USA - When technology design and integration company Walker Engineering was asked to assess the paging and public address systems at the sprawling Houston Methodist Hospital, they encountered an assortment of older analogue systems that were inadequate for the needs of a modern medical facility – including integration with the new Paula and Joseph C. “Rusty” Walter III Tower, a 22-story, one million-square-foot building for cardiovascular and neurosurgery. In keeping with Houston Methodist’s approach to medicine, efficient communications across all 10 downtown buildings was a critical need. Walker recommended Bosch Praesideo digital public address and emergency sound system as a scalable, flexible enterprise solution to serve the new Walter Tower and unite it with the rest of the campus. “We had previously upgraded several of the medical centre‘s suburban
USA - For a third year running, global design and BIM software solutions provider Vectorworks is sponsoring awards at the Kennedy Centre American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). KCACTF is a national programme designed to celebrate college theatre in the United States and help students develop their creative and technical skills. This year marks the 50th anniversary of KCACTF. Every year, KCACTF hosts eight regional festivals for college theatre students across the United States. The festival activities include workshops, discussions, regional-level scholarships and award programmes. The first regional festival begins on 8 January and the last festival ends on 28 February. “As we gear up for another exciting festival season for KCACTF, once again new doors will open for a handful of students because of the connections between KCACTF and our industry-leading spons
UK - Recognising the work and achievements of National Health Service employees is the annual Celebrating Success Awards, with awards reflecting the organisation's core values of care and compassion, dignity and respect, quality, teamwork, openness, honesty and responsibility. For the recent awards, which took place at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, LD Ollie Wilkinson specified Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Wash, Rogue R1 Spot, and Rogue R1 Beam fixtures in support of his overall lighting concept. With the night itself very much centred around the guests themselves, Wilkinson decided to focus his lighting concept accordingly, placing special emphasis on illuminating the tables with the Rogue R2 Wash fixtures, which were flown from a centrally positioned truss. “This year, I wanted to place visual emphasis upon the tables without exposing the guests to unsightly
UK - Def Leppard continued their 2018-19 Hysteria tour in UK and Irish arenas just before Christmas, celebrating 31 years since the release of their seminal Hysteria album, which was played in its entirety in track order. HSL supplied lighting equipment plus rigging, with over 100 motors including a 25-way Kinesys automation system, to the tour which features a striking lighting design by Kenji Ohashi, who has lit the band for 17 years. The lighting and rigging - which also included supplying motors for video and PA - was co-ordinated for HSL by Jordan Hanson, who comments that they “were delighted to be back working alongside production manager Chris Adamson and ‘universal’ lighting crew chief Kevin Cassidy again. It was really interesting to see Kenji’s work and the vitality and energy his lighting brought to a great looking and sounding product
Europe - The Human League completed their 2018 UK and European tour with an eye-catching production and lighting design. Colour Sound Experiment was once again the lighting supplier, working closely with award winning lighting designer Rob Sinclair on his 10th Human League tour, the ninth in the LD hot seat. The set design was initiated by the band’s manager, Simon Watson, who takes a keen interest in production values and their stage visuality. He wanted something new and different, especially with the video element. Video has played a big part in Human League tours for the last 10 years, and on this one, he didn’t want a stage filled with LED. Instead, the concept that he and Rob developed utilised a series of aluminium framed projection cubes covered with gauze sides which were mapped to receive animated projections. This introduced a lively, highly effec
USA - For the past 15 years, the Infinite Energy Arena has served the greater Atlanta, Georgia area as a state-of-the-art venue for concerts, graduations, and sporting events of all types, from basketball to ice hockey to professional lacrosse. Depending on the nature of the event, the arena holds between 11,000 and 13,000 people. After its original sound reinforcement system fell out of date and beyond repair, the Infinite Energy Arena management chose AV integration firm Logic Systems Sound & Lighting, of St. Louis, Missouri, to install a cost-effective Danley Sound Labs system. The Danley system reuses existing wiring & rigging and far exceeds the design criteria for fidelity and sound pressure level, all while simultaneously slashing the system’s energy budget in half. “The old system relied on obsolete technology and discontinued products,” explains
USA/UK - City Theatrical’s Show DMX Show Baby 6 and QolorFLEX NuNeon products are currently being used for holiday performances and installations around the world, including The Polar Express Train Ride in Chicago and St Michael’s Parish Church of Edinburgh, Scotland. As a live Broadway-style show aboard a real Amtrak train, The Polar Express Train Ride uses Show DMX Show Baby 6 units in combination with City Theatrical’s External Weatherproof Antennas as a plug and play wireless DMX solution that transmits 760 DMX channels and one cue list from the console on each train to the boarding platform wirelessly. “The Show Baby 6 units have blown us away again this year in terms of their range and reliability in the heavily-congested downtown Chicago RF spectrum,” said Guy Rhodes, lighting designer for The Polar Express Train Ride. “We are a
USA - Dustin Bates, frontman of the Sci-Fi rockers Starset, tells a story about the quartet’s formation in 2013. The band, it seems, was created by the Starset Society, an organisation dedicated to alerting the public about “The Message,” a cyrptic signal they picked up from the outer reaches of space. A fictional tale? Perhaps, but one that certainly felt real to the fans who packed houses on the band’s recently completed European tour. Contributing to the galactic mood of the band’s shows was a time and space bending lighting design by Rodger Pugh of Dveus Designs that featured Chauvet Professional fixtures and atmospherics, supplied by Elite Multimedia. “Starset is a great group to design for, since their Sci-Fi orientation lends itself to powerful visuals,” says Pugh. “The overall idea behind our design on this tour is ‘Sci-Fi.’ We want everyone
USA - Early in his career, Zach Scott found part-time work supplying small audio and lighting packages to a local video gaming venue in Chicago. One of its managers, Brad Weir, later branched out to organise gaming tournaments across the Midwest. Weir employed Scott for a few years, but eventually the two separated, Weir to pursue his passion of video gaming tournaments, and Scott into lighting, eventually creating his own design firm, Illuminate Collective. But old connections have a way of resurfacing. Seven years after losing contact, Scott received a call from his former venue manager asking him if he’d be interested in working at this year’s Hi-Rez Expo at the Atlanta DreamHack. Accepting the offer, Scott went on to create sleek, camera-friendly stage designs for Hi-Rez Studios’ SMITE stage. A friend of his, fellow designer Dustin Derry of Stonewolf Studio
USA - Tirso Lighting has installed an all-LED Elation lighting package for another Wahi Group club opening in northern Manhattan, this time Bar 151, an upscale lounge and performance space in the neighbourhood of Inwood, a quieter and more affordable enclave of New York City that has become increasingly popular of late. Tirso Lighting has been around since 2009 and has been using Elation lighting since its inception. Nevertheless, Bar 151 was the design and integration company’s first all LED lighting project. “I was really looking forward to doing an all LED project and this was a good chance to realize that,” says Tirso Lighting owner Tirso Pelaez, who served as lighting designer on the project and suggested the green approach to the client. “Elation’s choice of products allowed us to put together an all LED lighting package for Bar 151 that can stand on its own.
Europe - Claypaky Mythos 2 fixtures have accompanied British alternative rock band Nothing But Thieves (NBT) on their extensive tour around Europe and the USA. The band’s long-term lighting designer Steve Bewley specified the Mythos 2 for the fixture’s versatility to help him to deliver a dramatic and dynamic set. “I’ve used Claypaky on many occasions and I knew the Mythos 2 would be a great fit for the NBT show,” says Bewley. “I needed a multifunctional hybrid light to get as many looks out of the rig as possible. I used them to create bold beam looks, as well as spot and wash looks throughout the show.” In spotlight mode, the Mythos 2 has a 4-50˚ electronic zoom range, while its advanced colour system consists of a CMY system based on three gradually fading colour wheels, plus 14 colour filters on three wheels and two CTO filters to offer designers bot
Nigeria - Based in Port Harcourt, Chicoco Studios is housed in The Shed, a community space built by the young residents of the city’s waterfront slums. The studio was designed and installed by the Collaborative Media Advocacy Platform (CMAP) in conjunction with the musicians from Chicoco Collective and is home to both recording and radio broadcast spaces. Directed by ex-BBC engineer Ana Bonaldo, with technical mentoring and support from another ex-BBC engineer Colin Neal, Chicoco Radio is powered by a pair of Allen & Heath XB-14-2 compact broadcast mixers chosen, according to Neal for their “incomparable value and versatility. We found no other desk at this price point which features broadcast functions such as TELCO channels with clean feed, talkback and remote starts for playout channels.” While Chicoco Radio was devised to give the residents of Port Harc
UK - The team at LSi will be taking a break now until the 2nd January 2019. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our readers for following LSI Online news throughout 2018 and wish you a very happy holiday season - however you might be celebrating. The daily online news will resume on Wednesday 2nd January. Merry Christmas! (LSi Online)
USA - The announcement by American rapper Post Malone that he intended to stage his own festival at the Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas, Texas recently, featuring himself, Tyler, the Creator and Travis Scott, created a wave of interest. LD Ben Dalgleish has been using 36 of GLP’s X4 XL moving LED heads for Post Malone’s worldwide festival tour that started back in June, and he was keen to return to the brand, this time specifying 133 of the X4 Bar 20 battens as the feature light for Posty Fest. Working with creative director Lewis James, whom he said “provided excellent creative direction on the look he envisaged for Post Malone’s performance”, Dalgleish said that the aim was to have the artist stand out as the headline act. “Other acts had a large LED screen, but this was removed during the changeover and revealed a large structure lined with GLP’s X4 20 B
Canada - For Canadian shows celebrating the 10th anniversary of Protest the Hero’s Fortress album, lighting operator/programmer Michael ‘Herk’ Herkimer deployed a comprehensive suite of Elation lighting fixtures. Provided by Hamilton-based Soundbox Productions of Canada, the rig was comprised exclusively of Elation ACL 360 Matrix panels, Cuepix Battens, Fuze Pars and ZW19s. To say Herk maintains a busy schedule is an understatement. In mid-October 2018 he’d been touring for roughly 29 months, splitting his time between Rise Against, Billy Talent and Protest the Hero (PTH). With his previous knowledge of the PTH gig, Herk knew he’d require a lighting rig that was economical and utilitarian, with every fixture offering a high degree of flexibility. In all, the PTH light show consists of roughly 2,300 cues and Herk’s approach is to build intensity constantly
UK - Back in the late 1530s, Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries that had been familiar fixtures on the English landscape prior to the Reformation. Most of the stately buildings were destroyed, their material scavenged for other purposes. But one survived thanks to the intervention of Augustine Steward, Mayor of Norwich, who convinced the king to deed the impressive friary in his city to the people, so it could be used for fairs, feasts and other public functions. Today, almost 500 years later, the monastery complex (the oldest surviving one in the UK), is still thriving as The Halls, a community cultural centre with architectural features that provide a dramatic backdrop for a variety of events. Among these performances was a recent high school choral concert sponsored by Norfolk Music Hub that was animated by an evocative lighting design featuring Chauvet Professional Ov
UK - Swedish rapper Yung Lean has recently completed his biggest UK headline show to date - Wings of Desire at London’s O2 Academy in Brixton, accompanied by an Allen & Heath dLive Wings set-up. The full audio set-up - owned by FOH engineer Gustav Brunn - is used for both FOH and Mon duties and features a dLive C1500 surface fitted with a Waves 3 card at FOH position in conjunction with a CDM32 MixRack, fitted with a Dante card, and an IP6 Controller at stage position. Brunn comments: “I was looking for a fly-in rig that we can take anywhere in the world when A&H released the new dLive series. It’s such a competent rig and really suits my needs - I can bring it with me anywhere on the planet.” On stage, a DJ performs alongside the artists using Ableton Live with the outputs sent to the CDM32 via Dante. The IP6 is used to allow the producti
Canada - SC Media Canada and Ivan’s Audio-Visual recently outfitted Moncton, New Brunswick’s new Avenir Centre arena with a complete Harman Professional Solutions audio system. Avenir Centre is an 8,800-seat multi-use arena that is home to the Moncton Wildcats hockey team and Moncton Magic and basketball team. Although it primarily serves as a sports arena, Avenir Centre also hosts performances by renowned acts like Keith Urban and Jerry Seinfeld in addition to speaking events, trade shows and more. To provide exceptional sound quality for a wide range of entertainment and events, the arena needed a powerful audio system that could deliver even and highly-controlled sound coverage. To meet these objectives, SC Media Canada and Ivan’s Audio-Visual designed and deployed an end-to-end Harman system featuring JBL VRX line arrays, Crown DriveCore amplifiers, BSS BLU
Brazil - Ivete Maria Dias de Sangalo Cady is one of the best-selling Brazilian female singers, with 15m copies sold from her six albums released with Banda Eva and seven more as part of her solo career. For her recent DVD production Ivete Sangalo Live Experience in the Allianz Park in São Paulo, lighting designers Paulinho Lebrão and Guillermo Herrero used two grandMA2 full-size consoles, one grandMA2 light and four MA NPUs (Network Processing Units) to control a set with more than 800 fixtures. Lebrão explains: “We have been using grandMA2 consoles since 2011, and the experience, knowledge and confidence we have in the system leaves us no doubt in the choice. When art director Gringo Cardia presented this project, the mission for us was create lighting that could show the big size, plus all the details of the scenography. Another request was to transform t
USA - In its first major renovation since 1987, the PepsiCo Theatre at Purchase College, part of the State University of New York (SUNY), now has a precision L-Acoustics ARCS WiFo loudspeaker system integrated by Southington, Connecticut-based integrator North American Theatrix. Designed by set designer Ming Cho Lee, the mid-sized PepsiCo Theatre has a large stage allowing for exceptional adaptability. It also makes an ideal venue for film screenings, with comfortable seating, a rear screen projection bay, and fully digital projection capabilities. A $730,000 grant from locally-based beverage giant PepsiCo in 2016, combined with additional donations, allowed for the complete renovation of the theatre - from the seats and the carpeting to the sound, projection, and lighting systems to critical backstage infrastructure. The new PA setup for the Performing Arts Centre of
Europe - American blues rockers Welshly Arms have recently completed their European tour with an Allen & Heath dLive system handling FOH duties. The latest tour supports their newest album release No Place is Home. The band’s set-up consists of a dLive C3500 at FOH with a CDM32 fitted with a Dante card, placed centre stage. dLive’s Tie Lines patching option is utilised to provide a digital split over Dante to an additional console on monitors. Additionally, a DX168 expander is positioned stage-right for extra analogue I/O. FOH engineer David Sievers comments: “When it comes to deciding on which desk and gear to use on tour, there are so many options now, but dLive really stood out against the rest. I chose dLive due to its flexibility, its great sound and the fact I can add a Waves card to the surface and a Dante card to the MixRack.” Sievers a
USA - The Department of Theatre at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo has added 12 Claypaky Axcor Spot 300 moving LED fixtures to its inventory. The lights serve three theatres in the department’s complex as well as an additional performing space elsewhere on campus. The spots are making their debut during the 2018-19 theatre season. The Axcor Spot 300s replace ageing moving lights, which are at the end of their lifecycle. “I had been looking for LED-based fixtures capable of projecting patterns and with a varied range of colours,” says Matthew Knewtson, professor of theatre and lighting design. “I found the Axcor Spots in doing online research, and colleagues recommended the Claypaky fixtures as a viable option.” The Axcor Spot 300s were purchased from BMI Supply in Queensbury, New York. ACT Lighting, Inc. is the exclusive distributor of Claypaky light
A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has provided KCS Group with a Green Hippo Hippotizer V4 Karst+ Media Server to make Honda UK’s live event content stand out from the crowd. KCS, an experiential marketing and events company, has worked with Honda exclusively for 15 years - providing them and their dealerships with the support to make every event a success. KCS were asked to procure a media server and all necessary hardware to give Honda the ability to display varying content across different areas of their show stands, whilst giving them the option to link the screens together as well, to broadcast live content simultaneously across them all. Gareth Coleman, project manager for KCS, visited PLASA earlier this year to research his options. He met Stuart Burdett, sales manager for AC-ET's specialist video sales division. Coleman says: “After speaking wit
UK - Working with production company Attention Seekers, LED Creative provided a selection of products from their Sigma LED range to help build the clean, modern look created for the semi-final of the McLaren Shadow Project. Staged at the prestigious McLaren Technology Centre and streamed live via the project’s YouTube Channel, the event is a highly contested battle for a place on the McLaren E-Sports Team. Having been whittled down from over half a million applicants, the final eight ‘virtual drivers’ were tested over a series of racing challenges, competing at legendary tracks in iconic McLaren machinery. The custom-built Shadow Project studio features eight ‘racing sleds’ configured specifically for the event. Sited on raised podiums edged with crisp LED Highlights, the ‘sleds’ house the individual drivers in cockpits fronted with a colour coded ‘V’
