Denmark - One of Denmark’s longest standing suppliers of light and sound equipment, DLT in Glostrup, has installed the architectural façade lighting for Danish Bank Sparekassen Sjælland-Fyn’s office in Holbæk. DLT’s vision was to create a luminous framework that compliments the building's architecture, whilst simultaneously creating a lively ambiance on the waterfront. To achieve this, DLT has utilised 40 units of Showtec’s Candela Pix 50, creating an ambiance near the waterline that is visible from both the city and much of the Holbæk Fjord. Showtec’s Candela Pix 50 can create the full spectrum of light, enabling the building to be lit in any desired colour or even multiple colours. This enables Sparekassen Sjælland-Fyn to alter the appearance of their exterior as desired, for instance during national holidays or sports matches. The waterproof outdoor l
UK - Cleanfeed reports that Birmingham City University has integrated Cleanfeed across its broadcast studio facilities. As with the entire industry, BCU was required to find a way of adapting to remote working during the pandemic. Cleanfeed was used by all students over the lockdown period on courses such as Media Production, Media and Communication, Journalism and Sound Engineering and Production. The tool allowed students to deliver professional recordings, broadcasts and media interviews which was crucial to their learning and development. Peter Crowther, senior technician, Radio and Broadcast Journalism, comments: “I was recommended to Cleanfeed by industry contacts and former colleagues at the BBC and quickly realised the benefits for our students who weren’t able to be on campus. The students liked the service so much over the lockdown learning period t
Portugal - Infinity Furion S401 Spots, iW-1915 RGBW wash moving heads, and Showtec Helix S5000 Q4 RGBW LED wash fixtures were successfully deployed at outside locations during a summer festival in the Algarve in the southern region of Portugal. Geopalcos is a biannual event that aims to connect art, science and nature in the Geopark territory in the Algarve. Artists and scientists are challenged to combine their skills and expertise, and take nature lovers to discover art and science, lead art aficionados through nature and the paths of knowledge, and have the audience relate to their knowledge with the natural and artificially created beauties of their surroundings. On 10 occasions between 29 May and 12 September, at different locations, the public is invited to participate in dialogues between tradition and creativity/innovation, to wander and (re)discover Portuguese
UK - Surfhire deployed a full-service complex comms package to the boutique Henley Festival held on the Berkshire bank of the River Thames. After an unprecedented delay due to the pandemic, the Henley Festival of Music and Arts, famed for its strict black tie dress code, finally returned for a 2021event. With performances from Madness, James Blunt, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, the five-day show had to deliver with perfect ambience. In order to keep the event running as smoothly as possible – despite some of the site’s particular idiosyncrasies - production manager John Harris brought Surfhire, part of Britannia Row Productions, back once again to provide radios, internet backhaul, and site-wide network services for the festival. “Surfhire have been involved for 12 years, but the role has expanded and contracted as time has gone on,” explains Surfhire’s Si
UK - Organisers of the annual Leeds Castle Concert, worked tirelessly to reschedule this year’s event, featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, following the easing of restrictions - staging it later than normal, on 4 September. Leeds Castle is amongst the many long-standing clients that have relied upon RG Jones Sound Engineering for decades. In the case of this site, the company has been providing sound systems since the very first show way back in the early 80’s. It’s a tricky site to cover well, and for the highly popular concert fielded a classic system of its own - Martin Audio’s original MLA - to overcome the coverage challenges. Although this historic Castle site in Kent is isolated, imposing no restrictions on sound levels, the contouring leaves much to be desired from an acoustician’s perspective, with a steep hill on which many of the crowds up
USA - To provide Grupera band Los Bukis with live sound for their 2021 reunion tour, AV integrator Sound Image deployed JBL Professional and Crown audio solutions. Founded in 1975 by cousins Marco Antonio and Joel Solís, Mexico, Los Bukis are one of the most successful Latin American bands of the 20th century. With hits like Tu Cárcel and Como Fui A Enamorarme De Ti among many others, the band combined Mexican Grupera with American pop and new wave to create a highly influential sound still heard in Latin pop today In August 2021, Los Bukis reunited and embarked on their first tour in over two decades, performing multi-night runs in stadiums across North America for a multi-generational fanbase. Such a high-profile tour required a powerful, reliable and immersive live audio system fitting for stadium-level venues. To meet these needs, Sound Image turne
South Africa - Johannesburg’s Market Theatre has been on South Africa’s political, cultural, and social frontline since 1976 when it opened as an independent, anti-racist producing house at the height of the apartheid era. Located downtown in the lively Newtown area, the Market Theatre has taken delivery of 50 Robe T1 series LED moving lights as part of an upgrade initiative emanating from SA’s Department of Arts & Culture which is looking to the future and boosting suitability across the arts. These new Robe luminaires will be used across the venue’s three main performance spaces - the John Kani, Barney Simon, and Mannie Manim. The T1s were a major part of a package delivered by Robe’s Southern Africa distributor DWR after winning a competitive tender to supply the venue’s new theatrical / stage lighting elements. The tender was writte
USA - Shure supported the 74th Annual Tony Awards, welcoming the theatre community home after a year without Broadway. Broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount+, this year’s Tony Awards, hosted by Audra McDonald and Leslie Odom Jr., achieved cutting-edge audio for the entire ceremony and subsequent Broadway’s Back! event. The night included performances from the cast of Jagged Little Pill, American Utopia, Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, John Legend and the cast of Ain’t Too Proud, and Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Freestyle Love Supreme. Each act relied on the digital radio offered by Shure’s Axient Digital Wireless System. “I wouldn't want to do the Tony Awards with any other wireless system than Axient Digital,” said Cameron Stuckey, RF engineer. “The layers of complexi
Italy - Founded in 2013, Battiti Live features a selection of leading Italian and international music artists. The annual event consists of a series of concerts held in various locations throughout the region of Puglia. Since 2017, lighting designer Massimo Pascucci, accompanied by programmer Davide Fusco, has created engaging and high impact shows, using the Hog family of lighting desks. Hog 4-18 was the primary console of choice for the 2021 edition, together with a Road Hog console for additional special effects. From a technical point of view, there has always been a desire for Battiti Live to maintain a strong live impact. This remained the case even after leading Italian television channel Italia 1 first started transmitting the event in 2017, and broadcast needs became an important consideration. Since he began working on Battiti Live in 2017, Davide Fus
UAE - Expo 2020 Dubai, the first World Expo to take place in the Middle East region, officially opened its doors to visitors on 1 October showcasing architectural wonders and technology innovations from more than 192 countries. The UK’s contribution to Expo 2020 Dubai is the cone-shaped UK Pavilion with a circular façade which was created by designer Es Devlin. The 25m-high LED façade which is integrated into the wooden sculpture is designed to celebrate global cultural diversity and collaboration. The UK Pavilion uses an advanced AI learning algorithm developed in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture which allows visitors to add their word to a continuously changing ‘collective message from humanity to the universe’ displayed on the LED modules. PRG was appointed by Pico to deliver the engineering of the 2,000 customised LED tiles through the PRG
UK - Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance is the UK’s only Conservatoire of music and contemporary dance. With two separate faculties for dance and music in southeast London, the establishment today is the result of a 2005 merger between Trinity College of Music and Laban. When the decision was made to upgrade the sound system at the Conservatoire’s Faculty of Dance in London SE8, Trinity Laban turned to Autograph Sound who designed, implemented and commissioned an innovative multi-role sound system from EM Acoustics. Autograph’s Business Development Lead Euan Mackenzie handled all the project specification and system design for this very focused application with some unusual requirements: “Performers in contemporary dance need to feel that they are part of their audience and experiencing the same auditory stimulus, so the system had to be completely immer
UK - Calendars lost much of their meaning over the past year, as the pandemic erased so many long-anticipated occasions from their pages. For a group of students at the University of Nottingham, one such date was Monday 12 July, when their already-delayed graduation ceremony was cancelled again due to lingering safety concerns. However, these students made up for lost time when the university held a glittering black-tie ceremony with dinner, dancing and entertainment at Newark Show Ground. Setting an appropriately festive tone for the affair was its technical producer OneBigStar, which oversaw and managed the production of the event. OneBigStar retained the services of lighting designer David Howard and supplied him with a versatile kit that featured over 80 Chauvet Professional fixtures. “We wanted this evening to feel almost like a festival, to erase the disa
USA - Nashville’s new Brooklyn Bowl venue hosted a late night ‘Phish after-party’ following their concert at the Ascend Amphitheatre. Kicking off at 10:30 pm right around the time Phish was finishing their encore with a cover of the Rolling Stones Loving Cup, the after-party featured improvised jam and funk sounds by six-piece band Big Something. Adding to the festive atmosphere was an electrifying Daniel Thibault lightshow that reverberated visually throughout the intimate, 1,200-person venue, filling it with an whirlwind of movement and colours. “I wanted to make this room look its biggest,” said Thibault. “Everything about this band’s sound and stage presence is big.” Thibault, a partner in Life Is Art Studios, added 20 Chauvet Professional Rogue fixtures from his company’s own inventory to the house rig, to create the desired immersive atmo
UK - Blackmagic Design reports that Creamfields, the UK's biggest dance music festival, was delivered using a live production workflow built around ATEM production switchers and HyperDeck recorders. The four-day festival held over the August bank holiday weekend welcomed around 80,000 people to Daresbury, Cheshire to see some of the biggest names in dance music, including Tiesto, David Guetta, Carl Cox and Chase and Status perform across multiple stages. Handed the brief to be the sole provider of AV with three weeks' notice, UK based CSD Productions deployed an OB truck and three flyaway kits for organiser Live Nation. “We had several weeks to pull together what would normally take six months of planning,” reveals Andrew McQuillan of CSD Productions. “We’ve supplied our OB trucks to Creamfields for the fourth and fifth stages previously, and we’ve hand
UK - You Me at Six (YMAS) have recently returned to the road with a live show two years in the making and a streamlined audio package courtesy of Britannia Row Productions. Although FOH engineer Phil Jones had already managed to escape his temporary, Covid-19 enforced position as a delivery driver for a handful of shows with another artist, his return to life with YMAS gave him the chance to overhaul his audio setup and help sculpt the band’s sound as they reach new heights in both creativity and popularity. “The You Me At Six sound has changed a lot since the release of their latest album, Suckapunch,” says Jones. “It went to No. 1 – which is great – but the sound is richer than ever too, with a lot more track and electronic elements. Of course, there’s still ripping guitars, but the overall sound has more depth to it now, and more dynamic range
China - Malo Ma, a young gaffer in Hong Kong, has selected ETC’s fos/4 fixtures to light several new video productions. With over a decade of research realized in these studio fixtures, the fos/4 series of luminaires are specifically dedicated to the studio and broadcast market. The fos/4 Panel was used in a recent music video production by the rising female Hong Kong singer Cheronna Ng. Malo leads the lighting of this video production. The music video portrays how the girl pulls herself together from failures and challenges. A fos/4 Panel Daylight HDR (8” x 24”) is used in a few shots in this music video. “The colour is very natural. I like how the colour-mixing with deep red LEDs makes the skin colour tone and other scenes look real and delicate,” commented Malo Ma. “The lightning strikes effect is surprisingly real. It flashes naturally and makes t
UK - September saw 80six host the first series of Virtual Production Discovery Days at its new VP studio in Slough, Berkshire. As Brompton Technology’s processors are an integral part of so many virtual production infrastructures, it was an important partner, along with ROE Visual, Mo-sys, Cooke Optics and 3LR Lighting. This impressive line-up enabled one of the UK’s leading creative technical production specialists to provide attendees with insight into the workflows and the real-time technologies required to power both live and on-set productions. The interactive and informal programme attracted directors of photography, film and TV producers as well as a variety of 80six’s event partners, with live demos allowing them to experience the creative possibilities of virtual production and how this technology is shaping the future of storytelling and content creation.
USA - Martin Castañon and Victor Ortiz of Darvik Productions provided lighting at the recent Tequila & Taco Festival. Before Vanilla Ice appeared at the popular event, the two met with the multi-platinum rapper’s team to discuss his show. As the conversation progressed, one thing became clear, the star’s team wanted flash, “the flashier the better” specifically strobing. Not having any dedicated strobes on hand, Castañon and Ortiz turned to their rig’s Chauvet Professional Rogue R3X Washes, using the high output (up to 18,260 lux at 5-meters) RGBW fixtures to cover the stage and audience at the Ventura County Fairgrounds with a flurry on intense flashes. “You have to be flexible when working a festival,” said Castañon. “The R3X Washes were great for strobing. We had seven of then flying on upstage truss and seven on midstage. They were stagger
UK - Event and show technical specialist CPL created an all-encompassing production design and supplied set, rigging, lighting, audio, video – cameras, screens and PPU / control – plus SFX for a high profile three-hour live broadcast for cosmetics brand Tropic Skincare, which combined product launches, awards presentations and recognition for top distributors and advocates plus reports and updates on the organisation’s charitable work. Staged at Kinetic Studios in Corby, UK, the design was turned around and approved in a short timeframe for the biannual event, known for its razzamatazz and high production values, which has been delivered online since the start of the pandemic. All production elements were sourced by the CPL including the location and a crew of 30 headed by Lee Gruszeckyj. The client was keen that absolutely no compromises were made in pre
Germany - Bold, bright, vivid with the assistance of Robe moving lights was the look central to Lucas Conradi’s lighting design for the Volkswagen booth at the IAA Mobility 2021 expo in Munich. This was the first international automotive expo open to the public to be staged since the pandemic triggered global lockdowns in March 2020. The client and booth designer was Mutabor Brand Experience, and the lighting equipment was supplied by Cologne Hunters. Lucas, from creative and technical event planners IXPI, was both project and technical manager as well as LD for this booth, and he picked the 15 x Robe Fortes and 36 x Esprites to be a major part of the stand’s lighting art. Four Robe RoboSpot remote follow spotting systems, controlling four of the Fortes, were specified for the flurry of events and presentations during the expo’s press day, and there were a
USA - Bad Sport is a new documentary series covering the most infamous misdeeds in the sports world. Sound mixer Nico Pierce recently wrapped work on its debut episode Hoop Schemes, which chronicles the 1994 point-shaving scandal that engulfed Arizona State University basketball. For the episode’s many interviews, Pierce relied on Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless, chiefly SMV and SMDWB transmitters paired with SRc receivers slot-mounted in his audio bag. “I went to school at DePaul University in Chicago and actually got my degree in audio post-production,” recalls Pierce. “I had to take a lot of production classes as well. When I moved out to L.A., probably the first year I was doing 50/50 production and post. After that, I realized I liked being on set and working with people instead of hunkering down in the studio all day. At DePaul, I used a lot
Germany - Film composer Ennio Morricone died in 2020 after a storied career that featured over 400 scores for film and television, more than 100 classical works and musical compositions for artists such as Paul Anka, Zucchero and Andrea Bocelli. He won over 40 awards including three Grammys, three Golden Globes and six BAFTAs. For his 2017 world tour, where Morricone directed the Czech National Symphony Orchestra for arena-sized audiences, he became an early adopter of L-ISA immersive sound, using the technology for shows in Bologna and Milan. The unmistakable melodies of Ennio Morricone were heard in all their immersive splendour at a spectacular tribute concert on 1 August n Berlin's Wuhlheide, played by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. LITT event-technik GmbH was responsible for the implementation of the L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound-System, with Ulf Oeckel as system engi
Switzerland - The region of Emmental in Switzerland is doubtless better known for its holey cheese than for its music output; nevertheless, the gently rolling hills of Langnau provided the backdrop for the first edition of the Modular Festival organised by DJ and producer, Michelle Kelly Leeman. For four days from 10-13 September, the lowing of cattle gave way to the sounds of psytrance and techno from an international roster of over 50 artists and DJs with music running non-stop across two stages. Michelle has been a fan of KV2 systems for a number of years and she opted for the flagship VHD5 system for the main stage and SL412s supplemented by SL2.15 subs for the second stage. “It took over a year of planning and 160 pages of information were submitted to the relevant authorities in order to obtain all the necessary permissions to go ahead,” recalls Michelle. “
UK - A festival in Cardiff Bay is being seen as the precursor to reviving a once popular venue at the City’s Alexandra Head. The four-day extravaganza, promoted by Live Nation, combined the two-day electronic Titan Festival at the weekend, book-ended by Bay Series on the Friday and Monday. In residence throughout the entire event and broadcasting sound from an all-star line-up, ranging from Biffy Clyro and Frank Carter And The Rattlesnakes on the opening night, to Eric Prydz and Chic featuring Nile Rogers, was the Martin Audio MLA loudspeaker array - provided by Stage Audio Services (SAS) under the project management of Nat Hopking. In addition to the above, Pendulum presented their spectacular Trinity show, reuniting all three original band members for a rare UK outing on the Friday, and another popular act was CamelPhat, supporting Eric Prydz on the Saturday.
