UK - The O2 Arena in London witnessed its largest audience at a single sporting event in history when hosting the UFC Fight Night on 19 March. TSL were back at the O2 to put together an impressive rig with lighting over centre stage. The main component of the lighting system - Tungsten 6 Lamp Bars of Source 4 Pars evenly lit up the Octagon suitably. It had been three years since UFC had returned to the O2 and as with any event it was imperative that everything ran like clockwork. Dom Sheerman, account director for TSL says, “Having been a regular event in the calendar it was great to be delivering a UFC show again, the last show previous to this was at the end of 2019 in Moscow so it’s been a long break.” TSL assembled its established core team of technicians that have worked on UFC events multiple times to deliver lighting designer Jason Eible’s distinct
USA - Tenth Planet Productions, production designer John Calkins, Bianca Moncada and the team at screen content creator Darmah, and lighting designer Allen Branton supported the performances at the 2022 iHeart Radio Music Awards. For his part, Branton relied on light from his 4Wall Entertainment supplied rig, which included over 70 Chauvet Professional fixtures, to enhance the “virtual stage” environment created through the video and scenic design. “This show was the result of an interesting collaboration between lighting and scenic design, along with the screen content creations by Darmah,” says Branton. “The design team essentially built the show around a virtual environment. Creatively arranging video tiles, the team created a virtual proscenium on the venue’s actual stage, with lighting working inside it.” Created to meet the needs of a broadcas
USA - Broadcast live for the first time ever from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the 64th Grammy Awards featured artist performances supported by the sound of Shure wireless audio technology. As in years prior, the majority of the night’s performances featured Shure Axient Digital wireless microphones, including Jon Batiste, winner of Album of The Year. The evening kicked off with a performance from Bruno Mars and Anderson. Paak as Silk Sonic. The retro soul-funk artists relied on Shure wireless microphones as they performed their hit, 777. Later that evening, Silk Sonic won four Grammys. Behind the scenes, Chris Rabold, FOH mixer for Silk Sonic, was overseeing their performance with the support of Shure Axient Digital. “Having Bruno and Anderson and the whole Silk Sonic gang on Axient Digital for not only the Grammys, but for their Las Ve
USA - Holy Cross Lutheran sits on a hilltop overlooking the city of College Station, TX. Chandler Mann and the team at Covenant Communications were commissioned to light the church. “This is a very special building with its cavernous architecture, traditions, and modern ambience,” said Mann. “I love being pushed to utilise white canvases, such as the one we have here, with lighting. Black backdrops are fun and have their perfect place, but all lighting designers worth their salt dream of filling an ethereal space with atmosphere and power. “Working heavily with white architectural environments over the past five years has truly forced me to hand the reins over and to trust the artistic licences of architects and designers,” continued Mann. “They’re pursuing an art, just as I am, and I’m honoured to help their creations shine.” Aiding Mann in his
UK - Audiologic has announced their collaboration with GVAV, to deliver an enhanced lecture theatre audio system to Plymouth Marine Laboratory for the Marine Matters Centre (MMC). The Plymouth Marine Laboratory, a flexible conference venue with facilities to host up to 200 attendees, required an upgrade to their AV system in order to support their diverse application use. GVAV approached Audiologic to work with their teams to work up a design and specification that would provide a premium audio solution to support presentations, workshops and a variety of meetings and events. This included content streaming capabilities via a unified communications system such as Teams or Zoom, with the additional option of live streaming to YouTube. Offering a versatile solution with precise coverage was key to ensure that speech intelligibility is maintained throughout the large spa
USA - Reba McEntire is currently on tour with a lighting system from Bandit Lites. In 2019, when lighting designers Gayle Hase and Dave Hare began planning the lighting for the 2020 tour, they were unified in thinking that nothing should attempt to rival Reba’s powerhouse performance. “Too many of today’s productions are more about the bells and whistles than the talent that is on stage,” said Hare. “We felt that a proper balance of production would only enhance the tremendous talent that is onstage and deliver a great experience to the audience.” Bandit Lites supplied more than 200 fixtures, which differed from basic spot and wash lighting rigs. Fixtures included Mac Viper Profiles, Elation Proteus Maximus, Elation SixBar 1000, Elation CuePix WW4, Robe BMFL spots, Elation Smartys and Elation Proteus Rayzor 760. “We wanted to make sure we had a p
The Netherlands - At the Enchanted Gardens light art festival, the ‘sound’ of flowers harmonised with the human voice, thanks to the work of Dynamic Beeld, Licht & Geluid. Designing the Rosarium section of this 17-day festival, which takes place at the 42-hectare Kasteeltuinen Arcen garden complex, Dynamic Beeld, Licht & Geluid combined colourful lighting with a song written by Dutch recording artist Stef Classens. “To honour the 90th anniversary of Het Limburgs Landschap, Stef Classens wrote a song called In The Forest,” said Paul Winters of Dynamic Beeld, Licht & Geluid. “This song formed the basis of the light show that we programmed. The chosen colour scheme worked really well with the lyrics of the song. This created a beautiful synergy between light and sound.” Key to creating this evocative color scheme of graduated reds and
Norway - V Sport, a group of television channels owned by Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT) and a part of the pan-Nordic V Sport brand, has fitted two of their new spaces with Prolights studio fixtures. When Nordic Entertainment Group were about to build their new studios located in Halse, Oslo, they turned to Hilux AS and Jørn Wangensteen for lighting design. Jørn is a lighting designer with vast experience in studio and film production, and already had experience with the EclPanels from several high-profile productions. “We immediately talked with Prostage, Prolights' distributor in the region, and told them the EclPanels were the perfect fit for this job,” said Jørn. “The panels' reputation is outstanding and ticked all of the boxes for this project.” Studio 1 was built mainly to house the new Visat winter sports studio and is fitted exclusively wit
USA - Since its inception in 1920, Istrouma Baptist Church has grown from its humble origins as a small Sunday school class into a congregation some 4,500 members strong spread across two campuses. Occupying some of the most visible property in Baton Rouge near the Interstate 12-Airline Highway interchange, the church’s main campus recently became the recipient of an audio upgrade implemented by Pink Palace Media (PPM), a multifaceted production design company also based here in Louisiana’s capital city. Central to the upgrade is a new digital front-end incorporating an Allen & Heath dLive S7000, which joins a legacy EAW-based L-C-R system serving the main campus’ 1,600 seat sanctuary. To better support the church’s live streaming needs, a dLive C3500 additionally made its way into the broadcast control room. Bringing further form and function to the blueprint -
UK - Avolites has announced its first AVOLab partnership with Visional, a multidisciplinary experience-focused creative production agency headquartered in Atlanta. An AVOLab is ‘a hub for expertise, training and product knowledge, around which a community of skilled practitioners is built’. Visional, based in Atlanta with studios in Denver, Orlando, and Los Angeles, have been using Avolites lighting and video products for almost a decade. Visional specialises in creative design, live production, virtual engagements, interactive experiences, and immersive environmental installations. “By combining cutting-edge technology, like Avolites Ai, with years of expertise, we help our clients create mind blowing visual experiences.” said Kyle Means, co-founder and principal of Visional. “This partnership has existed for some years now, and it’s nice to put i
London-based Sparks Theatrical (Lighting) Hire has purchased seven Martin MAC Ultra Performance from UK distributors Sound Technology Ltd, which have gone straight onto the acclaimed new production of Straight Line Crazy at the influential Bridge Theatre. The Bridge is the first theatre run by London Theatre Company which was founded by Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr back in 2017. The lighting plays a prominent role in the production, lit by fast emerging LD Jessica Hung Han Yun. Said Sparks MD, Paul Anderson, “Because I design and also run a rental company I can see in the field what the designers and technicians are working with. When we were asked to supply the next show at the Bridge I suggested the MAC Ultra Performance and Jessica said “absolutely”. In addition to using six Martin MAC Ultra Performance (with the seventh as a spare) Jessica is featuring 15 MA
USA - A large complement of Claypaky’s Sharpy Plus hybrid beam lights and spotlights were something to cheer about when Richmond-based Lite-Tek Entertainment deployed them on the Spirit Sports Ultimate Battle cheerleading competition on 25 March. The Myrtle Beach (SC) Convention Centre hosted Ultimate Battle, a one-night event showcasing the talented teams that have reached the pinnacle of cheerleading excellence and are headed to the 2022 Cheerleading World Championships in Orlando. Lite-Tek spends most of the winter months working on cheerleading events throughout the southeast; the rest of the year the company acts as a tour vendor and local lighting vendor for numerous music venues. Lite-Tek was the first company in the US to take delivery of Claypaky’s Sharpy Plus, and the fixtures have been busy ever since. Lite-Tek founder Darren Lewis designed the rig, acte
Austria - Designer/programmer Niklas Fuchs was called upon to light Red Bull Symphonic, an event where ‘Austropop meets Classics’, held on three consecutive February nights at Vienna’s historic Wiener Konzerthaus concert hall. In this capacity, he would have to reflect the music of a symphonic orchestra in light, in addition to supporting the usual pop and rock artists that he typically lit. “I was asked to light the three concerts they did with Max Steiner Orchestra conducted by Christian Kolonovits,” said Fuchs. “For me it was a new challenge to design a lighting system for an orchestra, especially challenging was lighting the orchestra and the band in a way that is suitable for a TV recording as well as a live audience.” Helping Fuchs rise to the occasion was his ChamSys PC Wing Compact and Extra Wing Compact. “I used the Extra Wing only for Master I
USA - Evolve Technology is a video gear rental company serving the live event and virtual production industries, with offices across the U.S. The company’s ethos is built around the three equal pillars of rent, buy, and learn, where clients can get customised packages to meet their production needs, as well as hands-on education and training so that teams feel confident using any new piece of equipment. In the past several years Evolve has successfully expanded into virtual production consulting and training. Recently, the company opened its new Evolve CX (Customer Experience) space in the Atlanta BeltLine. Evolve CX is a technology laboratory aimed at education and training specifically for the virtual production market, where professionals can gain valuable hands-on experience and creative studios can develop and demo content for their clients. The Evolve CX team, led by
UK - The London School of Economics’ LSE Cities runs the Executive MSc in Cities, an 18-month modular education programme for senior urban professionals who want to better understand and deliver change in cities. The travel disruption arising from the COVID pandemic prevented almost all international students attending in person the programme’s five-week teaching modules. This challenge became an opportunity to transition the Executive MSc in Cities to a blended remote teaching format, choosing Shure Microflex Complete Wireless (MXCW) as the solution for fostering the “hybrid-flex” learning model at LSE Cities. Microflex Complete Wireless System (MXCW), combined with the videoconferencing experience and technology of global solutions provider AVer Europe, enables all participants in the classroom to communicate and collaborate with far end participants in a natural
USA - The new Future Nightclub, located in the Underground Atlanta district of Atlanta, Georgia, is a crowd-favourite dance and entertainment venue for the city’s music lovers. Future Nightclub worked diligently to design an impressive production with video, lighting, and audio for the two-story venue. The Future Nightclub management team worked alongside local AV systems integration company, House of Music Productions, to accomplish this lofty goal by selecting the Pioneer Pro Audio XY Series sound system. Future Nightclub owners Keith Young and Hoosh Mishu approached House of Music Productions in late 2019 to begin the system design process after acquiring a large, oddly-shaped, two-story retail space with a large staircase in the middle to be the club’s location. However, as renovations began to take form, the space was almost completely gutted, giving the new nightcl
USA - JEM Productions Texas upgraded G&B Productions’ newly renovated studio with three sets of JBL Professional loudspeakers and a JBL Intonato 24 monitor management and tuning system. G&B Productions is co-owned by producers G.Luck and BDon, who have worked with a variety of high-profile artists as well as local Houston musicians. With their business growing, the production duo decided to upgrade their studio with improved acoustical design, custom lighting and enhanced sound. According to Gavin Luckett (G.Luck), the goal was threefold: to upgrade the studio’s main monitors for more transparent sound, to satisfy artists with loud and bass-heavy playback, and to create a flexible monitor management system to switch between sources and speakers. “We were looking for a speaker system that would impress our clients,” said Luckett, co-owner, G&B Produc
UK - Bristol-based experiential and party planning specialists, PYTCH, recently supplied local event organisers, Alfresco Disco with a full Martin Audio rig for a classic warehouse-based dance party. Comprising two stages, the sound needed to be carefully EQ’d to cope with the all-nighter’s early proceedings - when it was little more than an empty, echoey warehouse - to ramping up the volume once the venue was packed with around 2,150 revellers. But then, according to Chelsea Hopkins at PYTCH, care had to be taken to avoid sound escape in a densely packed residential area. “Although the bass was powerful the sound was directional and well contained - resulting in minimal disruption for local residents,” she confirmed. This was assisted by a cardioid pattern sub array which reduced any troublesome low frequencies. She added that PYTCH has been staging par
Croatia - Pop superstar Petar Grašo wanted to make a spectacular impact with his first post-pandemic live shows - which were also the first arena music shows in the country as pandemic restrictions were lifted – so his brief to lighting designer Sven Kučinić was to “make it absolutely awesome”. Sven, who took on the full visual design - lighting, set and video - chose to use nearly 200 Robe moving lights to help him achieve the desired results - which were supplied to the production together with the other lighting kit by Zagreb-based rental company, Promo Logistika. The Zagreb Arena shows were followed by performances in Split and Slovenia in this high-profile mini-tour which delighted the artist’s many fans in the region, going ahead in truly “seat of the pants” fashion as the Covid restrictions relating to large audiences were lifted on the morning of
Germany - Ayrton recently received this message from lighting designer Phil Kong of Kong Design: “We just used 20 Ayrton Diablos on Ghost: Nachricht von Sam for ShowSlot and I wanted to let you know I was very happy with them for all of the things they were able to do, and how fast they were. The flat field, the gobos, the colour rendering - a lot of good things going on with them - and the size and price point are great. I was so glad to have these Ayrton fixtures on the show.” Co-written by Glen Ballard and Eurythmics' Dave Stewart, Ghost: Nachricht von Sam is a re-telling of the film classic which is currently touring several major German-speaking cities until the end of April. As the tour’s lighting designer, Kong rigged five of Ayrton's versatile, feature-rich, ultra-compact 300W Diablo fixtures across the downstage truss, three across the ups
Taiwan - Robert Juliat reports that 36 of its Dalis 860 cyclorama lights, complete with mini yoke and Quickrig systems, have been supplied to the National Taichung Theatre in Taiwan by DLHG Co. The National Taichung Theatre (NTT) has three main venues: the 2007-seat Grand Theatre, the 794-seat Playhouse and the 200-seat Black Box theatre. The main location for the Dalis 860 fixtures will be the Grand Theatre which hosts a broad programme of musicals, opera, ballet, modern dance and drama. The Dalis 860 cyclorama fixtures will be installed in truss and groundrow positions to light the venue’s impressive 18m wide x 10m high cyclorama with a smooth, even, highly controllable coverage. “However, the mini yoke and Quickrig system make it easy for us to transfer the Dalis units to our other venues as required,” says the venue’s head of lighting, Simon Hsieh. No
Colombia - The Suba district of Colombia’s capital city of Bogotá is celebrated for its inclusiveness, home to all social classes and Colombia’s indigenous peoples. It’s also where Iglesia El Lugar de Su Presencia wanted to make sure its message would be clearly heard and understood by everyone filling the nearly 4,000 seats of its newest church location. Following an onsite comparative evaluation of four brands of loudspeaker systems -and later witnessing the L-Acoustics K2 arrays in use at Christ Fellowship Church in Port St. Lucie, Florida - El Lugar de Su Presencia chose L-Acoustics for its Suba campus, which celebrated its grand opening on 20 February. Bogotá-based AVCOM, an L-Acoustics certified provider for install (CPi), integrated a full complement of L-Acoustics K, A, and X Series loudspeaker systems at the new church, which was constructed on the sit
UK - Spectacular sell-out lighting trail Woodyfest saw Vari-Lite VL2600 Profile fixtures from Signify deliver stunning projections, punchy colour-rich washes and breakup patterns on the rear façade of Scotland’s finest stately home, Hopetoun House in South Queensferry. These effects were augmented by far-reaching aerial light effects, created by the Vari-Lite VL10 BeamWash, which reportedly attracted the local community’s attention some distance away, and even caused some to speculate that the aliens were coming! Woodyfest, produced by Wondrous Woods, with creative design and technical production from 21CC Group, ran for the second year within the magnificent woods and grounds surrounding Hopetoun House. The popular, and celebrated, annual lighting event took audiences on a magical journey along winding pathways, each of which led to exciting and dynamic
UK - Stars including The Who, Yungblud, Paul Weller, Liam Gallagher and Ed Sheeran took to the stage at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust, backed by Production AV’s cameras, screens, servers and crew. Taking place over seven consecutive nights, the series of live music and comedy gigs were performed as fundraisers for the Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT), which provides care for people aged 13-24 with cancer. It was the second time Production AV supplied kit and crew for the events. This year’s set up comprised Production AV’s Desay M6 LED panels as a central 8m x 4.5 screen flown above The Royal Albert Hall’s iconic stage and a large, curved 23.2m x 0.9m banner of LED screen across the back of the main stage, to help drive donations. This was supported with a camera package for the relay of real-life stories and live perfor
