New Zealand - AV integrator Skopik and Harman distributor JPRO recently outfitted the newly-opened Old Elephant House restaurant at the Auckland Zoo with a multi-zone indoor/outdoor audio system featuring JBL loudspeakers and Crown amplifiers. Opened in 1922 and expanded in 1973, Auckland Zoo occupies a 40-acre lot near Auckland’s Central Business District. The zoo’s former elephant house was recently converted into a unique restaurant and versatile event space called the Old Elephant House. To ensure sound quality and even distribution throughout the indoor and outdoor areas of the restaurant, the Auckland Zoo hired AV integration company Skopik to design and install a multi-zone audio system featuring JBL loudspeakers and Crown amplifiers supplied by Harman distributor JPRO. “The brief was simple,” says Jeff Sundrum, AV service and installations manager
Israel - Robe continues to make an impression on the theatre scene in Israel with the specification and installation of DL7S Profiles and LEDWash 1200 moving lights - 54 in total - in the Bet Lessin Theatre, Tel Aviv, the city and Israel’s third-largest theatre venue, just reopened after complete refurbishment, a project ongoing over the last three years. The tender for supplying and installing new lighting and stage machinery was initially issued in 2015 and won via by Danor Theatre and Studio Systems who proposed Robe moving lights to bring modern-day flexibility and dynamics to the two constantly busy stages. Influential in the decision to choose the Robe option was leading lighting designer Amir Brenner, who was brought onboard the project as a lighting consultant. He worked in the theatre extensively during his early career in the 1990s lighting numerous product
USA - The Interrupters wanted a new look for their shows when they contacted Peter Therrien and JDI Productions through an intermediary. “I was touring with Flogging Molly when someone, I still don’t know who, gave the band contact info for JDI and me,” says Therrien. “Their management reached out to us. My Flogging Molly tour was over and I had time, so here we are.” The LA-based quartet are in the midst of an extended North American tour in support of their Top Ten Fight The Good Fight album. For Therrien, the tour not only represents the chance to spread his creative wings with a first-time client, but also an opportunity to run a different kind of show with his new ChamSys MagicQ MQ80 console. “Cody James of JDI tried the ChamSys MagicQ MQ 500 Stadium lasts year, and told Derek Iorfida (owner of JDI Productions) great things about it, so Derek p
Mexico - Arguably one of the most anticipated festivals in Mexico, Fiestas de Octubre is a cultural and recreational celebration held in October in the state of Jalisco with its headquarters in the capital, Guadalajara. Bringing together more than one million people, the 32-day festival is filled with a bountiful display of popular culture and fine arts, mariachi music, and a spectacular spread of traditional food, Mexican beer and wine. This year, the explosive energy of the festival was matched by the sound quality of an L-Acoustics K2 loudspeaker system. The AEEJ (Agencia Estatal de Entretenimiento de Jalisco) was in charge of operating Fiestas de Octubre 2019, which has been running since 1965 in the Benito Juárez Auditorium, as well as in different locations of the state of Jalisco. The chosen rental partner was Mexico City-based LOGRA which has long-standing exp
Belgium - Dana Winner’s enduring popularity was emphatically demonstrated at her recent televised 30th anniversary show at Antwerp’s Lotto Arena, which drew 5,200 enthusiastic fans. Reflecting the upbeat mood of the crowd and providing an appropriately lively background for the irrepressible star’s performance as she sang hits like Westenwind, One moment In Time and Beautiful Life, was a bright, fast and dynamic lightshow designed by Maarten De Man of MDM Productions. Anchoring De Man’s versatile rig were 12 Maverick MK3 Profile CX and 26 STRIKE P38 fixtures from Chauvet Professional, supplied by Splendit. Although Dana Winner’s ongoing musical formula has essentially retained the same hallmarks of her early pop hits, her sound has nevertheless evolved and adapted with each new generation of fans. To capture the visual essence of Dana Wi
UK - Southampton-based lighting rental specialist Liteup supplied lighting, video server and control plus rigging equipment for all technical departments for the recent UK and European leg of Björk’s Cornucopia tour, for which the dramatic lighting was a co-design by Bruno Poet and Richard White. Bruno is well known as a theatre and opera LD and for his creative lighting for bands like avant-rockers Sigur Ros, also from Iceland. Richard White has worked for Björk as a programmer and lighting director on the road for the last six years, and together the two enjoyed a fantastic synergy that has produced some stunning lighting. The focus of the Cornucopia show - initially produced as a series of one-off shows at new arts venue The Shed in New York, mid-2019 - was nature and the environment, touching on some of its frontline issues. The visual start
Sweden - Following another prosperous year of business, Creative Technology Sweden, one of the largest AV technology companies in Europe, celebrated its success together with 150 invited guests at its Christmas Expo. Held at the company’s HQ in Kungälv, the annual event spread over two days and saw the company showcasing the latest in technical innovations, including Brompton Technology’s High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology. One of the event’s head-turning moments was a three-year-old ROE Black Onyx 2.8mm LED screen that had been re-calibrated with Brompton’s new Hydra advanced measurement system, which is custom-designed for LED panels fitted with a Tessera R2 receiver card. The panels were measured with Hydra to benefit from Dynamic Calibration, the enabling technology for Brompton HDR. Offering a new approach to delivering better image quality without req
UK - Having recently completed a lighting contract at Cheshire Oaks Tenpin, Leicester-based provider of specialist electrical LED lighting installations Ventola Projects has gone on to apply their lighting skills to another popular leisure venue, this time in Cambridgeshire. Cambridge Tenpin is an entertainment hub with bowling lanes, karaoke pods, pool tables and a cafe. Lighting is one of the most important elements in creating the right atmosphere and level of excitement for visitors to the facility. The venue’s owners wanted a multi-functional LED system which incorporated the highest quality white light and a multitude of vibrant colours. Ease of control was high on their wish list too, as they needed to be able to manage the whole system in one action from a central PC, whilst also having the capability to control specific areas separately and remotely via an a
UK - Marking the finale to the flat racing season, QIPCO British Champions Day is renowned within the horse racing community. Bringing together leading jockeys, horses, trainers and owners from Europe and beyond to compete in six top class races, this event has become a key fixture in the UK sporting calendar. The 2019 Champions Day concluded with a lively musical celebration for over 500 guests housed in a giant Igloo domed roof structure, provided by Fews Marquees, built directly adjacent to the Ascot Racecourse Main Grandstand. Returning to Ascot for the second year running on behalf of clients Generate Events, LFPS once again provided full technical support to the exclusive QIPCO closing party. In creating the suitably glittering venue the team handled all aspects of the lighting, audio, video, staging and rigging requirement, along with the design and fabrication
The Netherlands - Following on the xIO Stage 4X4 Dante stage box that was introduced in late 2019, Symetrix continues its pipeline of new product introductions with a new series of wall controllers and the second generation of its popular T-5 Touchscreen controller. “The Symetrix team has been intensely focused on developing an innovative pipeline of new products. Having just celebrated our first year with Symetrix, I am pleased with our progress and at ISE 2020 we begin to demonstrate the quality of our engineering team,” explains Symetrix CEO and owner, Mark Graham. Part of the energy driving these new products is the Symetrix 2.0 philosophy. With new ownership in 2019 came a new direction for the future and a new way of doing business, affectionately known to the team as “Symetrix 2.0”. Symetrix 2.0 is “all about innovation, focus and energy, building on S
Slovakia - The Farm (Farma) is a reality show competition that has been airing on TV Markiza since 2011. In December, long-time Bratislava-based production rental company and Elation distributor Adam A Syn installed 15 Rayzor 760 LED moving heads on The Farm set in a lighting upgrade that has increased the creative possibilities for lighting designers Michal Schmidt and Ondrej Štalbaský and boosted the overall appearance of the show. Filmed at Shining Studio in the city of Stupava, The Farm takes a group of city dwellers and casts them out on a rural farm to fend for themselves. Living without modern conveniences and having to procure the necessities of life themselves, the contestant who best endures the trial and conquers a series of challenges emerges as the winner. Extremely popular, a quarter of the Slovakian population often tune in to
USA - Cinematographer Donald A. Morgan utilised Chroma-Q Space Force LED fixtures to provide tunable soft lighting for filming the latest seasons of Netflix television show, The Ranch - for which he won a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Series - and ABC series, The Conners. Both filmed at Warner Brothers Burbank Studios in LA, Donald was keen to switch from conventional space lights to LED for filming The Ranch. The show stars Ashton Kutcher as Colt, who returns home to his family's ranch in Colorado after his semi-pro football career ends in failure. He comments: “In the past I had used tungsten space lights for filming the show. However, as they weren’t tunable, it meant having to change the gels constantly, to differ the glows produced. This was important as even though it was filmed inside of a
Belgium - Teenager Cedric Duré is making a name for himself in the world of entertainment lighting. Demonstrating a level of sophistication beyond his years, the Antwerp teen has been immersing crowds with deeply evocative lighting designs that command attention without detracting from the performance on stage. This was evident in a recent sold out show that he did for DJ Divs(16-year old David Demuynck) at Gildenhuis Reet, using a rig anchored by Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by BOS Events. “The main goal of this event was not to make money, but to show the world what we can do and that age is not a mattering factor,” says Duré, who worked with friend vee jay Nikolay Gelshtein, on the show, which was run with a ChamSys MagicQ MQ500 Stadium console. “Club Divs 2019 was the first edition but we want to do this every year. Club Divs 2020 will take place
UK - At the age of 16, Elliott Mountford set up his Ti22 lighting design company with a view to providing lighting and video integration on live shows. Little more than a few months later, he was handling his first arena show at Wembley. Now still only 19, and from a background in programming, Elliott has developed into a fully-fledged lighting designer. Most recently, he has been out with Charli XCX - with an armoury of GLP fixtures for company, supplied by Liteup. “We had 34 X4 Bars and 34 JDC1 [hybrid strobes] on the European and USA tour, and then the show at Brixton Academy was a total upscale, with 96 JDC1s and 36 X4 Bars,” he reveals. The rig comprised both the touring and Brixton package. “It needed to be bright, and be able to create a thousand different looks out of a single unit - and the JDC1 always smashes that.” Elliott has certainly earned
Austria - Between January and April every year, the Kitzsteinhorn ski resort in the Austrian alps creates Ice Camp, which celebrates the life cycle of nature by transforming the winter’s snowfall into an art and entertainment installation before it melts again in the spring. Ice Camp 2020 features a Yamaha-based sound installation. Located 2,600m above sea level, Ice Camp 2020 comprises three uniquely-designed igloos, each 12m in diameter and 6m high. The centrepiece is the Ice Symphonium, created by Austrian artist Max Seibald. Made completely from ice, this impressive instrument is essentially a kind of ‘singing bowl’ with giant, stylized horns. Visitors can use touch pads to change the sounds which, as the artist says, “evoke an atmosphere of sublime harmony in combination with gentle ‘music of the spheres’”. Powered by a PX8 power amplifier, six white
South Korea - TechDataPS and Arnion recently performed a complete overhaul of the outdoor performance venue at Mungyeon Provincial Park, equipping it with an end-to-end Harman audio system. Mungyeong Saejae, a mountain pass located 642m above sea level on Mount Joryeong, is one of the oldest surviving parts of an ancient road that once connected Seoul and Busan. Three fortified stone gates dating from the Joseon dynasty still stand at the site, making it a culturally significant landmark. Declared an official provincial park in 1981, Mungyeong Saejae is now a major tourist destination featuring hiking trails, a sculpture garden and a stage for open-air performances and other events. With the venue’s sound system in dire need of an upgrade, park officials hired TechDataPS and Arnion to completely overhaul the stage with a Harman Professional Solutions audio system and
USA - Times Square has its giant crystal ball. Atlanta has its Peach Drop. And in a town that’s world-famous as Music City, the arrival of the New Year is heralded by the dropping of a giant red music note. This New Year’s Eve, some 200,000 people gathered in downtown Nashville to watch the descent of this 16ft, 400lb red note during the final seconds of 2019. Adding to the spectacle they enjoyed were 36 Chauvet Professional COLORado Solo Batten fixtures supplied by Bandit Lites. Chris Lisle and Erik Parker of CLLD, LLC, positioned 18 of the RGBAW IP65 rated batten units on each side of the three-dimensional note. Positioned this way, they provided a dynamic and vividly coloured setting to highlight the giant three-dimensional music note as it made its annual passage down its 138ft tall tower. “The COLORado Solo Battens were pixel mapped,” says Parker.
USA - David Morales, an American DJ and Grammy-award winning record producer, songwriter and businessman, has produced and remixed more than 500 records for multi-platinum artists including Mariah Carey, U2, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin and Madonna, his career continues to show no signs of slowing down. In the studio, Morales knows exactly what he wants and is uncompromising when it comes to sound. A key component of his creative environment is a Pioneer Pro Audio XPRS system, comprising two XPRS 12 active speakers and two XPRS 115S active subs. The system supports his DJ set-up in a dedicated space, where he takes new material and is able to accurately reference how it works in the live environment. Recounting his first experience of the XPRS range, Morales reports: “I played in Japan at a bar and they had two of the XPRS 12s and two subs. I loved the way they
UK - The Leeds Playhouse production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is enjoying a successful London run at The Bridge Theatre, produced by The London Theatre Company via special arrangement with Elliot & Harper Productions and Catherine Schreiber. Award-winning lighting designer Bruno Poet has revived his magical lighting scheme in the new venue, this time choosing to use Robe T1 Profiles as the followspots, which are being operated with RoboSpot remote follow spotting systems. Having used the same combination of T1 Profile fixtures and RoboSpots for recent Tina The Musical runs on Broadway and in Hamburg and London, he did not hesitate to specify the products again for this show. At The Bridge, there is no position at FOH for manually operated follow spots, so the two T1 Profiles are located on an auditorium bridge with a steep angle sh
UK - Snow Patrol recently embarked on a UK tour for their album, Reworked, relying on an SSL L550 console for their live shows, including two special performances at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Northern Irish-Scottish rock band, Snow Patrol formed in 1994, rising to fame with their album, Final Straw, which was certified five-times platinum in the UK, eventually selling over three million copies worldwide. Reworked, Snow Patrol's eighth studio album, was released in November 2019 to celebrate their 25th anniversary, and included reimagined versions of old songs, three new tracks, and a tour, which Matt West joined last year as FOH engineer. “It's a 14-piece band and a very open, live stage; the band has reworked songs to a certain extent, so it's a new take, with new instruments on already fantastic songs,” West explains. “Everyone's
The Philippines - A large complement of Claypaky lighting fixtures was utilised by Stage Craft International for the opening ceremony of the 2019 SEA Games at the Philippine Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan, The Philippines. The 2019 SEA Games, held from 30 November to 11 December, was the 30th edition of the biennial regional sports event. More than 5,500 athletes competed in 56 sports. The 90-minute opening ceremony featured traditional and contemporary dance and song against a backdrop of LED strips and panels representing a bamboo forest. The design of the show included lighting effects and specialty lighting by Stage Craft International. The company selected 120 Claypaky Sharpy Plus, 40 A.leda B-EYE K10 and 40 Stormy CC strobes for the rig in what is billed as the world’s largest indoor arena. “We chose Claypaky fixtures for their low power consumption and ligh
South Africa - Johannesburg-based MGG enjoyed a hectic end-of-year season supplying several large and high profile shows and events with technical production packages. The projects ranged from large outdoor festival stages to parties to corporate events and awards shows, explained MGG’s general manager, Denzil Smith. Robe products were utilised for all of these. December started with the end of a two-week run of Afrikaans is Groot (AIG) shows staged at the Sun International Time Square Sun Arena in Pretoria - for which MGG is also the house technical services provider. Lighting was designed by Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier and MGG supplied all technical elements - lighting, video, audio plus rigging and staging for organisers Coleske Artists. It was their eighth consecutive year of involvement with this state-of-the-art performance spectacle. Jos
Canada - The history of Knox Presbyterian Church in Toronto stretches back to 1820, and it has been in its current building across the street from the University of Toronto since 1909. Its ornate, high-ceiling sanctuary accommodates 550 people. The AV integration department at local music store Sherwood recently installed a new sound reinforcement system that leverages the pattern control of Danley Sound Labs SBH-Series loudspeakers. The new Danley system keeps energy off the walls and treats congregants to crystal-clear, point-source fidelity. “We started work on Knox Presbyterian’s troublesome sanctuary after completing several other projects that they were really happy with in other areas of their facility,” explains Craig Ritchie, project manager at Sherwood. “They had some thirty-plus year-old loudspeakers way up in the ceiling that were firing above the s
USA - An extensive package of ADJ lighting fixtures has been installed in the new contemporary worship centre of First Baptist Church in Stockton. Amongst other fixtures, Vizi CMY300s serve as the main moving head luminaires, creating beam effects and GOBO projections on stage, while COB Cannon Washes cover both stage colour and house lighting duties. When the opportunity arose for the thriving First Baptist Church in Stockton, CA to acquire a neighbouring building they embraced it to create a dedicated space for their growing contemporary worship services. The church’s leadership worked with local supplier Nor Cal Pro Audio to specify a modern lighting system that would allow maximum flexibility for the space, allowing it to be used both for services and as a community centre. Headed up by Jorge González, Nor Cal Pro Audio specialises in providing audio and lightin
