USA - Greg Klimetz and the team at Relevant AV Solutions gave themselves a clear mission statement when they began planning the Transformation Project at New Covenant Church’s worship centre in Valdosta, G, in the spring of 2021. “The key word in our planning was ‘yes,’” said Klimetz. “As in when the church asked us “can we do…” our answer had to be ‘yes we can!’” It was a simple, direct, and succinct goal, but one that was not without its challenges, given the diverse mission of this dynamic church, which was founded in 1980. In addition to embracing Sunday services, the church hosts vibrant touring concerts, multiple conferences, and events for community members of all ages. Built in 2004, the church’s worship centre served the purpose of its time, but the building wasn’t supple enough to meet the multi-faceted needs of today. Fixe
Qatar - Lighting designer Matthew Tunchon and Qatar Vision Production Company WLL (QVISION) utilised a large Claypaky rig to light the first test event for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 inside the newly built Lusail Stadium in Doha, which hosted the tournament’s final match between France and Argentina. The event marked the official unveiling of the World Cup uniform for staff and volunteers. Since the soccer pitch was being prepared for the final match, the ceremony’s attendance was limited to 25,000 people but the event had to feel big in size and scope. “Executive producer Dan Bolton and creative producer Tom Davies both from Dubai-based BE Experiential, expressed the need to make this event fill out the stadium,” says Tunchon of Silver Bullet Projects in Sydney, Australia. “The production designed by Nathan Heverin needed to work around the pitch and be quite
Italy - Gian Carlo Vannetti is an experienced lighting designer based in Novellara, who specialises in creating theatrical lighting designs using Obsidian Control Systems' Onyx platform. With nearly 30 years in the entertainment technology industry, he has had the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects, from big and small Italian artists to festivals, corporate events and more. Gian Carlo's passion for lighting design began early in his career when he found himself attracted to the lighting console, despite starting out with more basic tasks such as prepping cables and loading trucks. “I really love all the features in lighting control software and all the lovely things you can create with cues and timing,” he states. “I try to follow the music and re-create somehow that feeling so people can also participate visually. That’s what makes me shiver and feel go
Germany - ARRI has announced Dr. Raphael Kiesel as its new head of quality management. Based at the film technology company’s headquarters in Munich, he will ‘convert customer requirements into products and services in an even more structured manner’. Dr. Matthias Erb, chairman of the executive board at ARRI, comments: “ARRI has stood for the highest quality in the film industry since 1917. These high-quality standards must be further advanced globally in all business and corporate areas. I wish Dr. Raphael Kiesel every success with this important task.” Dr. Raphael Kiesel adds: “I am very much looking forward to this exciting position and am well aware of ARRI’s heritage and the responsibility that comes with it. Our goal is to further improve upon the quality of ARRI’s products and services and to offer customers the very best that is possible.”
Germany - Since 1985, the Theaterhaus Stuttgart has brought together various artistic genres, experimental and popular productions, internationally renowned artists and newly developed projects under one roof. The Theaterhaus maintains its own theatre and dance ensemble and raises almost 65% of its annual costs itself. The Theaterhaus has around 300,000 visitors every year, with an average of 900 events ranging from theatre and dance to concerts, comedy and cabaret, readings, lectures and exhibitions. Recently, the Gauthier Dance production performed by the Theaterhaus Stuttgart’s dance ensemble has attracted the most attention. For this, the in-house lighting team used Robert Juliat Dalis 860 8-colour mixing LED cyclights for the first time, as well as Dalis 862 tunable white LED footlights, all of which have recently become part of the Theaterhaus’ permanent lighting
Finland - Tampere Hall hosted Lucid Dreams, a photographic exhibition of Mikki Kunttu’s work, Light & Shadow, an international lighting seminar that included contributions from LeRoy Bennett, Christopher Bauder, Benjamin Dupont, Ralph Jörg Wezorke and Ola Melzig, a performance by the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra of Gustav Holst’s The Planets suite lit by Kunttu, and A Night of Light international gala concert lit by one of Finland’s talented young lighting designers, Alex Hautamäki. The germ of the idea came from Tampere Hall’s managing director, Paulina Ahokas, who has worked with Kunttu extensively. The result was a collaboration with many artists with whom Kunttu has worked throughout his career, with Kunttu himself lighting the seven-part masterpiece, The Planets, in cooperation with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra.
Denmark - The Boyband Tour is a vibrant two-hour steamroller of a set inspired by some of the biggest international ‘boyband’ hits from the nineties and noughties – Westlife, Backstreet Boys, SpiceBoys and more. It is delivered by five Danish musical stars – Silas Holst, Kim Ace Scherlund, Teit Samsø, Jeff Ace Scherlund and Joakim Traneberg – who are also the show’s producers. Lighting, visuals, staging, and technical production is right at the heart of this project, which is the brainchild of Silas Holst, so Sune Verdier was delighted to be asked onboard to co-ordinate these aspects and also to production manager the first leg of The Boyband Tour which kicked off in Aarhus in December 2022 and continues around Denmark through February 2023. Sune specified some of his favourite Robe moving lights for the show with Esprites, LEDBeam 150s, MegaPointes and P
Spain - Ayrton will present a selection of its product range on its integration-themed booth (7B550) at ISE in Barcelona from 31 January – 3 February 2023. New products include the newly released Zonda 3, alongside its larger sibling, Zonda 9, and Ayrton’s first laser-sourced fixture, Cobra. Part of Ayrton’s multi-sources 3 Series and smaller sibling to Zonda 9, Zonda 3 is a compact, versatile luminaire with unlimited potential designed specifically for stage lighting. Available as Zonda 3 Wash or Zonda 3 FX, this little powerhouse is packed with effects and can switch from beam to wash with great ease. Its speed of movement and reduced dimensions increase its dynamic potential. Seven high-performance 40W LED sources (RGB+W) and a proprietary optical system enhance beam coherence, while its 50mm truncated transmitting lens delivers a high intensity beam wi
India - Light Craft & Sound, a leading lighting supplier for the film and TV industry, has recently purchased one hundred Prolights EclPanel TWC, 10 EclPanel TWCXL and 10 combined Astra Wash19Pix and 37Pix moving lights to their rental fleet. Light Craft is a multidisciplinary creative studio based in Mumbai that works with leading channels in India like Start TV, Sony, Zee TV, Viacom, and many others, and leading Bollywood productions like Dharma Production, Yash Raj Films, and others. Mr. Arjun Singh, managing director of Light Craft & Sound, explained his decision to invest in Prolights: “We were impressed with the colour calibration and its colour precision across the entire range of soft lights.” Singh added: “These are great key-selling points of Prolights' fixtures. Their colour and light output are similar to other leading manufacturers of soft li
UK - London's largest ever New Year's Eve celebration took place at the London Eye on the River Thames, featuring a stunning fireworks and drone display accompanied by a mesmerizing light show designed by Tim Routledge. His first time lighting London’s end-of-the-year celebration, Routledge chose Elation’s powerful Proteus Excalibur beam moving head as a key fixture in his design. “We wanted something that could cut through so you could see the beams and create more architecture with light,” Routledge said of his decision to use the Excaliburs. “It was very much about getting the chunkiest beam we could.” The Proteus Excalibur’s enormous output - the beam light generates up to 7,500 lux at 100m - -in combination with a 260mm lens and 0.8° beam competes with xenon searchlights and sky trackers. “It’s hard to punch through the amount of smoke that th
New Zealand - Aotearoa-based design studio Filament Eleven 11 combines the talents and imagination of lighting and visual artists Rachel Marlow and Brad Gledhill. Working across multiple genres – theatre, opera, dance, rock ‘n’ roll’ live events, installation, and light art – and embracing a mix of medias and light forms, the company is known for its innovative and fun approach to enhancing storytelling with this form of expression. Filament Eleven 11 also owns some specialist lighting and control kit, and this year invested in Astera wireless LED products – AX3 LightDrops and NYX Bulbs – which have been busy on several projects. Three AX3 LightDrop kits (24 in total) and 30 x NYX Bulbs were purchased from Astera’s New Zealand distributor, ULA Group, in the last year for use as “ultimately useful lighting tools” commented Rachel, and since then, s
Spain - Naostage’s K System beaconless 3D tracking solution will make its debut before an international audience at Integrated Systems Europe 2023. The K System makes it easy for fixed-install professionals to create immersive, interactive live experiences by seamlessly identifying and following visitors and performers wherever they are in a defined tracking area – allowing for the automation of an endless array of lighting, audio, video and media effects in real time, in sync with the installation or show. The official launch of K System will take place at 16.30 on Tuesday 31 January on the 196sqm Naostage booth (5D700), where hands-on demonstrations will give ISE visitors the opportunity to see the product up close for the first time. In addition to concerts, tours and festivals, the technology could be used, for example, to automate tracking in a venue, museum o
UK - Sonny Fodera performed two sold-out shows at O2 Academy Brixton recently. Throughout both shows, the walls of the venue reverberated with fans responding to the highly emotive songs from his recently released fifth album Wide Awake and other recordings. Helping to connect the music to the big crowd to at the South London venue was a bold Tom Cull lighting design that featured 89 Chauvet Professional fixtures, supplied and installed by Bigabox Productions, which also furnished the video wall. Seamlessly moving from intense aerial displays with aggressive crossing patterns, to moody atmospheric settings, to dark, shadowy haunting looks, Cull’s lightshow reflected the wide and nuanced emotional range of Fodera’s vocal-driven compositions. The kit’s 10 Maverick MK1 Hybrid, 24 Rogue R3 Beam, and 16 Outcast 1 BeamWash fixtures, hung primarily on mid a
South Africa - DWR Distribution has been appointed the official South African distributor for zactrack automated ‘following system’ designed for open-air events, theatre stages and studios. The system was put through its paces by lighting designer Denis Hutchinson on Sinbad the Sailor, a festive pantomime held at the Teatro, Montecasino. The system allows any number of performers to be tracked and registered in a 3D computer model using Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio tracking to locate the position of actors and objects on stage. Stephan Saremba, managing director at zactrack, comments, "We welcome DWR Distribution to the family of worldwide zactrack distributors. Their professional sales, support and training team, matched with an extensive product portfolio make them an ideal partner to bring the magic of automated tracking to customers in South Africa. We l
USA - A lot of lighting designers looked for ways to stay busy and productive during the pandemic lockdown. Daniel Thibault of Life is Art Studio in Raleigh, NC, found a number of means to do this; one was by lighting in-your-car-concerts at drive-in movie theatres, the other was by helping the Lincoln Theatre develop a “covid safe” seating plan that could be implemented when restrictions on live shows were finally eased. “The theatre wanted to figure out how to reopen responsibly for live music shows when the time came,” said Thibault. “So during the pandemic, I spent time making an exact 3D model to scale of the stage and the building , so we could help figure out a safe seating chart.’ In the process, Thibault also figured out something else: how to get “the most lights possible” on the popular venue’s relatively small 24ft wide by 20ft deep stage,
Italy - Staged for the first time at the Cagliari Lyric Theatre in Sardinia, Arthur Laurents’ two-act stage musical West Side Story, with music by Leonard Bernstein and loosely based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, was a guaranteed success. The staging offered by the Cagliari Lyric Theatre was derived from three major U.S. musical institutions: the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Houston Grand Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival in New York State. The performance, which blends the language of traditional opera with that of the musical, took place from 15-23 December, bringing to a close the 2022 opera season with 10 highly anticipated English-language performances. Lighting designer A.J. Guban, nominated for eight Helen Hayes awards, opted for 12 Ayrton Bora TC and 25 Ayrton NandoBeam S6 fixtures for the lighting design taken from Mark McCulloug
Australia - Crowded House returned to touring again in 2022 after re-forming in late 2019. A recent show at Stage 88 in the lush green environs of Commonwealth Park, Canberra was one of a week of rescheduled Australian shows, postponed from April when the tour was interrupted by the Covid lockdowns. Here, locally based technical production company, Elite Event Technology (EET), supplied an all Robe moving light rig. The band’s lighting designer Dan Black used this mix of Robe BMFL Blades and WashBeams, MegaPointes, LEDWash 300+s and 600s to great effect, crafting an elegant lightshow that matched the mood and style of a crisp springtime evening outdoors. Crowded House had played a splattering of concerts throughout 2020 and 2021 in Australia and New Zealand as and when pandemic restrictions allowed, with lighting and video designed by Ben Dalgleish from Human
USA - Illuminate Production Services (IPS) has recently opened an East Coast facility in Ft. Pierce, Florida, to better serve clients nationwide. The family-owned company, which first opened its doors in Sacramento in 2006, is one of the live event industry’s premiere full-service production companies. The new facility, which is stocked with production quality audio, video, lighting, and staging equipment, includes many of Elation Professional's most sought-after products. General manager for IPS East is Michael Betancourt, a Florida native who is proud to lead the new 8100 sq. ft. facility. “By choosing Fort Pierce, it allows us to be central and support the many production companies throughout the state and east coast. I am excited about the opportunity and have a lot of ideas to further the successful growth of IPS.” Betancourt brings over 30 years of audio, v
UK - Avolites has unveiled a major new release of its lighting and integrated media control Titan software. Version 16 has two new main features developed to assist programmers and operators by providing fast access to the data they need. Freeform Layout view, for example, provides the ability to arrange and select fixtures in a 2D layout either manually, or automatically from the integrated Capture visualiser, streamlining the workflow from design to programming. It provides a visual representation of the current state of the fixtures and is accessed from a new 'Layouts' window and 'Layout' handle type. With this new function, group handles can be included in layouts to further assist fixture selection. Multiple layouts can also be created providing the ability to have more than one arrangement of fixtures or to separate fixtures into specific layouts. The view supports mul
USA - Heavy metal band Gwar recently wrapped the fall North American leg of their Black Death Rager World Tour in which Claypaky Sharpy Plus Aquas played a key and unusual role. The tour marked the third for Nick Drake as the band’s lighting designer; he is also a light technician with Richmond, Virginia’s Lite-Tek Entertainment, a lighting rental and production company which supplied the fixtures. Lite-Tek has a history with Gwar, which also hails from Richmond, having worked with them multiple times over the years, including providing lighting and studio space for the band’s 30th anniversary live stream from Lite-Tek’s warehouse during the COVID pandemic. Gwar’s fall tour kicked off at the Blue Ridge Rock Festival in Virginia in September and concluded in Baltimore in November. Sharpy Plus Aqua fixtures add an IP66 rating to the award-winning S
USA - Bandit Lites recently held its Annual General Meeting, a gathering of all the team members across the country for an assessment of the year prior and announcements of future endeavours. Bandit chair Michael T. Strickland addressed the team, sharing insights on Bandit’s successes in 2022 and his goals for 2023, including new updated facilities, equipment and support. “As we enter our 55th year Bandit continues to lead the way in the industry,” said Strickland. “Bandit is now well into fifth generation Bandits, and the younger people are taking the reins in many areas. We have introduced a brand new all aluminium meat rack storage solution that has revolutionized fixture storage and transport and the reaction has been amazing. “We are also rolling out the first 100 Tyler Ladder Towers, which is another industry changing solution. A single unit is both a f
UK - Chauvet Professional entered the holiday season with a full head of steam, anchoring shows for headliners at major arenas throughout the country. Now with the turning of the calendar page, the UK team is embarking on another tour, not in support of a musical artists, but to give lighting professionals a first-hand look at some of the company’s new IP65-rated products. Beginning on Tuesday, 24 January at The Place in London, the Chauvet Professional road show will be stopping at eight different cities throughout the UK to spread the news about products like the Ovation Rêve E-3 IP outdoor ready full spectrum white and multi-colour-mixing ellipsoidal, and the new arena-grade line of Maverick Storm fixtures. The road shows will also feature a first-time UK look at the new fixtures in the Rogue Outcast series of high-powered moving heads including The Rogue Outcast
UK – A new company, Electric Airshows, has been launched to provide drone light shows to the UK’s outdoor events market. Two well-known faces in the event production industry, Chris Crockford and Ian Lomas, have combined their considerable expertise and event experience to offer this new, professional service. After months spent in research, pilot training and regulatory approvals, the pair are now operating an initial fleet of drones purchased from Chinese manufacturer and drone show specialist, DAMODA Intelligent Control Technology. The quad-copter drones, using accurate GPS RTK (Real Time Kinematics) positioning technology have already flown several successful displays, including a series of events for Alton Towers. The drones, which each carry a removable, all-in-one 10W RGBW LED and rechargeable battery pack, and can fly and maintain position in winds o
USA - Project manager Jonathan Blake and the crew at The Lighting & Sound Company spent 16 days setting up the popular Garden Glow walk-through event at Maymont Estate Park in Richmond, Virginia. “A key goal for us was to highlight all aspects of the ground’s horticulture in a way that accentuated its natural beauty,” said Blake. “In support of this goal, almost all of our LED fixtures were positioned to enhance the appearance of every scenic element. The entire event covered a lot of ground, so there were numerous opportunities to highlight interesting sights. I’m grateful to our client, Maymont Estate for given us the opportunity to work at such an impressive site. Also, thanks to our lighting designer and programmer Ryan Williams, lighting control network engineer Logan Adams and installation team lead Brennan Adams for making this happen.” H
