Europe - Phil Collins - was on the road last month (June 2017) for his Not Dead Yet mini tour, named as per his autobiography published in October 2016. Collins’ long term lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe has created a stylish, animated lightshow, which is directed and operated on the road by Roland Greil, who also acted as the associate designer for the show - the two have collaborated on a number of projects in recent years including Adele last year, and on this one they worked closely with set and scenic designer, Misty Buckley. On the rig are 48 x Robe BMFL Spot moving lights, a Robe RoboSpot remote control system and two PATT 2013s, all being provided by leading UK lighting rental company, Neg Earth. Patrick has worked for the artist for nearly 20 years and this tour celebrates his return from ‘retirement’, It plays London’s Royal Albert Ha
The Netherlands - On 5 May 1945 the Netherlands was liberated from the Nazis. Initially the date was marked every five years with a celebration of liberation, but in 1990 5 May was designated an annual national holiday in the Netherlands. The day is now commemorated by celebrations across the country, including music festivals held in one of the major cities of each of the Netherland’s 12 provinces. In Limburg, the festival is hosted in the city of Roermond and ADJ lighting was used to provide eye candy effects and illumination for one of the principle stages. A historic city, that was established over 700 years ago, Roermond has a large, and architecturally-impressive, market square which provided the location for the festivities. A number of stages were erected around the square to allow a continuous program of musical performances to run from early afternoon right
Europe - Arkaos has announced the release of LEDMaster 1.2 with the support for the new interface Kling-Force LED. Says the company, “Now is the perfect time to discover an incredibly flexible and efficient way to drive your next LED show! The release of the New LEDMaster 1.2 brings significant support updates for the Kling-Net protocol and also introduces support for the new interface Kling-Force LED, an incredibly efficient and easy way to control LED strips.” The Kling-Net protocol makes the programming of LED devices much faster and easier. The Kling-Force LED platform is daisy chainable to distribute video over Ethernet via plug and play and no complex setup is required. (Jim Evans)
China - PR Lighting has announced the release of Phantom, a new hybrid moving head first previewed at this year’s Frankfurt Prolight+Sound Show. An upgraded version of the XR 440 BWS, it contains a full designer’s toolkit in a single unit. Utilising an Osram Sirius HRI 440W discharge source combined with PR Lighting’s advanced optical system, it delivers a solid beam, with 60° wide wash and an even varied spot. The fully-featured fixture brings a number of advantages. These include a fixed gobo wheel with18 fixed gobos plus open, a rotating gobo wheel with seven rotating gobos plus open; a prism wheel, with eight-facet prism and 4-facet linear prism as well as an independent 8-facet prism; an independent frost filter; an interchangeable animation wheel, bi-directionally rotating at variable speeds. Other features include mechanical dimmer (0-100%); double
USA - No sooner had country superstar Dierks Bentley kicked off his winter What The Hell tour, than he announced he would be extending his road show into the summer in order to reach more fans at outdoor venues. It was a wise move. The Arizona-born and Nashville-based star is currently riding atop the Billboard Hot Tours chart, playing to more than a half million fans this year. Supporting him every step of the way is a Chris Reade-designed lightshow that features 26 Chauvet Professional Nexus 4 x 4 panels supplied by Christie Lites. Reade is flying 14 of the RGBW panels on diagonally-oriented truss structures that vary from roughly 12’ to 24’ in height. The remaining 12 Nexus units in Reade’s rig are underneath a B stage, located about 200’ from the main stage. Arranged in a web-like pattern on the overhead truss, the mainstage Nexus panels form a matri
USA - Whether it was someone’s first or tenth trip to the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, one of the mainstays of the epic four-day weekend was the huge mirror ball tower acting as the hub of the festival. Working with lighting designer Andi Watson and production manager William Irons, Bandit Lites once again provided the lighting for the tower with this year’s gear featuring the award-winning SGM G-Spot fixtures. The focal point of Bonnaroo, the large rotating mirror ball on top of the tower, is actually a permanent structure that serves as a North Star of sorts to the festival attendees, allowing them to navigate more easily through the 700-acre field known as The Farm, in addition to providing a home for the communication antennae for radio, internet and more. The tower was perfectly illuminated enduring even in the harshest elemental exposure. “The SG
Europe - French Rapper Soprano – known for his hard-hitting but expletive-free lyrics as much as his massive popularity – recently toured with a new show and lighting design created by Victorien Cayzeele from All Access Design (AAD). He specified Robe Spikies and BMFL Blades, which were supplied from leading French rental company, Dushow. Victorien wanted a clean but edgy look for the lighting, which was also optimised for high trim heights, which is one reason the BMFL Blades were chosen. He also liked the idea of uniting Robe’s brightest moving lights with one of its smallest in size of the current range. The stunning set design by Julien Mairesse resembled a large mountain range - riffing on the title of Soprano’s 2016 album L'Everest - which had video mapped onto it from four high-powered projectors throughout the show. Twelve of the 20 BMFL B
UK - The National Theatre on London’s South Bank has invested heavily for the second time in GLP’s impression X4 Bar 20’s. Lighting resources manager, Paul Hornsby, has added to the initial tranche of 18, which he purchased as soon as they first became available, with a further 20 in order to meet the increasing demand. Both batches were supplied by GLP dealer, White Light. Explaining the rationale, he stated, “We have an extremely substantial rig at the National, and so every year, with my onsite team, we evaluate and discuss what needs replacing and upgrading, depending on both lighting designers’ requests and advances in technology.” He confirmed, “The initial GLP purchase was the result of a combination of lighting designer referrals along with our own need to replace our ageing DLC fixtures.” And as soon as the first 18 fixtures arrived they
Australia - The Brolga Theatre in Queensland’s Maryborough is a typical regional venue – its 900-seat proscenium arch theatre hosts an international ballet troupe one night, Jimmy Barnes the next, and a local dance school the day after. Though the venue is just 17 years old, changes in technology mean replacement lamps are no longer available for their wash lights, leading the staff to assess how to upgrade for the future. The future, as they see it, is Elation’s Platinum Seven RGBWAC-UV LED wash. “We knew we have to move to LED and intelligent fixtures,” said Robert Haigh, operations technician at the Brolga. “We could afford to replace our wash, but not our profiles, so it was an easy decision to go to a moving fixture that could provide a wash, and in the case of Elation’s Platinum Seven, work as a profile in many senses.” Twelve Elation Platinum Se
UK - The Field of Avalon at Glastonbury has been accurately described as a “festival within a festival”. With its mix of folk and roots music, wholesome food and chilled out atmosphere, it’s easy to see why. To provide warm and engaging lighting for the field of Avalon’s main stage this year, returning provider GLS Lighting specified a collection of Rogue and STRIKE 4 fixtures from Chauvet Professional, in addition to 10 Chauvet DJ Festoon fixtures. “As the Avalon Stage serves as a key focal point not just within the Field of Avalon, but also within the Glastonbury festival itself, we wanted to create some big looks to make the stage stand out even more this year,” commented Ian Turner, GLS Project Manager. “With our curated selection of Chauvet Professional fixtures, we were able to provide excellent support to bands such as Sophie Ellis-Bexter and Busted.”<
Europe - GLP has continued to strengthen its UK operation, with the announcement that the experienced David Stewart has been recruited as sales manager. An industry veteran with nearly 30 years’ service, he spent the previous decade with Martin Professional, where he built up a powerful network of key specifiers, lighting designers and rental companies. Starting his career as a Vari-Lite operator, after working freelance for 10 years he then enjoyed stints with Stage Electrics, Fusion and Spirit Design before joining Martin Professional. Finding himself ready for a change, he said that GLP had been an obvious move. “The brand is very well known and they were at the forefront of LED moving head technology with their impression series.” “Aside from their excellent reputation and branding I liked the idea of working for an independent company where I can mak
UK - As part of British Style Collective’s three-day fashion extravaganza staged at Liverpool’s Echo Arena, VER London supported the production crew on Rock the Runway, a brace of daily show-stopping performances mixing models and dancers in a fashion-meets-music spectacle. Built as a full-on rock and roll style production, conceived and staged by Andy Turner with styling by Karl Willet and music by Des Lambert, the installation featured a full height, up stage LED video wall that delivered stunning content created specifically by Colin Rozee of ZeeFX to help intensify the audience experience. A variety of automated heads and effects were also incorporated to allow maximum creative control over the on-stage illumination. Working closely with LD Nigel Catmur, the VER Lighting department provided a mixture of Martin MAC Viper Performance, Profile and AirFX plu
UK - ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick So It Goes is a bold and original collaboration between gurus of electronic music New Order and conceptual visual artist Liam Gillick, which is orchestrated by Joe Duddell and presented for the 2017 Manchester International Festival on Stage 1 at the Old Granada Studios in the city. Lighting was designed by the band’s long term LD Andy Liddle, with equipment supplied by Blackburn-based rental specialist HSL, project managed by John Slevin and co-ordinated on site for them by Andy Chatburn. The show presents selected deconstructions picked from New Order’s vast body of work, played by the band and a 12-person synthesiser ensemble from the Royal Northern College of Music. Gillick designed the stage set comprising the 22.5m wide by 7m high structure upstage of the band that houses the 12 synth players. T
USA - Chris Lisle has designed the production and lighting for Jason Aldean’s current They Don’t Know tour and is using Elation Professional gear as part of a large lighting package. The country music singer has been on the road since late April and is playing a variety of venues across North America through the summer and into the fall. Jason Aldean has 19 country-chart number-one songs to his credit and was named Entertainer of the year by the Academy of Country Music in 2016. The They Don’t Know tour and album of the same name have been highly anticipated by his wide fan base, who admire the entertainer for the range of emotions in his shows and blend of musical styles, anything from traditional country to more upbeat rock, R&B and even rap. “This is my first tour with the Jason Aldean camp,” production designer Chris Lisle stated. “T
UK - This year, Projected Image is lending its skills for an exclusive sponsor event in the lead up to Lumiere Durham - the largest light festival in the UK. Held every two years, the festival attracts 200,000 people to the historic city of Durham and features a variety of light installations around the city. This will be the first year Projected Image has been actively involved in the event where designers from around the globe pitch for space for their temporary lighting installations. The piece de resistance in 2015 was a joint video piece led by Ross Ashton called The World Machine. The 10-minute video featured the work of the Cosmology Department of Durham University and the Ordered Universe Project. It combined theories on the modern view of the origins of the universe, with medieval stylings and music. Projected Image is teaming up with lighting de
Europe - Philips Lighting has announced that its new Philips Vari-Lite VL6000 Beam luminaires are playing a central role in the lighting design for Depeche Mode's Global Spirit tour. Lighting design for the tour is by Sooner Routhier and Robert Long of US-based SRae Productions. Associate lighting designer Brian Jenkins programmed the show for SRae, while lighting director Manny Conde is responsible for the lighting on the tour. The lighting equipment is being supplied by UK-based production rental specialist HSL Group. The lighting designers worked closely with Depeche Mode's long-time artistic collaborator and production designer, Anton Corbijn, whose design for the band's latest album Spirit underpins the show's creative concept. The album design features heavily brush-stroked painted figures holding flags, and this motif is emphasized in the production desig
China - PR Lighting recently previewed the new Butterfly among a suite of new products at the Prolight+Sound Show in Frankfurt. Although it was well received, the company decided to supercharge it by adding five small plates on the central disk, containing 15 x 1W LEDs, to the 6 x 40W Osram R/G/B/W 4 in 1 LEDs already existing. It is now known as the Butterfly II. The new de luxe fixture is thus now composed of 11 independently controlled or grouped LED engines all in one unit. The fixed centre 3.5° RGBW beam is surrounded by the five individual identical RGBW beams, all with tilt control, creating a flapping butterfly effect. This fixture contains five white LED clusters that can be individually controlled or can work together to create either a white blinder strobe or random strobing effect. The entire unit can pan 540° and tilt 270° while the entire head c
Belgium - Lighting and visual innovators Painting with Light were approached to design a special feature for the current Black To The Future art exhibition, which is being organised by art collective Het Labo and staged at the C-MINE cultural centre in Genk, Belgium. The environment is a redeveloped coal mine once the pulse of local industry, now tastefully restored and again serving the community meaningfully as a cultural centre and creative hub for media and tech-related companies and the LUCA School of Arts. The Het Labo logo is a lighthouse - so, it was a no-brainer for Luc Peumans and his Painting with Light team, who decided to imagine a ‘real’ lighthouse utilizing a high-powered beam luminaire and one of the two former mine head elevator shafts that still dominate the C-MINE site. A Vari*Lite VL6000 Beam was chosen to deliver the power and pr
Mexico - The sprawling grounds of a former Mexican steel foundry have become one of the hottest spots on the music festival scene. Started only five years ago, the Pa’l Norte Festival is already the number one tourist event in the state of Nuevo León in terms of its economic impact. This year’s edition of the two-day event drew 160,000 fans from throughout the world and featured a heady mix of stars that included The Killers, Placebo, MIA, The Offspring, Kaskade, Maná, Jason Derulo and Enanitos Verdes among others. Providing a suitably powerful background to their performances was a main stage festival rig anchored by 72 Maverick MK2 Washes from Chauvet Professional. Serpro Producciones, which supplied the RGBW LED moving wash fixtures, flew them on truss that descended in height from downstage to upstage. At the centre of this configuration were two diamond shap
The Netherlands - The saying that ‘success breeds success’ is proved at B-Amsterdam, where the inventive re-use of a former five-storey office block has proved so popular that the project now covers three separate buildings. The addition of restaurant Bureau has seen a new Yamaha Commercial Installation Solutions (CIS) solution added to the previously-installed CIS system. Opened in 2015, B-Amsterdam turned the city’s old 40,000m2 IBM-building into an imaginative multi-purpose office, work and events space for small enterprises and sole traders. New top floor restaurant Bureau is a creative addition used for lunch, dinner, private parties, fundraising and presentations, with many of its ingredients grown in an adjacent roof garden that also functions as an outdoor dining and socialising area. The building’s original conversion included the installation of a Dan
Europe - After being absent from the stage for some years, Phil Collins returned with his recent Not Dead Yet Live tour which played London, Dublin, Cologne and Paris. (LSi has a full report from the Cologne concert in the August/September issue) Patrick Woodroffe together with Roland Greil as the associate designer were responsible for the lighting design of this tour that Greil accompanied as programmer and lighting director using two grandMA2 full-size, one grandMA2 light and five MA NPU (Network Processing Unit). Greil, from Woodroffe Bassett Design, commented: “The grandMA2 system has been a trusty companion for many shows in the past and therefore we chose it once again. As expected it performed flawlessly and assisted us in creating a versatile, elegant and powerful design that provided the best possible canvas for such an outstanding artist and
UK - Like the free-flowing blend of eclectic music that floated through the summer air at Worthy Farm, ChamSys consoles were impossible to miss at the 2017 edition of the Glastonbury Festival. From the Other Stage, where superstars performed, to the Silver Hayes WOW Stage, where LDs cooked up hot looks for EDM artists, ChamSys products were everywhere at the festival. “We had some good things going on at Glastonbury this year,” said James Harrison, support manager at ChamSys, who along with software engineer James Crickmere and personality/support specialist Dan Coombs, represented the company at the five-day event. “There were a wide variety of our products at the festival, used in a wide range of different applications – and I’m pleased to report that everyone we spoke to was extremely happy with their performance.” A MagicQ MQ500 Stadium served as the ho
USA - As a full-service, live event design and production provider, Goalen Group has produced projects all over the world for a broad spectrum of Fortune 500 clients. At a recent supplier awards ceremony held by one of the world’s largest aerospace manufacturers, the design firm was asked to create an exciting production design inside the newly renovated The Bomb Factory in Dallas, Texas. Being given the opportunity to produce in a state-of-the-art music venue, Goalen Group wanted to push their design to a higher place, so they created a truly unique overhead LED video design with FLEXLite Plus 3.9mm LED video from PixelFLEX. “We specialize in the creative production of corporate events and have been a long-time supplier for this client at their annual senior leadership meetings and supplier awards ceremony,” began Matthew Goalen, vice President and technical dir
UK - This year saw the Greenpeace field take a leap into the future. With the theme of ‘forests’, the creative team ran wild designing structures visible from across the site. The most noticeable element of the field consisted of a huge 18m tree constructed by Factory Settings. When combined with ON LX’s bespoke lighting solutions, punters could interact with the 40 Universes of WS2811 Pixels within the tree. This interaction, triggered by a plethora of Raspberry Pi setups, was crafted by Bailes+Light’s Barri Mason. For this setup, GPIO inputs were utilised to allow OSC to trigger the system creating an effective way to communicate Greenpeace’s ideas through punters participating in the activity. This lead to people becoming more engaged with the campaign and influenced to consider future behaviour. In this case, linking hands around the ‘Giant Rave T
