UK - The official opening of Samsung KX, Samsung Electronics Co’s new ‘digital playground’ in London’s King’s Cross, featured ‘the world's first vertical gig’. The multi-tiered performance space in Coal Drops Yard was erected as part of the launch of Samsung’s new multi-sensory experience and saw performances from R&B artist Mabel. The concept was devised by Iris Experience’s creative director Henry Scotland, and realised with support from video rental house Universal Pixels. The structure itself was fabricated by Star Live using three shipping containers to create a 9:16 format. The finished stage was an impressive 9.1m tall, showing three stories of tech and performance space to the 2,000-capacity crowd. UP provided the vertical 4.5m wide by 7.5m high portrait Leyard CLM6 LED screen with a custom rigging solution and a disguise GX2 media
UK - Les Miserables: The Staged Concert is playing packed houses at London's Gielgud Theatre, with Unusual Rigging supplying the rigging and automation for the shows' four month stint. The concert version of the world's longest running musical opened at the end of July, following the closure of the Queen's Theatre. It will re-open after extensive refurbishment of both its backstage and auditorium as the renamed Sondheim Theatre. Unusual Rigging is also a part of this project, lowering the stage and installing a complex engineering system. With the production team of this limited run show briefed to make the Gielgud feel like a miniature version of the 02 Arena which hosted the 25th anniversary concert, production manager Chris Boone brought Unusual on board to make it happen. Chris explained: "Unusual Rigging is my go-to company for rigging jobs and this
Belgium - The word ‘individual’ comes up often when Martin Thomas talks about lighting his long-time client Alan Parsons. It isn’t necessarily Parsons himself that the Tucson, Arizona-based LD is referring to, but each of the musicians that make up the pioneering Grammy winner’s band. “The music of The Alan Parsons Project has always been founded on a variety of musicians based on their individual strong suits - and the live show is no different,” said Thomas. “All members have specific harmony parts in the music; and lead vocals shift throughout the show. Because everyone sings, key light and backlight for all musicians is critical. So, layers and atmospheric architecture make up most of the production with several negative space moments in the performance.” At the last stop of the band’s European tour at the iAncienne Belgique in downtown Brussels
Australia - After a first sold-out season at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Muriel’s Wedding has returned with a Melbourne run finished and Sydney currently packing in the audiences. Next stop is Brisbane for the production that has grown and changed a little since the 2017 premiere. JPJ Audio are supplying the audio equipment with Michael Waters once again in charge of the sound design. Michael won the 2018 Helpmann Best Sound Design for the original production of Muriel’s Wedding. “Conceptually it’s similar but in terms of delivering the audio, it’s quite different,” Michael clarified. “We have a Clair PA and I believe it is the first time in the world that a Clair Cohesion CO-8 system has been used for theatre.” The CO-8's diminutive size allows for a high degree of flexibility when integrating into virtually any application. Sydney
UK - The Den is a new pop-up theatre that forms a key part of the Royal Exchange theatre’s local exchange programme. Funded by a generous £1m gift from the Oglesby Charitable Trust, this inventive performance space was designed by the award-winning architectural studio, Haworth Tompkins as an informal space-within-a-space for residents to make and share theatre and to see work from the Royal Exchange. Pro audio specialists, Autograph Sales & Installations, provided key elements of the sound reinforcement equipment for the new space including seven EX10 compact, full range active loudspeaker systems from KV2 Audio, and an Allen & Heath Qu-16 rack-mountable digital mixer. Sorcha Steele, head of sound at the Royal Exchange, was responsible for designing the audio system for The Den, a task she found slightly daunting given the scope of requirements for the spac
USA - Bandit Lites once again provided the lighting package for the fourth annual 2019 Black Music Honorus, where Xscape, Freddie Jackson, Arrested Development, Tamia and Yolanda Adams were honoured for their contributions to African American culture and American music. Held on 5 September at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre and produced by Central City Productions, the television special was hosted by Rickey Smiley and LeToya Luckett and featured performances by Jagged Edge, Jekalyn Carr, Tevin Campbell, Kelly Price, Naughty By Nature, Le'Andria Johnson, Tony Terry, Travis Greene, 702, Smokie Norful, Jade Novah, Dee1, June's Diary, Mali Music, Mumu Fresh, Major, Keke Wyatt, Jessie Woo, Leon Timbo and Avery Wilson. Veteran lighting designer Mark Carver illuminated the two-hour affair and utilised the gear to provide a stylised, contemporary look. Bandit
USA - The St Malachy church outside Detroit recently installed a modern colour-rendering LED lighting system that features Chauvet Professional fixtures. “Colour and lighting have always been critical elements to the Catholic mass even before lighting fixtures were invented,” said St. Malachy LD Dave Corbat. “This parish takes a proactive role in reaching out to worshippers. This led to the idea of introducing colourful lighting to create an immersive environment in the sanctuary.” St. Malachy engaged system designer Nathan Cole of Sound Planning Communications to create and install a new lighting system that augmented the 800-seat church’s existing rig with LED fixtures. His design adds four Rogue R2 Wash fixtures to the main lighting pipe, and called for two more units to be arranged on the ground near the altar. A collection of COLORdash Batten-Quad 12 lin
UAE - The new Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai was packed out last month as thousands of Westlife fans relived their youth at the band's Twenty Tour. Taking a walk down memory lane, the boy band performed hits from the past 20 years to the 17,000-capacity venue, with Unusual Rigging and Engineering LLC providing the house rigging points for the production. Unusual Rigging are sole house rigging service supplier for the installation of all rigging points at the Coca-Cola Arena. One of the main talking points of the venue is its rigging system and unique roof structure. All rigging is done from a raised catwalk – it has shallow braids and is easy to access. With a distance of 24m from the catwalk to the floor and 26m to the I-beam, this covers most height requirements of touring shows. The arena also boasts 90 tonnes over the stage, 60 tonnes for the middle and 40 at the far end –
USA - Evergreen Ministries had put its faith in acoustical orthodoxy when the Hudsonville, Michigan church had its previous sound system installed. However, with the worship space residing in a mid-sized square building with largely metal construction that created reverberation problems, speech intelligibility and musical articulation were a frequent challenge. “They had a pretty typical flown PA, but it wasn’t really the kind of system they needed for a space like this,” recalls Todd Billin, design/sales engineer at Parkway Electric & Communications, a Holland, Michigan-based AV systems integrator with a long history of working on sound and video designs with houses of worship. The solution came in the form of the slim L-Acoustics Syva colinear system that is suited to medium-throw applications like Evergreen Ministries’ 550-seat sanctuary. The Syva system
Europe - Wärtsilä Entertainment Systems has solved the challenge of delivering a premium nightclub experience at sea with the first ever installation of Martin Audio’s recently launched WPS optimised line array. The latest member of the Wavefront Precision family was specified long before its official launch to cater to the entertainment needs of Scarlet Lady, the very first ship in the Virgin Voyages fleet. “We started audio specification for the ship back in 2016 but thanks to the strength of relationship with Martin Audio we were able to glimpse into the future product roadmap and as a consequence believed that the product that would become WPS was a perfect fit for the nightclub,” explained Rob Shuard, vice president, design & engineering of Wärtsilä Entertainment Systems. “We felt WPS would offer the perfect marriage of high performance, control, consist
Germany - Dry hire specialists, HELi Showequipment GmbH supply technology for events of all types and sizes. The company, based in Bodenheim near Mainz, continually invests in new equipment from leading brand manufacturers, as well as offering full service back-up. with a three digit quantity of impression S350 Spot and Wash from GLP - and is thus opting for white light solutions of the highest quality. “While we already have sufficient quantities of the powerful, larger moving lights, it was the smaller, more compact fixtures that interested us,” explained CEO Uwe Heinrich. “The S350 series struck me immediately because it is dHELi is currently expanding its inventory of LED moving lights designed to be very compact, in keeping with the GLP design ethic of having no bulky base. Also, the important electronic shutter capability on both the Spot and Wash is impres
Egypt - Jennifer Lopez played her first-ever Egyptian concert in August in New Alamein as part of her It’s My Party tour to celebrate her 50th birthday. Lighting for the occasion included 60 Chauvet Professional Rogue R3 Wash fixtures supplied by Prolite. “Rabih Mokbel, one of the most prominent concert organizers in Egypt, retained Prolite to provide the rig for this event because of our reputation,” said Baher George, general manager of Prolite. “We recommended the Rogue fixtures for this project because of their output and colour and Mr. Mokbel and the LD agreed. Ahmed Aziz did a magnificent job bringing the fixtures into Egypt so we could use them for this show.” LD Shaheem Litchmore flew the Rogue R3 Wash fixtures on midstage truss, and positioned them on Stage Right and Stage Left truss ladders. From these positions, the fixtures covered the stag
UK - High End Systems lighting gear illuminated Leith Theatre for the duration of the recent Edinburgh International Festival. The fully LED rig comprised a selection of Sola Series fixtures, but the real highlight was High End’s latest innovation – TurboRay – which made its international debut at the event. In his role as lighting designer for Leith Theatre’s contemporary music programme for the 2019 festival, Grant Anderson facilitated the lighting needs for a diverse roster that included poetry, rapping and alternative rock. He designed a rig that offered flexibility and a multitude of possible looks for the featured artists including Jarvis Cocker, Teenage Fanclub and Neneh Cherry. “It’s been great fun having access to the world’s first TurboRay fixtures,” Anderson states. “I put eight of them on one truss and positioned it so the audience could
UK - Creamfields returned to Daresbury on the British August Bank Holiday weekend with bigger production values - and more flown subs - than ever before. Led by crew chief Alex Hore and with system designs from Josh Lloyd, Britannia Row provided sound solutions to Arc Stage, Horizon Stage and Stage 4, AKA, the 15,000 capacity Steel Yard (which is so popular, it has become a festival in its own right with events staged in Cream’s hometown of Liverpool, and in London. Hore, who was Britannia Row’s crew chief, oversaw a 16-stong crew across three stages and worked closely with off-site noise management consultants, Vanguardia. He says: “The design of the systems and the ethos behind them is to provide the best sounding and largest-area-covering audio we can, whilst limiting the potential for any off-site sound problems. Any stage, at any time, can be called o
Poland - Glastonbury 2019 headliner Stormzy thrilled audiences at Open’er , one of Poland’s largest annual music festival. Held in Gdynia on the north coast of Poland, this popular event has attracted a host of names over the years including The Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Bruno Mars and Radiohead. This year’s headline acts were Kylie Minogue and Stormzy. Concept for the main stage was undertaken by lighting collective Green Beam Design. The main stage rig, supplied by Transcolor, included a whole host of Prolights Sunblast fixtures. The external design team requested colour strobes on floor to complete the desired ‘colourful punch’ aesthetic and Prolights Sunblast3000FC were used. The fixtures have a track-record of providing the punch that this performance required, but also the flexibility of the 48 individually controllable groups of RGBW LEDs all
China - The Qing show is a hi-tech, permanently installed stage show produced by the Sunac Group in a purpose-built, 1,600-capacity venue at the Oriental Movie Metropolis complex at Qingdao in the Shandong province of China. The venue’s architecture has a number of marine elements and is designed to represent a conch. Based on the Chinese legend of Eight Immortals Crossing the the show was conceived, designed and created by artistic director Luke Petit through Art Team Group Asia. Four years in the making, the show, which covers a floor area of 21,500sq.m, has a cast of 63 performers, features a lifting stage, acrobatics, dance, classic Kung Fu moves, 3D holographic projections and a water curtain fountain to create the perfect fusion of traditional culture and modern stage art. The cast which features 12 main roles, was selected from more than 10,000
UK - The Zero 88 team fully embraced the buzz and excitement of the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival where they were - again - on the ground with training and technical support for a range of their lighting consoles and control solutions. They also introduced #behindthefringe - a ‘fun and informative forum’ for anyone into fringe performance and involved with a show using Zero 88 products. Building on this success, #behindthefringe will be launched as a website later in the year as a hub and platform for comments, experiences and opinions, sharing information and connecting people through various Fringe projects linked via Zero 88. Over 100 different Zero 88 consoles were in action site-wide at this year’s Edinburgh event, which is the largest arts festival in the world, producing nearly 60,000 new performances in over 300 venues across 25 hectic and vibrant
USA - The first annual Peak to Sky festival in Montana in early July featured Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses), Josh Klinghoffer (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters) on the bill. Local event producers Outlaw Partners and lighting suppliers Jereco Studios were at the sharp end. “We knew going in that we would have to put together a package that would be fitting of some of the biggest names in rock n' roll,” says Frank Douglas of Bozeman-based Jereco Studios. With at least 75% of the live production done by Jereco Studios during the summer months outdoors, Douglas says that in southwest Montana at least 75% of those shows experience some degree of inclement weather. “From sustained high winds, to hail, to rain, to snow, our most exposed fixtures need to be able to withstand that. Elation has
UK - Allen & Heath mixers tackled FOH and monitor duties for We Out Here Festival (see LSi September 2019), held for the first time this August and curated by BBC Radio 6 DJ, Gilles Peterson, his Bronswood Recordings label and Worldwide FM. Taking place across four-days in rural Cambridgeshire, the family-friendly festival showcased a line-up of underground artists and DJs. Supplied by Glasgow-based A-Live Sound, five dLive and four SQ systems were chosen to run FOH and monitors across seven stages. Director Iain Mackie comments: “I chose to invest in dLive and SQ as they’re the best sounding consoles on the market right now. With dLive specifically, unlike some other manufacturers, it has endless high-qu
UK - Harlequin Floors has been picked to supply dance flooring to the English National Ballet’s new home in London City Island. The new location aims to bring world-class ballet to the widest possible audience and officially opened its doors last night (12 September). The building has been designed by award-winning architects Glenn Howells Architects and combines top training, fitness, rehab and teaching facilities, seven stage-sized rehearsal studios and a unique theatre size production studio with five-storey fly tower unrivalled in the UK. With funding from the Arts Council England’s Capital Large Grants programme and the National Lottery, the £3m investment brings both the English National Ballet and English National Ballet School together under one roof for the first time. Harlequin installed over 1900sq.m of Harlequin Activity sprung floor and Harlequ
South Africa - The Roodepoort Theatre has seen various transformations since opening its doors in 1981, but one of the most recent has been the investment of an L-Acoustics ARCS WiFo system supplied and installed by DWR Distribution earlier this year. Initially presenting opera and symphony performances, today the Roodepoort Theatre is a dynamic and diverse receiving house that plays host to an array of shows ranging from ballets to musicals, revues, dramas, dance competitions, bands and live recordings. Over the years the theatre has stayed abreast with the latest lighting equipment, while aesthetic renovations, including new seats and flooring, have created a fresh and modern look. The new L-Acoustics system enables the theatre to offer a professional service to external companies making use of their facilities and a quality experience for the audience.
USA - The Tony-nominated The Wedding Singer played Boca Raton’s Olympic Heights Performing Arts Centre this summer, with a lighting design by Clifford Spulock that featured Chauvet Professional fixtures. “There are a lot of different emotions that go on in this show,” says Spulock. “It starts out with a massive party at a wedding. I light this with huge bump changes and big hits that play off the music. Light from my fixtures cut through the haze into the audience at this point to create a very immersive, energetic opening that encourages the audience to get up and dance to the music.” Among the lights that Spulock had fun with were two Rogue R1X Spot fixtures that were positioned on the apron electric. Filling a variety of roles in the lighting design, the 170W LED fixtures were used for front light specials as well as to illuminate the mylar drop dur
Hungary - Robe moving lights helped keep pace with the demands of an eclectic mix of music and creative presentations on the main stage of Budapest’s Sziget Festival. The stage saw performances from Martin Garrix, The 1975, Florence + The Machine, Foo Fighters and Ed Sheeran, who played to 80,000 fans a day for seven days. The base main stage production / house rig was designed by Mark Kontra from rental company Colossal, who have supplied lighting for this stage of the event for the last several years. The production lighting incorporated 172 Robe lighting fixtures which were a mix of BMFLs, Pointes and ColorStrobes. It was designed to be practical, bearing in mind the amount of own kit coming in, offering all the breadth, fluidity and capabilities of a properly thought-through house lighting rig. “We needed a powerful reliable rig with the flex
UK - Following a critically acclaimed UK tour, the stage adaptation of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin promptly transferred to the West End for a recent nine-week season at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Lighting the show throughout has been Malcolm Rippeth, who as with the touring version, made heavy use of Martin by Harman’s MAC Encore Performance CLD and MAC Aura XB fixtures when the show moved to the West End - supplied as part of the lighting package by White Light. Based on Louis de Bernières’ best-selling novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is a story of romance in the face of the Second World War, set on the idyllic Greek island of Cephalonia. The creative team did justice to this epic story in just two and a half hours of stage time. “Consequently there were jump-cuts throughout the play, split screens, and montages of years passing,” say
