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
USA - Nine-time Grammy-winning jazz songstress Norah Jones, first shot to stardom in 2002 with the release of her debut record Come Away With Me, which has sold more than 20m copies. Today, her record sales have surpassed the 50m mark and after recently completing a tour of Australia and New Zealand, she has embarked on a 24-date North American tour, where FOH engineer Jamie Landry is mixing from an SSL L500 console. The North American tour kicked off on 18 June at Pittsburgh's Heinz Hall. Although the venues can be varied, Landry says for the most part, Jones and her band tend to play in theatres. “It's a nice situation where she can do a theatre in most markets at this point; she doesn't over-reach, which means she can sell 2,000-plus tickets pretty much anywhere,” Landry explains, adding that all of the shows have been or will be sold-out. “She's real
UK - ChamSys desks were included in the production designs on eight Glastonbury stages this year, in addition to others being brought to the festival by a host of LDs working for a wide range of artists like Simon Horn for Maribou State, Isabel Del Moral for Rosalia, and Gary Wilson for Lewis Capaldi. At the Park Stage, a MagicQ MQ500 Stadium with a Stadium Playback Wing served as the main desk, where it was used by a variety of LDs, including Tom White for Michael Kiwanuka. South West Group Events, which provided stage production, supplied the MQ500 Stadium, as well as the MagicQ MQ80 backup console. The lighting manager for the stage was Callam Thom, and the console operator was Steven ‘Mac’ McCracken. Southampton-based GLS Lighting supplied a MagicQ MQ100 plus Playback Wing for the Avalon Stage, which was overseen by console operator Will Thomas. The impressiv
Germany - Barbara Schöneberger released her fourth album, Eine Frau gibt Auskunft in May and has recently presented it with 10 live shows across Germany. The Event-Net GmbH from Halle (Saale) has been working for the singer since 2008 and has been a technical service provider for all tours and various individual shows. The team headed by managing director Kay Schöttner and technical department manager Mathias ‘Hein’ Schroeter was also responsible for the complete technology, the stage management and part of the tour management on this latest tour. In 2004 Event-Net was one of the first users in Germany to invest in Alcons Audio. Since then, a stock of Alcons LR14 and LR16 including BF362 subwoofers has been established in Halle and used for past Schöneberger tours. For the 2019 tour, however, they turned to the larger LR18 pro-ribbon line-array syst
Spain - Martin by Harman Professional Solutions supported the International Music Summit (IMS) Dalt Vila finale on 26 May. Martin supplied a full lighting rig, including MAC Quantum, Viper and Aura products, and also featured the recently-launched Atomic Strobe Dot. Lighting designer Nick Jevons created the lighting display for the event, which was hailed by the organisers of IMS as the best lighting supplied in the 11 years it has presented the Dalt Vila finale. Martin’s Spanish distributor, SeeSound, supplied logistical and technical support onsite to help ensure that things ran smoothly, Michael Walker, senior sales director at Martin by Harman also attended the event. (Jim Evans)
The Netherlands - Dutch singer Marco Borsato performed his anthemic back catalogue to 240,000 fans over five nights at Rotterdam’s De Kuip stadium in May. His dynamic songs and enthusiastic performance style required full spectrum coverage across the entire roof-less stadium, leading the production team to the d&b audiotechnik SL-Series. Borsato is a national treasure in The Netherlands, thanks to a hit-making, multi-award-winning 20-year career. He is one of a handful of artists with the fanbase clout to play five nights at one of his country’s biggest venues - the 51,000 capacity De Kuip (which translates into English as ‘The Tub’- the affectionate nickname for the Stadion Feijenoord). Utrecht-based d&b partner Peak Audio was challenged with providing a system that could deliver full-frequency range in the demanding open-air stadium environment.
UK - Lighting designer James Scott used the VLZ Profile from Vari-Lite on the recent UK tour by hip-hop artist AJ Tracey. The LED fixtures had the power Scott required to deliver a visual complement to the bright LED screens on the Brixton Academy showcase gig that closed the tour. Scott, of design studio Suluko, worked with production designer and creative director Bronski, and Amber Rimell, of TAWBOX on the tour’s design. Scott had already been impressed by the output and performance delivered by just four LED-based VLZ Profiles on Tracey’s UK tour dates, where limited truck space had called for a minimal fixture count. “What we achieved with four VLZ Profiles would probably have required six of any other LED spot on the market,” he says. With this experience, when three large, portrait LED video screens were added to the set for the Brixton show, Sc
USA - Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, ZZ Top - long comprised of the classic trio of Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard - are celebrating their 50th anniversary by trekking through a world tour that runs into mid-October. As a thank you to their fans in Texas, where the band got its humble start back in 1969, the tour kicked off with three consecutive shows in the Lone Star state, all of which were reinforced by Houston-based LD Systems with a long throw L-Acoustics K Series loudspeaker rig. Sharing the bill with Bad Company, and joined by opener Cheap Trick, ZZ Top performed to full crowds at Dallas’ Dos Equis Pavilion, Houston’s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, and the Austin360 Amphitheater in May, prior to heading to Europe. LD Systems audio crew chief and systems engineer Julian Gates, who expresses his appreciation for S
UK - Production company SFL has just completed the AV requirements for Christopher Wheeldon’s staging of Cinderella by the English National Ballet (ENB) and The Royal Albert Hall, staged at the RAH. “The project was 18 months in the planning,” explains SFL director, Craig Lawrence. “ENB’s technical director, George Thomson, was looking to stage a large-scale production in-the-round. The production required many different changes of scene and the use of projection seemed the obvious answer. English National Ballet had never worked with projection on such a large scale before so turned to SFL to provide that experience.” In the early planning stages, SFL was appointed as technical provider, tasked with designing and installing the AV infrastructure, utilising content provided by projection designer Daniel Brodie, which not only created incredible atmo
South Africa - Splitbeam, the theatre division of rental company Gearhouse, has invested in a DiGiCo SD7T supplied by DWR, DiGiCo’s distributor for the territory. “Bad sound is as detrimental to a production as an actor forgetting their lines,” says Splitbeam’s MD, Alistair Kilbee. “Good sound feels natural, never taking away from what is happening on stage but supplementing it, giving the sound for the ears to match what the eyes see for the magic of theatre to take place. “Mixing sound is the art of balance - balancing what comes out of the speaker to transform a noise into a recognisable piece of information that feels good to experience. This is where the gear becomes important. Having a console capable of not merely handling the show, but orchestrating it, the engineer acting as the conductor for the sounds, matching, mixing and blending them to becom
Europe - Entertainment engineering specialist WIcreations is working with Rammstein and their production team on the current three-month stadium and festival tour around the UK and Europe including Russia and Latvia. WIcreations took the opportunity of working with the band to launch its new integrated WImotion system, which gives precise control and synchronisation of individual and group moving chain hoists utilising SIL3 group position monitoring. WI, well known for their own industrial strength automation and engineering solutions, was asked to supply several custom staging and automation elements for the tour. All this is being co-ordinated for WI by Koen Peeters and Hans Willems, who were asked onboard by the tour’s technical consultant Jeremy Lloyd of UK based Wonder Works. They have worked closely with Rammstein’s own creative team, a collabora
Switzerland - Marco Kunz released his fifth album Förschi earlier this year, and from March to May, he set out on a club tour throughout Switzerland. LD Benjamin ‘Beni’ Bohler, who has previously worked for numerous other Swiss artists, including Luca Hänni, Bubble Beatz and Züri West, was at the console for the first time with Kunz. He states: “With my lighting art I want to transport audiences to a free, unencumbered world that both fascinates and amazes them. Of course, it’s always about creating a recognition value for the music, and supporting the artists on stage to the optimum.” Party of his armoury for the Kunz tour included six impression E350, which Beni set on the stage, on three different levels. Also represented in the lighting design were a number of GLP impression X4 Wash. “I used the E350 to play with shadows and bring moveme
UAE - The latest addition to the entertainment outlets at Dubai’s Atlantis, The Palm Hotel’s Wavehouse is a family-friendly entertainment centre built on the site of a former nightclub. Wavehouse provides two floors of arcade attractions, a 13m high soft play area and a ProSlide Waverider surf machine as well as numerous F&B outlets, a sun terrace, mezzanine and a pair of live stages. Wavehouse’s operator Solutions Leisure has had a long relationship with Dubai-based systems integrator Pulse Middle East, relying on the company to handle the audio integration at a number of its other venues and contacted the team at Pulse ME to create a comprehensive solution for the venue. “The team at Solutions Leisure invited Pulse ME to come and have a look at a venue,” recalls Joe Chidiac, managing director, Pulse Middle East. “After the audio requirements brief, th
UAE - Martin Professional Middle East (MPME) recently outfitted the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi with a Martin by Harman exterior lighting solution. Located in the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is an imposing structure with a 262ft main dome and four minaret towers rising to a height of 351ft. As the largest mosque in the UAE and the third largest in the world, Grand Mosque accommodates up to 40,000 visitors. The mosque recently opened a new three-story visitor’s centre bookended by two glass dome entrances. Abu Dhabi officials hired MPME to install an exterior lighting solution that would visually emphasize the new visitor’s centre and glass domes. In order to overcome the challenge of outfitting the dome’s curved surfaces, MPME installed 2,556 Martin Professional Exterior PixLine 10 fixtures. “Installing
Europe - Snow Patrol returned to the road after a seven-year break with their 2018 album Wildness. Audio provider Adlib used the Outline Newton multi-source processor at the front end of their systems. The Newton is quickly becoming an Adlib standard for audio processing and this sold-out UK arena tour was no different. Sam Proctor, senior system engineer at Adlib, optimised his workflow to put the Newton at the centre of the processing operation, handling all the delays and EQ for each zone of the PA, as well as being a front-end matrix mixer to get all consoles into the system. He comments: “Using one dedicated device to replace what was previously several devices networked together has been so much easier to adapt to different scenarios. Day to day, we may require multiple additional feeds for house delays, VIP boxes or hearing loops, or additional
Russia - When Moscow’s Zaryadye concert hall opened it became one of the most technologically advanced venues in Russia. It features a large complement of Claypaky lighting fixtures in its 1,600-seat philharmonic auditorium and the smaller, 400-seat theatre. Zaryadye is part of a new park adjacent to Red Square and next to the Kremlin walls. Its Philharmonic auditorium is equipped with stage machinery, precisely chosen lighting gear and integrated engineering technologies that allow it to host different types of productions from classical music concerts and theatrical performances to international conferences and shows. Claypaky fixtures selected for the hall include 54 A.leda K-EYE K20s, 12 Scenius spots, 12 Scenius profiles and 30 Show Batten LED linear lights. The K-EYEs were chosen for their quiet operation, notes Vasily Litvin, Lighting Director of the DOK
France - Paris celebrated the Eiffel Tower's 130th anniversary in May with a spectacular son et lumière atop the Iron Lady with 60 Elation Proteus Hybrid luminaires used in an extraordinary double helix design. The weatherproof Proteus moving heads played an integral part in the sound and light show and were supplied for the event by technical solutions provider Magnum, who has been involved the majority of Eiffel Tower events since 2004. Magnum’s role on the project was to interact between the artistic ideas of set designer Bruno Seillier and the Eiffel Tower’s technical director. Programmed by Magnum’s Clément Lelevé, the custom light show portrayed a series of moments in history including Gustave Eiffel’s design and construction of the tower, special broadcasts France got to experience due to the tower’s height, the two World Wars, and other notable e
Czech Republic - Robe embraced the vitality and essence of visual and aural collaboration in supporting Blue Hour, a large-scale multifaceted immersive installation staged in the Small Sports Hall venue at the Prague Exhibition Grounds for the 2019 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ2019). This complex work was developed from an idea originally conceptualised by the PQ19 event curators Marketa Fantova and Jan Rolnik. Their vision was an ambitious project to unite a series of innovative and prominent performance designers working in six separate but related disciplines - lighting, video / projection, experimental sound, tactile elements, VR and systems integration - under the direction and guidance of French visual artist, Romain Tardy. Leading the Lighting Workgroup were Pavla Beranova and Fereshteh Rostampour who worked with and mentored a gr
UK - Cornwall's Knightor Winery has become a popular location for wedding events and receptions. For one recent wedding reception at the winery, local production company DJ Services Cornwall were tasked with providing wedding guests with a suitably boutique entertainment experience to complement the impressive surroundings of the venue. Their solution involved a VW camper van-inspired DJ booth complete with eight Chauvet DJ Freedom Sticks and six white Intimidator Spot 255 IRC fixtures. With the VW camper front building the unmistakable centrepiece of the entire setup, DJ Services Cornwall’s Allan Cross positioned the array of Chauvet DJ Intimidator fixtures upon trussing towers behind the booth, with a further roster of Freedom Stick fixtures completing the line-up. “Because roughly 90% of our work is weddings, we’re always looking for new fixtures to he
