China - Creative director Daan Oomen and his team from Netherlands-based visual specialists Live Legends have delivered a major club project in China – OT Kun in Kunming – following up their work at One Third in Beijing. At the core of the lighting rig are 56 x Robe MegaPointes and 110 x Spikies chosen by Daan and Live Legends’ lighting designer/production manager, Serge Patist. They were again working for NOA’s Arc Group as the design partner for this newest flagship venue, a 1,500-capacity property that includes 50 VIP tables positioned right in the centre of the main room action around the dancefloor. Prominent guests can therefore be in the vortex of an immersive lighting, video, automation and visual experience, all designed and specified by Live Legends. The long-term objective is to create a series of clubs that “unite imagination and cutting-ed
Spain - A glittering array of national and international movie stars gathered at the Palacio de Congresos y Exposiciones in Sevilla on 2 February 2019 to celebrate the 33rd edition of the Goya Awards, celebrating the Spanish film industry. Presented by the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (AACCE), the Goya Awards were established in 1987 to honour the best in Spanish filmmaking. The ceremony, which is always a glamorous occasion with high production values, was televised nationally by Spanish public television broadcaster, TVE, and internationally by the TVE Internacional channel. This year, the Goya Awards took place for the first time in Seville instead of Madrid, its traditional home since the inaugural event in 1987, and the new host city took the opportunity to spruce itself up by lighting some of its most famous monuments. The emblematic Torre del Oro
UK - Rope Assemblies has supplied a range of Doughty kit to the Royal Albert Hall to help improve safety in the performance space. As a duty of care to performers on stage and to ensure that any falls from height are prevented, Doughty designed and fabricated some bespoke handrail braces to make the space as safe as possible. Ian Redding, technical supervisor at the Royal Albert Hall explained: "While there were no incidents that triggered the need for these rails, our technical team are always striving to ensure that no stone is left unturned when it comes to the safety of our performers, crew and audiences. The challenge was to design and create something that could work for our stage, but at the same time, not to look too intrusive. “It also had to be strong enough to withstand the weight of an average person. We had a round, scaffold size connection on the off s
USA - Special Event Services (SES), headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has sent a large complement of Claypaky Scenius Unico, Mythos 2 and Sharpy fixtures on tour with American country group Zac Brown Band. ACT Lighting Inc. is the exclusive North American distributor of Claypaky.. Zac Brown Band has commenced the second leg of its Down the Rabbit Hole Live tour, the group’s fifth headlining concert tour, in support of its fifth studio album, Welcome Home. The tour launched last summer; the new 15-date leg kicked off this month in Tulsa, Oklahoma and wraps in Peoria on 27 April. SES is the lighting vendor for the band; its sister company Special Event Transportation (SET) serves as the trucking company. “We’ve worked with Zac Brown Band for the last 10 years, including the first leg of Down the Rabbit Hole,” says Jeff Cra
South Korea - 3.15 Art Centre in Changwon recently collaborated with TechData Co and Harman Professional Solutions to upgrade their concert hall with a JBL audio system for events, live performances and more. 3.15 Art Centre is a multi-purpose venue dedicated to enhancing the creativity and diversity of the performing arts. In order to provide suitable sound quality for live performances in their 1,100-seat concert hall, 3.15 Art Centre recently decided to upgrade their existing sound system. Together with TechData Co, 3.15 Art Centre outfitted their concert hall with JBL VTX V20 line-array loudspeakers, VTX S25 subwoofers, SRX812P powered speakers and Crown I-Tech 4x3500HD amplifiers. “3.15 Art Centre asked us to deploy an audio solution capable of outputting high sound pressure levels with a flat frequency response,” said Jonathan Choi, tech lab engineer, TechDat
Italy - On 21-23 February, Stazione Leopolda and The Student Hotel in Florence hosted the first edition of the Bright Festival, an event dedicated to digital art, lighting design and electronic music, organised in collaboration with Florence Chamber of Commerce and Municipality and addressing pros, students and fans of the three sectors. The festival’s innovative format proposed an original fusion of education and entertainment, which was anything but conventional “edutainment”. The daytime programme featured meetings, master classes, workshops and lectures, which covered highly varied topics: from music production to virtual reality, in collaboration with universities, Italian and international companies and start-ups. Participants showed great interest in all the initiatives dedicated to electronic music, but also those regarding projection mapping, lighting design f
UK - In 2016 Capital Sound Hire’s technical manager, Robin Conway, designed an audio system for an in-the-round presentation of Fatboy Slim (aka Norman Cook) at the O2 Arena, using the Martin Audio MLA sound rig to bring him closer to the audience. “All of a sudden with the DJ booth in the middle you forget you’re in a big arena. We worked out that’s a way of turning an arena into a huge nightclub,” Cook had declared in an interview. “You get all the benefits of collective euphoria with the budget to do a very big production.” When he later announced his biggest arena tour yet, with six dates fittingly called The Round Trip, complete with revolving stage in the centre, circular overhead video, confetti cannons and pyro, Capital decided to extend this ‘boxing match meets rave’ concept by increasing the ordnance of the PA. To pull off this
USA - Lady Gaga launched her Las Vegas residency Enigma show at MGM’s Park Theatre with Elation Professional DARTZ 360 beam/spot effects playing an integral role in LeRoy Bennett’s lighting design. Lighting supply is by Solotech. Headlining her own Vegas show, Enigma, and an accompanying jazz and piano show, the two-year residency will cover 74 shows and possibly more. The theatrical show relates the story of Gaga and her Enigma character and embraces a message of healing and discovery. Lady Gaga herself calls the show "a celebration of all that is unique and different within us". Although the Park Theatre is a smaller venue, Bennett, who serves as production, lighting and set designer, says he designed the show to feel like an arena concert. To that end, a huge custom-built light pod fabricated by Unison and outfitted with over 230 DARTZ 360 LED mo
South Korea - TechData Co recently provided Oryun Community Church in Seoul and its newly-built religious retreat, the Oryun Vision Village, with a complete Harman Professional Solutions audio and control systems. Founded in 1988, Oryun Community Church is a South Korean Christian organisation that operates multiple churches and worship spaces in and around Seoul. Having had a positive experience with Harman products during their last renovation, Oryun Church hired TechData to design systems for both the Vision Centre and Vision Village facilities. "We were very satisfied with the Harman solutions we acquired in our 2015 renovation,” says Sunho Ju, sound director at Oryun Community Church. “Since Vision Village is not only our training centre but also available for outside rental, we needed a solution that would be easy for anyone to use, including those who
USA - Described by CMT as a “true representation of current country for the next generation”, newcomer Cash Campbell burst onto the music scene in 2017 with his debut song, Cannonball, and has already racked up 20m streams and views worldwide. He has built a fan base on the road with headlining shows and sharing the bill with A-list acts on multiple tours, including his current trek on which he’s carrying a DiGiCo SD12 console to run both FOH and monitors. Chosen by Dallas-based Jordan Bledsoe, who serves as Campbell’s FOH engineer, production manager and tour manager, the SD12 and its accompanying DiGiCo SD-Rack were rented from Arlington’s B&L Sound and Lighting, which is supplying the tour’s complete control package. “This has been my first experience with DiGiCo and, to be honest, I had been intimidated to use one because of how detailed yo
USA - For Pigeons Playing Ping Pong’s sold-out Stage AE show in Pittsburgh in January, the band’s lighting designer Manny Newman created an intense panoramic mothership landing look that appeared like something out of a Steven Spielberg film. “We wanted not just to immerse fans, but to kind of challenge their sense of reality,” explains Newman. Helping him in this ambitious endeavour was a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue fixtures from his personal stock and rented from Hougie’s in Pittsburgh. Newman used 12 Rogue R1 Wash, eight Rogue R1 Spot and 12 Rogue R2 Wash fixtures in his rig. “We relied on these fixtures to create a mothership look,” he says. “What we did didn’t involve science fiction; it was just the result of the careful placement of fixtures. We get this gigantic look when the upstage movers are in a high fanned-out position and t
Macau The House of Dancing Water - the water-based stage production, directed by Franco Dragone and staged in the House of Dancing Water Theatre in Macau, has recently added 63 new Robe moving lights to the theatre’s rig. The 41 x BMFL Wash XFs and 21 x Tarrantula LED wash beam lighting fixtures have now been installed in the theatre as part of a drive to upgrade the technical equipment to include more sustainable and advanced options than were available when the show launched in 2010. The integrity, drama and dynamics of Luc Lafortune’s original lighting design are all preserved as the concept works to support the show narrative. The House of Dancing Water (THODW) show is one of the most successful entertainment phenomena in the world - having clocked up over 3,500 performances, it has been enjoyed by over three million spectators. Karl Jenkin
Mexico - Performance company Finzi Pasca recently used a large number of Elation Professional luminaires on the interactive show Abrazos at the 2019 State Fair of León in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. More than 100 Elation fixtures took part in the show, giving life to a series of acrobatic, music and contortion acts. A package of 42 SixBar 1000 IP, eight Smarty Hybrid, 18 Fuze Wash Z350, 16 Fuze Pair Z120 IP, 11 Colour 5 Profile, eight Paladin and 8 DTW Blinder 700 IP luminaires was used to light the show, which played from 11 January to 5 February. Daniele Finzi Pasca, director of Switzerland-based Compagnia Finzi Pasca and creator of shows such as Corteo and Luzia for Cirque Du Soleil, wrote and directed the show. Lighting design was by Daniele Finzi Pasca and Alexis Bowles. In the centre of the arena, a 15m square stage was illuminated usi
Germany - The Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology (IDMT) has upgraded the highly specialised audio setup at its Ilmenau headquarters with the installation of Powersoft’s Ottocanali 4K4 DSP+D amplifier platforms. Fraunhofer IDMT - which focuses on applied research in the field of audiovisual media - is widely known for developing technologies for the digital media industry. The institute has made the decision to invest in a new range of Powersoft Ottocanali 4k4 DSP+D amplifier platforms, further strengthening its long-standing relationship with the manufacturer. René Rodigast, business manager in the acoustics department at Fraunhofer IDMT, commented: “We have a long story with Powersoft and have developed a good understanding of their systems over the years. Back when we installed our first Powersoft amplifiers here, we had direct contact to
UK - The Royal Opera House (ROH) recently underwent a comprehensive refurbishment to improve its facilities, including redesigning the Linbury Theatre (see the report in LSi March). The £50m Open Up refurbishment project also created a new café and improved restaurant and shop. The Linbury Theatre presents chamber work for opera and dance as well as live orchestral performances. The ROH also has a thriving immersive live to cinema department, and a broadcast team. To make workflow as flexible, and as smooth as possible, Martin Adams, and the in-house technical team have upgraded the space, deploying an SSL L500 Plus console at the heart, with a Dante AoIP infrastructure. From the initial audio make
USA - Designing an audio system for a live arena show or the installation of a multi-zone distributed PA are commonplace activities these days; combining the two in a single venue for a one-off concert is a consideration of an entirely different dimension. But when the Foo Fighters were asked to headline a one-off event for Super Bowl Saturday, Lez Dwight (director) of Britannia Row Productions handed precisely those project design responsibilities to their Foo Fighters’ touring systems engineer Adam Smith. “The Jack Murphy temporary structure chosen by DirecTV for their live stream spectacular Super Saturday Night was essentially a 100ft-tall dome roof,” explains Smith. “At 72,000sq/ft in terms of coverage there were two major aspects for the 8,500 fans who attended. The main listening area on the flat floor was relatively straight forward: L/R
China - To provide guests with an unparalleled experience of undersea immersion, China’s new Atlantis Sanya resort deployed an array of Harman audio, video, lighting and control systems. Located in the city of Sanya on China’s Hainan island, Atlantis Sanya is the latest Atlantis-themed resort operated by Kerzner International. The resort’s 52-story luxury hotel boasts more than 1,300 guest rooms, including extravagant underwater suites that look out into the resort’s massive Lost Chambers aquarium. The vast Aquaventure waterpark occupies nearly 200,000sq.m and includes waterslides that pass through the aquarium, in addition to snorkelling, scuba diving and live dolphin and sea lion interactions. Other amenities include conference rooms and banquet halls for meetings and events, an upscale shopping centre and 13 restaurants and bars. The resort deployed an
UK - The Piece Hall in Halifax, West Yorkshire, is one of the UK's best-preserved examples of Industrial Revolution-era architecture. A recent comprehensive renovation of the premises has given its courtyard a renewed purpose of an exchange for the arts, culture and music. One of the events making use of the transformed Piece Hall courtyard is the Spiegeltent - a pop-up live venue akin to a circus big top, which caters to a varied musical programme in the run up to the festive season. For the most recent incarnation, which included a mix of bands, cabaret and comedy, in addition to headlining musical acts such as Gary Delaney, Yorkshire-based Sound & Light UK LTD integrated 10 Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Wash and 10 Rogue R1 Beam fixtures into their lighting rig. Given the wide spectrum of performances taking place during the three-week festival, Sound & Li
USA - Dierks Bentley 2018 Mountain High Tour in support of his ninth studio album The Mountain played over 60 large-scale venues - including a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden. To meet the demands of the cross-country tour, Bentley and his production crew trusted PK Sound Trinity Advanced Robotic Line Array and Gravity subwoofers to deliver superior sound, system flexibility and easy rigging - whether in an arena, stadium, or amphitheatre. FOH and system engineer James ‘Pugsley’ McDermott said the Mountain High Tour marked his 13th year on the road with Dierks Bentley, though this is the first time they've added Trinity Advanced Robotic Line Arrays to the PA system. "It's been a technological advancement not only in deployment, but also sonically," McDermott says of the new PA system, which features full-size main hangs with up to 16 Trinity boxes per
USA - Sound designer and engineer Chris Sannino recently relied on DPA Microphones to utilise a discreet, wireless sound amplification source for the production of Romeo and Juliet at Philadelphia’s Wilma Theatre. Already having an established history with DPA Microphones, Sannino chose DPA’s d:facto 4018VL Linear Vocal Microphone, d:screet 4061 Miniature Omnidirectional Microphone and d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphone. Since 2013, he has used the d:vote 4099 on a wide variety of woodwinds, pianos, string instruments and discrete theatre set mic’ing. The d:vote 4099, d:screet 4061 and d:fine 4088 (among others) have been featured in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, New York City Summer Stage, The Vail International Dance Festival and Romeo and Juliet. For Romeo and Juliet, Sannino used the d:vote 4099 on cello and saxophone, the d:scre
The Netherlands - Established in 2000, YoungCapital is a recruitment agency for young people based in 35 locations, including two in Germany. The company’s HQ on Hoofddorp has been recently completely updated and now features a Yamaha networked audio system. The refurbishment project started in 2018 and included renovating and redecorating the spaces, whilst the audio system was also renewed. The system had to cover the reception area, restaurant, a hall/meeting space, an ‘urban’ environment (with moveable walls to create one large room, two medium rooms or four small ones), a gym, outside terrace and nine restroom areas. YoungCapital’s IT project manager, Elwin van de Beek, contacted Ruben Haringsma of Soest-based installation company HiFi Choice to discuss the company’s needs. These included online streaming music sources, local inputs at various loc
USA - In 2018, The Great Smoky Mountain Railroad and its winter attraction The Polar Express hoped to increase their production value and add additional safety lighting to the Bryson City train depot. With the help of local lighting designer Chris Speer at SpeerC Consulting, Great Smoky Mountain Railroad sought out Bandit Lites to provide fixtures, show control and integration for their project. Chris and Bandit’s team worked together to retrofit existing street lamps with a RGBW LED source. The existing poles were mounted at 30’-50’ intervals, challenging the designers to find a LED that was wide and bright enough to provide even coverage for the entire train depot. “Safety at the train depot was our number one priority,” says Andrew Fisher of Bandit Lites sales and installations. “Guests board and deboard at the Bryson City depot, and any dark spots could
UK - When Circus 1903 - the Golden Age of Circus visited London’s Royal Festival Hall over the Christmas period, its performers and life-size puppet elephants were lit by lighting designer Paul Smith, using 26 VL2600 Wash fixtures from Vari-Lite. Smith declared himself a fan of the new luminaire, impressed by its compact size, first-class framing and versatile zoom capabilities, among other fine performance features. Supplied by Siyan, the VL2600 Washes delivered “the best-looking version of the show that we’ve had so far – certainly the one that I’m happiest with”, says Smith. The compact LED fixtures delivered a number of immediate advantages. “By switching to the much more compact fixture we’ve gained extra floor space,” he says. “We’ve also replaced the heavier wash fixtures overhead, which is a great as it’s quite a weight-rest
France - The Fête des Lumières in Lyon is a regular event in the French city’s calendar, taking place annually in early December. Having first participated in the festival in 2017 with the show Guignol Sur La Colline presented on the facade of the Collège Jean Moulin, Portuguese creative studio and multimedia company OCUBO returned in 2018 to work on a projection on the façade of the Saint-Jean Cathedral. Pigments de Lumière was the recipient of the Trophée des Partenaires awarded each year by the festival’s partners to the best artistic showcase. Inspired by a quote from author Goethe, who says "colours are actions from light”, Pigments de Lumière was conceived as an abstract tribute to and celebration of all the colours that make up light, represented one by one through an exciting succession of different effects. Nuno Maya, C
