Denmark - Dynaudio recently constructed two fully equipped recording studios within shipping containers (one in Europe and one in the USA), installed professional producers in each and took them on the road. Unheard is Dynaudio’s mission to give something back. The company believes that not enough artists are getting a fair chance, so they created the pop-up studios to help redress the balance. The Unheard studios have been travelling the world, visiting shows and festivals and allowing unknowns the chance to record and take away their tracks. The glass-fronted containers allow the process to be shared with an audience, entertaining them as well as providing an insight into professional music-Dynaudio’s Unheard studios have been travelling the world, visiting shows and festivals making. Midem and NAMM are two of the high-profile events that Unheard has recently visited.
USA - Premier Productions recently wrapped a special 2019 USA arena tour featuring multi-platinum-selling artists Casting Crowns, Hillsong Worship and Elevation Worship. Bandit Lites provided the lighting for the concert series as each evening showcased the three acts as they gathered their fan bases for a night of worship and praise. “It takes teamwork to pull off a show of this nature and I must say each individual involved worked together in tandem to make this show look easy and beautiful,” said Bandit Lites vice president Mike Golden. “I had the pleasure of working with production manager Cory Edwards for the first time and I was extremely impressed with his professional, confident demeanour. Putting a show of this magnitude together with three very high-profile acts requires attention to detail as well as being able to adjust on the fly. Cory guided the ship on
Europe - Lithuania system integrator TVC has completed construction of an OB Trailer for Norwegian public broadcaster NRK around a Lawo IP audio infrastructure, including mc²56 mixing console, A__UHD Processing Engine and VSM control. The new vehicle with advanced equipment is an investment for NRK’s ambitious future productions and is part of a technological standardisation within the broadcast production facilities and mobile studios as NRK already uses mc² consoles in their concert hall and for news program productions. The 13.6m-long single-side expansion (4.15m expanded), 26-tonne NRK OB24 features a large interior space with 24 dedicated workplaces, high levels of both sound and heat insulation, automatic preparation for operation and transportation, and easy maintenance and reliability. It features two production rooms, slow-motion operator’s row, camera c
USA - Sandwiched between Silver Lake and Angelino Heights, Echo Park has emerged as one of the most happening neighbourhoods in LA. Home to prospering and aspiring artists, writers, and musicians, it celebrates its community culture each year with Echo Park Rising, a sprawling festival which was recently named ‘Best Music Festival' by LA Weekly. This year the event’s main Liberty Stage relied upon control provided by Allen & Heath dLive S5000 and C1500 control surfaces supported respectively by the processing and networking power of DM48 and CDM32 MixRack systems. Standing at the confluence of Liberty and Reservoir Streets, the Liberty Stage featured a plethora of bands including many of the festival’s must-see acts. “The level of activity at Liberty Stage can best be described as that which you’d expect from what just may be the ultimate block party,”
USA - Red Rocks Amphitheatre has attracted the attention of some of the greatest musical acts in the world since 1941. Everyone from The Beatles and the Rolling Stones to U2, James Taylor, and the Eagles has played Red Rocks. Nestled just outside of Denver, Colorado in the tiny town of Morrison, where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains, two giant rocks jut out from the earth creating an open-air performance venue that is nearly acoustically perfect. These monoliths not only create the perfect natural sound stage, but also provide a mesmerizing background for some impressive lighting effects. In the spring of 2019, Barbizon Light of the Rockies completed the installation and programming of an upgraded lighting package at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Until 2019, large 400 W mercury-vapor lights lit the historic rocks and eight outdoor PAR 64s lit the audience.
France - The eyes of the global gaming community were focused on the spectacular final of Riot Games’ League of Legends World Championship in November as teams battled to be crowned the 2019 winners. An estimated 100m people live streamed the tournament, with a capacity 20,000 in attendance at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris. With due modesty, Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent described the final as “the biggest event in the history of esports”. A grand opening ceremony kickstarted proceedings, with new projection technology simulating immersive holographs interacting with real-life singers and dancers. TSL Lighting worked with production company Concom and lighting designers Arnold Serame of Serame Design and LeRoy Bennett of Seven Design Works to supply, deliver and man a full lighting and control system comprising more than 1,000 fixtures. Eight trucks
Germany - From 4-10 November, Berlin was transformed into an open-air exhibition and event venue as part of a large-scale festival. Used to illuminate a 150m long artistic Skynet along Straße des 17. Juni, as well as a large festival-ending stage show at Brandenburg Gate, were Elation weatherproof Proteus and Paladin series luminaires. celebrating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall The city honoured the peaceful revolution of the autumn of 1989 with numerous exhibitions, events and art projects. One of the most interesting was a Skynet of approximately 120,000 ultra-light, partially reflective flags onto which 30,000 people from all over the world had inscribed with handwritten messages and memories of the events of 30 years ago. Installed on behalf of the Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH, the Skynet was the creation of Patrick Shearn and his team at the American
Robe equipment was chosen to be part of a new permanent multimedia spectacular, From Dusk to Dawn, which is projected onto the western slope of Masada Mountain near the Dead Sea in Israel. The area is operated by Israel Nature and Parks, a government organisation that manages nature reserves and national parks across the country. This environment is also a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site. Robe BMFL Blades and IP rated Robe ColorStrobes are now a main part of the light show designed by Eran Klein & Ben Alon from Cochavi & Klein light architects which supports the new large format (approx. 120m wide and 60m high) video images which are mapped onto the mountain’s rugged terrain. The lighting supports the moving images and the narrative as it covers this vast canvass with a series of special lighting and effects, complete with a dramatic soundtrack
UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has supplied Dynamic Audio Device (D.A.D.) loudspeakers to The Point venue in Eastleigh, to deliver high-fidelity performance for its annual programme of outdoor events and other offsite activities. The Point attracts British & international artists in contemporary dance, theatre, comedy & film. In 2015 it became one of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations - recognising its cultural importance to the creative community. Each year The Point’s outdoor pop-up live music, festival, cinema & family events are held in the venue’s grounds and nearby public spaces, bringing together the local and creative communities. When the venue’s technical manager, Tim Slater was looking to invest in new PA loudspeakers for future outdoor events, he contacted Steve Eaton, sales executive in AC-ET’s
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
