Saudi Arabia - Golf’s European Tour made history this year when it took its tournament to Saudi Arabi for the first time in its 47 years. The event took place at the Royal Greens golf course in King Abdullah Economic City on 31 January and ran until 3 February. Creative Technology (CT) were on hand to deliver all video aspects of this event on behalf of clients European Tour and IMG. CT’s head of sport, Steven Purkess explains: “CT was contracted to design, engineer and fabricate eight bespoke LED structures, a big departure from the standard scaffold support structures traditionally used at golf events. “The complete design and engineering service provided by CT not only included the design for each LED structure but also the foundations. The physical structure fabrication process was split across the CT group, and once delivered to site CT also instal
Germany - The roots of Rock gegen Rechts (Rock Against the Right) go back to the rise of Britain’s Rock Against Racism movement in in the mid-1970s. The 30 April,1978, Rock Against Racism concert in Victoria Park in East London was a seminal event that, by 1979, had inspired the first Rock gegen Rechts festival in Frankfurt, Germany. Thirty-nine years later, Rock gegen Rechts was once again heard in downtown Frankfurt, in a one-day festival staged in the city’s famed Opernplatz. The audience enjoyed the advances in live sound since the 1970s as they listened to the day’s music and messages delivered with power and clarity by Linea Research amplifiers. Nearly 90 organisations were involved in the event. Its patrons included vice presidents of the Bundestag Claudia Roth and Petra Pau, Lord Mayor of Frankfurt Peter Feldmann, and other city officials. Thirteen musica
USA - Prolyte’s Verto Truss system was used by Creative Technologies (CT) at three separate stands during the 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show in December. During the show, CT installed 3,200 linear feet of black powder-coated Verto truss to create booths for the new Genesis, Hyundai, and Kia automobiles. Prolyte’s Verto truss low self-weight allowed for more creative lighting options and flexibility in designing the stands. The Verto truss quick assembly, silent connection, and low self-weight also translated into a significant savings of at least 50% on drayage and labour costs. In addition to the LA Auto Show, CT also relied on Prolyte’s Verto truss for a Volvo product launch at the new US plant in the Carolinas. CT built a stage inside the warehousing facilities to release a new car model for Volvo’s Worldwide management team. Ian Dobson, project manager/
South Africa - With the breath-taking eastern foot of Table Mountain as a backdrop, British indie rockers James performed at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. The full technical was supplied by Audio Engineering, who used their new MA dot2 to run the spectacular show. “What an excellent production,” says Marcel Bezuidenhout, owner of Audio Engineering based in Cape Town. “James rocked it out at the Kirstenbosch Summer Sunset Concerts playing favourite hits like Lose Control, Sit Down and material from their 15th studio album, Living in Extraordinary Times.” Associated with the Kirstenbosch Summer Sunset Concerts for the past 20 years, Marcel has been pleased to watch the annual event take off as his company has steadily built up a retinue of professional gear, the latest being the investment of a MA Lighting dot2 console purchase
Austria - The Vienna Metropol Theatre is one of the most tradition-rich venues in the Austrian capital. Today, the Metropol provides a stage for national and international music acts, cabaret and theatre productions. The Vienna Metropol has three stages. The main stage with the big hall has an audience capacity of 700 standing or 550 seated. The stage is open on three sides and the hall has a comparatively low ceiling height. The audience sits around the stage in a 270° angle, which further complicates the sound reinforcement situation. The room acoustics are also unusual; It is characterised by a short reverberation time with pronounced diffusivity in the empty space. In short: a demanding task for every sound system. After various modernisations were carried out in recent years, it was the sound system’s turn in 2018. The Austrian distribution partner of Alcons Au
USA - Global design and BIM software solutions provider Vectorworks has announced its fourth annual Vectorworks Design Scholarship is now open for entries. The scholarship enables undergraduate students and recent graduates to gain professional recognition by sharing their work and win up to $10,000. “The Vectorworks Design Scholarship is an incredible opportunity for up-and-coming designers to promote their work and win funds to support their future endeavours,” comments Alice Lowy, marketing programmes director at Vectorworks. “We look forward to seeing what these up-and-coming designers think up next.” To apply, eligible students must submit their best individual or group project and answer three questions. A panel of judges will evaluate submissions based on design integrity, originality, the effective use of computer technology and communication of
UK - London’s Ministry of Sound (MoS) has upgraded its lighting control with Avolites Arena and Quartz consoles. The South East London nightclub has been at the heart of the capital’s scene for almost 30 years. Household name DJs and performers are a mainstay of its offering, backed by serious sound and uplifting lighting. International technical event production company Bigabox drew on its longstanding relationship with MoS to realise the enhancement of lighting control options in the club’s two main rooms - The 103 and The Box. “It was my recommendation the MoS team got Avolites consoles for their largest-capacity spaces and that’s precisely what they did,” says Bigabox Productions’ director, Dean Graves. “The guys at Avolites are helpful, informative, passionate and incredible people to work with. It was imperative their products were in the M
The Netherlands - Pro Display completed a major project in partnership with Integrated Systems Europe, LANG AG, Panasonic, Tenfeet and Green Hippo to bring the nhow Amsterdam RAI hotel to life. Pro Display supplied 392 pieces of its Projection Mapping Film which were installed across 25 storeys of the hotel’s glass façade. Throughout ISE 2019 the film was used as a canvas alongside Panasonic’s powerful PT-RZ31K projectors to advertise exhibition highlights and the potential of projection mapping technology. The impressive 25-storey hotel boasts 650 rooms and was developed following a tender process by the City of Amsterdam and the RAI that began in 2014. This ambitious display required input from a range of experts in order to successfully complete the project which was managed by LANG, hire and production specialists. They called on 14 of Panasonic’s PT-R
UK - White Light recently supplied the lighting equipment for Disney’s Broadway hit musical Newsies which recently had its UK premiere at ArtsEd. Set in turn-of-the-century New York, Newsies tells the story of Jack Kelly, a charismatic newsboy and leader of a band of teenage ‘newsies’. When titans of publishing raise distribution prices at the newsboys’ expense, Jack rallies the newsies together against the unfair conditions to fight for what’s right. The show was a smash when it played on Broadway and the lighting designer for the UK premiere is Nic Farman. Nic comments: “I hadn’t seen the original Broadway production but the moment I read the script and listened to the score, I knew it was going to be a great show to work on. The key for the creative team was creating a production that had the high production values associated with a show on a l
Taiwan - The third floor of Taipei’s Nan Shan Plaza - the second tallest skyscraper in Taipei after Taipei 101 - has been created as a vast and open exhibition space. With ceilings at an impressive 8.5m in height, the venue occupies a total of 56sq.m, but features no beams or support columns, creating a challenge to any sound design proposal. With the prestigious space earmarked by Taipei City Government to host an event cooperative to the New Year fireworks countdown, the challenging space required a sound system that was compact and stable, offering excellent sound performance, which to audio installation company, Imagepro System Technology Corp., Ltd., signalled Powersoft amplification. Working hand-in-hand with Imagepro’s Yung-Chin Hsu and the Plaza’s project leader Wen-Shan Tseng, Victor Shih of Powersoft’s distributor in Taiwan, Seapower Technology Co L
UK - December saw the newly restored Alexandra Theatre at Alexandra Palace open its doors after 80 years of darkness to reveal not only a stunning space that has undergone the most sympathetic of restorations, but a comprehensive technical infrastructure that includes audio system that delivers purity of sound and capabilities that will satisfy any visiting production. At its core is a DiGiCo SD12 mixing console supplied and installed by HD Pro Audio. The Alexandra Theatre was originally opened in 1875 and hosted pantomime, opera, drama and ballet. However, it struggled to compete with the might of the West End and its use as a theatre ended. Subsequently it was used as a cinema, a chapel, home of music hall stars and, more latterly, as a BBC prop store and workshop. In 2012 the decision was made to restore it to its former glory and with grants from the Heritage Lottery Fun
UK - The first UK installation of Adamson Systems IS7 line array loudspeaker systems has been completed at Howden Park Centre in Livingston by Adamson Certified re-seller Live Systems Ltd. West Lothian's premier centre for arts performances and events Howden Park Centre was transformed in 2009 by architects Nicoll Russell Studios. The Centre was awarded the accolade of Building of the Year from the Edinburgh Architectural Association. Stephen Oakes and Cliff Carrie who form the core technical team at Howden Park commented: "Our existing sound system was failing and we managed to secure finance through West Lothian Leisure for a replacement. We demoed three major loudspeaker brands including Adamson, unanimously we decided that we liked Adamson the best. “The system was clean, controlled and dynamic, it delivered constant sonic impact from low levels of sound al
UK - Henley Town Hall, an imposing Grade II listed building, sits in the centre of the Oxfordshire market town and is administered by Henley-on-Thames Town Council. Whilst in regular use for council business, its principal spaces are also used for a variety of functions, from weddings, civil ceremonies and concerts to meetings, classes and trade fairs. The venue’s arch-roofed, second-floor main hall is a highly reverberant space - in fact even by heritage listed building standards, the acoustics are challenging. Existing acoustic panelling in the hall had been supplemented with additional provision but its beneficial effects were still rather limited. The audio system in situ was not only outdated and inadequate but constituted something of a black box eyesore amongst such opulent surroundings. Whilst it was of fundamental importance that the audio in the room was va
USA - When preparing for international stadium tours for two of the world’s top pop artists, touring company Eighth Day Sound worked with Wisycom to develop a solution for its wireless RF challenges. Eighth Day Sound’s two most recent high-profile global tours turned to Wisycom’s MAT288 Matrix Combiner and MFL RF-Over-Fibre Antenna System to give sound engineers the tools necessary to cover the extensive wireless needs for these large projects. For Eighth Day project manager Jordan Kolenc, creating an RF design that would provide maximum coverage for one such major stadium tour left him with a long list of concerns, and a need to pre-emptively find solutions. After much trial and error, Kolenc contacted Jim Dugan, president of Wisycom USA, who visited Eighth Day’s shop to demonstrate how Wisycom’s MAT288 combiner, along with its MFL antenna system, could pro
USA - Los Angeles-based Elation Professional’s home team Rams might not have come out victorious in Super Bowl LIII but the company was a winner nonetheless as its new Rayzor 760 LED wash/beam light played an integral role on the American football championship’s celebrated halftime show. Held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta and broadcast live on CBS, the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show featured a headline performance by Maroon 5, along with rappers Travis Scott and Big Boi. Production design was by Bruce Rodgers of Tribe with lighting design by Bob Barnhart of 22 Degrees for what is traditionally the most-watched musical event of the year in the USA. The Super Bowl Halftime Show marked the live show debut of Elation’s Rayzor 760, a LED luminaire with seven 60W RGBW LEDs, five to 77° zoom, continuous pan and tilt, and new SparkLED technology. Barnhart,
Australia - It isn’t often that an artist introduces a sound engineer to a new piece of audio equipment - usually it is the other way around. However, this is what happened when British-born singer/songwriter Leo Sayer discovered the benefits of DPA’s d:facto vocal microphone. As a result of his good experience, he introduced the kit to his long-term sound engineer and production manager Damien Young. Now based in Australia, where he has lived since 2005, Leo Sayer began using d:facto vocal microphones during his last UK and European tour when they formed part of the audio itinerary supplied by Cliff Brothers. He was so impressed with their sound that on his return to Australia he asked Damien Young to source wireless d:facto mics for his forthcoming Australia and New Zealand tour dates. DPA’s local distributor Amber Technology was delighted to help and after demoing
USA - The Winter Jam Tour 360, Christian music’s largest annual tour, is out on the road with a lighting package supplied by Bandit Lites. This year’s line-up features Christian music’s top artists and speakers including Newsboys United, Mandisa, Danny Gokey, Rend Collective, Ledger, Newsong, Hollyn with special guest Adam Agee and speakers Greg Stier and Zane Black. With multiple artists on the roster, production manager Jerry Holcomb and lighting designer Kurtis Wheat had to design a rig that would allow each performer distinct looks while still accounting for a line-up that ranges from a rock show, to a rap artist, followed by a speaker sharing the gospel. “Lighting can often be a distraction to important moments, so I try to create a look that allows the speaker to be the focus, while still allowing the crew to change over the bands on the main stage,”
Pakistan - KYAF Corporation recently outfitted DHA Sports Club with a new complete Harman Professional Solutions sound system to provide an immersive audio experience on the field and in the stands. Located in the heart of Karachi, DHA Sports Club is managed by renowned Pakistani cricketer Moin Khan. As part of the facility’s mission to provide a place for young Pakistani athletes to develop their talents in a supportive environment, DHA Sports Club hired KYAF Corporation to upgrade their sound system with modern audio solutions. After careful consideration, KYAF Corporation and DHA Sports Club selected a sound reinforcement system comprised of JBL Professional speakers, Crown amplifiers and AKG microphones. “DHA Sports Club asked us to provide a high-quality audio system that would complement their beautiful sports facility and provide great coverage,” says Ahme
Australia - Formed in 2003, Parkway Drive are an Australian metalcore band from Byron Bay in New South Wales with an international following. The band’s Reverence tour in support of their sixth studio album kicked off in Canberra in October 2018 and employed 16 Ayrton Ghibli LED spots for the main beam fixtures. Lighting provider for the Australian leg of the tour was New South Wales-based ei Productions who purchased the Ayrton Ghibli units just prior to the start of the tour. “This was a complex show with lots of lighting, moving staging and pyro flames, and it relied heavily upon the Ghiblis to provide much of the lighting’s punchy looks,” commented Neale Mace, managing director of ei Productions. “The fixtures were chosen by the band’s lighting designer, Steve Granville, after he heard we were looking at them, and I don’t think I’ve seen a light - especi
China - AG reports that 88 Verity Studios drones were chosen to feature in the CCTV New Year’s Gala. The CCTV (China Central Television) New Year’s Gala is one of the world’s most-watched TV programmes. This event was broadcast live to an estimated one billion viewers across the globe. With 88 Lucie micro drones flying over performers in red Chinese lantern costumes, this is the largest number of costumed drones ever seen in a performance. Sponsored by, a leading social media platform in Asia, the show opens to The Distance of Time, sung by popular singer Sun Nan and up-and-coming pop star Jason Zhang. As the song builds, 88 Lucie micro drones fly from the back of the stage like butterflies to dance above the 50 performers dressed as blossoming cherry trees. “This stunning performance proves how compelling drones can be. More than just flying light
UK - Seventy four of Colour Sound Experiment’s AquaBeam moving lights, rigged on a 25.5m diameter circular truss supported by an eight-legged ground support system, were an integral part of Nest, an immersive lighting, sound and sensory installation experience. Nest was imagined by artists Marshmallow Laser Feast, in Lloyd Park, Waltham Forest, as part of the Mayor of London’s first ever London Borough of Culture event Welcome to the Forest. The lights were choreographed to run with a special ‘transcendental soundscape’ created by composer Erland Cooper, who compiled a series of ‘sonic murmurations’, working with over 1000 participants including local choirs, schools and musicians. Matthew Button of Buttonlight was the lighting designer for this project, one of a carefully curated collection of works celebrating ‘Radicals, Make
China - Sound Space Vision (SSV) was part of the design team for the Xiqu Centre, the first finished building in Hong Kong’s new West Kowloon Cultural District. The Xiqu Centre serves as the gateway to the district and is dedicated to the performance of Chinese opera (Xiqu) and as the centre for preservation and development of the variety of Chinese opera art forms. SSV was responsible for the acoustics and audio systems in all the centre’s spaces, including both amplified and un-amplified performances in the 1073-seat Grand Theatre, and the 150-200-seat Tea House; a well-equipped Seminar Hall; large and small rehearsal facilities; a recording/broadcast suite; and all the retail, food and beverage areas connected to the Centre’s public ground-level Atrium. “We were well-prepared for this particular form of opera house having spent many years visiting Hong Kong
Slovenia - Lighting designer Gregor 'Grga' Smrdelj helped create a high-profile show by Slovenian vocal group Perpetuum Jazzile at the Arena Stolzice in Ljubljana. Grga works full time with Event Lighting, one of Slovenia’s leading rental specialists and the show’s lighting equipment provider. Grga integrated LED and video into his proposal for the stage and production design. It was at the first production meeting that he suggested having the singers on the three different levels, which everyone liked, so they went with it. “I wanted to make a statement, and the idea was that the full profile of all 44 singers could be seen rather than just the front row and everyone else squeezed in behind with only their heads showing.” Up in the roof of the Arena Stolzice, the Event Lighting crew installed seven straight trusses for lighting positions. Ladders were us
UK - Alexandra Palace opened in 1873 as a grand Victorian public gesture - ‘the people's Palace’. Since then, the complex story of the London venue - affectionately known as Ally Pally - has been marked by fires, restoration, substantial war-time damage, charitable rescue and many political sagas. In December, after 80 years of slumber and two years of careful restoration, Alexandra Palace Theatre re-opened. As part of the process, a complete technical infrastructure had to be installed, including a substantial L-Acoustics Kara PA system. The Alexandra Palace Theatre itself is part of the building's East Wing. It had an original capacity of 3,000 and the stage was a marvel of Victorian engineering, incorporating a variety of innovative stage machinery. The BBC leased the Palace in 1935 and the theatre went unused until performances started again in 2004, in a lim
