The ILMC says that the safety guide will provide a tool for concert and festival organizers to assess and manage risks, and will be useful to everyone from the new event organizer to the most established promoters. Scheduled to be ready by late autumn of 2004, it will primarily be accessible via a specially designed website, although a limited number of hard copies will be produced. With its Euro
"The backdrops are different for every tour," says Chesters. "The audience never sees anything that it's seen before. 'Eddie' is usuall
The answer was in the form of Harlequin Allegro, a loose lay dance floor designed specifically to protect against hard sub floors. The thickest roll out dance floor currently available anywhere, Allegro comprises a vinyl surface reinforced with a tough fibre interply and backed with firm foam cushioning for resilience, providing a nine
Star Rigging has also acquired two more of the compact CM12 12-channel controllers for rigging duties on a recent video shoot for Christina Aguilera. Star's Phil Broad once again chose the CM12 for the convenience of its compact size, adding to pre
Kern took on the role of production manager for the 'Stripped' tour in March when rehearsals began, leading into production rehearsals in June. Taking on the World 'XTina' style began in earnest with 46 shows in the US before her first Arena tour across Europe and the UK, taking in 29 shows, then three nights in Tokyo, before finishing with seven dates in Australia.
In addition to Aguilera there are five musicians, three backing singers and eight dancers on stag
UK - "At first there wasn't going to be any grid, we were asked to rig a system off the king poles." Bryan Grant of audio contractor Britannia Row Productions describing the preliminaries of what is always a big event in the music industry calendar, the MTV Europe Awards (EMA's for short). Unrealistic as that might seem - this is after all Europe's premier music awards show (isn't it?), the initial belief that you could stage a world class event off some tent poles proved a partial blessing.
"The design was very different this year," continued Grant, "they brought in Mark Fisher [creative director was Ray Winkler] and he produced a quite minimalist set design, a big departure from previous years. Plus the show was characterized by multiple performance points, with many presentation areas as well."
The concept predicated a highly distributed syste
Using the well-known Atrium at Melbourne's Crown Casino, Crown's creative services manager, Christian Wagner, worked with John Kerr of Stage One Promotions to design the annual display, while Bytecraft's Special Effects department were charged with overseeing the lightshow, which was programmed by Megafun's Keith Tucker. The centrepiece of this year's display is the giant clock, which is suspended below the Atrium's crystals, and is lowered and raised during the show. The clock face also tells patrons when the next show is due to start, so it had to attract attention
The Dinner - traditionally a top-notch affair - this year featured a performance by the Royal Philharmonic orchestra, introduced by Richard Baker. It was sponsored by Jaguar, who wanted to display two of their top production models above the stage for the occasion. Summit - well experienced in car flying - installed two trussing grids measuring 6m x 3m flown from venue points either side of stage, and then sub-hung four Lodestar hoists to pick up the two custom-built car platforms, which Summit had custom-designed and fabricated to support the 2000kg cars.
In addition to this, Summit flew a 22sq.m Barco D-lite 7 LED screen supplied by SPS, and also installed a large curved truss to mask the o
Simon Caldwell from SES adds: "The growing company will be moving to larger purpose-built premises in Luton, Bedfordshire in the new year and will offer a full range of servi
Earls Court was the first UK venue to hire the system, for a run of concerts in November and December 2003, including Capital Christmas Live, Iron Maiden, Radiohead, Metallica and the Stereophonics. Capital Christmas production and show director, Mark Ward, commented: "I was extremely happy with the stage's performance, the speed and decking quality of the new system made a huge difference in the show build."
The system, manufactured by Birmingham-based Total Fabrications, allows quick, safe and efficient construction, requiring no tools. Arena Deck ha
Only a few weeks earlier, the Kremlin in Moscow took delivery of 35 chain hoists from Chainmaster, also in the 500kg weight division and conforming to the same BGV-C1 standard. The hoists were equipped with electronic position encoders and the Chainmaster control system, consisted of a network of three slave and two master
PLASA has arranged a one-day seminar to examine the new legislation in detail and discuss the compliance issues that may cause the Industry concern in the future. PLASA intends to collate any views and comments from the seminar and respond on behalf of the PLASA membership to Government.
The seminar will be held at the NEC in Birmingham on the 10 of February 2004 starting at 10am. Ron Bonner, PLASA's technical standards manager, will present the Regulations in their entirety and invite discussion,
"This move is all about creating a better service for our multi-national customer base," said Stage One's Mark Johnson. "We've timed it carefully to avoid any disruption to business."The company's new contact details are: Stage One Creative Services Ltd, Hanger 88, Marston Moor Business Park, Tockwith, YO26 7QF; Tel: 01423 358001; Fax: 01423 358016.
(Lee Baldock)
ESS also supplied one of their new, q50 type stages, built to a larger size of 14.4m by 9.6m at the Opera House for the show 'Rugby on the Hou
The band's European tour took in 28 dates before its curtain down in Cardiff, with a total of 18 sell-out gigs in the UK. Having played a range of arenas on the tour, the shift up to a stadium sized show for their 'home crowd' of 52,000 meant a significant increase in the scale of the show for production manager Neil Macdonald. Where possible Macdonald stuck with the main tour suppliers for the finalé show (sound system from Capital Sound, lighting from VLPS London, catering by Eat to the Beat), however to create a visually spectacular setting for the band a specialist large scale stage was required, so he turned to suppliers Pete Hol
Stage Technologies, in conjunction with The Rigging Partnership, provided the scenic wow factor for the show with an automation system to complement the starlet's visual extravaganza. For her grand entrance they used four Big Tow winches to lower her onto the stage on a mechanical girder, as characterized on the Body Language album cover, with a further two monster LED screens tracking up and down stage. With four thousand screaming fans and a number one from the album already under her b
Working on a phased basis over 10 days, the company used the boom lifts to attach over 300 electric motors to the roof of the NEC in order to lift the structures that support the lighting, sound and video equipment. The AFI machines on hire to Concert Lights had working heights from 5.7m up to 25m. One of the largest machines - the Haulotte H25 TPX boom (see above picture) proved to be particularly versatile because its rotating jib enables the operator to gain better access by manoeuvring the cage into different positions in rel
The Hire and Live Events department was recently responsible for the creative design and technical management of seven major events over three weeks. One of these included a 1920s themed event for a 60th birthday celebration. "Centred around the art deco period, this was a great event to work on," commented technical director Mike Naish. "Our team was involved from the very start of the planning stages. We designed the invitations, set, lighting
The 1,132 ft long, 17 deck, 150,000 tonne vessel - the largest liner in the world - was officially named by Her Majesty The Queen at Southampton Docks. Summit was working for event producer Robbie Williams. The 2200 plus VIP audience, royal box and the event stage were all encased in a customized ESS 'theatre', located on the dockside, just adjacent to the ship. The rear stage 'wall' was made from a transparent material, and the structure was strategically angled to line up with the ship's bow. A stylish kabuki drop revealed the QM2's name on the bow - through the back wall - acting as an atmospheric stage backdrop.
The company has been formed by industry veterans who are dedicated to show control products that will make a real difference for operators, designers, and the audience. The company's products will incorporate innovative solutions for hardware, software, and networking, as well as what it claims will be unique user interfaces.
The-Fun-Company is a multinational enterprise, with offices in Germany, Scandinavia, North America, and the UK, enabling it to provide re
In selecting a supplier, the theatre referred to Visual act's flexibility and forward-looking technical features. The system is open and can easily be expanded to control under stage machinery or other elements. The user inteface will be specially adapted to fit the theatre's working routines.
The current computer system, installed in 1985, is still effective even by modern standards. It allows for the simultaneous operation of any num
Critics aside, audiences were not deterred and the production played to packed houses for the majority of its run, with Brian Thompson's set design appearing to receive praise from all quarters. The play opens to a large cage, whose interior swiftly adapts to be a town square, a barber shop, a Victorian parlour or a lunatic asylum
Leading automation suppliers Stage Technologies bought Nick Baren's set to life by providing automation for this production using a four-line winch and Saxis control console. Production manager Richard Eustace needed a cost-effective and simple automation solution to fly in a projector screen, quickly and safely. Stratford East's own manual-flying system would not have been able to achieve this effect quickly enough without some form
