USA - When Juan Ocampo sets up a festival rig one of his primary goals is to make it versatile enough to accommodate the varying styles of different visiting LDs. True to this philosophy, he designed the rig at this year’s Winnetka Music Festival to be as flexible as possible, selecting Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Wash and Strike 4 fixtures, in part because they can play so many different roles well. However, shortly before the festival started Ocampo learned that most of the 28 bands performing at the event wouldn’t be traveling with LDs. Instead of relying on the rig to work with various individual styles, he and his team would have drawn on its versatility to create unique looks for the different acts themselves. “Initially, the biggest challenge I had was to make sure that the lights were positioned and placed in a way that would make the visiting LDs hap
USA - Indie singer-songwriter Mitski has endeared her to a growing fan base. She followed up a successful 2018 tour with a 2019 spring outing that also saw the artist playing summer dates before wrapping up in September with two New York shows at Summer Stage in Central Park. Lighting design for the Be the Cowboy tour was by John Foresman, who employed an Elation rig of Platinum HFX moving heads and SixPar 200 colour-changing PAR lights to complement the emotive singer’s lyrically rich songs. Lighting supply was by Pisgah AVL of North Carolina. Mitski’s songs are played along melodic lines that can vary in tempo, with carefully choreographed movement key part of the show. Foresman describes his design as dynamic with a lot of energy during the high points and still calmness during the quieter points of the set. The design, he says, was focused around the ch
Europe - Iconic German hard rock band Rammstein have been on the road again as part of the European Stadium tour, a visual and sonic extravaganza of lighting, video and pyro effects. Roland Greil from Woodroffe Bassett Design (WBD) created the lighting design together with Patrick Woodroffe and specified 56 Robe BMFL WashBeams, 12 BMFL Follow Spot LTs (long throws) and six LEDBeam 150 moving lights - among many others - for this tour. WBD was contracted to produce and coordinate the tour’s production design including lighting, set and video design plus technical integration. The lighting was a collaboration between Roland and Patrick Woodroffe who is also the show designer. Florian Wieder and Cuno von Hahn looked after the set design, and Jeremy Lloyd from Wonder Works directed the technical aspects of the design and integration. The band are also very
USA - City Theatrical’s Multiverse wireless DMX/RDM technology is currently being used to provide DMX data for the windmill and carousel lighting features at Historic Hudson Valley’s The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. After 10 years of working on The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze, the lighting design team from Jay Woods Design chose Multiverse wireless DMX for its ability to broadcast multiple universes of DMX data across an open field to receivers that are in constant motion. With an anticipated total audience of 170,000+, the Multiverse wireless DMX system was also an ideal solution for its ability to have a small radio footprint despite transmitting in a crowded radio spectrum. “With the Multiverse Transmitter, we were able to focus on setting up and talking to a single device, as opposed to setting
USA - Summer’s not over yet, at least not for country singer-songwriter Thomas Rhett who continues his headlining Very Hot Summer tour of North America. A large complement of Claypaky Mythos 2 and Scenius Unico lighting fixtures is accompanying the tour, which is in support of Rhett’s fourth studio album, Center Point Road. The tour kicked off in Montreal last April and will conclude in Nashville in October. New York City’s Fireplay is serving as the lighting and production designers for the Very Hot Summer tour with Upstaging, the lighting vendor. “We’ve worked with TR for about five years as his shows keep expanding and growing,” notes Nick Whitehouse, co-founder of Fireplay. “This tour is based on a concept we all developed together. Looks progress throughout the show and are different for each song so there are lots of cues an
The Netherlands - Lichtwerk (Light works) is a Netherlands-based technical production company which works closely with a wide selection of lighting and visual designers, particularly for theatre shows, tours and corporate events. The company recently invested in Robe’s fantastic T1 Profile LED moving light, which is designed for theatre, touring and TV. Jacco Pattist founded the company in 1995, and his association with Robe goes back to the very early days when the Czech manufacturer was still an OEM supplier. Once Robe was launched in 2002, Lichtwerk was an early adopter of the brand, a trend that continued through the ColorWash 250 series, then the ColorWash 750 and ColorSpot 700 series, the DT 3000 and 7000, and more recently with LEDBeam 300s MMX Spots / WashBeams and LEDBeam 150s. The latest T1s were purchased because, collectively as a company, “We love tungsten!” decl
UK - On the surface, My Favorite Year and Children of Eden are very different shows. The Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens musical takes a farcical behind the scenes look at 1950s television, as a hapless writer tries to keep an irascible matinee idol from a bygone era out of trouble before his appearance on a live show. By contrast, Steven Schwartz’ Eden recounts the story behind creation in the Book of Genesis. Different? Indeed! But both shows offer audiences the shared experience of departing from everyday reality and cry out for brightness and colour on stage - which is what Nic Farman provided for recent productions of the plays at Mountview’s new theatre. Aiding him in this undertaking was a collection of Chauvet Professional Ovation fixtures supplied by White Light. “I’ve worked on a number of productions for Mountview before,
UK - ETC and High End Systems celebrated a successful tradeshow following three days of busy stands, Tech Talks seminars and a win for ETC’s Augment3d at the PLASA Awards for Innovation. The new 3D programming environment, which is part of the upcoming Eos v3.0 software release triumphed at PLASA in a ceremony that celebrates the year’s most pioneering product designs. Judges commented: “This will change the way lighting design and operation works by increasing speed in the lighting workflow and making the process from design to conception easier to manage.” This was proven during the tradeshow at ETC’s Augment3d challenge event where participants were invited to create five focus palettes on an Eos family console in the quickest time possible using either encoders, a mouse click (in the 3D model) or the Augment3d Focus Wand. The quickest time recorded was 37
UK - White Light has recently supplied the lighting equipment for the UK tour of The Lovely Bones. Based on Alice Sebold’s novel, The Lovely Bones is a coming-of-age story about Susie Salmon who is observing her family from the afterlife as they try and deal with her death in different ways. Adapted by Bryony Lavery, the production is directed by Melly Still and features a lighting design by Matt Haskins. Haskins comments: “Bryony Lavery's adaptation is a mesmerising piece of theatre that, despite its often dark subject matter, proves uplifting and cathartic. The text actually expanded and changed heavily through the rehearsal process and what emerged was a very physical, and visually experimental way of storytelling.” As such, Haskins soon realised that he needed to have a flexible rig to respond to the new ideas as they unfolded throughout the pr
USA - 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the ultimate special-event address, but that venue tends to be booked up at least four years in advance. So the team at Everlast Productions did the next best thing: they projection-mapped a detailed simulacrum of the presidential residence on a three-dimensional stage they constructed in the International Ballroom of the Washington, D.C. Hilton Hotel for the annual leadership event of Power Home Remodelling Group. And it was, thanks to Everlast Productions’ use of an Avolites Ai Q3 media server as the mapping engine paired with a Tiger Touch II lighting control console and the manufacturer’s Synergy software. “This was a huge projection event - it had to be very detailed, and it had to be built literally overnight,” says Washington Arias, Everlast Productions’ CEO, referencing the large-scale mapping project in which multip
Germany - Almost 30 years after Thomas Fenzl and Thomas Moritz joined forces to create the successful West Berlin rental house, PAM Events, their company is still setting the bar high for large scale productions both in Berlin and Germany at large. After looking to replace and update their stock of conventional Fresnel fixtures, PAM Events joined forces with a number of other Berlin-based rental houses in acquiring 48 Chauvet Professional Ovation F-265WW, 24 F-55WW and 24 E-260WW fixtures as part of a Berlin-wide cross rental platform. In a move echoing the collaborative efforts of Fenzl and Moritz behind the Berlin Wall, the Ovation fixtures were able to win over the wide collection of Berlin-based rental companies, such as Lichtwerk, Audio + Frames, Spice Events, Huth Events, Edelmat, Wemme-Evennt, and Atlantis-VT with their versatile yet highly efficient Fresnel s
South Africa - Lighting designer Joshua Cutts from Visual Frontier used Astera Titan Tubes to light various segments of the final of The Voice South Africa 2019, which was staged at the Mosaïek Teatro in Fairlands, Johannesburg, and broadcast on M-Net Channel 101. Josh has lit the series since it started in South Africa in 2016. For the finales, he is on the lookout for new, innovative and inventive lighting effects and potential visual eye-candy. This year, they came in the form of Titan Tubes shortly after DWR Distribution had been announced as the exclusive South African distributor. Josh decided to control the Titan Tubes through his grandMA lighting console. His initial idea was to use eight of the wireless battery powered fixtures to illuminate the dancers for different songs. Then, he and some other core production team members, including choreographer
Israel - Singer-songwriter Hanan Ben-Ari is currently one of the most popular artists in a country replete with singing talent, and his new tour has just started, complete with a lively and dynamic visual design by Nesi Alfasi, who has included 12 x Robe MegaPointes at the core of the lighting rig. These are being supplied to the tour by rental company Mega Kol based in Rosh Hayain and headed by Zvika Refaelovich, which has been involved with the artist as an equipment vendor since last year and has worked with LD Nesi for many years on assorted projects. Hanan Ben-Ari's tour features a 3m diameter circular LED surface upstage made up of over 3,000 smart pixels in strips which are mapped into a series of different shapes and graphic effects throughout the set, providing a digital element that is different from a standard video playback screen. Eight of the MegaPo
Guatemala - Obsidian Control Systems has announced Casa Instrumental as the exclusive distributor of Obsidian Control Systems products in Guatemala. Lighting professionals in Guatemala will be able to test the console line at a two-day ONYX training event taking place on 1-2 October at the Casa Intrumental facility in Guatemala City. Designed to provide both a basic and advanced look at hardware and software, interested professionals can contact info@casainstrumental.com for more information. With 35 years in the market, Casa Instrumental is established as a leading provider of some of the world’s top professional audio, lighting and musical instrument brands. Under terms of the agreement, Casa Instrumental will provide full support for the entire Obsidian line of hardware and software lighting control solutions. “We decided to distribute Obsidian Control Sys
Czech Republic - Let It Roll is one of the world's leading drum ‘n’ bass festivals, attracting tens of thousands of ravers for a weekend at an old military airport near Prague. The event started in 2002 and by 2008 turned it had turned into a large-scale outdoor festival. A few years back, the organisers approached Slovakia-based Kvant Lasers for some ideas and solutions and the company soon became a supplier of laser displays and other multimedia and visual elements. Each year the festival production spends a big part of resources on the main stage, with Kvant Show Production supplying six Spectrum 20 full-colour laser display systems for the atmospheric effect and two LD 30 Spectrum units for the laser mapping of the spacecraft-shaped main stage this year. The
USA - In a recent production of the Alan Menken-Jack Feldman Tony Award winning musical Newsies at Pittsburgh’s State Theatre, Amanda Frazier helped call forth the play’s historic context by accentuating its evocative scenic elements with a vivid lighting design that featured Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Vincent Lighting. Working with Noland Jenkins, production manager of Vincent Lighting Systems, Frazier selected 15 Rogue R2 Washes for her rig. She used nine of the RGBW moving fixtures for top lighting, and six for side lighting. Drawing on the colour rendering capabilities of the Rogue units, she subtly shifted palettes throughout the play to reflect different scenes, all while underscoring the turn-of-the-century New York setting. “I assigned colours to absolute moods as themes,” says Frazier. “I went with lavenders and ambers for dream
South Africa - The Little Theatre, based at the University of South Africa in Pretoria, has upgraded to a grandMA3 light console as the theatre moves into its dance season, hosting various performances from ballet to contemporary. “Although our previous console served us well, it was over nine years old,” explains technical manager Leon Rossouw. “We were having issues with updating fixture libraries and the start-up time for the console was time-consuming. Software updates were no longer rolled out as the console had been discontinued a few years back already and some of the hardware was also giving me major hassles.” In 2010, the Little Theatre decided to focus on promoting theatres in schools and youth groups instead of being a money generating playhouse. While their main clientele consists of private dance studios, schools and drama groups they also host va
Spain - Electronics, lights and lots of dancing meet every year at Dreambeach in Villaricos where thousands of people gather for five days to enjoy one of the biggest musical shows in the country on the Main Stage and in the Dreams Tent. Lighting plays a leading role in electronic music events where the choice of fixtures is of paramount importance. For the last four years of Dreambeach, Eduardo Valverde from Pixelmap Studios has designed the scenarios with lighting supplied by the rental company Fluge. In his designs, the common factor is the construction of gigantic structures that create the illusion of being a temple of music. Among Valverde’s most recent credits are the stages of Love the Tuenti’s, Love the 90s, A Summer Story, HallowANTS and Red Bull Batalla de los Gallos festivals, among others. "In the case of the Dreams Tent at Dreambeach, the main c
USA - During a 20-plus-year career, Gary Allan has sold over 8m albums. With a fan base that stretches around the world, the California-native is often out on the road showcasing his vocals in a raucous live performance. Readying now for the 2019 tour across North America, production designer Ben Shockley once again worked with the Nashville-based production provider Elite Multimedia Productions to supply a versatile and memorable LED video and lighting design. “As an artist, Gary typically tours all year long without a set schedule,” opens Shockley. “I have been with him for a little over two years now, and each year we try to bring something new. Since we will be playing a lot of the same venues each year, we have to have a fresh look to give the fans a slightly different experience each time.” Getting started on the new production design, Shockley understood
Mexico - Doble B is the latest nightspot in the Mexican tourist centre of Cancun. Open for lunch and then dinner as a sleek restaurant, after hours the venue transforms into a nightclub with help from more than 40 of ADJ’s professional LED-powered lighting fixtures. Attracting an up-market clientele looking for a sophisticated evening of dining, drinking and dancing, Doble B is the latest new venue to enhance Cancun’s vibrant nightlife scene. With an elegant interior design anchored by four custom-built chandeliers each featuring a myriad of tungsten-effect pixel-mapped lamps, the space features a large bar on one side and glass doors opening onto a terrace on the other. The well-established entertainment audio and lighting equipment installer Adimsa, headed up by director general Edson Rivera, was contracted to specify and install a versatile lighting system for t
Italy - Claypaky has announced the appointment of Marcus Graser as the new CEO of the company. He replaces former CEO Pio Nahum, who is retiring on 1 October after 30 years in the lighting industry, the last 10 spent at the Italian lighting manufacturer. Graser, 42, is an experienced Osram executive who has spent the past 15 years in a variety of roles at the organisation, most recently as head of business development and innovation for entertainment. When Osram acquired Claypaky, Graser led the Osram side of the integration. He has been Nahum’s designated successor, working closely with the former CEO since the start of 2019. "I am proud of having become the new CEO of Claypaky and to oversee the exciting progress we anticipate in the years to come,” comments Graser. “I feel however that this is the right time to express on behalf of an entire Claypaky community
UK - The 2019 PLASA Show was “the busiest in years” thanks to a six per cent increase in attendance, PLASA has reported. The event’s global status was also strengthened, with delegates from over 63 countries flocking to the London-based tradeshow. This was the last edition of the event that was held at Olympia’s National Hall, with the 2020 PLASA Show set to move to London Olympia’s Grand Hall to accommodate a greater number of stands and show features. “PLASA Show has clearly been improving year on year with 2019 being the best one yet,” comments Johan Gunsing, international sales manager for Adam Hall Group. “We have started to see a wider geographic audience attend the show which brings with it new opportunities, new business and increased brand awareness.” “Once again PLASA did not disappoint,” comments Gareth Collyer, Nexo’s UK sales m
UK - Ayrton launched two new products and previewed another at a very successful PLASA 2019 along with its exclusive UK distributor, Ambersphere Solutions. Perseo-S and Huracan-X were the two to receive their official launch and visitors were treated to a first look at Karif-LT, due for release at LDI in November. Shipping with immediate effect, Perseo-S is a multi-function IP65-rated fixture. Weighing in at just over 38kg and designed for the broadest range of applications, Perseo-S is also ideal for both indoor and outdoor use thanks to its compact size, output and ease of service. Feature rich from the factory (including 100% framing shutters, a wealth of effects and gobo options, a subtractive CMY colour mixing system and further colour options for an infinite palette of vivid pastels and saturated colours), Perseo-S produces 27,000lm (calibrated at 8000K) from its 500W
France - Lighting solutions manufacturer GLP has appointed Bruno P. Souchaud to head up its newly-formed subsidiary, GLP France. Souchaud has nearly three decades’ experience in international show lighting, including three years with the French GLP distributor, LA BS. GLP board member Kasper Gissel comments: “We are fortunate to have the services of such a lighting industry veteran as Bruno. The move will bring us closer to our customers and key LD’s. GLP has been specified by French LDs for many years, and previously we have done business directly with the major rental houses in France. So the timing is perfect for GLP to put a more solid structure in place and to further increase our presence in the market.” Bruno says he is relishing the new challenge. “When Udo [Kuenzler], Kasper and the GLP team set out to emulate the formula that had worked so wel
