UK - Cheltenham’s annual Science Festival arrived in June to explore the weird, wacky and wonderful. Production AV was commissioned to design, supply and operate the high-end screen, projection and sound solutions that formed the foundation of the multiple zones that were created in the specially built Festival Village. Hundreds of events took place over the six-day festival, with more than 280 ‘experts’ imparting knowledge, prompting discussion and provoking thought to thousands of visitors, including more than 9,000 school children. Festival organisers asked Production AV to deliver all aspects of audio/visual for the growing event. The team oversaw set-up and technical checks for all of the zones, including the flagship Cheltenham Town Hall space and adjoining Pillar Room, the Helix, the Crucible and the Cinema zone. “We were thrilled to design, set up
USA - Allen & Heath’s dLive digital mixing system played its part at Coachella 2019, supporting sets by breakout pop artist Billie Eilish and Kanye West’s special Easter Sunday Service. Billie Eilish lived up to the hype. Sound Image supplied a pair of S5000 Control Surfaces and DM64 MixRacks to handle both front of house and monitor duties as the teen superstar wooed her fans in two packed and highly energetic shows. Jeff Hawley, Allen & Heath USA marketing manager commented, “Billie has been out with dLive for her last sold out tour and now in support of her Billboard-topping When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? album, with Coachella kicking off the new tour. Engineers like Drew Thornton and Salim Akram (Billie Eilish, FOH and monitor engineers) are out there with the dLive, tackling fly dates with the compact C1500 one day and jumpin
Australia - Vivid Sydney, the largest festival of light, music and ideas in the southern hemisphere, has come to life. Once again, Australian entertainment technology company Technical Direction Company (TDC) is playing a significant role in surprising and delighting visitors. As the company has done for the previous 10 years, TDC is providing expertise in large scale projection mapping, LED video and technology for a number of the 50+ features. Vivid Sydney is Australia’s largest event, and celebrates creativity and innovation across all three pillars - light, music and ideas. It takes place annually, and features immersive light installations and projections, performances from local and international musicians as well as an ideas exchange forum featuring public talks and debates from leading creative thinkers. The event attracts over 2m people. Vivid
UK - Europe’s largest digital experience conference, the Adobe Summit EMEA 2019 returned to ExCeL London earlier this month. Creative technical event production specialist Hawthorn was once again chosen by agency Taylor Bennett Partners to deliver the full technical production for the two-day event. Focused on creating innovative customer experiences, over 6,000 delegates from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa gathered to hear the latest updates from Adobe Experience Cloud and its partners. Led by group creative director Pete Harding, Hawthorn was tasked to bring Taylor Bennett’s vision to life, delivering the technical production for the main conference plenary, exhibition space, break-out sessions and the Summit Celebration. Measuring 500sq.m and floating above the Adobe stand, the Jellyfish, was dreamed up by Russell Bennett, Partner at Taylor Be
UK - Discogs presented Crate Diggers - an international series of music festivals dedicated to promoting vinyl, collectability and physical music - at the Brighton Centre. A vinyl-records event with a lot of exhibitors and even more visitors. Besides countless albums, singles and maxi-singles Crate Diggers also presented a live music programme. Headliner this year was Sister Sledge. James Tomlinson Lighting was asked to arrange the lighting for the live stage. He used Showtec Phantom 3R Hybrid and Infinity Furion S-601 fixtures and invited designer John Richardson to design and programme the show. Of his experience with the Infinity Furion S-601, Richardson says: “The units seem well made with nice materials, the menu system was easy to navigate with both touch screen and a handy jog wheel. The 500w white LED engine seems nice and uniform and fairly pu
UK - Long since it had stopped building ships, The Harland and Wolf Shipyard in Belfast - where Titanic was built - was again thrust into the limelight as the main studio for the HBO series Game of Thrones. A visit to the shipyard-turned-studio with a gaffer friend in early 2011 plunged Keith ‘Shanksy’ Shanks into the fantastical world of Westeros and Essos as the lighting programmer for Game of Thrones throughout its entire eight-season run. With him all the way, on every one of the 73 episodes (plus the pilot), has been a series of ChamSys consoles. “I met the producers through my gaffer friend and was given the opportunity to work on the pilot,” said Shanks, owner of Key Console Systems in Belfast. “We never looked back, as I’ve been programming the show ever since that day, right up to the final episode.” Shanks had never used a ChamSys
France - The matrix structure that was positioned over the Misk Foundation stand at VivaTech Paris in May was brought to life with a colourful Big Fish SRL lighting design that features Chauvet Professional COLORado Panel Q40 fixtures. An annual gathering of high-tech start-ups and budding visionaries, the conference held at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles is an incubator of new ideas that ‘hold forth the potential to transform society in the future’. Conceived by design firm Ochre and built by Level Exhibitions, the overhead matrix at the Misk stand reflects this spirit. Nestled within the custom-built honeycombed lattice of ceiling panelling, the RGBW fixtures were used to create transformative patterns of shadows and brightness. In so doing, they added an extra level of depth to the entire structure, endowing the light itself with the aura of being an almos
Europe - Saïd M’Roumbaba, better known by his stage name Soprano, combines music, politics and urban poetry with edginess, meaning, accessibility and superlative showmanship. His live shows are selling out and he is currently touring French-speaking Europe. Young French lighting designer Victorien Cayzeele is an integral part of the creative team bringing the Phoenix touring show to life, a task he is doing spectacularly with the help of around 150 Robe moving lights which are at the core of an innovative and emotive visual experience. Victorien has worked with the artist for six years, each tour seeing the shows getting bigger and bigger as Soprano’s influence and popularity grows. The 2019 touring schedule is action packed with a mix of own shows - including five stadiums in September - and festival headline slots as well as over 40 arena gigs. Soprano’
UK - The Institute of Acoustics (IOA) has installed Shure Microflex Advance MXA910 microphone to complement a Voice Lift system at the organisation’s Milton Keynes headquarters. This has helped to restore the natural speech level for far-end participants within a space used as both a meeting room and a classroom for attendees participating in courses involving working within acoustics. Students undertaking courses now benefit from clear speech across the space, while those collaborating online via distance learning are delivered the same audio as their classroom counterparts, with the system raising the quality of the captured content. The client brief consisted of a system that was hands free and could be permanently installed in a room with the ability to be divided as necessary and with multiple furniture layouts. Audio clarity was a critical factor b
UK - Room 2, Glasgow’s new events space, is embracing the city’s rich and diverse creative culture with a forward-thinking approach to sound. The basement venue, which is located in the heart of Scotland’s largest city, is home to a Funktion-One sound system. Supplied and installed by Steedsy.Com Audio, the system has been tuned by John Newsham - co-founder of the loudspeaker manufacturer. “We intend to utilise Room 2 outside of the nightclub sphere,” explains owner Dario Bernardi. “It’s a venue which has the capability to host everything from concerts and club nights to daytime events and is suited to being used as an arts space. “We use Funktion-One across all of our venues. Of course, the sound quality comes first - with the right tuning and amps it’s unrivalled in a club setting as far as we’re concerned. When we first experienced the sy
USA - The VLZ Profile luminaire, from Vari-Lite’s latest generation of LED moving head fixtures features on Plan B Entertainment’s US touring production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita. Specified by lighting designer Chad Bonaker, the fixture’s size, brightness, zoom and effects package combined to meet the designer’s every need. Bonaker, faced with the familiar touring theatre challenges of limited truck space and short load-in times, knew he had to ask a lot from his lighting fixtures. “The lighting package needed to be very compact,” he says. “And, with quite a few one-off tour dates, we wanted to limit the number of fixtures to be loaded in and refocused from venue to venue.” With the fixture count necessarily at a minimum, maximum versatility was essential. “Every light in the air had to pull its weight in multiple roles,”
USA - Ever since Dropkick Murphys burst on the music scene in the late ’90s, bold, colourful backdrops have been almost as much a part of their show as their music. This year, the band added a new twist to their stage presence by having five separate sections of drops that were revealed in stages. Accenting the unveiling of each section, while also furnishing an endless stream of bright and colourful looks to support the band’s thunderous performance, was a Jeff Maker lighting design that featured 17 Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Wash fixtures, supplied by JRLX, Inc. “Things were a bit different this year compared to Dropkick Murphys’ other tours when it came to their drop setup,” says Maker. “They went with five separate sections of drops, each of which had a Velcro reveal in front of it. We would reveal the drop during a blackout at mid-set. The Rogues p
UK - A Void Acoustics sound system has been installed in Mrs Fogg’s Maritime Club & Distillery. Located in the heart of London, Mrs Fogg’s is the sixth venue in the Mr Fogg’s collection, inspired by Aouda, Phileas Fogg’s Indian wife, in Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel, Around The World in 80 Days. Styled as if aboard a Victorian steamer ship, guests enter the ground floor through the Maritime Club. Sound in this large bar and dining space is powered by six black Void Acoustics Air 8 passive, two-way, eight-inch surface mount loudspeakers and two Venu Bass low frequency enclosures. The adjoining Rangoon Steamer room boasts luxurious chandeliers, plush dining seating and decorative curtained windows, all built to size to replicate the steamer Phileas and Aouda travelled on. Four white Cyclone 55 dual five-inch, passive, surface mount loudspeake
UK - Promising a “modern day pub experience built on traditional values”, The East London Pub Company has brought fresh inspiration to two equally historic but radically different London venues, The Lock Tavern in Camden and The Gun in Spitalfields. Famous as the home of early gigs by the likes of Adele, Amy Winehouse and Franz Ferdinand amongst others, The Lock Tavern is counted among the British capital’s best loved grassroots music venues. Meanwhile, sitting in the heart of the East End market district of Spitalfields, The Gun is a local institution that first opened its doors in 1929. Both venues are now enjoying a renaissance courtesy of London-based sound installation specialist Flipside, and sound reinforcement systems by TW AUDiO. “The Lock Tavern is a great venue - one of my favourites out of the whole group,” says East London Pub Co. co-founder, Bra
Chile - PR Lighting fixtures were in action recently at Duo Pimpinela’s concert at the 4,000-capacity Gran Arena Monticello in Chile, which was a complete sell-out. LD Adair Rodriguez has been lighting the Argentinian artists for the past six years, not only in Latin America but also in North America and Europe. This time around he acted as lighting programmer and operator, and was also in charge of full technical production. “We adapted our lighting plot to the house plot with minimal difficulty,” he said. The inventory was supplied by Urdile Audio & Iluminación, PR Lighting’s Chilean distributor. “In my opinion Urdile are the best in Chile,” notes the LD. Adair Rodriguez has been a regular user of PR Lighting fixtures, including the 200 and 300 Series, over the years. This time he selected 24 XR 440 BWS fixtures, which integrate three features
UK - LED screen, drapes and special FX specialist S+H Technical Services supplied its Glux 10mm LED screen to the recent UK tour by 10cc. The tour’s production manager, Dave Cobby, also looks after the video elements on the road, and he specified the screen, returning to S+H, the Ilfracombe, Devon based company which has supplied previous 10cc tours including the 2016 40th anniversary celebration of seminal album Sheet Music. Dave has worked with the band since 2006, and this time around took on both roles. “It’s always a pleasure doing business with S+H’s Terry (Murtha) and the team. We get a great deal and the 10mm screen is exactly the resolution and quality that we need.” The screen was configured as a continuous 8m-wide by 5m-high surface upstage. The requirement was for a lightweight and easy to rig solution that was adaptable and practical
Belgium - The installation arm of TiMax Benelux distributors, FACE Projects, has designed and implemented an advanced TiMax immersive audio research resource for the new Auralisation Sound Lab at Alamire Foundation’s newly created Library of Voices. As an international study centre, the Alamire Foundation has set itself the goal of stimulating, coordinating and conducting scientific and practical research on music and musical life in the Low Countries from the early Middle Ages until 1800. The Library of Voices complements the House of Polyphony already in existence. Steven Kemland from FACE Projects explains: “In the Auralisation Sound Lab, on the first floor, where polyphonic music is studied, we have installed a self-assembled surround system with no less than 20 speakers." The first floor Auralisation Lab is strategically equipped for the diverse challeng
UK - For the second year running, All Points East Festival took over Hackney’s Victoria Park, now an established music site on London’s inner-city festival scene despite the density of surrounding houses. Capital Sound and their Martin Audio MLA loudspeaker array had first proved the viability of the site a decade earlier when demonstrating that the London Electronic Dance Festival and Field Day could deliver sound pressure levels of up to 101dB(A), acceptable to festival goers while reducing offsite levels to 75dB(A), causing minimum disturbance to the neighbours. The experienced AEG Presents team led by Jim King, and event production company LarMac Live, led by director Ian Greenway, have called on Capital’s expertise and the proven technology of MLA, with its advanced multi-cellular control, many times over the years. And this latest 10-day festival was no exc
Mexico - Lighting designer Miguel González, of Madrid-based Colorcode Studio, chose the new Vari-Lite VL10 BeamWash fixture to enhance his design for the Mexico leg of Spanish star Enrique Bunbury’s recent world tour. Running since 2017, the Expectativas tour was Bunbury's most ambitious production to date. As show designer, González’s task was to convey the themes of the Expectativas album to the audience, within an innovative and original visual design. “For this type of tour,” he explains, “with great visual and technical demands, we must have a guarantee of quality, so that all the demands of the show are fulfilled every night. The lighting fixtures are a fundamental part of that, they will mark the quality of what the public sees. The fixtures should always work like on the first day.” As well as quality and reliability, González looks f
USA - Trio, Charleston’s downtown dance club and lounge has a new owner, a million-dollar renovation, and a line-up of internationally-recognised DJs, all of which was unveiled during the club’s grand opening weekend 22-23 March Renovations include a technologically-advanced light and video production system and DAS Audio loudspeakers throughout. In addition to loudspeakers from the company’s Artec and Ventec product lines, Trio also serves as a ‘proving ground’ for the forthcoming E11EVEN Sound by DAS Audio loudspeakers. iDesign, a Miami, FL-based AV design / build integration firm was contracted to design and deploy the new sound reinforcement systems throughout Trio. Michael Meacham, the company’s owner and lead designer, worked in conjunction with DAS Audio’s national sales manager for installation and nightclubs, John Fiorito, to create the new soun
Belgium - Is Er Een Dokter In De Zaal? ( Is There A Doctor In The Room?) a TV show starring well-known Belgian comedian Philippe Geubels, offers a humorous take on medical issues of the day. Contributing to this show’s stylish and sophisticated setting is studio lighting by Jim Mattheus of ICP Belgium that features a collection of Chauvet Professional Maverick and COLORado fixtures, supplied by Splendit. “We have worked with Philippe Geubels and his production company, Pretpraters, on projects in the past, so when he asked if I would be interested in being DOP for the new show, I was happy to oblige,” explains Mattheus. “Because of our previous relationship with the producer, we were totally free in choosing our fixtures.” Mattheus opted to move away from traditional incandescent studio lighting and build his rig around the Maverick MK2 Profile
USA - The Pablo Centre at the Confluence is a fine arts centre with grand aspirations. Situated at the confluence of the Chippewa and Eau Claire Rivers in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the 143,000sq.ft space includes a 1,200-seat proscenium theatre, the 400-seat JAMF black-box theatre, five flexible rehearsal rooms & galleries, and a light, sound, and video production lab, among many other rooms. One publication described The Pablo Centre at the Confluence as the centre of gravity for a growing orbit of arts and cultural institutions in the northwestern Wisconsin city of 65,000 residents and home to the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. AV integration firm Camera Corner Connecting Point (CCCP) of Green Bay, Wisconsin assisted in the design and installation of the centre’s audio and video systems, which include over sixty Danley Sound Labs loudspeakers and subwoofers pow
USA - The Reliability Conference, held on 6-10 May at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue in Seattle, highlighted strategies and technologies companies can use to drive production, lower costs and create a ‘culture of success’ within their organisations. With over 132 speakers tackling issues covering a wide range of topics, from maintenance management to asset health, it was important the lighting worked organically with a variety of different skin tones and make the staging pop, while providing a smooth, focused light that wouldn’t overpower the video screens on stage. Lighting designer Corey Easterbrook of Hothouse Productions chose six Chauvet Professional Ovation E-260 WW ellipsoidals, supplied by Harmon’s Audio Visual, to help him meet this goal. The Ovation fixtures’ smooth dimming curves and flat, even fields added impact to the general sessions, while the li
USA - A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . or, to be more accurate, rather recently in Denver, the Colorado Symphony performed Oscar-winning composer John Williams’ full score for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back while accompanying the film’s screening at the 1STBANK Centre in Broomfield. What elevated this cinematic performance from other popular orchestra/movie pairings - including the Colorado Symphony’s own accompaniment of Star Wars: A New Hope last year - was Clearwing Productions’ deployment of L-ISA Hyperreal Sound technology, which delivered a different experience for those in attendance. Clearwing is no stranger to L-ISA, having been the first North American company to utilise the system, initially for an outdoor Santa Barbara Bowl show with ODESZA, then later at the same venue with Bon Iver. However, this event marked the f
