Ireland - Lighting controls expert Artistic Licence has been appointed official technical partner of The Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art at Trinity College Dublin. The Lir Academy was established in 2011 to provide students with the highest standards of training for careers in the theatre, TV and film industries. The academy’s director of technical training Barry Conway explains: "I have been very excited about expanding our technical offering in our three-year programme - I am from a lighting background originally. Network control is now such a fundamental component of lighting that Ireland needs to be able to train this to the next generation of techs." He adds: "Having a company like Artistic licence be on board at the creation of this training module is a really exciting prospect.” The Lir approached Artistic Licence with a proposal that woul
New Zealand - Jands, the Harman Professional audio distributors in New Zealand, recently launched JBL’s new medium to large format line array at the ASB Theatre in Auckland. The JBL VTX A12 is a dual 12" three-way line array element purpose-built for mid to large-size touring applications and high-end fixed installations. “We wanted our guests to understand the philosophy behind the technology of the VTX A12 and then to experience first-hand the innovative new features such as the ease of set up due to the redesigned rigging system,” says Jands tour sound manager Tim Robertson. “We then gave each person the opportunity to conduct their own listening tests on the system.” The listening tests had some varying responses from guests. “I've never tested anything so uniformly flat both on and off axis in the HF range, and they have heaps of detail there,”
UK - Written by Mel Brooks White Light is providing the lighting equipment for Young Frankenstein, a musical comedy based on the Oscar-nominated hit film of the same name. Following a run on Broadway in 2007, this show has now made its way to London and opened this week at the Garrick Theatre. The lighting designer for the show, Ben Cracknell, comments: “I have always been a huge fan of Mel Brooks’ films so was thrilled when I was approached to light this. Both Susan Stroman, the director and choreographer, and Mel felt that the humour of the show would work much better in a more intimate Vaudeville style so the show was designed around this concept.” Young Frankenstein features a set design by Beowulf Boritt that is centred around a series of painted cloths depicting the locations from a medical school to a deserted railway station.
Europe - Harlequin has announced a considerable expansion in sales and technical support in Berlin and Brussels. In Germany, Claudia Frohlich, Britta Fink and Sanela Iseken have joined the company. Claudia joins the established customer service team in Berlin from a strong customer relations background. Britta and Sanela will be heading up the new Harlequin Deutschland-am-Rhein office based in Bochum and will be focused on bringing world-class technical support to clients in Niedersachsen, Nordrhein Westfalen, Hessen and Rheinland Pfalz. Sanela’s extensive experience includes 15 years in stage engineering at ASM, and respected long service within the DTHG. In Belgium, Nicolas Coolen joins as regional sales manager for Benelux and Scandinavia. Nicolas brings wide experience in sales management having worked for a number of international manufacturers in Asia, the Midd
Thailand - Adamson Systems Engineering has named Sonos Libra as its new Thai distributor. Sonos Libra was founded by managing partners Alfonso Martin and Vanessa Chompoo, who have helped to establish several pro audio brands in the Southeast Asian market in previous roles. James Ritter, Adamson’s sales manager for the Asia-Pacific, says: “We’re very happy to have Sonos Libra join the Adamson Network as our new distributor for Thailand. Vanessa and Alfonso are highly respected in the pro audio community in Southeast Asia and we look forward to supporting them and their customers as we continue to develop this important and growing market.” Martin adds: “When we founded our own company, we thought very carefully about which brands to represent and found a very special partner in Adamson. These products have a truly pristine sonic signature that I
Canada - Canadian band Arcade Fire have embarked on the first leg of their lengthy North American Infinite Content tour, which incorporates fixtures from GLP. Operating the lighting on tour has been Chris Bushell, working under the creative direction of Tarik Mikou from the Canadian production company Moment Factory. Having been LD for the band back on 2014’s Reflektor tour, Bushell was delighted to be invited back, and became closely involved throughout the development of the show design, which incorporates a larger number of fixtures from GLP. To promote the new album Everything Now, the band had wanted to play in-the-round with a strong sporting event feel - based around a live, visceral video and lighting production that formed the scenography over and around the boxing ring stage. “Lighting-wise, we wanted to be able to create struct
USA - FWF (F*ck Yeah Fest), a major summer music festival in Los Angeles, California, recently used an Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) Anya system to reinforce the lawn stage. Camarillo, California-based Rat Sound Systems provided sound reinforcement for five of the six stages at FYF. Ivan Ortiz, Rat Sound’s crew chief for the festival, specified the EAW Anya system for the lawn stage which is located next to the Natural History Museum on the Memorial Coliseum grounds. “One of the many reasons we decided to use our Anya system was the location of the lawn stage,” explains Ortiz. “With the museum to the left of the stage, we needed to avoid sound slapping against the building’s walls and bouncing back over the audience.” The lawn stage system was two single column arrays, each made up of nine Anya enclosures, hung to the left and right of the 80ft
UK - Bringing together an array of Bollywood’s biggest stars including megastar Salman Khan, Da-Bangg The Tour visited the Barclaycard Arena, Birmingham and The O2 arena, London; hosted by Lyca and brought to the UK by Farhath Hussain and Think Events. Managed, scripted and directed by Sohail Khan Entertainment and JA Events LLP, the shows brought the music, dance and show-stopping entertainment of Bollywood movies to the live stage. Working with lighting and video designer Elton D’Souza, PRG XL Video supplied a complex moving lighting rig and multi-section moving LED screen, creating a vibrant set for the high-energy performances. PRG director of music video, Stefaan Michels supplied a full package of live video technology including LED screens, media servers, camera and IMAG projection system, and experienced crew. Over 300 tiles of ROE Visual MC-7
USA - The light show during the performance of alt-rock group Big Something at Big What Festival in the Shakori Hills Park featured a range of Chauvet lighting fixtures. Designed by Daniel Thibault of Life Is Art Studio and Big Something LD Cameron Grogan, the show featured 36 Chauvet DJ luminaires, including 12 Intimidator Scan LED 300 scanners, eight Intimidator Spot LED 350, eight SlimPANEL Tri 24 IP and eight COLORband PiX LED linear fixtures, as well as four Hurricane 1600 foggers. All of the lights in the rig were called upon at one time or another to provide audience lighting. “Given the nature of this festival, we wanted to engage the crowd as much as possible with lighting,” said Thibault. “Big Something has a very loyal fan base and has some strong ties with that base. The band wants to see their fans, and the fans want to see the band, so audien
UK - Houses of worship can be tricky spaces to install sound reinforcement systems, especially in historic structures. But in Reading, UK, a different challenge presented itself when Lifespring Church wanted to add an extra space to its home in a converted cinema, but one which could also be combined with the main space on demand. A Yamaha MTX3 matrix processor has provided an elegant solution. Built in the 1920s, The Pavilion was originally Reading’s first public cinema. Later converted into a snooker hall, Lifespring Church restored it in 2013, with a layout close to the original. It is now Lifespring’s permanent home, hosting weekly worship services, youth events, meetings and other activities. For the first three years of the building’s new life, Lifespring used the former auditorium as its main space, But last year it added an extension on the balcony to pro
USA - FOH engineer Dani Munoz is using the new SSL Live L300 console during Ricardo Arjona’s latest stadium and arena tour across North and South America. Arjona, one of the most successful Latin American artists of all time, is known for large-scale, theatrical live shows, taking in a new theme each time he goes out. The current tour is based around the new album Circo Soledad (Solitude Circus), and comes with aerial dance, clowns, and lots of circus scenery, and huge video and lighting rig. From the stage the show runs to around 64 live inputs though SSL ML 32.32 SuperAnalogue stageboxes via an SSL BL II.D Blacklight II concentrator. The band consists of drums, percussion, bass, two guitars, and three multi-instrumentalists on strings, saxophone, and synthesisers. "It's a challenge in the sense that there are a lot of acoustic instruments," says Munoz
UK - ISCE is holding an ISCE Sound Engineer ECS Card Health and Safety Assessment event on Friday, 20 October 2017 at the House of Commons in London. A Health and Safety Assessment is a critical component of the ECS card application process. All ECS Card applicants must hold an up-to-date health and safety qualification in order to be awarded with an ECS card. Says ISCE, “If you would like to apply for an ISCE Sound Engineer ECS card you will need to sit the Health & Safety Assessment as part of the application process. Why not join us in London on Friday 20th October in London?” To find out more and register for this event or express an interest in future Health and Safety Assessment events please follow the registration link here: http://www.isce.org.uk/isce-sound-engineer-ecs-card/apply/ (Jim Evans)
USA - Roger Waters' Us + Them tour has utilised a DiGiCo SD7 console. Monitor engineer Matt Napier started working with Waters last year for his shows in Mexico and Desert Trip following the passing of Waters’ previous engineer Ian Newton few years ago. “I felt a lot of responsibility to do Ian’s memory justice, and make the gig work as smoothly as possible,” Napier says. “We didn’t have a lot of rehearsal time, so it was intense, but the shows went really well. You just have to do this music justice.” The production for Us + Them is down to a strong emphasis on the synergy between the music and the aural/visual experience. “The surround system installed in each venue makes the aural experience very immersive for the audience, and the visuals are absolutely stunning,” Napier explains. “Roger really is the captain of the sh
UK - Vectorworks is hosting a free half-day event at the Theatre Trust in London on 30 October to explore the features of the Vectorworks Spotlight design software. Lighting professionals can find out more about Braceworks, a rigging analysis module and Vision that enables LDs to pre-visualise and cue their show. There will also be talks from professional users on the practical applications of the software in 'real world' situations. The event, running from 1PM - 5PM on 30 October (Monday), will be followed by informal networking opportunity over drinks. The organisers are urging those interested in attending to secure their places in advance by registering for free here.
Keeping Music Live - Campaigners fighting to preserve Cardiff’s live music scene have heralded a breakthrough after plans to develop flats in the heart of the city’s entertainment district were withdrawn. A campaign to protect the city's grassroots music scene has been underway since the start of this year, with campaigners fighting in particular to preserve the entertainment venues on Womanby Street, which is home to several live music venues but has seen a string of closures in recent times. The campaign attracted thousands of signatures, and calls on Cardiff Council to protect the area as a cultural hub. Venue owners and music fans also condemned a planning application to create a hotel to be built above a Wetherspoon’s pub on Womanby Street. Plans for a residential housing development comprising six flats had been submitted for the street, however these
USA - Nashville-based lighting design company Ardee Design Group (ADG) was contacted to relight Plaza Mariachi, a former supermarket converted into a 60,000sq.ft multi-purpose facility. ADG chose to use Elation Professional dynamic ellipsoidal, Par and moving lights. “The Plaza Mariachi project is a mix of entertainment techniques in an architectural application, and we utilized quite a bit of Elation equipment to achieve our goals,” said Richard Davis, president and senior designer at ADG, the 30-year design collaborative that combines years of experience in entertainment lighting with a practical knowledge of architectural lighting techniques. The Plaza’s main courtyard and five streets, each storefront with a themed, theatre-like façade, all required illumination. ADG uses colour, contrast and lighting effects to enhance the space, focus attention and c
UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has supplied Allen & Heath's dLive S7000 digital mixing console to Aberdeen-based production company Granite City Events for use on live music events, festivals and theatre productions. Granite City Events is one of the premium production companies in Aberdeen and the Scottish Highlands and, with over 20 years of industry experience, puts on events ranging from concerts and live shows through to weddings and corporate functions. The sale, which also included an Allen & Heath DM48 mix rack, was handled by Steve Eaton, sales executive in the company's dedicated audio sales division. Barry Sherriffs, Granite City director, comments: “After various discussions with, plus help and advice from Steve, we decided the dLive was the way forward. The versatility of dLive, plus the speed of the system, made it perfect fo
USA - LD Rob Sinclair is using BlackTrax to control the lighting during Queen and Adam Lambert’s 2017-2018 tour. BlackTrax is a vision-based system that connects to a range of third party applications, such as robotic lights, media servers, and any other device that uses the RTTrPM open protocol, capturing and passing positional 3D (X,Y,Z) and 6D rotation (yaw, pitch, roll) data to them. Sinclair said: “I’d seen what Dark Art Creative had done before, and was blown away by the creativity and precision of the lighting I knew that Oli Metcalfe was the owner and responsible for lighting the shows and, as I’d known him for decades, contacted him and asked him how he’d done it. He pointed me in the direction of BlackTrax.” Sinclair used Clay Paky Scenius Uncio and controlled them with BlackTrax, with all seven band members being tracked. “Followspo
China - The global event and entertainment industry is gearing up for the opening of Prolight + Sound Shanghai this week from 11 – 14 October. The four exhibition halls of N1 – N4 spanning 45,000sq.m of the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, will stage over 630 brands and companies from 23 countries and regions. Experts from various local and overseas associations will also address the latest innovative technologies in the fields of 3D audio, acoustics technology, AoIP, lighting design, studio recording, sound systems and event safety. Now in its 15th edition, the fair will continue to feature a strong international presence with a wide range of offerings. Participating brands include Audio-Technica, Beta-3, Concord, DGX, Eastern Edison, EM Acoustics, ENEWAVE, Fidek, Great Wall, Harman International, LaON, Lewitt, LiteLEES, NEXT-proaudio, Neutrik, Peavey, Prol
UK - Delegates who attended the 2017 PLASA Rigging Conference at London Olympia last month have hailed the new format a success, according to the event's Platinum sponsor Unusual Rigging. The 8th annual conference commenced with the traditional opening address – this year from industry legend Morris Lyda who talked about working with the likes of Phil Collins and Genesis while addressing the key entertainment basics, their shortcomings, values, obscurities and a contemplation of its uncertainties. The speech was brought to life by cartoonist Matt Lawrence who worked closely with Morris and Unusual's Robin Elias to create a series of drawings – as well as providing a series of tongue in cheek caricatures of those who attended the event. This was followed by a programme of subjects for debate – the morning session was chaired by Unusual's Alan Jacobi and deba
UK - Load Cell Rental (LCR) provided a 40-cell wireless BroadWeigh system to monitor the loadings on each lighting and audio point during the load in and load out during Adele’s Adele Live 2017 tour. Steve Walsh, head rigger on the tour said: "As the entire rig was located in-the-round on a custom ground support, being able to load the structure evenly was essential. We're talking about a total rig of 72 tons in weight and 25m high, with four leg ground supports designed to need little to no side bracing. “Even loading of the structure was absolutely essential from a structural point of view – we knew that the ground support was immensely strong, but it had to be loaded correctly. It was at this point we turned to Colin Luke at Load Cell Rental (LCR). I've used LCR for all of my tours over the last five years and the service and equipment they supply makes
USA - Metallica’s WorldWired tour is pushing technological boundaries by debuting the world’s first autonomous indoor drone swarm in a major touring act and revealing a new, in-the-round stage design, custom-built by TAIT. The fresh set and stage design by show director David Braun, give concert-goers an immersive concert experience with a 44 ft. by 44 ft. square mainstage equipped with several prop lifts located in the centre of the arena. This in-the-round experience incorporates 52 LED video cubes which ascend and descend while displaying colourful, vivid and flashy video content. The LED video cubes hang from 52 BT290 winches housed in a 60ft by 60ft mother grid rigging system above stage. Each 4ft LED video cube moves 4ft per second and has 40ft of vertical travel space. TAIT Navigator, an entertainment automation platform, serves as the primary s
USA - The lighting at the 20th IYRS Gala, an annual fundraiser benefitting the International Yacht Restoration School, featured 22 Chauvet Professional Rogue fixtures. Supplied by JDI Productions, the fixtures were part of the event's lighting design created by Megan Alksninis. “The first part of the night was a dinner and auction where I chose to stick with select colours. I tried to create a warm look through magenta and amber that was not too distracting,” said Alksninis. “In transitioning to Kool and the Gang, I used the four Rogue RH1 Hybrids in my floor package to create a rock-and-roll feeling. All the while, I wanted to keep my lights harmonious with the surroundings. Newport is one of the most beautiful places to work.” In addition to four Rogue RH1 Hybrids, Alksninis’ rig featured 12 Rogue R2 Washes and six Rogue R3 Washes. The wide zoom range
Argentina - A top Argentinian creative team including director, set and lighting designer Ariel del Mastro, award-winning lighting director Ariel ‘El Gato’ Ponce and video designer Maxi Vecco have created the production design for Green Day’s rock opera American Idiot, currently playing at the Broadway Theatre in Buenos Aires. Robe moving lights are central to creating the raw vibe with Spiiders, Spikies and Squares prominent on the rig, and being used to the maximum by the two Ariels. These products were chosen for the flexibility and creative scope they bring to lighting two other shows also playing at the Broadway Theatre – the cirque-musical extravaganza Mahatma and the erotic show Taboo. All shows utilise the same rig but look completely different, so some of the fixtures are re-positioned and re-rigged while Mahatma als
