Spain - The Shop Ibiza recently deployed a complete Martin by Harman lighting and video system at the island’s Dalt Vila historical site for the International Music Summit’s grand finale show, which featured lighting design by Nick Jevons. The International Music Summit (IMS) is an annual three-day EDM conference held on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Founded in 2008, the event features industry exhibitions and talks, as well as a spectacular grand finale show featuring performances by world-renowned EDM musicians and DJs. The grand finale is traditionally held in Ibiza’s historical Dalt Vila, a 2,500-year-old hilltop fortress that rises above the city. The Shop Ibiza has provided production support for IMS since the event’s first year, building increasingly ambitious stage designs each year. This year, The Shop collaborated with lighting designer Nic
China - Nick Ho and his team put on light shows for some of the brightest minds in tech, surrounded by cutting-edge contrivances like self-driving cars, 5G mirrors and 8K 360° virtual reality experiences at MWC19 Shanghai. Ho navigated his way through time constraint issues to interface on short notice with some advanced laser software. Helping him accomplish this was the ChamSys MagicQ MQ60 console. “For the past few years of the MWC event, I have programmed the conference’s opening stinger (walk-up music for the speaker introduction) with lights,” explains Ho. “This year, my client decided to build this show around laser fixtures. We had to use Pangolin Beyond software. Now, my MQ60 receives Timecode via SMPTE LTC, but our Pangolin was not able to receive LTC due to the short notice we were given, which left us no time to prepare the LTC convert for Pangolin.” <
Chile - Mexican singer Ana Gabriel hit the road on her Estamos A Tiempo (We Are On Time) world tour last year at the National Auditorium in Mexico City, a campaign that continues internationally throughout 2019, with another spectacular lighting and visual design by Felipe Serey, one of Chile’s leading LDs. Felipe has worked with the artist for six years, and the lighting specification for the current tour has over 150 Robe moving lights - 60 MegaPointes, 40 Spiiders, 48 Spikies, two BMFL Spots and three BMFL WashBeams - on the lighting plot. Recently, Ana Gabriel played a show at the Movistar Arena in Santiago de Chile where the full Robe rig was supplied by a local rental company and Felipe was proud to be able to deliver the show in his hometown! The design was based around creating a balance of technology to support and reinforce Ana Gabriel’s char
USA - More than 50,000 people from 60 countries joined together for the Adventist Youth Event at International Camporee (CYE) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Bandit Lites supplied the lighting for the six-day event which takes place every five years and featured live worship, productions and fellowship. Working with SBHH Events team of Rachel Quan, Andy Gerber, John Monroe and Brent Walla along with CYE producer Betty Whitehead and director Heidi Litell, lighting designer Mark Carver started developing the lighting direction and staging scenic elements of the show nearly two years ago. “Bandit was great partner for this event,” says Carver. “Over a year and a half of planning went into this, and from the beginning, Mike Golden helped with budgeting and timelines. Project manager Don Lockridge and Dizzy Gosnell helped prepare and provide a plan of execution, all the whil
Germany - The 2019 edition of Parookaville featured an impressive number of CLF fixtures. The festival attracted 210,000 attendees and took place at Airport Weeze, with CLF fixtures used in the Time Lab, Wacky Shack, Brainwash and in all the sales outlets throughout the festival area. Rent-All GmbH supplied over 700 fixtures. LD Janik Hensen (Dekor Event) took care of the lighting design, including the Time Lab, based on a stage design by Stefan Dicks and a lighting concept by Robert Sommer. In addition, his company took care of the site layout, production and material planning. In the Time Lab, Aorun were used as the main fixtures, accompanied by the LEDbar PRO as a continuation of the LED surfaces. CLF Conan fixtures were used as washlight, because of their zoom function. All fixtures had to be lightweight, since the load capacity of the roof was limited. On top of
Germany - Lighting designer Thomas Gerdon has been working on Nature One for over 15 years and has designed the lighting for the festival’s main Open Air Floor every year since its introduction in 2011. The designer stays on the cusp of innovation and after incorporating IP65-rated Elation Proteus Hybrid luminaires in his notable 2018 pyramid truss and stage design, turned to more Proteus line fixtures for the 2019 festival. “Last year, I discovered how easy and cool it was to have an IP65 fixture with the Proteus Hybrid,” the designer states. “This year, I was sure I wanted to use as many IP65 fixtures as possible. Ninety percent of this year’s fixtures were IP65 rated and all the moving lights were Elation Proteus series.” Populating Gerdon’s newly designed overhead audience and stage rig were Proteus Hybrid moving heads, new Proteus Rayzor 760 LED moving he
USA - For glam rock band Warrant, the 30th anniversary of the release of their first album Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich meant pulling out all the stops and throwing a full-on party for themselves and their fans. Known for their hard-rocking performances, Warrant always puts on an intense live show, and a recent stop at the Psycho Silo Saloon for their Dirty Thirty Tour delivered the goods. Located in the middle of rural Illinois and sporting a stage made out of old semi-trailers, this outdoor venue stands out from most performance sites. Wanting to create a lighting design as fierce as the band’s hard-driving, Jeff Hinton of 815 Productions DJ Service added intensity to the house lights with a punchy package comprised of 18 Chauvet DJ fixtures. Hinton placed six Intimidator Hybrid 140SR fixtures on the back of the rig to light the band with a variety of
Lighting designer Yaron Abulafia was asked by director and choreographer Richard Wherlock to light his new ballet work, The Comedy of Error(z), staged at Basel Opera House (Theater Basel) in Switzerland, which “explores the themes of confusion and misunderstanding directly connected to the realities of digital lives that are also present in Shakespearean comedy”. The story also contrasted and contextualised the lives of rich and poor in countries that are financially stronger or weaker, throwing out some complex and intense messages for debate and expressing ironies of geo-fiscal imbalance via the captivating mediums of movement, music and light. Yaron had the venue’s house lighting rig at his disposal which included 40 x Astera AX1 Pixel Tubes. Ahead of the production, he started researching the available kit and thinking about how to incorporate the AX1s
Hungary - Ujbuda Gyermeknap (Children’s Day) is an annual event held at Bikás park, a tranquil sea of green in the bustling Ujbuda district of Budapest. In addition to other attractions, there is also an array of musical acts performing on stage, which this year included Hungarian folk-rock singer Miklós Fenyő. Lighting the main stage, András Praksch of Mobil Audio and Lighting Kft had to create looks for a long list of unfamiliar bands. Even the popular Fenyő came without his LD, which required busking on the part of Praksch. On top of that, since the festival took place during daylight hours, options to create captivating looks were limited. Praksch met this challenge and helping him accomplish this was a collection of Chauvet Professional Maverick, STRIKE and COLORdash fixtures. “I have been doing this festival for many years with the event producer
Israel - Shlomo Artzi is one of Israel’s most successful singers, and his most recent shows hit the road with an ongoing lighting design by Gadi Spivak who has worked for the artist for over 20 years. Gadi and his lighting associate Shlomit Lola Nehama chose to use 24 x Robe Spiider LED wash beams for a key element of his lighting rig. This stage design was originated for the show around 2 years ago and has been modified and evolved as Shlomo has continued playing constantly – he is always in demand and will sell out any venue. The most important aspect of the Spiiders for Gadi is the colour mixing. “I wanted a really bright light source with smooth movement and refined CMY colour mixing and all these features I find in the Spiider,” he stated. The 24 fixtures were all hung on a semi-circular truss just downstage of a large 6mm pitch video screen,
Malaysia - Singesen Technical Production and Chan Lee Sound & Light selected a combination of Powersoft’s X8 and X4L amplifier platforms for American singer-songwriter Jason Mraz, who stopped off in Kuala Lumpur for the third Asian date of his Good Vibes world tour. The main hangs at the arena were made up of 12 JBL VT-4889-1 per side, with eight JBL VT4888 flown per side as side-fill and six JBL VT4888 in the centre. The 20 JBL VT 4880 subwoofers were ground stacked at the side of the stage, while a series of Nexo PS15 wedge monitors were placed along the downstage edge. A total of six JBL VTX A8 were used as front-fill. The main system was driven by 11 of Powersoft’s X8 amplifier platforms, while a pair of the company’s latest touring product, the X4L (look out for a product review in the September issue of LSi, out next week) - were also use
Europe - German heavy rock superstars Rammstein have embarked on their European stadium tour, with lighting designers Roland Greil and Patrick Woodroffe of Woodroffe Bassett Design utilising over 100 VL6000 Beam fixtures from Vari-Lite. Woodroffe and Greil joined a creative team that also included renowned production designer Florian Wieder. In creating the show, they drew on the visual impact and large-scale performance features of the Vari-Lite VL6000 Beam to achieve extra layers of visual impact. “After a brief from the band,” says Greil, “we jumped right in and explored the Rammstein world before starting to brainstorm and create the first designs.” Discussing the main requirements for the Rammstein lighting rig, Greil explains: “We were looking for bright but versatile fixtures, that would fit into the overall design as well as into the specific R
USA - City Theatrical has expanded its line of moving light accessories with four new beam control products, including Top Hats designed to fit Chauvet, ETC and High End Systems lighting fixtures, and concentric rings for GLP X4L lighting fixtures. Once only custom made, these now standard accessories are in high demand for Broadway and Broadway-style productions in which lighting designers require precise control of light beams, often specifying an accessory for every moving light that goes into a show, says the company. City Theatrical’s new Moving Light Accessory products include Chauvet Rogue R2 Wash Top Hats, ETC Releve Spot Top Hats, High End Systems Solaframe 1000 Top Hats, and GLP X4L Concentric Rings. Each Top Hat is designed to fit its lighting fixture model perfectly, and control light spill and reduce light reflection with interior flocking, similar to a
Australia - After its closure in 2017, Darlinghurst’s Midnight Shift club has been resurrected by Universal Hotels using Prolights fixtures. Universal Hotels, a Sydney-based hospitality group owned and operated by the Kospetas family, picked up the 1000sq.m building last June for a reported $12m and have relaunched it as Universal, a rebranded music venue and LGBTIQA+ safe place. “Universal is an evolution of the Midnight Shift, rather than a revolution,” explains owner Jim Kospetas, who plans to respect the special role that the venue has played for the LGBTIQA+ community and continue its long-held legacy of inclusivity. Kospetas contacted Show Technology with a brief requiring “masses of beams and good sight lines throughout the venue”. Tim Macfie of TDM Productions was chosen to design the lighting system. “They wanted someone who could meet
USA - Taylor Swift celebrated the release of her new album, Lover by surprising fans with a bubble-filled sky over Central Park. While Swift’s productions usually feature plenty of confetti, Swift opted for the eco-friendly Bubbleworks effect for the performance of Shake It Off live on ABC’s Good Morning America. “What a privilege to work with Taylor and a dream come true to create this moment in her show,” says Bubbleworks founder Adam Williams. “We wanted to do something big for her fans and create a theatrical bubble experience beyond her wildest dreams.” The choreographed bubble effect filled the stage and floated over the thousands of fans who lined up 24 hours early for the show. (Jim Evans)
USA - Tony Award-winning lighting designer Ken Posner selected Ayrton Mistral and Diablo-S fixtures for the Broadway musical, Beetlejuice, and the Off-Broadway one-act play, Long Lost. Beetlejuice opened in April at the Winter Garden Theatre and has achieved hit status; Long Lost, by Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Marguelies, made its New York premiere at The Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage I with a six-week run. Posner has many notable credits on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in American regional theatre. He was the lighting designer for Wicked and Hairspray. Posner’s use of Ayrton’s Mistral on Beetlejuice marked his first deployment of Ayrton fixtures. His associate lighting designer, Anthony Pearson, and moving light programmer, David Arch, collaborated in the decision to use the 300W spot luminaires after ACT Ligh
USA - Nashville-based designer Chris Lisle was already working on the festival’s main and second stages when he was approached by Lollapalooza PM Brandon Sossamon about creating the Perry’s Stage rig. As is typical of EDM stages, Perry’s was dominated by video. So, Lisle and his assistant LD Erik Parker began their design by layering video panels supplied by Go Vision. Then came the critical task of filling the gaps in the Z truss configuration of those panels with lighting from Bandit Lites. A key element that held everything together in this intricate, tightly woven multi-level rig were 78 Chauvet Professional COLORado Solo Battens. “Perry’s Stage was an impressive structure, but considering all we had going on with this design, the space was relatively tight,” explains Lisle. “Much of our concept for the rig was based on Z-shaped trussing from Reed Ri
Argentina - The Alliance Group, which brings together four of the most important nightclubs in San Carlos de Bariloche, has invested in Claypaky Axcor 300 moving heads for its Cerebro nightclub. Macaio Argentina is the country’s distributor of Claypaky lighting products. The installation, carried out by the staff of Roberto Maqui, features an array of Axcor Spot, Wash and Beam fixtures. “We chose Claypaky not only for its performance and quality but also because we have known the brand for years,” says Carlos Zeiss, CEO of The Alliance Group. “Despite intensive use they usually require very little maintenance.” These attributes, combined with the fixtures’ low power consumption, contributed to the purchase of the fixtures. Roberto Maqui also performed the programming and commissioning of the Axcor fixtures. (Jim Evans)
Czech Republic - Lighting designer Jiri Roucek is enjoying a busy summer as the LD for leading Czech pop-rock band Krystof and has also created the production design for the main stage of the 2019 Ceske Hrady Festival tour, a two-day event with an identical line-up that visits eight castle and cultural locations around the Czech Republic. Krystof is headlining this year’s Ceske Hrady tour as well as playing their own shows concurrently. The tour presents the best of Czech ‘multi-genre’ rock - from psy-core favourites Dymytry to crazy punk anarchy with Visaci Zamek - to mixed, family-friendly, sold-out crowds at every stop. The format is two stages set up side-by-side and ‘flip-flopped’ both exclusively using Robe moving lights supplied by ZL Production which also supplies audio, video and staging. ZL has been servicing this event since 2013. This year,
China - A High End Systems Hoglet 4 is providing big control for a new outdoor multimedia installation in China. Two times each night, a lake in the park in Liaocheng, Shandong Province comes alive with lighting, lasers, mist, flames and fountains. The free half-hour interaction enthrals up to 10,000 spectators with the colourful, watery spectacle. LD Theo Cox - a High End Systems Hog 4 lighting console user - chose the smaller, more compact member of the Hog family for this project. “I elected to programme with a Hoglet 4, as this was the right piece of kit to leave in permanent situ after the shows were up and running,” he explains. “As well as the nightly timecode shows, there was a requirement to run a few simple cues manually, and a physical console was desired but it had to be streamlined. So with only two kinds of fixtures to program, and no need for lot
Australia - Elation Professional has announced that ULA Group is the new exclusive distributor for Elation Professional products in Australia and New Zealand. Established in 1991, ULA Group provides lentertainment, architectural and LED digital lighting solutions to an extensive portfolio of clients across the region. “We understand the value in providing our clients with as many options and solutions as possible, therefore we sought an internationally recognized brand that was well respected and could cover a vast array of markets,” states Cuono (Con) Biviano, managing director of ULA Group. “As an acknowledged brand on international tour riders and an emerging standard in the major theatre market, Elation was a natural fit.” Elation director of sales & marketing, Eric Loader, adds: “A partnership with ULA was a logical step for us to move forward in th
USA - The ADJ Group of Companies has announced the appointment of Robert ‘Bob’ Mentele in the new position of vertical market manager with a particular focus on the worship, theatre, TV/broadcast and education markets. Already a familiar face in the industry, Bob served as the lighting category manager at Full Compass Systems for the past six years. Previously, he was the rentals supervisor at Full Compass and technical director and lighting designer for The Armory Theatre in Janesville, Wisconsin. “As we continue to grow within the theatrical, worship, broadcast and educational markets, we’re pleased to be welcoming Bob Mentele into our tightknit team in the new role of vertical market manager concentrating on these areas,” comments Toby Velazquez, president of the ADJ Group of Companies. Following an initial period of induction, which is already unde
Russia - ETC and High End Systems’ dealers will present the latest product innovations from both companies at the 2019 Prolight+Sound NAMM Russia tradeshow. From 12-14 September, visitors to the Sokolniki Exhibition Centre in Moscow will find the latest additions to ETC and High End Systems’ fixtures and controls families in Hall 4. DOKA Centre will demonstrate Augment3d, ETC’s new fully integrated 3D programming environment in Eos v3.0 on stand C6. Users can interact with their fixtures through augmented reality as well as controlling and designing in a three-dimensional space. Augment3d will be shown on an Eos family console desk. They will also present Relevé Spot, ETC’s moving light specifically designed for theatre which brings affordable, high quality color mixing to smaller venues. Alongside this there will be EchoTouch, a standalone intuitive touchscr
USA - Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre is a popular five-week summer festival in Logan, Utah, that presents four fully staged works in repertory at the Ellen Eccles Theatre. Lighting designer Chris Wood, who just wrapped up his seventh season working on the festival as part of a top-notch cast and crew, had the opportunity to use Elation Artiste Picasso LED profile moving heads on this year’s productions - Newsies, West Side Story, Mary Poppins, and The Marriage of Figaro. 4 Wall in Las Vegas recommended the Picasso to Wood and although the fixture entered the lighting specification somewhat late, which didn’t give the designer much time to familiarize himself with it, he says he got better acquainted with the light through fixture documentation. “I appreciate that Elation puts out a lot of photometric data,” Wood says, “which
