India - Although holding a degree in medicine, Dr. Rajesh Khade is the son of a professional musician and his passion for music and audio and desire to connect artists with their audiences eventually led to him becoming a sound engineer or, to be more precise, a system engineer and official Smaart Trainer in his home country of India. In recent years, Khade’s work in the audio field has enabled him to build up considerable experience with major PA brands, worked as a system engineer for numerous events with major acts across India, as well as holding his own system engineering courses. He became a Smaart Instructor in 2019 and hosts training sessions throughout India in English, Hindi and Marathi. This work brought him into contact with German system technician and Smaart Instructor Michael Häck, who introduced him to Outline’s new Newton processor, which he use
Germany - WHU - Otto Bensheim School of Management is a business school with campuses in Vallendar/Koblenz and Düsseldorf serving over 1,500 students. In recent years, this privately-funded university began investing in networked learning with a goal to record lectures using the latest AV and remote camera technology for the benefit of all its students. A comprehensive Panopto system plus a Creston signal management and media control system were installed in the university’s lecture halls to provide quality video. Having planned and installed the video recording systems for the lecture halls, the AV integrator specialists at SIGMA realised that voice transmission confronted them with a very challenging scenario. “The client required a microphone solution across several lecture halls and seminar rooms. Students should be able to participate without nee
USA - Famed for his struggles with stage props, attempts to smuggle vegetables through airport security and a Big Bottom, former Spinal Tap bass guitarist Derek Smalls recently delighted fans by inviting them to ‘rock til you sit’ at Lukewarm Water Live, a one date tour of the US West Coast. Increasing age may have brought Derek a subtle change of hair colour but, with a Yamaha PM7 digital mixing system on monitors, he delivered the full majesty of rock. Playing songs from his 2018 solo album Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing) alongside classics by his former band (formerly known as Spinal Tap), Smalls - known to some as comedian Harry Shearer - invited a star-studded line-up to perform alongside him and a full symphony orchestra. “This was the first time I mixed a show on Rivage PM7,” says monitor engineer Gabriele Nicotra, who has also work
China - Hangzhou, the capital of the Zhejiang province, is home to a new One Third club destination located in a former locomotive depot, another of the NOA’s Arc Group’s entertainment ventures. The third in the chain (including one in Beijing), the 2,500-capacity dance venue, specialising in Hard style, has been equipped with Martin Audio’s MLA Multicellular Loudspeaker Array. This was supplied to the Dutch creative team, Live Legends, and their creative director Daan Oomen by Martin Audio’s Chinese distributor, Sino Hui Feng, who worked hard to win the project with the Martin Audio bid to ensure One Third Hangzhou stands out in a competitive marketplace. The One Third vibe is all about the story of an old locomotive factory that comes to life. Live Legends delivered all creative elements from concept to execution, including show production, interior and
South Africa - Richard Smith of DWR Distribution, an L-Acoustics authorised training centre, recently headed up L-Acoustics certified training for a group of technicians at the company’s offices in Johannesburg. The two-day training course provides technicians with both the technical and practical skills and certification needed to operate a range of L-Acoustics professional sound systems. Under the guidance of Richard Smith, who has served as a brand ambassador for L-Acoustics in Africa for over a decade, attendees are taught all that they need to know to operate L-Acoustics’ Kara, Kiva II and K2 professional audio system. Smith is a passionate and committed teacher and trainer and takes enormous pleasure in passing on his years of knowledge and experience to a new generation of L-Acoustics Certified Technicians. “I have always loved teaching and try to t
UK - This year’s Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo undertook one of its biggest technological transformations to date (read more about this in the December issue of LSi, coming soon). For the first time in its history, the vast and complex event trusted its audio control to an audio tracking system, implementing the largest TiMax TrackerD4 precision stagetracking system yet, controlling a pair of Out Board’s TiMax SoundHub-S64 spatial audio processors featuring new HARDCore FPGA processing - all supplied by Wigwam Acoustics. Since 2014, sound designer, Seb Frost, has overseen the execution of audio reinforcement for the event, in which a continuously moving cast of over 1000 military musicians march through Edinburgh Castle’s parade ground in increasingly complex configurations. Frost claims, “TiMax TrackerD4 dramatically improved the accuracy and resolution of t
UK - Television lighting director Bernie Davis successfully trialled the new VL2600 Profile LED luminaire from Vari-Lite on the BBC Proms classical music festival this summer. Staged through August and September at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the BBC Proms has an intense schedule, with concerts broadcast daily on BBC Radio and many performances recorded or broadcast live on BBC Television. With such time pressures, it’s essential for lighting fixtures to be reliable and versatile, but also quiet in operation and great-looking on camera. “I was looking for a good, programmable profile spot that would be quiet enough for use on the Proms yet flexible enough to provide a high-quality light source with good zoom range, good shuttering on a flat field, and colour suitable for camera,” says Davis. Having seen a demo of VL2600 Profile, Davis decided to trial the
Italy - After captivating the Stade De France in Paris and the Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, Rockin’1000 brought their That’s Live - No Borders, On Board tour to Italy, landing in Milan and hosting two special guests, Manuel Agnelli from Afterhours (joined by Rodrigo D’Erasmo), and Subsonica. The band originally found fame on 26 July 2015 at the Ippodromo Park in Cesena, where the 1,000-piece band played Learn to Fly in an effort to convince Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl to perform live in Italy (which happened the following November). Since then, the Thousand have been organising concerts around the world. The band’s latest appearance - an outdoor show at newly renovated Milano-Linate airport - required the combined audio firepower of Outline’s GTO system and Powersoft’s K and X Series amplifiers to match up to the sheer the size of the
Europe - The recent European tour by a-ha saw the introduction of 10-bit video into the world of concert touring (full production report coming up in LSi December, out later this week). Content was produced by the band’s chosen video creative, Knut Helgeland and realised live by Icarus Wilson-Wright. Alex Leinster of Video Design, who oversaw the upscaling of technological standards, outlines the challenges: “There were three important issues to be addressed - how to render out Helgeland’s content in 10-bit; finding an LED screen that could accept the 10-bit source natively, and creating the backbone to transport and manage the data traffic flows. “Icarus had obviously been thinking about this for some time,” he continues. “I think the content he saw being developed by Helgeland was so beautiful that he felt this was the ideal opportunity - that the result
Spain - The Love the 90s festival staged three ‘extravaganza’ shows in 2019 in Madrid, Seville and Valencia. Lighting and show designer Eduardo Valverde from Madrid-based creative specialist Pixelmap Studios was this year’s creative director, and his brief included imagineering the stage layout, set architecture including LED screens and the lighting. Prominent on his lighting plot were around 150 Robe moving lights including Pointes, MegaPointes, LEDBeam 150s and LEDWash 800s, complete with three RoboSpot systems run with BMFL Spots, all supplied by rental company Fluge. Due to the different venues, the rig design varied slightly for all of the shows, but the Robes were right at the heart of the aesthetics for each of the one-day hi-energy, all-action concerts featuring a dynamic multi-artist line-up with Dr Alban, La Bouche, Sonique and many more classic
USA - After three sold-out performances at Amsterdam's Eye Filmmuseum, which saw Cosmos Within Us win a VR Days Halo award, the Future of StoryTelling will present the theatrical preview of Tupac Martir’s mixed reality performance piece at New York Live Arts on 2 December (Monday). A co-production between Satore Studio, a_BAHN, and Satore Tech, Cosmos Within Us ‘turns the solitary experience of virtual reality into a multisensory performance piece for an audience of 100-150 people, creating an entirely new artform’. It features 13 live performers, including five musicians, voiceover artists, live digital animations, two dancers, a conductor, and one ‘interactor’. Director Tupac Martir comments: “Performing at the Eye was very special. Being able to take our piece outside of the film festival circuit and show it to over 100 people per screenin
USA - Keeping pace with Don Broco on their first North American tour this autumn was a fast-moving Steve Kosiba lighting design that featured Chauvet Professional Rogue fixtures from Squeek Lights. “The show is very high energy,” explains Kosiba. “Don Broco has a big sound with lots of changes. The band is like a force of nature on stage. I wanted to reflect that with the lighting. One way we did this was to get very detailed with the cueing, as this was a timecoded show. We had 256 cues in one particular song.” Kosiba also reflected the flavour of his client’s stage presence by directing light in multiple directions, often changing the orientation of beams quickly and dramatically to accent different moments. “Different positions keep the show visually interesting,” he said. “This is something I always try to do. I want to change up positions as much
USA - Mark Carver, lead designer at Nashville-based Carver Lighting Design, turned to Elation’s compact Smarty Hybrid moving head to help the GMA Dove Awards celebrate their 50th anniversary. Presented by the Gospel Music Association and aired exclusively on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the Dove Awards have honoured excellence in Christian and Gospel Music since 1969. The 50th anniversary show was held 15 October at Nashville's Lipscomb University. With multiple awards to hand out and 20 performances to light across both a main and satellite stage, Carver says diversity in looks was essential. “The Smarty Hybrids were definitely the main workhorse fixture on the show,” states Carver, who has lit the awards show for the last few years. “This isn’t the type of show where we had a lot of different fixtures to choose from so we really relied on the Smarty
UK - Stage Engage has invested in Luxibel B Blinded1 fixtures for its growing film premiere and product launch events. The pro AV and staging company, based in London and Exeter, was looking for an IP-rated, LED stage blinder solution for high profile projects such as the BBC Peaky Blinders season 6 world premiere, which took place in Birmingham. “We were looking for a multi-purpose, high brightness, IP-rated fixture that we could use for a variety of corporate events, film premieres and product launches,” says Cameron Baker, operations manager at Stage Engage. “The quality of the Blinded1 is very good and they have been super reliable. The connectors are great, the display makes sense and the quality of the materials is very good. Investing in them was a no-brainer.” Created as the little brother of the B Blinded, the 110W B Blinded1 has the same functi
South Africa - Newzroom Afrika, a channel on Multi-Choice’s DStv satellite pay-TV service, went live earlier this year in time for the South African elections. The set, based at their new premises in Linden, was designed by Michael Gill Designs, built by Sets Drapes Screens (SDS), part of the Gearhouse Group of Companies and features Absen DW 2.9 LED panels, Green Hippo Boreal+ and dot2 lighting console supplied by DWR Distribution. “The project was very exciting,” says Michael Gill of MGD. “I can honestly say that Thokozani Nkosi and Thabile Ngwato, the television producers and entrepreneurs, are the two most forward-thinking individuals I have ever worked with. Their way of thinking is so youthful, fresh and digital. The mindset behind Newzroom Afrika is that news breaks on your telephone these days and not always on TV. With an emphasis on social media platforms l
Germany - A live concert featuring the stars of German TV show Sing meinen Song was recently mixed with two Allen & Heath dLive systems at FOH and monitors. Sing meinen Song - das Tauschkonzert, produced by German broadcaster Vox, is one of the most successful TV formats in recent years and has just completed its sixth season, with the accompanying album releases always hitting the top of the German album charts. For the first time ever, the 2019 season closed with a live concert in Berlin where all the artists involved reunited for one big final live show. The venue chosen for the event, Berlin’s Waldbühne amphitheatre, is one of Germany’s biggest open-air stages with a unique architecture and atmosphere. The concert was mixed by Daniel Lauer (FOH) and Sascha Kohl (monitors), who have been working with dLive systems for several years. “The
Poland - Teatr Narodowy (National Theatre) in Warsaw has invested in 40 Robe DL7S Profile moving lights which are part of a lighting upgrade to replace over 100 halogens and gel-scrollers in their rig with new LED light sources, a graduated process taking place across all three of the theatre’s performance spaces. In addition to modernising their house lighting systems - including some previous moving lights that had been in place for nearly 20 years - they were essentially looking for quieter fixtures, stated head of lighting, Zbigniew Szulim. They considered all the options, and apart from the silent running of the DL7S, also liked the colour rendering and the smoothness of its dimming. They also wanted a luminaire that could replicate the effect of halogen lamps. The National Theatre Warsaw, one of five in Poland, each associated with a major city, stages ne
Ireland - D. Reilly of Dandy’s Lighting utilised Kodaline’s logo in designing the band’s lighting for their European tour. After conferring with the band, he used the logo lettering as the inspiration to create geometric diamond-shaped set-pieces for their touring rig. To make this design element work, he outlined these pieces in vivid colour with Chauvet Professional ÉPIX Strip Tour fixtures supplied by Reynolds of Raphoe. Flown over mid-stage as three large ‘diamonds, and mounted on two stage left and two stage right truss columns, the geometric patterns are creating a powerful, consistent and easily identifiable look for the band on their tour. “There is a level of subliminal branding with the patterns, since it mirrors the logo,” says Reilly. “Mostly though, it’s something very attractive and engaging to look at. It captures attention and draws ey
UK - 3D beamforming and wave field synthesis technology from Holoplot were an integral part of a recent showcase organised by White Light at the Science Museum in London. Held in the Level 1 exhibition space, the three-day event It’s Virtually Reality: The Future of Technology attracted more than 300 people keen to find out about the application of augmented, virtual and mixed reality technologies to the broadcast, education and events markets. Sound Technology, Holoplot partner in the UK, supplied and installed the loudspeaker array for the event. The It’s Virtually Reality: The Future of Technology showcase provided an opportunity for Holoplot to demonstrate the new dimension it has brought to installed audio. According to White Light, “Guests were blown away by the impact of this directional sound capability and the personalized experience that i
China - Grace is a national chain of bar/restaurants with live entertainment. The latest venue is in Yangjiang city, Guangdong province, where an Alcons Audio pro-ribbon system has overcome architectural challenges to serve up an appetising audio menu. Grace in Yangjiang has a 400sq.m main area and a 100sq.m mezzanine, with internal architecture that created significant acoustic challenges. Its classical Chinese style features a tiled roof decoration with varying heights, producing multiple reflections. Additionally, a tall decorative column was likely to cause issues with sound coverage from one side of the stage. The live performances feature vocals, bass, guitar, keyboards, drums and have a wide dynamic range. Guangzhou-based EAD was asked to design and install a sound reinforcement system that would make sure diners throughout the venue enjoyed high quality sound.
UK/Jordan - On Friday, 22 November, Coldplay performed two Sunrise and Sunset sets at Amman’s Citadel, Jordan, both of which were streamed live on YouTube to celebrate the release of the band’s new album, Everyday Life. Following Coldplay’s decision not to tour Everyday Life for environmental reasons, the band came up with an alternative for achieving maximum impact: “We wanted to pick somewhere in the middle of the world where we normally don’t get to play,” Chris Martin, Coldplay’s frontman, told the BBC. A few days before the Amman performances, Coldplay’s management announced the addition of a one-off live show on 25 November at London’s Natural History Museum. Selected songs of this performance will be available on radio and social media, and the proceeds will be donated to an environmental charity. As always, wh
Spain - Since 1997, Britannia Row has deployed audio requirements to MTV’s Europe Music Awards. This year’s winners included Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish, who were honoured in a live televised ceremony staged in the Andalusian capital of Seville. MTV has trusted Brit Row to supply the event for over two decades, creating a strong level of trust and reassurance during planning, pre-production and the live show. Supplying an L-Acoustics PA rig, Sennheiser mics and IEMs, and a plethora of DiGiCo SD7s (monitors), SD5s (FOH) and SD12s for presentations, the 14-strong Brit Row crew delivered once again. “They’re the best in the business; a lot of artists feel comforted when they come to perform and see they’re in the hands of Brit Row. For 22 years, they’ve never let us down,” comments Andy Derbyshire, production executive, MTV EMAs. “This is MTV’s bigg
USA - Audience members had no idea what they were in for as they entered the UNO Lakefront Arena of The University of New Orleans for the first of Widespread Panic’s three-night performance. Coupled with the Halloween tradition of the band playing songs that have never graced their stage before, everyone involved is on their toes, and none more so than long-time lighting designer Paul Hoffman. “The band’s dynamic range is broad spanning hard rock to emotive ballads and stops at every station in between - so I need to be able to serve all those needs - often taking a more theatrical approach to the emotionally heavier music,” Hoffman says. “Because of the breadth here, flexibility and dynamic versatility are my best friends.” For this year’s iteration where the stage was outfitted in an Andy Kaufman theme, complete with miniature wrestling ring, New York
UK - This month saw the 10th anniversary of Lumiere - the UK’s largest light festival - take place in Durham. The event, run by Artichoke, has been transforming cities across the UK since 2009, with each Lumiere festival inviting local and international artists to create works that reimagine familiar buildings and public spaces, changing the way we experience our urban surroundings. Over the 10 years since the first Lumiere, Unusual Rigging has been a key supplier in the delivery of specialist rigging and engineering for the festival in Durham. Engineers, riggers and technicians work with Artichoke’s production teams to design solutions to the most challenging projects, from working in delicate heritage environments such as Durham Cathedral to rigging artworks over the river Wear or across the historic medieval streets. Kate Harvey, senior producer for Artichoke co
