Europe - Robert Coleman, lighting designer for Iron Maiden, specified six Robert Juliat Lancelot 4000W HTI followspots for the band’s current Legacy of the Beast World Tour, which commenced with a 38-date European leg in May. This is not the first time Coleman has used Robert Juliat followspots, having also specified them for the band’s 2017 The Book of Souls world tour. “I’ve always found Robert Juliat incredibly reliable,” says Coleman who, first and foremost, takes advantage of Lancelot’s 2°-5° zoom range. “Despite Lancelot being a long-throw followspot, it can easily handle the great variety of throw distances involved in touring different venues. “Sometimes we have outdoor shows where the FOH position can be quite close to the stage; other times we can be somewhere the size of the O2 Arena with the spots mounted on the backwall. The
The Netherlands - Dutch rockers Kensington brought their double platinum Control album cycle to a close with a show-stopping performance for around 50,000 fans at Amsterdam Arena. Belgian based lighting designer Michiel Milbou of Never Fear Shadows was asked by technical and show production co-ordinators Bush Cherroud and Albert Deltour from Nexxt Technology to come onboard and create a light show; he spec’d over 200 Robe Spiiders and BMFL Spot moving lights to be at the core of an epic visual extravaganza. Milbou worked closely with Jop Kuipers, the band’s lighting operator, set designer Ronald van den Bersselaar from BEEO and graphic designer Mo Assem from Mr Beam, and together they devised the look and aesthetic of the show. It was the first time that Milbou - well known for his flair and imagination in the television and live music sectors - has w
Australia - John Matkovic’s lighting design for a recent concert by Australian rock legend Ian Moss at the Griffith Regional Theatre relied on subtle colour washes to support the artist on stage. This is not to suggest that his show was bereft of texture and colour. Far from it; utilising a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue fixtures supplied by Showtools International, Matkovic employed a combination of background beams, washes, gobos and out of focus prisms along with some haze to reflect the moods of the music in a subtle, but powerful fashion. Matkovic deployed eight Rogue R1 Spot fixtures, four evenly spaced on his most upstage bar and four on his most downstage bar. The four upstage fixtures were tilted at a 45-degree angle to emphasize their beams and gobos when backlighting the artist. The four downstage units were called upon to wash the stage backdrop
USA - University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) recently outfitted its new Hospitality Hall with complete sound reinforcement systems by Harman Professional Solutions. Located less than two miles away from the Las Vegas strip, UNLV is a premier research-level university that provides higher learning to 30,000 students across 350 undergraduate and graduate degrees. The school’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality offers a world-renowned degree in hospitality management that annually ranks among the top hospitality programmes in the nation. Its proximity to the Las Vegas strip has enabled the school to partner with leading hospitality brands to facilitate valuable internships and unique learning opportunities for students. UNLV recently opened Hospitality Hall, a new $50m building on campus, to provide hospitality students with a world-class learning facility. Hospita
USA - On 29 July, San Diego Padres pitcher Trevor Hoffman was inducted into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame as one of the most dominant closers of all time. The celebration continued a few weeks later at the Padres’ home field, Petco Park, when the star pitcher was honoured after a game with a pitcher’s mound spotlight courtesy of the Padres, Meeting Service. and Elation Artiste Picasso LED moving heads. Meeting Services (MSI) handled the AV work at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony for Trevor Hoffman in Cooperstown, New York, and then returned to San Diego for the special event celebrating Hoffman’s return to San Diego, part of a four-day long celebration at Petco Park that also included the unveiling of a Trevor Hoffman statue. Lighting designer Leonard Delgado and the team at MSI were contracted to spotlight the famed pitcher for a final 10-second so
Germany - Michael Häck, a respected freelance German system technician, discovered this summer the numerous advantages offered by Outline’s new processor, the Newton. One of Häck’s recent projects included the Jazz Open Festival in Stuttgart, this year celebrating its 25th anniversary. It is one of the largest jazz festivals in Europe, taking place in five locations throughout the city, entertaining around 45,000 people and its diverse bill this year included Gregory Porter, Jamie Callum, Jamiroquai, Joss Stone, Lenny Kravitz, Meshell Ndegeocello, Pat Metheny, The Stanley Clarke Band and dozens more international artists. Häck was responsible for two of the performance spaces, the Altes Schloss with an audience capacity of around 1,000 and the festival’s main stage, the Schlossplatz in the centre of the city which can accommodate 6,500. He takes up the s
Belgium - Boomtown Fest (see LSi September 2018) is part of the 10-day Gentse Feesten (Ghent cultural festivities) in Belgium. Running since 1843, and therefore celebrating its 175th anniversary, today it attracts as many as 1.7m visitors over the duration. Held at the 850-capacity Handelsbeurs Concert Hall, as well as Opera Ghent and on outside festival grounds, Boomtown started in the year 2,000, and today provides three stages and 41 acts over five days. The event combines indie music from some of the country’s up and coming talent with international acts like Suzanne Vega (who appeared in Opera Ghent). Martin Audio’s rental partner, ARC-Productions from Dentergem, added MLA Compact to their vast in
Belgium - The organisers of the EDM festival Hype-O-Dream based this year’s event around a surrealism-inspired main stage to bring an element of the extraordinary to the EDM line-up, which included acts such as Jauz, Showtek and Henri PFR. Having worked with the festival for the previous five years, the task of crafting the appropriate visual support fell once again to Belgian rental house Creative Rental Solutions, which specified 62 Chauvet Professional STRIKE P38, 68 COLORdash PAR H12IP, 30 Rogue RH1 Hybrid and 24 Rogue R2 Wash fixtures to craft dream-like visuals for festival goers. With the surrealist stage scenery consisting of various islands appearing to be floating within the structure of the stage, Thomas Vandekerkhove and his team decided upon positioning the fixtures in such a way so as to outline the contours of the vast structure, which extende
USA - First a lighthouse, then a military base, then a military prison, then a federal prison, and finally a National Park Service historic site, San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island attracts over 2,000 visitors every day. Although it only served as a federal prison for 29 years (1934 to 1963), Alcatraz lives on in the cultural conscious as the most notorious and inescapable prison ever – the subject of books, TV shows, and movies. True to its reputation, the government sent all of its worst criminals there, including Al Capone and George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly, and, despite numerous attempts, no one is believed to have survived an escape from Alcatraz. Recently, local AV integrator San Francisco Audio designed and installed a sound system for the nine most important locations on Alcatraz using fully-weatherized Danley GO2 8CX loudspeakers. “There is a huge volume of
USA - Creative studio Obscura Digital recently worked with Vornado Realty Trust to install a permanent projection system to illuminate the façade of Chicago’s Merchandise Mart (theMART) with images reflecting Chicago’s cultural heritage. Art on theMART will be launched with an opening ceremony on 29 September featuring original content from Obscura media team and select international artists. The reins will then be handed to theMART's curatorial team to craft two-hour projection shows five nights a week, 10 months of the year. Art on theMART will be lit nightly by 34 projectors shining over one million lumens across the Chicago Riverwalk onto the building’s 2.5 acre façade. Through a custom, software-driven curatorial platform, the building will be transformed into a singular curatorial canvas for fine art. theMART’s curatorial team promis
UK - The Last Ship made its returning debut at Northern Stage in Newcastle in March. This musical, written by Sting and Lorne Campbell, is a drama with songs bound together across two strong interwoven narratives. Sound designer Sebastian Frost used d&b Soundscape, a signal processing technology, with two optional software modules: En-Scene a sound object positioning tool, and En-Space which allows designers to add room emulation of reverberation signatures particular to any given space, real or imagined. Frost harnessed this technology to his own vision of how the musical should be perceived and enjoyed by all audience members. “I went to hear a demo in Hall 14 at d&b’s HQ in Backnang about a year ago,” Frost comments. “The experience was inspirational because the biggest thing you want from any system is that it doesn’t tie you down or restri
USA - Shortly after it opened in 1917, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia was heralded as “the greatest 20th century accomplishment of any city in the world.” More than a slight exaggeration perhaps, but for the past 101 years, the mile-long road in the City of Brotherly Love has brimmed with creative activity, hosting historic concerts and serving as home to great works of art like Rodin’s The Thinker. This Labour Day Weekend, the famous boulevard reverberated with a distinctly 21st century form of artistic expression when it hosted the Jay-Z curated Made In America EDM festival. For all its rich history, though, the Philadelphia landmark does have spatial restrictions that aren’t found in typical (and lager) festival sites. This presented lighting designer Patrick Dierson of The Activity with some unique challenges, but he overcame them in
UK - The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School utilises an Electro Kabuki system to stage a kabuki drop. The system uses electromagnetic technology and a load hook. At its heart is the same technology used in life-critical safety applications on oil rigs and shipping to release heavy-duty shuttering to prevent the spread of fire. The solutions is also a more reliable theatrical reveal technology compared to solutions deployed in the past, such as strings and ropes, loops and pins, or wooden spars fitted with cup hooks. The system was supplied and is supported by Electro Kabuki distributor and theatrical chandlers, Flints. The syllabus at the Bristol Old Vic school includes staging and rigging for events and shows, with a focus on the history of special effects, including staged reveals. Over the centuries, productions have used a huge variety of techniques and mechanis
Sweden - Stockholmsmässan - the Stockholm International Fairs and Congress Centre - recently installed 68 channels of the Shure Axient Digital Wireless System. The dedicated in-house AV department, which oversees the small, mid-size, and large conference and exhibition applications, needed a dependable wireless system with excellent performance. Fredrik Zetterberg, head of production event technologies, says that the system had “exceeded all expectations in sonic quality”. “Axient Digital is the best sound quality we’ve ever heard in a digital system,” explains Zetterberg. “From exhibitions to corporate events, we use Axient Digital constantly. This month we will use 132 systems for a two-day corporate event, with a total of 212 wireless systems in operation, showcasing the system’s flexibility and reliability.” The installation was managed by s
South Korea - Kinoton Korea recently equipped Incheon SK Happy Dream Stadium with a complete networked sound reinforcement system by Harman Professional Solutions. Built in 2001, SK Happy Dream Stadium plays host to home games by SK Wyverns, a professional baseball team based in Incheon, South Korea. As part of a continuous effort to improve the stadium, which seats 25,000 fans, the stadium recently decided to upgrade the stadium’s aging sound system. In order to provide fans with a rich audio experience with superior coverage and intelligibility, SK Wyverns hired local audio integrator Kinoton Korea to design and install a premium sound reinforcement system. Kinoton Korea selected a complete Harman networked audio solution for its sound quality and reliable performance. The Harman system installed by Kinoton at SK Happy Dream Stadium features a range of weathe
Vietnam - Ba Sao Investment recently deployed a full-scale Harman Professional Solutions AV Solution at FLC Samson to provide a luxury entertainment experience for guests. FLC Group is a leading real estate developer in Vietnam with over 16 years of experience in resort-oriented facilities, ranging from beach villas to high-rise hotels. Their flagship property, the FLC Samson - a luxury hotel and resort on the coast of the East Vietnam Sea - is known for staging show-stopping performances from globally renowned artists in their 1,200-seat Plenary Ball Room. FLC Group recently hired Ba Sao Investment to design a full-scale AV solution at FLC Samson to elevate the sound quality of these performances both in the ball room and throughout the resort. “FLC Samson is a five-star luxury resort, and we needed an AV solution that could provide five-star sound,” a spok
USA - Sooner Routhier and Robert Long of SRae Productions are behind the production design for Halsey’s Hopeless Fountain Kingdom world tour, with Ashley Frangipane (Halsey) herself the show’s creative director. 54 Robe Spiider LED wash beams, a new investment by DCR Nashville, lighting vendors for the US legs of the tour, are a vital part of the lighting rig. The tour started in autumn 2017, and SRae submitted their initial proposals in May of last year. At the start, Halsey suggested a Romeo & Juliet-esque romantic look, so original versions of the set were based on this. However, once SRae began to also design promo and award show performances, an alternative approach evolved. When it came to specifying lighting kit for the tour, lighting director on the road Craig Rutherford - who has worked with Halsey in this role since the latter stages of t
UK - Pro audio provider The Warehouse concluded a successful Edinburgh International Festival last month having provided advanced audio solutions for the spectacular opening and closing events and many shows in-between. This year, The Warehouse also became an audio partner for the innovative Light on Shore with Edinburgh Gin Seaside season with loudspeaker brand Adamson. Celebrating the creativity, originality and international impact of Scottish popular music, Light on Shore featured 16 events across 14 nights, running throughout August at Leith Theatre. Closed for almost 30 years, the International Festival welcomed audiences to this venue, situated in one of Edinburgh's most vibrant and creative districts. Graeme Brown from The Warehouse was systems engineer on site for the whole run. The front of house system consisted of 24 Adamson S10 line array lo
UK - Lighting designers draw their inspiration from a variety of sources. Sometimes it may be the artwork on a client’s album. At others, the spark comes from the lyrics of a hit song. Simon Horn’s captivating design for Anastacia’s Evolution Tour grew out of the name of the tour itself, as is evidenced by the DNA-shaped double helix set pieces that run across the back of the stage. Like the evolutionary process, Horn’s design has been adaptive, allowing him to maintain the look of his show as the tour moves through a wide variety of venues, often incorporating house lights into its rig. Key to this flexibility has been his ChamSys MagicQ MQ500 Stadium console. “We started as a full production tour at theatres and small arena venues, then went to a mix of shows, including multi-band festivals this summer, often working with locally supplied rigs,” says Ho
Germany - As part of a spectacular and very emotional staged event at the Meyer shipyard in Papenburg, the first LPG-powered cruise ship, the AIDAnova, received its formal baptism. At the same time, this marked the world premiere of the full production version of GLP’s new KNV system. At first only heartbeats were heard, then powerful lasers drew the contours of the gigantic ship into the pitch-black night. Light and lasers combined to slowly bring the 337m long and 70m high ship to life. The backbone of the imposing, and slowly revealing staging, which culminated in a golden firework display, was formed by a matrix consisting of 300 GLP KNV modules. These had been placed at irregular intervals on the balcony railings of AIDAnova. The Berlin artist collective phase7, based around director Sven Sören Beyer, had already inspired the general public and professionals al
Italy - It was the summer of 2015 and start up entrepreneur Fabio Zaffagnini was taking a drive, listening to the Foo Fighters on the radio - and dreaming that they might one day perform in his home city of Cesena, near Florence. To entice such a big act to a city so small, it would take a gesture of gargantuan proportions. And so the Rockin’ 1000 was born - he set about assembling 1,000 musicians in a park for a special one off performance of the Foo Fighters track Learn To Fly. The biggest rock band in the world made history with millions of YouTube views worldwide, grabbing the attention of the Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl who promised to play for the 1000 in Cesena - and did just that on 3 November the same year. An expression of Italy’s passion, creativity and artistic skill, this was just the beginning for Rockin’ 1000 which has
Belgium - Pukkelpop is Belgium’s second largest festival and prides itself on its ‘alternative’ label. Featuring performances by nearly 100 different artists on eight stages over four days, this year three Yamaha Rivage series digital mixing systems were in use, along with Nexo PAs. This year Pukkelpop took place on 15-18 August, with Yamaha Rivage PM7 and PM10 systems featured on the Club Stage and CL series consoles on the Lift Stage. The Club and Castello Stages featured Nexo STM series PA systems. All Yamaha and Nexo systems were supplied by VDB-PA, except the RIVAGE PM7 which was supplied by AED Rent. More than 25 bands performed on the Club Stage, including Shellac (with legendary producer/engineer Steve Albini on guitar/vocals), Rhey, Madensuyu, Dirty Projectors, Metz, Benjamin Clementine, Jordan Rakei, Gogo Pinguin and King Gizzard & The Lizard
UK - Merseyside-based Adlib Audio handled a busy festival programme through the summer of 2018. As early-adopters of Outline’s remarkable new processor, the variety and sheer volume of their workload provided an ideal platform to road-test their new Newton units - and road-test them they surely did. Adlib’s senior engineer Ian Nelson takes up the story: “For this summer’s festival commitments we’ve effectively used our Newton units in one of two ways - either as a festival console matrix system or as a full system controller. For the former, a single Newton device was configured as a central hub, bringing together the outputs of our dual house consoles (running as an A/B system to facilitate band changeovers) plus multiple guest consoles and our small ‘VT’ desk that deals with VT, DJs and announcements. “The two house consoles are configured to provide
UK - The recently-built Anjuman El-Saifee Community Centre in Birmingham, UK is benefitting from Powersoft’s Ottocanali 4K4 amp which was specified as part of the AV installation. With good speech intelligibility at the forefront of requirements for a House of Worship, Powersoft’s Ottocanali product was chosen for the project. The Dawoodi Bohra community spent years fundraising, planning and preparing to build the Community Centre comprising a mosque, evening school and sports hall – and as with any House of Worship, it would require a robust AV system so that the imams and speakers could clearly project their message to the audience. Pete Rutherford owns and runs Direct Audio Visual, which was engaged as AV integrator for the project. With a background in retail, corporate and warehouses, this House of Worship project was a departure for Rutherford and his team
