UK - Stage Electrics has supplied High End SolaFrame 1000s to the Gala Theatre Durham, owned and operated by Durham County Council. The company’s Davie Bell says Stage Electrics “were able to demonstrate a number of fixtures to the Gala Theatre and assist in their process of choosing the right solution for their venue.” Tez Errington, the acting technical manager at the Gala Theatre who made the purchase decision, explains: “This unit was considerable quieter than its rivals, offering more features, with clean cut colours and great shutter control, too. But the thing that sold it was both the light output and how quiet the fixture was.” The venue purchased eight in total with flight cases. “Despite the difficulties facing everyone in the industry, I am pleased Stage Electrics was able to deliver these units ready for when the venue re-opens - let’s
Europe - American singer Halsey kicked off her Manic world tour in Madrid in February, supporting her just-released studio album, also called Manic. The tour spans 48 shows, with the next legs currently being planned for Asia and North America later this year. disguise gx 2c media servers were selected by All Of It Now to drive the show’s video and Notch IMAG realtime effects. Numerous features of the disguise solutions came into play for the tour starting in pre-pro. “The show’s video design used a multi-layered frame, and the 3D workflow of disguise Designer allowed us to create parallel maps that placed content on the screen spatially without requiring specific renders for certain songs,” explains Danny Firpo of All of It Now, a disguise rental partner and workflow specialist based in San Francisco, who did the tour’s video programming with Cade Mo
Canada - Toronto’s El Mocambo live music venue is set to reopen following a five-year, multi-million-dollar renovation by new owner Michael Wekerle, a Canadian financier and television personality. The building, originally constructed in 1910, has been completely gutted and rebuilt with three live performance spaces connected to an audio broadcast and recording control room equipped with a Solid State Logic Live L550 digital mixing console. “It’s not quite a club anymore. It’s an event space with a very beautifully designed interior inside a broadcast facility,” says Jamie Howieson, executive designer and production manager at the iconic venue, which has long been affectionately referred to as the El Mo.“The main reason I went with the L550 desk is that, when I was using it in the past, I never heard a better combination of preamp, clock and converter in a
USA - It was over two years ago that Dallas-based music store and AV integration specialist Romeo Music designed and installed a fully-weatherproof Danley sound reinforcement system to cover Madisonville High School’s baseball and softball fields. The project was a huge success. Not only does the system sound intelligible, punchy, and musical, but Danley’s weatherproof options have made the system resilient in the face of east-central Texas’s humid, stormy climate. Thus, when the aged sound reinforcement system at Madisonville High School’s 3,500-capacity football stadium was no longer acceptable, the school again turned to Romeo Music and Danley Sound Labs. “They love the baseball/softball system, which uses four fully-weatherproof Danley OS12CX loudspeakers,” explained Kevin Deal, regional sales manager with Romeo Music. “Their football stadium’s old
UK - International law firm Dentons has upgraded audio-video systems at its One Fleet Place, London, offices as part of an initiative to streamline the efficiency of its global communications. Supplied and installed by the Torpedo Factory Group, the new integrated sound and vision systems have been welcomed by colleagues, who have commented on the improved quality as well as increased productivity. With more than 185 offices in 75 countries around the world employing in excess of 10,000 lawyers, effective global communication is a critical component of Dentons’ day to day activities, relied upon to conduct board meetings, face-to-face meetings with colleagues, and stream video conferences and large scale presentations from any part of the world. TFG’s proven track record of successful previous Dentons projects in Edinburgh, Milton Keynes and Dublin, led TFG techni
India - ABR Cinemas The Next is a multiplex located in historic Gudivada. With three luxurious theatres, ABR Cinemas is one of Andhra Pradesh’s premier cinemas. To create a more immersive AV experience, ABR Cinemas hired sound integrators Digital Sound System to install three Harman Professional Solutions cinema audio systems featuring JBL loudspeakers, Crown amplifiers and Dolby Atmos processors. “We are proud to have been associated with Harman Professional Solutions and all of the products recently installed at ABR Cinemas,” comments Dariya Hussain Syed of Digital Sound System. “The JBL Professional 4732 loudspeakers and 4642A subwoofers have delivered exceptional audio results. We received the products promptly and the technical support from Harman Professional Solutions helped us complete the installation on time.” Digital Sound System equipped the Audi
USA - John Clark, the production ministry lead at Red Rocks Church in Littleton, has had to dig deep and explore new ways of doing things now that worship services have moved completely online. On Easter Sunday, Clark created a rich and engaging visual setting for Red Rocks’ online service that was, at once, powerfully moving, yet warm and intimate enough to engage viewers through sometimes small, mobile screens. Live-streamed on Living as One and featuring a 50-member ‘virtual choir’, the harmoniously balanced service was illuminated by a rig that featured Chauvet Professional COLORado, Ovation and Rogue fixtures. “I like to think of challenges as opportunities,” explains Clark. “Lighting a completely streamed or online service definitely changes the game. A fair amount of principles stay the same, but by and large LDs are called upon to ‘throw out the p
USA - Popular Nashville bar, restaurant and live music joint Rebar At The Dam has recently upgraded its stage with a new AV system. Featuring a rig comprised mainly of ADJ fixtures, the new setup offers touring quality production to the local performers and visiting artists who play at the venue each week. Owned and operated by Nashville entrepreneur Rhonda Russell, Rebar At The Dam is a sister location to the original Rebar that has been a staple of Nashville’s Midtown area for the past decade. Located on the outskirts of town beside the J. Percy Priest Dam, the new Rebar opened a couple of years ago and is a considerably bigger facility with plenty of space to host live music. However, bands playing the venue had to bring in their own PA and had very little in the way of lighting, which led Rhonda to look at installing a permanent AV system towards the end of last year.<
Croatia - House music DJ and producer David Morales has produced and remixed over 500 records for an all-star roster of multi-platinum artists, including Mariah Carey, U2, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Madonna, and Whitney Houston. His current rider for live performance specifies a KV2 Audio ES System as his preferred monitoring setup and he also has a full KV2 setup in his studio at home. Morales has been using a KV2 setup at home for a while - he currently has two EX10s and two EX2.2 subs which he loves - but hadn’t used a KV2 system on a gig until his show at the Boogaloo club in Zagreb, Croatia on St Valentine’s Day this year. He tried out a full ES System comprising an ES1.0 high power active mid/hi loudspeaker stacked on a pair of ES1.8 high output subs per side, powered by two EPAK2500R control and amplification units (one per side). “These speakers s
USA - Harman Professional Solutions has announced the continuation of the free Learning Sessions eLearning programme in conjunction with Harman Professional University. Available Learning Sessions include lighting or audio experts who have worked with Maroon 5, Bad Wolves, Halsey, Taking Back Sunday, Nicki Minaj, Madonna, Queens Of The Stone Age, My Chemical Romance, The 1975 and the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts. The Learning Sessions and Live Workshop Series provide a range of free on-demand and instructor-led webinars hosted by leading knowledge experts from around the world. The Industry Expert workshops feature tips and tricks from front of house engineers, lighting designers, technicians and other industry experts, while the Expert workshops feature in-depth product and solution webinars by Harman product spec
Belgium - A short time ago, a group of road cases loaded with gear left the Sound&Co warehouse for what was supposed to be a four-month rental. Then the Covid-19 outbreak brought live events in Belgium to a sudden halt. Although the lockdown is still very much in place, the cases are now playing a new role in bringing entertainment to the people. This time as backdrops in the improvised livestream studio that Sound&Co has set up in its 1,200sq.mfacility. Quite a few people have been seeing those cases-turned-backdrops too. At last report, Sound&Co had streamed seven post-lockdown performances by DJs like Kaaprisun, Twallie, Lloyds and Sound of the Basement. Supporting them is a rig anchored by four Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Wash fixtures and run with a ChamSys MagicQ MQ80 console. “We wanted to create the look and feel of a club or party with
Europe - From mid-February to early March, German-Canadian singer Alice Merton was on the road to promote her debut album Mint +4. Merton is also known in Germany as a jury member of the popular TV show The Voice of Germany. Her Mint +4 tour took the artist to Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Denmark. The artist presented her repertoire of indie pop songs supported by a versatile lighting setup from GLP. The lighting and set design was a co-production between Merton's manager Paul Grauwinkel - with whom she also runs her own label Paper Plane Records International - and lighting technician Maximilian Hermsdorf, in close coordination with Merton herself. It was Hermsdorf who joined the tour as lighting operator. The technical team around Merton and Grauwinkel had been in constant communication about new and existing products from the GLP ca
UK - White Light (WL) and Gasoline Productions have announced the recent launch of Brave New World Comedy, an online pilot which uses the latest broadcast technology in order to deliver a range of virtual stand up performances which bring together audiences with comedians. With most comedy clubs and venues temporarily closed across the UK, a void has been created for those usually present both on and off stage. By combining the technical wizardry of WL’s SmartStage and Gasoline Productions’ experience of producing comedy evenings, Brave New World Comedy offers an interactive way of bringing a comedy club directly into the homes of its audiences. “We’re using SmartStage as it’s an immersive video environment, which replaces the traditional green screen element of a virtual studio and allows both the comedians and audience to see and intera
Sweden - The Mill hotel in central Malmö, has recently reopened after a full-scale, top-to-bottom renovation. Part of the successful Nordic Choice chain, in addition to its 244 rooms, The Mill boasts 10 conference rooms of varying sizes and a gym to cater for all the needs of the business traveller. All of the conference rooms plus the gym are equipped with Genelec sound systems complete with Crestron control for a flawless audio experience. Nordic Choice turned to Swedish integrator, Informationsteknik, to design, supply and install the AV systems throughout the hotel. The conference rooms are all named after the various spices that are sold at the famous Möllevångstorget market nearby. As a result, each room benefits from its own rich colour scheme according to the spice after which it is named. Cocoa, saffron and cinnamon are just some of the names that have ins
Bahrain - The BLAST Pro Series Global Final, one of the highlights of the booming international e-sports market, was hosted in the Kingdom of Bahrain in December 2019, with Green Hippo’s Hippotizer Media Servers looking after the complex playback requirements. The event, an action-packed first-person shooter tournament spanning two days, attracted gaming fans from around the world to the 7,000-seat Isa Sports City Arena. Working directly for the tournament organisers, Copenhagen-based specialist 4K Projects supplied all of the Hippotizers and AV equipment for the fast-paced event. Project manager Mikkel Samuelsen oversaw the project, along with operators Kasper Lange and Balder Thorrud. Lange was in charge of lighting, video and design, whilst Thorrud set up and operated the Hippotizer Media Servers. The Green Hippo package consisted of three Boreal+ units, two of wh
Sweden - Riksteatern, the Swedish National Touring Theatre, was due to take its production of Love Songs on a three month tour of Sweden from early March, with lighting director and designer, Jörgen ‘Hajen’ Haimanas, choosing six Ayrton Diablo LED profile luminaires as a major feature of his lighting design, in what would be Diablo’s first national tour of Sweden. Due to the current Covid-19 crisis, the tour was only able to complete the first five dates before it was necessarily postponed by lockdown. Love Songs is described as a ‘sentimental love bomb’, a musical evening depicting love in all its forms, featuring the musical talents of Arja Saijonmaa, Frida Beckman, Lisa Hu Yu, Robert Hannouch and Peter Järn. Haimanas used his considerable lighting talents, to create an incredible array of looks using the six strategically placed Diablo units in a desig
France - The coronavirus pandemic has already seen many examples of those in the entertainment technology and production industry putting their skills and resources to good use - from morale-raising actions to physical contributions and manufacturing items to aid the massive efforts worldwide to contain the spread of infection. In normal times, S-Group is a busy full production and rental operation with four regional bases and a HQ in Alès, north of Nimes in the South of France, and this time of year they’d have an average of 20 tours on the road as well as servicing numerous long term rentals. However, with the live show and event Industry at a complete standstill, S-Group’s manufacturing division has instead energised its 3D printing capabilities to assist in producing protective visors for workers engaged in the various frontline healthcare and first response s
UK - Really Creative Media (RCM) provided screen content along with equipment and touring engineers for Jax Jones March tour, cut short by COVID-19. It was the company’s final gig before the UK entered full lockdown on 23 March. RCM was enlisted to create the dynamic screen content for DJ Jax Jones’ first tour since the September 2019 launch of the artists Snack (Supersize) album. A month ahead of the tour, RCM’s Jack Fox liaised with creative director Aimee Phillips and the artist, working alongside lighting director Liam Griffiths of Stage Techniques and production management team Only Helix to create a new show with fresh material for the on-stage LED wall. They also re-purposed existing content from previous tours, before getting creative in the company’s London editing studio. RCM worked with Aimee to build a sharp timecoded set, bringing the show u
Mexico - Verge Aero recently added a new dimension to Mexico’s biggest and oldest carnival. A 130-drone display, in the skies above Mazatlán’s Olas Altas bay, delivered a spectacular new twist to the town’s traditional six-day carnival celebration, Carnaval de Mazatlán. Situated on Mexico’s west coast, Mazatlán has one of the world’s greatest carnival traditions. Held annually since 1898, marking Mardi Gras and the start of Lent, Mazatlán’s exuberant six-day carnival is reputed to be the world’s third largest, after Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. This year, Verge Aero’s drone technology, specially developed for live entertainment productions, was brought in to precede the spectacular firework display by local pyro supplier, Pyromar. Verge Aero worked together with local partner, Sky Precision, to create the light show and coordinate it with the hug
Europe - Austrian microphone specialist Lewitt has joined forces with artist Avec to bring the music community closer together and to keep the creative spirit alive. Working with Avec, Lewitt has created the #LEWITTMusicChallenge, giving the chance to show your creativity and win Lewitt microphones. Avec and her band members have recorded a version of their hit song Home, recording each instrument remotely in their own living spaces while capturing the whole thing on video. “Now you can take the content and show us what you can do,” says Lewitt. “Mix or remix the song, record a cover, play along with it – it’s entirely up to you. There are no limits. Then simply upload your version of the song to a social media platform, tag the post with #LEWITTMusicChallenge, share it with your friends and invite them to take part.” The challenge sta
Norway - Dedicated microphone techniques and ensuring a clean and short signal path is how Norwegian producer and engineer Morten Lindberg achieves “great sound capture” for his classical music label, 2L. DPA microphones play a key part in this process because they provide the transparency and sonic clarity he needs for his projects. This is particularly true for his immersive recordings, which are overturning some basic concepts regarding how music is composed and performed. The music captured by 2L features Norwegian composers and performers and an international repertoire reflected in the Nordic atmosphere. 2L began as a production company, but is now also a record label, releasing 10 to 15 recordings a year, all on Hybrid SACD, Pure Audio Blu-ray and distributed as HiRes files. Until 2020, Lindberg held the record for the most Grammy nominations without a win -
UK - Manchester Cathedral teamed up with one of its long-standing event production partners, Sterling Event Group, to illuminate the façade of the magnificent building in a blue hue in a show of solidarity and support for NHS staff and key workers who are going above and beyond to support our communities at this difficult time. Richard Bowden, managing director at Sterling said: “We wanted to show our support as a company for the magnificent work our NHS and keyworkers are doing in the battle against Covid-19. We have a great partnership with Manchester Cathedral and its work in the community. As a stunning landmark in the heart of our city we are very privileged to be able to illuminate it.” At 8pm on Thursday 16 April, the display was supported by representatives from the Greater Manchester emergency services as everyone clapped for carers. The cathedral w
USA - Studio Gear of Milwaukee has been providing audio-visual and lighting equipment rentals, production services and sales to its customers throughout the United States for over 30 years. The company is an advocate of Robert Juliat, and Tim Cooksy, Studio Gear’s sales and integration specialist, is familiar with Robert Juliat fixtures having used them many times before: “I have installed Robert Juliat in a lot of different venues including theme parks, amphitheatres and touring shows. I have never had a bad experience with a Robert Juliat spot light,” he says. Two recent Studio Gear installations, both in Milwaukee and each with different characters, called for some flexible solutions from Robert Juliat. Studio Gear supplied four RJ Roxie2 300W LED followspots to Shorewood High School and a single RJ Oz 600W LED followspot to Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. All the foll
Australia - Delivered Live is a weekly music and comedy performance concept. Streamed live from Melbourne, it's the result of a collaboration between Handshake Management, rental and production company Harry The Hirer Productions and the Victorian State Government, and is designed to feed the need for live entertainment and positive energy during the nationwide lockdown. It also has a role in providing much-needed financial support to artists, crew and technicians who have been left high-and-dry with the almost complete shutdown of the live performance industry. The venue is The Studio, a new production and demo area at Harry the Hirer Productions’ HQ in the Richmond district of Melbourne, a large ‘development space’ with lighting and audio consoles, previz and demonstrat
