always played differently - accompanied by eye-catching visuals and lightshows, an aesthetic that has been carefully crafted by Fenton since he started working with the band in the early 1990s.

Fenton and Aaron developed the design together, often drawing on architecture and art for inspiration as they build a visual stage concept.

This is the

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UK - Matthew Griffiths is to step down as PLASA CEO. A statement from PLASA reads: Over the past few months it has become clear to the boards and executive management of PLASA that a fundamental redesign of our business model and structures are necessary due to the increasingly difficult trading conditions currently being experienced. For the organisation to remain of service & benefit to the membership we represent, it is imperative that our expenditure can be funded by an affordable and sustainable income. To that end, the PLASA Governing Body has decided that there needs to be complete review of its businesses.

In light of the above and after 17 years as PLASA's chief executive officer, Matthew Griffiths has decided that now is the right time to step aside which would help kick start and facilitate a fresh set of ideas and approaches needed for the next chapter in PLASA's dev

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UK - The latest AniMotion live painting, digital art and music show is presented by Aurora Nova at George Herriot's School as part of the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The power of original painting created in real-time and projected onto stunning architecture accompanied by live music is a special collaboration between projection artist Ross Ashton, virtuoso percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and acclaimed visual artist and painter Maria Rud.

The location for this magical outdoor experience - Venue 316 of the Fringe Festival - is the quadrangle at George Herriot's School. The high impact art is being projected onto the side wall, of the beautiful 17th century chapel - which becomes part of the world renowned Festival, famous for showcasing new, innovative and thought-provoking works.

Says Ross, "We are extremely excited to be performing at the Fringe and exceptionally

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Italy - Renzo Arbore sits on the chair in front of Fabio Fazio as it is announced that he will be the special guest in the final show of Che Fuori tempo che fa (Fazio's talk show). The transmission will be devoted to Quelli della note, one of the most popular late night variety programmes in the history of Italian television, which went on air 30 years ago.

Renzo Arbore has always loved jazz and Neapolitan music classics. For the release of ... e pensare che dovevo fare il dentista... (...and to think I was supposed to become a dentist...), he is leading his Orchestra Italiana, with his voice, clarinet and boundless charm, on a new summer tour that culminates on 7 September in Milan.

Gazebo Giallo (Arbore's management company) turned to Paco Toscano to interpret the atmospheres of Arbore's music with lights. "I joined the production team that organize

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Austria - For the sound engineers of Rental Pro Austria, the Stadthalle in Graz presents a well-known acoustic challenge. For the sell-out performance of the Grazer Philharmonic Orchester, bringing Mahler's 8th to a sell-out crowd of more than 4,000, the solution was a Nexo Geo S12 system using RS15 subs and PS cabinets for fill.

Mario Held, system engineer for Rental Pro Austria worked with FOH engineer Andreas Putz to design a Geo S12 line array that would provide balanced and transparent sound reinforcement appropriate for the classical performance, featuring the 200-piece orchestra, numerous solo singers and a choir of 300.

"The venue, like many big halls of this size, has some problem frequencies in the sub and bass area," says Held. "Rental Pro Austria has nearly all the varieties of Nexo subs in its inventory, but I decided to use four RS15 subs per side

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USA - Following on from the custom video solution they supplied for alt-J's headline show at London's O2 Arena and subsequent worldwide festival runs, XL Video has supplied a similar LED set-up for the band's current US tour.

The tour, in support of alt-J's second album, This Is All Yours, visited a variety of indoor and outdoor venues around the US including a show at Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

The video design, created by Jeremy Lechterman and Jackson Gallagher from FragmentNine, uses horizontal rows of LED, interspaced with gaps which can be used with lighting.

At the O2 show, XL Video supplied a solution using their regular touring frames, and special brackets.

"For the US tour design, the designers wanted to reduce the size of spaces between the LED rows," said XL's US touring projects director, Gareth Jeanne. "As our touring frames have

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UK - Through the extraordinary vision of a dedicated group of people to make a dream a reality, the Jubilee Sailing Trust regularly takes both disabled and able bodied people to sea on two square rigged sailing ships in the fleet, Lord Nelson and Tenacious.

The Jubilee Sailing Trust brings together disabled and able bodied crew members, accepting all degrees of disability including wheelchair users, visually or hearing impaired, stroke victims and more recently regularly welcoming Help for Heroes military veterans.

Having recently updated the general audio broadcast systems on the Lord Nelson ship, a similar upgrade is about to occur with Tenacious on its return to port. Using a number of Cloud paging microphones, with automatic messaging functionality, the audio broadcast system is an essential tool for keeping ships' crews informed of daily routines and emergency situations

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"The visuals are the priority with this band," opens Marcus Lyall. "For a long time the stage has been dominated by the upstage screen and we wanted to develop that imagery and bring it closer to the audience." Lyall shares the responsibilities of show director and designer for the Chemical Brothers with Adam Smith who has worked with the band for over 20 years.

"We wanted to create a 3D experience for the audience," agrees lighting designer Paul Normandale, "And bring some of the video content to life, blurring the lines between screen and reality. We went to Specialz as they did such a great job on the last tour and this mechanical, visual, yet tourable challenge is very much their area of expertise."

To this end, Specialz was charged with creating a huge 3m diameter reflector, a set of bespoke dollies pre-rigged with Sharpys and last but cer

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UK - Aurora Lighting provides all the ingredients for lighting director Oli Richards at The Great British Bake Off - An Extra Slice.

Following the success of the BBC phenomenon that is The Great British Bake Off, Jo Brand has been welcoming a panel of guests each week to enjoy cake related discussion.

Filmed with Love Productions in front of a live audience at The London Studios, An Extra Slice reflects on the week's baking, with guest interviews with departing contestants, behind the scenes clips and a selection of audience based cake related triumphs and disasters.

To help lighten up the serving, Aurora has provided LD Oli Richards with an array of Martin Auras and Viper Performances which are kept fresh by moving light operator David Francis and tech Simon Willet.

The show features a number of set practical pendants which have added an atmospheric h

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UK - On its initial release in 1994, The Shawkshank Redemption achieved critical acclaim and is still considered by many to be a movie great. Now, on the film's 21st anniversary, production company Bill Kenwright Ltd is touring a theatrical version of the show across the UK. White Light was called upon to supply the lighting support for the production.

The play has opened in Windsor and will begin its UK tour next week, visiting venues in Leeds, Brighton, Richmond, Birmingham, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Norwich, Cheltenham, Woking, Milton Keynes and Cardiff.

Starring television's Ian Kelsey and Patrick Robinson, The Shawshank Redemption tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a man serving a life sentence in the notorious Shawshank prison. Realising he cannot survive life behind bars, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with prison fixer Red and soon begins to hatch a plan

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Italy - The 58,000 capacity Stadio San Nicola in Bari recently played host to a much anticipated Vasco Rossi rock concert, organised by Live Nation Italy.

To ensure everything possible was done to guarantee the safety of the structure, Colin Luke,senior project manager at Oswestry-based Load Cell Rental, was asked to supply a way of monitoring the stage weights during the build.

Following conversations with the event organisers, Load Cell Rental supplied a 20 cell BroadWeigh system. Colin said, "Following a spate of high profile events where temporary stages have collapsed, it was vital to leave no stone unturned in order to ensure the concert made the headlines for only the right reasons. No respectable concert organiser can afford to ignore the loadings on temporary structures and the BroadWeigh system is the perfect tool for the job."

The BroadWeigh load monitor

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Australia - Sydney's famous Tank Stream provided quite a challenge when two companies joined forces to create a staging solution for one of the city's major hotels. The fresh water supply for the colony of Sydney in its earliest days is contained in a bulkhead, which runs directly over the ballroom of the Westin Hotel in the centre of the city.

It was one of the issues that had to be considered when Jands Venue Engineering (JVE) and event AV services provider, Staging Connections, put their skills together to engineer a faster, safer and more efficient staging management system for the hotel. One of the biggest challenges faced by JVE and Staging Connections was the installation - it had to fit in with existing hotel commitments, to make sure all the rooms involved were empty, and it couldn't be done at night, with the risk guests could be woken by the drilling.

Working in fav

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UK - Following the successful launch of the Festival Supplier Awards in October 2014, organiser AMP Events has confirmed that they will return for a second outing on 28 January 2016. The celebration dinner and awards ceremony will be held at London's The Hurlingham Club.

Paul Allott, commercial director of AMP Events commented, "We're delighted to confirm that the Festival Supplier Awards will return in January 2016 and that they will be held in London. The feedback from the inaugural awards was tremendous, everyone had a great evening and really enjoyed being part of the event. We want to build on that success and we firmly believe that bringing the industry together at the beginning of the year is a great way to achieve this.

"The festival industry in the UK continues to develop and has a much broader remit than music alone - food, sport, hobbies and culture all pl

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World - Everything about the AC/DC Rock or Bust Tour 2015 is big with a capital B, from the mega arenas across Europe and North America where the band played, to the fan interest (the group set a world record selling more than 300,000 tickets in 77 minutes at one German venue), to the beefy lighting design.

The Woodroffe Bassett Design rig called on a plethora of high-output discharge lamp moving fixtures, as well as a wide assortment of blinders, video panels and other fixtures to create an explosive lighting display that flooded even the largest venue with visual delights.

A batten fixture that measures 39.3" (998 M) can easily be swallowed by this lighting Goliath. However, that clearly - and colourfully -- wasn't the case with the COLORado Batten 144 Tour from Chauvet Professional. A dozen of the RGBWA LED linear fixtures were used in the rig for the iconic metal band

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Estonia - Founded in 2007 as a sound and lighting rental, sales and installation company, Heliart's guiding principle as a full service provider was to deliver best quality service to every client.

The experience gained from daily rental work enabled them to undertake installations, while as a distributor "we have an input from the great technical support engineers of the manufacturers", according to owner Priit Kivimägi.

Among their suppliers is Powersoft, with whom they started working a little over a year ago, after placing an order for K Series amplifiers. They have gone further and invested in the Italian company's new X Series platform.

Kivimagi explains out how the relationship developed. "We had used another premier amplifier brand for a long time but had a chance to do a side-by-side comparison. Powersoft's wide model range covered our needs better a

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Korea Move - Slovenian band Laibach claim to be the first western rock group to play inside North Korea. Photographs seem to show that the audience at the Ponghwa Theatre was appreciative, if not completely sure of what to make of their concert last week. Laibach describe themselves as "a music and cross-media group" and are known for playing eclectic cover versions of famous songs. The songs were accompanied by images styled from North Korean propaganda posters projected on to a screen, with translations in Korean. The programme included a number of songs from The Sound of Music, including Edelweiss, Do-Re-Mi and The Hills Are Alive. The 1965 musical is one of the few western films people are allowed to watch in the secretive state.

Posthumous Hit - Cilla Black landed her first ever number one album, with her Very Best Of comp

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Italy - Sound designer Mike Bedford from consulting engineers Hoare Lea called upon Out Board's Robin Whittaker and TiMax SoundHub for immersive live 3D audio spatialisation and playback for the UK Pavilion at this year's Milan World Expo. Running until October 31st, Milan's Expo is focussed on sustainability, technology and food, with its theme entitled "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life". The UK pavilion is designed to resemble a giant beehive at the centre of a wildflower meadow created by Nottingham-based artist Wolfgang Buttress with engineer Tristan Simmonds.

Visitors traverse the meadow via sunken pathways so that they experience the bees' natural environment at head-height, and end up in the 14 metre high abstract beehive structure which hosts a multi-sensory immersive experience. TiMax propels a constantly changing composition of music and bee sounds around

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Poland - On 9 August 2015, the noted Polish rock band Skaldowie gave a major concert in the city of Gdów to celebrate their 50th anniversary. The national broadcasting corporation, TVP, organized the event and a live crowd of 15,000 attended the outdoor venue.

For the impressive stage setup, no less than 100 x SixPacks blinders and 50 x P-5 wash lights from SGM were integrated into the light design. Lighting designer, Sebastian Pachciarek, explains that he chose the P-5s due to their many advantages such as powerfulness and viewing angle. He used the SixPacks as wall LEDs, and for this purpose, he particularly emphasizes the ease of combining a large amount of fixtures. He then adds, "The fact that both types of fixtures are IP65-rated was quite important - especially for concerts under the cloud." He adds that both the P-5s and SixPacks performed flawlessly.

Pachci

  1. Hoare Lea at the UK Pavilion, Milan Expo 2015
  2. SenovvA installs Martin Audio system in Caesar's Vista Lounge
  3. PR Lighting a big hit for little star is Sri Lanka
  4. Game on at UW-Stout's Johnson Fieldhouse with Tannoy VQ System
  5. Rock Werchter switches to digital with DiGiCo
  6. Martin Audio MLA makes Secret Garden party debut, with Capital
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Astera - Large MPU - June 2025
Sennheiser - MPU - June 2025

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