USA - Located in Nashville, Tennessee, The Belonging Co. (TBCo) is becoming one of the fastest growing in the USA: its congregation has increased from just seven at its outset to many thousands in only six years. Along with weekly worship services, the church also includes a worship collective comprising a number of well-known Nashville-based artists who call the church home, an annual conference, and even a college. TBCo has always prioritised excellent live production. With a recent video system installation by integrator Diversified, in partnership with THOR AV, developer of LED video walls and headset microphones, TBCo now has a LED video wall to match, driven by Brompton Technology’s Tessera S8 LED processor. TBCo has lots of experience with LED wall products from multiple manufacturers and of various quality levels, but when it was time to develop the look and
USA - Livestream concerts are not just for rock. The Augusta Symphony demonstrated that in spirited fashion recently with its A Little Night of Music, a pay-per-view Friday night show that drew an enthusiastic response from music lovers throughout its market. Taking place at the historic Miller Theatre in downtown Augusta, the livestream performance followed strict social distancing guideless. A very limited crowd was allowed to buy tickets for the performance in the spacious venue; and there was no intermission during the show to minimize contact. The orchestra itself was reimagined to include a smaller number of musicians on stage, led by music director Dirk Meyer, and featuring principal violinist Anastasia Petrunina, oboist Brian Lyons, and trumpeter Brian Winegardner. Despite the limited number of musicians, the livestream show encompassed a bold and divers
Singapore - Founded over half a century ago by 25 original members, Bartley Christian Church has grown organically into one of the largest churches in Singapore. To keep up with that growth, the church built a new fan-shaped sanctuary in 2006 that can accommodate 1,200 congregants. However, sightlines were challenging from the start, and as the system aged, it could not keep up with the church’s shift to higher impact music. Local AV integration firm and regional Danley distributor, Soundsmith Solutions, designed and installed a new sound reinforcement system for the church that centres on two Danley J7-95 Jericho Horns, a variety of Danley smaller full-range boxes for fill, and four Danley TH118XL subwoofers for low-end support. “The existing system at Bartley Christian Church, being 10 years old, was showing its age and struggling to keep up with the higher impac
USA - The Floridian in St. Petersburg, Florida, began life in the 1920s as a bank, then was transformed into a cinema, and later a concert hall known as the State Theatre before being shuttered in 2018. Designed in the neo-classical architecture style - arched doorways, Greek columns, ornate carvings - the venue has stood the test of time. Now, purchased by St. Pete native and entrepreneur Kevin Chadwick, who oversaw an estimated $1m-plus renovation that he described as ‘a passion project’ it has become the Floridian Social Club, a lounge, concert venue, and event space in the heart of the city’s downtown Central Avenue entertainment district. At the heart of the Floridian is an L-Acoustics Kara PA system, installed by local integrator ESI Production Services. The new loudspeaker setup comprises two hangs of nine Kara boxes per side and a single flown ARCS Focus
UK - Crosstown Concerts made a successful entry into the broadcast market, with its first online concert for English folk act Bellowhead, selling 8,200 tickets on 5 December 2020. After live shows fell casualty to pandemic shutdown from March 2020, Crosstown Concerts spent months researching options for their artists to connect with fans, and start reinstating the all-important revenue streams. Stabal’s concert broadcast for Bellowhead’s first show in four-and-a-half years, proved very popular with gig-starved fans, with 70% of ticket sales being the higher value option for 30-day video-on-demand passes. Irish singer Damien Dempsey also enjoyed a successful stream on 23 December, with further streamed concert tickets available for Seth Lakeman in February. Crosstown Concerts director, Conal Dodds, said: “We knew the return to full-capacity shows would be so
The Netherlands - For more than 25 years, Euroconcerts Audio Control has called on DPA Microphones to provide reliable sound reinforcement for a wide array of musical productions. Included among the Euroconcerts mic locker are the DPA 4015 Wide Cardioid, 2011 Twin Diaphragm Cardioid, 4023 Compact Cardioid, 4037 Compact Omnidirectional, 4099 Instrument Microphone, 4061 Miniature Omnidirectional and d:facto 4018V Vocal Microphones. Most recently, the company implemented the 2011 Cardioid for a classical music production that aired on Dutch National TV. “In previous years, we would record a choir with a stereo mic set up,” explains Euroconcerts founder, Johan van Loo. “However, due to COVID restrictions this year, we were only able to have a small number of singers on-stage. Therefore, we had to switch to a close-mic'ing setup - and the 2011 proved to be the perfect solut
UK - Television lighting rental company Version 2 supported lighting director James Tinsley, gaffer Adam Mitchell and the production crew behind the latest run of I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!. The impact of COVID-19 resulted in a well-publicised relocation of the show, from the Australian jungle of New South Wales to the atmospheric setting of Gwrych Castle in Abergele, North Wales. The combination of a new venue plus the global pandemic presented a multitude of challenges, which the production team overcame to make this 20th season of the show one of the most successful runs yet. As one of the first UK TV shows to make a full return to regular production, including nightly live broadcasts direct from the location, the IAC team implemented stringent operational guidelines across the board. Alongside this, Version 2 added their own set of carefully
USA - The Wonder Years’ November livestream was a homecoming of sorts, not only for the Top 20 alt rockers, but for Victor Zeiser who lit the 90-minute show. “This band is one of our oldest clients, so working with them again was a real thrill,” said Zeiser, the owner of Squeek Lights. “Earlier during the pandemic, the guys did a more-low key livestream at a recording studio, but they decided they wanted to cut loose and do a full production show, so they came here to the Ruby Stage in our new facility.” Drawing on the versatile rig at the new Ruby Stage (it opened this summer), Zeiser and the Squeek Lights team delivered the dynamic show the band was seeking. Wrapping itself around The Wonder Years’ distinctive sound, the lightshow reflected the mood and spirit of the music with its colourful crossing beam patterns, intense side lighting, and evocative silhouett
USA - The Holiday Road drive-thru experience in Calabasas, CA features larger-than-life festive displays and millions of Christmas lights arranged throughout a two-mile track, which families can enjoy from the comfort and safety of their own car. ADJ fixtures are used extensively for the theatrical and architectural lighting of the various scenes that make up the experience, with over 300 ADJ 12P HEX IP and 7P HEX IP units spread throughout the attraction. Holiday Road has been put together by the same creative team - Ben Biscotti, Bobby Rossi and Tony Schubert - that hosts the annual Nights of the Jack Halloween attraction. Originally launched as a walkthrough experience in 2018 and 2019, this year Nights of the Jack pivoted to a drive-thru model so that it could go ahead despite COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings in California. Following
UK - The Parish church of St Giles’ in Wrexham, North Wales, a grade one listed building, is considered one of the finest examples of a medieval parish church in Wales. Built mainly between the end of the 15th and early part of the 16th Century the church annually welcomes around 33,000 visitors through its doors. Unfortunately, the performance of the sound system no longer met the church’s needs and in 2017 the Parochial church council engaged Richard King Systems to provide a scheme for improving the audio facilities. With over 30 years’ experience of sound system design in places of worship RKS turned to the Harman Professional product portfolio, distributed in the UK by Sound Technology. Harman’s JBL range of passive CBT column loudspeakers were selected for sound performance and discrete appearance. At the opposite end of the audio chain, AKG microphones w
USA - Canadian singer producer, The Weeknd, was one of a number of artists performing at unusual outdoor settings in Manhattan to mark the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards. His designated location was the rooftop of the new Edge observation deck at Hudsons Yard, 387m high, and consequently the highest in the Western Hemisphere. This presented challenges for lighting designer LeRoy Bennett and his long-serving collaborator, Jason Baeri; but with the help of GLP’s X4 Bar 20s, The Weeknd gave a dynamic rendering of Blinding Lights, the song which earned him gongs for Best R&B Video & Video of the Year. Bennett worked closely with La Mar Taylor, The Weeknd’s creative director, to come up with the concept. GLP’s award-winning battens not only lit the stage platform but also lined the perimeter of the building’s triangular balcony architecturally. Wearing h
USA - Lighting design bridges gaps, connecting sometimes widely different elements, and fusing them into a unified whole. Jason Patsel of 81 Productions demonstrated this recently at a socially distant outdoor benefit show at the Five Points Music Sanctuary in Roanoke, VA, where he melded different eras and expanded space with help from a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue fixtures. For the Five Points benefit, Patsel lit a concert by the popular Pink Floyd tribute band Darkside Experience, a quintet that captures the essence of the British band with their evocative and challenging sound. Patsel‘s design reflect the quintet’s music and onstage persona with its bold colours and unsettling light angles. However, with this being the third decade of the 21st century, and the band including its own contemporary flair in their performance, Patsel also wanted to add
UK - Born from a disused china clay mine and a need for environmental sustainability education, Cornwall’s Eden Project was created in 2001. Eden has two large geometric bubble-like biomes, the Rainforest and the Mediterranean. The rainforest is the world’s largest indoor rainforest at 50m high and 16,000m2 and the Mediterranean houses some of the world’s rarest horticultural specimens. For the second year, GLX Productions has designed and delivered the biome lighting for Christmas at Eden, using over 300 lighting fixtures, 3km of cable and 5km of fairy lights. The dramatic landscapes of the biomes were lit in rich colours to create a compelling world of shadows and light. The crowning centrepiece of the Mediterranean Biome this year is a giant mirror ball casting a blizzard of snowflake-like points of silvery light across the giant structure. The bi
USA - Lakewood Baptist Church in Gainesville, Georgia has purchased two KLANG:fabrik immersive IEM mixing systems for use in its main worship sanctuary. The units were acquired through Production/Co, the Chestnut Mountain, GA-based AV systems integrator, which also installed the system earlier this year, readying it for when the church resumed live capacity-limited and socially distanced services last June. Together, the KLANG:fabrik units provide a total of 32 inputs and 12 individual immersive IEM mixes for the church’s band members, connected through Lakewood’s existing DiGiCo SD9 FOH console. “They had taken their existing in-ear monitoring solution as far as it could go - they needed a more flexible and sophisticated IEM solution, and the KLANG:fabrik was it,” says Cason Cleveland, owner of Production/Co. “The ability for the musicians on stage to
UK - When Ronald McDonald House Charities UK needed support to stage its Christmas fundraiser - A Starry Night - at Lambeth Palace last month, a fundraising group on Facebook recommended Absolute Events. The charity supports families across the UK who need a warm and comfortable place to rest, eat and relax while their children are receiving hospital treatment. Like most charities, it has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, losing around 40% of its annual income - equating to around £6m. Each year the charity stages an annual event at St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square but due to the pandemic, this was unable to go ahead. Instead, the charity set about organising an outside concert with a limited audience but with a live stream so that the event, sponsored by Coca Cola Europe could be viewed around the world. To support the complete process
Estonia - Pärnu Concert Hall in Estonia’s fourth-largest city is internationally renowned for its performance programme and has just taken delivery of new Robe moving light fixtures - eight T1 Profiles, six Tetra2 LED battens and four LEDWash 800s - which have been supplied through Tallinn-based Estonian distributor, E&T. The striking modernist Concert Hall building constructed in 2002 and designed by architects K. Koov, K. Nõmm, H. Grossscmidth, offers two flexible halls - a main hall and a chamber hall - and a diverse concert schedule including - in normal times - a prestigious line up of visiting artists. It is also home to the Pärnu Music School and the Pärnu City Orchestra as well as hosting special events and civic celebrations in this seaside resort in southwestern Estonia. Ave Martin is the head of lighting. She graduated from the Viljandi Culture Aca
USA - The World Equestrian Centre in Ocala, Florida already occupies 380 acres and is ready to grow in the coming years on an additional 300 acres. When it opens in January 2021, visitors from around the country and from around the world will be able to stay in a five-star hotel or claim a site in an expansive RV park. Over 2,000 stalls exist for the four-legged stars of the centre, and four indoor arenas and 17 outdoor arenas will showcase their talents. International AV integration firm All Pro Integrated Systems, of Pensacola, Florida, designed, and is in the process of installing, the sound reinforcement systems for the centre, relying on Danley Sound Labs’ fidelity, coverage, and weather resistance for all mission-critical outdoor systems. By the time it opens, over 200 Danley loudspeakers and subwoofers will be in place, supported by dozens of multi-channel Dan
USA - Hosted by Ana Brenda Contreras, Victor Manuelle and Yalitza Aparicio, the 21st Latin Grammy Awards were celebrated in late November to honour the cream of the Latin music scene. This year saw a rather different format from the usual star-studded occasion due to the dictates of the COVID-19 pandemic: to ensure the safety of the artists and the production team, the nominees were showcased to the world in a remote, live broadcast by Univision from the American Airlines Arena in Miami, with breakout performances streamed from other cities throughout Latin America. Despite the lack of a live audience, this year’s performances were no less glamorous, and the line up - which included the likes of Bad Bunny, Camilo, Kany García, J Balvin, Jesse & Joy, Natalia Lafourcade, Ricky Martin, Fito Páez and Carlos Vives all competing for Album Of The Year - were presente
France - Designed by architects Rudy Riciotti and Jean-Michel Battesti, 6MIC (pronounced ‘seismic’) in Aix-en-Provence has been turning heads since opening its doors for the very first time this summer. Its lichen-covered concrete structure - both a technical feat and a world first - is designed to give a mountain-esque appearance to the building, seamlessly blending into the natural landscape. 6MIC’s goal is to become an epicentre for music and culture throughout France. Therefore, they required a sound reinforcement system to reproduce various performance styles and keep a minimal carbon footprint. 6MIC chose to install L-Acoustics throughout all performance spaces to hit both of these goals. Although structural work commenced in 2018, it was not until September the following year that the 6MIC technical team started working on the audio concept. With an ambiti
UK - The technical team at the National Theatre have been working tirelessly since August to re-purpose its venues in the face of COVID-19 restrictions. A COVID-secure performance of Dick Whittington in-the-round in a newly-configured Olivier theatre opened on 11 December - only to be closed shortly thereafter due to London’s tier three restrictions - whilst the Lyttelton Theatre has been temporarily transformed into a film studio for the upcoming Romeo & Juliet original film. In both instances, Martin MAC Encores from the theatre's in-house lighting resources proved highly flexible core fixtures in the respective lighting rigs. "Our investment in MAC Encore units has proven invaluable over the last few months as the National Theatre has adapted to the current restrictions for live indoor performances.” commented Paul Hornsby, lighting resources m
UK - Seen from a distance, the Steam Illumination Christmas Train appears like a rolling band of moving light cutting through the dark night as it rolls past the farms and fields of the Hampshire countryside. To those inside, the experience is even more magical, as they find themselves immersed in a rotating tunnel of brilliant colours and patterns. Covered entirely by LED lights, this special 120m-long train seems like something out of a fantastical Hollywood Christmas movie suddenly come to life in South East England. In reality, however, it was the result of extensive of planning and hard work by the non-profit Mid Hants Railway's Watercress Line and a creative team that includes Simon Horn. The owner of Purple Lighting in West Sussex, Horn was responsible for designing and programming the 78-universe Steam Illuminations lightshow with the help of his ChamSys Magic
USA - Founded in 1980, The House in Modesto hosts dynamic services that bring the community together with live music acts, special events and a diverse pastoral team. The church's recent PA upgrade to an Adamson system is changing the way that congregants in the 1,800-capacity auditorium can experience worship. And while the pandemic limited live services temporarily, The House has kept the community close with online worship and outreach. Jason Rightnour, audio director at The House, chose to install Adamson speakers in the auditorium after auditioning speakers from several other manufacturers. Rightnour was impressed by both the clarity and power of the Adamson product line: “I went to trade shows, conventions and speaker shootouts but I couldn't find a system that fit our needs until Adamson. Once I heard this PA, I was in shock with how clean the box sounded with its c
Australia - Hollywood heartthrob Channing Tatum’s popular dance show Magic Mike Live opened in Sydney on 17 December, with a dynamic all-new lighting design created by Philip Gladwell, using a rig supplied by TSL Lighting. In contrast to its runs in London, Las Vegas and Berlin, the Australian production takes place in a specially-designed Spiegeltent named The Arcadia. For the Sydney dates, The Arcadia has been constructed in the city’s entertainment quarter in Moore Park. Within this ‘circus-like’ venue, the production team has created an immersive lighting experience that complements the energetic, exhilarating dance routines performed in the show. All of the action is performed in the round, facilitating acrobatic routines and synchronised 360° dance spectaculars that envelop the audience. Gladwell, who has designed all versions of Magic Mike Li
USA - The 2020 E! People’s Choice Awards (PCAs) was again staged at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, and lit for the third consecutive year by Tom Sutherland of DX7 Design, working for production company Den of Thieves. Tom utilised 154 x Robe MegaPointe moving lights - all supplied by Felix Lighting - as part of the lighting package which helped create a stylish super-clean architectural aesthetic for this year’s live broadcast. The popular online-voted awards show that recognises achievements across multiple fields of entertainment took on a different format this year, with a digital live audience replacing a real one in the venue, all requiring a novel approach by camera director Ryan Polito, creative director Paul Caslin and production designer Florian Wieder. The two-hour show hosted by Demi Lovato included two live performance segments -
