The Netherlands - The production surrounding two shows at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena by Dutch rising star Davina Michelle featured an imaginative fusion of dance and rock ‘n’ roll. Artistic directors were Sophie and Sander Reneman from multidisciplinary, creative agency TWOFIFTYK and Marc Heinz who was asked to design lighting. Marc is well known for this international theatrical and opera work as well as his high-impact light shows for DJ Armin van Buuren. For these showcase performances he specified nearly 300 Robe moving lights to bring flexibility, impact, and drama to the stage, on which he worked closely with assistant lighting designer, Jordy Veenstra and Koen van Elderen. The set concept was based on perceptions of space and proximity. To make it simultaneously intimate and visually striking in the large arena, a custom 10 x 7m glass riser was installed as a
UK - Truck Festival, the Oxfordshire-based music festival founded in 1998, returns to Hill Farm from 22-24 July 2022. This year, the festival features a number of new elements. It is also supporting UN Women UK’s #SafeSpacesNow campaign to tackle harassment and ensure all who attend have a safe, inclusive experience. Truck Festival’s alignment with the #SafeSpacesNow campaign will see increased welfare provisions on site, including ‘guardian angels’ offering support to attendees, and training for festival staff to respond appropriately to sexual harassment. UN Women UK will have a safe space set up on site which will provide advice, support and information to anyone who needs it. The festival has also published the Truck Ethos, a code of conduct that encourages attendees to “look out for each other, respect each other, look after our home, and go at you
USA -When the Hawaii theatre opened its curtains in the heart of Hollywood in 1940, it offered a different experience. The theatre had seating for over 1,100, a large lobby and lounge, retail shops, a children’s nursery, and much more. The Hawaii theatre was famous for its "erupting" volcanos of light on each side of the screen signalling the start of a movie. For more than 20 years, the theatre personified the Golden Age of Hollywood. Today, Salvation Army Hollywood - with the help of fellow Southern-California company Renkus-Heinz - is bringing a new vision for the theatre to life. The Hollywood Corps of the Salvation Army Hollywood purchased the theatre in 1963 and converted it into a multi-use community centre. Faced today with an alarming growth of homelessness in Hollywood, the organisation was looking for new ways to generate more resources and provide hope wi
USA - Corey Easterbrook likes to go with the flow, whether it’s busking light shows or jumping on new, unexpected opportunities. The owner of Hot House AV has done both during the past 18 months by running a steady series of one-offs by pop/rockers Neon Trees. Coming out of the COVID lockdown, The Billboard Music Award winning quartet was in need of a LD to work the festival shows they had lined up. There was one overriding criteria they had in mind: whoever they brought on board had to be comfortable busking big, bold looks without a lot of repetition – or prep time. This ultimately led them, in round about fashion, to Easterbrook and his ChamSys MagicQ MQ80 console. “My good friend Myles Mangino learned what Neon Trees was looking for, and recommended me,” said Easterbrook. “We haven’t looked back since. It’s been a blast for me, doing about a show with
USA - Producers Robert and Elizabeth Muren brought their musical production, David: The King of Jerusalem, back to the Auditorium at Charis Bible College in Woodland Park, CO. The musical was enhanced with a lighting rig of High End Systems fixtures. The lighting was designed by John Tabor of Zebra Productions, who utilised a dozen SolaSpot 1000, 18 SolaHyBeam 1000, 8 SolaWash 37, and four SolaWash 2000, controlled by a full size Hog 4 console. Based in Colorado Springs, Zebra Productions is a full service lighting production company, providing gear and support for concerts and festivals, corporate events, and Christian conferences. Assisting Tabor on this annual musical were programmer Santiago Del Valle Garces and lighting technicians Dustin Russel, Sierra Molina, and Jim Baumann. Tabor comment, “I’m a big fan of High End Systems gear. We’ve had the 1000
Austrralia - The Showroom at Twin Towns Resorts in the town of Tweed Heads, New South Wales lies on the border with Queensland’s Gold Coast suburb of Coolangatta, where revellers can celebrate the turn of the New Year twice in one night, simply by crossing the street to a new time zone. For decades, the 1,000-capacity Showroom’s location has made it a mainstay in the region’s live scene for vacationers from around Australia who come to enjoy the climate and the nightlife. The club’s entertainment programme in a typical week may include a stand-up comic, an annual general meeting, a tribute band, or a heavy metal show. When the pandemic hit, Twin Towns’ operations and production manager, Lachlan Donaldson harnessed the club’s downtime to upgrade its audio technology. With a reduced promotional and marketing budget after cancelling all the club's entertainmen
UK - Britannia Row Productions has provided a full audio package and crew for the Young Voices UK tour, which saw the world’s largest children’s choir visit arenas up and down Britain for multiple, packed-out shows. The tour featured an unconventional arena setup, with the stage positioned at the back of each room and the Young Voices choir taking the place of the audience. “It’s a very different kind of show in many ways,” says FOH engineer, Gavin Tempany. “Usually, the stars of an arena show are the band, but this time it’s the children in the choir, who are singing to a crowd of their parents. We have a different set of them each day too, so there are between 6,500 and 10,000 children and teachers coming in and out for their performances each night.” Given how damaging a long day of noise exposure could be for both the children and the crew,
USA - Michael Pagan designed and specified a new house lighting rig for Orangewood Church in Maitland, Florida, and used Elation’s energy-efficient Colour Pendant downlight to improve light quality while opening up for a number of new creative options. The Presbyterian church in Orange County is affiliated with Orangewood Christian School and both church and school share a number of facilities, including a gymnasium, which, on Sundays, doubles as a sanctuary. The space housed an older system of incandescent lights originally designed to light sports and other school activities, a setup that proved increasingly unsatisfactory for the church’s needs. Pagan, an independent lighting designer, works at the church part time programming lighting for Sunday services and events. He comments, “The coverage from the incandescent lights was really dark and blotchy througho
UK - TV, broadcast and event lighting rental specialists, Version 2, supplied the moving lights, control, cabling and power distribution infrastructure for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Party at the Palace, catering for the needs of all four stages and the audience areas, including the Royal Box, which had been built in front of Buckingham Palace. One of the main highlights of the four days of Jubilee celebrations, the Party at the Palace, took place on the evening and night-time of Saturday 4 June 2022. The two-and-a-half-hour event attracted a global audience of 13.4m viewers, with an array of technology, and programme of classic performances that began with Queen and ended with Diana Ross. Produced by BBC Studio Events, and with a multi-stage design by Stufish, the set featured four stages: the Pop Stage and Orchestra Stage which flanked the Palace gates; the Pala
Malaysia - Robert Juliat has announced that the Zepp series of venues in Asia has invested in more RJ fixtures with the addition of six RJ Oz 600W LED followspots delivered to the new Zepp Kuala Lumpur. The Oz fixtures were specified by Yukiteru Hayashi of Sogo Butai, and supplied by Total Solution Marketing Pte, RJ’s partner for Malaysia. Zepp Kuala Lumpur is a multi-purpose venue with a seating capacity of 2,414 which hosts concerts, comedy shows, musicals, drama and seminars. The RJ Oz followspots were selected as the best fixture to meet the varied demands of the venue’s requirements and the types of show Zepp KL puts on. “The flexible features of RJ fixtures will be highly appreciated by our followspot operators,” says Arnan Rahman, Senior Manager for Zepp KL. “I cannot wait to see what wonderful stages they will accomplish in different scenes wit
UK - At this year’s Glastonbury, ChamSys consoles were widely deployed across the festival’s various stages. The MagicQ MQ 500M Stadium, which was introduced during the pandemic in 2020, was the house desk at seven stages, including the Park Stage, (supplied by SWG Events), where Ed Warren used it to run Four Tet’s headline show, and the Acoustic Stage (supplied by Fineline Lighting), where Patrick Sollitt relied on its seamless cloning and morphing to make last minute changes for headliners Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott. SWG Events and Fineline Lighting also provided ChamSys consoles for many other Glastonbury stages. The MagicQ MQ500M was used to support more than just music acts. At the Circus Big Top stage, James Loudon relied on the console to run 14-hours of pre-programmed shows for 30 different acts every day of the festival with to-the-minute precision.
UK - In May 2022, Burning Man Artist, David Best, in conjunction with Artichoke UK created Sanctuary – a public artwork and COVID memorial for the nation, to pay tribute to those lost during the pandemic. It was also a moment to mark rebirth, recovery, and regeneration. Built by Best and his crew, together with the local community, in the Miners’ Welfare Park in Bedworth, North Warwickshire, individuals from the local community took part in the project, employed to assist with the build and volunteering as Sanctuary guardians and guides once it was open to the public. Unusual Rigging was contracted to provide production management and rigging services, to survey the site, provide condition reports, plan the build layout and production compound as well as manage the structural build and post event clean up. Kate Harvey, director of projects at Artichoke UK com
USA - Following their pre-Covid Moving On! tour, The Who are back on the road with The Who Hits Back! 2022 tour. Lighting designer Tom Kenny selected a compliment of active Ayrton Khamsin fixtures, provided by Solotech Las Vegas, for the rig. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America. The month-long North American spring leg of tour kicked off in April in Hollywood, Florida and wrapped in May in Bethel, New York. After a summer break, the tour resumes in early October with another month of dates starting in Toronto and concluding in Las Vegas. “I’ve been fortunate to have used Ayrton fixtures before, whenever I came across them,” says Kenny. “Solotech offered me Khamsins for this tour, and I remembered how much I love them – they’re so much brighter and have all sorts of resources not found in other fixtures I’ve u
UK - TSL supplied a rigging and lighting package for the recent Grenfell Memorial event held on the 14 June, to mark the fifth-year anniversary. The truss structure covered the 8m by 5m stage and consisted of silver Prolyte H30v truss together with custom angle brackets to give the roof a sloped 10° angle. TSL also provided a wireless anemometer from Broadweigh and an onsite wind monitoring laptop to give continuous recording and monitoring. In terms of lighting, TSL supplied six Astra panels from Litepanels to provide a consistent and fully colour adjustable front and side light across the stage. These lightweight fixtures offer smooth dimming and are flicker free at any frame rate, which is perfect for both broadcast and studio work. A selection of Chroma Q ColorForce 12 and 48 utilised as a ground row offered an even coverage of the backdrop. These LED batten
UK - When Capital Sound, part of the Solotech UK Group, conceived the original design for Stereophonics’ homecoming concert at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff for what would have been their We’ll Keep A Welcome Christmas show, the idea of 23 Martin Audio PA hangs (covering both an A stage and 40m thrust to a B stage) was entirely achievable. “The kit was already prepped and ready to go out, when the show was suddenly cancelled,” states Solotech senior technical advisor, Robin Conway. But when the gig was rescheduled for June, there was none of the luxury of pre-production time that had accompanied the original show. Not only did the B stage now need to function as a totally independent stage, with its own PA, (rather than simply as a delay stage), but Friday’s planned production/build-up day suddenly disappeared when the following night’s concert
USA - Indie groove band Goose’s Dripfield US summer tour united the passion and talents of two lighting professionals – Andrew Goedde and Tony Caporale – who with the assistance of some Robe Tetra2 moving LED battens among other lights, have created an eye-catching look as the band delights fans across America. Indianapolis-based Andrew has worked as Goose’s LD for four years and also owns a busy lighting rental business. When he and Tony – well known for his lighting work with Billie Eilish among others – met randomly at a Goose show, they hit it off as friends and realised that a design collaboration would be the way to go for this project. “Two minds can be better than one,” they say, and in this case, the creative results are evident onstage with Tony having worked on programming, bringing his vast fund of experience to the party, and Andrew contin
USA - With a total audience capacity of more than 7,000, the imposing Filene Centre is the flagship venue at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, located just outside Washington, D.C. The non-profit Wolf Trap Foundation, recently replaced the aging main audio system with a complete Meyer Sound reinforcement solution. The Filene Centre performance calendar is noteworthy in both its breadth and depth, ranging from classical and Broadway to rock jazz and country. Luminaries such as Sting, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Little Big Town and Elvis Costello highlight popular genres for the current season. An impressive classical programme features the Wolf Trap Opera and an ongoing partnership with the National Symphony Orchestra. “The Filene Centre is one of an elite group of venues able to serve all genres of music without compromise, and we wanted to cement ou
USA - Australian pop/punk band Stand Atlantic are currently on their three-continent tour in support of their third studio album F.E.A.R.. Jaclyn Ash, the designer behind their light show, comments, “Stand Atlantic is a beautiful blend of pop with a punk edge, absolutely. For my lighting, it makes it easy to incorporate subtle chases and fx with very harsh strobes to balance each song. Whenever there is a screaming vocal or a breakdown in a song I love to emphasize with a full package strobe. The band is definitely punk in their sound, but they also have a lighter rocking through a chorus, or if there's a lot of hi-hat - I love to match with a fun chase or a flashy gobo.” Helping Ash conjure up this mix of moods on the US leg of the band’s tour is a Squeek Lights supplied rig that features Chauvet Professional Rogue R1 BeamWash fixtures. Arranged mid-stage
UK - The Killers Imploding The Mirage stadium tour played the UK and Ireland in May and June. For this leg, band, audience and crew benefited from audio delivered through a GSL PA system from d&b audiotechnik’s SL-Series. The GSL system is provided and supported on tour by Capital Sound, now part of Solotech UK Group. As long-standing clients of Capital, the band’s sound team was able to draw on the company’s continuing investment in d&b systems to specify an extensive GSL/KSL setup for this major tour. “The first time I used the SL Series was at a festival in Memphis,” says The Killers’ front-of-house sound engineer, Kenny Kaiser, who works closely with monitor engineer Marty Beath on all aspects of the band’s touring sound spec. “We just turned up and used it, and I was floored – it was awesome.” Planning ahead, the pair wor
USA - With their home serving as a pastoral, inspirational setting, Christian music duo Jonathan and Melissa Helser chose to record their latest live worship album at their farm, alongside family and friends. To enhance the album, entitled The Land I’m Livin’ In, the duo also chose to film the sessions, which added a personal touch. The Helsers turned to Brad King, engineer and co-owner of worship sound production studio Creak Music, for all the recording and mixing work necessary to achieve their artistic vision. Knowing it was imperative to capture the Helser’s vocal stylings as well as the environment in which they were recording, King turned to DPA Microphones for the natural sound and clarity the new album deserved. Having previously used DPA mics on live recording projects, King knew that the brand would be the best option for miking both the vocals
Sweden - From 14 May until 18 September, Verket contemporary art museum is host of the Avesta Art 2022. Among the installations available at the Swedish museum, Vivaldi. The Four Seasons offers an immersion in Antonio Vivaldi’s composition. Produced by Emotional Experiences and WhatWeAre interactive studio, the immersive show involves 12 Panasonic video-projectors, as well as four Modulo Player media servers by Modulo Pi used for projection mapping, and integrated control of video, audio, and lights. The immersive exhibition is a co-production of Italian companies Emotional Experiences & WhatWeAre interactive studio. The immersion relies on 10 PT-RZ770 and two PT-RZ370 video-projectors with ET-DLE150 and ET-DLE030 optics by Panasonic. The video-projectors are powered by four Modulo Player Standard media servers, each equipped with four ouputs. The media s
France - The impressive Mairie de Pantin is being illuminated by a new Anolis LED lighting scheme designed by Rozenn Le Couillard from Noctiluca commissioned by the city council to tastefully highlight their newly renovated flagship building. The modern Renaissance-style building, constructed in 1850 and inaugurated as the district’s town hall in 1886, is in the town of Pantin, Seine-Saint Denis, now a suburb of Paris, and overlooks a square formed by the intersection of two major road arteries, the Avenue du Général-Leclerc and Avenue Édouard-Vaillant. It received historical monument status in 2017, and that same year the renovation project was launched to recondition the roof and front façade. The client specifically wanted a lighting scheme that could offer a stylish signature warm white look as well as dynamic-coloured effects, enabling them to transf
South Africa - Gripelectric Worx, the company of Emmanuel (Manny) Sitole, is based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and owns some specialist lighting kit, which is primarily used on Manny’s own projects. Most recently, it purchased eight of Astera’s award-winning PixelBricks from South African distributor DWR, which were the first in the country. He first heard about the PixelBrick via the ICLS (International Cinema Lighting Society) a global group of gaffers, rigging gaffers, and console programmers dedicated to expanding the field of cinematic lighting. The organisation frequently informs members about new and emerging technologies. Manny also already owned a set of Astera’s Titan and Helios Tubes which are constantly in use, so he was already familiar with the brand, the quality and functionality of the Titan LED engine and the excellent overall engineerin
The Netherlands - Armin van Buuren played five This Is Me, Feel Again shows at Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome with lighting designed by his long-term LD Marc Heinz who included over 300 Robe moving lights on the rig. Postponed twice due to Covid, the shows featured a line up of dancers, guest vocalists and musicians Marc utilised 161 Pointes, 84 MegaPointes, 90 Spiiders and nine BMFL WashBeams with a RoboSpot system on his spec. He and assistant LD Jordy Veenstra worked closely with the TWOFIFTYK/EYESUPPLY team led by creative director Sander Reneman and show director Sophie Reneman who presented the dramatic set and visual concepts that defined the performance space. At the heart of this was a dynamic 20 14m box centrepiece that framed an A-shaped DJ booth containing Armin’s decks and performance tech. Central to the scenic design, above the box were f