UK - Depeche Mode’s career spans four decades and a reputation for musical originality has kept them relevant and at the cutting edge in delivering one visually and sonically inspiring performance after another.
Blackburn lighting rental specialist HSL is the main lighting and video contractor worldwide for the current Spirit tour. They are partnering with CT to deliver the video package.
The raw, stylish, industrial production design is by creative director Anton Corbijn, who has always pioneered video as an essential vehicle of live production. Lighting has been designed by Sooner Routhier and Robert Long of SRae Productions and is being directed on the road by their associate LD, Manny Conde.
The Spirit tour is being production managed by Tony Gittins and plays a mix of stadiums and arenas. HSL’s project manager Jordan Hanson is working closely with CT’s

South Africa - As the Naledi Award winners of the night thanked their mothers, their fathers, their oumas (grandmothers) and life partners, as tears flowed, speeches were read and the audience cheered and rose to their feet, it was clear that the ceremony hosted at the Lyric Theatre in Johannesburg on 5 June 2017, held great substance to the victors of the night.
With sponsorship and finances bleak, an act of kindness and financial support saw various local and international companies rallying alongside founders Dawn and Des Lindberg, to ensure the 13th Naledi Awards would take place. To top it off, Haccius Mokopakasi, who has been in the industry for 40 years and works in the Market Technical Department, received the Lifetime Achievement Award while Hlomohang Mothetho and Wesley France were the winners in the Best Lighting Design category.
Many people are unaware that

USA - After 12 years, 19 Number One singles and untold touring miles, AMC Entertainer of the Year Jason Aldean isn’t about to take his foot off the pedal. The dust had barely settled from his 2016 We Are Here tour back in January, when he announced plans for his current 33-city They Don’t Know road show. At the time, the country superstar promised that his new tour would be bigger, bolder and brasher than anything he’d ever done before.
Rolling through a 90-minute, 22-song set of old and new hits, Aldean has sold-out crowds on their feet, with his animated stage presence and rip-roaring mix of hard-driving music. Supporting his performance and lending extra visual pop to the proceedings is a brawny and colourful Chris Lisle-designed lightshow, anchored by 118 Chauvet Professional Rogue RH1 Hybrid moving fixtures supplied by Bandit Lites.
Lisle posit

Italy - Singer songwriter Davide Van De Sfroos has brought the picturesque stories spoken in the ‘laghèe’ dialect, which is spoken in the northern areas of Lecco and Como, to one of the most important stages in Italy - the San Siro in Milan.
More than 20,000 people attended his concert, exactly the goal that the artist (real name Davide Bernasconi) had been hoping for - and hugely impressive considering he was using a language very difficult to understand for anyone not from that area of Northern Italy.
The sound reinforcement was provided by Martin Audio partners, All Access, and they fielded their premium and award-winning MLA PA. The hangs comprised no fewer than 22 MLA and an MLD Downfill on each side of the stage, underpinned by 36 MLX subs. For side-fills they added a further 11 MLA on each flank, while front-fills were made up of four further MLD Downfills

USA - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ 40th anniversary tour has been thrilling TP fans across the USA since April, and the show’s visuals are the handiwork of lighting designer / director Stanley Green and co-visual designer Kevin Cassidy. To augment his potent arena lighting package, Green specified 30 High End Systems SolaSpot 1500s as the ‘workhorse’ hard edge fixtures for the tour.
Green prepared a total of six complete lighting and set designs for the 40th anniversary tour for Tom to choose from. He comments: “Our technical director Kevin Cassidy had lots of creative input, and was instrumental in bringing it all together. Also, Tom asked for some things which changed the original look somewhat.
“I'm using 30 SolaSpot 1500s sprinkled throughout the rig; in fact there are 1500s on every single truss. They are my work horse hard edge fixture for this to

Europe - When Elation Professional launched the Fuze series at last year’s PLASA show, the company filled a niche in the market for dynamic LED wash luminaires with a line of modern PAR lights that project a high-quality flat field of light yet emulate the classic lens look of a traditional Fresnel.
Now, Elation is expanding the series with the addition of the new Fuze PAR Z175, a full-colour LED PAR light designed for use in all types of stage wash applications from theatre, TV studio and HoW environments to touring and special events.
With the Fuze series, Elation chose to improve upon the pixelated lens face of ordinary LED PAR fixtures by replicating the classic look of old-school pars and moving wash fixtures that so many designers and artists prefer. Like other lights in the Fuze series, the Fuze PAR Z175 uses single-lens RGBW COB LEDs to project a single homo

UK - The British Museum Experience (BME), a new museum dedicated to popular music honouring the global influence and history of British music and artists, is now open and in full swing at the Grade-II listed Cunard Building in Liverpool.
At the heart of the attraction, the main stage show is powered by a 7thSense Nano-SDI media server featuring a specially produced digitally-projected performance by music legend Boy George, and a large-scale stage hologram – all integrated by DJ Willrich.
The BME was originally housed inside London’s O2 venue between 2009 and 2014 – while a few items from the original site were recyclable, the new permanent home and themed zones of the BME have seen a full technology and content refresh.
Visitors are taken on a chronological journey of British music history from 1945 to the present day as told in eight state-of-the-art inte

USA - Awe-struck. That sums up the feeling that visitors experience when they step into The National Building Museum. Located a short distance from the U.S. Capitol, the stately Italian Renaissance Revival structure that was built in 1887 is breathtaking in its scope and elegance. Its vast central hall has housed presidential inaugural balls from the time of Benjamin Harrison through Barack Obama. The Corinthian columns that line its great room are among the tallest in the world.
The Bozzuto Management Company recently held an employee award ceremony at the museum. Bozzuto Management focuses on creating extraordinary experiences for their residents and wanted to provide that same level of detail and care for their employees. To create this upbeat atmosphere, while accenting the building’s impressive architectural features, a multi-faceted lighting design by Brett Angstadt

The Netherlands - Ampco Flashlight Rental selected Allen & Heath’s dLive S Class system for an annual concert at Amsterdam’s Johan Cruijf Arena for renowned pop group, Toppers.
Formed by Dutch singers, René Froger, Gerard Joling, Jeroen van der Boom and Jan Smit, the band performed in the round on two consecutive nights, in a sing-along event that has been staged every year since they formed in 2005.
This year, the band’s long-standing FOH engineer, John Kriek, selected a dLive system for the first time, comprising two S7000 and a S3000 Surface with three DM64 MixRacks and two DX32 Expander racks for FOH, fitted with several gigaACE and Waves3 network cards. The gigaACE cards were used to create digital audio splits between the three systems and the Waves3 modules were used for live recording, backing track/click playback and plugin processing.
“dLiv

USA - Multiple Grammy Award winning singer songwriter Sheryl Crow is on the road with her new Be Myself album, together with a new lighting & scenic concept created by LD Jeremy Roth which includes Robe Spiider and BMFL Spot moving lights.
Jeremy landed the gig after production manager Rick Purcell saw his designs for the current tour by Chicago alt-rockers Wilco and made Sheryl aware of his work. They and her management team all wanted a more theatrical presentation that was based on soft scenic elements.
This provided the starting point for the design, together with extensive discussions between Jeremy and the artist about how stage aesthetics related to the vibe and direction of her album. Lyrically, the new songs deal with a disconnect in relationships fuelled by excessive electronic communications and over-exposure through social and other media distrac

UK - You don’t get a Kerrang! front cover without blowing people’s socks off and that’s exactly what Biffy Clyro did at Download when they headlined w/e 10 June. “We used the exact same show we toured at the end of last year,” said LD Richard Larkum, “With my full light show and all the physical and video elements of Misty’s original stage design.”
That’s no small undertaking, the set is a striking example of forced diminishing perspective created from a stepped stage and portals constructed of video tiles in concentric array with an elongated landscape screen behind. It’s as eye popping as live video gets and is in no small part due to Larkum’s masterful combining of video and lights as a coherent whole.
“We took the production back into rehearsals for this, a one day set-up, two days working as we had a lot of new faces in the Lighting,

UK - For nearly 30 years, Durham Marenghi has been lighting Raymond Gubbay’s Classical Spectacular show. Marenghi’s designs for this production have enthralled audiences at the Royal Albert Hall for decades as he describes, “Classical Spectacular has developed from an all Parcan rig with me operating on a Celco Gold to the addition of Vari-lites on an Artisan desk. I believe that we had the first Vari-lite fixtures outside of Rock ‘n’ Roll from the VL1 upwards, through the LSD Icon control and fixtures and then on to a full automated system controlled by a grandMA from MA Lighting.
“Over the years, we have created a massive library of musical pieces with many different rigs and the grandMA2 has converted a lot of this data into the current repertoire. I know of few other control systems that could have achieved this.”
With MA control at the

UK - Ed Sheeran has always enjoyed huge popularity, but with ÷ (Divide) having dominated the international album charts since its release and the accompanying ÷ tour selling out the instant dates were announced, it has never been higher.
The tour began in Europe in Turin in March, travelling to Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Spain before heading to the arenas of the UK and Ireland. It has worked its way round South America, Central America and Mexico in May and June, then back to the UK before heading over to the US.
Ed is once again using Sennheiser’s flagship Digital 9000 Series microphone system and 2000 series wireless monitors, supplied by production company Major Tom.
Chris Marsh, Ed’s production manager, as well as front-of-house and monitor engineer, has been with the singer for six years and has an intim

UK - Written by John Gay and with music arranged by Benjamin Britten, The Beggar’s Opera is one of the most renowned folk operas of all time. Since its first performance at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, London in 1728, there have been thousands of productions across the globe. The latest comes from Birmingham Conservatoire who recently performed the show at the city’s Crescent Theatre. White Light was called upon to provide the lighting equipment.
Upon its initial performance, The Beggar’s Opera parodied life in 18th century London and poked particular fun at the fashionable Handel operas of its day. This revival from Birmingham’s Conservatoire begins as a modernised version of the classic story and features a lighting design by Charlie Morgan Jones.
Charlie comments: “This production of The Beggar’s Opera starts as an up-to-date rete

Denmark - A gigantic 24m diameter ‘earth globe’, known as Climate Planet, has been dominating the Aarhus skyline since early June - to coincide with the Danish city being appointed European Capital of Culture.
Encapsulated within this giant model of the Planet is a smaller sphere, and as visitors arrive at the spectacular high tech exhibition on climate change during the six weeks it will be stationed in Aarhus, they will be immersed in a surreal world of twinkling stars, generated by G-LEC Solaris LED balls.
Climate Planet is the brainchild of Henrik Rud, CEO of Koncept Aarhus, and he was soon sharing the idea of what he believed would be the largest facsimile of Earth ever produced, with Lars Nissen, operations manager at event A/V specialists, Comtech A/S. “When I first heard the idea I thought it was crazy,” admits Nissen.
The Comtech specialist in tu

UK - The Claypaky Mythos2 luminaire was selected for its advanced optical features and superior colour mixing by lighting designer Steven Bewley to support his high-impact lighting design for record-breaking British grime artist Stormzy in his recent UK tour.
Bewley, who has worked with rap artists such as Dizzee Rascal and Tinie Tempah, was head-hunted by Stormzy after the rapper saw the designer's work for fellow artist Wretch 32.
"I worked closely with Stormzy's production managers Bronski and Trevor Williams to design two sets of shows for the debut album tour Gang Signs & Prayer,” says Bewley. "One design was larger and for a series of three 'one-off' performances at the Brixton O2 Academy. The other design was what we used for the main bulk of the tour in smaller venues."
The larger show design saw an expanded visual package of 14 independentl

Scandinavia - Owned by AS Tallink Grupp, the Baltic Princess cruise ferry sails between the Finnish city of Turku and the Swedish capital of Stockholm. Built at a cost of €165m in 2005, it can accommodate 2,800 passengers and was designed with luxury in mind.
Audico, Finland’s largest AV company, undertook the task of supplying and installing an L-Acoustics PA for the refit of the ship’s audio system, a project that spanned two years and took in all four of the ships entertainment areas: a nightclub, pub, live entertainment venue and disco.
“The first phase of the project was the ship’s main venue – The nightclub. The ship’s owners wanted to have the best possible audio system for its new, high-profile live music repertoire,” says Audico’s Pauli Molnár, who was working on the project in conjunction with consultant Tuomas Karppinen. “L-Acoustics was

UK - Lighting and video rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment is enjoying another majorly busy festival season, supplying over 50 events up and down the country over the course of the summer.
One of the early highlights was Wildlife staged at Shoreham Airport (AKA Brighton City Airport) on the south coast, a musical adventure organised by SJM and curated by popular dance artists Rudimental and Disclosure, now in its third year. Colour Sound has also been involved from the start.
This year west London based Colour Sound supplied lighting for four stages and LED screens for one.
Wildlife 2017 radiated friendly vibes as everyone felt the love and enjoyed some fabulous weather, together with a dynamic and diverse musical line-up with outstanding performances by the likes of Fatboy Slim, Jess Glynn, Eric Prydz, Dizzee Rascal and many, many more.
James Hind,

Belgium - LD Ruben de Snoo chose the new wash fixture with independent LED battens to enlighten all musicians in order to create more depth on stage.
Additionally, de Snoo was also very pleased with the 30° and 50° lens system of each fixture. “Because of the two different lenses I was able to create an even wash throughout the whole band, where other fixtures provide a hotspot below the hips of band members. Also the fixture is able to deliver smooth & saturated pastel colours, ”added de Snoo.
“The LEDwash XL is a compact, light weighted fixture which is very easy to apply on our shows, so it will definitely part of our club tour the second part of 2017.”
The LEDwash XL wash fixture has two LED segments. The two horizontal LED battens can be manually tilted and controlled separately. Because of the 30° and 50° lens it is possible to use the fixtu

Europe - Grammy winners Clean Bandit are an EDM tour de force. Following their critically acclaimed appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival earlier this month, they played Glastonbury and have other summer festivals around Europe through August. The American leg of their tour is scheduled for October. In large venues and small, 18 Solaris Flare Q+ fixtures are integral to the band’s show.
“We’re using two sets of six for side-washes, and seven units upstage, all with Kasmer diffusers for a really clean look,” says tour lighting designer and programmer, Liam Griffiths. “I wanted the diffusers to hide the LED sources, which can be harsh on camera. I use the fixtures in two-pixel mode and as strobes. I've used Flares on almost every tour I've done and the new Flare Q+ is far brighter. Most of the time I actually find myself restricting them to 75%!”
Show des

Denmark - Lighting designer Martin Holst wanted to make impact with a floor-based and cost-effective lighting / set package that was fully tour-able for Danish singer songwriter Rasmus Walter’s 2017 tour - and chose 24 x Robe picklePATTs and six BMFL Blades to be at the heart of the design.
The floor package also included LED strips which outlined an upstage scaffolding structure on which the picklePATTs were rigged together with some side lights. It was augmented at each venue by a specified ‘top’ rig.
The equipment was a new investment for rental company Vigsø Dry Hire via Robe’s Danish distributor, Light Partner, and these were the first picklePATTs in Denmark!
Robe’s reporting team caught up with Martin and Rasmus during a gig at Vejle Musikteater which also happens to have a Robe house lighting rig, so Martin was able to integrate 12 x MMX Spots

UK - The new UK production of the classic musical 42nd Street, playing since April this year at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London's West End, has been an unmitigated success since its press night produced a swathe of five-star reviews from all the critics.
Behind the scenes, the musical is also breaking new ground, with over 80 channels of Shure UHF-R wireless microphones (UR1M transmitters and UR4D receivers) in use at any one time - if not a West End record, then certainly one of the shows with the highest wireless channel counts in London theatre history.
Award-winning sound designer Gareth Owen is responsible for all of the audio infrastructure on the 42nd Street revival, and has been a long-time user of Shure wireless systems. “Ever since they released the UHF-R system, we've had good results - and when I find a system that gives me good resul

UK - Okulus, the production design company working alongside creative director Paul Caslin, and 24/7 Productions, were behind the Canadian singer-songwriter’s recent Illuminate World Tour, creating attention-grabbing looks, with Hippotizer Boreals and Taigas.
The Hippotizer Taigas (one active, one backup) fed a 1920 x 640 curved, 9mm LED wall, which served as the performance area’s main backdrop to display the visuals, triggered via timecode. The team also integrated the video director’s live camera feeds into the content.
A key technical aspect for the Okulus team was Hippotizer’s ability to beautifully integrate with Notch, the ‘real-time graphics workhorse’. Effects here included a 3D model of Shawn Mendes – using an Xbox camera focused on Shawn DSC – which Okulus placed into pre-programmed environments. The team also used the set-up to manipulate IM

Azerbaijan - Entertainment engineering specialist WIcreations specified and fabricated two large and spectacular set pieces – a water fountain and a Tree of Life - for the opening and closing ceremonies of the fourth Islamic Solidarity Games, a multi-national, multi-sport event staged in Baku, Azerbaijan from 12 to 22 May 2017.
WI’s team, project managed by Yves Vervloet, was working for Betty Productions Ltd. who co-ordinated all the creative and technical production elements for the ceremonies on behalf of the Islamic Games Operations Committee.
The ceremonies both took place in the 70,000 seater Baku National Stadium, a venue already familiar to the WI team after their work there for the 2015 European Games.
The water vessel and the tree – integral parts of production designer Thanassis Demiris’s visual treatment for the two ceremonies - were realised

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