USA - Snoop Dogg’s current High School Reunion tour with Wiz Khalifa takes its name from the duo’s 2012 film Mac & Devlin Go To High School. The 33-city North American tour began 7 July at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena and features plenty of classic hits, including a duet of We Dem Boys plus newer material. The stage production supporting the tour also celebrates the past, present and future, combining some retro video looks with sleek contemporary geometric patterns and blazingly bright, colourful effects from 48 Chauvet Professional Color Strike M fixtures. Production designer Justin Casey of HELM Projects, which supplied all the gear for the tour, approached this project with a narrative perspective that could reflect different phases of the two artists’ careers. “I designed the rig around the concept of having a story board scree
Germany - In the early summer of 2023 Herbert Grönemeyer was persuaded to return to Germany’s arenas, having released his latest (and 17th) album Das ist los back in March. At 67 years old, Herbert Grönemeyer hops and prances about the stage and gives tens of thousands of fans two hours of entertainment, night after night. For his latest tour, creatives Gunther Hecker and Rob Sinclair (Peter Gabriel, Madonna, etc.) designed an impressive stage, including a footbridge and B stage. Hecker, who has been part of Grönemeyer’s design team for years, staged this with a lighting rig that included over 220 fixtures from GLP, including impression X5 and X5 IP Bars. The general technical service provider for the tour was satis&fy AG, while airformance design created the decorative elements that characterised the stage design in lightweight construction. T
Portugal - Europalco delivered a memorable event using Kuka robots for the truck and bus manufacturer Fuso to unveil the new eCanter, a light truck 100% electric. Prime Minister António Costa, Secretary of State for the Economy Pedro Cilínio, and company representatives were among the 150 guests. Team4 relied on Europalco to organise the one-day event at Fuso's manufacturing plant in Tramagal, Portugal. It took two days and 20 dedicated audiovisual and structural technicians to assemble and programme an event that marked the commencement of the manufacturing of the new Fuso truck. The Lisbon-based provider was responsible for the scenery, stage, audiovisual, automatic controls, and furniture. Europalco built an 8x4m LED wall that displayed the opening reel of the event. For the unveiling of Fuso's new truck, Europalco designed a show to reflect modernity, nove
USA - Everything looks better in colourful light, even something as remarkably beautiful as a world-famous tourist attraction that draws some 34m visitors a year. LD Systems demonstrated that recently when it transformed the city of San Antonio into a glittering field of brightness and colour for the US Travel Association’s IPW 23 Visit San Antonio event. Using large format video and lighting systems, the company worked its magic at 12 different locations throughout San Antonio from the Alamo Plaza to the city’s famed River Walk, which was recently named one of the five most beautiful sites in the USA. From the diverse array of imaginative gobos that brought depth and life to familiar sites and walkways, to bold aerials that animated the sky overhead, to uplighting that colorised the sides of tall buildings, the LD Systems design added extra sparkle to the city fo
Serbia - Founded in Belgrade in 2004, Lexington Band has played hundreds of concerts across the country throughout their nearly two-decade-long career, cultivating a large community of passionate fans. The group reached the height of their success with a massive concert at Stark Arena in March 2020, captivating an audience of 20,000 people. As their popularity and concert attendance grew, the band’s members became increasingly interested in advanced audio equipment and its impact on sound quality. In pursuit of the ideal solution to meet their on-stage requirements and enable audiences to fully appreciate their music, they decided to invest in a Waves-enabled DiGiCo SD11 mixing console. AVL Projekt, the DiGiCo’s Serbian distributor, was engaged to offer support and invited the band to visit their demo space in Novi Sad, where audio engineer Dragoslav Beljin, who ha
Japan - After cancellations had been imposed on Japanese outdoor festivals with the outbreak of COVID-19 - followed by restrictions (including masks to be worn) - finally this year all regulations were lifted, and large-scale rock festivals returned to the annual calendar. Japan Jam 2023 was no exception. The event is held over Japan’s Golden Week holidays and sets out to honour the best rock music performed by domestic musicians. Artists are drawn from alternative, indie, metal and other rock music genres, and this year the festival saw a record number of participants. But Chiba City Soga Sports Park, where Japan Jam takes place, is surrounded by heavily populated residential and commercial areas. And so with the lifting of restrictions, and requirement for a higher SPL to be reinstated, emphasis needed to be placed on tight noise control, to prevent sound from esca
Czech Republic - Sound Kitchen, now in its 15th year, recently took place as part of the Prague Quadrennial 2023. Held every four years - as its name suggests -the Prague Quadrennial is an international festival of theatre and stage design that celebrates the diversity of all theatre arts in a holistic and interactive way. Sound Kitchen, as part of PQ2023, provides an opportunity for the audio-curious to perform their work and exchange ideas in an experimental and experiential, multichannel and immersive environment. The collaborative exploration project is organised and co-curated by sound designer, Peter Rice, and Out Board’s Robin Whitaker, with support from a selected team of international sound designers, engineers and artists, as well as manufacturers, committed to the highest quality audio reproduction. Invited to join the fold for this year’s Sound Ki
Japan - Inspired by Shogakukan’s NEO series of picture books, the Zukan Museum Ginza in Tokyo is described as an ‘experience-based facility’ that fuses the digital and the real. Zukan Museum offers an immersive and interactive journey to discover the natural world beyond time and space. Over 100 Genelec loudspeakers combined with cutting edge video technology help drive the experience where natural environments of forests and water are seamlessly connected for a magical journey through the world of living things. "The museum faithfully recreates the ecosystem of the natural world, with different creatures appearing in each area, such as the forest, savanna, underwater, etc., where the act of observing and recording the creatures is interactive. For example, if you get too close to a creature, it will be startled and run away," explains Mr. Jun Fujiwara of invisi Ltd, w
Albania - Prolights fixtures created an enchanting atmosphere during the grand finale of Muza competition 2023. The project, conceived by the Union of Albanian Municipalities, aims to inspire young enthusiasts and professionals to ‘revive ethnographic elements in the world of fashion design’. The grand finale, held in Tirana, brought together the different Albanian-speaking sectors, who showcased their extraordinary collections in a show that mesmerised the attendees. The event not only celebrated Albania's rich cultural heritage but also recognised the exceptional talent of its up-and-coming fashion designers. ASLV Albania designed and created the lighting for this event and relied on ASLV, Prolights distributor in the area in an event organized by Kuadr Events. The lighting system used for the grand finale featured the following range of Prolights fixtures
USA - American rockers Fall Out Boy released their first new album in five years in March, So Much (For) Stardust, and then kicked off their So Much For (Tour) Dust tour in style on 21 June, playing a 27-song set at a packed Wrigley Field. Lighting design is by Connor Sullivan of So Midwest, who is using Elation’s new Fuze Wash 500 on his tour design, along with Prisma Wash 100 lights from Magmatic effects. Lighting supply is by Upstaging. The new album has been described as 'cinematic' and the tour’s creative directors Amber Rimell & Bronski of Tawbox, along with Connor, talked about doing something for the tour that was more storytelling and theatrical. The entire point, says Connor, just like the new album, “was to show separation and difference while also showing balance. We have our outward sides that we show the world and our inside that we keep
Italy - Meet Music Festival is an annual musical artists competition created by DJ producer, Luca Guerrieri who is also founder of Claps Records and DVS Records. Luca created Meet Music Festival with the goal of giving the opportunity for young talents, DJs, and some not yet established artists to perform in a real professional experience. This year’s two-day event was held in Follonica at Casello Hydraulico and had six sponsors including Red Bull, Sounder, and premium loudspeaker brand, 1 Sound. At this year’s Meet Music Festival, there were four contests in collaboration with Red Bull, Grey Cat Jazz Festival, Claps Records & Tartara and Higher Sound & Follsonica that highlighted four different genres of music, from deep house to Hip Hop and Trap. The jury was made up of professionals such as Renato Tanchis (A&R Sony Music) and Pierangelo Mauri (histor
Europe - It’s been a busy year so far for lighting designer Tim Routledge, including crafting the production lighting design for Helene Fischer’s new LIVE 2023 arena tour collaboration with Cirque du Soleil, which is playing to sold out audiences across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland until the autumn, presenting an energetic collage of a 360° production, seat-edge acrobatics, and musical performance. Cirque’s creative team led by Marie-Helen Delage approached Tim to work alongside show director Genevieve Dorion-Coupal and set designer Bruce Rodgers on this ambitious production. The lighting rig utilises 56 x Robe iFortes, nine running on RoboSpot systems plus 116 x Robe Spiider LED wash beam moving lights, together with many other luminaires, all supplied by Solotech out of the UK. Lighting director on the road for this fusion of circus, theatre
Turkey - Prolights Air 5Fans impressed the audience of the Hep Yeni Kal music festival with the performance of Mabel Matiz, a songwriter and pop musician who has quickly established herself as a major player in the Turkish and international music scene. The festival took place at of Küçükçiftlik Park in Istanbul where Imagine Dragons, Elton John, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and Lana Del Rey have played. Prolights Turkish distributor, Modern Elektronik, supplied Prolights devices to rental company SOLID Technical, the system integrator at Küçükçiftlik Park. In collaboration with the event planning agency Epifoni Events and the lighting designer Sinan Akbaş, a customised lighting system was designed and installed for the event. For the stage lighting during the Mabel Matiz concert, a total of 48 Prolights Air 5Fan were used: half of the projectors were positi
USA - Chart-topping country singer Morgan Wallen has set off on a tour of arenas, stadiums, and amphitheatres across North America. At the heart of the design for the shows are an army of VL3600 Profile IP fixtures from Vari-Lite, which are rigged centre stage and creating an array of high intensity effects and rich colours. Raw Cereal served as the Creative Production House for the tour, with founders Anders Rahm and Cort Lawrence as creative director and show director respectively. Keen to find a feature-laden fixture that would be “capable of transforming the stage into a canvas of endless possibilities”, they sourced 130 VL3600 fixtures from PGP to play a crucial role in the look and feel of the show. “The VL3600 emerged as our literal beacon of light, surpassing our expectations with its remarkable versatility,” says Lawrence. “As we curated a production
USA - A Green Hippo Hippotizer Tierra+ MK2 media server drove centre stage visuals at the VEX Robotics World Championship 2023, which brought young innovators from around the world to compete using their school-engineered robots. Held at the 10,000-capacity Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Centre in downtown Dallas, the championships took place over 10 days and featured an opening and closing ceremony, competition battles, and an awards presentation. This year’s visual setup was made up of a 3:1 aspect ratio (63’ wide x 20’ high) main stage wall, which included a 12’ x 9’ guillotine door in the centre for presenters to enter and exit throughout the show. To accommodate all audience members in the in-the-round arena, a huge LED screen ‘chandelier’ was hung in the centre of the venue above the stage, creating a viewing opportunity to any seat in the house. T
India - The first Lollapalooza edition in Asia was staged at Mahalaxmi Racecourse, Mumbai. With over 60,000 people in attendance, the festival witnessed both local and international headliners with state-of-the-art stage designs and experience zones across the festival. Imagine Dragons, Great Van Fleet, The Strokes, Cigarettes After Sex, AP Dhillon, Diplo, Jackson Wang, and Prateek Kuhad among many other famed artists were among the performers. grandMA3 consoles were the preferred choice to design and control the on-stage lighting. Four grandMA3 full-size were used in total with four more grandMA3 full-size held in backup during the two-day festival. Award-winning lighting designer Naveen Deshpande (founder) and Satvinder Singh - senior designer of ground control were the lighting consultants for Lollapalooza India. Naveen Deshpande comments: “We wanted to st
UK - 50 Cent, Lil Yatchty, Travis Scott and D_Block Europe were among the urban music line-up appearing on the Serious 25m TZ Roof at Wireless Festival last week. Serious Stages is supplying stages and site structures for Festival Republic across a range of UK festivals throughout the summer and has recently returned to Wireless Festival. Serious operations manager Abbey Thomas says: “We work closely with Festival Republic’s creative and production teams to design and install stages that meet the needs of the headliners, while also creating a unique aesthetic for their events. “Our TZ Roof was installed as the main stage at Wireless and incorporates bespoke curved screens on the goalposts to create a seamless, immersive visual experience for the audience. With the use of recently designed HD bowstrings, we were able to increase the capacity of the roof loa
Spain - The Bilbao Exhibition Centre (BEC) was dressed for a special occasion recently for the farewell concert party for Hertzainak, spread over two nights. Hertzainak was a leading light in the movement known as ‘Basque radical rock’. Their first records combined the provocation of punk with the dance rhythms of reggae and ska, maintaining the political situation in the Basque Country as the context of their songs. Lighting designer Carlos Cirre was commissioned to design a show that would transport the audience back to the style of the 80s and 90s and evoke a retro spirit recreated by 100 fixtures from the catalogue of GLP. This included 35 of the new impression X5. According to Cirre, “The entire stage ceiling was covered with X5 luminaires. Although it was a completely new experience for me, I think this was one of the great discoveries of the event, a
UK - After 14m albums sold, including two No. 1 hits, and a fistful of awards from Grammys to Brits, Mumford & Sons continue to surprise fans by pulling out widely varied musical influences, from ancient folk to highly polished modern rock. On the band’s current global festival tour, designer Ed Warren reflects this expansive sense of discovery with a background that uses a combination of video tiles and lighting, along with fireworks from Strictly FX, to convey dramatically different impressions throughout the band’s 90-minute-plus shows. At times, Warren creates a bright, seemingly solid wall of light behind the group, using the majority of the 108 Chauvet Professional Strike 1 fixtures in his kit, which is being supplied by Neg Earth in the UK and Europe, and Upstaging in the USA/Canada. During other segments of the show, the designer will have video images
The Netherlands - Successful singer-songwriter duo Nick & Simon (Nick Schilder & Simon Keizer) played six sold-out nights at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena, the culmination of their Nu of Ooit (Now or Someday) tour which also was the last time they will appear in this format, as after 17 years of performing together, both artists now intend to pursue solo careers. Lighting was designed by Martijn Steman of Triple Showtechniek working closely with artistic / show director Ad de Haan from Live Legends with the help of approximately 220 x Robe moving lights on the live show rig, plus another 60 x Robe Spiiders appearing as virtual light sources within the digital scenery that defined the stage design and show aesthetic. Jim de Brouwer from Live Legends created the set design in conjunction with Sander van der Ham of Bluepaper and creative Desiree van Giezen, wh
USA - Moving lighting fixtures around at a festival often requires some careful logistics. Moving crews around calls for considerable skill too. George Cannon got a first-hand view of both recently when he was hired by Harford Sound to be the house LD at the That Tent at Bonnaroo. “Harford Sound was responsible for the That Tent and the This stage at the festival,” said Cannon. “They had morning and night shift crews that would tag off around 6-7 PM. We stayed at an Airbnb about 30 minutes away from site. So logistics alone for all those crew was a lot. Harford Sound and Rock the House AV did a great job making this project rock. The job everyone involved did was amazing.” Tasked with providing audio, lighting and full staffing for both stages from 8am to 3am daily, Harford Sound broke the project into two shifts. With a crew 18 deep, the company furn
UK - Occupying the stunning Tudor courtyard, the two-week Hampton Court Palace Music Festival returned recently to this Grade I royal palace setting, dating back to the early 16th century and once home to Henry VIII. Working within constraints of heritage buildings and tasked with creating a technical infrastructure for the event in recent years has been SWG Events. A major investment in the manufacturer’s technology has enabled them to field an end-to-end solution (the latest acquisitions being further Torus T1215 speakers and SXC118 single 18in cardioid subwoofers). This is in support of their flagship WPL Wavefront Precision line array which was deployed as the main PA hangs. All of which has this year delighted the many visiting sound engineers accompanying artists ranging from Gladys Knight, Kaiser Chiefs, Soft Cell, Kool & The Gang and Tom Jones, who
USA - Ed Sheeran’s Mathematics tour has entertained more than 4.5m fans across three continents since it launched in Dublin on 23 April of last year. Additionally, the tour has been a valuable proving ground for advanced sound reinforcement technologies. The tour was the first to carry Milan AVB networked signals from FOH mix through to the individual loudspeaker boxes - in this case, 212 Panther large-format linear line array loudspeakers from Major Tom. The tour also has been a test bench for Meyer Sound’s new Nebra software platform for network configuration and system monitoring, while MAPP 3D prediction software has streamlined the task of realigning coverage for varying stadium shapes and sizes. “The network has been rock solid, and we’ve used Milan AVB as our primary input since early in the European leg,” says system engineer Adam Wells. “Wit
Germany - Sefa Jeroen Vlaarkamp, known by the stage name Sefa (pronounced Sèfa), has been making waves in the music scene with his high powered hardstyle and hardcore scene music, with Frenchcore as a subgenre. Joined by a group of guest artists at Cologne’s Die Halle Tor 2, Sefa shook up the famed venue during a four-and-a-half-hour show with a blend of musical influences coming together in a multi-sensory experience that combined the fiery intensity of hardstyle with the melodic influences found in Frenchcore. With the technical support and lighting design of Guido Schütz of Laser Frame and Patrick Hirt of Creative Sounds Veranstaltungstechnik, the show captivated the audience. Commanding attention at the centre of the stage was a grand piano. Adding to the visual impact of that piano, which was set up on a rolling platform, were the four Chauvet Profession
