Italy - The concert area of Parma’s Parco Ducale hosted a number of prestigious concerts this summer, including performances from Andrea Bocelli, Zucchero and Sting. A K-array Firenze-KH7 system with Firenze-KS8 subs was used for sound reinforcement within the performance space, chosen for its sonic qualities and for the precision available when controlling the sound. The sound engineers accompanying the artists were impressed by the definition and linearity of the system; a characteristic that allows for focussing and refining individual sounds with even greater precision that works perfectly for venues where complete control is required. The Parco Ducale is a historical park in Parma, covering over 200,000 m2, located in the Oltretorrente district near the Parma river. For the past three years, a concert area with a stage has been set up next to the palace and has
USA - “We are deeply grateful and savouring every nano-second of this,” Flea proclaimed to fans at the start of one Friday night show on the Red Hot Chili Peppers Global Stadium Tour. It’s a safe bet that everyone in the sold-out arena knew exactly how the bass guitarist felt. None of them would have traded that moment either, as they joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band on a two-hour musical odyssey that wove its way through classic hits and new material, with plenty of spontaneous jams thrown in. Reflecting the open exhilarating spirit of the music every step of the way has been a sweeping, panoramic light and video show by Scott Holthaus and Leif Dixon that includes over 250 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Premier Global Productions. Like the music of the clients it supports, the production design seamlessly blends various parts into a magnific
UK - Having routinely specified Martin Audio’s MLA Compact PA for festival shows where sensitive offsite noise has been an issue -along with the smaller MLA Mini on corporate events - Bristol based SWG Events has continued its long tradition. Best known for servicing a number of stages at Glastonbury with Martin Audio solutions the production company recently provided sound reinforcement for the second year to the Hampton Court Palace Festival, having worked for the production company that runs HCPF on other shows. In addition to the single large stage, which featured two main hangs of eight MLA Compact and six MLX, they also provided BlacklineX on a small bandstand in the East Front public picnic area prior to the show. This year’s line-up included UB40, Elbow, George Benson, Jack Savoretti, McFly, Kacey Musgraves, The Human League, Michael Ball & Alfie
UK - The summer of 2022 was a huge moment for the city of Birmingham, as it played host to the 2022 Commonwealth Games, as well as the competing athletes from 72 nations. Taking place in the newly updated Alexander Stadium, the opening and closing ceremonies colourfully book-ended the largest multi-sport event held in the UK since London 2012, and was broadcast live to billions around the world, in addition to a 30,000 strong live audience. Both productions delivered a high-octane, multi-genre and multi-cultural tribute to the history, culture, and pride within the region, featuring a now infamous 10m-tall mechanical bull, and musical performances from West Midlands artists like Duran Duran, Dexy’s, Apache Indian, Beverly Knight, Goldie, Jorja Smith, Laura Mvula, Panjabi MC, UB40 and Black Sabbath. Positioned to light the festivities was Al Gurdon of Incandescent Des
Italy - Disc To Disc Productions recently unveiled the first Dolby Atmos mixing suite in Milan, and the first in Italy to feature JBL Professional 7 Series master reference monitors. Based in the city of Milan, Disc To Disc is an audio post-production company that offers recording, editing and mixing services for original television series, cinema, commercials and cartoons. In addition to its audio post-production for the screen, Disc To Disc also converts top music producers’ stereo mixes to Dolby Atmos surround mixes for hit-making artists in the Italian music industry. While there are many media production companies and professionals living and working in Milan, the vast majority of Italy’s audio post-production facilities are located in Rome. Studio owner and audio engineer Antonio D'Ambrosio's vision for Disc To Disc was to open the first Dolby Atmos-equipped
USA - Cinematographer and DoP James Kniest’s international career has included lighting several high-profile horror genre movies including the recently released The Free Fall directed by Adam Stilwell, on which he enjoyed using Astera Titan and Helios Tubes to provide multiple lighting solutions. The entire movie was shot on location in a heritage-listed house in the Adams area of Los Angeles, so when James needed to get light sources into assorted – often awkward or hard to access – spaces, corners, nooks, and crannies, he found the battery powered Astera LED tubes an invaluable asset. The production’s lighting department carried two sets of Titan Tubes and two sets of the smaller Helios Tubes, all powered by Astera’s award-winning Titan LED engine. Shooting in a protected building meant that nothing could be rigged or attached to the walls o
Egypt - Holoplot has announced the successful installation of its flagship technology inside Misr Masjid, a newly-built mosque, central to the development of the country’s new administrative capital outside of Cairo. As one of the largest mosques in the world, the Misr Masjid project presented the challenge of delivering clear, intelligible speech to a congregation of thousands in a space of over 10.000sqm - without compromising the architectural integrity of the building’s mainly marble interior. A conventional sound system may require upwards of 30 positions to achieve sufficient coverage and intelligibility within such a space. Holoplot provided audio coverage throughout the mosque, requiring only nine loudspeaker array positions. Each array is mounted as high as 23m above the floor, concealed at a significant distance from the listener behind painted cloth or m
Switzerland - Electric Claudio Merlo Lighting Equipment S.A. (ECM), a stage lighting equipment supplier and Claypaky distributor in Taverne, Switzerland, has been working non-stop to fill the needs of professional theatres across Switzerland. For the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Geneva’s opera house, which boasts the largest stage in Switzerland, ECM installed Claypaky Tambora Batten Round fixtures to illuminate operas, ballets, recitals and concerts. The addition of Tambora, with round lens configurations, met the theatre’s need for high-power, dynamic batten fixtures that offered an excellent cost-to-performance ratio. Also in Geneva, ECM provided Claypaky HY B-EYE K25/Teatro fixtures to the Comédie de Genève, a new showplace not only featuring two halls for theatrical performances but also large construction workshops and spaces that bring all theater di
USA - Coheed and Cambria weave an imaginative tale across multiple albums through storytelling and hard driving music. The latest chapter in the Amory Wars storyline, which plays out on their new album Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind was presented live to fans across the country on a summer tour with Elation Artiste Picasso luminaires helping to sculpt the mythical universe. New Jersey-based rental company Squeek Lights started working with the progressive rock band earlier this year on a club tour and served as lighting and video vendor on the A Window of the Waking Mind summer outing. Squeek Lights owner Victor Zeiser designed the touring rig, developing the show’s overall look and feel together with programmer and touring lighting director Ben Jarrett, also of Squeek Lights. Jarrett explains that all of Coheed and Cambria’s songs take place inside
Australia - Captivate AV has been a provider of full production services on the Gold Coast since 2016. The company specialises in events and installations, crafting bespoke audio-visual solutions for corporate events, schools, houses of worship, festivals, artists and beyond. The business’s expanding system requirements prompted an investment in a DiGiCo Quantum 338 mixing console to raise production values. Captivate AV director Chris Lang outlines Captivate AV’s seamless integration of the Quantum 338. “When we started Captivate AV, [the directors] each had our own SD11i console with D-Racks. As our need to supply larger systems grew, we added a SD8-24, SD10-24 and S21 to our inventory, along with various racks and connection accessories. “When the Quantum series was released, it was clear this was a new era of audio consoles and we wanted to be on the leadin
Spain - Amnesia Ibiza, which opened in 1974, has become a leading light in one of the club scene’s key locations and is home to some of the best-known electronic music artists from around the world. After lying dormant for two years, the venue opened to a packed-out night in late May, which ran for an impressive 18 hours. Amnesia favourites such as Mar-T and Jamie Jones were in attendance, as were the club’s famed dancers, decked out in shiny metallic gear. The night was also the inauguration of the new KV2 sound system in the Main Room – a much-anticipated event since KV2 was installed in the Terrace in 2019. According to Amnesia’s artistic director and long-term resident, Martin Vega, aka Mar-T, there was never any doubt that the main room would eventually upgrade to KV2. “Like the Terrace, the system in the Main Room had been custom-built for us and served
USA - Regarded as his ‘first farewell tour’, Roger Waters has embarked on a marathon four-month tour of North America, Canada and Mexico, showcasing music from across his career, with an ambitious 360 immersive production based around a CarbonLight Series LED screen from Leyard. Building on Waters’ legacy of technically renowned visual productions, the This is Not a Drill tour develops visual storytelling to create an immersive experience, staging the production for the first time in-the-round, with a lightweight 650sq.m cross-shaped Leyard screen, suspended from the roof as the centrepiece, provided by video equipment suppliers, Universal Pixels (UP). "With the screen, audio and lighting all hung from the roof, this ‘heavy’ rig required a lot of advance planning. The Leyard LED screen was chosen because it is lightweight enough to reduce the overal
South Africa - New Life Church in the affluent suburb of Bryanston, Johannesburg, was established in 1985 and is an important part of the Bryanston community. An impressive building houses a 2000-seat auditorium as well as several seminar rooms, children’s facilities and much more. As part of their ongoing mission to provide the best possible worship experience for their congregation, New Life has recently added live streaming capabilities with a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) based mixing system and upgraded their 15-year-old Yamaha M7CL console to a new Yamaha Rivage PM3, all supplied and installed by Stage Audio Works. Stage Audio Works has developed a strong relationship with New Life Church which dates to 2012 when the company installed the very first d&b V-Series line array system in South Africa into the New Life auditorium. “It was certainly the first
Thailand - When the PUBG Nations Cup, one of the biggest tournaments in esports, returned to a live audience format in June 2022, event producers One Up Solutions and Banana Culture were well-equipped to deliver a dynamic experience. The two teams deployed a hybrid intercom network using the Clear-Com Eclipse HX Pico Digital Matrix and FreeSpeak II Digital Wireless systems for audio communications among technical teams, stage crews and talent. Following a two-year COVID-related postponement of the event, passionate fans were eager to gather again and watch 16 teams of world-class players try to write their names into esports history. The event was held at True Icon Hall in the Icon Siam building on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. One Up Solutions, Clear-Com’s long-term partner in South Korea, provided onsite technical support and equipment specificatio
Curaçao – The music, dancing and partying never stop during Hak’e, a Curaçao Summer Festival that’s a highlight of one of the Caribbean’s largest carnivals. By the time summer rolls around the carnival season is long past, but even so the partying never stops on the island. This year, the producers of Hak’e Jump-In decided to sprinkle some of their fun spirit for two consecutive nights in August. They got together and organised the Hak’e Curaçao Summer Festival, an event that featured food stands selling ‘bitterballen’, ‘pastechi’ and other popular Curaçao street food, specialty bars, and a steady flow of music from local artists. “Hak’e Curaçao Summer Festival is a smaller but equally powerful version of the Hake Curaçao Jump-In Festival; instead of having three stages, the summer festival edition has two”, said Jimmy Lo-A-Njoe, of Mass
USA - Northeast of Gainesville, Georgia, lies Hall County School District, home to 37 public schools providing education for nearly 28,000 students. As education facilities of all sizes have faced a tough few years, technical renovations, specifically audio upgrades, are important to enable students to have positive learning outcomes. To aid this smooth transition into a new era of education, the entirety of Hall County School District is currently undergoing a multi-year, multi-location technical renovation, including installing Renkus-Heinz sound solutions across each campus. Working with Nisewonger AV, a Lawrenceville-based education-focused AV integration firm, Hall County School District’s solutions architect, Josh Morton, set out to ensure students and teachers alike have high-quality audio on campus. As part of the renovation, Chicopee Woods Elementary Schoo
USA - Los Angeles-based LD Julien Reux recently lit a Red Rocks show for pop punk star Blackbear. “As a lighting designer, you always collaborate; it’s critical to what you do,” said Reux, of Black Lantern Creative. “In this particular show though, there was a very intense meeting of the minds, and that made it very special.” Reux’s enthusiasm is easy to understand given how smoothly the warm white tungsten-like glow from his Chauvet Professional STRIKE 1 fixtures flowed with the pyro effects and video content at the Blackbear show. The immersive looks created were not merely the result of his talent, but also of the mindset he shared with SFX specialist Nick Arnold and video designer Harley Wrecks, as well as production manager Justin Trotta. “Nick Arnold is a SFX wizard,” said Reux. “Before the show we discussed how we wanted to cue out pyro and lig
USA - Fireplay lighting designer Nick Whitehouse chose the all new, never before used Vari-Lite VL3600 Profile IP fixtures as his workhorse light on Carrie Underwood’s upcoming Denim & Rhinestones tour. “Bandit Lites has been a part of the Carrie family since day one,” shared Bandit Lites chair and founder, Michael T. Strickland. Whitehouse’s third tour with Carrie Underwood is once again massive in scale with a host of new fixtures. Underwood, Whitehouse and Bandit Lites will all be part of the world premiere of this fixture. “The VL3600 Profile IP is the workhorse with nearly 100 on the show,” said Strickland. “Nick spent considerable time deciding on instrumentation and the VL3600 was the right light for the job. Carrie’s tour is massive and takes up an entire arena floor, meaning there is no doubt this tour like all past tours will sell
Poland - The CEKiS Culture and Art Centre in the city of Skierniewice, in the central Polish province of Łódź, recently completed major renovation, begun in 2019, just prior to the pandemic. The new project’s complete redesign of the facility resulted in a 300-seat multipurpose culture and art centre for concerts, theatre shows and film projection. The tender was arranged in a ‘design and build’ model, allowing contractors to submit proposals for a design and equipment solution, instead of an ‘enforced’ list of equipment, as in many cases. Project leader and technology consultant Piotr Lugowski, CEO of Warsaw-based MBS, states, “Thanks to that, when MBS was invited to design and deliver the technological solution, we were free to propose the client a custom set-up that includes a ‘hybrid’ electro-acoustical system, capable of ensuring top quality concert
Croatia - Lighting designer Sven Kučinić was asked to create a spectacular look for the Fusion World Music Festival in Split, a two-day event which featured 12 leading SouthEast European acts over two nights. The first fixtures that Sven drew on the lighting plot were 100 Robe MegaPointes! This is a popular festival choice, especially for wide-stage designs like this which used the same 72m-wide stage that had also featured as the centrepiece of ULTRA Europe 2022 in July. Sven was offered the gig after the organisers saw his show for Croatian superstar Petar Grašo a few months earlier, which was one of the first major post-Covid concerts in the country and consequently was a major news story and talking point. He had also used a lot of Robe moving lights on that design. For the Fusion World Music Festival, he was given carte blanche to deliver a fantasti
USA - Donny Osmond recently completed his 100th solo residency show at Harrah’s Las Vegas beneath a rig of 140 Elation luminaires with lighting design by Tom Sutherland of DX7 Design. Just getting started in what is expected to be a multi-year residency, Osmond opened the show, Donny last September less than two years after he and his sister Marie Osmond ended their hugely successful 11-year Vegas residency. The song and dance show is an energy-filled musical journey through the entertainer’s musical career and includes all new songs and highly original numbers. With the former 11-year residency an indication of how long this solo residency may last, venue operators Caesars Entertainment sought to purchase lighting gear for the 544-capacity Harrah’s Showroom as a cost-effective solution for an anticipated multi-year run. “We needed something that would b
Norway - An Anolis Ambiane and Eminere auditorium lighting installation is part of a complete revamp at the Rakkestad Theatre, a busy community hub and performance venue serving the Rakkestad municipality and surrounding areas of this thriving and diverse Norwegian agricultural heartland. Opened in 1988, general manager Magne Bjørnstad oversees everything happening at the 286-capacity venue. Last year this included the makeover and complete renovation incorporating the new auditorium lighting, for which he approached stage lighting professional and expert, Lars Kristian Bakke. Lars lives locally, and provided general advice about the lighting, which before the upgrade was not specifically optimised for any style of event. Lars has been involved with the theatre since he was about 12 years old. It was one of the places that first inspired his passion for lighting, an
New Zealand - Onehunga High School is a state co-educational secondary school serving one of the oldest suburbs in Auckland, New Zealand. Overlooking the Manukau Harbour, it was established on its Pleasant Street site in 1959 and enjoys a strong sense of tradition and continuity. As well as providing a wide-ranging curriculum for its students, the school also provides lifelong learning for the local community through its Adult Learning Centre and English Language School. A significant redevelopment of the school was completed early in 2022 at a cost of approximately $30m, which saw the creation of a number of cutting-edge facilities. Two state-of-the-art teaching facilities were constructed, one of which houses a two-basketball-court gymnasium with exercise room, locker rooms and teaching spaces, the other, a technical block catering to the sciences, woodwork, metalwork, art
New Zealand – Visitors to The Air Force Museum of New Zealand are seeing its collection of vintage planes in a whole new light, thanks to a new LED rig and Strand control solution from Vari-Lite. The museum took the opportunity during a rearrangement of the main Aircraft Hall display area to replace the existing lighting system to the LED rig to dramatically reduce power consumption and provide a more flexible, long-lasting and dynamic solution. More than 100 powerful, honeycomb-lens SL Punchlite 220 fixtures are now installed, beaming rich, blended and saturated colours onto classic airplanes such as a Spitfire, Hudson and Avenger, and washing the space with hues. To control the luminaires in the Aircraft Hall, and for multi-room control of six other spaces including further display areas, lecture theatres, restrooms and the main atrium, the technical team invested
