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
UK - Lighting director Malcolm Reed used Green Hippo’s Hippotizer media server technology to manage the visuals for Coventry-born rapper Jay1’s performance on the UK’s popular football show, Soccer AM. Filmed at London’s Sky Sports Studios, the 90-minute show, which airs on Saturday mornings, includes a section where music artists from across the country are invited to perform their latest songs in front of a live studio audience. Backing Jay1’s performance was a Martin LC 2140 5m x 2m LED screen fed by a P3 system controller. Visuals for the Jay1 performance, partly created by Reed and partly by the band, were simple but effective, based on band logos and a mix of custom and stock graphics. Green Hippo’s Amba media servers were supplied to the production by specialist entertainment technology suppliers, A.C. Entertainment Technologies. Reed previous
What started out in very small cellar clubs in 2016 now sees large arenas filled with ease. From mid-November to early December, German singer-songwriter Wincent Weiss toured through largely sold-out arenas with his album Irgendwie Anders (Somehow Different) which was released in March 2019. The lighting technicians at FOH have varied between Tom ‘Standtom’ Gross and Tino Weinhardt, who alternate from time to time and often produce joint productions. Weinhardt is currently responsible for Wincent Weiss’s lighting production. But because with the artist everything is ‘somehow different’ (not only on the album cover), Tom Gross is now sitting at the lighting console, while Tino Weinhardt is responsible for the video image, sitting right next door. "The current production is so large that it made sense to separate lighting and video," reports Tino Weinhar
China - To create immersive, spectacular lighting displays for the reopening of the Shanghai Circus World, Guangzhou Bai MingHui Lighting Technology Co. equipped the venue with Martin by HARMAN lighting fixtures. Built in 1999, Shanghai Circus World is China’s premier circus and home to the renowned Era - Intersection of Time show, which combines traditional Chinese acrobatics with Western entertainment. Located in the heart of Shanghai, Circus World features an ornate 1,638-seat theatre with an elaborate architectural design and a distinctive golden dome roof. Over the years, the venue has become a cultural landmark and earned the nickname of the Golden Pineapple. In 2018, Shanghai Circus World closed for a series of cosmetic and technical renovations, which included upgrading their aging lighting rig. Shanghai Circus World hired AV integrators Guangzho
South Africa - Cricket supporters have been entertained as the English cricket team, on tour in South Africa between December 2019 and February 2020, play four Tests, three One Day Internationals (ODIs), and three Twenty20 International (T201) matches. Cosmolight Quartzcolor LED lighting fixtures have been the performers of the day at the SABC, where commentary and live broadcast of the action is aired from their studios in Auckland Park, Johannesburg. For the past 35 years, Andre Rossouw has worked at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) as a lighting designer/electrician and head of electrical distribution on outside productions. His role includes the task of streamlining a system that keeps the power on, despite the current instability of the South African power grid. “The studio, working in unison with an OB Van, operates via a 80kVA UPS, linked to
Norway - An Allen & Heath dLive mixing solution has been installed at Share Oslo, a technology business hub and event space in the Norwegian capital, which has recently undergone a major audio upgrade. Share Oslo’s facilities span four main zones and are used for workshops, live performances, yoga classes and business events. With many different clients accessing the venue, the system needed to be as simple to use as possible, allowing users to run presentations, control levels and choose sources without the aid of a technician. The compact, flexible solution supplied by Benum Norway comprises an Allen & Heath dLive DM0 MixRack, fitted with a Dante card and three IP1 wall mounted remote controllers. “We needed to design an audio distribution system entirely based on AOIP (Dante), but also needed features such as AMM, Dynamic EQ, freely configurable bu
UK - The award-winning Norwich Arts Centre stages a wide range of live music and theatrical performances. In a bid to safeguard its reputation as 'Britain's Best Small Venue' (as awarded by the NME back in 2014), the venue recently commissioned Old Barn Audio to upgrade its outdated lighting rig as part of a venue-wide modernisation. Providing the cornerstone to Old Barn Audio’s solution was a roster of LED fixtures from Chauvet Professional that included eight Rogue R1X Spot, eight Rogue R2 Wash, 12 Ovation E-160WW Spot and 15 COLORdash Accent Quad fixtures. In order to ensure a multifaceted solution for general stage looks and effects, Chris Packham of Old Barn Audio specified the combination of Rogue R1X Spot and Rogue R2 Wash fixtures, positioning them in parallel lines above and to the sides of the stage. In combining the R1X Spot’s gobo effects with the sat
Ireland - Set in Dublin’s Docklands, The Convention Centre Dublin (The CCD) is a multi award-winning venue that has hosted more than 1,850 events since it opened in 2010. The CCD has recently invested in multiple DiGiCo S21 consoles, supplied by the manufacturer’s Irish distributor, Rea Sound. According to Pat Crowley, one of the venue’s technical production managers who specialises in audio, the CCD works with five-star equipment for a five-star venue, with high-quality sound and user-friendliness. The venue had looked to DiGiCo from the very beginning, initially investing in an SD7 and three SD8s, but it had been looking for a smaller, more compact console for a number of years. When DiGiCo launched the S-Series, Crowley knew the S21 ticked all the right boxes. “We have a lot of users who are AV trained, but not necessarily well up on the sound end of
Saudi Arabia - Technical event production specialist LarMac LIVE recently delivered its largest ever project when MDL Beast welcomed over 130,000 festivalgoers to the outskirts of Riyadh for three-days of electronic music - pitching the festival straight into the top three biggest EDM events in the world. LarMac LIVE answered the call from LemonX in late September 2019. Only 10-weeks later, it was showtime. Company co-founder Ian Greenway explains: “The backbone to our business is multi-artist, multi-stage shows - large-scale festivals and TV shows. We like to think that we know how to keep multiple artists and stakeholders happy, usually in very changeable environments, and all of these skills were used like never before here.” Spread over five stages - ranging from the 2,000-capacity Saudi Beast to the 45,000-capacity Big Beast - the festival was held on a
