Europe - Although North American audiences were justifiably disappointed when Nicki Minaj cancelled her fall 2018 tour after deciding to "re-evaluate elements of production” and devote more time to rehearsals before hitting the road, her overseas fans recently got the chance to reap the benefits of a solid show. Teaming up with Juice WRLD on the aptly named Nicki WRLD tour in support of Queen, her fourth and most recent album, the latest trek stopped at 22 arenas throughout Europe and the UK from 21 February to 28 March. Cleveland-based Eighth Day Sound supplied the tour’s PA and control package, which featured DiGiCo SD5 consoles for both FOH and monitors, paired with five SD-Racks and an SD-Mini Rack, all on an Optocore loop. “We used a traditional splitter for some inputs, but also shared inputs via the loop,” describes FOH engineer Kevin Brown, who ha
UK - After finding more shows coming to the theatre were requiring more demanding lighting control, the theatre decided to invest in a new ETC Gio console. Previously using an older generation lighting console, they felt it was appropriate to seek an industry standard upgrade. “We have a long-term relationship with Theatre Royal Plymouth,” says Neal Tomlinson, technical sales consultant at Stage Electrics “The venue was already using an older ETC console, that wasn’t able to support the level of lighting control required for incoming touring shows. Requiring a solution that offered intelligent lighting capabilities was important, they needed to accommodate more of the latest LED fixtures and moving heads.” With most of the shows touring through the venue being programmed on ETC consoles, compatibility was critical, and as the largest UK distributor for ETC,
USA – When he took on the project of lighting the Easter Passion Play at his local Pentecostal Church in Pensacola FL, Jacob Warren knew there would be one key element essential to conveying the spiritual and emotional impact of the production: colour. A lighting specialist at All Pro Integrated Systems, Warren told director Lanette Kinsey and music director David Geri that he wanted to choose fixtures that could render deep, saturated and realistic colours for the play. Looking at the church’s rig, he determined that its house collection of Chauvet Professional COLORado and Rogue fixtures fit his needs. “There were a couple features about these fixtures that stood out for me when I put together my rig,” said Warren. “First and foremost was colour rendering. The COLORados are a very cost-efficient colour mixing fixture, which is why they are included in most
USA - Taking in a Utica Comets hockey game at the Adirondack Bank Centre at the Utica Memorial Auditorium (the Aud) in Utica, New York is not only an enjoyable experience in its own right, but also an opportunity to experience a watershed moment in the history of architecture. The 3,800-plus seat auditorium relies on the world’s first cable roof system, forerunner to other such structures like Madison Square Garden. Lev Zetlin designed the Aud in the 1950s using two-inch steel cables as circular spokes that support the roof, and its place in history is remembered with a permanent display at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art and recognition as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Pittsburgh-based sound contracting firm Edward Simon & Co. LLC recently installed a Danley Sound Labs loudspeaker and amp/DSP system at the Aud. “From a fan’s perspective, the a
Australia - Hot on the heels of his tenth studio album, Kamikaze, and the extended reissue of The Slim Shady LP, Eminem has broken attendance records around the Southern Hemisphere with his second Rapture tour of Australia and New Zealand. The five Rapture 2019 stadium shows, which featured guest appearances from Hilltop Hoods, Royce da 5'9", Boogie, and more, included an 81,000-strong audience at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 24 February, and were acclaimed “a full-blown spectacle" by the New Zealand Herald. These epic shows were augmented by a total of 1494 LED panels which displayed ‘cinematic’ visuals and scenography and were driven by the powerful Brompton Technology Tessera SX40 4K LED processors and XD 10G Data Distribution Units, all supplied by video equipment and production specialists Big Picture - part of the NEP Worldwide Netwo
Indonesia - Widely known for its lively, contemporary services, IFGF Semarang recently built a new main campus in Semarang, Central Java, to better serve its dynamic weekly congregation of over 650 worshippers. The main auditorium boasts a new audio system built around the install-focused IS-Series from Adamson Systems Engineering, which was selected to enhance the church’s musically-rich services and maximize community engagement. IFGF Semarang administrators invited five manufacturers to demo their solutions in the previous auditorium. The IS-Series system, supplied by longtime Adamson Network partner Big Knob Audio, was the clear winner. “We heard the other four systems first, and none had the clarity or impact of the Adamson IS-Series,” says Dibya Krisnanda, IFGF Semarang’s senior engineer. “As soon as we heard it, we knew we’d found what we were look
South Africa - The Mosaïek Church and Theatre in Fairland has invested in the first grandMA3 console in South Africa, they had a bigger plan in mind. Estian Els, head of technical at Mosaïek Theatre, works closely with colleague Mduduzi Msibi. While the pair may be audio technicians, first and foremost, they provide technical support in every ministry of the church, including lighting, audio, LED screens and AV. Every sermon is broadcast on KykNET where there is a remarkable viewership between 75,000 and 80,000 each Sunday. The theatre is not only used for church events but is hired out as a venue with some headline productions under the belt including Idols and the upcoming The Voice finale. The income generated is then planted back into various outreach programs hosted by the church. “The biggest fulfilment is being part of working in the changing lives,”
UK - The Green-GO digital intercom system was recently employed to simultaneously manage multiple locations for a corporate event spanning 10 sites across the globe. Manchester-based sound specialist Audio Alliance, working for Media 1 Productions, required dependable, quality communications to seamlessly connect venues in Japan, India, China, Poland, Sweden, Canada, the USA and the UK. “We needed a reliable, managed talkback system that would work over our own VPN IP infrastructure,” says Oliver Driver, managing director of Audio Alliance. “Multiple Green-GO bridges were deployed worldwide, with each site a ‘spoke’ from our European data hub. The Green-GO system allowed us to manage all the comms channels at each of the remote sites from our central hub.” The system implemented by Audio Alliance comprised more than 100 Green-GO devices, all of which were d
UK - The George Inn in Denby takes a proactive role in supporting its community, hosting many charity events and holding off-site fundraisers. This commitment was in evidence in March, when it sponsored Film Night at the historic St John the Evangelist Church to raise money for the Denby Church Community Project. The evening’s featured film, The Greatest Showman, might not have been the most memorable, but it’s safe to say that few guests failed to be swept up in the evocative setting, as the 13th century church glowed mystically from the richly coloured light created by Chauvet Professional fixtures, installed by Sound & Light UK. Recognising the importance and potential that light can have within the church, Sound & Light UK utilised six CHAUVET Professional COLORdash Batten-Quad 12 and four COLORado 3P IP wash fixtures. The resulting mixture of
UK - Troldtekt 100% wood wool acoustic panels have been used at London’s Open Air Theatre in Regents Park. The rehearsal building, designed by architects Reed Watt, comprises a double-height dance and rehearsal studio in its centre encircled by offices, kitchen and green room. The details of the structure have been designed to reinforce the magic of the setting in which trees, plants and sky surround the visitor. The walls are clad with dark stained larch which helps to blur the distinction between building and landscape while creating a natural extension to the existing buildings along the edge of the site. Inside, Troldtekt wood wall panelling in natural grey also complement the natural setting while helping to dampen and keep reverberated sound to a minimum. The rehearsal studio has been acoustically rated so that the maximum noise level that can happen in the studio be
USA - Paul McCartney released his latest album Egypt Station last September and embarked on his Freshen Up world tour to support the album. Lighting designer LeRoy Bennett, who has been with the star for over 17 years, dresses the nearly 40-song playlist in complementary visuals using a lighting, video and effects package that includes over 500 Elation Professional Dartz 360 luminaires. Lighting supply is by Upstaging. Some 528 of the compact LED beam/spot lights are used in the Freshen Up show under the lighting direction of Wally Lees, who has been McCartney’s lighting director for 17+ years and serves as lead programmer for all his tours and events. Located above the stage in three identical pods are 240 Dartz, each pod comprising 80 Dartz in five rows of 16 fixtures wide. The pods are located centre stage and run upstage to downstage on the
UK - Lighting designer Jonny Gaskell created an elegant fusion of understatement and a bit of mystery for the UK leg of David Gray’s Gold in a Brass Age tour, for which lighting and video production was supplied by London based Colour Sound Experiment. Jonny explained that Gray doesn’t like a busy stage, so he keeps things fairly minimalist and towards the edge of subtle, focusing the attention on the artist whilst sculpting some interesting surroundings. For this tour, he wanted to include a thread from the last tour in 2015, so revisited some of the favourite treatments from that . . . and brought a more contemporary feel to the stage by using up-to-the minute LED lightsources. The starting point for the show visuals was when David Gray presented Jonny with a series of tattoo art by Londonboy who had created a motif for each song of the new album. The chal
Croatia - City pool Pula-Pola, a new leisure complex in Croatia, has invested in a high-tech Work Pro audio system for its swimming pool area to ensure that customers can enjoy music while they swim and - more importantly - clearly hear any public safety announcements. Located in the city of Pula, the pool is a focal point for the local community and regularly hosts events such as swimming lessons, competitions, aquarobics and swimming parties for children. As speech intelligibility was a key requirement of the new audio system, installation company Iskatrade had no hesitation in specifying products from Work Pro, the installation, pro audio and lighting division of Equipson. “Wall to wall tiling and other hard materials make swimming pools one of the most challenging acoustic environments for an installation company to deal with,” says Robert Wolf, CEO of Rijeka-b
USA - Grammy-nominated American metal band August Burns Red have recently completed their US headline tour accompanied by an Allen & Heath dLive Wings mixing system, handling FOH and monitor duties. In early 2018, sound engineer Chris Pollock, introduced August Burns Red (ABR) to the world of dLive, which instantly led to the band purchasing their own Wings system, comprising a dLive C1500 surface, DM32 MixRack and two Waves V3 cards – used for virtual soundcheck and playback. Pollock comments, “I actually heard about dLive for the first time in early 2017, after reading a magazine article about Jared Daly and his dLive setup for Northlane and it really peaked my interest. Later that year I did a club tour with a hip-hop artist and Clair Global was gracious enough to purchase a C1500 for me to try out. I immediately fell in love and ended up taking the system o
UK - Production AV has announced two open days on 7-8 May at its new premises in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. The AV hire and event company will offer hands-on demonstrations of its latest 6mm, 3.9mm and 2.6mm LED screens, 4K screen management system, media servers and camera solutions. The team will also showcase some recent projects, including large-scale projection mapping of Cheltenham’s Municipal Offices for a WWI Remembrance event and recent work on the Teenage Cancer Trust series of star-studded concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall. There will also be an opportunity to meet the team and discover more about the company’s plans for future growth. “We’re thrilled to not only have a new home but also a much larger facility, which will have a direct benefit for our clients,” says Production AV’s managing director, Pete McCrea. “There is a r
UK - Violinist and conductor André Rieu is known for his popular tours, visiting over 100 venues a year with his Johann Strauss orchestra. The tour is an opportunity to impress both live audiences and millions of viewers watching in cinemas and on DVD. This means that the lighting needs to be suitable for cameras recording the show for broadcast, DVD and the cinema, as well as the audience attending the performance. It is important for the André Rieu Tour lighting be as compact, portable and low weight as possible to enable quick transitions between shows, supporting the tech crew as much as possible. The large number of performers in the orchestra need to be lit with a uniform field and dynamic effects to highlight different aspects of the performance, creating a great atmosphere for the audience. To meet these goals, Maurice Verbeek, lighting designer at André Ri
Australia - Major theatre productions often have lives involving multiple productions in multiple countries, which provides an opportunity for the production team to assess the equipment they are using and make changes to benefit from advances in technology. This was exactly the situation multi-award-winning sound designer Gareth Fry found himself in, opening Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in Melbourne, Australia after its success in London and New York. “DPA’s d:screet 4061 Miniature Microphones have long been theatre stalwarts because they sound great, are very tough and are small enough to hide on cast members,” Fry explains. “I’ve been using the legacy version of these microphones for years, and we typically hide them in the hairline, on the forehead, so they are not visible to the audience.” In 2017, a year after the play opened in London, a
UK - Robe is the main sponsor of Blackout - an immersive visual and sonic installation created by Guildford School of Acting (GSA) lighting tutor Mig Burgess to raise awareness of mental illness. Blackout will be staged in the Bellairs Theatre at the University of Surrey and refers specifically to bipolar II disorder. The work is designed to offer a snapshot of what it’s like to experience the highs and crushing lows of bipolar II, what Mig describes as being “like the lights going out in your head”. Mental health has been high on the public agenda in recent years, with the loss of a number of high profile music artists, including Tim Bergling (Avicii), The Prodigy’s Keith Flint, rapper Mac Miller, Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and others. With the essential seed money being provided by Robe for this proje
Vietnam - Epizode is a popular music and arts festival, held annually on Vietnam’s biggest island Phu Quoc. It’s aim is to bring the latest global trends in electronic music to Asia, whilst at the same time showcasing the best regional talents. East meets West at this winter hub of party goers, travellers and industry personalities and the latest edition attracted more than 10,000 people from 79 countries. The festival hosted more than 140 international and regional DJ superstars across four stages spread along a beautiful beachfront, delivering non-stop performance 24 hours a day for 11 days. One significant new addition to the 2018/9 line-up was Pioneer Pro Audio’s XY-3B system, which took care of the Egg stage. The general consensus was that this renewal had seen a marked improvement in the festival’s audio provision, compared to the previous year and XY-3B played
Australia - After eight years of Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour (HOSH), Opera Australia presented West Side Story, the first musical to be performed on the harbour-side stage. Boasting a stage that is almost two and a half times larger than any indoor stage in Australia, the Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour series is one of the biggest outdoor theatrical events in the country, and a highlight of the Australian cultural calendar. The stage and venue are constructed from the ground up in just 25 days by a crew of approximately 150 people for an exclusive four-week performance season. The West Side Story set, designed by award-winning designer Brian Thomson, is an urban New York City-inspired stage design that features a highway overpass that weighs approximately ten tonnes and soars 15m above the stage, three custom-built subway cars and the West Side Story
Slovenia - Hribar Hall is the latest newly renovated event space in Ljubljana Castle which sits majestically above the picturesque Slovenian capital. It is both a top tourist attraction, a place of historical significance and a busy event, meeting and conference hub with a series of renovated spaces available to host a diverse array of shows and events. The new venue is designed to be completely flexible; the capacity ranges from 180 seated to 250 standing depending on the set-up and format which can be fully seated for banquets and dinners to standing with different sized stages, bare floor or catwalks. The schedule includes a lively mix of performances from music, drama, theatre, comedy and spoken word to fashion shows and other presentations including lectures, seminars and news conferences. With this in mind, when it came to choosing the lighting, the Castle’s te
UK - The Make A Difference Trust (MAD Trust) is producing its spectacular West End Eurovision show next month and AV and event production company Blitz is providing the sound support. Taking place at the Adelphi Theatre on 28 April (Sunday), the interactive event will raise money for MAD Trust, which fundraises for HIV and AIDS projects that build awareness and provide care, support and education in the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa. The show will feature eight casts from West End Musicals competing against each other by singing original Eurovision song contest songs to win text votes from the audience and the approval of a panel of judges. Martyn Hunt, theatre & sound project development manager at Blitz, says: “Blitz prides itself on its sound technical support for all of our clients, so we feel honoured to be able to provide equipment for such an impo
UK - Specialist illumination company LED Creative has been working with the crew responsible for creating the colourful, angular look that accompanies the return of classic TV quiz show, Blockbusters for Comedy Central UK. Filmed in front of a live studio audience at Elstree Studios and presented by Dara Ó Brian, the reboot of the student favourite has been given a stunning contemporary facelift, although it still retains a host of key elements from the much-loved original, including the infamous Gold Run and original 80s theme tune. Created by scenic designer Josh Grace, the vibrant set has a distinctly modern feel that features an array of smart hexagonal lightboxes, with offset LED frames, suspended throughout the design to complement perfectly the styling of the Blockbuster letter board. Commenting on the show’s design, LED Creative’s Ges Smith sa
Serbia - At Novi Sad’s Green Love festival, performances by techno stars like Fatima Hajji and Sugar Lobby, combined with a lightshow by Chameleon Rental Systems, transported fans into a world of intense auditory and visual wonders. Contributing to the spectacular sights was a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue and STRIKE fixtures. Lighting designer Predrag Djordjević working closely with stage designer Dragan Rajčin (both from Chameleon Rental), created a stunning display on the 40 metre-wide stage that immersed the audience while supporting the festival’s artists. A total of 32 Rogue R2X Beam, 14 Rogue R1 Beam and six STRIKE 4 multi-formatted fixtures were featured in the festival rig along with three Amhaze Stadium hazers. The luminaires were hung on upstage and side truss, as well as being arranged on the left and right stage deck. “We needed
