Belgium - For The Oh! dance music club night in Belgium, a tried-and-tested formula of world-class DJ sets and a string of high-profile singles is proving to hold the key to its popularity and longevity, which recently reached the quarter century milestone. To celebrate 25 years of The Oh!, both old and new generations of Belgian dance music lovers were united in a recent anniversary party that reflected all of the excitement and energy that have made the club famous. Tasked with providing energetic visuals for The Oh! once again was Belgium design house CRS Rental Solutions, which designed an immersive stage set-up with a Chauvet Professional rig that included 32 STRIKE P38, 12 Maverick MK2 Spot, 19 Rogue R2 Wash, 46 COLORdash PAR H12IP and 24 Rogue RH1 Hybrid fixtures. In order to build the visual centrepiece upon which artists could perform, Thomas Vandekerkh
Italy - A sound system from Clair Brothers was deployed for the 25th anniversary celebration of Italian nightclub Odissea Fun City Dance Club. The club’s owners decided their previous system had served its purpose well but that the time had come to upgrade. Prase Media Technologies, Clair Brothers Italian distributor, was asked to suggest speakers for the upgrade. Emanuele ‘Lele’ Luongo, product manager at Prase, along with Ivan Omiciuolo and Matteo Barbaro, whom supported the project throughout, recommended the new Clair Brothers PA. “The main challenge in this room,” explains Luongo, “was to achieve homogeneity in the distribution of low frequencies while also minimizing the reflections, within the entire audio range, caused by metal sets and mirrors on the side walls of the dance floor. We also worked to curb the incidence of medium-high range in
UK - Danish sensation Myrkur captivates audiences by weaving wildly different musical influences into a single performance experience that is as beautiful in its simplicity as it is unsettling in its complexity. On her 2018 northern European tour, which ended in December, the gifted multi-instrumentalist dramatized the breadth of her musical vision by dividing her show into two distinct parts: the first devoted to traditional folk music, the second to black metal. Despite this stark contrast, the show flowed seamlessly, driven by the artist’s passionate performance and supported by a multi-faceted production design by David Howard with a lightshow that was run on a ChamSys PC Wing. “The show itself is split into two,” said Howard. “It starts with Folksange, a set of folk music from all over Europe played on traditional instruments. Afterwards, the stage falls
UK - UK rental and production specialist Adlib continued its excellent working relationship with Irish singer-songwriter and musician Hozier, and a production team led by Sue ‘Duchess’ Iredale. The Liverpool-based company supplied sound and lighting equipment plus crew for the band’s recent UK and European tour, with a Coda sound system specified by FOH sound engineer Steve ‘Patto’ Pattison, and the realisation of an eye-catching and inventive lighting design created by Steven Douglas. Patto joined the Hozier team mid-way through 2018, shortly after completing the Freedom Child world tour with Irish trio The Script. Hozier’s Nina Cried Power EP dropped almost immediately and with a new (second) studio album anticipated in the spring, the touring schedule started apace and continues worldwide throughout 2019. Patto chose a Coda AiRAY system for
South Africa - Lighting designer Joshua Cutts was thrilled to drive a grandMA3 light for the Idols South Africa 2018 finale hosted at Carnival City in Johannesburg. The team worked together for the ninth consecutive year and comprised Dream Sets, the full technical supplier headed by project manager Eben Peltz; lighting and set designer Joshua Cutts from Visual Frontier; with Gavin Wratten once again the executive producer and director. The broadcast was aired on the Mzansi Magic Network. Deciding that Idols would be the ideal opportunity to test the grandMA3 light, Cutts approached Duncan Riley of DWR Distribution, the MA distributors in Africa. Cutts comments: “Still running on grandMA2 software, it’s still the same desk for now but with new hardware. It worked out pretty well because I broke my arm before we loaded in, and only had one arm to program wi
South Africa - To cater for a growing congregation, Thrive Church, east of Johannesburg, has invested in an L-Acoustics audio system installed by DWR Distribution. Thrive Church has two houses of worship, a church in Boksburg and another in Edenvale. The upgrade, which was installed at the Boksburg community, consisted of a three per side L-Acoustics ARCS WiFo System (two Focus and one Wide) with two SB18m subwoofers flown per side, two X12 outfills (one per side) and six 5XT front-fills. “The previous audio system was about fifteen years old and wasn’t adequate for the size of the venue where we had recently extended the seating capacity,” says Pastor Byron Chicken. “It wasn’t giving us a sufficiently full and clear sound and was battling to fill the venue properly. The new L-Acoustics system has made a huge difference; it gives our venue a beautifully full and cl
France - Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting, video, rigging, special FX plus a snow-loving crew to various entertainment venues and events associated with the Varsity Trip 2018 in Val Thorens, the highest ski resort in the French Alps at 2,300 metres in the beautiful Tarentaise Valley, Savoie. The Colour Sound team of four was led by Steve Marley and working for Zero Degrees Events who designed and produced a busy series of Varsity Trip events running throughout the week. Marley and their managing director Neil Cranston have collaborated on many previous projects, and with Tom Williams from Zero Degrees running things on the ground, the mission ran like clockwork. The main music venue for the week was the Centre Sportif de Val Thorens, which featured three full-scale DJ performances – including Rudimental’s DJ set - with numerous other smaller venues hostin
USA - TMELED – the equipment rental division of creative event and production specialist Time Matters Entertainment (TME) – has made a significant investment in over 50 Robe moving light fixtures. Based in Plano, north Texas and headed by Randy Cline, TMELED purchased the fixtures from Robe North America, bringing Robe’s Tarrantula LED wash beams, MegaPointes, DL4F Washes, DL7S Profiles, LEDBeam150s and BMFL Blades, together with a RoboSpot remote follow spotting system and LightMaster kits which convert BMFL range fixtures into manually operated follow spots. Cline’s lifelong friends and production industry colleagues Eric Wade from Crossfade Design and Jim Waits from Communilux were instrumental in him making the decision to go with Robe, which was based on the “quality, popularity and future” of the products and “the team behind the brand”. Time Matt
Finland - Oulu enjoys the distinction of being the most populous city in northern Finland with over 200,000 residents. The city recently saw the opening of Basso Club, a new 430-capacity nightclub that hosted its official opening night in December and features a range of Genelec active loudspeakers including the new S360 and 7382 high-SPL models. The young owners of Basso Club, brothers Teemu and Miikka Sulkala, were determined from the outset that their club would break the mould. “We didn’t want to do anything that our competitors or other nightclubs have already done so many times,” affirms Teemu Sulkala. “We wanted something totally new.” Teemu and the rest of his family already had a very clear idea of what they wanted inside the space, which was a former furniture store near the centre of Oulu. In fact, their architect produced the plans for the new ven
Spain - Madrid is currently hosting some of the most famous musical shows from Broadway, in which French manufacturer Ayrton’s Ghibli spot fixtures are delivering quality light and colour whilst ensuring energy efficiency. 22 units of the popular moving head fixture have been incorporated into the popular and acclaimed musical West Side Story at Madrid’s Teatro Calderón, in a richly-coloured lighting design by Carlos Torrijos and Juan Gómez Cornejo, with lighting production by Proyect-Arte. In this ground-breaking show, the Shakespearean story of Romeo and Juliet is transported to New York, where the Montesco and the Capuleto are transformed into two gangs fighting for control of the streets. In the precisely defined box set, Ghibli’s compact dimensions and pin-sharp framing system provides the ideal complement for this classic of Broadway, full of colo
UK - Canary Wharf event venue, East Wintergarden, welcomed Celebrity Cruises and 40 trade partners to celebrate the Travel Agent Appreciation Awards. Celebrity Cruises recognised the efforts of the travel trade at its fifth annual Travel Agent Appreciation Awards, whilst marking the successful launch of Celebrity Edge – the first new vessel from the luxury cruise line in six years. The ceremony was attended by 40 trade partners with 13 awards handed out by host Jo Rzymowska, vice-president and managing director for UK, Ireland and Asia along with Gavin Smith, senior vice president for parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises. Nicola McNeish, head of sales, Celebrity Cruises UK & Ireland said, “2018 was a remarkable year for Celebrity Cruises with the launch of the game-changing Celebrity Edge. The UK travel trade has been at the heart of Edge’s success an
USA - Southwest Georgia-based S&L Integrated Systems chose an Avolites Sapphire Touch for a recent upgrade at First Baptist Church in Thomasville, Georgia. “When the church was renovated a couple of years ago, the lighting and sound systems were updated to accommodate small performances, as well as hosting professional touring acts,” says S&L’s Clay Byars. In 2015, S&L consulted on the design for worship spaces in the main sanctuary, high school, and children’s ministry areas. “The lighting console had to be a proven workhorse and something that included industry-standard features and protocols,” he continues. “There are a wide variety of lighting fixtures that the console controls at the church, including LED ellipsoidals, movers, wash lights, and some conventional lighting fixtures, and the Sapphire manages all of their functions extremely w
Brazil - Superstar, Ivete Sangalo, entertained a massive crowd of 55,000 at the Allianz Park in Sao Paulo, on 8 December 2018. The show was filmed for her latest DVD release, Ivete Sangalo Live Experience, and lit by co-lighting designers and programmers, Paulinho Lebrão and Guillermo Herrero, who chose four Robert Juliat Lancelot 4000W HTI followspots to highlight the singer across the massive stadium. Sangalo is a multi-talented, multi award-winning performer with 22 albums, 15msales, 51m social media followers, and over 150 national and international awards to her name. “Lancelot is a very special fixture,” says Daniel Ridano, CEO at Lighting Bits, RJ’s Brazilian distributor. “It is a product that combines quality, power, functionality and precision into a followspot that is by far the best in its segment.” The four Lancelot followspots were
Slovenia - The seventh edition of Slovenia’s Got Talent was recorded for broadcaster POP TV in Studio 4 of their complex in Ljubljana, and LD Ziga Kranjne’s rig utilised Robe moving lights for its core elements, including MegaPointes, Spiiders, LEDWash 800s, Pointes, MMX Spots, CycFX 8s and a BMFL Blade, all supplied by Event Lighting, a rental company for which Ziga works full time as an LD and programmer. Ziga has lit all the SGT shows since it started in 2010 and for this one, he worked closely with set designer Milan Mukadin who was also the video designer. They took some of the most popular aesthetic moments from last year’s show and reimagined them for this one, adding new and original visual ideas to keep things moving and looking different. There was a wide range of artists appearing, so the studio design which kicks in for the semi-finals and fina
USA - On most nights, Washington’s Birchmere welcomes musicians to its stage, some legendary like Ray Charles and B.B. King, others up-and-coming newcomers. But once a year since 2009, the noted live music venue turns its attention to dance, when it hosts the annual Ravens Night theatrical belly dance revue. For house LD David Beebe, who normally busks for musical performances, the chance to light dance represented a welcome opportunity to step outside his comfort zone. He met that challenge this year with help from his six Chauvet Professional Maverick MK1 Spot fixtures, supplied by JR Lighting. “The theme of this year’s show was ‘Memento Mori’ which means ‘Remember Death’ in Latin, so it was quite dramatic,” said Beebe. “We had two 90-minute sets with an intermission that featured a total of 14 acts. Lighting these dancers was something different f
Italy - For the December inauguration of Museo del Novecento, a modern history museum in Venice, Marco Mazzon Sound & Lights turned to their inventory of Elation Paladin hybrid LED luminaires to light an extraordinary vertical dance show by Compagnia Il Posto that took place across the dazzling ceramic-tiled façade of the building. Located in M9, a new urban regeneration district in Venice Mestre, Museo del Novecento, or Museum of the 20th Century, is a place where Italians can rediscover the drama of the previous century to understand how best to build the future. As the innovative and emotionally engaging museum uses multimedia and interactive technology in its storytelling, it was only appropriate that the creative inaugural show was illuminated using an innovative, state-of-the-art luminaire. Marco Mazzon Sound & Lights, who also served as lighting desig
UK - London-based lighting and visual rental company Colour Sound Experiment supplied video, including LED screens, cameras, PPU and crew, to Madness’s most recent tour. The Sound of Madness arena tour was production managed and designed by ‘Luton’ Pete Hosier, who was also the LD, with the video elements co-ordinated by Toby Vogel, who has worked with Madness since 2010. Video has been a massive part of their live show, especially for the last three of these biennial arena tours, and the screens were in use for most of the band’s lively, up-beat set. Utilising over 175sq.m of Colour Sound’s BT-6 and BT-7 mm LED product, the main screens comprised a 10m-wide by 5m-high upstage centre surface, flanked either side by two 5 x 5m ‘return’ screens positioned diagonally upstage/downstage. As well as co-ordinating all the video hardware, Toby
Brazil - Five-time Grammy-winner Dan Carvalho is as adept in the live arena as he is in the studio. During his recent time out on the road mixing FOH for Brazilian super-group, Tribalistas, he needed a flexible console that could not only deliver studio quality sound to the stage, but record the shows to the highest possible standard. After discovering the SSL L500 Plus, he got hold of two for this tour - one for FOH, one for monitors - courtesy of Brazilian rental house Gabisom. Carvalho's relationship with Tribalistas goes back to when he was just starting out in the industry: at only 24, he helped the band with their first album recording; and 15 years later, got the call once more to record and co-produce album number two. That record is now released, and the fresh material has inspired Tribalistas to tour the first album for the first time ever. “Because I'm a
UK - Universal Pixels supplied a flexible video package for British synth pop stars Years & Years’ Palo Santo live campaign, including festival dates, UK arena shows and European performances Years & Years landed back in the UK charts last summer with their critically acclaimed second album, Palo Santo, and a production befitting of the band’s standing in alternative pop culture. A number of festival dates coincided with Palo Santo’s highly anticipated release before a UK arena tour and subsequent European concert hall dates were met with sold out crowds last winter. Universal Pixels worked closely with production designers, Cassius Creative, taking on the design and supply of the video elements, as well as the indoor venue IMAG requirements. The versatile design peaked in size at the London O2 Arena, with the show featuring a 195sq.m ROE CB5 scre
Belgium - Traditionally, the opening of an automobile showroom involves a few signs, along with some balloons and inflatables. When the new BMW Mini Dejonckheere opened its doors, however, it called on Belgian design firm Présence to help it treat customers to an altogether different, more exciting and more contemporary experience that included an EDM afterparty. Along with enjoying the evening’s festivities, the 1,700 guests in attendance were dazzled by the sleek, contemporary permanent features of the showroom itself, which like the party, were accented by a stunning lighting design. Created by Présence, working with designer Dieter Ducoulombier and project manager Ozzy Vandevoorde from its technical partner Solico, the lighting design was anchored by an impressive collection of Chauvet Professional WELL Fit, Rogue and EPIX fixtures. A 10,000sq.m venue with expa
South Korea - Psy, famous for the 2012 mega-hit Gangnam Style, embarked on a multi-stadium tour of his home country over the summer. Amid record high temperatures, supersized venues and a pumping EDM playlist, the team needed a hardy and technologically advanced solution. They turned to the d&b GSL System, along with ArrayProcessing, to cope with climate changes, climactic K-pop dynamics and challenging acoustics. Psy’s 2018 dates were the fourth incarnation of his Soaking Wet Show series of concerts, so called due to the amount of water sprayed onto the audience to entertain and beat the sweltering summer heat. They are big-business events, drawing in thousands of eager fans from across South Korea and overseas. The 2018 tour played no less than six stadiums: Busan Asiad Main Stadium, Taegu Auxiliary Stadium, Seoul Jamsil Auxiliary Stadium, DaeJeon
World - Australian pop-punk band 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS) made their name as somewhat of a YouTube sensation, but rose to international stardom after touring with One Direction in 2012. 5SOS have since released three studio albums and headlined three world tours. Their current Meet You There tour supports their 2017 hit record, Youngblood, and at stage left position, Pavan Grewall is working from his trusted DiGiCo SD10 console. Grewall is adept at both FOH and monitor roles. He has flown faders at FOH for a number of well-known artists including Meghan Trainor, Nick Jonas, and Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen, with whom he spent five years touring the world. His current role as monitor engineer with 5SOS is one he is enjoying: he has been working with both the band and the DiGiCo SD10, supplied by Adlib, for 18 months. He says it is
Australia - The Burdekin Theatre is the home for arts and entertainment in Burdekin, playing host to a diverse range of live performances including musicals, plays and rock concerts. The venue also hosts conferences and seminars, plus local events such as dance recitals, school award nights, and more. The theatre features a 473-seat auditorium with proscenium arch and orchestra pit, supported by a professional technical staff. When it came time to upgrade its sound system, Clair Brothers topped the list after a competitive review of major loudspeaker brands. David Luscombe, theatre technician, at Burdekin Theatre, explains: “As time went on, I knew our old system was reaching the end of its life expectancy. It just wasn’t keeping up with our ever-rising standards. I saw it as an opportunity to upgrade, so I took a listen to several top brands before I got the oppo
Europe - Sound designer Gareth Owen has selected Luminex GigaCore 12 switches to provide networked audio for his immersive sound designs on all-new productions of international hit musicals, Starlight Express, Bat Out of Hell and Come From Away. Utilising d&b audiotechnik's Soundscape object-based sound design mixing platform, the technically demanding shows - which range from 180º up to full 360º implementation - feature a large number of data channels running over Dante. With no analogue backup for the audio systems, the network distribution has to be 100% reliable. Working together with d&b and equipment suppliers to the shows, Stage Sound Services and Orbital Sound, the Luminex GigaCore network switches were rigorously tested in a Soundscape-based setup and left everyone impressed. Owen comments: "We wanted to get a Dante-appro
