Mexico - Nothing was held back at the Tecate Mother of All Rock Fest 2018. Bands like Whitesnake and Garbage gave full-throated performances. Headliner Guns N’ Roses roared through an intense set. Matching the performances on stage note-for-heart-pounding-note was an intensely bright lightshow from Serpro Producciones that was anchored by 95 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK2 Wash fixtures. The dramatic stage lighting rig featured nine hexagon-shaped truss configurations. Flown in an oval pattern over the stage, these structures served as a scenic element in addition to holding some of the rig’s Maverick MK2 Wash fixtures and other luminaires. Hovering over the stage, they created an air of anticipation, as if they were a spacecraft. The fixtures held on these structures were used for downlighting and specials. Other Maverick MK2 Wash fixtures were flown on
UK - The National Theatre on London’s South Bank has been a revered national institution for over 50 years. Its three theatres, the 1110-seat Olivier, the 890-seat Lyttelton and the 400-seat Dorfman, play host to a wide range of theatre performances from bold new work to re-imagined modern classics. The NT technical department have the responsibility to provide the best quality equipment in order to maintain the highest standards for all productions. The lighting department has invested in yet more Robert Juliat lighting equipment over the last 12 months to add to its already large inventory of RJ fixtures. “We have over 300 Robert Juliat 600 Series 1kW and 700 Series 2.5kW profile fixtures, mostly used as generic lighting in the Olivier and Lyttelton theatres where they are rigged on the front of house bridges,” says lighting resources manager, Paul Horn
UK - From an opera house to a university creative centre, an audiophile’s nirvana to an 18th-century theatre, and even a cathedral, theatre planners and acousticians Sound Space Vision (SSV) has unveiled its finished projects and reveals future plans for a variety of spaces in around the world. SSV’s newly completed projects include one of several high-profile buildings for Hong Kong’s extensive West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), the Xiqu Centre. As the first finished building in the new West Kowloon Cultural District, the Xiqu Centre serves as the gateway to the district and is, fittingly, dedicated to the performance of Chinese Opera (Xiqu) and the centre for preservation and development of the variety of Chinese Opera art forms. SSV was responsible for the acoustics and audio systems in all of the Centre’s spaces, including both natural and amplified pe
UK - Adlib’s installation division are part of a team which has helped to deliver Europe’s first installed L-Acoustics L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound system at EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney), a vibrant new arts centre for live music, mixed arts, and performance located in the former Savoy cinema in Dalston, east London. Adlib worked closely with client Auro Foxcroft and his team, with support from L-Acoustics’ sales manager, Paul McMullan and applications engineers, Jeff Woodford (installation) and Sergey Becker (touring) to specify and install the 360° L-ISA system with the aim of delivering an all-round audio experience for audiences and artists alike. EartH is the brainchild of Auro, champion of Hackney nightlife and founder of Shoreditch venue Village Underground, a commercially successful, sustainable and community driven initiative that also provides a
USA - California metal-core band Atreyu released their seventh album In Our Wake in October, then promptly hit the road on a 27-date promotional winter tour in the US. Lighting designer Megan Alksninis had a large Elation floor package supplied by JDI Productions at her disposal. “A big part of the physical design came from drummer and vocalist Brandon Saller,” explains Alksninis, who also programmed the lighting and served as lighting operator on tour. “He had a clear vision on how the stage was going to be set up. Once the design was set it was a full collaboration to create the final show design. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had designing a show.” Atreyu’s fast-paced music drives the lighting and the design throughout the show, says Alksninis, with a mix of strobes, subtle colour chases and even a mirror ball or two. The lighting packa
Denmark - Originally founded in 1926 with just 12 members, what is now known as the Aalborg City Church in northern Jutland is one of the largest church organisations in the region. Having outgrown its previous premises, the church has recently moved to a new, fully renovated modern building able to accommodate around 1000 people in total including a main auditorium for 750. In order to provide clear, consistent audio coverage throughout the auditorium, the church’s AV department selected a Halo-C compact line array system from EM Acoustics supplied by EM’s Danish distributor, Alfa Audio. According to Alfa Audio’s Torsten Matthiessen, the requirement was for a compact, efficient sound system that would cover the whole venue with no holes or hotspots. “A line array system seemed to be a no brainer for the venue – we just needed to find the right one,” recal
The Netherlands - ELC Lighting has announced that Production Resource Group (PRG) has made a significant investment in ELC's GBX Distribution System. Specifically tailored for live entertainment applications, the GBX Distribution System transforms how DMX can be distributed from an ethernet network. Recognising this, PRG has purchased multiple units, including ELC’s switchGBx10 and switchGBx18 switches, nodeGBx8 nodes, and the innovative new nodeGBx8 Slave node. Bob Walpot, director of operations and asset strategy at PRG Europe, says, “With this investment, we evaluated various brands and involved our technical teams from our various markets and segments. ELC was the preferred choice because of the technical and financial efficiency of the products. The Slave node is the perfect example of this. It has been really well thought through. Without losing any technical
UK - British rockers Bring Me The Horizon (BMTH) kicked off the European leg of their First Love World Tour in November 2018 to promote the release of their sixth studio album, amo. Seeing this as an opportunity to showcase the band’s new music with greater transparency and enhanced LF definition, the band’s sound team decided to take the d&b KSL System on the road for one of its first ever major tours. The hot-off-the-press KSL System is the latest loudspeaker line from d&b, designed to deliver all the recognisable features of its SL lineage, from broadband directivity control to advanced rigging options. The KSL System can be used as a standalone, self-contained package, a delay, or fill accompaniment to GSL. BMTH kicked off their First Love World Tour with performances in Germany before travelling through Switzerland, Austria, Italy, the Netherlan
UK - Celebrating its 40th anniversary tour at the end of last year, Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of The Worlds showed it has lost none of its momentum or ability to thrill. The production is constructed around a three-tonne 35ft tall Martian Fighting Machine, which fires real flames against the backdrop of a 100ft-wide animation wall - and there are many other special effects. From a musical perspective, the 36-piece ULLAdubULLA strings performed alongside the nine-piece Black Smoke Band (which included many musicians from the original tour in 2006). Now on its seventh tour of duty, the production has been played out on its last three outings through Martin Audio’s MLA PA - and sounded as fresh as ever. As for the cast, Liam Neeson retained his role (in 3D holography) as The Journalist, and was joined for this tour by Jason Donovan, reprising
France - Between eight and nine million people walk through the doors of the Musée du Louvre (aka The Louvre) every year. Anyone lighting a private event within its walls has to operate on a tight setup schedule. This is one reason why Martin Symul and his team at MSL (Sprimont, Belgium) elected to light a recent gala at the home of the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and other great works of art with Chauvet Professional WELL Fit up-lighting fixtures. “I know the product quite well,” said Symul. “The WELL Fit is interesting because it is an autonomous stand-alone fixture with no ground wiring – better for safety -- and it does not require much installation time. Doing an event at a venue like this one, you are not given much time for installation. We arrived on the site Tuesday afternoon, only two hours before the arrival of guests.” Despite the short setup time
Germany - On 13 October, 2018, Mercedes-Platz in Berlin, a new mixed-use area that complements Mercedes-Benz Arena, was ceremoniously opened with a multi-media show that incorporated lighting effects from Elation’s popular IP65-rated Proteus Hybrid luminaires. With its mixture of deluxe cinema, restaurants, hotels, a concert hall and other entertainment offerings, the square is being celebrated as one of the city’s newest hotspots. General service provider TSE AG was commissioned with implementation of the show with company specialist lighting planner Klaus Graewert relying on more than 30 weatherproof Proteus Hybrid fixtures to generate dynamic lighting effects. Between noon and 6 pm, the audience was able to enjoy an extensive stage program with various live bands, but the highlight of the evening came shortly before 8 pm with a multimedia show of lighting, video and
UK - Billed as the glorious finale to the Flat Season, QIPCO British Champions Day brings together leading jockeys, horses, trainers and owners from Europe and beyond for one of the most prestigious fixtures in the UK sporting calendar. As a grand finale to the proceedings, the 2018 event closed with a suitably grand after party for over 5000 guests. The event was staged within a giant Igloo domed roof structure provided by Fews Marquees which was built on the lawn directly adjacent to the main grandstand at Ascot Racecourse. The party featured performances from House of Angels, Ella Eyre and culminated in an epic DJ set from Jax Jones. Working on behalf of clients Generate Events, Light Fantastic provided full technical support to the show, including lighting, audio, video, staging and rigging along with design and fabrication of a host of bespoke scenic elements.
USA - This winter, Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Ghost of Christmas Eve tour celebrated 20 years on the road. Described by the Washington Post as “an arena-rock juggernaut”, the pathbreaking band’s blitz tour included 33 states and 106 shows in just 46 days, an achievement by any measure for musicians, machines, and mankind. Credit for such positive press goes to production/lighting designer Bryan Hartley, director of youring and production Elliot Saltzman, and the entire TSO production team. The production incorporated 140 total meters of FloppyFlex Digital RGBW LED neon encircling seven, three-meter diameter, moving trusses. “FloppyFlex was the perfect solution,” says Bryan Hartley. “I was looking for a product I could wrap around my seven circular trusses over the stage; I needed a super-bright, neon-looking product that was flexible and reliable.
South Korea - The Korean K-Pop phenomenon celebrates itself every year at the Golden Disc Awards, staged in Seoul. Audio production provider for seven years, Way Audio has found the means to tame the huge space that is the Gocheok Sky Dome, using a large modular PA system, the STM Series from Nexo. 2018 saw K-POP take the USA by storm, as boyband BTS filled baseball stadia in Los Angeles and New York, as well as European capitals, with their loyal fanbase known as the Army. Every January, this musical genre holds its own awards ceremony; the Golden Disk Awards event featured performances by many of its big names: BTS, EXO, Twice, Red Velvet, Black Pink, Momoland and Mamamoo, among others. The domed baseball stadium houses 25,000 K-Pop fans, and the show is broadcast live by JTBC. The Sky Dome is one of Korea’s largest indoor venues, and the largest-capacity sta
USA - The world-renowned Nitro Circus features Travis Pastrana and his friends travelling around the world riding dirt bikes, base jumping and performing stunts - and this has led the event onto several TV series, a 3D feature film and major arena tours. GLP’s automated heads have featured on this production since the days when veteran Australian LD Francesco Calvi was specifying their fixtures. Current LD Nico Riot is another strong advocate of GLP. Incredibly he joined the tour in September 2018, at the same time as Matt Doherty - whom he served with on the Marilyn Manson tour - was about to join Nitro Circus for the US run. And the fact that the 40-strong troupe was seeking a new LD at the same time sounded the cue for Nico’s arrival. The LD admits to having had no idea of what to expect. “Previous designs were working well, truss wise, so I kept the same rig
USA - Coach Vince Lombardi once quipped that “football is two things: blocking and tackling”. Although quarterbacks and running backs receive most of the glory, it’s the fundamentals, believed Lombardi, that actually win football games. The team at Morris Integration followed a similar philosophy when they stepped into Shiloh Church for the first time in early 2018. A dynamic house of worship in the heart of Oakland, Shiloh was looking to improve the technical production of its services for worshippers at the church, as well as for those streaming services online. Ultimately, Morris Integration was able to provide the church with more dynamic stage lighting by installing Chauvet Professional fixtures. However, as their team pointed out to the church, before they did that, they should also address something more fundamental: the quality of its house lighting. “
Canada - The Canadian Football League’s 2018 season concluded on Sunday, 25 November when the Calgary Stampeders defeated the Ottawa Redblacks 27-16 in the 106th Grey Cup, held in Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta. While fans in the stands of the largest open-air stadium in Canada (seating capacity of 55,819) saw a great game, they also heard from some fantastic entertainment. Brother-sister country duo The Reklaws got the audience fired up during the pre-kick-off show, and then Canadian songbird and Grammy Award-winner Alessia Cara rocked the half-time show. FM Systems ensured that all sounded fantastic thanks to a uniquely deployed L-Acoustics K1 sound system, loaded on custom-fabricated carts that were brought onto the field for the performances, and then wheeled out during game play. “The deployment was incredibly smooth,” says Josh Burnett, ge
USA - Amidst the thousands of celebrations happening world-wide for the 2018-2019 roll over, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO) played a special Great Gatsby themed party in the super-plush lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Dallas, which required diligent lighting to produce the correct ambience. Randy Cline of Time Matters Entertainment, based in Plano just north of Dallas, was the event’s technical producer, coordinating all the staging elements, and working for communications agency Wheelhouse Marketing & PR. He asked lighting designer Eric Wade of Crossfade Design to create a dramatically different lighting scheme to set the scene and a stylish tone for a classy evening of fun and music. Challenged for power and lighting positions in and around the lobby, powerful LED light sources were the only way to go, so Eric selected Robe LEDBeam 150s and DL7S Profi
Columbia - Among the most important things to keep in mind when running a lightshow, believes Milton de la Cruz, is “to know your key moments”. The Jamundí, Colombia-based LD had more than a few dramatic high points to light in December when working the annual main show of Ensálsate, a Salsa Caleña cabaret with over 80 artists on stage, a live orchestra, 500 colourful costume changes, and a nonstop flow of breathtaking dance moves. Helping de la Cruz reflect this choreographed panorama in light at Bogota’s Teatro Colsubsidio was a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Spot and COLORdash Par-Quad 18 fixtures. “Few things are more important than knowing your show’s peaks,” he said. “I focus very hard on having an appreciation of the key moments and highlighting the stage and the artists during them. Fixtures that are fast and bright like the Rogues and C
USA - Country music star Dylan Scott recently organised a charity concert for kids in his home town of Sterlington, Louisiana, and used an all Elation lighting rig along with ADJ video panels to light the event. Extreme Lighting & Sound (ELS) of Nashville, Tennessee, supplied the lighting and video gear for the inaugural event. Bayou Stock, held 17 November at the Sterlington Sports Complex, featured performances by Mark Chestnut, Morgan Evans, Lainey Wilson and others, not to mention Dylan Scott himself, and raised $30,000 to buy presents for underprivileged kids this Christmas. ELS was brought in to turnkey the lighting portion of the show, including design and supply of all lighting, which consisted of 17 Platinum HFX hybrid moving heads, eight Colour Chorus 48 LED battens, eight Fuze Wash Z120 LED wash lights, six compact Rayzor 360Z beam moving effects, 15 Cu
The Netherlands - Almost 100 CLF Lighting fixtures were deployed during Game On at the Philips Stadium in Eindhoven. The show was part of light art festival GLOW and was designed by TWOFIFTYK, an all-round creative agency which creates imagineering concepts. After consulting The Art of Light, technical production company 4AV chose the CLF Aorun beam as key fixture. After using them during the 2017 edition of the Amsterdam Music Festival, lighting designer Andre Beekmans likes the Aorun. “I like the speed of the fixture. Especially the colour, gobo and prism effects are really fast. Besides that, the light output is awesome for large scale shows like this.” The CLF Aoruns were placed in four lines of 24 fixtures, all accompanied by a square LED tile. All lighting fixtures were supplied by leading Dutch dry-hire company Rent-All. (Jim Evans)
Turkey - One of Istanbul’s largest nightclubs, the latest in the group of Jolly Joker venues, is making a big impact on the city’s entertainment scene, thanks to a high-specification Nexo STM Series modular line array installed by Alkor and Yamaha Music Europe Turkey. The Jolly Joker Vadistanbul has been opened by Hakan Polat, İbrahim Sayın and Ahmet Çelenk, a new addition to a collection of clubs spread all across Turkey. The 2,000-capacity club has a large stage, and plays host to a busy rota of popular Turkish artists. Installation company Alkor collaborated closely with Yamaha Music Europe Turkey to present a Nexo proposal to Hakan Polat and the Jolly Joker’s audio engineer Eren Öztürk. After a live demo, they selected the Nexo STM Series modular line array system, with Nexo’s 45 N-12 line monitors on-stage, from a competitive tender, citing the system
UK - Long before the Christmas period up until January 2019 the well-known Royal Turnbridge Wells Ice rink in Kent is open for the public. During this time there are all kinds of activities like figure skating presentations, live music, choirs concerts. Kent-based Limelite Lighting has been involved with this event since its start in 2012. This year they have coloured the ice rink and the surroundings with a lot of Showtec including 43 units of the Showtec Cameleon Flood 15 Q4. With their IP65 rating very well equipped to be used outdoors, even under harsh conditions. 15 RGBW 4-in-1 LEDs make sure that the event remains colourful. Thirteen units of the Showtec Helix S5000 Q4 including the optional 40° beamshapers are in action to light up the surrounding grounds and trees. These units are also rated IP-65 and, as an additional advantage, are equipped with W-DMX by Wi
UK - Illumination specialist LED Creative supported Projection Artworks on a festive installation project at Luton Airport. Housed in the easyJet hanger and featuring a sequence of scintillating visual projections, mapped across an easyJet Airbus A320, the magical performance was choreographed to sync with a contemporary reworking of Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Created by a team of 10 lighting designers and artists, the spectacle incorporated an array of stunning lighting effects, illuminated props and festive themed scenic elements that included over 1.5 miles of coloured lights used to add colour and sparkle throughout the venue. Working with Pete Boatfield at Projection Artworks, LED Creative provided a selection of their Sigma Pulse Wands paired with BYTE, the company’s state of the art controller units developed specifically to work
