Croatia - Lighting designer Sven Kučinić was asked to create a spectacular look for the Fusion World Music Festival in Split, a two-day event which featured 12 leading SouthEast European acts over two nights. The first fixtures that Sven drew on the lighting plot were 100 Robe MegaPointes! This is a popular festival choice, especially for wide-stage designs like this which used the same 72m-wide stage that had also featured as the centrepiece of ULTRA Europe 2022 in July. Sven was offered the gig after the organisers saw his show for Croatian superstar Petar Grašo a few months earlier, which was one of the first major post-Covid concerts in the country and consequently was a major news story and talking point. He had also used a lot of Robe moving lights on that design. For the Fusion World Music Festival, he was given carte blanche to deliver a fantasti
USA - Donny Osmond recently completed his 100th solo residency show at Harrah’s Las Vegas beneath a rig of 140 Elation luminaires with lighting design by Tom Sutherland of DX7 Design. Just getting started in what is expected to be a multi-year residency, Osmond opened the show, Donny last September less than two years after he and his sister Marie Osmond ended their hugely successful 11-year Vegas residency. The song and dance show is an energy-filled musical journey through the entertainer’s musical career and includes all new songs and highly original numbers. With the former 11-year residency an indication of how long this solo residency may last, venue operators Caesars Entertainment sought to purchase lighting gear for the 544-capacity Harrah’s Showroom as a cost-effective solution for an anticipated multi-year run. “We needed something that would b
Norway - An Anolis Ambiane and Eminere auditorium lighting installation is part of a complete revamp at the Rakkestad Theatre, a busy community hub and performance venue serving the Rakkestad municipality and surrounding areas of this thriving and diverse Norwegian agricultural heartland. Opened in 1988, general manager Magne Bjørnstad oversees everything happening at the 286-capacity venue. Last year this included the makeover and complete renovation incorporating the new auditorium lighting, for which he approached stage lighting professional and expert, Lars Kristian Bakke. Lars lives locally, and provided general advice about the lighting, which before the upgrade was not specifically optimised for any style of event. Lars has been involved with the theatre since he was about 12 years old. It was one of the places that first inspired his passion for lighting, an
New Zealand - Onehunga High School is a state co-educational secondary school serving one of the oldest suburbs in Auckland, New Zealand. Overlooking the Manukau Harbour, it was established on its Pleasant Street site in 1959 and enjoys a strong sense of tradition and continuity. As well as providing a wide-ranging curriculum for its students, the school also provides lifelong learning for the local community through its Adult Learning Centre and English Language School. A significant redevelopment of the school was completed early in 2022 at a cost of approximately $30m, which saw the creation of a number of cutting-edge facilities. Two state-of-the-art teaching facilities were constructed, one of which houses a two-basketball-court gymnasium with exercise room, locker rooms and teaching spaces, the other, a technical block catering to the sciences, woodwork, metalwork, art
New Zealand – Visitors to The Air Force Museum of New Zealand are seeing its collection of vintage planes in a whole new light, thanks to a new LED rig and Strand control solution from Vari-Lite. The museum took the opportunity during a rearrangement of the main Aircraft Hall display area to replace the existing lighting system to the LED rig to dramatically reduce power consumption and provide a more flexible, long-lasting and dynamic solution. More than 100 powerful, honeycomb-lens SL Punchlite 220 fixtures are now installed, beaming rich, blended and saturated colours onto classic airplanes such as a Spitfire, Hudson and Avenger, and washing the space with hues. To control the luminaires in the Aircraft Hall, and for multi-room control of six other spaces including further display areas, lecture theatres, restrooms and the main atrium, the technical team invested
USA - When lighting Carlos Santana you’ve got to be on your toes. “It all changes on a dime,” says Santana lighting designer Michael Ledesma of the 75-year-old guitarist. “A set list comes out before a show but it’s just a suggestion. We don’t know where he’s going at any given moment. A song starts but then he takes off into other songs within a song and the band follows and we do too.” Santana is known for his on-stage spontaneity. “That’s what he loves and we’re just enhancing the whole feeling with light and colour,” comments Ledesma, who’s been lighting the guitarist for nearly a decade. “He doesn’t need to have a lot of effects going on so we look to emphasize the solos and represent the feeling of the music with light. We’re not trying to overpower the music but support it visually.” Following a spring run of shows, Santana tour
USA - Princeton Pike Church of God, in the northern Cincinnati suburb of Hamilton, Ohio, has been around since 1928, and its worship spaces have continually grown over the years. But by the time the congregation began meeting in its newest sanctuary - nearly 3,000 seats in 2001 - it had become clear that its sound reinforcement systems were not keeping up. So, this year, as part of a sweeping upgrade of all its campus audio facilities, Princeton Pike Church of God chose to adopt L-Acoustics L-ISA immersive sound technology for its main auditorium. The decision to go with L-ISA was easy: an immersive system to improve the acoustical and emotional connection between the large stage and the fan-shaped seating area was a strong reason. And the fact that the cost of an L-ISA setup for a venue of its scale was nearly equivalent to that of a conventional stereo sound system reinfor
Japan - The Naha Cultural Arts Theatre is a new cultural centre in the capital of Okinawa Prefecture, the tropical island group south of mainland Japan. Built to replace the aging Naha Civic Centre, the new venue is located in the heart of the vibrant tourist area and contains both large and small theatres seating around 1600 and 300 people respectively, both of which are equipped with Nexo sound systems. Geo M10 line arrays with MSUB15 subs are flown left, central, and right above the stage in the large theatre, with additional clusters left and right and Nexo ID24s used as under balcony auxiliary speakers. Small clusters of Nexo Geo M6 are hung L, C, R in the small theatre, with Nexo PS10s used as side speakers and ID24s again used to cover seating areas under balconies to ensure even audience coverage throughout the venue. Amplification and processing for both syste
Singapore - Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), a commercial real estate service provider, has established its new office in Singapore in the Capita Spring building. The project is a step in the longer journey of upgrading JLL’s technology across its APAC offices. The Platinum WELL certified space at Capita Spring was designed to be “human-centric”, with a sense of community and dedicated areas for staff to socialise. Amenities to enhance these spaces include a barista-hosted coffee bar and beer tap that is complementary to all staff. To build the next generation of offices, JLL wanted to optimise every aspect of their new 23,592sq.ft space to create a groundbreaking human centric workplace. One of those areas was sound. RAIL has been installed around the open plan office to provide deep scientific biophilic soundscapes by Moodosnic proven to reduce heart rates and improv
Australia - To elevate its energetic musical worship services, Emerge Church has installed Powersoft’s T Series amplifiers as part of a major upgrade of its audio system. Located in the North Brisbane region of Queensland, the Pentecostal Emerge Church has three locations, with its main church in the suburb of Warner. The Warner building includes a 450-seat auditorium whose AV set-up is key to a typical church service, which includes a full band of drums, bass guitar, electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards, and up to six vocalists. The original PA system, which was installed in 2000, when the Warner church opened, comprised four 12” horn (point-source) cabinets (2 per side) and two 18” subs under the stage. “In recent years, we noticed that the system was sounding tired and lacking the definition required for clean and clear vocal reproduction,” says Ash We
Canada - When officials with the Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays MLB team, decided it was time to replace the two decades old PA system back in 2019, they could not have predicted the impending pandemic. Working with AV and design consultant Anthony James Partners (AJP), the venue selected a new QX series PA from Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW). With the building shut down in 2020, the Blue Jays were forced to play the season in the United States. The stadium was unable to reopen its doors due to the lockdown and didn’t have the opportunity to show off its new PA system until the team returned to Toronto for the following season. SF Marketing (SFM), a Canadian-based provider of customised go-to-market solutions for the AV, live entertainment and media production industries, managed the procurement, delivery and testing of the equipment. AJP and a represent
Serbia - When they entered the pastoral grounds of the ÁRKÁD Green Future Festival with its wide-open meadows and forested trails on the banks of the Tisa River, visitors experienced an immediate sense of freedom. It was a welcomed, liberating mood that would later be heightened by the music performed on the event’s two stages, a captivating electronic mix that immersed fans in a heightened sensory experience. Accentuating that experience on the main stage, as it supported the sounds of international hip hop and dance music stars like Voyage, Azahriah, and Stadiumx, were a series of transformative lightshows created on a versatile rig design and installed by Chameleon Rental that featured 48 Chauvet Professional fixtures. Electronic and techno music have deep roots in Serbia, having served as expressions of hope, freedom, and comfort in the nation’s recent past.
USA - For Halestorm’s current tour, Nashville-based LD Craig Richter is delivering a lighting and set design that blends evocative elements of contemporary and old school looks. “Given the nature of Halestorm’s music, I tend to saturate the stage with colour and then punch through accenting colours to make the overall look stand out,” he explained. “This tour I’ve gone with an old school Par64 style rig using modern fixtures in an older style truss system.” The challenge with this design was to avoid looking repetitive from song to song, acknowledges Richter. Before the tour began, he says he asked himself ‘did I go out too far on a limb by avoiding traditional moving wash fixtures?’. His distinctive design is supporting Halestorm with an array of multi-dimensional and captivating looks that not only reflect the band’s music in all its intensity, bu
Singapore - League of Legends: Wild Rift is a multiplayer online battle arena mobile game developed and published by Riot Games. The free-to-play game is a modified version of the PC game League of Legends and can be played on both Android and iOS devices. Riot Games held the esports tournament Wild Rift Icons 2022, which ran from the 14 June to 9 July to crown the first world champions for the mobile MOBA title. Twenty-four teams from around the world qualified for the event, which had a total prize pool of $2m. TSL Lighting provided the lighting and control package for the championships which were held at the Suntec Arena, Singapore. Originally planned to be in Madrid, a late change of venue meant the TSL team had to quickly adapt to an ever-evolving lighting plan and proved yet again that no challenge is too big! On behalf of production company Concom and tech
USA - Out on a summer stadium tour across the U.S., the Tijuana banda and norteño group Grupo Firme are performing beneath a rig of Elation Professional Smarty Hybrid and Rayzor 760 moving heads supplied by 3G Productions. Grupo Firme rose to fame in 2020 with a string of hit singles and has won a number of accolades in recent years, including a Latin Grammy for Best Banda Album. As a testament to their rising popularity, in 2021 the band sold out seven straight shows at Crypcto.com Arena (formerly Staples Centre) in Los Angeles. In 2022, they became the first banda ensemble to ever play at Coachella. The band’s star is clearly rising and full-service production company 3G Productions has been there providing support along the way. This year, with its popularity soaring, the band expanded its Enfiestados y Amanecidos Tour to stadiums in the U.S., a tour-de-force t
Germany –Europe’s first museum dedicated exclusively to samurai history and culture, the Samurai Museum is the setting for more than 1,000 artefacts collected over 30 years by German entrepreneur Peter Janssen. The museum, situated in Berlin’s main gallery district, opened its doors in May this year and has already made an impression on its visitors. Featuring modern technology and multimedia installations that bring the exhibits to life, the audio experience is delivered by L-Acoustics Syva and X Series sound systems, designed by consulting firm MMT-Network and installed by system integrator PIK AG. Composer, producer and music director Christian Steinhäuser asked Ralf Bauer-Diefenbach, managing director at MMT-Network, to help with the conceptual design of the audio system. “Artistic projects like the Samurai Museum require extensive knowledge in content int
UK - Renovated just over 10 years ago, Ashington Church in West Susex hosts an array of events, from prayer evenings to live band concerts and has been doing everything they can to keep the congregation’s spirits high during the uncertain lockdown period. As the needs of the church have grown of the years, for both live and online services, a new audio installation was needed as the original speakers in the ceiling beams and down the aisle often resulted in ‘dead zones’ and delay issues during performances. “While it did mean we had a better signal to noise ratio, those speakers just couldn’t reproduce the sound we wanted,” explains Simon Barrett, sound engineer and consultant for Ashington Church. “I even had to bring in a sub from time to time just to balance everything out, which wasn’t ideal.” After having several systems installed on a temp
UK - In preparation for the arrival of off-Broadway hit, Oklahoma!, and the world-premiere of Mandela this autumn to the boards of London’s The Young Vic, the theatre’s head of sound Kyle McPherson invested in the award-winning TiMax TrackerD4 stagetracking system from TiMax developers, Out Board. Requests for a TiMax TrackerD4 system to control new Soundscape upgrade for the theatre’s d&b sound system were made by both the Oklahoma! design team comprised of sound designer Drew Levy and Associate Sam Lerner, as well as the forthcoming Mandela sound designer, Paul Gatehouse. The requests sparked a thorough investigation into stagetracking systems by MacPherson and the Young Vic sound team, which subsequently led to the purchase of a TiMax TrackerD4 system with eight sensors and 16 tags for the actors. MacPherson confirmed, “
USA - Claypaky Mini-B fixtures, the smallest LED moving light ever made by Claypaky for the professional market, are in constant demand at Burbank-based Volt Lites, Inc. where American Song Contest was among its latest users. Volt Lites was the first company in the US to acquire Mini-B and now boasts more than 200 of the fixtures – the largest inventory of Mini-Bs owned by a single vendor in the US. Weighing a little over 15 pounds, Mini-B features a wide zoom, ranging from 4° to 55° for extremely versatile performance. At the narrow angle, the beam is very solid and concentrated, superb for aerial effects. At full aperture, the Mini-B becomes an excellent wash light replacing much heavier and bulkier equipment. The Mini-B's central LED may be controlled separately from the external ring of LEDs, making it ideal for graphic lighting effects, too. “Mini-B
Germany - Production company OTD Global called on the imagination and flair of new Israeli-based creative visual design practice, LEAD, headed by Omer Israeli and Dor Aichner, to engineer lighting and atmospherics for a Hack the Galaxy special event that was staged in Berlin’s Kraftwerk venue for Israeli FinTech enterprise Rapyd. Omer and Dor put Robe moving lights – MegaPointes, BMFL Blades & Spots, Spiiders and LEDBeam 100s – at the centre of the lighting design in the main performance space, once the towering turbine hall and core of the former power station. Another DJ line-up headlined by Tiesto entertained over 2000 guests for the evening. This was the first of three Hack the Galaxy parties in Europe delivered by Rapyd’s experience brand The Moment and part of a recruiting drive creating a buzz to attract developers and programmers to t
UK - Active for over four decades, Duran Duran continue to be a major draw on the live sound circuit. For their latest UK and European festival run, the band picked up where they left off with long-time audio vendor Britannia Row Productions, which supplied the crew with a DiGiCo-centric control package, as well as an assortment of microphones and Sennheiser IEMs. “Brit Row have been great in providing the gear we needed, at a time when so much equipment is unavailable,” says production manager Wob Roberts, who first worked with the band in 2008 and returned to the role last year. “Part of this was because we booked well in advance, but the following US tour was a late addition and our account handler, Dave Compton, has managed to source the gear we need without having to ship anything, which is great as we try to reduce the carbon footprint of touring.”
USA - Nashville Life is a 10-year-old ministry founded by gospel artist and 15-time Grammy Award-winner CeCe Winans and her husband, Alvin Love II, and their son, Alvin Love III, is now lead pastor. While the church has been in existence for a decade, it has only this year found its own home, a newly renovated former church building in Nashville’s Nolensville Road neighbourhood. Nashville Life has a flexible set of audio solutions to meet its particular needs: a DiGiCo Quantum225 console, buttressed with four Dante-enabled A168D stage boxes along with a DQ-Rack in the amp room, for switching and patching, all on a Dante network, as is the church’s new EAW KF810 sound system. In addition, an even one-dozen KLANG:kontrollers - six connected to Shure PSM 1000 IEMs and six hard-wired IEMs for the band members - provide the church’s musicians and vocalists on stage with a h
UK - Elliot Banes lit the Outlook Festival main stage at Cholmondeley Castle last month. Tasked with lighting dozens of different acts across the jungle, drum & bass, dubstep, and grime genres (none of whom brought visiting LDs), Baines devoted considerable time and energy into developing an advanced strategy. When the Manchester-based designer arrived at the festival site, however, he was in for a surprise. “We were supposed to be working on a domed semi-circular stage, but when we got to the site, we encountered a square one,” said Baines, the owner of Spiral Stage Lighting. “This complicated things, especially since we had to change all of our rigging points in the original design by Wingnut. But the amazing team, as well as the people from Fineline Lighting, Wingnut Production Lighting and AF Live helped pull everything together.” Faced with this unexpe
UK - London’s Four Seasons Hotel Park Lane was the setting for a pre-fight press conference by British boxer Anthony Joshua and his Ukrainian opponent, Oleksandr Usyk, with a stunning LED screen backdrop driven by a Hippotizer Nevis+ Media Server. The heavyweight champions were giving interviews to the global sports press, prior to their match in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the end of August. The questioning centred on the importance of winning; the real attraction of the press meet-up was purely visual, focusing on the plush surroundings, the famous photo-op face-off, and the video content that ramped up the spectacle. Reading-based video production company Digital Insanity was commissioned to operate the visuals for the high-profile occasion by events company VME. “We were hired for the playback job as we have a reputation for delivering shows as per the clien
