UK - FIX8Group is responding to the surge in demand for virtual events by partnering with the spatial visualisation and collaboration tool Cavrnus to enhance its event design and delivery solutions. The move reflects the unprecedented challenges faced presently by the event industry, as more global events transfer to the digital domain and require true collaborative, online planning. Cavrnus enables event designers to build and share immersive and interactive 3D virtual environments, such as conference rooms, exhibitions and stores. FIX8Group says that adding Cavrnus to its stable will facilitate enhanced options for anyone needing innovative technical delivery of online or hybrid events as the industry re-emerges. “We're always looking at how we can use best-of-breed technology to help us produce world-class events,” comments Neil Trenell, creative director
China - Hundreds of GLP’s JDC1 hybrid strobes were deployed by lighting designers Mat Stovall and Trevor Stirlin Burk at the new Pudong Football Stadium in Shanghai for the League of Legends World Championship 2020 Finals - the pinnacle of the eSports community and the concluding event of the season. Organised by Riot Games and ConCom Inc, the event took place on a massive scale. ‘The Worlds’ was broadcast in 16 languages and across 21 platforms setting a new record; an indicator of eSports’ increasing appeal. The live event saw 888 active JDC1 heads in use - corresponding to a lucky number in Chinese numerology. All pieces were sourced from Christie Lites, and were supplied via main contractors, CT Asia Pacific. Christie Lites’ account executive was Robert Roth, and senior project manager was Bobby Braccia; both worked closely with CT Shanghai’s Aaron Ross
UK - The city of Liverpool has a long-standing history for its vibrant nightlife and club scene. And so the opening of the refurbished Mansion nightclub was met with eager anticipation and much hype by locals and tourists alike in early Autumn 2020. Owners Dean Jones, along with DJ’s David Whelan and Mike Di Scala (better known and DJ duo Camelphat) are familiar with making sure they match, or, more often exceed the expectations of their audiences, and so their discerning choice of sound system for the refurb was made with an enormous amount of input and plenty of consideration. “As DJs one of the favourite sound systems we perform with are Void systems and so we wouldn’t have chosen any other brand for our own club,” confirms Mike. Mansion is a house and tech house nightclub, with a capacity (in usual times) of 1,000. It has been designed as a multi-purpose v
UK - The popular children’s Christmas show at Salisbury’s Salberg Theatre went ahead thanks to the efforts of the Wiltshire Creative team. Moving the holiday production from its usual 149-seat studio to the 517-seat Salisbury Playhouse Main Theatre, and cleverly rearranging the audience area, the creatives at Wiltshire were able to offer local youngsters the chance to enjoy this yuletide tradition in comfort and safety as they staged a production of Little Robin Redbreast. “Because of the devastating effect of COVID-19, we were unable to put on our usual pantomime,” said Matt Bird, senior lighting technician at Wiltshire Creative. “However, we were determined to provide families with entertainment this year in a socially distant and safe fashion, so we moved to the larger space and limited seating to 148.” The move to the Salisbury Playhouse Ma
France - Based in Ris-Orangis and owned by Communauté d’Agglomeration Grand Paris Sud, Le Plan opened in 1984, with a new venue built in 2014, and was recently awarded the prestigious contemporary music scenes label (SMAC) by the French Ministry of Culture. A hub for Parisian music lovers and a reference venue for first-class sound quality, Le Plan’s audio system has recently been upgraded with L-Acoustics K and X Series delivered by Audiolive, replacing its previous 17-year-old system. Le Plan hosts a varied national and international programme covering the entire spectrum of contemporary music genres from hip hop to pop, rock, and more. Le Plan’s audio team also has a mission of raising awareness of key developments within the contemporary music scene, and hosts specialist courses in live sound recording and mixing for students from EMC University. The venue
Ireland - When the Irish National Opera first started production of Least Like the Other, they had plans to tour the show around Ireland in August 2020. While the pandemic threatened to halt the production and performances, innovation through d&b Soundscape means that the show will go on - in a different form. Least Like the Other, Searching for Rosemary Kennedy is a thought-provoking work of experimental music theatre created by Brian Irvine and Netia Jones. The show traces events in the life of Rosemary, eldest daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy, sister of JFK, using redacted archive materials only recently pieced together. The show’s original operatic production featured 15 live musicians including, a string quartet, keyboards, wind, brass and an improvisational ensemble. In March of 2020, with growing concerns about COVID-19, the show’s product
USA/China - The World Championship (Worlds) is the crowning event of Riot Games’ League of Legends. Last year, like many other productions, the world’s most watched esports event migrated to the virtual realm and was broadcast live for over 240 hours using the most advanced and pioneering XR (Extended Reality) and MR (Mixed Reality) technologies, relying heavily on Brompton’s Tessera 4K SX40 LED processors to ensure quality image reproduction on its LED video set. League of Legends tournaments have traditionally featured a host country, with teams touring different cities for each round of the games. However, with the challenges posed for both travel and live audiences, Possible Productions, a creative developer agency that has been working with Riot Games since 2016, looked for a solution that would give a sense of evolution to the tournament while broadcasting the e
Belgium - Countries worldwide welcomed 2021 in many different, creative and Covid-safe ways, recognising the highly symbolic temporal roll-over from a year where everyone everywhere has been impacted dramatically by the pandemic. Brussels’ Laser Lights – which featured Robe moving lights among others and 12 custom lasers – was designed to be enjoyed from the comfort and safety of people’s homes, uniting everyone in spirit, feeling and determination during these extraordinary and restricted times. Fundamental to the project was that, while being a streamed event, Laser Lights should contain some core human elements relating to real life and not just be in a virtual digital environment. This special light art event at the Heysel Plateau in Brussels was instigated by the Mayor of Brussels, Brussels Major Events (the city’s public events organisati
Finland - Sirkus Finlandia, Finland’s biggest touring circus, completed a successful tour of the country late last year with a lighting rig composed almost entirely of Ayrton fixtures. The Ayrton products were supplied and supported by Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for Finland, Oy Lafoy Ltd of Helsinki. Established in 1976, Sirkus Finlandia is a family run business with an international reputation. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Sirkus Finlandia had planned a 250-date tour across 115 cities from April to November, with audience capacities of 1600. The pandemic may have delayed its plans but it certainly didn’t stop them. Determined to keep the show on the road, the company still managed to bring its colourful, uplifting show to the Finnish people over the summer, performing 108 shows in 23 cities to reduced audiences from the beginning of June until the st
South Korea - Arthur, Robert Juliat’s new 800W LED followspot, made its global debut at Big Eoul Madang (Yongin Cultural Foundation) in Seoul, which became the world’s first venue to receive the new followspot. Arthur is an 800W LED followspot with a 5.5° - 15° zoom that has been designed for long throw applications in larger venues. Complete with all the ergonomic, optical and maintenance benefits expected from Robert Juliat products, Arthur is already becoming a firm favourite with opera houses and theatres around the world. The first two Arthur followspots were shipped to Big Eoul Madang in late summer 2020, having been supplied by Robert Juliat’s exclusive Korean distributor, C&C Lightway. The pair were specified by the venue’s lighting designer, Mrs So-Jin Kang, who chose them as the perfect match for Big Eoul Madang after seeing them at LDI 2019 in
USA - When Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona decided to renovate its 50-year-old sanctuary, a principal goal was to hold both traditional and contemporary worship services in this one space - but without compromising the music programme for either. At the same time, the church wanted to enhance the acoustical flexibility of the 600-seat sanctuary in order to host a range of special concerts and even classical music recording sessions “We have a very spacious campus, with our sanctuary for traditional worship at one end and a multi-purpose space where we held contemporary services at the other end,” explains Russ Henzel, who served for 15 years as the church’s volunteer AV technician. “Because of the distance between, we had a split congregation with little interaction between the two groups during social hour. Our goal was to bring the contempora
Thailand - In the current pandemic circumstances, it is rare to hear of the successful staging of a live music festival. But, despite health and safety restrictions, the determination of promoter Mooban Wonder has enabled the Wonderfruit Festival to present most of the events in its December schedule. Audio company Mr Team Productions has been supplying Nexo STM sound reinforcement systems to Wonderfruit since 2014. For the latest edition of the five-week festival, held at the Siam Country Club in Pattaya, Pok Sutat Kohkiat and his staff had to adapt their designs to suit a reduced audience area and smaller attendance. “Wonderfruit attracts an elite international audience,” says Pok, “visitors come from all over south-east Asia for this event, because of the quality of the performers and the diversity of the entertainment, which includes arts, crafts, cooking and
USA - Noise Nest, a production complex owned by drummer, producer and entrepreneur Nick Gross, has undergone significant expansion over the last 12 months and now boasts five recording studios - all of which feature PMC monitoring. Based in Los Angeles, this facility chose PMC’s flagship QB1-A in-wall main monitors for its recently opened Studio A, while its remaining four studios use a mixture of PMC IB1S-A, twotwo.6 and twotwo.8 monitors for nearfield duties. “Choosing a PMC QB1 system for Studio A was a no- brainer because they are simply amazing,” Nick Gross says. “They sound clean and rounded, even at very high volumes. They reproduce the audio in such a pure way that you get to hear exactly what you are recording with no compromises.” He adds that everyone who has used the studio has been equally impressed, especially Noise Nest’s HipHop custome
Sweden - Harman Professional Solutions recently teamed up with Swedish lighting supplier LiteNordic and lighting designer Johan Moritz to revitalise Malmö’s Parking House Anna with a cutting-edge lighting design. Built in 1978, Parking House Anna was the first public parking garage opened in the Swedish capital of Malmö. In 2019, the aged building was renovated with a new façade made of sheet metal, plant walls and solar energy panels. The renovation was ordered by the municipal company Parkering Malmö and designed by NIRAS Arkitekter. In order to visually enhance the building’s new façade with bright and dynamic colors, Parkering Malmö hired Johan Moritz to create a fresh design using Martin Exterior Dot-HP fixtures supplied by regional distributer LiteNordic. “The goal was to revitalise the iconic Parking House Anna with organic, beautiful lighting
Zimbabwe - Gospel singer Janet Manyowa launched her new EP, Sounds of Victory with a streamed performance at Harare International Conference Centre, supported by a colourful lighting design. Blessing Bero and his team at Events Evolution served up a procession of looks for the occasion with help from a Chauvet Professional Maverick MK2 Spot, Rogue R2 Spot and Rogue R2 Wash run through Net-X 2 via sACN . Drawing on the versatility of these fixtures, Bero balanced the demands of lighting for the event’s pay-per-view livestream audience and the limited number of VIP guests invited to the launch. “Our primary focus was on the livestream viewers, but we also wanted to create a dynamic show for those who were present,” he explains. “This required a degree of flexibility from our relatively small rig.” Since Bero had only a limited number of fixtures at
USA - The Sterlington High School Panthers football team was runner up in Class 3A football in the state of Louisiana in 2018, and high school football plays a huge role in the rural community of Sterlington and Ouachita Parish. The Panthers play in Sterlington Stadium, which can pack in nearly 4,000 fans on a good night. After 15 years with a sound system that never quite lived up to expectations, local music store and AV integrator Matt’s Music designed and installed a fully-weatherised Danley Sound Labs sound reinforcement system that delivers intelligibility and big SPLs from an end zone scoreboard. “Sterlington Stadium had a pair of loudspeakers out on the scoreboard that were not working well,” said Tony Cortellini, sales engineer with the contracting division of Matt’s Music. “They had aged, but the school wasn’t able to come up with a budget to repl
Germany - As was the case for many churches around the world, COVID-19 had a significant impact on the recent Christmas celebrations at the historic Katharinenkirche in Oppenheim. The attendance capacity for some services had to be limited, while others were hosted exclusively online. However, the church found a new way of serving as a beacon of hope for the local community through a lighting project that saw the building vibrantly illuminated on the outside throughout advent and the Christmas season. The Katharinenkirche (St. Catherine’s church) is regarded as one of the most important examples of Gothic church architecture in the country. While continuing to serve the local United Protestant congregation as an active church, the imposing structure is a popular tourist attraction for visitors from across Germany and even further afield. It is also the town’s most recogn
Germany - In order to deliver immersive surround-sound experiences for cinemagoers, Filmpalast Kassel equipped 14 theatres with JBL Professional cinema audio systems. Located in the heart of Kassel, Filmpalast Kassel’s distinctive architecture and interior design makes it a popular entertainment destination and tourist attraction. The theatre includes 15 halls with a total of 1,800 seats, featuring IMAX, 4DX and ScreenX technologies. In order to deliver quality sound, Filmpalast Kassel installed new JBL Professional cinema audio systems, featuring over 500 JBL loudspeakers and 100 Crown DCI-N amplifiers. In the Dolby Atmos theatres, Filmpalast Kassel installed JBL 9320 loudspeakers to provide immersive surround sound. Custom painted JBL CBT70J loudspeakers provide even, balanced coverage while maintaining the theatre’s ornate aesthetic. JBL SCS8 and SCS12 loudspe
UK - After a three-year break, the MOBO Awards (MOBOs), the UK’s biggest celebration of black music and culture, returned in December last year – in a virtual format. The 90-minute awards ceremony was brought to life by a LED screen running on Brompton Tessera processing provided by Universal Pixels (UP), that delivered realistic looking, multiple video playbacks throughout the virtual ceremony. Hosted by former BBC Radio 1 presenter Maya Jama and YouTube creator Chunkz, and with performances by Headie One feat. M Huncho, Ms Banks, Tiwa Savage and Kojey Radical, the event was conceived by creative company CC-Lab and delivered by creative agency, Satore Studio. It was streamed live on YouTube, followed by a BBC One broadcast. “CC-Lab wanted to find a new way to present the MOBOs,” reports Tupac Martir, founder and creative director of Satore Studio. “Everyone
China - Christie GS Series 1DLP laser projectors are delivering vivid and lifelike visuals in a new dome theatre located in Xiong’an New Area, a self-sufficient and sustainable city in Hebei province developed by the government to prioritize “green development and environmental protection”. Known as the Five Senses Bubble, it has a diameter of 8.5m and a height of 6.3m and is constructed using air-film reinforced concrete, while its exterior is adorned with golden spirals to create artistic effects that represent the different senses. Inside, the visuals are powered by five Christie DWU8902-GS 1DLP laser projectors fitted discreetly around the dome theatre to display highly immersive images measuring 3.2m height. The projectors are installed and commissioned by Zhongqing Yingye Group, which has been appointed the distributor of Christie’s 1DLP projection system
UK - Car Park Panto partnered with DTS Lighting for their Horrible Christmas tour that reached more than 40,000 people over 15 venues. Coalition Agency sparked considerable press coverage for their UK Christmas tour on December 2020. At the end of a very difficult year for the entertainment industry, it was thanks to the drive-in format that 40,000 people could attend this experience which played Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Cardiff. The performance, inspired by the children’s book series Horrible Histories by Terry Deary, explores what lies beneath the holiday season through the story of a young boy who wants to save Christmas. DTS enthusiastically accepted the chance to participate as technical sponsor to the event where the vintage style of this format allowed the public to watch the show from the safety of their
USA - Last November, rock band Dance Gavin Dance performed their new album Tree City Sessions 2 in its entirety on Tower Bridge in Sacramento, California, a setting that provided a visually stunning framework for the introduction of their latest music. The PPV concert, executive produced by Danny Wimmer Presents, was lit by Justin Wade and Sacramento Production & Lighting (SPL) using a rig of Elation Professional luminaires. Formed in 2005, Dance Gavin Dance hail from Sacramento and are local favourites. Last February, the band had just started a tour to promote a new album release when the shutdown hit. Tour manager Travis Wade and Dion Cook of SPL decided to see if there was a market for pay-per-view streaming of the band, a project that culminated in a successful July PPV concert from a recording studio set up in a converted space in SPL’s warehouse.
USA - Commercial A/V integrator Verta Technologies was recently tasked with upgrading Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama with a PA system for its sanctuary and live audio needs. Christian Tuttle, CTS, managing partner, Verta Technologies and his team turned to EAW to deliver the audio to the sanctuary. The audio upgrade included four Anna 3-way full-range ADAPTive array modules, two MKD1064 2-way full range loudspeakers, two SB825 dual drive subwoofers and one UXA4410 Greybox-enabled amplifier. Southwood Presbyterian Church’s sanctuary was originally designed for spoken word, a choir and a pipe organ with natural reverberation in mind. “The result was a beautiful 50ft vaulted ceiling with an untreated tongue-and-groove wood finish,” says Tuttle. “Over the past 20 years, Southwood’s service has evolved to include a live band, and while the sa
USA - Throughout the fall and into the holiday season, Showtime Sound and director of design and production Aaron Kovelman staged Showtime At The Drive-In, a series of concerts coproduced with AutoFlex Entertainment. Held at an improvised drive-in venue at the Frederick Fairgrounds, Frederick MD, the series featured popular artists such as moe, Grace Potter, KIX, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Goose, Dark Star Orchestra, Mt. Joy and Blackberry Smoke. Holding over 300 cars spread out over a wide area, the drive-in offered an experience that’s far from the ideal concert setting, but extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. “All of us are determined to provide people with the best possible show, regardless of the circumstances,” said Kovelman. “With everyone so spread out at this site, we had to create visuals that were very bold and looked good from any
