USA - Martin Audio’s advanced Wavefront Precision (WPL) line array was out in force at the 38th Annual Norfolk Waterfront Jazz Festival in Virginia recently, headlined by David Sanborn and Boney James. Local service company (and Martin Audio partner) Soundworks of Virginia have been providing sound services for this, and many other events promoted by Festevents in Norfolk, VA over the past decade. Historically the client has asked Soundworks to set up systems at the Town Point Park, along with a ‘back up’ system indoors at the multipurpose, 11,000-cap Norfolk Scope, so that in the event of sudden bad weather they had an indoor option ready to go. “This year it was obvious the weather was going to be bad the entire weekend, so we just set the system inside the Norfolk Scope,” reports company president and senior engineer, Grant Howard. Generally used as
Nigeria - Love of Christ Generation Church has a rich history, founding multiple locations and fostering a forward-thinking faith in the UK and Africa. Its most recent congregation, opened this September, is a newly built cathedral on Landmark Beach in Lagos. The impressive, modernist building can accommodate 5,500 worshipers across its two main spaces to host church services, choir practice, bible classes, and more. Ghana-based Amsons Audio was contracted to design and install the audio-visual system for this new building. The contract was the company’s first major project in Africa, and owner Eben Awuah knew it demanded a no-compromise approach. He centred his audio system around L-Acoustics K Series loudspeakers. “My business partner, Charles Amoah, and I were in Abuja consulting on one of the biggest churches in Ghana when I got a call from Reverend Mother Abim
South Africa - Bad Weather is a creative technical production house based in Cape Town. The company has been using real time technology to create interactive experiences for massive public attractions since 2017. Today, the company has enhanced its portfolio with end-to-end streaming solutions for virtual production built on StreamWorks by Stage Audio Works – a platform comprising hardware and software as well as support and expertise. When the pandemic struck in early 2020, Bad Weather, like many, was forced to revaluate its product and service offering. “Our philosophy revolves around creating a bridge between creative and technical to bring experiences to life,” explains Bad Weather creative director, Jonathan Bandli. “When the live events sector effectively ceased to exist overnight, the transition to virtual solutions offered us a means to continue to service ou
South Korea - To provide high-quality sound that elevated the audience experience, TechDataPS Co equipped the Yangsan Culture & Arts Centre audio solutions from JBL Professional and Crown Audio. Opened in 2002, the Yangsan Culture & Arts Centre is dedicated to promoting the arts community in Yangsan City, including hosting a wide range of performances. The venue includes a nearly 800-seat grand concert hall, a mid-sized 300-seat outdoor stage, a small 167-seat indoor hall, an exhibition room and a practice room. TechDataPS reported that the centre requested a user-friendly audio system with powerful subwoofers in order to deliver pristine and impactful sound quality to all seats, but the venue’s deep balconies made even coverage a challenge. The installation team selected JBL speakers and subwoofers alongside Crown amplifiers. TechDataPS installed JBL V
China - Christie HS Series 1DLP laser projectors have brought a clock tower in Hebi to life with spectacular visuals that aim to boost cultural development and elevate its image as “a city that exudes elegance and exquisite charm”. Affectionately known as China’s Big Ben, the 66m-high clock tower was built more than 20 years ago and is one of the most recognisable landmarks of Hebi, a prefecture-level city in northern Henan province known for its rich coal reserves. In a move to soften the city’s industrialized image and inject more vibrancy to Hebi’s administrative, cultural and leisure precinct known as New Century Square, the municipal government commissioned an exciting four-sided projection mapping show on the façade of Hebi Clock Tower. This means that spectators can enjoy the visuals regardless of which side of the tower they are facing. The ambitious
UK - For the virtual iteration of the annual WhatsOnStage Awards, lighting designer Jack Weir used Martin Professional lighting solutions to translate the excitement and grandeur of live performance through the computer screen. Held annually since 2001, the WhatsOnStage Awards celebrate excellence in the British live theatre industry. However, due to social distancing regulations, this year’s ceremony was a virtual live stream broadcast from the Turbine Theatre, a more intimate venue than the show’s usual large-capacity locations like the Prince of Wales Theatre and the Dominion Theatre. This year’s show required a lighting system that effectively translated from the stage to the screen and performed efficiently despite the limited space, power and personnel available. Organisers turned to Jack Weir, a 2016 WOS Award nominee for his lighting work on the West End
Canada - Working with his board operator Jerome Robitaille and TD Eden Ashby, lighting designer Gil Perron pushed his LSM Ambiocréateurs supplied lighting rig in myriad directions for five different shows videoed over a five-day period in support of a wide range of performances by leading artists from Montreal’s 2SLGBTQI+ community. Through it all, Perron drew on the versatile performance features of 34 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK3 Profile fixtures positioned on his fly system. “It’s no big secret that my go-to light for TV is the Maverick 3 Profile,” he says. “It has the brightness, colour schemes, gobo package, and, when dialed in, a perfectly nice 4300k with bang on render.” To ensure that his looks remained distinctive throughout the entire festival and reflected the personalities of all performers, Perron generally limited the number of Maverick
UK - Shure partnered with Autograph Sound to upgrade the audio equipment at Epsom College as part of a centralised AV control and integration system installation. Founded in 1855, Epsom College is a co-educational independent school, located in Surrey. The school, which has a long-standing relationship with Autograph, worked together with them to design and supply an AV solution that connected three areas of the building - Big School, the main auditorium in the building used for assembly, events and music concerts; The Main Hall, a smaller auditorium for assemblies, large meetings and parent’s events, and finally, The Chapel, a space which was used for services only but is now becoming more diversified. As part of the new audio-visual upgrade, the college had a requirement for wireless microphone and Autograph supplied eight channels of Shure’s latest SLX-D
Portugal - Prolights’ DeltaPix 29B, a 2.9 mm indoor rental LED screen, has made its debut in Portugal, with rental specialist BragaEventos purchasing the screen. The Italian manufacturer released these new series at the end of 2020, to complement its range of LED screens with a rental-friendly solution and a good return-on-investment. The 29B range has the latest generation of Novastar A5s receiver cards with a refresh rate up to 3,840Hz, an SMD1515 LED source and a high contrast range. Besides being flicker free and high-definition, these series were made for the most demanding events and touring applications, with an intelligent back-up power system and easy assembly. Paulo Dinis, CEO of BragaEventos, comments, “We were looking for a reliable screen that could be supported by a team in Europe and that we could cross-rental with other companies. Prolights has a v
UAE - Creative Technology Middle East (CTME) is the official live events audio-visual partner for the UK Pavilion at Expo 2020. The UK Pavilion, which is situated in the Opportunity District at Expo 2020 is based around the theme of Innovating for a Shared Future and promises to offer ‘inspiration and excitement to visitors from around the world’. The six-month event will see the UK Pavilion host a variety of events from multiple trade missions and conferences to various live entertainment spectaculars, including the UK National Day event, which is set to bring the imagination of Glastonbury Festival to Dubai. Andy Reardon, CTME’s managing director, comments, “CT Middle East will be delivering audio, video and lighting solutions alongside providing a team of highly skilled project managers and technicians for the duration of the event. The UK Pavilion
UK - Middlesex Sound & Light (MSL) recently completed the ninth installation in the high intensity 1Rebel gym infrastructure, with the completion of 1Rebel Oxford Circus. Their eighth premium site in London, the brand has a portfolio that extends to the Middle East (which was completed late last year). Described as a fitness-fashion hybrid, boasting nightclub quality production values, each site features sound reinforcement from the Martin Audio catalogue. Originally introduced to owners Giles Dean and James Balfour around four years ago as a replacement for their previous sound supplier, MSL provided a sophisticated AV upgrade of the first two venues, which were already in the estate, before setting out a design blueprint for future roll-out. Project manager and designer Toby Jones confirms that Martin Audio products - from BlacklineX and CDD through to AD
Belgium - Measuring 88m long and 132m wide, with a roof spanning 11,600 m², the Sportpaleis in Antwerp is an impressive structure. But, for one weekend this September the big building and the neighbouring Lotto Arena melted into intimate spaces of sound and light for Reverze, the hardstyle music festival produced by Bass Events. Celebrating this ultra-intense form of electronic music that was born in Benelux, Reverze ‘radiated immersive energy that defied notions of space and time as it enveloped the huge crowd with its sights and sounds’. Contributing to this experience was a series of transformative lightshows run by designer and programmer Leon Driessen of LD Company with help from two ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M consoles with Stadium Wings. (A third MQ500M was held in reserve, but never used). Featuring 1017 lighting fixtures and 36,225 channels spread over 11
USA - Darkroom Creative, a fusion of ideas and production design from lighting and visual experts Seth Jackson and Nathan Alves, combined history, nostalgia, and reinvention in a blind pitch for the lighting and production design of the Doobie Brothers 50th Anniversary tour, which they won. The tour was originally scheduled for 2020, was halted amid the initial pandemic shutdowns, and is now back on the road across North America. The lighting design includes 92 Robe Spikie moving lights which play a key role in shaping the show’s aesthetic, which takes inspiration from a collage of classic stage lighting design gems emanating from the 1970s and 1980s, when the industry we know today was in its infancy. Stylistically reminiscent of that era, there are no cameras or IMAG video elements. However, unlike then, the lighting rig encapsulating the foot-tapping
Singapore - BroaMan MUX22 fibre multiplexer and Repeat 48 3G/HD/SD-SDI Video/MADI fibre extender were provided by Total Solution Marketing (TSM), along with full-service support, for the recent Singapore National Day celebrations. The event this year was rescheduled by the Government from its traditional 9 August date to 21 August due to the increase in COVID-19 cases. These interfaces were deployed by The Show Company Pte, the appointed vendor of the multimedia committee for this year’s National Day Parade. The fibre-based solutions were used between transmitters and receivers, across distances averaging 250m - over LC multimode fibre to three different camera locations. This enabled all data to be transported over a single duplex fibre, thus reducing the number of the cables otherwise necessary over long distances. At the same time, it ensured extremely low latency
UK - The National Lottery’s Team GB Homecoming, staged at the SSE Arena, Wembley in August, saw Britain’s Olympic athletes honoured by some of the biggest names in music and entertainment during two hours of storytelling, live performances, and big screen content from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. With production led by Global Touring Office, the star-studded line up saw Rag’n’Bone Man (otherwise known as Rory Graham) open and close the event with a powerful audio control package supplied by Brit Row. “I think any show post-pandemic has a certain electric feel about it, but this one was another level,” comments Rag’n’Bone Man’s FOH engineer, Rob Sadler. “To be part of the show welcoming back Team GB is a high accolade in anyone’s books, and the pre-show ambient noise of the crowd in the arena was welcoming to say the least.” Rag'n'Bone Man
USA - The Sing! Global 2021 Getty Music Worship Conference this year took place at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena from 13-15 September. The event, hosted by Christian music power duo Keith and Kristyn Getty, perhaps best known as the writers/singers of In Christ Alone, brought together worship leaders, music directors, composers and others in the worship-production sector for four days of workshops, panels, and music. For the fourth year in a row, Brentwood-based integrator CTS AVL was the audio and lighting systems provider for the event. However, this year, the company also took on the conference’s broadcast and audio-recording tasks. That called for a more comprehensive approach to infrastructure, for which CTS AVL constructed an all-DiGiCo architecture, consisting of three SD5 consoles for front of house, monitors and broadcast, and an SD12 96 desk for producti
Germany - With a capacity of 2,500 seats, the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden is considered Germany's largest opera and concert house. However, the huge concert hall is acoustically challenging. A recently installed Alcons QR24 pro-ribbon column speaker system is reliably mastering these challenges. The project to replace the ageing sound reinforcement system of the Festspielhaus had been underway since 2017. The German-based theatre consultancy Walter Kottke Ingenieure GmbH were commissioned to do the job. The specialist in charge, Joachim Lindemann, reports: "The system was not only outdated, but also yielded rather sub-optimal results. “Due to its size and wall surfaces, the hall creates a reverberation of more than two seconds. Great for concert performances but very problematic for sound reinforcement of any kind. The more sound energy you release into the room, t
USA - To create exciting, immersive visuals that highlighted Red Rocks Amphitheatre’s unique layout during the String Cheese Incident’s multi-night run, PHNTM Labs deployed a lighting rig featuring Martin Professional lighting fixtures, provided by Brown Note Productions. Colorado-based jam band The String Cheese Incident returned to the Red Rocks Amphitheatre for the 45th time this past July to kick off their 2021 tour, marking the first full-capacity events at the venue in over a year. Red Rocks’ geological architecture and storied history make performing there a major career milestone for many artists, with performers from The Beatles to Vulfpeck gracing the stage over the past 80 years. Because the venue’s steep seating arrangement means a majority of the audience is seated above the stage roof, Red Rocks has historically posed a challenge to lighting desi
UK - England’s Enlightened Lighting sparked up its stock of VL10 Beamwash and VL2600 Series luminaires from Vari-Lite for the Bath Festival Finale Weekend in August. One of the first major music festivals to take place in the UK after the pandemic lockdown, it saw favourites McFly, Scouting for Girls and Gabrielle perform alongside a host of big-name bands. For Dave Thorpe of Enlightened this was the first time their newly purchased VL2600 Profile and Wash fixtures and VL10s had graced the stage of a busy festival. Therefore, he was keen to see how they performed and gauge the response from both festival lighting designer Nic Ayres and McFly’s visiting lighting designer, Chris Yeomans. “It was a delight to use the VL2600 Wash and Profile fixtures and the VL10 Beamwash luminaires on this production,” says Ayres. “The colours are great - and although the fixtur
Germany - On 9 September, Gentleman was the star guest at the Strandkorb Open Air series of concerts at Berlin’s Hoppegarten venue. The reggae artist from Cologne and his band delighted around 2,000 fans who watched from the comfort of 1,000 two-seat beach chairs at the historic racecourse. Wired and wireless microphones and IEM solutions from the Sennheiser portfolio are ubiquitous at concerts by Gentleman and his band. And by forming the first links in the audio signal chain, they play a key role in ensuring the live sound quality. For his performances, lead vocalist Gentleman, aka Tilmann Otto, uses a Sennheiser SKM 6000 handheld transmitter fitted with an MM 435 microphone head. At the Gentleman concert at Berlin’s Hoppegarten, a 19” rack was located directly next to the monitoring console set up at the side of the stage. The rack contained two Sennhe
USA - Tom Kenny wowed the crowd and cameras at the iHeart Radio Music Festival at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in mid-September with a big, but artfully balanced, lightshow that featured 124 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK3 Wash fixtures supplied by 4Wall Entertainment. Produced by Diversified Production Services, C2W, Firehouse Productions, All Access Staging & Productions, Inc., and Atomic, The iHeart Radio Music Festival is “a real hybrid,” notes Kenny. “It’s really a big TV special,” he said of the show, which was broadcast on the CW Network. “All the experienced LDs and creatives understand that this is not a festival in the usual sense of the word. It’s a huge party being filmed and aired for the enjoyment of millions of fans.” With this in mind, Kenny used copious amounts of lighting, along with video elements to create an ebullient, fest
Denmark - Coinciding with Denmark’s ‘Freedom Day’ - the lifting of all the current coronavirus restrictions - in September, an innovative and popular production of Jesus Christ Superstar featuring the Danish Chamber Orchestra (Danmarks Underholdningsorkester) conducted by Andreas Vetö was staged at Copenhagen’s Royal Arena, complete with a spectacular lighting and stage design by Sune Verdier. This version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘rock opera’ embraced the production genres of theatre and rock ‘n’ roll in staging and lighting. The lighting included an all Robe moving light rig comprising nearly 150 luminaires - supplied together with audio equipment by Copenhagen-based European Tour Production (ETP). Imposing three-tiered scaffolding decks accommodated the orchestra, while a 30m long 3m wide runway extended across the arena floor whic
USA - Christie and the University of Waterloo’s Vision and Image Processing Lab are celebrating a new milestone – the development and productisation of the patented algorithm that drives the resolution enhancement of the new Christie M 4K25 RGB pure laser projector. This is the latest success between the institution and Christie, which together recently wrapped up a third, two-year research project. The collaboration between the Vision and Image Processing Lab at the University of Waterloo and Christie began in 2013. “Years ago, we wrote out a set of problems we’d like help with,” says Mark Lamm, senior product developer, advanced research and collaboration, Christie. “The group at the University of Waterloo works on vision and camera research, and more recently, machine learning. It was a match – we had problems and they had interest.” Waterloo a
USA - Car dealership Porsche Austin’s top floor window display features 10 Porsche cars highlighted using SEVEN Batten 72 linear lights from Elation Professional. Eric Bernstein of Intelligent Lighting Services (ILS) of Austin has worked with the dealership’s ownership group for about 20 years. On this latest project, he worked with Kirk Franceschini, managing partner at Hi Tech Motorcars (Porsche Austin Group), who was tasked with implementing a lighting system that would attract attention to the new dealership. The idea was to line 10 Porsche cars along a sixth-floor display window and illuminate them in high-quality lighting so they couldn’t be missed by the myriads of people who drive by the dealership each day. Bernstein designed the sixth-floor look and specified 20 Elation SEVEN Batten 72 fixtures, 6ft colour-changing LED battens with 7-color multi-chip
