Belgium - After decades of civic campaigning, the residents of Deinze near Ghent recently achieved a long- awaited dream when the €10m Leietheater opened. Located in the town centre, the theatre creates an immediate impression from the outside with its minimalist architecture. Inside, its multifaceted, modern productions are supported by a collection of Chauvet Professional Ovation fixtures specified by the theatre itself, and supplied by Sotesa. The task of fitting a modern lighting rig for the 500-capacity theatre fell to the theatre's head of technology, Jef Donné. Having previously used Chauvet Professional fixtures in the live event sector, Donné was well aware of the advantages that the Ovation fixtures. "Being able to create our rig from scratch allowed us to harness the advantages associated with the Ovation's LED technology, which essentially gave us the
Switzerland - An Allen & Heath dLive mixing system set the rink alight for ice-skating gala, Art on Ice, which celebrated its 25th anniversary this month with a series of shows taking place across Zurich, Lausanne, Basel and Davos. Combining live performances from internationally acclaimed artists, world-class dancers and figure-skaters, including the 2018 Gold Olympic medallist Alina Zagitova, Art on Ice offers “a unique and immersive storytelling experience”. Produced by Swiss AV production company, Habegger AG (and with Session Pro helping to supply gear), the full setup featured a dLive S7000 paired with a DM64 MixRack, fitted with a superMADI card for multi-track recording and a Waves V3 card for external plugins. Operated by long-time A&H user and FOH engineer, Sascha Kohl, dLive was used to handle all sources including the musici
UK - Wicked, winner of multiple Tony, Drama Desk and Grammy awards, has become a Broadway staple, poised to celebrate its 17th year on the Great White Way in October at its home at the Gershwin Theatre. The show’s nearly half-dozen licensed touring versions have drawn almost as many award accolades. The latest touring edition of the show is scheduled to hit 15 cities, from Baltimore to Vancouver. These shows put the musical’s songs through a new DiGiCo Quantum 7T console. Purchased through Milwaukee-based Clearwing Productions, the compact audio desk features DiGiCo’s sophisticated theatre software, a package designed specifically to meet the demands of theatrical workflows, with features such as an auto update system, aliases, the players tool and a VCA programming map. “We spent the better part of two years planning the upgrade for the touring show, an
Slovakia - The Slovak Volleyball Federation recently contracted laser specialists, Kvant, to provide a spectacular multimedia show for the Superfinals of the Slovak Cup, at the Eurovia Arena in Bratislava. The clients were looking for a high-quality ‘curtain raiser’ for the opening of the men’s and women’s finals, and to entertain the audience between the breaks. Following the finals, there was a live performance as the winners were announced. Helping to boost the extravaganza were 24 Aqua 580 Beam from PR Lighting. The spectacular itself was designed by Martin Gabco, Kvant's show designer, with lighting, laser beam and graphics all operating to time-code. While Kvant fielded 10 of their ClubMax 10W lasers and four Spectrum 30W lasers, some of the PR Lighting pieces were set on the balconies around the hall, some combined in a floor package behind the LED peri
Germany - Kings of Floyd are a Pink Floyd tribute band based in Germany. Led by Brit, Mark Gillespie, this assembly of international musicians has earned a reputation for presenting an accurate and atmospheric representation of the supergroup. The band regularly undertake national tours, playing popular theatre venues to sold out audiences. In order to replicate and do justice to the magic and majesty of Pink Floyd, Kings of Floyd and their experienced crew place audio quality high on their list of priorities. FOH engineer Howard Heckers, notable for his work with Supertramp co-founder Roger Hodgson amongst others, is the band’s audio lynchpin and his work in helping to produce the authentic Floyd sound is essential. Central to his setup for Kings of Floyd is a DiGiGrid IOS unit, as he explains: “I’ve been a DiGiGrid user for a while now, having started touring
USA - RØDE Microphones has announced that the doors to the RØDE House have opened. The RØDE House is live music and performance space within the Momentary, a new contemporary art space in Bentonville, Arkansas which officially opened to the public on Saturday 22 February. The Momentary was founded by the Walton Family, based on the vision of Tom, Olivia, and Steuart Walton. The Walton Family Foundation is supporting the project as a way to enhance the quality of life in Northwest Arkansas. Occupying a decommissioned 63,000sq.ft cheese factory in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Momentary is a satellite to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded by Alice Walton. The RØDE House is a multidisciplinary performance space within the old Milk Intake Room of the factory. In 2018, RØDE founder and chairman Peter Freedman became a founding funder of the Momentary alongsid
Austria - When German car manufacturer Audi looked to draw attention to their first fully electric model car, Audi e-tron, at the Audi guest experience in Kitzbühel, lighting designer Chris Moylan of Optikalusion says the only option he really had was Elation’s Proteus Hybrid. “It’s the only fixture that would have worked for this,” he says, explaining that he needed a powerful, IP65-rated lighting fixture he could place every few meters along very difficult terrain full of snow and ice, something that could tolerate the harsh environment of the Austrian Alps, including subfreezing temperatures. “The Proteus Hybrid is tough. It’s weatherproof, bright and reliable, the ideal fixture for this type of event.” Produced by creative agency Dreinull and event lead agency Die Favoriten, Moylan handled lighting design for the event together with Dreinull, who c
Indonesia - The Voices recently equipped the Karnaval SCTV stage with a JBL by Harman audio system to deliver powerful sound with balanced coverage for a variety of musical acts. Karnaval SCTV is a popular variety show on Surya Citra Televisi (SCTV) that is broadcast live from several major cities throughout Indonesia each month. The shows feature a star-studded cast of celebrity guest appearances as well as live musical performances. To commemorate the 18th anniversary of the city of Lubuklinggau, Karnaval SCTV broadcast live from Silampari Sports Park, welcoming a host of celebrities including musicians, television personalities and soap opera stars to the stage. “The client required a powerful sound system that could reach every member of the audience,” comments Liauw Wu Shen, owner, The Voices. “The system had to be dynamic and ada
Czech Republic - David Kachlir has delivered a lively lighting design for the current production of Mamma Mia!, which is playing on the 680-seat Musical Stage at Městské Divadlo (City Theatre) in Brno, Czech Republic. At the heart of the Musical Stage lighting rig are some of Robe LED luminaires including new T1 Profiles and T1 Fresnels, DL7S Profiles and LEDBeam 150s, part of an investment process in the brand that started in 2015. It’s the first time that David has lit the foot-tapping musical written by British playwright Catherine Johnson, based on the songs of Abba and set on a Greek island. He has enjoyed the challenge, working alongside a strong creative team including director Petr Gazdik, also one of the Czech Republic’s best-known actors, and set designer Emil Konecny. “Petr had some very clear ideas about lighting right at the sta
Albania - Tirana recently welcomed a new two-tier leisure venue, with the restaurant and night club Lost hosting live bands and DJs, and Tema Lounge - occupying a separate space in the same building - providing background music by day, notching up to foreground music after dark. The sound in both venues (along with control and production lighting) is reinforced by a Martin Audio BlacklineX system, specified and installed by Prosound, the manufacturer’s Albanian distributor. The company’s audio system installer, Armand Dosti, was entirely comfortable specifying Blackline, having earlier introduced other high-profile venues to the same solution. Furthermore, Prosound already had a relationship with Lost/Tema owner Filip Fermanis from earlier projects. Surveying the two spaces - the former holding 200 people and the latter with a slightly reduced capacity - the
USA - grandMA3 consoles made their Super Bowl Halftime Show debut at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium where they joined a complement of grandMA2 consoles to control video elements, stage effects and the LED wristbands worn by approximately 65,000 spectators. Super Bowl LIV featured one of the most talked about Pepsi Halftime Shows in years with Shakira and Jennifer Lopez turning up the heat with their high-energy, bilingual performances on the main stage. Jason Rudolph, a lighting director for the halftime show for the last decade, was equipped with a pair of grandMA3 light consoles and four grandMA3 processing unit M to control all the video elements in the show as well as the LED lighting not from moving head fixtures. “We pixelmapped the KNV LED cubes on media servers and fed that via Art-Net to the grandMA3, where I merged it so that I coul
USA - Every week for the past seven years, Jimmy Fallon steps onstage in Studio 6B at Rockefeller Centre in midtown Manhattan and leads a viewing audience of over 2.4m through an hour of comedy, talk, and music, always opening and closing the show with Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, the show’s jazzy/funky theme song, composed and performed by The Roots, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’s Grammy Award-winning house band. Sound is managed through the show’s three DiGiCo SD7 consoles paired with five SD-Racks. Artless Poole, Jr. has been with The Roots for 20 years, mixing the band’s live shows as their front-of-house engineer, and is there for them on The Tonight Show as the house mixer for the band, as well as the show’s diverse guest artists, and everything else that happens on that stage. It all goes through Poole’s SD7 console, supported by a Di
Norway - Sound engineer Tom Meyer has built up a large collection of DPA microphones over the years and has always been very happy with the results they deliver. He is now spreading the word to artists he works with and has recently persuaded pop singer Lisa Skoglund to switch to one of the company’s new 2028 Vocal Microphones. “As soon as the 2028 Vocal Microphone was released, I ordered one for Lisa and she is so happy with it that she takes it with her wherever she is singing,” Meyer says. “I take a selection of DPA microphones with me on every gig I do because they make my job much easier - and they are popular with my clients, as well.” Based in Bardu in northern Norway, Tom Meyer has been tackling live sound engineering projects since 1990 and now runs his own company, TM Tour Production. He first became aware of DPA through the 4011 Cardioid Microphone
UK - P&J Live at TECA, the North of Scotland’s new events venue, has invested in over 700 Prolights fixtures to provide in-house production services for events ranging from conferences to gala dinner dances. P&J Live’s deputy operations manager technical, Steve Morrison needed a moving wash fixture to provide flexible, high-quality lighting during events. He specified 140 Prolights PixieWashXB units after being impressed by their versatility, size and quality of light output. The additional 560 LED fixtures included RA2000 moving LED profiles, Eclipse HD LED ellipsoidals, Eclipse 1K and 2K LED Fresnels, StudioCob LED PARs, Lumipix 16H LED battens and SmartBat Plus battery uplighters. Stev
USA - After debuting last year at The Strat in Las Vegas, Celestia, a Cirque du Soleil-type entertainment show, has emerged as one of the city’s top North Strip attractions. With a troupe of performers highlighted by ‘an otherworldly lighting design’ by Tom Sutherland of DX7 Design, the fast-moving circus-style production is a carnival of thrills. The LD entered the project somewhat late as part of a creative team hired a relatively short time prior to opening night to ‘cast their eyes over the production’ and enhance the show’s look. “They had brilliant acts and a state-of-the-art theatrical tent but there was no real glue or production value,” Sutherland states, explaining that the new creative team only had a few weeks to implement their ideas, which included an extra build and additional lighting fixtures. “We stripped out some rigging, pu
USA - SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire, has filled many roles since it opened in 2001. Not surprisingly, being in the heart of the state that holds the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, it has hosted rallies for virtually every candidate in this century who’s aspired to take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue not to mention sports, concerts, and conventions of every type. On Wednesday 5 February, the spacious arena assumed a somewhat different appearance. Instead of swelling with crowds of 10,000 or more as it does for political rallies and concerts, it welcomed a more intimate gathering for a sales event for IT services provider Connection. Once inside the arena, the conference’s thousand or so guests were immersed in a welcoming environment that featured an Events United lighting, video, audio, and scenic design anchored by over 70 fixtures and 56
USA - Theatre lighting design specialist Tyler Micoleau recently collaborated with New York-based Public Theatre’s Public Works programme, lighting a production of the musical Hercules, a world-premiere presentation of a stage musical adaptation of the Disney film, developed in a collaboration between The Public Theatre and Disney Theatrical Productions. To add poignancy, the venue chosen was the outdoor Delacorte Theatre in New York’s Central Park, and helping Tyler to achieve his objectives were 34 Fusion by GLP FP7 Par and 20 Fusion by GLP FS10 Stick battens, operating alongside the repertory house rig. Tyler has a long history of working on productions with Lear deBessonet, founding director of Public Works, and has designed four productions for The Public Theatre at the Delacorte. The LD said: “Musicals are not the typical production at the Del
UK - Marking the 15th year of Christie’s partnership with the National Film and Television School (NFTS), this year’s Christie prize for Most Promising Student was awarded to Michael Pearce, NFTS graduate in digital effects. Michael received a monetary prize, a certificate, and a crystal trophy to celebrate the win at the NFTS Graduation Ceremony. Already employed as a colourist, Michael has already gained vital experience having worked on numerous short films, music videos, commercials, documentaries and feature film credits. John Rowe, head of digital effects at NFTS said of the win: “Michael has earned his reputation as a diligent and trustworthy ally, working tirelessly across every genre to help finish projects to the highest possible standards. His determination to succeed and his resourceful nature have resulted in him earning a full-time contract at world-leadi
UK - The Lastminute.com London Eye dazzled its vast visiting crowds this year with a first-of-its kind, eight-metre tall Christmas tree adjacent to the attraction. With plans to transform the tree every hour into an attention-grabbing light show to music, the Merlin Entertainments team turned to TLS Lighting, for a bespoke LED lighting solution that would fully pixel-map the tree’s surface. Merlin Entertainment’s David Rigby explains: “We wanted large scale pixel-mapping and TLS Lighting created a custom-designed and manufactured lighting system in a conical shape that was supplied to us as plug and play. We know we can always trust TLS Lighting to create exactly what we need with the feature sets we are looking for. They don’t let us down.” The tree twinkled with almost 4000 RGB LED light modules and was adorned with a total of 64 strings of lights, varying
World - For the current world tour by Charli XCX, lighting designer Elliott Mountford is enjoying the power and consistency of the VL2600 Profile luminaire from Vari-Lite. The tour is in support of Charli XCX’s third studio album Charli. Having worked with Charli and creative director Jed Skrzypczak through the summer, Mountford knew what was required, but also the limitations. “Charli hates key light,” he says, “so most of my show is backlit, with a very silhouetted look. I love big, backlit looks in white, but they have to be super-wide for every audience member to see the effect.” In achieving this, Mountford was impressed by the VL2600 Profile’s powerful output and wide zoom range. “I wanted great contrast between the lights and the rest of the rig - we had 100-plus strobes that they had to compete with,” says Mountford. “They cut through e
USA - Michael Brown is a lighting designer who loves to experiment and take some creative risks in the quest for imagining new and exciting performance environments and that’s exactly what he did for the US leg of Bon Iver’s recent tour, part of the campaign for new album i, i, where 49 x Robe MegaPointes and 25 x Kinetic Lights custom moving mirrors were at the core of his design combining the diverse visual disciplines of art, architecture and concert lighting. Michael has worked with the band since 2012, following a chance backstage encounter a few years earlier with lead singer Justin Vernon. It’s been a fertile and stimulating partnership, for which they implicitly trust in his creative judgment. He first encountered the Kinetic Lights winch system in 2017 while researching cool art projects for the Eaux Claires Festival in Wisconsin for which he was
USA - As the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs battled it out for the NFL Championship, the Pepsi Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show brought a little Latin flavour to Miami’s 65,000-seat Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday 2 February, thanks to an explosive show by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, aided by Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny and Colombian star J. Balvin, and a cast of near 170 musicians, dancers, and performers. This massive production - an eagerly awaited annual event - was broadcast live by Fox to 100m viewers worldwide, all of whom witnessed a lighting show which had at its centre over 120 Ayrton Perseo IP65-rated multi-function profile fixtures. The spectacular production was created by the Super Bowl team headed by show designer, Bruce Rodgers of Tribe, Inc. and lighting designer, Bob Barnhart of 22 Degrees. “We quickly decided the Ayrton lighting rig
USA - The Bronxville Union Free School District encourages their students to participate in a number of extracurricular activities including the performing arts programmes produced by the High School, Middle School and Elementary School departments. Wanting to supply their student technicians with the latest in production technology used to accentuate the performing arts, The Bronxville School Foundation awarded a grant submitted by student technician AJ Radik for the addition of Siren Series LED followspots from Altman Lighting. “I’m a junior at Bronxville UFSD and I started doing tech for the theatre productions back in the sixth grade,” began Radik. “I am mainly focused on the sound and lighting designs of the productions and last year as we were doing a production of Little Shop of Horrors, one of our old spotlights starting smoking and became inoperable fo
UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has supplied two Green Hippo Hippotizer V4 Karst+ Display Port media servers to full-service event production agency, T.H.Collective, to provide flexible, high-resolution video playback for a myriad of client events. T.H.Collective was looking to invest in a robust system for large-format video playback on high resolution LED walls and edge-blended projection. These applications required the screen content to be displayed at a higher pixel count than a single video port could carry. Matt Emmerson, head of video at T.H.Collective approached AC-ET to recommend a suitable playback solution to meet the company’s technically demanding requirements. He comments: “The decision to use Hippotizer media servers came down to the flexibility in operating them. Triggers can be run using programmed timelines, individual DMX ch
