UK - Bristol-based SLX was asked by DB Partnership to work alongside them to create a spectacular after-dark illuminated experience Spectacle of Light at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Excited by the opportunity to extend its presence within the experiential market, SLX called upon its skilled technical and creative team to work together with Nic Beeby, DB Partnership’s creative producer and designer to create a stunning outdoor design that transformed the castle gardens, ruins and woodland into a magical and immersive experience. SLX combined its extensive knowledge of creating light shows with the latest technology to bring this ambitious creative vision to life. This included designing bespoke projections and displays, to developing audio streams that would synchronise with the light movements. "As leaders in the industry, we're vigilant in our search for cre
USA - Greg Klimetz and the team at Relevant AV Solutions gave themselves a clear mission statement when they began planning the Transformation Project at New Covenant Church’s worship centre in Valdosta, G, in the spring of 2021. “The key word in our planning was ‘yes,’” said Klimetz. “As in when the church asked us “can we do…” our answer had to be ‘yes we can!’” It was a simple, direct, and succinct goal, but one that was not without its challenges, given the diverse mission of this dynamic church, which was founded in 1980. In addition to embracing Sunday services, the church hosts vibrant touring concerts, multiple conferences, and events for community members of all ages. Built in 2004, the church’s worship centre served the purpose of its time, but the building wasn’t supple enough to meet the multi-faceted needs of today. Fixe
Qatar - Lighting designer Matthew Tunchon and Qatar Vision Production Company WLL (QVISION) utilised a large Claypaky rig to light the first test event for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 inside the newly built Lusail Stadium in Doha, which hosted the tournament’s final match between France and Argentina. The event marked the official unveiling of the World Cup uniform for staff and volunteers. Since the soccer pitch was being prepared for the final match, the ceremony’s attendance was limited to 25,000 people but the event had to feel big in size and scope. “Executive producer Dan Bolton and creative producer Tom Davies both from Dubai-based BE Experiential, expressed the need to make this event fill out the stadium,” says Tunchon of Silver Bullet Projects in Sydney, Australia. “The production designed by Nathan Heverin needed to work around the pitch and be quite
Italy - Gian Carlo Vannetti is an experienced lighting designer based in Novellara, who specialises in creating theatrical lighting designs using Obsidian Control Systems' Onyx platform. With nearly 30 years in the entertainment technology industry, he has had the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects, from big and small Italian artists to festivals, corporate events and more. Gian Carlo's passion for lighting design began early in his career when he found himself attracted to the lighting console, despite starting out with more basic tasks such as prepping cables and loading trucks. “I really love all the features in lighting control software and all the lovely things you can create with cues and timing,” he states. “I try to follow the music and re-create somehow that feeling so people can also participate visually. That’s what makes me shiver and feel go
USA - Jason Lovins Band, an independent Christian rock group based out of Kentucky, has been touring consistently in houses of worship and college campus ministries since its formation in 2001. “We’re on the road about 40 weeks a year,” said the band’s production manager and sound engineer Chris Music. “It’s a big operation.” The band’s audio needs are handled by a 96kHz 64-channel Allen & Heath Avantis console. “We’ve loved using the Avantis,” said Music. “We used to have some external plugins included with our touring rig, but the Avantis’ dPack upgrade has eliminated the need for most of those.” Allen & Heath’s dPack plugin package brings Avantis consoles to the next level, featuring DEEP processing functions from the brand’s flagship dLive series. “The dPack is where the Avantis shines, for sure - especially the analogue co
South Africa - Durban-based SA Van Conversions is an established panel van conversion company that produces modifications across South Africa and the SADC countries. Previous projects have garnered them respect from peers within the industry, as well as from the government. While they specialise in panel vans, the team is adept at fitting a range of vehicles including ambulances, taxis, camper vans, trailers and more. As part of a recent project, SA Vans Conversions teamed up with Stage Audio Works to deliver a fully AV-equipped touring bus for KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board Maritime Centre of Excellence (KZN Sharks Board) to utilise during their live demonstrations, which include the dissection of a shark in front of their audience. Stage Audio Works were brought in to design and install a complete AV system for the touring truck which opens up to create a full stage comp
Germany - Since 1985, the Theaterhaus Stuttgart has brought together various artistic genres, experimental and popular productions, internationally renowned artists and newly developed projects under one roof. The Theaterhaus maintains its own theatre and dance ensemble and raises almost 65% of its annual costs itself. The Theaterhaus has around 300,000 visitors every year, with an average of 900 events ranging from theatre and dance to concerts, comedy and cabaret, readings, lectures and exhibitions. Recently, the Gauthier Dance production performed by the Theaterhaus Stuttgart’s dance ensemble has attracted the most attention. For this, the in-house lighting team used Robert Juliat Dalis 860 8-colour mixing LED cyclights for the first time, as well as Dalis 862 tunable white LED footlights, all of which have recently become part of the Theaterhaus’ permanent lighting
Israel - To cater for a wide range of events, KZPRO recently collaborated with Harman Professional Solutions to outfit Dua by Lago with a new networked audio system consisting of JBL Professional, Crown and BSS solutions. Lago is a large event complex that houses three different venues - Spirit, Soul and Dua - for conferences, exhibitions and events of all sizes. Located on the edge of Rishon LeZion Lake, Dua by Lago is one of Israel’s premier venues for weddings, proms and other special occasions. Lago required state-of-the-art audio solutions suited to each area of the venue. Lago’s management turned to integrators KZPRO (Professional Sound Division of RBX / Kley Zemer) to outfit Dua’s indoor dance floor, dining areas, outdoor garden and canopy with a complete Harman networked audio system featuring JBL Professional loudspeakers, Crown amplifiers and BSS networ
Poland - Established in 1977, the Witold Lutosławski Chamber Philharmonic in the Northeastern city of Łomża was named in honour of the Polish composer and conductor, considered to be the country’s greatest musician since Chopin, and ranked amongst the most significant 20th-century classical musicians. After many years in different locations, almost two thousand performances, and receiving numerous awards for its artistic achievements and contribution to the development of musical culture, the Philharmonic took the ambitious step of rebuilding an existing venue and refurbishing it to an ideal specification for music performances. That specification includes a comprehensive loudspeaker system from L-Acoustics. “The building that we chose was designed for sports, not for music, so we needed to completely rebuild it for the Philharmonic,” explains Jan Milosz Zarzy
Finland - Tampere Hall hosted Lucid Dreams, a photographic exhibition of Mikki Kunttu’s work, Light & Shadow, an international lighting seminar that included contributions from LeRoy Bennett, Christopher Bauder, Benjamin Dupont, Ralph Jörg Wezorke and Ola Melzig, a performance by the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra of Gustav Holst’s The Planets suite lit by Kunttu, and A Night of Light international gala concert lit by one of Finland’s talented young lighting designers, Alex Hautamäki. The germ of the idea came from Tampere Hall’s managing director, Paulina Ahokas, who has worked with Kunttu extensively. The result was a collaboration with many artists with whom Kunttu has worked throughout his career, with Kunttu himself lighting the seven-part masterpiece, The Planets, in cooperation with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra.
Canada - Broadweigh was the load monitoring brand of choice for the CF Toronto Eaton Centre’s Merry Merry Music event this festive season. The centre, which attracts over 50m visitors annually, staged a programme of celebrity performers at Christmas, in place of its festive tree tradition, which has had to take a break due to a major roof replacement project. Rigging company Paradigm Rigging was brought on board to support some of the technical aspects involved in bringing a holiday atmosphere to the mall space as well as supporting and enhancing the musical performances. Michael Sorowka, MD, Paradigm Rigging commented: “We were brought on board to work with the rigging and load monitoring of the grid structure being used to suspend multiple snowflake scenic elements, as well as a large 5000lb circular video wall. Given the space the project was being assembled in
Denmark - The Boyband Tour is a vibrant two-hour steamroller of a set inspired by some of the biggest international ‘boyband’ hits from the nineties and noughties – Westlife, Backstreet Boys, SpiceBoys and more. It is delivered by five Danish musical stars – Silas Holst, Kim Ace Scherlund, Teit Samsø, Jeff Ace Scherlund and Joakim Traneberg – who are also the show’s producers. Lighting, visuals, staging, and technical production is right at the heart of this project, which is the brainchild of Silas Holst, so Sune Verdier was delighted to be asked onboard to co-ordinate these aspects and also to production manager the first leg of The Boyband Tour which kicked off in Aarhus in December 2022 and continues around Denmark through February 2023. Sune specified some of his favourite Robe moving lights for the show with Esprites, LEDBeam 150s, MegaPointes and P
Germany – Metal band Powerwolf unleashed their no-holds-barred Wolfsnächte Tour 2022 across Europe in the autumn, with a characteristically energetic show designed to thrill their hoards of die-hard fans. Dominating the staging was a huge 5mm pixel pitch LED wall displaying album cover artwork, creatures of the night, and eerie scenes, driven by Hippotizer Boreal media servers supplied to the tour by Cast. The tour visited 12 countries, playing 19 dates and the band’s performance in the German city of Oberhausen was broadcast on German TV, and a live stream and recording is available online. Lighting and video designer Dennis Feichtner was approached by Powerwolf’s long-time LD Mark Schöffel to take care of the visuals, focusing on pre-programming the show in collaboration with Schöffel, and operating during the shows using a grandMA3 desk and Hippotizer Zookeeper r
France - Coda Audio has announced an ongoing partnership with electronic musician and composer, Jean-Michel Jarre, debuting with a series of immersive shows at the revived MIDEM exhibition in Cannes. Now MIDƐM+ 23 under the new ownership of the City of Cannes, the event is set to reinvigorate the MIDEM brand post-pandemic, with a qualitative programme of keynotes, round tables, interactive networking spaces and live music. Completely redesigned to reflect the way in which the music recording industry has developed in recent years, MIDƐM+ 23 has clearly nailed its colours to the mast under the headings of technology and innovation. It is in this context – and as one of the show’s sponsors - that Jean-Michel Jarre will partner with Coda Audio to present his new album, Oxymore in a fully immersive show at the Salon des Ambassadeurs in Cannes. The show will ut
UK - Music, dialogue and vocal incantations, in their many expressive forms, set the backdrop for the enchanting world stage premiere of My Neighbour Totoro, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s hit production of the Japanese animation classic. Such is the 1988 film’s cult status, the short season at London’s The Barbican, replacing the animation with magical puppetry, broke box office records for ticket sales in a single day. Award-winning sound designer, Tony Gayle, who specialises in musical theatre, took up the RSC’s challenge of designing the soundscape, with the often-beguiling audience sound delivered in all its component parts by a Harman JBL Professional VTX A8 dual 8in compact line array. Through this advanced speaker set up, audiences are treated to a cocktail of sounds, from a 10-piece orchestra (nestled in the stage set’s tree house) combining
UK - London's largest ever New Year's Eve celebration took place at the London Eye on the River Thames, featuring a stunning fireworks and drone display accompanied by a mesmerizing light show designed by Tim Routledge. His first time lighting London’s end-of-the-year celebration, Routledge chose Elation’s powerful Proteus Excalibur beam moving head as a key fixture in his design. “We wanted something that could cut through so you could see the beams and create more architecture with light,” Routledge said of his decision to use the Excaliburs. “It was very much about getting the chunkiest beam we could.” The Proteus Excalibur’s enormous output - the beam light generates up to 7,500 lux at 100m - -in combination with a 260mm lens and 0.8° beam competes with xenon searchlights and sky trackers. “It’s hard to punch through the amount of smoke that th
New Zealand - Aotearoa-based design studio Filament Eleven 11 combines the talents and imagination of lighting and visual artists Rachel Marlow and Brad Gledhill. Working across multiple genres – theatre, opera, dance, rock ‘n’ roll’ live events, installation, and light art – and embracing a mix of medias and light forms, the company is known for its innovative and fun approach to enhancing storytelling with this form of expression. Filament Eleven 11 also owns some specialist lighting and control kit, and this year invested in Astera wireless LED products – AX3 LightDrops and NYX Bulbs – which have been busy on several projects. Three AX3 LightDrop kits (24 in total) and 30 x NYX Bulbs were purchased from Astera’s New Zealand distributor, ULA Group, in the last year for use as “ultimately useful lighting tools” commented Rachel, and since then, s
Denmark - Creative Technology has worked alongside the Nordisk Film-owned VFX and post-production company Nordisk Film Shortcut to create the Shortcut LED Stage – a full 360° LED stage, 16m in diameter and six metres high, with walls and ceiling completely covered with LED panels. The new stage allows film makers, production companies and other visual storytellers to shoot and tell stories in a flexible, creative, cost-effective and environmentally friendly way. The project started last year, when Creative Technology was asked to build a 360-degree LED stage in Copenhagen for Nordisk Film, one of the oldest film studios in the world, and its post-production company Shortcut. After visiting the ARRI X CT stage in London, Nordisk Film Shortcut decided that they wanted to create a similar facility to enable film production in a virtual environment. In collaboration wi
UK - Sonny Fodera performed two sold-out shows at O2 Academy Brixton recently. Throughout both shows, the walls of the venue reverberated with fans responding to the highly emotive songs from his recently released fifth album Wide Awake and other recordings. Helping to connect the music to the big crowd to at the South London venue was a bold Tom Cull lighting design that featured 89 Chauvet Professional fixtures, supplied and installed by Bigabox Productions, which also furnished the video wall. Seamlessly moving from intense aerial displays with aggressive crossing patterns, to moody atmospheric settings, to dark, shadowy haunting looks, Cull’s lightshow reflected the wide and nuanced emotional range of Fodera’s vocal-driven compositions. The kit’s 10 Maverick MK1 Hybrid, 24 Rogue R3 Beam, and 16 Outcast 1 BeamWash fixtures, hung primarily on mid a
USA - The 2022 Latin Billboard Awards celebrated both the classic icons and modern-day hit-makers of Latinx music using versatile JBL Professional VTX Series speakers, supplied by Reflections Productions. Held in the University of Miami Watsco Centre in Miami and broadcast live on Telemundo, 2022’s Latin Billboard Awards featured performances by an eclectic roster of artists; honorary achievement awards for Chayanne, José Feliciano and Christina Aguilera; and a tribute to legendary singer Raphael. With a record-breaking 23 nominations, Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny took home eight awards including Tour of the Year, which used Martin MAC Series fixtures. Like all televised award shows filmed live with an audience, the Latin Billboards required an audio rig that provided full-scale live sound for the audience and accommodated both the performers and presenters with
USA - A lot of lighting designers looked for ways to stay busy and productive during the pandemic lockdown. Daniel Thibault of Life is Art Studio in Raleigh, NC, found a number of means to do this; one was by lighting in-your-car-concerts at drive-in movie theatres, the other was by helping the Lincoln Theatre develop a “covid safe” seating plan that could be implemented when restrictions on live shows were finally eased. “The theatre wanted to figure out how to reopen responsibly for live music shows when the time came,” said Thibault. “So during the pandemic, I spent time making an exact 3D model to scale of the stage and the building , so we could help figure out a safe seating chart.’ In the process, Thibault also figured out something else: how to get “the most lights possible” on the popular venue’s relatively small 24ft wide by 20ft deep stage,
Italy - Staged for the first time at the Cagliari Lyric Theatre in Sardinia, Arthur Laurents’ two-act stage musical West Side Story, with music by Leonard Bernstein and loosely based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, was a guaranteed success. The staging offered by the Cagliari Lyric Theatre was derived from three major U.S. musical institutions: the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Houston Grand Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival in New York State. The performance, which blends the language of traditional opera with that of the musical, took place from 15-23 December, bringing to a close the 2022 opera season with 10 highly anticipated English-language performances. Lighting designer A.J. Guban, nominated for eight Helen Hayes awards, opted for 12 Ayrton Bora TC and 25 Ayrton NandoBeam S6 fixtures for the lighting design taken from Mark McCulloug
USA - Wilderado is a three-piece indie folk band from Oklahoma with a loyal and ever-expanding fan-base. The beginning of the year saw them complete of a sold-out US headline tour and announce their first UK tour as special guests on alt-J’s The Dream Tour, ending this autumn with their own headline leg. Despite their solid success, not everything was perfect in the Wilderado-camp. Struggling with monitor wedges and inconsistent set ups on stage, they knew something needed to change. When audio engineer, Davis McCoy, joined them at the beginning of the year, he recommended KLANG immersive in-ear monitors. They have not looked back since. “As we started building longer sets and were doing more and more dates, I found I just couldn’t sing through the show,” says lead singer and guitarist, Max Rainer. “It was too taxing trying to project and to hear myself in th
Australia - Crowded House returned to touring again in 2022 after re-forming in late 2019. A recent show at Stage 88 in the lush green environs of Commonwealth Park, Canberra was one of a week of rescheduled Australian shows, postponed from April when the tour was interrupted by the Covid lockdowns. Here, locally based technical production company, Elite Event Technology (EET), supplied an all Robe moving light rig. The band’s lighting designer Dan Black used this mix of Robe BMFL Blades and WashBeams, MegaPointes, LEDWash 300+s and 600s to great effect, crafting an elegant lightshow that matched the mood and style of a crisp springtime evening outdoors. Crowded House had played a splattering of concerts throughout 2020 and 2021 in Australia and New Zealand as and when pandemic restrictions allowed, with lighting and video designed by Ben Dalgleish from Human
