UK - The Nevill Holt Opera House, located in a converted 17th century stable block of the Nevill Holt Estate in Leicestershire, was officially inaugurated on 14 June for the start of Nevill Holt Opera’s (NHO) annual season. Over the last six years, NHO, backed by the David Ross Foundation (DRF), has built an opera company to support emerging British opera talent and local children and students from DRF academies. NHO’s summer opera season was previously housed in a temporary tented structure within the stable block which hid the interior of the historic structure. The limitations of the tent prompted the idea of a new permanent structure to keep out the noise of rain and wind; deliver excellent acoustics for young voices; improve the audience-performer relationship whilst preserving the intimacy of the existing space; optimise the technical equipping of the stage
USA - Signify reports that the current Beautiful Trauma world tour by pop star Pink is benefiting from the power and presence of the Philips Vari-Lite VL6000 Beam luminaire. Lighting designer Baz Halpin is employing the fixture to provide dramatic punctuations to the energetic and spectacular production. Halpin comments: "This is a hybrid between a very theatrically-lit show and a punchy rock and roll show. The fixtures chosen needed to be able to live between those two worlds. We were specifically looking for a fixture that could cut through the brightness of the LED screen and act as a powerful rear side-light to dramatically draw attention to the action." The VL6000 Beam fixtures are grouped together on two giant, actuated arms that hang over the stage. “We tightly clustered the fixtures in groups of three to give them a unique personality in the context of
USA - D.A.S. Audio was selected to upgrade the sound reinforcement system at the Hollywood Beach Bandshell. After careful consideration and evaluation, the purchased equipment was drawn from the Event Series catalogue of D.A.S. Audio. Ricardo Cintron-Jimenez, the professional accounts manager for Guitar Centre Professional of South Florida handled the sale of the D.A.S. equipment through Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort. This transaction included six D.A.S. Audio Event 208A three-way, active line array elements and two D.A.S. Event 218A powered sub bass enclosures. Cintron-Jimenez discusses the project: “There is an outdoor, beachfront stage that is located right on the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk. The resort works very closely with the city to manage the Hollywood Beach Bandshell. On Wednesday to Sunday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. there are live music performances th
China - Mirror-Mirror is a dynamic kinetic installation created by German lighting / visual artist Christopher Bauder from WHITEvoid, featuring contemporary dancer and crossover artist Qiu Jirong and one of seven stand-alone segments making up Apologue 2047/2, directed by Chinese film director Zhang Yimou. The work was produced by L!VE Kingway at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing in June and will tour China in August allowing a wider audience to experience how Zhang Yimou breaks the form of traditional stage presentation by blending Chinese folk arts with modern technology, creating a unique performance concept in the process. For Mirror-Mirror, Christopher utilised 30 x Robe Pointes as his primary lightsources, which worked in unison with 102 x Kinetic Lights WinchLEDpixels and 34 x Mirror Disc lighting fixtures. Each mi
UK - Live production specialist Vis-a-Vis Video is delivering video content for N.E.R.D.’s UK summer appearances, with Catalyst V6 and a series of UltraStudio Mini HD from Blackmagic Design. The solution is supporting the hip hop act throughout its appearances at festivals including Lovebox in London’s Gunnersbury Park as well as at the Leeds and Reading Festival. The software allows live operators to enhance an artist’s onstage performance by extracting images and elements from live camera signals and graphics, creating multiple outputs to LED screens or projectors on stage and throughout a venue, immersing the crowd within the live performance. Catalyst’s capture elements are built around Blackmagic hardware and for N.E.R.D’s summer schedule, Stuart has built a compact media server rack, featuring a series of UltraStudio HD Mini capture and playback devices
USA - Redemption to the Nations church in Chattanooga recently renovated its 2,000-seat sanctuary and outfitted the space with a new Elation intelligent lighting system spec’ed and installed by intyde. The growing ministry sits on the site of the former Highland Park Baptist Church, a once megachurch, as well as the campus of defunct Tennessee Temple University. With a vision to gather the entire ministry onto one campus, church leaders took the opportunity to acquire the 55-acre site in 2014 and transformed it into the Redemption to the Nations campus. The all LED lighting system, a remarkably fast install that took place from 9-21 October 2017, includes a variety of Elation LED moving heads - Satura Profile, Platinum SEVEN, Platinum Spot III and ACL 360i - along with Colour 5 Profile ellipsoidals and SixBar 500 battens. The design merges church lighting with
USA - Matching the double Grammy winners' irrepressible energy on Nine Inch Nails’ current Cold and Black and Infinite tour is a 'raw, blow-your-head-back lightshow' designed by Paul 'Arlo' Guthrie that draws on the intense output of 28 Chauvet Professional STRIKE 4 fixtures supplied by PRG. The tour is promoting the band’s ninth album Bad Witch and opened on 13 June at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, with an extended run in Europe and Japan to take place in the summer before the band returns to the US for 28 shows at venues like Radio City Music Hall and the Hollywood Palladium. Guthrie’s rig, which has its STRIKE 4 fixtures on rolling stage carts, was designed to adapt to any venue. Guthrie explains: “We’re keeping this rig very flexible and basic, focusing on boldness and power. The show is intended to be the same at every venue, and that look
USA - The White House added a live concert on the South Lawn to its annual Fourth of July celebration this year and Harrisburg-based Anderson Audio deployed an Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) Adaptive sound system to reinforce the production. Broadcast by Hallmark, the 90-minute event was made possible through a partnership between the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation and featured performances by artists Sara Evans, pianist Lola Astanova, American Idol finalists Jax and Jonny Brenns, and the US Marine, Navy and Air Force Bands. Mat Edgcomb, system tech for Anderson Audio explains: “The stage was 100ft wide and they wanted coverage for the entire south lawn, which was 700ft down to the fence. Traditional front-fills would not support the space between the main PA and the stage. We decided to use a pair of Anna modules at stage level to cover
USA - Signify reports that its Philips Vari-Lite VL4000 Spot luminaires were used to provide illumination and effects for a large-scale immersive show for digital media company Oath, staged by the Hudson River in New York City. A subsidiary of Verizon, Oath reaches over 1 billion people through its digital brands, including AOL, Yahoo, Tumblr and HuffPost. Produced by FIRST as part of the NewFronts digital media showcase, Oath's show featured content ranging from musical acts to theatrical style performances. Lighting designer Barrett Hall of design consultancy Magic Hour East says: "I needed to choose a lighting fixture with great light output, because the event began during daylight hours and would transition through sunset on Manhattan's West Side, and on into the night." He adds: "I was able to get light exactly where we needed it, without worrying about not having
UK - Illumination rental and installation specialists LED Creative supported Trojan Media on a recent football-themed campaign for LG, featuring French World Cup winning goalkeeper Hugo Lloris. Filmed on the sound stage at Backstage Centre in Purfleet, the sequence featured the goalkeeper saving an onslaught of mechanised penalties against a goal area mapped out in bright LED. Working alongside production designer Zoe Koperski, LED Creative provided their Alpha 60 flex for the project, the stark contrast between the crisp, bright LED against the dark background creating a fantastically futuristic Tron-like feel. Commenting on working with LED Creative, Koperski says: “Tim was a joy to work with and brought exactly what I asked for to life and he was very helpful with advice around the restrictions (even launching footballs at them at high speed!) he worked wel
USA - Participants in this year’s Nike GO NYC 5K got an adrenalin-boosting dosage of both, as DJ Diplo was there at the Basketball City/Pier 36 finish line to entertain with his mix of dance music. Adding some perky visual zest to the performance was a colourful fast-moving lightshow featuring 20 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK Pyxis fixtures, supplied by 4Wall Entertainment. Designed by Ben Danielowski and Tanner Simpson of Boum Creative, the show relied on the Pyxis fixtures for a varied mix of eye candy and to create a dramatic ballyhoo moment when Diplo walked on stage. “When everyone finished the 5K they came into Basketball City, all sweaty and looking like they just ran five kilometers,” says Danielowski. “We had a warm-up DJ on stage and things were kind of mellow. Then when Diplo dropped the beat, our programmer Devin dropped the lights to black and waited
South Africa - In order to keep up with increasing demand, Modanso Entertainment of Johannesburg has invested in 42 new lighting fixtures from Elation Professional. The purchase includes 24 DARTZ 360 beam/spot LED moving heads, as well as 12 Platinum HFX hybrid moving heads and six Platinum 1200 Wash LED moving heads supplied by local distributor The Production Warehouse. "Moving the company forward and the need to meet international rider requirements at an affordable rate to the client, Elation was the best investment for Modanso Entertainment,” says Patrick Paledi, owner of Modanso Entertainment. “The efficient, powerful and easy-to-use Elation lighting was always our choice for stage lighting but was never available in South Africa until two years ago. We couldn’t be happier with our investment in Elation and the after-sales support from Production Warehouse."
UK - Anolis LED luminaires have been specified to bring colour, brightness and additional vibrancy to the Welsh seaside resort of Rhyl. They are used to light key landmarks in the town including the 76m high Sky Tower which is prominent on the seafront skyline. Additional lighting installations currently include the front façade and the fly tower of the Pavilion Theatre, the clock tower, seafront waterfall and new sea wall viewing shelters. Andy Hughes, technical manager of the Rhyl Pavilion Theatre, specified the Anolis fixtures in conjunction with Anolis UK technical sales specialist Simon Gooding. Andy works as a lighting consultant and advisor for Denbighshire County Council on their extensive ongoing waterfront urban regeneration project for Rhyl. He is also co-ordinating and making sure the various lighting schemes are installed smoothly. Andy chose Anoli
UK - Foo Fighters shook the 80,000-capacity London Stadium to its core on two consecutive nights, as they performed on a Stageco stage on their latest tour, Concrete & Gold. Essentially treated as a one-off for Stageco, the band played under a regular Super Roof, the company’s second largest after its voluminous XXL model, which was constructed within three days by a team headed by David Van Assche, who held the same position last summer on tours by Jeff Lynne’s ELO and Guns N’Roses. “This roof came from another one-off in Hamburg,” says Van Assche. “On a tour, we could take half a day off of the build time, but one-off shows like this don’t carry the same momentum.” The equipment arrived at the former London Olympics venue in Stratford in 17 trucks. 12 Stageco crew set to work on the build with assistance from 15 local crew climbers and 15 h
UK - If you’re going to amplify performance in a British bastion of classical music, who wouldn’t want to do so with a system that enables the sound engineer to place instruments in their correct positions relative to all the listeners? This was the option offered by Britannia Row when the subject of the rejuvenated Classical Brits came up. “It came about because we were keen to try the L-Acoustic L-ISA system,” says Colin Pink, head of live sound for the Brits. “The Royal Albert Hall were also keen to hear it. Initially, myself and Brit Row MD Bryan Grant went to L-Acoustics’ place in Highgate to hear a demonstration of the system. We suggested to them this could be a good introduction for all concerned - a win-win situation.” This was to be no small undertaking as a completely different approach to rigging a system was required – instead of a L/R ster
USA - When hip-hop recording artist, songwriter, record producer and actor Lecrae needed a lighting package for his one-off season, Bandit Lites was there to provide the gear and support for those on the road. With venues ranging from a headlining event at U.S. Bank Stadium to an intimate performance at prisons for inmate moral, production manager Charlton Combs crafted a diverse and vibrant lighting design for the two-time Grammy Award winner. "The hardest challenge we find is building a rig that can work for 5,000 people or 50,000 and still bring the same look every night," explains Combs. Bandit supplied a floor package that consisted of four to six 8’ GT towers along with fixtures including Martin MAC Auras, Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes, Elation CuePix WW2 blinders, Chauvet Rogue RH1 Hybrids and Robe CycFX8. "We made a conscious decision that our biggest advan
UK - Having circled the globe for more than a year, Ed Sheeran's Divide tour recently arrived at London's Wembley Stadium for a string of critically praised homecoming shows. Performing before sold-out, 80,000-strong crowds, Sheeran once again proved that one man and a guitar are more than enough to fill a stadium, while audio systems engineer Charlie Albin and FOH engineer Chris Marsh ensured the technical production was faultless. Helping them to do so was a more recent addition to the touring rack – a JoeCo Blackbox BBR64-MADI multi-track recorder described by Albin as "making my day much easier". Capable of 64-track recording at 48kHz, the Blackbox BBR64-MADI is used to capture every Ed Sheeran performance, usually comprising 16 channels of vocal, acoustic guitar and loops. Albin discovered the JoeCo multitrack recorder shortly before the Divide tour began
UK - As the Barclaycard Presents British Summer Time festival in London’s Hyde Park has continued to grow organically since its inception in 2013, so sound production company, Capital Sound, has deployed an increasing number of its Optocore converters to provide digital signal transmission over optical fibre across the vast site. But nothing quite prepared them for the opening day this year when Roger Waters brought his Us + Them tour to the UK for the first time, having already taken his sonic and visual experimentation to breath-taking levels at Desert Trip in 2016, with the biggest surround sound system ever built. To create maximum impact at Hyde Park, Capital were asked to provide an additional 12 loudspeaker hangs on towers positioned through the concourse for one night only, and this 12-point surround sound set-up, designed to give the audience a truly
UK - When it opened in 2017, Printworks London made clear its commitment to host world-class electronic music events, with a central part of that promise revolving around delivering supreme lighting, sound and video systems. Testament to this vow is demonstrated by the kit list in the venue’s new 3000-capacity live room. With audio gear comprising an extensive d&b audiotechnik J and V-Series system, quality sound delivery is assured. And when it comes to the visual system, Printworks London speed-dialled the UK creative Digital Insanity. With a portfolio bulging with examples of triumphant creative partnerships with dance events and nights – including the United Kingdom’s biggest weekenders and its globally-recognised superclubs – Digital Insanity was well placed to craft a visual set up worthy of Printworks London and, most importantly, its vast flock of e
Europe - Placebo's epic new show is touring European festivals with a revamped rock 'n' roll lighting design by Will Kinnaird, who is armed with an Avolites Arena running Titan V11. "My lighting brief was 'big rock 'n' roll', so that's what we're delivering," says Kinnaird, from WK Design. "We're playing various festivals across Europe, all of which obviously have very different house rigs ranging from 40 to 240 fixtures. Therefore, I needed a festival-ready console with live control acreage. The Avolites Arena is a big, powerful console with two touch screens and lots of faders.” Placebo's performances took them to major events including London's Meltdown; Medimex in Taranto, Italy; and Kiev's Atlas Weekend. Kinnaird used his own Avolites Titan Mobile and Wing to run Multi User Backup during the shows and for pre-programming off-site, mainly when he was flying
UK - Since its inception in 2015, Depot has become a leading alternative events space in Cardiff, originating highly successful experiences and events that have frequently been replicated across the UK. For the last two years, Depot’s creative team has staged its own music and street food festival - in 2017, at the SWALEC cricket stadium, and at Cardiff Castle in 2018. Cardiff-based events services supplier 11th Hour played a prominent role in this year’s renewal having been invited by Depot to supply a number of key services. Depot In The Castle featured an extravaganza of music and family entertainment, complemented by several artisan food outlets, that was in stark contrast to many of the summer’s more directly commercial festivals. Stiltwalkers and jugglers set the tone, in a relaxed, family-focused environment where an inspired music line-up, including afte
Australia - For the opening and closing ceremonies of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, The Electric Canvas, an award-winning Australian company specialising in large-scale projections, managed the AV projection via Modulo Pi’s high-end media server Modulo Kinetic. The 21st Commonwealth Games took place in April at the Carrara stadium in Queensland. Produced by Jack Morton Worldwide, the opening and closing ceremonies were spectacular shows with 4,000 volunteer performers. Combining theatre, dance, and music, the shows were created to reflect the Gold Coast culture, embodying its spirit and its energy. After winning the tender, The Electric Canvas prepared the event over six months. To achieve such a large-scale video projection in the stadium, they chose 20 x Christie Boxer projectors, as well as Modulo Kinetic, a powerful media server with advanced features f
The Netherlands - Effectively a festival and conference in one, The Next Web (TNW) conference is an annual gathering with the tag line ‘innovation through inspiration’ - and Alcons Audio systems are used throughout. TNW 2018 was the 13th year of the event, which has grown from around 200 attendees to over 15000. Backed by a number of major brands, it is held in Amsterdam’s Westerpark in late May. Jurjen ‘Jur’ Hesseling - founder of event production company JUR (formerly Jurlights) - has provided the production infrastructure for the event since it began. "Because TNW is all about new and future technology, the production for the many presentations, lectures, discussions and other live events has to be at the cutting edge of our industry," he says. "The whole event is executed on a really high level and our assignment is to make everything look and sound extre
USA - Classical music gets a new twist with Simply Three, a trio that has been redefining the stringed sound. As comfortable playing Bach and Vivaldi as they are Adele and Coldplay, the genre-hopping group has been captivating worldwide audiences with its original take on classical and popular music. In early March, the innovative trio performed at Arizona’s Mesa Centre, their diverse mix of music supported by an equally nimble and colourful lightshow designed by Erik Parker of Chris Lisle Design that used 46 Chauvet Professional fixtures, supplied by Creative Backstage. Parker’s rig was anchored by a total of 12 Maverick MK2 Spot fixtures, 34 Rogue R2 Wash units and eight STRIKE 4 multi formatted lights. These, along with a collection of beam fixtures, were flown on an X-shaped truss configuration over the middle of the stage and a diagonal truss unit on either
