UK - Version 2 is supporting a growing number of crews with low energy solutions both in the studio and on location. Working with a number of leading lighting directors, the Buckinghamshire based lighting rental specialists have supported coverage on a selection of premier summer events with products form their low energy inventory. First up was a visit to Worthy Farm, Somerset as broadcast partners for the BBC’s comprehensive coverage of the 2019 Glastonbury Festival. Making use of a selection of V2 low energy fixtures, lighting director Oli Richards and gaffer Paul Evans made this year’s Glastonbury coverage a completely LED lit event. The Version 2 team deployed a pair of lighting trucks to help deliver the look for both the ‘live studio’ areas and the considerable number of interviews held remotely across the vast festival site. The studio set-ups mi
Europe - Having recently purchased their own Allen & Heath SQ-5 digital mixer, British rockers Don Broco chose to pair it up with a full dLive system this summer for a short festival run across the UK & Europe, including appearances at Mad Cool (Madrid), Meo Mares Festival (Porto) and Truck Festival (Oxfordshire). Supplied by SSE Audio, a DM64 MixRack fitted with gigaACE and fibreACE cards formed the core of the system; paired with a dLive S3000 surface at FOH (fitted with a Dante card), while a digital split from the gigaACE card allowed the band to use their own SQ-5 for monitor duties. Adam Boole, FOH engineer and long-time user of Allen & Heath products, comments: “When we started this project, we needed to build a system that would work with the band’s own SQ-5 on monitors, luckily it was easy to achieve by having dLive on FOH. All I/O is set up th
Belgium - Main stage artists at the 2019 Ghent Jazz Festival were illuminated by 86 Robe moving lights - including 35 new T1s - in a slick lighting design created by Bart Weyts of company L&L Stage Services, who provided technical production, including lightning, audio and video, for that stage. The event was located in the attractive surroundings of De Bijloke, a charismatic historic site formally a hospital that now houses the Ghent Music Centre in the Belgian city. L&L has been involved in the main stage technical production for the last few years, working directly for the organisers. This year, L&L purchased T1s with this and other projects in mind from Robe’s Benelux distributor Controllux, adding to their ever-growing rental inventory of Robe moving lights which is now around the 650 mark. He wanted to use them on the Jazz festival because they are
USA - Jackson Browne is back on the road for the next leg of his tour with a lighting package supplied by Bandit Lites, and while the singer-songwriter’s last few tours featured big, saturated looks and backdrops, lighting designer Steve Comer designed this year’s run around beams rather than a set. “I chose to do ladders behind the band and some side trusses at a downward angle to wrap around the band and provide beams of light that surrounds them,” Comer explaines. “It was 12 years ago now that Jackson himself with designer David Davidian led the charge to go to a more earth friendly approach to lighting using a 90% LED based system,” says Bandit production director Dizzy Gosnell. “Back then it was 160 LED Par 64s. Jackson’s house had been off the grid a long while before, and he was intensely interested in pushing LED on his lighting systems. It wa
Japan - Uplink’s Tokyo cinemas can be described as mini theatres, including the city’s smallest such venue, which is located in the city’s Shibuya district. The company has embarked on a quest to offer cinema goers the best indie and foreign films in a country where Japanese blockbusters are becoming increasingly popular at the expense of both Hollywood movies and foreign arthouse titles. Over the last decade, the number of mini theatres has declined as multiplexes have flourished, but Uplink and its president, Takashi Asai, have remained true to their belief that the future is bright for arthouse mini theatres in Tokyo. The way to ensure this, in their opinion, is to offer a pristine AV experience to their customers. As a result, Uplink has chosen Powersoft amplifier platforms to drive the bespoke audio systems in its venues in the Kichijo-ji area, one of the c
Canada - Corey Hart has sold more than 16m records worldwide and earlier this year was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. The singer-songwriter recently undertook his first full arena tour of Canada since 1986, having twice taken long sabbaticals from the road during his 35-year career. The hotly anticipated Never Surrender tour demonstrated that he has lost nothing of his ageless star quality and reviews of the shows praised his skill, showmanship and the quality of his powerful eight-piece band. Supplying audio for the shows was production specialist Solotech and its choice of Coda Audio’s compact AiRAY system to deliver the Corey Hart message to his fans proved a great success. Front of House engineer Gary Stokes (k.d. lang, Adam Lambert) enjoyed his first experience with the system and was in no doubt about its qualities. “Usually, the bigges
Switzerland - Around every 20 years, the ‘once in a generation’ Fête des Vignerons takes over the Swiss town of Vevey for a month in July and August. Featuring nearly 6,400 performers, musicians and singers, 2,000 lighting fixtures, 612 loudspeakers and over 300 channels of wireless microphones, 11 networked Yamaha digital mixing systems were needed for the centrepiece production of the 2019 event. Fête des Vignerons is a spectacular event which pays homage to the centuries-old traditions of the Brotherhood of Winegrowers, which covers the area from Pully to Vevey, in the Lavaux region of Switzerland. The centrepiece production takes place in a temporary arena, built on the banks of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) and depicts a year in the life of the vineyard over 20 scenes. Taking place from 18 July to 11 August, this year’s production comprised 23 shows, plus the c
UK - White Light supplied the lighting equipment for the UK premiere of the Broadway musical Amélie, which completed its UK tour. Originally performed on Broadway, Amélie is based on the 2001 romantic comedy film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and tells the story of an astonishing young woman who lives quietly in the real world but loudly in her mind. This UK premiere is directed by Michael Fentiman, stars Audrey Brisson and Danny Mac and features a lighting design by Elliot Griggs. Griggs explains: “Amélie is unlike anything I’ve ever worked on before. The film itself actually broke a lot of traditional concepts, with the central character being largely passive and the story being told through short vignettes, which together create a rich tapestry of 90s Paris, but also highlight its loneliness and isolation. “Trying to encompass this successfully
UK - Independent event production specialists Light Fantastic Production Services returned to The Old Truman Brewery, London to support innovation festival Unbound with a complete event solution. Featuring presentations by a host of leading brands, the two-day symposium attracted over 5,000 visitors. The LFPS team worked with Unbound to transform the capacious venue into a series of zones, including the Main Stage, Future Stage, Networking Zone, Partners Lounge plus individually-branded spaces for over 140 exhibitors. The guest speaker presentations and panel style discussions were hosted within custom designed auditoria, built from the ground up by the LFPS team. Covering every aspect of the installation LFPS provided all lighting, audio, video and staging along with an extensive suite of stylish exhibition stands, digital event branding and signage. Comme
France - The Printemps department store at the intersection of Boulevard Haussmann and Rue du Havre became the first store in Paris to use 100 percent electric lighting in 1883. For this year’s Fashion Show Spring Vélizy 2 at the store, battery powered and Wi-Fi controlled LED WELL Fit fixtures from Chauvet Professional supplied by Axilum provided the lighting. Axilum used 36 WELL Fit units in its lighting for the fashion show event. Many of the fixtures were used to illuminate displays, while others, positioned by the runway itself, played a more unusual role. The WELL Fit units at the runway were placed on their sides so they could create a lattice work of crisscrossing light on the carpet as models paraded to showcase the latest fashions. “We had free card from our client to recreate a friendly space,” says Lionel Tachet of Axilum. “So, we relied on
Thailand - Mahajak Development Co recently outfitted the Toyota Buzz Co headquarters with a Harman Professional Solutions networked AV system to deliver audio and video in nine locations. Toyota Buzz Vibhavadi is a Toyota dealership and headquarters of the Toyota Buzz dealership sales channel. In order to broadcast and distribute AV content throughout the facilities - and to eight additional branch locations - Toyota Buzz recruited the help of pro audio distributor Mahajak Development. Mahajak deployed a networked AV system in the boardroom, hall, fitness room, sky garden and mobile room to provide advanced audio and video control. “After thorough consideration, our team designed and installed a Harman system that seamlessly delivers high-fidelity audio and video across multiple locations to meet the specific requirements of the client,” says Pongsakorn Kanchanach
Spain - ETC dealer Stonex has supplied 19 Source Four LED Mini fixtures to light the installations of acclaimed Indian artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar at the Thyssen Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid. The museum hosted the work of Amar Kanwar - Testimonios Relámpago and El Bosque Soberano. ETC lighting was used to enhance his exhibition which focuses on the concepts of nature, landscape, climate and human presence whilst criticizing the political state and lack of justice in his native country, India. Kanwar’s artwork in La Sala de Las Semillas, is characterised by taking elements of nature from India and using them as an activist proposal. Different types of rice grains were collected and carefully categorized in small drawers. The room required a dim light that created a warm and intimate atmosphere. Kanwar selected ETC for the installation based
USA - With a career spanning 19 years, 12 songs that have made Billboard's country charts, and word of a new major label record deal in the offing, country artist Craig Morgan is on the road this summer, touring with new gear in the form of an Allen & Heath dLive S5000 console/DM0 MixRack at front of house, an SQ-7 for monitors, and four DX168 I/O expanders on-deck. “I had been looking for a new console since last year,” opens Morgan’s FOH engineer, Robert Harmon. “I narrowed down my search to three, but none of them worked out. Then I ran across a console I didn’t recognise online. It looked high-end. It turned out to be an Allen & Heath S5000. Having logged thousands of hours on a GL2400 and other Allen & Heath analogue products in the past, I have to admit my mind was having a hard time wrapping itself around this new digital offering.”
Spain La Ciudad del Rock Arganda del Rey hosted electronic music festival A Summer Story on 21-22 June as 100,000 attendees enjoyed the latest music trends highlighted by Claypaky fixtures. The festival has become one of the epicentres of electronic music in Spain Its fifth edition, produced by Disorder Events, featured performances by more than 70 artists, as well as large screens and spectacular lighting that combined tungsten and LED technologies. A Summer Story featured four stages with lighting designs that mixed moving heads, LED bars and blinders, among others, all controlled from a grandMA2 full-size console supplied by Stonex. Disorder Events and Enrique Jiménez of Fluge Audiovisuales worked together to light four stages. Fluge Audiovisuales was once again in charge of providing the AV equipment, including Claypaky Sharpy PLUS fixtures. The main
China - Elation has been providing lighting solutions for Royal Caribbean International cruise ships since the first Oasis class ship launched in 2009. That trend continues with Royal Caribbean’s latest luxury cruise liner, Spectrum of the Seas. Custom-built for the Chinese market and accommodating 4,246 guests, Spectrum of the Seas set sail from Shanghai in June as the largest cruise ship in Asia. Similar to Royal Caribbean’s previously launched Quantum class ships, Spectrum of the Seas features first-at-sea amenities including Sky Pad, a bungee trampoline experience, and two-level family suites with an in-room slide. Built at Germany’s Meyer Werft shipyard, Amptown System Company (ASC) served as system integrator for sound, light, video, projection, media control and networking of media technology for the entertainment areas of the ship, working closely with t
Flamboyant ‘90s pop icons the Spice Girls’ 13-date summer stadium tour, Spice World – 2019 Tour, kicked off at Croke Park Dublin in May to culminate in June at Wembley Stadium (where else!), transforming 1990s nostalgia into 21st century excitement as they went. Helping to bring the near-vintage flavour to modern sensibilities was a fan-based, fully-invested design team brought together by Creative Director Lee Lodge, comprising set designer Jason Sherwood, choreographer and stage director Paul Roberts and lighting designer Tim Routledge, under the art direction of Kate Moross, who succeeded in creating a show that was a fusion of theatricality and live music on a touring scale. Into this set up Routledge, a keen advocate of Robert Juliat Dalis fixtures, introduced over one hundred RJ Dalis 862 150W LED footlights with the purpose of bringing a heightened sense of glamo
World - Dreams and nightmares are the main themes of the Billie Eilish When We Fall Asleep world tour - the first major tour for this young internet sensation whose career is experiencing a meteoric rise. Helping this seventeen-year-old, Indie pop phenomenon to dizzying heights is the tour’s wonderfully creative set design, the central motif of which is a flown bed, inlaid with 24 Ayrton MagicDot-R lighting fixtures supplied by PRG. Erik Anderson of Cour Design is the creative director behind this incredibly dynamic show. Anderson and his partner, Gordon Droitcour, have been working with Eilish since late 2017 and on this occasion, collaborated closely with production and lighting consultant, Nick Whitehouse at Fireplay, alongside lighting director and programmer, Tony Corporale and lead programmer, Dominic Smith. The stage design is an intricate structure
UK - The annual Marines on the Green memorial concert in the Kentish coastal town of Deal took on a special significance this year as it commemorated the 30th anniversary of the IRA bombing in Walmer barracks that killed 11 bandsmen. An unprecedented 12,000 people attended the event which was also an opportunity to upgrade the sound system from EM Acoustics’ compact Halo-C line array to the recently released medium format Halo-B system. System tech Dave Shepherd, who has been involved with the Marines on the Green event for many years, felt that with the increased audience expected for the 30th anniversary concert, Halo-B would be the right choice. “We’ve used the Marines’ own Halo-C system in previous years, but with so many more people expected this year, it was the ideal scenario for the Royal Marines to experience HALO-B in action.” Shepherd specified t
UK - The latest production from Space Productions, the in-house company at off West End performance venue The Space, tells a story never really told, against a dynamic and eye-opening immersive sound design by the company’s Keri Chesser, who added impressive realism and intense drama using TiMax. Spitfire Sisters is the tale of the British and American women in the British Air Transport Auxiliary who, at the height of World War Two, were trained to use just a map and a compass to fly planes from the manufacturers to where they were needed in the action. Using TiMax object-based spatial rendering Keri was able to depict action such as the intimate internal voices of the women’s thoughts whilst flying, by both isolating them for clarity while slightly diffusing them for dramatic impact. Chesser explains: “We were able to make the sound of the aeropla
Belgium - The 89m high tower of the majestic Saint Bavo's Cathedral is off limits to the public, except for 10 days in July when Ghent rolls out the welcome mat for the Gentse Feesten. Normal rules, whether at the Saint Bavo’s tower or anywhere else in Ghent, don’t apply during this annual music and theatre festival that draws over one million people to this Belgian city. Lighting the way for visitors at this year for the 176th edition of the festive event was a massive collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures that were used at over 15 stages and other venues. Among the fixture brightening Belgium’s second largest city during its annual escape from the ordinary were the Maverick MK1 Spot, Maverick Storm 1 Wash, Maverick MK1 Spot, Rogue R3 Wash, Rogue R2 Wash, and the COLORado Solo Batten. Additionally, over 200 COLORdash Par H12IP fixtures were used throughout the
UK - Adlib supplied full production - sound, lighting, video and rigging - plus crew for the recent UK tour by Daryl Hall and John Oates, whose impressive string of top 40 hits stretch back to the 1970s. After the UK tour, an Adlib control package and video servers went on to the Latin American leg of the tour, and then returned to Europe with the addition of a full audio package for the third segment and euro festival run. Adlib’s Craig Hamilton - based in the Glasgow office - project managed and co-ordinated all things sonic, liaising closely with Daryl Hall & John Oates’ audio team of FOH engineer Chris Salamone, monitor engineer George Squires and US supplier Firehouse’s stage tech, Jeff Child. Adlib’s Billy Bryson was the system tech, Jay Petch was the monitor and stage tech for the UK section of the tour and Billy was also the tech on the Europe
France - Production designer Jean-Christophe Aubrée has taken over the lighting for two major stadium shows, featuring French band Indochine (aka Indo). It was a comfortable position for Aubrée, to find himself in. Having previously worked with other well-known artists, and formerly operated in an assistant design capacity with Indo, he stepped up for the last two last shows of the long-running 13TOUR, which took to the road back in February 2018. Nicola Sirkis, Indochine’s leader, decided to create a whole new show for these two last stadium dates as a big surprise and experience for the fans. And helping provide a fitting finale were well over 1,000 lighting fixtures, including 794 GLP impression X4. All were supplied via PRG France from their bases across Europe. The vast majority of the X4s were consigned to the lighting roof with another 36 populating t
UK - Westlife are back after a seven-and-a-half-year hiatus, with a new production for the 20 Tour ahead of their much-anticipated new album, Spectrum. One hundred and forty-eight Robe MegaPointes were prominent on the touring lighting rig - specified by lighting designer Tom Sutherland. The first leg of the tour culminated in two sold out nights at Dublin’s Croke Park stadium playing to 170,000 fans. The gig was streamed live to cinemas worldwide. Tom Sutherland of DX7 Design is part of a new creative team. He was asked onboard by show producer / director Brian Burke, and the two combined forces to create the production design that is supporting Nicky Byrne, Kian Egan, Mark Feehily and Shane Filan on the 20 Tour. The performance space is defined by a large 70ft wide video screen upstage - which splits in two horizontally - and a full video floor,
USA - Using unfamiliar gear can often present challenging situations for recording professionals. But taking that leap into the unknown can also lead to new experiences that help you to develop better quality recording solutions. This is something that producer and engineer Siegfreid Meier experienced when recording a new live album for punk icons, Face To Face, using the JoeCo Blackbox BBR64-Dante recorder as part of his setup for the first time. The 250-capacity venue of Saint Vitus in Brooklyn, NYC, presented a challenge for Meier’s usual recording set-up. “The stage at the venue is tiny – there’s barely enough room for the band and their gear,” he explains. “I did a little bit of research beforehand and I thought the long runs of Dante would probably be the best way to record the show without leaving all of my gear on the stage.” With this decision ma
