South Africa - DWR Distribution provided new lighting installation for the annual Christian Revival Church (CRC) Dreamweek Explosion conference held simultaneously in Bloemfontein and Pretoria in October. Phase 1 of the upgrade saw CRC Bloemfontein’s Main Auditorium receive a huge facelift. The 5 000-seater Auditorium situated in the South of Bloemfontein was extended to accommodate an additional 1 200 people. The ceiling was removed, air conditioning installed, and a new 24m wide stage, more than double the size of the original stage, was built. The DWR team, headed by Robert Izzett, installed Prolyte H40V trussing above the revamped stage onto which both the church’s existing lighting fixtures and the new LED power saving units comprising of 18 Robe Spiiders, six Robe Pointes and 28 LED Parcans for audience wash were hung. An 8 Port Node was added to the MA syste
UK - The audio system in the main concert hall at the Lighthouse arts centre in Poole, Dorset has been upgraded. The venue was originally conceived as the home of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and has adequate acoustics for classical performances, but the increase in speech orientated material performed there in recent years meant a new system was needed to improve speech intelligibility. Jake Sutton, technical manager at the Lighthouse explains: “The system we had in place was really only suitable for public address and simple amplification for events. We augmented this for music and other performances that required more audio support but it was very hard work to get an acceptable sound. Our main issue was lack of direct speaker coverage and uniformity of sound across the whole auditorium. We, alongside theatre consultants Charcoal Blue, invited three PA compan
UK - Stormzy’s Gang Signs and Prayers tour was extensively lit with Ayrton fixtures. Lighting designer Steve Bewley opted for an Ayrton-laden specification for each incarnation of Stormzy’s show, which visited various academy venues this year before concluding with two Brixton Academy gigs. “There were 38 MagicPanel-R units and 10 MagicBurst on my list. The UK and Ireland shows were all of a decent size, Brixton Academy has a capacity of nearly 5,000 and then we had various festival variations and a special rig for Glastonbury. Altogether, there were six different designs but the Ayrton fixture choices were always central to the show. Their dynamic look is not something that can be replicated and they were versatile enough to adapt to all the different venues and configurations. “For the academy shows, we stripped out the house rigs to make it enti
UK - L-Acoustics ARCS WiFo system was specified for the Belfast Empire’s Empire Laughs Black Comedy Club to cope with the venue’s challenging configuration and architectural restrictions. Owners Wine Inns Ltd required a new, high specification FOH sound system installed that would deliver excellent audio coverage across the venue’s dancefloor, as well as the raised tiers of seating areas and audience vantage points. The company’s technical manager, Will Barrett, contacted technical production company, Adlib, who recommended the L-Acoustics. “The venue operator required an updated sound system that would supplement and support live performances for a wide number of genres from spoken word and comedy, to folk music and rock ’n’ roll at their vibrant and very popular city venue,” says Adlib director, Roger Kirby. “The venue’s ornate interior architectu
UK - White Light has provided the lighting equipment for the UK tour of Flashdance – The Musical. Based on the Paramount Pictures Film, the musical tells the story of 18-year-old Alex who dreams of attending the prestigious Shipley Dance Academy and becoming a professional dancer. Yet when a romance complicates her ambitions, she harnesses this to drive her dream. Flashdance – The Musical is being produced by the award-winning Selladoor Productions and features a lighting design by Mark Howland. He comments: “Having never actually seen the film, this allowed me to approach the piece with a completely fresh perspective as though it were a new piece. The show is very rooted within 80’s music so I was keen to push some of the bold 80s colours which are largely associated with the music videos and concerts of that time. We also keep a lot of the ligh
Spain - Robert Juliat added some French flavour to the celebrated Spanish music festival at Cap Roig, Girona this summer. Local rental company ABS Entertainment Service supplied two Robert Juliat Merlin 2500W and two Robert Juliat Aramis 2500W followspots as front of house support for the duration of the two-week event. The festival originated in 1927 when it began as an art and architectural and music show. This, the sixth edition of the festival in its present form, ran from 7 July to 22 August 2017 in a site spread over 17 hectares of gardens, complete with castle. The line-up of singers and bands included Anastacia, Passenger, Silvia Pérez Cruz, Norah Jones, Wilco, Woody Allen, Els Amics de les Arts and The Pretenders. Merlin and Aramis are two of Robert Juliat’s most popular followspots and the team from ABS rigged two of each on front of house towers fo
UK - CPL returned to the attractive leafy environs of Ragley Hall in Warwickshire to provide a full video production package for the Main Stage at the 2017 Camper Calling festival - a new event staged by Jazz Events, part of the Jazz Publishing Group. Building on the success of last year’s inaugural two-day Camper Calling, this year the capacity was doubled from 3000 to 6000 and another day of fun and entertainment for all the family was added, making it three days, which allowed people to enjoy some rare and endangered glorious late August bank holiday weekend weather – apparently the hottest on record. Main Stage headliners included Cast, The Lightning Seeds and the Flying Swordfish, and CPL was working for Urban Audio, with a team on site led by Simon Haydon. Fifty panels of Roe 3.4 mm LED screen was installed onstage, flown off a mid-stage truss and confi
UK - Event Sound and Light were contracted to provide a full turnkey production solution for Outside Live 2017, which took place at Taverham Hall, Norwich on 28-30 July. Sound designer Jason Fenn deployed a full Martin Audio system for the event, preferring a combination of MLA Compact cells with MLX subs in cardioid format. He says: “The concerts were sold as a ‘picnic’ style event so we knew we had to have even SPL from the front row to the very back. On top of that, the event site was very close to a neighbouring village so keeping our off-site noise to a minimum was essential. “The other deciding factor for choosing Martin Audio MLA was the superb audio quality and sonic excellence that the system delivers.” Additional Martin Audio DD12s were deployed for in-fill and centre-fill duties, with the entire system managed by Martin Audio’s dedicated M
UK – Chauvet fixtures have been installed at one of Manchester’s most famous industrial-era buildings, Victoria Warehouse, which was transformed into a multi-purpose cultural hub with a corporate event space, The Bays. Installed by the Sterling Event Group, the venue benefits from a collection of 165 Chauvet Professional COLORdash Accent Quad fixtures. Richard Nicholson, project manager at Sterling Event Group, positioned the COLORdash fixtures next to the industrial-era steel columns to ensure more immersive coverage. “Given the architectural setup within both bay areas, the compact build of the COLORdash Accents ensured that we could provide a discrete solution for downlighting each pillar,” he said. “What’s more, we know from past experience that these fixtures are incredibly easy to set up and install. As a result, we were able to integrate them s
UK - Students from The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) are preparing for a rare London revival of David Hare’s Stuff Happens, supported by the launch of the new Video and Digital Design training strand. As the new academic year gets under way, Edward Kemp returns to the Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre to direct Stuff Happens. Premiered at the National Theatre in 2004, David Hare’s examination of the build-up to the Iraq War combines verbatim theatre with speculative conversations. This new RADA production will integrate projected video into the design to counterpoint the action on stage, adding to the layers of documentary and drama already present in Hare’s script. Designer and illustrator Jane Heather is collaborating with video artist Ali Hossaini on the production. In the Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre, and with the support of state-of-the-art equipment provid
USA - As part of the annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game festivities, the FanFest is an indoor baseball theme park experience dedicated specifically to the fans of the game. With opportunities to take photos with MLB Legends, get free autographs, plus pitch, hit and run on an indoor baseball diamond, the FanFest is an event like none other. Continuing the implementation of technology enhancements designed to heighten the fan experience, the producers once again worked with BaAM Productions and MSI Productions at the 2017 event, and together they created an LED video tunnel entrance using 3.9mm FLEXLite Plus from PixelFLEX. “Major League Baseball made it known three years ago that they were going to implement a tiered series of capital improvements to the annual FanFest experience at the MLB All-Star Game,” began Tom Bollard, technical director, MSI Productio
USA - Fashion designer John Varvatos is synonymous with the rock ‘n roll look, and his nearly 30 stores around the world – from San Francisco to Mexico City to London to Moscow to Bangkok and beyond – attest to the global excitement for his uniquely put-together, yet authentically rebellious look. When the Varvatos company added its fifth New York City location in the Westfield World Trade Centre mall, they hired Essential Communications (East Hanover, New Jersey) to design and install a killer music playback system worthy of the Varvatos name. Essential Communications relied on Ashly Audio’s four-channel nXp8004 DSP-equipped network multi-mode amplifier, paired with Ashly’s WR1.5 remote volume control & source/preset selector and Ashly’s custom iPad/iPhone remote control app. “We specialise in retail, restaurant, and hotels where the client cares a l
Belgium - Creative Technology has installed 58 Panasonic projectors as part of the 100th anniversary commemorations of the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium. As part of the two-day event, hosted by the BBC and The Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the imposing façade of the historic Cloth Hall, was illuminated with projection and light displays as a backdrop to a special live performance. Marking the 100th anniversary since the battle, the content, designed by Creative Technology, was brought to life using a total of 58 projectors (49 x PT-DZ21K’s and 9 x PT-RZ31K’s), delivering spellbinding, high brightness images – particularly suitable for event and staging applications. Lucy Meredith, product marketing specialist for Panasonic UK, says, “The use of our laser projectors for events as big as the Battle of Passchendaele’s memorial is rapidly gr
USA - Every summer, some of country music’s hottest acts head into Eastern New York’s Catskill Mountains to perform at the Taste of Country Music Festival, and every summer, the team at Atomic Professional Audio ensures the main stage sound is as pristine as its surroundings with an E-Series loudspeaker system from Adamson Systems Engineering. “Atomic has been a proud Adamson house since the days of the Y-Axis series,” comments George Perone, Atomic’s head of audio. “Since the beginning, we’ve been impressed by every Adamson model we’ve heard, and we were an early E-Series partner based on that history of superior sounding loudspeakers. But on top of the sonic performance, we’ve also seen a substantial return on investment with Adamson every time we’ve bolstered our inventory.” On the main RAM Trucks Stage, which featured performances by Ja
UAE - You can't miss the latest attraction at The Dubai Mall: the new curved video wall above the Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo measures a stunning 700sq.m with 1.7 billion pixels on 820 OLED displays. Behind the scenes, you'll find Dataton's award-winning Watchout multi-display production and playback system, Watchnet manager software and Watchpax 4 servers delivering high-resolution content for the mall's estimated 80 million visitors. The new video wall at The Dubai Mall, unveiled by Emaar Entertainment in August 2017, takes digital signage into a whole new realm and has already earned a hat-trick of records, in partnership with LG: largest OLED screen, highest resolution video wall and largest high-definition video wall. Dataton’s Watchout multi-display system and compact Watchpax4 media servers handle content production and delivery, while LG’s flexible
Australia - Brisbane’s Point Source Solutions are specialist AV integrators that pride themselves on making complex systems work. With skills across multiple disciplines, Point Source can do everything from event management, to networking infrastructure, to LED video screen design. With a diverse roster of clients, Point Source recently found themselves aboard two P&O cruise ships, the Pacific Dawn and the flagship Pacific Explorer, upgrading their theatre’s lighting system with High End System’s Full Boar 4 consoles. With a rotating line-up of productions created for the global cruise giant by Sydney’s Grayboy Entertainment, theatre on the P&O line is just as complex and technical as it is on dry land. Grayboy’s lighting designer Gavan Swift is a dedicated Hog user, and specifies High End Systems consoles for all of the P&O shows. As part of a major up
Italy - An Allen & Heath dLive C Class mixing system was selected for a charity concert by famous tenor, Andrea Bocelli, held at Teatro del Silenzio in Lajatico, Italy, for his foundation, Voices of Haiti. Held annually, this year’s concert featured a choir of 60 young Haitian singers, who are part of an educational Andrea Bocelli Foundation (ABF) musical project. The opera star accompanied the choir and there was also performances from several international guest artists. Now in its 12th year, the concert was attended by more than 15,000 people. PA company, Luciano Spera Audio Video Luci, was responsible for audio requirements on the night, selecting a compact dLive C3500 Surface with CDM48 MixRack, to manage FOH. Sound engineer, Pierpaolo Guerrini, commented: “The dLive C Class was a great choice for this concert. Its compact size means we did not take
USA - What The Festival (WTF) returned to the Wolf Run Ranch in Oregon on 16-19 June for the sixth edition of the boutique festival. Funktion-One sound, including a Vero system for the main stage, was deployed across the festival, courtesy of Sound Investment and Fusebox Productions. WTF was born in 2012, the same year that the festival’s co-founder, Glen Boyd, had Sound Investment install a Funktion-One sound system in his house. This year’s event welcomed 7,500 people, who came for what Boyd describes as: “A totally immersive festival”. “It’s not about massive crowds and headliners, it’s about the whole experience, which includes interactive art, eight stages of electronic and live music, guest speakers and movement classes,” he says. “We don’t do pass outs because we want our community to stay together and for the environment to be as immersive a
UK - Historic landmark building (and former picture house), The Scala at Kings Cross originally opened its doors just after the end of World War 1. More recently, in its current guise as an eclectic live music and dance/club venue, it has played host to many top bands since the venue reopened in 1999, including Tiesto, Bastille, Ed Sheeran, Nine Inch Nails, Kaiser Chiefs, Foo Fighters, Rihanna, Rita Ora, Lana Del Rey, The Killers and Stereophonics. In order to keep up with the demanding technical requirements of artistes of this calibre, the Scala recently upgraded its house PA system to a Martin Audio MLA Compact, with the new system designed and installed by Capital Sound (for whom both The Killers and Stereophonics are long-term touring accounts). With as many as 800 people packing the place for live stage events (rising to 1145 capacity for club nights), audiences
USA - Millions of fans got their first taste of Dropkick Murphys’ potent Celtic punk musical brew watching Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award winning film The Departed To Boston. The Quincy, Massachusetts-based band’s platinum hit I’m Shipping Up To Boston ran through that dark and edgy gangster drama like a red-hot wire. Although the movie may be 10 years in the rearview mirror, Dropkick Murphy’s fires are burning as brightly as ever. This intensity is on full display in the group’s current tour, co-headlined with the equally potent punkers Rancid, in support of its ninth studio album. Along with the relentless energy, non-stop crowd surfing, and big explosive sound, the tour is serving up some searing visuals for both groups courtesy of a Cody James designed lightshow that features Chauvet Professional Maverick and Rogue fixtures supplied by JDI Prod
USA - It was a beautiful summer evening in Atlanta, Georgia when legendary reggae innovator Beres Hammond triumphantly took the stage at Clayton County International Park. Already glowing from the heat of the warm-up acts, the sold-out crowd of 6,200 exploded at the sight of their hero, and the tunes that followed lifted them rhythmically up to reggae heaven. Credit for the successful show goes to Hammond, his band, and the promoters, but it also goes to Collin Rigg his sound production company (Showmax), and the Danley Sound Labs rig that Rigg commissioned for the show. A pair of massive, point-source Danley J3-94 Jericho Horns and six Danley BC-415 subwoofers conveyed the artistry, spirit, and chest-thumping rhythm of Hammond’s reggae. It’s true that the Danley rig would not have been there had it not been for Rigg, but it’s also true that Rigg would not have b
Czech Republic - Robe moving lights made a major contribution at the 2017 Colours Of Ostrava (COO) festival with nearly 100 fixtures utilised to light the ArcelorMittal Stage in a stylish and flexible production design created by Kamil Kruzik. The lights were supplied by oneAVteam, the largest audio visual rental group in Central Europe. Three companies cooperated on this project – AV Media, RentalPRO and Yventech. The annual four-day international multi-genre festival is staged on the site of the former ironworks at Dolní Vítkovice, Ostrava, Czech Republic. The site was inaugurated in 1830 and was a major hub of metal production activity in the area until 1998. It now provides an impressive and highly charismatic backdrop to the event with its unique industrial architecture. The lively festival includes some 20 performance stages with over 350 live music acts, plus disc
Denmark - Two years ago, it all started; the concept for Watermusic was developed by Kevin Finnan from dance and theatre company, Motionhouse. One year ago, lighting designer Phil Supple was brought to the team, and early September it all culminated in a three-night breathtaking show on the industrial harbour of Randers as one of 12 Full Moon projects in the official programme for the European Capital of Culture - Aarhus 2017. Watermusic consisted of a stunning choreographed piece involving dancers, musicians, a 300-voice choir, aerialists - even aquatic jetpacks, boats and much more. Sound, AV and lighting were supplied by Nordic Rental; their package included multiple SGM IP65-rated LED luminaires: 120 P-5 wash lights, six P-1 wash lights and 25 G-Spot moving heads. In association with Randers EgnsTeater, the show had international touch from the
Germany - As frontman of the band H-Blockx and singer of one of Germany’s top bands, Söhne Mannheims, Henning Wehland has enjoyed great success. His recent solo tour Der Letzte an der Bar (Last Man At The Bar) relies on an Allen & Heath dLive for Front Of House and a GLD-80 for monitors. Technical director and FOH engineer Ansgar Friemel has been using Allen & Heath consoles for many years and for this diverse production he felt the dLive C Class C2500 system was the right fit. “The big challenge of this production is the bandwidth of gigs we play, from street parties to the big festivals,” says Friemel. “We needed a very flexible console at FOH which integrates into various Dante or MADI networks easily – and dLive delivers it all. I also love that dLive gets better with every firmware update. Allen & Heath really listens to their
