Europe - Tears for Fears are back on the road in style, kicking off 2019 with a sold-out UK and European arena tour for which lighting designer Alex Reardon, from LA-based creative design practice Silent House, delivered the lighting scheme. Alex utilised 66 x Robe MegaPointe moving lights as a key element of the rig - among other fixtures - to imagine a memorable looking and flexible lightshow as the band delighted enthusiastic audiences - original and new - and fans with their diverse catalogue and multiple hits. He positioned the multipurpose MegaPointes everywhere in the rig. Thirty - 10 each - were rigged on three overhead trusses, some were positioned upstage behind a row of LED video pixel battens, there were three per side on the deck for low-level cross lighting and another six in the air each side for high-level effects. He described the MegaPointe as
The Netherlands - With a change of frequencies to Europe’s 4G network, one of the oldest and most respected universities in the Netherlands needed help updating its audio equipment system. Utrecht University was the setting for an ambitious three-year audio installation of Shure equipment, with ULX-D Digital Wireless systems being deployed across three main areas: Utrecht Science Park/De Uithof, the University Quarter in the city centre of Utrecht and the International Campus Utrecht (ICU). With more than 29,000 students, 5,500 faculty and staff and 100 buildings – including 45 buildings used for educational purposes and lecture halls – updating the audio equipment to a digital system that delivered superb audio clarity, along with flexibility and ease of use was essential. Award-winning integrator JNV, with support from AV specialist distribution company O
South Africa - Semi Soet is a new music venue which opened its door in Centurion in 2018. The owners turned to DWR Distribution for their audio and lighting requirements and the effective solution included Quest loudspeakers, a DiGiCo console and Robe lighting. Jaco Beukes from DWR recommended four Quest HPI110 Compact High-definition loudspeakers and two Quest HPI18BP Bandpass 18” Subwoofers as the main audio system. “We had to install a system that would offer quality, and it certainly helped that Quest comes at a reasonable price,” said Beukes. The audio installation also included two Quest QM450A Lightweight Active 12" loudspeakers for the monitor requirements. The centre-fill and out-fills comprise of two Quest HPI111 Compact Hight-definition speakers. To cater for the audio upstairs, three HP15 5” High Output Loudspeakers were added. Semi Soet deci
Poland - The first half of The Stand-Up Show 2019 Tour took in the largest indoor venues across 13 major Polish cities, playing to sold-out crowds in every location. Audio production was provided by Poznań-based Gigant Sound Letus who did the initial dates with their Outline GTO C-12 system before introducing their newly-acquired Superfly rig mid-tour. Jakub Mikołajczak fulfilled the dual role of system technician and FOH sound engineer on the tour. He commented, “My first contact with the Outline Superfly system was during the BAJM tour in 2018. I was truly impressed with how powerful and great-sounding the Superfly was. “We changed the C-12 system to Superfly more or less in the middle of the tour and to be perfectly honest, very little changed in the quality of the sound despite the much smaller physical size of system. Coverage, dynamics, and tonality
Spain - Twenty-four Astera AX1 Pixel Tubes were utilised for one of 20 site-specific lighting installations created by individual artists for the first UMBRA Light Festival in Vitoria-Gastiez, Spain. The vibrant and highly multicultural historical capital city and seat of government of the Basque Autonomous Community in Alava, northern Spain, came alive for three days, offering creatives, visitors and lighting enthusiasts from all over Spain, Europe and much further afield a chance to redefine the city and see it in some new, exciting and reimagined urban contexts. UMBRA was organised by ARGIA 3 Asociación Cultural and curated by a new collective comprising Rafael Gallego, the principal of Aureolighting, Joaquín Pérez-Goicoechea, founding partner of AGi Architects and stage lighting designer, light artist, and founder of Studio & Light Carlos Torrijos – three
Spain - The Bass Valley music academy is renowned for its first class music production facilities and has opened a ground floor nightclub called The Garage in Barcelona. The space was designed and built for sound lovers and Pioneer Pro Audio’s XY series was the chosen system. The Garage at the Bass Valley enjoys a four-point system with XY-3B three-way full range speakers either side of the stage, XY-2 mid-high speakers at the rear of the room and a trio of XY-218HS dual 18-inch horn-loaded subwoofers supplying powerful low-end. Using presets on the mixer, the club’s management can easily switch to a live gig configuration which uses only the boxes at the front. Local rental and installation company Moduspro Audiovisual Services was enlisted to find the answer. “We knew they wanted the best sound in town,” remembers CEO Jordi Buscà. “We were sure we could ac
Norway - Storstova Culture House is a 400-seat venue in Bryne, just south of Stavanger on Norway’s ruggedly beautiful west coast. Having first opened its doors in 1964, Storstova has hosted thousands of cinema shows and has been home to hundreds of performances of all types. When the time came to renew the sound system, owners Time Kommune turned to pro audio specialists, Norstage, who supplied and installed a complete EM Acoustics system based on the compact HALO-C line array system. “Our old PA had served us well, but it was a large, cumbersome system from the 80s,” explains Storstova’s operations manager and head of sound, Bård Ystanes. “It was still going strong, but it was time to replace it with something smaller and more modern that gave us better sight lines and more precise coverage.” Ystanes and his team looked at systems from most of the major
Belgium - For the recent incarnation of the infamous Nacht van de Schlagers, organisers decided upon a ’90s music theme marrying ’90s pop hits with performances from the biggest pop musicians and bands of the decade. Having provided production and set design for the Nacht van de Schlagers since its inception, Creative Rental Solutions was tasked once again with creating a memorable visual backdrop for 2018’s ’90s extravaganza. Aiding them in this endeavour was a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures that included 12 Maverick MK2 Spot, 32 Rogue R2 Wash, 120 ÉPIX Strip Tour, 60 STRIKE P38, 6 MK2 Profiles, 22 Rogue RH1 Hybrids and 56 COLORdash PAR H12IP units. In order to reinforce this central focal point while adding to the grandeur of the stage setting, Thomas Vandekerkhove, CEO of CRS incorporated the ÉPIX fixtures within the architecture of the comple
UK - Martin Audio partner, Penguin Media Hire, recently provided production, including a Martin Audio WPC scalable resolution line array, for the main stage at the all-day Mutations Festival. The event took place at the 900-capacity Hansen Hall on the outskirts of Brighton, and was staged by promoters One Inch Badge and Small Pond. Describing the venue as “a hidden gem of a venue, crying out for a day of live music,” Dylan Thompson, system technician and technical project manager, Penguin Media Hire, reports that the WPC line array was arranged in three ground-stacked elements each side of the stage, with a pair of Martin Audio SX218 subwoofers per side. The system, along with five Martin Audio XD monitors, was powered by four iKON iK42 4-channel amplifiers. An Allen & Heath mixing desk was used at FOH and a comprehensive mic, stand and cables package was also provid
USA - Integration specialist MC2Solutions has completed the design and installation of a powerful new Community loudspeaker sound system for the World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church in Memphis, Tennessee. The church’s impressive main sanctuary can seat a congregation of up to 4,000 and is built in the round. Carl Woodard II, the owner and designer of MC2Solutions, explained, “The system was required to provide very high quality speech and full-range music, with intelligibility being key. With such a large space, more akin to a theatre than a traditional church, we designed a system based on wide dispersion column line arrays with under-balcony fill, to ensure absolute coverage with no dead spots.” Woodard continued, “I chose Community based on previous experience and the new IV6 modular vertical array was the ideal solution. I prefer passive loudspeakers
Australia - Australia Day is celebrated and every year on 26 January when the nation celebrates in spectacular style. The flagship event is Australia Day Live held at Sydney Opera House and in 2019 it was bigger and better than ever. Australia’s musical stars, including Kate Cebrano, Jon Stevens and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, took to the stage in a concert, featuring dazzling firework displays and a maritime extravaganza. Australia Day Live in Sydney is produced by the NSW Government through the Australia Day Council of NSW and is supported by Big Picture. Big Picture is a part of the NEP Worldwide Network. This year, Big Picture supplied a turnkey technical solution of outside broadcast facilities, LED screens, event communications and network backbone which included a significant amount of Riedel equipment with 68 Riedel Artist Panels across OB tr
UK - The newly installed d&b audiotechnik permanent sound solution in London’s Royal Albert Hall made its public debut with last weekend’s Olivier Awards show (see LSi April). Driven by a vision to provide its audiences with life enriching, unforgettable experiences, the hall has installed the world’s largest single room audio system with over 450 individual loudspeakers from the d&b audiotechnik range. The Olivier Awards, celebrating British theatre, served as an appropriate showcase for the system’s coverage and flexibility, significantly enhancing the overall listening experience inside the auditorium. “Previously, our control over the audio experience was limited and often didn’t meet our high standards,” explains Oll
USA - A recent ballet production of C.S.Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Pine Crest School, Boca Raton, Fl, featured a Clifford Spulock lighting design, anchored by a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue fixtures. “Lighting the ballet opened me up to a lot of different opportunities to make choices and looks that would not normally be done in the stage version of this story,” said Spulock. “Happily, the director of the show, Kimberly Vlcek, has a great understanding of production and gave me a lot of freedom. Along with a strong score and great dancing, my lights really brought a lot of energy and emotion to the show. I really wanted to bring out the precision of the dancers when they were wolves or the Ice Witch, etcetera to help portray their characters more.” Spulock’s rig for the ballet, which was performed by Pine Crest Schoo
Germany - #reflection is an innovative laser performance presented by tarm Showlaser in Bochum, which is based on an array of static and computer-controlled, motorized mirror surfaces and diffraction gratings, multiplying the full-colour RGBYC laser sources and creating a spectacular scenography that “plays with shapes and colours, dance to selected sounds and create sculptures out of laser light, far from traditional laser stereotypes”. "Laser beam deflections via mirrors and diffraction gratings have been used for over 30 years, but so far only with small static tiles, usually in the format of 15 x 15cm. The use of motorised units and mirror surfaces of various dimensions and formats, however, opens up completely new design options for use at events and presentations of any kind,” says managing director Ralf Lottig. This performance can be experienced li
New Zealand - Literally the world’s first festival of 2019 saw over 30,000 festival goers brave the hot summer sun at Mount Maunganui to enjoy world class music entertainment. Local and International artists including Peking Duk, Sticky Fingers, London Elektricity, Shapeshifter, Ladi6, Tash Sultana and rapping superstar Cardi B. In only four years, Bay Dreams has fast become one of New Zealand’s leading summer festivals. The event began in 2016 with 5,000 attendees to over 30,000 in 2019 for the North Island event. Due to the popularity, a second South Island location was added to the itinerary in the city of Nelson. NZ Sound Reinforcement, a full-service production company deployed a JBL Professional audio solution for the second stage with a combined audio output of 500,000 watts RMS that included the JBL VTX A12 and new VTX A8 line array elements. Bay D
Australia - The beginning of 2019 saw the opening event of the UCI WorldTour, the Santos Tour Down Under. Held in South Australia, it is the southern hemisphere’s biggest cycling event attracting 750,000 visitors and is globally recognised. In pitching for the contract, Adelaide’s Novatech Creative Event Technology proposed some fairly innovative audio-visual ideas and deploying Brompton Technology’s Tessera SX40 LED processors helped them deliver. “We wanted to improve the spectator experience on every level,” says Ashley Gabriel, director of sales and marketing at Novatech. “We deployed our ROE CB3 and CB5 LED screens at the start and finish lines, with signal transported over fibre via Riedel’s MediorNet.” At the Tour Down Under Village in Adelaide’s Victoria Square, Nexstage built a custom 18m wide by 8m high Layher scaffold structure for team pr
UK - White Light is supplying the lighting equipment for the musical Hairwhich is currently touring the UK. Having first debuted Off-Broadway in 1967, Hair follows a group of youngsters in New York’s East Village as they begin to question the world, authority and the American flag. Having been revived several times on both Broadway and in the West End, this is the 50th anniversary production and has already received a WhatsOnStage Award. Lighting designer Ben M Rogers comments: “I previously lit this production for its immersive incarnation at The Vaults, Waterloo so this is an evolution of that design into a proscenium format for a national tour. The key design choices and looks remain but are expanded to fill these larger spaces and the enhanced scenic elements.” Ben worked closely with director Jonathan O’Boyle to discuss the aesthetic he
UK - Absolute Motion Control is bringing live moving light tracking, using LightStike, to The Bridge Theatre for their latest production. A German Life stars Maggie Smith, who returns to the stage for the first time in 12 years. Over the course of the evening the set moves continuously and almost imperceptibly, taking one and three-quarter hours to reach its final position. The play is staged in a kitchen set, formed by four trucks which move diagonally off-stage. As they move off-stage, slowly gaps appear in the walls as they move apart. In addition to the four trucks, a large floor pallet moves downstage, carrying with it the star of the show. Because of the constantly moving set, the lighting and scenery need to be synchronised precisely to ensure that the performer and the set are perfectly lit over the course of the long running cues. As an example, the flo
UK - Ozzy Osbourne, Jimi Hendrix, Guns N’ Roses and Motörhead have sold millions of albums, inspired fans around the world and won bushels of major awards. Now these rockers share something else in common as well – each is featured in a licensed slot from NetEnt, the supplier of digital games to the online casino industry. At the ICE London show in February, NetEnt announced that former Black Sabbath frontman Osbourne is the latest rock hero to be featured in its NetEnt Rocks series, joining Hendrix, Guns N’ Roses and Motörhead. Setting the tone for the big announcement on the Osbourne slot was an attractively designed stand that featured 60 Chauvet Professional ÉPIX Bar Tour fixtures from BigFish SRL, arranged to resemble guitar strings. “This was the fourth year running that we were contracted by 2lk Design, the stand’s designers, to do the light
China - Opera star Zhang Jun’s recent production Shuimo Xindiao featured JBL VTX Series loudspeakers and Crown amplifiers, which delivered premium audio to an arena packed with 10,000 music fans. As a UNESCO Artist for Peace, Zhang Jun strives to keep the 600-year-old tradition of KunQu opera alive. His latest production, Shuimo Xindiao (New Tunes of the Water Mill), reinvented classical melodies with modern pop instrumentation, including guitar, violin, saxophone and electronic elements. The performance took place at Shanghai’s Mercedes-Benz Arena. To convey the subtlety of KunQu with the intensity of pop music, the production required “a cutting-edge sound system with unparalleled power and clarity”. In order to deliver world-class sound for the performance, event crews deployed a JBL VTX line array system consisting of VTX A12, V25 and V20 lou
UK - This year the producers of the Brit Awards took a bold step and encouraged show designer Misty Buckley toward some blue sky thinking (not that she’s ever needed any encouragement on that score). This presented new challenges for audio delivery at London’s O2 arena. “The set this year differs fundamentally in that there is now a large set element flown above stage and out over the B stage into the audience,” explained Josh Lloyd of Britannia Row Productions who have provided the audio for many years. “Think orchestral reflector in a classical music venue and you have the form of it.” Lloyd has been Britannia Row’s audio designer and principal FoH engineer for the Brits for the last nine years and knows more than most how profound this change would prove to be. “That change has inadvertently made it more exciting. You might say that year on year, ev
UK - Technical production specialist CPL provided a production design plus sound, lighting and video equipment to Pandora Events for Tropic’s massive spring 2019 ‘glambassadors’ event, staged in Hall 9 at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham, UK. Tropic Rocks offered a hi-energy festival / rock theme to energise the 2500 delegates, for which a look and feel to match was needed. This was delivered by CPL’s Mike Radford who led a crew of 40 for the get in / out and show sections of the one-day event, for which they had one rig day and a second for tech and rehearsals. The event’s format encompassed a lengthy achievement recognition and awards section, new product launches and upcoming incentives, wrapping up with a lively evening party, so the design had to cater these various requirements and practical enough to transform from the conferen
UK - This year’s National Finals of The Prince’s Trust and TK Maxx & Homesense Awards marked the fifth consecutive year that Anna Valley has provided AV for the annual event. The Awards ceremony was held at the London Palladium on 13 March 2019 and was run by communications agency, Blueprint Partners. This year’s Prince’s Trust and TK Maxx & Homesense Awards were hosted by Phillip Schofield and Fearne Cotton and attended by HRH the Prince of Wales and celebrities including Brian May, Tinie Tempah, Luke Evans and Michael McIntyre. Blueprint Partners have produced the national awards ceremony since 2015 and have relied on Anna Valley to help realise their creative vision for the event each year. The video element is critical to the award show’s success as the creative displays form an intrinsic part of the set design and staging, and video is used exte
USA - Country music superstar George Strait beat his record-setting 2013 RodeoHouston NRG Stadium attendance with his March 2019 show, treating over 80,100 fans to a 32-song set spanning decades of chart-topping hits. The massive concert draw set an attendance record outnumbering any event in NRG Stadium’s history. An Allen & Heath dLive Digital Mixing System provided monitor support for Strait’s 11-piece band in an in-the-round stage configuration. Mixed by veteran monitor engineer and Allen & Heath USA live sound / touring manager Mike Bangs, the stadium show relied on the same dLive-centric monitor system design Strait has used on his string of sold-out Las Vegas T-Mobile Arena shows. Configured to address the challenges of a 50sq.ft stage with limited sight lines, additional dedicated on-stage mix control was provided via networked Allen & Heath IP8 Remot
