Canada - Looking at the 50,000sq.ft complex that is Metalworks just west of downtown Toronto in Mississauga, it’s hard to imagine that it came from relatively modest roots. Starting out as a private studio, the company has now grown into a multi-faceted operation that includes a large commercial studio, production school, and live sound provider with a major investment in L-Acoustics loudspeaker systems, including its most recent addition of a full K2 system. In 2005, Metalworks Studios bought out a pair of live sound companies and launched Metalworks Production Group (MPG), a full-service production house. One of the companies that it purchased was already an L-Acoustics rental network partner, making MPG an L-Acoustics house from the very beginning. “We started with approximately 50 V-DOSC and 100 dV-DOSC right out of the gate,” says Metalworks owner Gil Moore, who i
Europe - Brit Award winning singer-songwriter Jorja Smith is currently enjoying the success - both commercially and creatively - of her debut album, Lost & Found. Blackburn UK based technical production specialist HSL supplied lighting equipment and crew for her recent UK and European tour, working closely with Boston based lighting designer Tyler Trofatter and lighting director / operator on the road - for this section of the tour - Matthew Kemp. Tyler started working with the artist earlier in the year when they sought a US-based LD to look after the live show aesthetics and stage presentation. In the US they were using 4Wall Entertainment as the lighting vendor, and their account handler Bob Suchocki first connected Tyler with HSL when they needed a specials package for a summer show at Somerset House in London. That all went very well, so when this
UK - Art and artistry appear fundamental to a live performance by Bon Iver. For lighting designer Michael Brown this is reflected in the reliance on white light, shade and contrast. With that in mind, when the band asked production manager James Dean to prospect for an IMAG system, he sought more than just good technology. “Although it’s not the first time we’ve used video for the live show (we have had video walls for content before now) it is the first time we’ve thought about using a full camera package for IMAG. We knew we would be playing bigger rooms and we wanted the audience to have the best experience possible. One of the great things Video Design offered that many others didn’t was a range of robotic cameras. Not having camera operators intruding on stage is important to the band and their stage performance.” Dean took a four camera PPU from Video
USA - Completed in July of 2018, Flint Baptist Church’s modern, 1650-seat facility features Allen & Heath consoles at FOH and broadcast with ME-1 Personal Mixers for its band and praise singers. The rapidly growing church, located in Flint, Texas, blends contemporary and traditional worship styles with a large choir, band and praise team leading its services. Flint Baptist’s new audio and video systems were installed by Broadcast Works of Tyler, Texas. Wade Summerford, Flint Baptist’s technology/media director says: “We’re seeing many new church members each week and this growth is what threw us into the planning process. Then, I went to a conference last October and got to put my hands on a dLive and test drive it. I saw the dLive’s flexibility and usability. I can throw a volunteer on our S7000 Surface, give them a crash course and, in five minutes, they c
UK - Live events creative solutions specialist, Production Bureau (Pb) has invested in 20 Spotlight FresneLED 200 warm white universal dimming luminaires for use on client events during the busy autumn season. Production Bureau has been providing technical solutions, installations, AV equipment and services to the live events and exhibitions & display sectors for over 30 years, with projects ranging from international conferences to small-scale roadshows. Dave Morgan, Pb's technical resources manager, required a versatile and low-energy LED Fresnel that could be used across various types of shows and events, so contacted Bob Allen in the UK lighting sales team of professional equipment re-seller AC-ET. Morgan comments: "At Pb we are continuously investing in new technologies to ensure we remain at the forefront of the industry, so we can deliver the best poss
USA - The North American premiere of the musical Tinga Tinga Tales in October featured seven Chauvet Professional Maverick MK2 Spot fixtures. These lights, along with 13 Maverick MK2 Wash units and eight COLORado 2-Quad Zooms, supplied by WorldStage, were part of a Herrick Goldman lighting design for the show at Manhattan’s New Victory Theatre “The MK2 Spots provided the strong beams of the chromatic rainbow when the children in the audience discover how the Chameleon character gets his colours,” said Goldman, who positioned the 440W moving LED fixtures on the second electric. “They enabled us to shift Chameleon’s moods rapidly, which helped tell his magical tale. The MK2 Spots also played heavily in Tortoise’s Rasta rap, with a call and response with the audience. Overall, the spots help to highlight performers in a variety of dramatic ways.” Gol
UK - The end-of-season fireworks display at Legoland Windsor Resort is one of the resort’s most anticipated events on the calendar. Six shows are held over three weekends during late October and early November, with this year’s Legoland Heroes extravaganza, deemed the most spectacular and ambitious yet. Sound designer Dave Shepherd has been looking after the sound for the fireworks display since 2003. This year, following the demos held at LH2 in June, he opted to try out the recently launched HALO Arena large format line array system from EM Acoustics. Shepherd explains that a large percentage of the park is covered with dedicated sound systems for the fireworks display, which is not without its challenges: “There are multiple viewing areas populated with buildings and trees that we need to work around. We also have fairly tight noise restrictions due to
Greece - The Stelios Kyrillidis rental company in Elassona, Larissa, has taken delivery of the first Outline GTO C-12 system in Greece and the rig’s high-profile debut on arrival was a date on Bryan Ferry’s world tour at Thessaloniki’s Dassous (Forest) Theatre. The second event followed just two days later, with concerts by top Greek names Giannis Aggelakas, 1000mods, Active Member and Pyx Lax at the magnificent Vrahon Theatre in Athens. Bill Michailidis of Mega Event (Outline’s distributor in Greece) comments: “The system was a personal choice of Bryan Ferry's sound engineer, Davide Lombardi, who assured me that he preferred this system to others he has worked with over the years. “For this first set up, Giulio Gandini (R&D engineer and tech support and training specialist with Outline) came to Greece and we designed the system for this specifi
USA - Opened in 1892, Ryman Auditorium in Nashville is best known as the home of the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcast between 1943 and 1974. Its age and cultural significance led to its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. In partnership with Opry Entertainment Group, JBL, and Yamaha, AV integration company Clair Solutions recently completed a significant overhaul of the Ryman’s sound reinforcement system, which required a lot of upfront due diligence and testing, sensitivity to the venue’s historic interior, and a deft installation to work around the Ryman’s packed calendar. “We installed the Ryman’s previous sound reinforcement system over a dozen years ago,” says Dan Heins, regional vice president at Clair Solutions. “It was a first-generation JBL VerTec system that served them well, but loudspeaker, amplifier, and DSP technolog
Sweden - Lights in Alingsås, the experimental architectural lighting installation, started when students from Ljuscentrum Gothenburg University came to Alingsås in 1998. Ten years later, the urban exhibition attracts more than 85,000 visitors every year and has become the largest lighting event in public spaces in Northern Europe. W-DMX has become a frequent sponsor of the project and is proud of being able to showcase its technology in a real-life scenario, to well-established and new designers in the industry. “In total, we used five WhiteBox F-1 transceivers, in three different sites”, says Dierk Hartmann, from Lights in Alingsås. The first site featured a set of WhiteBox units configured as transmitter and receiver, with lighting designed by Diana Joels (Brazil) and programmed by Oscar Bertenius (Stockholm Lighting). The control was supplied by
UK - Full technical production services provider Pearce Hire has added a Prolyte Arc Roof staging system, supplied by Stage Electrics, to its hire stock. The Prolyte Arc Roof System is a fixed construction, based on three inward-curving trusses which are mounted to side masts. Since its delivery, the system has been used for a festival and an urban running event and has also been specified for several Christmas Light switch-ons and outdoor winter festivals. Jim Brown, general manager at Pearce Hire, comments: “We’ve got a significant amount of Prolyte kit already - trusses, towers, rigging towers and accessories. So we were already familiar with the quality of Prolyte products and ease of handling. We were particularly attracted to the Arc Roof system because of its well-considered assembly process which is critical to the challenging set-up times our client proje
Denmark - Lighting designer Mike Holm has been in charge of many light installations throughout his career but had his first encounter with SGMs G-4 Wash for the successful Danish musical Seebach. After almost a year-long run with over 200,000 tickets sold, Seebach became the best-selling musical in Denmark in 15 years. “Besides living up to all our performance demands, we chose the G-4 Wash because of its compact size that makes it easy to adapt to various staging designs,” says Mike Holm. In the past, Holm has used moving-head fixtures that were a lot more difficult to install due to their bigger physical size. With great performance in a compact size, the G-4 Wash turned out to be the perfect luminaire for both the Seebach and Tarzan musicals. “The G-4 Wash has a Fresnel lens, which avoids having to work with multiple shadows that you get from
UK - On 25 October at London’s St. Bartholomew-the-Great at Smithfield, storytelling singer-songwriter Hazel Iris celebrated the release of her first full-length album, Nine Sisters. Shure supported the event with KSM8, BETA52, SM137, SM81, KSM141, BETA98, SM57’s and SM58 microphones and PSM300 in ear monitoring systems. Peter Junge, engineer in charge of recording and filming the event, comments: “For the Hazel Iris album launch, we used Shure microphones on every instrument. Not only was the live-sound superb but the recording also came out really well. Listening back I was very surprised by how focused it all sounds and how little issue with bleed or ambience we have on the signals. Very often, when using that many condenser microphones in a church, there can be a problem. However, the sound is nicely separated and I’m pleased I'll be able to make a
Romania - Romania’s five-star Black Sea hotel, Nyota, offers luxurious accommodation coupled with conference and theatre facilities to cater for tourism and business. A premium solution was required, according to systems integrator and Powersoft distributor Marius Craiu, sales & marketing manager of AudioVision Store, who spec’d Powersoft Ottocanali power amplification systems to manage the zoning and room audio systems. The hotel needed the AV system to cover all areas, with priority for EVAC announcements and both local and remote control of the zones. Systems integrator and Powersoft distributor Marius Craiu explains: “The hotel’s prime objective was for it to be simple to use and reliable. We began working with the hotel before building was started and although the initial specification was settled early on, there were inevitable modifications al
USA - Fusion band Intocable have enjoyed a 25-year career, winning three Grammy awards and and playing record-breaking stadium concerts. Their latest Highway tour has taken them all over the US since June and culminates in November in Houston, Texas. The band's tools of choice at both FOH and monitors are SSL L300 consoles, and Jose Ramon Quintero has engineered with both, previously as monitor engineer, and now as FOH engineer. "When I started with the L300 on monitors, the band immediately noticed a huge change in the mix and in the 'room image',” he says. “There is a great separation between the instruments, and there’s a much warmer, more analogue sound than the console we were using before." According to Quintero, the band's reaction to the technology was an important moment, as they are all accomplished musicians, and most have their own personal st
UK - Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rex Orange County (Alexander O'Connor) has been on a UK tour, with LD Will Kinnaird looking after the lighting for the musician’s first full production. Kinnaird took 24 Robe’s LEDBeam 150 moving lights on the bus-and-trailer tour; the fixtures proved the right tool for the low-profile aesthetic he crafted for the tour as he worked closely with show designer Jed Skrzypczak. The LEDbeam 150s and some other lighting were used at every show in conjunction with the 'top' rigs at each venue. At the musician’s London gig at the Hammersmith Apollo, the LEDBeam 150 count was boosted to 51 and six MegaPointes were added to the rig, all supplied by High Wycombe rental company, Siyan. For the main tour, the 24 LEDBeam 150s were deployed in three horizontal lines across the stage - upstage, mid-stage and downstage - wher
UK - Pop rockers The Feeling recently celebrated the 12th anniversary of their debut album with their Twelve Stops and Home tour - supported by an Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system. Supplied by SSE Audio, the full set-up included an S7000 surface on FOH, accompanied by a DM64 MixRack on stage. Both FOH and monitors were mixed from the S7000 with the dLive’s 128 input processing channels enabling duplicates of input signals to be made for discrete FOH - MON processing. Additionally, the MixRack was fitted with a Dante card for multi-track recording. “The 128 processing channels and 64 buses were perfect for duplicating channels for monitors and band members who needed further processing in their IEM’s. I never had to compromise on anything, giving the band what they needed on stage and for what I needed out front,” comments FOH engineer Jon Le
Germany - The International Automobile Exhibition (IAA), which took place in Hannover on 20-27 September, is the one of the world's most important trade fairs for mobility, transport and logistics. This year saw two of the show’s biggest names - DAF Trucks and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles - rely on Absen’s Polaris products to ensure that their respective booths packed a visual punch. DAF used its stand to showcase 90 years of vehicular innovation. This was illustrated by the classic DAF A1600 from 1967 through to the future DAF CF Electric Innovation, while a prominent position was taken by DAF’s latest LF, CF and XF ranges. The stand was based around the theme, ‘Proud of our Heritage, Leading Today, Ready for the Future’. Providing the striking 30m x 4m video wall for the 2,500 sqm DAF stand was Netherlands-based rental and sales company, Bazelmans AV, whi
UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has provided a range of video solutions, including an additional Hippotizer V4+ Media Server to Illuminate Lighting, to expand their rental stock offering. Illuminate Lighting was founded by entrepreneur Jonathan Pask to provide lighting control systems exclusively to rental houses. Since then, he has expanded their offering to include video control systems. Jonathan has deliberately kept the focus on these systems and credits that to the business’s strong growth. He commented: “I think what makes us successful is that we offer a concise range of services. Rather than offering everything, we strive to excel at what we do offer. “Green Hippo Media Servers are our preferred choice because of their power, reliability and ease of use. They are the perfect tool for our diverse range of clients.” Alongside th
UK - British heavy metal titans Saxon are on the road again, touring Thunderbolt, their twenty second studio album. Jacky Lehmann, the band’s trusted Front of House engineer has chosen to use a combination of DiGiCo’s SD12 and S21, purchased from DiGiCo’s German distributor, United Brands, ensuring the band’s classic sound benefits from the most up to date audio technology. DiGiCo has been Jacky’s choice of console since 2011 and since he joined the Saxon crew in 2012, he has mixed over 300 shows. For the current tour, he deploys the SD12 with a D2-Rack, which he purchased himself, and an S21 and D-Rack for smaller shows and corporate events. “I started with an SD9 / D-Rack setup, which was my main rig for a lot of Saxon shows in Europe at the time,” says Jacky. “I was looking for a smaller console for fly-in shows, so in 2013 an SD11i joined my
Curaçao – Since it started in 2015, the Flying Dutch festival has employed a novel method of spreading DJ wealth in The Netherlands. Taking place simultaneously in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Eindhoven, it shuttles the country’s leading DJs from city to city by helicopter throughout the day, so every fan in each location gets to see the entire all-star line-up of performers. This year, the festival added a fourth site to its roster - the island of Curaçao. Taking place 25 October, a stone’s throw away from the white sanded Seaquarium Beach (aka Mambo Beach), Flying Dutch Curaçao offered breathtaking vistas, a nonstop party atmosphere, and a chance to take in performances by artists like Armin van Buuren, Sunnery James and Ryan Marciano, as well as local stars DJ Menasa and multi Latin Grammy-nominated Jeon and other leading DJs on a massive 45m wide by 19m high stage.
USA - Brave Church, located in Englewood, Colorado, is a church on a mission. This inspired the desire for an impactful sound reinforcement system in their new Broomfield sanctuary that could more than keep up with Brave Church’s unabashedly contemporary services, as well as defining the need to update the audio infrastructure at their main sanctuary in Englewood. “Brave Church had already planned to launch their first multi-site facility in Broomfield in a building that is thirty miles northwest of the main campus,” explained Kurt Butler president of Butler Engineering & Technology Group (BETG) who provided consulting and technical infrastructure design services to church leadership. “BETG designed the audio system using the Clair Brothers kiT12+ and kiT-Sub+ powered loudspeakers and subwoofers. The kiT Series was a perfect match with the performance criteria,
Estonia - Recreating the dark and gruesome world of Sweeney Todd, the fictional Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Vanemuine Theatre in Tartu, Estonia, was a tricky task requiring the juxtaposition of a classic Victorian east London docklands ambiance as the historical industrial backdrop, shot through with lighting and effects to recreate multiple locations. It laid down a few challenges for lighting designer Margus Vaigur who had the house Robe luminaires at his disposal including 20 x MMX Spots, 52 x LEDWash 1200s, 16 x LEDWash 600s and 12 x CitySkape Xtreme’s together with 12 new Robe DL7S Profiles which are a recent addition to the venue’s Big Theatre house lighting inventory. Margus lit the entire production with the Robe moving lights together with some other LEDs, around 200 in total, using no conventionals at all. The production - the first time the
China - Shanghai Tower, China’s tallest building (and the world’s second tallest), measuring 632m high, has been brought to life by powerful beams from PR Lighting’s IP65-rated AQUA 480 Beam -from 128 storeys up. It was selected following comparative tests with other leading brands by Beijing Fengshangshiji Culture Media Co. They were tasked with finding a solution, having been approached by the builders, Shanghai Construction Group. As a result, 129 of the waterproof heads have been installed on the top three of eight interlayers, installed in the body of the tower to store building cleaning devices. There are 43 fixtures mounted at each level. The contractors have enjoyed a long-term relationship with PR Lighting having collaborated with the Guandong based company most notably in the construction of the Birds Nest Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games, followed b
