China - Marking the start of the summer season in China, the Xi’an Strawberry Festival was one of the first major multi-day festivals of 2019 and featured a Martin Audio PA on the main stage. The event included multiple stages, many top Chinese acts and indie foreign acts over the two days. The festival included Chinese rock legends New Pants, well known R&B singer and producer Fang Datong, creative singer Wang Shi’an, Tizzy T & Man Shuk, the young generation’s leading female rapper Wan Nida, and avant-garde Japanese act Yahyel. Modern Sky, the company behind the Strawberry Festival and a number of other large music festivals, has a long-term relationship with Beijing Pacific Budee and Martin Audio that dates back to 2012. Since then, the Strawberry Festival has been held over 75 times in 27 different cities and Martin Audio’s line arrays have always
Belarus - Kraftwerk Trade LLC, the exclusive distributor for Adamson Systems Engineering in the Republic of Belarus, has installed the country’s first permanent S-Series solution in the Grodno Regional Philharmonic’s new concert hall. In addition to being the professional home for the philharmonic, known locally as Kapella Grodno, the hall will serve as a creative and cultural hub for both the city and wider region of Grodno in Western Belarus, presenting various artistic disciplines for residents and visitors alike. “As the new, state-of-the-art home for arts and culture in Grodno, this venue will showcase world-class artists and performers, so we were tasked with installing a world-class audio system that would properly cater to their needs,” shares Ulyana Barkova, deputy commercial director, sales & field services division, with Kraftwerk Trade. “Adams
USA - Two Princess Cruises ships - Diamond Princess and Sun Princess - have undergone a major upgrade to their entertainment offerings with a new approach to live sound, bringing L-ISA Hyperreal Sound and Immersive Hyperreal Sound experiences to their guests. Princess Cruises decided to raise the on-board sound reinforcement to a new standard and has specified L-Acoustics L-ISA configurations, supplied by L-Acoustics certified provider Norwest Productions. L-ISA is an object-based immersive sound technology that uses placement of sound sources to achieve spatialisation, enabling anything from a customisable, ultra-realistic live sound field to fully immersive 360° sound design. Princess Cruises entertainment experience department began exploring implementation of immersive live sound, noting that live performance audiences are increasingly exposed to immersive
Europe - It was a coincidence that the paths of Papa Roach and lighting designer Mathias Kuhn should cross. "About two months ago a lighting man was looking for a few shows in Russia and a festival gig in Germany," recalls Kuhn. “Three months later it became Papa Roach’s European tour, while another colleague took care of the gigs in the USA.“ For Kuhn, the band made their decision in his favour after a festival tour of Europe last year. “It just feels good when the lighting is turned on,” says frontman and band leader Jacoby Shaddix. “It’s a lot of fun for me too,” retorts Kuhn. “Performing live, this band is simply full of energy, and meanwhile I‘ve practically become a member of the family.” Currently Kuhn and Papa Roach are more or less constantly on the move. After a support tour with Shinedown in the USA, playing mainly arenas, in the
USA - Sue the T. Rex has a new home in the Chicago Field Museum’s Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet. Lighting and AV presentation for Sue’s new home were designed by Lightswitch Chicago using ETC and Xicato luminaires and ETC controls. The fossil is named after Sue Hendrickson, who discovered the skeleton in South Dakota in 1990. Following a three-month prototyping phase to show the curators how Sue would be lit the new quarters, the design team at Lightswitch Chicago produced a meticulously-cued AV presentation worthy of the $8.7m fossil. “Conservation of the delicate stones and resins is very important - Sue will receive about a quarter of the light, and none of the direct sunlight it did before,” says Thatcher Waller, senior lighting designer for Lightswitch Chicago. The project called for the complex integration of control protocols and diverse
Hungary - Alt-rock band Vad Fruttik (Wild Fruits) headlined a special concert to celebrate the eighth season opening of Budapest Park, one of the largest outdoor venues in Europe. Lighting designer Peter Pálocska from Budapest rental company Lajter Light designed a production lighting scheme to ensure the band and their 8,500 fans enjoyed a memorable night out. Part of his distinctive luminescent styling for this show was a backwall of 72 Robe Spiider LED wash beam fixtures, which added drama and excitement to the visual picture. Pálocska has also lit many other concerts in Budapest Park - which features a 24m x 12m x 12m (WxDxH) stage - and a landmark gig which any Hungarian band is extremely proud to play. Vad Fruttik trusted him to produce something special for this show, utilising a combination of the house lighting fixtures (including moving lights
USA - Bandit Lites is providing the lighting for the Peter Frampton Finale - The Farewell Tour, presented by SiriusXM, a nearly 50-date run this summer and fall produced by Live Nation. Frampton has announced he will retire from regular vigorous touring at the end of this year due to his diagnosis of Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM), and with a career spanning over more than half a century, he has a massive body of work to draw from for his legion of fans. “Peter Frampton helped shape the sound of the 70’s and it is an incredible honor to be a part of this historic farewell tour,” said Bandit Lites vice president Mike Golden. This tour reunited lighting designer Chris Lisle and Frampton, who had worked together seven years ago. “To be a part of this final tour of his career was truly an honour,” says Lisle. “He is such a great person both on and off sta
UK - Following a sold-old run at the Menier Chocolate Factory, Trevor Nunn’s revival of the classic Broadway Musical, Fiddler on the Roof, has taken up residence in the West End at London’s Playhouse Theatre. Sound designer Gregory Clarke was approached by Nunn to design both productions. Clarke chose to use EM Acoustics equipment throughout, based on a main Halo-C line array system supplemented by EM Acoustics’ EMS Series for the wider vocal and orchestra systems. Clarke explains that the design brief for this version of Fiddler was to create an immersive experience for the audience. “A great deal of work was done to modify the auditorium in order to transform it from a familiar West End venue into a plausible Russian village. It looks and feels wonderful but inevitably loudspeaker positions were severely limited. Halo-C was instrumental in miti
Spain - The Canary Islands boasts one of the most spectacular and outstanding annual carnivals in the world, where the streets explode with colourful parades, outdoor parties and music events on every island. This year was no exception with around 600,000 people coming to enjoy the exuberant display of colour and light. One major highlight was Una noche en Río, a show directed by Israel Reyes with set designed by Carlos Santos, and lighting design and technical direction by Jonay Díaz, partner of RGB Canarias S.Coop. Díaz’s lighting for this show, which ran for 21 performances, was bolstered by 40 Ayrton Ghibli LED moving heads, supplied by GAM Eventos. The carnival has gained a global audience and Díaz is very aware of how the eye-catching event transcends the borders of Spain. “The Drag Queen Gala is seen everywhere in the world with spectacular audien
UK - Beyond the four Glastonbury Festival stages on which RG Jones Engineering fielded Martin Audio systems, there was also a strong Martin Audio PA presence on the John Peel stage, The Park and Left Field, courtesy of SWG Events (SWG), who have been supplying numerous stages with sound and lighting infrastructure since 1995. For the John Peel stage, SWG sub-contracted elements of the audio supply to Martin Audio MLA partner, Stage Audio Services (SAS). The latter’s MD, Kevin Mobberley confirmed that having fielded MLA Compact previously they upgraded to the full-size MLA this time around for enhanced control, coverage and consistency. With design assistance from Simon Honywill, the main PA hangs comprised 20 MLA cabinets (10 elements flown each side) with 12 MLX subwoofers providing LF extension. Four of the popular DD12’s, positioned on the stage, focused the so
UK - Arcadia’s Pangea, described as “a primordial world of infinite possibility” promised the latest immersive AV, lighting, sonic and pyro adventure created by Arcadia Spectacular under the artistic direction of Pip Rush and Bert Cole. Technical production specialist CPL continued its working relationship with Arcadia by supplying six Barco UDX-4K32 projectors with fibre optic signal and control infrastructure for 360° projections that were integral to the show based around the 140t centrepiece of Pangea. Arcadia celebrated its 10th year at Glastonbury, having previously implanted their 50t spider stage in the hearts and minds of fans for the best part of a decade. Arcadia’s structures are built entirely in scrapped and repurposed materials. The crane, a graceful artefact of industrial architecture, was transplanted from Avonmouth Docks in Bristol, just
UK - RG Jones Sound Engineering returned to Worthy Farm following its fallow year to deploy Martin Audio systems across four major stages of the Glastonbury Festival. While Martin Audio’s flagship sound system, MLA, once again graced the Pyramid main stage as well as West Holts and the Genosys stage of Block9, Martin Audio’s Wavefront Precision Longbow (WPL) made its festival debut on the new IICON stage featuring an immersive 6.1 channel surround sound system designed by Simon Honywill. The Pyramid Stage bustled with electrifying performances throughout the three-day festival, with Stormzy delivering an impassioned headline set on the Friday, followed by The Killers on the Saturday and rounded off with a nostalgic tour de force by The Cure to close out Sunday night. Other performers included Sheryl Crow, Liam Gallagher, Janet Jackson, Bastille and Kylie. Th
Europe - The Laserworld Group is integrating the ShowNET interface as the mainboard in most of their laser systems. This means a multitude of new features to those devices, says the company. Not only can they be used for direct laser control via Showeditor or Showcontroller (the new professional laser software) through LAN connection, but they also have an integrated SD card that ILDA frames can be loaded to. These files can then be triggered via Art-Net, DMX, in stand-alone-operation and in some units even in sound-to-light mode. The possibility of putting self made content to the laser systems adds further intelligence to the devices, which usually are only used to work with either basic, premade content or external “intelligence” through ILDA control software. Every ShowNET interface comes with the full version of Showeditor for free, so every laser system with
Ireland - A New Yorker visiting the Dublin St James’s Gate Guinness brewery with her Irish fiancé helped celebrate a momentous milestone recently when she became the 20 millionth visitor to Guinness Storehouse, Ireland’s most popular tourist attraction. The occasion was highlighted with an event that included an indoor concert for 500 guests along with an outdoor lighting spectacle in which Elation Proteus Hybrid weatherproof moving heads helped draw attention to the brewery. Dublin-based lighting designer Conor Biddle was brought in by events and branding agency Archetype as creative director for the event, which took place 25 April. “The brief was to have the whole city looking in one direction - toward the brewery - so I knew I needed a powerful beam,” states LD Biddle, who adds he had seen the arc-source Proteus Hybrid used on the New Year’s Eve light show on
UK - From the Pyramid Stage, where Tim Routledge used the COLORado Solo Batten on headliner Stormzy, to the Flying Bus Stage, the Greenpeace Field and the Acoustic Stage, Chauvet Professional proliferated at the 36th edition of the Glastonbury Festival. On the Pyramid Stage, a large collection of COLORado Solo Batten fixtures helped outline the architecture of the set and provided immersive colour washes from multiple directions. At the Unfairgrounds, the GLX Productions team led by managing director and lighting designer Glenn Gridley, used an extensive array of Maverick fixtures to create transformative moments. This was most notable on the Flying Bus Stage, where GLX conjured up an engaging effect with help from 12 Maverick MK Pyxis, 12 Maverick MK1 Spot and three Maverick MK1 Hybrid units. Maverick fixtures also had a transformative effect on the festival’s
USA - With over 100,000 residents, Greeley is part of an urban corridor that populates the front range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The Greeley Ice Haus is a city-owned, indoor, all-season, multi-use skating rink. Senior AV and theatre technology consultant at K2, a Boulder-based AV consulting firm, Kevin Hodgson led the design and worked with the Denver office of Ford AV on the installation of a new sound reinforcement system at the Greeley Ice Haus. Hodgson specified Danley Sound Labs loudspeakers and subwoofers for the upgrade. “The Greeley Ice Haus seats about 1,000 people on one side of the rink, and the University of Northern Colorado team’s fans can fill it up,” Hodgson says. “The previous sound system was well over a decade old and had become increasingly unreliable after the building took a lightning strike and after years of aggressive volumes
Belgium - Ruiselede-based event design and production company John & Jane in Ruiselede has added a fleet of Robe lighting fixtures to its inventory. The company, which is run by Nico Laniere and Katrien Vermeire, specialises in corporate events but is also supplying technical production needs to a select alternative summer festivals. This work prompted the company’s most recent purchases of Robe lights: a total of 58 MegaPointes and 48 LEDBeam 150s. The operation includes a technical production / scenic company Delta Rent, which works alongside and independent from John & Jane as required. They have been a steady investor in Robe moving lights from the start, in tune with their aspirations of supplying the very best and most innovative technology and services for their clients. The new MegaPointes and LEDBeam 150s have been in constant use since arrivin
France - Nexo’s Geo M10 Series mid-size line array is making its debut in the sporting world as part of a new fixed-installation sound system for the Stade Pierre Brisson in Beauvais, north of Paris. Systems integration company Vidélio has worked closely with Nexo’s in-house engineering team to design, specify and install the system, which will greatly enhance the match experience for 10,000 fans. The Stade Pierre Brisson is a multi-use facility, primarily hosting football matches, and serving as the home ground for AS Beauvais Oise FC. Neighbouring club Chambly FC, which has recently won league promotion, is sharing the stadium as its own ground is not yet registered for Ligue 2 games. The stadium is able to hold 10,178 spectators, in West and East facing grandstands. The time had to come to replace the aged entertainment PA system, and, from the very first
Russia - This winter, a festive event took place in Moscow that stood out prominently against the background of other similar projects. This was due to its conceptual approach, and stylish and thoroughly thought-out stage design, where each element played its role in bringing the core concept to life. GLP’s LED fixtures were the main performers in the lightshow. These not only decorated the event with spectacular effects, but gave a clue as to the overall concept. KNVs were included in the equipment list even before this idea had been discussed; the show itself included introduction and solemn entry of the key figures with elements of a theatrical performance, concluding with a small concert featuring such famous singers as Ivan Dorn and Dima Bilan. “When in December we learned that KNVs had become available in Russia, we immediately chose to use them in t
South Africa - Saint Thomas Church in Linden sought to upgrade its sound, with a quality solution that would not detract from the church’s looks and not break the bank. They got their solution from DWR Distribution in the form of Quest Audio and Audix microphones. “We didn’t want it to look out of place and we did need to get better sound,” says Gift Chanza the head of Sound Ministry at Saint Thomas, “The Quest loudspeakers were exactly what we needed”. Three HPI Quest speakers were installed in the main hall. The left and right being handled by two Quest HPI8i two-way passive loudspeakers hidden within the Churches woodwork and the centre speaker, a Quest HPI111 compact loudspeaker, hangs from the middle of the ceiling. An additional White HPI5 high output loudspeaker sits in the room adjacent main hall. These speakers have the church fully covered for sou
UK - Allen & Heath’s SQ series has stepped into broadcast with TV sound supervisor, Rob Ashard, working on a number of shows such as Comedians With Friends Watching Football, Al Murray’s Great British Pub Quiz and Race To The Numbers, all of which have vastly different requirements. Ashard, who has previously worked on shows including Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and The Graham Norton Show, chose an SQ-5 - along with a Dante card and DX168 Expander for remote I/O - specifically for his work on smaller-scaled productions, where space can often be at a premium. “Every now and then a TV show comes along where you can’t park a big TV Outside Broadcast (OB) unit and the technical team build the facilities into a smaller room, or rooms, at the location and assemble a load of flight-cased gear on tables, so I needed
China - It might be called the National Centre for the Performing Arts but the Beijing facility is all about the international exchange of culture. Not surprisingly, this is a showcase for Chinese talent in opera, music, dance and ballet, theatre and Chinese traditional opera, but as important are the international festivals and the visiting performers. A centre of this importance needs to have superlative facilities in every area and recording and broadcast are no exception. In company with the vast majority of world-renowned concert halls and opera houses, the NCPA has installed a Merging Technologies solution. Pyramix and its DSD workflow is essential for recording and archiving performances, but the NCPA has determined that having the ability to record and post-produce in 5.1 is also vitally important. This further emphasizes the wisdom of choosing a Merging solut
Brazil - Singer-songwriter Samba Ferrugem - known for his distinctive red hair that inspired the Ferrugem (‘Rust’) nickname - recorded a live concert DVD in the Jeunesse Arena, Rio de Janeiro Brazil. This spectacle was directed by Anselmo Trancoso with lighting designed by director of photography (DOP) Carlinhos ‘Carlos’ Nogueira, utilising 450 Robe moving lights. This impressive inventory of equipment plus other fixtures and the 500m of LED screens involved, was co-ordinated and delivered by Sao Paulo based rental company Wolf Produções, headed by Gabriel Pincel and João Freitas. Wolf Produções has supplied technical production to the artist on tour and was asked to co-ordinate the substantial kit needed to light this show. Gabriel Pincel was the project’s technical director. The Robe quote broke down into 36 x Robe BMFL WashBeams, 94 x Pointes, 60 x Me
UK - Gottwood marked its 10th anniversary with a carefully crafted programme of underground electronic music. The festival’s organisers are committed to giving its community the best possible sound and, with that in mind, called in Audio Feed (with a little help from its friends) to deliver Funktion-One systems on all 10 stages, including the first outing for Vero VX. Each stage was curated by the people behind some of the UK’s best parties and music labels, making for a varied line-up of DJ and live performances. Vero VX, which received its global launch at Prolight + Sound 2019 in April, was deployed at The Lawn - the festival’s 3,000-capacity main stage. The system featured four ground stacked Vero VX90 cabinets per side and eight V124 bass enclosures. Power came from MC2 Delta 90, Delta 100 and Delta 80 DSP Dante amps. Funktion-One founder Tony Andre
