UK - Cabaret venue Proud Embankment in London’s West End was determined to have a high-impact post-Covid reopening. One of the first venues to open its doors after the second lockdown, Proud had undergone a renovation, with a major investment in its production values and the installation of 14 new Robe Pointe moving lights. The new Pointes were specified by Proud Embankment’s in-house lighting designer Jack Knight and purchased specially for the venue by regular lighting supplier, North London rental and installation specialist, Halo. The Pointes are a completely new addition to the existing house lighting rig and are positioned all around the stage with several on a goal post at the back, from where they provide the main effects lighting looks. Robe’s highly versatile Pointe was an easy choice for Jack. “It is a properly ‘multipurpose fixture’ in e
UK - With Glastonbury Festival cancelled for a second year, an online celebration - Live at Worthy Farm - was held in its stead on Saturday 22 May 2021. Filmed over a week and beamed as live around the world, the five-hour virtual festival echoed the glories of the full event missed by so many, in spite of the access problems suffered by the online audience. For many artists it was the first opportunity to play live in a year or more. The event highlight came with a performance from Coldplay, lit by multi award-winning lighting and show designer, Sooner Routhier of Sooner Rae Creative. Routhier incorporated 60 Ayrton Perseo Profile and 36 Ayrton Domino IP65-rated multifunction lighting fixtures, supplied by Neg Earth, into her design to handle the demanding outdoor conditions. “I needed a large format profile that was IP65 rated because the site was open to the elements in
UK - The programme for PLASA Show 2021 has been unveiled, bringing a rich line-up of seminars and training sessions to the trade event that takes place on 5-7 September at Olympia London. Sponsored by Vectorworks, the programme is set to deliver in-depth content on the future of live production, immersive product experiences and plenty of practical training, bringing skills and knowledge to the forefront of the show experience. All sessions are free for pre-registered attendees (you can get your free entry pass by 31 August - find out more here), with details of the schedule available on the show website. More content will be added over the coming weeks, say the or
USA - After an 18-month Covid-caused hiatus, many of hip-hop’s biggest names played Rolling Loud at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium in late July. Over 130 artists including ASAP Rocky, Travis Scott and Post Malone featured. Turning up the adrenalin level higher were bold light and video shows that drew on the big presence of powerful, flexible rigs created by Steve Lieberman and his team at SJ Lighting, including production manager Max Robin. Known for his festival work, Lieberman was responsible for production design at the festival’s four stages (Cîroc, Audiomack, Monster Energy, and Dryp), as well the VIP area. Providing abundant punch at the main Cîroc stage as well as at the second Audiomack stage were some 200 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK3 Wash, COLORado 1 Solo and COLORado 1 QS fixtures supplied by 4Wall Entertainment. This firepower allowed LDs Ma
USA - Since 2008, the Rooster Walk Festival at Pops Farm has been a Memorial Day tradition in Martinsville, VA in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In addition to providing a boost to the local economy, it has raised money for a scholarship fund that donates musical instruments to schools and students. Then Covid happened. Not only did the pandemic force the cancellation of the 2020 festival, it’s lingering effects also nixed this year’s planned Memorial Day event. Undeterred, Johnny Buck and William Baptist, the festival’s producers and their team, moved the event back a few weeks and served it up in a modified form as an outdoor concert by jam band heavyweights moe.# Dubbed the ‘moe.Morial Show’, the two day, four-set performance featured nonstop improvisational blends of old and new rock. Jason Patsel went with the flow, supporting every twist and
UK - The first Christmas light trail to take place in Windsor Great Park is set for this winter. Windsor Great Park Illuminated will open on 18 November 2021 and run until 9 January 2022. The experience is created and produced by global events and entertainment group IMG (Hampton Court Palace Festival, Natural History Museum Ice Rink, Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, Taste Festivals) and DEAG Entertainment Group / Christmas Garden Deutschland (creator of 15 light trails in Europe). For the first time this winter, trees, paths and the Obelisk Pond within Windsor Great Park will be ‘awash with hundreds of thousands of lights, lasers, projections and holograms’. Both celebrating and respecting the natural surroundings, and flora and fauna of the park, this very special light trail will feature colourful and brilliant light installations including floating water lili
UK - Quay Light now owns several hundred Astera LED fixtures with the largest stock in Scotland, and Paul Bates, who has built a very successful career as a best boy in the film and television lighting sector, is now focusing full time on this business. He has been constantly busy throughout 2020 and 2021 as the pandemic has prompted a surge in demand for film, TV and video material. Paul has enjoyed a successful career looking after the lighting needs and wishes of a host of leading DOPs and gaffers on set and on location, and for the last 10 years has owned an amount of innovative specialist lighting kit, carefully selected to help offer clients and their productions the best and most effective solutions. The first Astera products that Paul purchased back in 2019 were a set of Titan tubes when he was best boy on TV drama The Nest with DOP Matt Gray. He saw Mat
Iceland - British rental house TSL Lighting is now offering a range of VL2600 Profile and VL2600 WASH luminaires from Vari-Lite to provide customers with a powerful LED workhorse. The Basingstoke-based company brought in the VL2600s for global video game developer Riot Games’ League of Legends esports tournament in Reykjavik, Iceland. Lighting designer for the event, Mat Stovall, collaborated with TSL Lighting’s Dom Sheerman to source an LED lighting package that would suit his needs – a reliable, powerful workhorse fixture that would give him powerful wash and profile capabilities with consistency in discharge for both the in-house crowd and the live-stream cameras. “The VL2600s were fantastic - bright, lovely color rendition, great color temperature control. It's nice to have a new workhorse,” says Stovall. “This is the first time TSL Lighting
Germany - Waldbühne Rügen enchants visitors before a performance even begins on its stage. Nestled in the thickly wooded rolling hills on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, it creates a magical setting for fans to enjoy a diverse range of acts, from electronic music’s Thomas Lizzara and Pretty Pink, and rockers like Torfrock, to an array of other shows that even includes musicals. The venue itself also presents an impressive sight, with its semi-circle of ascending seats cupped around a rectangular covered stage, an arrangement that helps create a cozy feeling for artists and fans alike. This sense of intimacy is strengthened even more by the open area in front of the stage, where fans can gather to dance or simply get a better look at their favourite performers. Contributing to the atmosphere at Waldbühne Rügen is a truss-mounted LED video wall that runs a
USA - An outdoor event in New York City in July has to be prepared for all weather contingencies. When lighting designer, Bob Barnhart of 22 Degrees, was hired by BTW Productions to light the 2021 ESPY Awards show on the The Rooftop at Pier 17 at the Seaport, he chose Ayrton Perseo fixtures to comprise the bulk of the lighting rig. Perseo is an LED moving head profile whose IP65 enclosure rating makes it a suitable choice for outdoor use. Ayrton lighting fixtures are distributed exclusively in North America by ACT Entertainment. The 2021 ESPYs presented by Capitol One celebrated the best players, moments, coaches and games in sports. Actor Anthony Mackie hosted the 29th annual ceremony, which was broadcast live on ABC and aired later on ESPN and ESPN2. The in-person show followed last year’s virtual taped event during one of the peaks of the coronavirus pandemic.
USA - Strand has announced the Acclaim LED Series, a complete range of theatrical luminaires designed for use in education theatre spaces, community stages, and small houses of worship. “For over 25 years, the name Acclaim set the standard worldwide for 500W/650W theatrical luminaires,” states Martin Palmer, senior product manager, Vari-Lite and Strand Luminaires at Signify. “This new family of luminaires carries on that tradition, drawing on over a hundred years of theatrical lighting expertise to give maximum performance for small to mid-sized theatrical stages and studio spaces.” The Strand Acclaim LED Series includes both a zoomspot and a profile light engine, as well as a true theatrical Fresnel and a cyclorama luminaire. Thanks to a custom LED multi-spectral light source, the Acclaim LED Series offers a consistent, high-quality experience throughout the r
The Netherlands - A technical upgrade at the Chassé Theater in Breda sees the installation of 12 x Zero 88 Chilli Pro 24x16A Bypass dimmers and five Zero 88 Chilli Pro 6x25A dimmers in Jupilerzaal, the venue’s main auditorium where they will be controlling approximately 309 channels of lighting and LED fixtures, including some moving lights as needed / specified by the production. The venue is one of the Netherlands’ largest venues, with a total of three auditoriums and three cinema spaces, mostly a receiving house – anything from music and bands to drama and dance plus amateur and semi-pro performances as well as corporate and private events and conferences, so a truly ‘multi-purpose’ space that is also a diverse cultural melting pot. The Chassé Theater also stages some of its own productions, and a typical (pre-pandemic) year would see around 350 live p
Australia Working with its dealer, ULA Group, ChamSys has increased its presence in that market by naming Audio Visual Engineering Pty (AVE) as a distributor of its QuickQ line of consoles. The company’s MagicQ products will continue to be represented exclusively by the ULA Group, which will also continue to serve as a QuickQ distributor. As a result of this move, ChamSys says it will be in ‘an optimal position to serve the entire spectrum of the lighting console market in Australia, from mobile entertainers and users focused on small and mid-sized functions, to those working at broadcast studios and major arena tours’. “I’m excited to see AVE joining the ChamSys family,” said Aziz Adilkhodjaev, international sales and business development manager for ChamSys. “With their full focus only on QuickQ range, I’m confident, AVE will help us develop the marke
Germany - Magic Light + Sound GmbH (MLS) has invested in 88 Robe Esprites to facilitate its ongoing work in the television lighting sector. After an initial dip in March 2020, business has now re-built. “Like everyone, immediately the pandemic hit everything slowed down,” explains co-CEO Marco Pütz, “but after a few months, the pace picked up again, so we re-scaled to suit the new circumstances and have now fully re-opened.” Marco’s grandfather, Heinz Pütz, originally founded the company in 1961 to service the burgeoning film industry in and around Cologne. Marco Pütz is now a co-CEO together with Thomas Hessling. Once things stabilised and were rolling again, Pütz and Hessling saw this time as an opportunity to invest in some of Robe’s latest LED moving light technology. They wanted something new to boost their already substantial 3000 str
Spain - Equipson's loudspeaker products were chosen by TecnoSonido when it was tasked with installing a new audio system at a five-star hotel on the Costa Blanca. With a customer profile that includes both national and international guests, the SH Villa Gadea hotel in Altea, Alicante, was keen to ensure that its new restaurant, the Purple Rain Lounge, delivered a sophisticated and enjoyable ambiance. Sound was a key part of this requirement as the hotel wanted to ensure that customers could hear music being played, but not at the expense of their own conversations. "When we go to a restaurant for dinner, we don't want to listen to loud music," says TecnoSonido's managing director Alexis Roldan. "What we are looking for, in addition to a good dish, is a pleasant atmosphere for all the senses. This is where sound plays a very important role." TecnoSonido's brief for
USA - Cameron Birchill has been designing lighting for metalcore rockers Beartooth since 2018 and recently turned to an Elation rig of DARTZ 360, Artiste Picasso and Protron 3K Color luminaires for the band’s The Journey Below Livestream, where fans got their first chance to see and hear the band performing songs from their latest album Below. The livestream took place 14 July at the Clyde Theatre in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, an historic building that recently underwent a $9m renovation. For their first livestream event, the band gave Birchill a blank canvas to design the type of show he thought would look best for an on-camera audience. The LD subsequently contacted New York-based rental company Squeek Lights and owner Victor Zeiser, who has worked with the band for years, including as lighting designer for a headlining 2018 tour. Birchill has lit numerous l
Australia - Sydney's corporate event production specialists Sightline were early adopters of the Prolights EclPanel TWCJr, 1×1 LED soft light. “The fresnels in our studio were giving us too many unwanted shadows so we were looking for a replacement,” explains Steve Hill, lighting director at Sightline. “We had used Chameleon's larger EclPanels and thought they were great however we only required the smaller model for our work.” Sightline purchased eight Prolights EclPanel TWCJr along with 60° egg crates to create a narrower beam when required and barn doors to adjust the light beam. “The first thing I noticed was that the colour out of them is amazing and the spread is incredible,” enthuses Hill. “Everything about the EclPanel TWCJr is great which is very impressive.” Owing to Covid restrictions, a good portion of Sightline's events are no
USA - The recent Can’t Cancel Pride livestream fundraiser for the LGBTQ+ community created powerful yet graceful and moving moments that drew attention to critical issues. Among the highlights of the virtual benefit, which was sponsored by iHeart Radio in partnership with Procter & Gamble, was a heartfelt performance by Leslie Odom of Hamilton fame at the historic Cicada Club in downtown Los Angeles. Reflecting the spirit of the event and the passion driving the Tony and Grammy winner’s performance was a balanced Will Chandler lighting design that featured Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Envizion Group. “This was an especially moving performance, since it commemorated the fifth anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting,” explains Chandler. “The production designers created an evocative performance area that was surrounded by a se
Italy - In May of this year, MSC Cruises launched the Virtuosa, the fourth in its Meraviglia class of ships. Like its predecessors, the new 331.43m long luxury liner is outfitted with a host of amenities including 13 gourmet restaurants, spas, shops and pools. Beyond these flourishes, however, there is another side of this regal ship, one that, although not readily apparent to those on board, incorporates the latest “behind the scenes” technology on their behalf. Some of these features, like the closed-loop exhaust gas cleaning system that reduces sulphur emissions by 97-perect, protect the environment. Others are in place to ensure that passengers enjoy the most rewarding experience possible in the ship’s clubs, lounges and theatre. On board the MSC Virtuosa, along with all the high-tech operational equipment, are 34 Chauvet Professional NET-X II nodes, su
USA - ARRI Rental North America has announced plans to open a new headquarters in Long Island City, New York, during the first quarter of 2022. The facility will offer comprehensive equipment and services. The new location will also serve as a creative hub for production communities in New York and the greater North Eastern region. As consumer demand for film and television content increases due to the growing popularity of streaming services, production spending - and the need to support filmmakers - has never been higher. ARRI Rental’s new office space is designed to fulfill these needs, helping creatives and studios access production solutions and services as they work to produce the next generation of entertainment and commercial content. “The relocation to our new North American HQ serves as another example of our dedication to supporting filmmakers in the hub
Croatia - Based in Dubrovnik, FiFi Sound, a technical production and rental company specialising in live events, has made a further investment in Robe lighting. Founded by Ivica Bušić and Johnny Čučević in 2001, FiFi Sound was always on a mission to provide the very best production equipment and technical services to Croatia’s vibrant live events market. The company started as an audio specialist, but both Iviča and Johnny soon realised that they needed to offer the full technical production package to maintain both an edge and the high standards they have set for themselves! The lighting division was started in 2005 and the other disciplines covered are staging, LED screens and AV services. “Basically, we are the one-stop solution for the client,” says Iviča. Lighting started modestly with various generics, dimmers, some LED and control, although
USA - tvONE is now shipping ONErack Spider, a universal multi-voltage DC power solution, which is the latest addition to the company’s ONErack universal rack mounting system. The ONErack Spider optimises installations by eliminating unreliable DC wall warts and other power clutter from the rack design. At the same time, it also ensures the provision of reliable power for a choice of up to seven different voltage options - 5V, 7.5V, 9V, 12V, 13.5V, 18V, and 24V. Available in a 1RU half-rack version (7-module capacity) or rear strip version (23-module capacity), the ONErack spider can be installed at the back or side of the rack to provide the ultimate installation flexibility. “Not every rack has enough space for a full ONErack chassis, and the Spider offers the same simultaneous DC voltages but with rear or zero space racking,” says Mark Armon, global product man
USA - Pigeons Playing Ping Pong and Eggy took the stage at the Westville Music Bowl, a new entertainment venue created in a converted tennis stadium on the Yale University campus, campus, Newhaven, CT. Lighting designers Manny Newman for Pigeons Playing Ping Pong and Peter Spadaro III for opening act Eggy unleashed a torrent of dynamic looks, taking advantage of the high (over 30’) stage roof to shower their clients with immersive washes and moving gobos one moment, then transitioning into bright aerials and immersive audience lighting the next. “There was such a diverse range of looks that it’s difficult to describe it in a few words,” said Newman, who designed and built the evening’s lighting rig. “The one thing that characterized all the looks is that they were complete.” Helping to create the production were 18 Chauvet Professional Rogue R1 Wash
Germany - ARRI has announced the release of ARRI LightNet, a new software platform designed by ARRI’s Solutions Group to offer ‘smart, logical, and at-a-glance centralized monitoring, fault-finding, and management of broadcast studio lighting networks from anywhere’ This tool enables broadcast facilities to streamline the management of their lighting network in one platform. As remote, decentralized, and socially distanced working becomes more popular and established, ARRI LightNet provides comprehensive, user-friendly monitoring of lighting networks and will be offered with all ARRI Solutions Group tenders and projects. ARRI LightNet has been developed as a powerful, visually intuitive, and flexible tool to assist the smooth and efficient operation of contemporary studio facilities with both IP-based and DMX-controlled lighting systems. Features include a very
