Italy - With his glowing bow that evokes a Jedi lightsabre, electric violinist Andrea Casta is known as the ‘Jedi Violinist’. Casta performs over 200 concerts a year that reach more than 2m live spectators. The artist has taken his music to over 30 countries and boasts a social fanbase of nearly half a million followers.
His recent tour, The Space Violin - Visual Concert, sold out in major Italian cities. He was awarded Best Performer at the Dance Music Awards in 2018 and 2022. Many of Casta’s performances are smaller, boutique events. For those, the artist has chosen a TT+ Audio System that satisfies his desire to bring the highest possible sound quality and musical clarity to his audiences while being highly versatile, portable and aesthetically discreet.
“My smaller performances were a real challenge,” said Casta. "I needed a compact and easily transportable system, capable of taking my music to my audiences with the same quality found on big live stages. And I wanted it to integrate well with the architecture of both modern and classic venues.”
He continued: "As a long-time RCF customer, I chose their new brand, TT+ Audio, and created a system with TT 515-A full-range loudspeakers and the TT 808-AS subwoofer. I’ve been using this system for several months now, and it has proven perfect for my needs, offering a timbral clarity I’ve never experienced before with a compact system."
The TT 515-A is a compact, versatile two-way loudspeaker with two 5” neodymium woofers, a 1.75” titanium compression driver and a 100° x 7
USA - Low trim heights, limited hang points, the lack of house lights - these challenges seem to be present when lighting an event at any big ballroom. They certainly were at the Gatlinburg Convention centre when Andrew Dingman set out to light the Clayton King Ministries’ Crossroad Winter Conference this January.
Dingman comments, “The room and rigging will always be the biggest challenge when designing a show like this in a venue like this. But as is true in every case, there are always ways to overcome challenges.”
In this three-day conference, Dingman met the challenge presented by the relative lack of overhead space by modifying his plans. “Originally, I wanted to do another LED Banner above my mid stage LX truss, but was unavailable due to trim,” he explained. “Flying my MS LX truss to max trim allowed me to get bigger looks and more beam throw. A lot of those position were over the heads of the audience which helped create depth and height.”
Dingman also created a deeper sense of immersion on the ballroom’s stage by artfully blending ‘IMAG Torms’ with a collection of 24 Chauvet Professional Color STRIKE M fixtures, which like the rest of his rig, was supplied by StageWorx AV.
“Part of my design was to have video content on three vertical structures we call ‘IMAG Torms,’” he said. “All the content had to be custom made to fit, but it was well worth the trouble, compared to what we would have had if we did a typical 16:9 wall.”
Dingman blended this video backdrop with his Color STRIKE M fixtures. “T
USA - The Winter Jam Tour Spectacular returned for its bi-coastal celebration of positivity and spreading the Gospel with a lighting system provided by Bandit Lites. This year’s line-up included Crowder, two-time 2024 Grammy-award winner Lecrae, CAIN, Katy Nichole, Seventh Day Slumber, Newsong and more.
“Each year I lean towards putting most of my budget into the flown rig,” said longtime production manager Jerry Holcomb. “The tour usually has artists that bring some sort of ground package, so I leave room for that. Additionally, I have to be conscience of truck space and set up time. Winter Jam doors are early compared to most tours considering we have up to 10 artists and speakers each night; so, a rig that is efficient enough to fit into a truck and a half yet still look big enough for an arena is my goal.”
Holcomb sought Bandit client rep Allen Deneau’s recommendation on fixtures to compete with the large LED surface that takes up the entirety of the upstage. His answer? HES SolaPix 37.
“I’ve been real happy with their output and performance so far,” said Holcomb. “They also suggested using the BMFL Wash Beam for its output.”
Winter Jam also required a large quantity of fixtures to line out the thrust and B Stage area. Bandit supplied Elation CuePix WW2 blinders, which connected the looks of the WW2s that are flown in each truss section.
In total, Bandit Lites provided 240ft of Tyler Truss and eight Ladder Towers as well as nearly 200 fixtures including Chauvet Color STRIKE M, Elation CuePix WW2, HES SolaPix a
Qatar - On 12 January 2024, Qatar hosted the opening ceremony of the AFC Asian Cup at the 88,000-capacity Lusail Stadium, the largest stadium in the Middle East. The ceremony comprised a full-size stage in midfield with a set featuring sand dunes, colourful costumes, and visuals around a central motif of giant mirrored petals.
Simultaneously broadcast internationally across the Middle East, Asia and Australasia, the 21-minute visual extravaganza, Mirrors, The Lost Chapter from the Book of Kelileh Wa Demneh, was ‘a triumph of theatrical story-telling’. It was struck in just 27 minutes by 700 stage hands, in choreography as coordinated as the performers who preceded them, before the first match of the tournament kicked off.
“It was like Superbowl on steroids,” says lighting designer, Roland Greil who, brought in by design and production agency, Sila Sveta, used over 450 Ayrton fixtures as the majority - and main key lighting workhorses - of his design.
“Our aim from the beginning was to create a very theatrical theme and lighting design in keeping with the cinematic approach taken by producers, Katara Studios,” explains Greil. “The show was a hugely complex, spectacular, yet very theatrical piece with a detailed story line and glorious costumes. We needed a rig that could support the beautiful story on stage and create magical looks for 80% of the time, but also to have additional fire power to create some big looks for the remaining 20% for the live broadcast, and to reflect the joy and enthusiasm for the game of football within
USA - Although a procession of major stars like Fall Out Boy, 30 Seconds To Mars, The Last Dinner Party, Bush, The 1975, and Sum41 graced the Honda Centre stage, the lighting rig for this year’s iHeartRadio ALTer EGO concert, which is traditionally held at the Kia Forum in LA, was smaller than it was in recent years.
The size of the rig, notwithstanding, the design team was given the mission of making the overall production for the nationally televised event, look bigger than previous shows.
“We wanted to make the show seem larger this year,” said Dierson of The Activity. “Yet, there’s no bravado when I tell you that this was literally the smallest lighting rig that I’ve been a part of in the past 20 or so years.”
Describing this challenge as “a blessed reality”, Dierson explained how it sharpened his creative visions. “It’s good to be forced to get more out of less,” he said. “That may be sort of an age old saying, but it’s also the truth. There’s certainly an ease that comes with a challenge where you can throw more gear at something. However, when you’re forced to accomplish more without that ability, your design talents are truly challenged - and that’s a nice thing to be forced to hone every now and then.”
Among the fixtures that helped Dierson accomplish this goal at iHeart ALTer EGO were 20 Maverick MK3 Washes, 16 Color Strike M strobe-washes in 30-channel mode, and 18 COLORado 2 Solos in SSP mode 9-channel. These Chauvet Professional fixtures, like the rest of the lighting rig in this Diversified Pr
Australia - Hosted at The Hordern Pavilion in the heart of Sydney, last year’s B&T Awards revolved around the theme ‘Embrace the Extra-Ordinary’, with 40 categories presented during the night. Collaborating with their client, The Misfits Media Co., for whom Audio Visual Events (AVE) has been the preferred production partner for five years, a sophisticated LED structure powered by Brompton Technology’s Tessera LED processors was orchestrated.
“Before the B&T Awards, we assisted The Misfits team with their internal B&T & Travel Weekly programmes and agency event work,” explains Paul Keating, director at AVE. “The brief for this year’s event, encompassing the client's mood board, event styling, and content, featured dark backgrounds and vibrant colours. This was a perfect fit for utilising LED, allowing for deep, dark colours and contrasting vibrant ones to pop. Given the one-day build, show and strike, we needed an LED control system that allowed for flexible multiple LED canvases with a quick and easy setup and programme.”
Working as a cohesive team, including Eric Spencer (senior account manager), Dan Quinn (technical project manager), Dylan Hovey (technical director), and Brenton Dine (vision specialist), the AVE team closely collaborated with The Misfits Media Co.’s senior producer, Lachlan Russel, and project manager, Romy Bradbridge, to bring the project to life.
“We built a central LED screen, 12m wide by 4m high, flanked by two vertical pillars, each measuring 1.5m wide by 3m high. This gave us a total of
UK - Reading & Leeds Festival is to debut a new outdoor stage, The Chevron, at this year’s events. The festival attracts 240,000 visitors combined across both sites over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
Reading & Leeds will now feature an additional 40,000-capacity open-air venue, including the world’s first floating video canopy made up of hundreds of thousands of programmable LED lights that appear to be hovering in the air. The mesh is 90% transparent so festival-goers can dance under the open sky into the night.
“The bespoke structure, exclusive to Reading & Leeds, promises an immersive atmosphere and incredible programming, raising the bar for dance music and hip-hop fans and artists alike, raising the bar for dance music and hip-hop fans and artists alike,” said a statement.
Positioned in the main arena of both festival sites, The Chevron also signals the return of the single main stage. Since 2021, Reading & Leeds has featured two main stages instead of one to allow for six rotating headline acts. The set-up with six headliners will continue in 2024 but on one main stage across each of the sites.
“The stage's construction represents a feat of engineering, as the LEDs will appear to be hovering in the air. The canopy will bathe the audience dynamic light and the mesh is 90% transparent, so fans can dance under the open sky into the early hours. Featuring the biggest acts, bespoke creative visuals, cutting-edge tech and a world-class sound system, the Chevron is a must-visit festival experience you can’t have a
South Korea - Soyoun Lee’s is currently working for Lite Factory in Korea, designing and programming shows for several high-profile K-Pop music artists in Singapore and Korea. One of these is Korean record producer and singer-songwriter, Crush, who recently played several Wonderego concerts - in support of his i third album - at Seoul’s Jamsil Arena, for which Soyoun designed, programmed and operated the lighting.
For the first time, she chose to run the lighting control on a full grandMA3 system. Soyoun had used the grandMA3 console / hardware many times already (running in mode 2) and felt that this was a great time to ‘make the switch’, for which she prepared herself via online training videos and in-person training arranged via MA Lighting’s Asia Pacific base in Singapore.
Through the training, her grandMA3 knowledge increased exponentially and she realised that the platform’s many effective programming techniques were also triggering more creative ideas. The grandMA3 lighting set up on the Wonderego concerts comprised one grandMA3 full-size, one grandMA3 light, one grandMA3 processing unit XLone grandMA3 processing unit L and three grandMA3 8Port Nodes, controlling a total of 329 lighting fixtures that was a mixture of moving and static lights and LED fixtures and panels, all adding up to 17,685 parameters. Soyoun found herself using three main grandMA3 features - Recipes, Selection Grid and Phasers - as the backbone of her workflow, all of which enabled her to programme a complex and detailed show quicker, more efficiently and with grea
Argentina - Rock and pop musician Fito Páez continued his El amor 30 años después del amor tour last year with a 16 December concert at the Estadio UNO - Estadio Jorge Luis Hirschi in Buenos Aires where 54 Claypaky Sharpy Plus fixtures enhanced the energy on stage.
The tour marked the 30th anniversary of Páez’s breakout album, El amor despues del amor, the pinnacle of his commercial success. In 1992 the artist sold more than 750,000 copies of the album and played sold-out concert dates. Thirty years later he drew sell-out crowds to a commemorative tour from Gonna Go! Producciones that began in 2022. In the tour’s first year Páez played shows in South America and the US; last year he expanded the tour to include additional South American countries as well as Canada and Europe.
Lighting designer Gaspar Potocnik selected a large complement of Claypaky Sharpy Plus fixtures from rental house Técnica Vidal to enhance the dynamic shows that thrilled fans.
“The Sharpy Plus stands out for its versatility, colorimetry, motorisation and aperture range. It produces a beam or spot that facilitates multiple uses, making them a very interesting tool to operate,” says Agustín ‘Coqui’ Poblete, lighting technician at Técnica Vidal. The company also supplied the local lighting crew, which included Poblete, Gustavo Porollan, Daniel Toledo, José Gutiérrez and Darío Gil.
USA - Popular Americana and R'n'B singer songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff and his band The Night Sweats played their sold-out annual homecoming holiday concert at the Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado, in December.
It was the second time the annual event - which has been running for some years - was staged at this venue, after moving to the larger space in 2022.
The lighting was crafted by Jeremy Roth, who has been Nathaniel’s production designer since 2017. He utilised over 100 Robe moving lights - Fortes, Spiiders and MegaPointes plus a RoboSpot system - to help make it look spectacular and memorable.
Jeremy programmed and operated lights for this seasonal holiday performance himself, working alongside lighting director Adam Waguespack, who often takes the show on the road for him. At Ball Arena, Adam took on the vital role of coordinating the follow spots and RoboSpot system.
Additional video came in for the hometown production in the form of three large upstage screens, with the department overseen by Mike Grant (Black Keys), who is another talented LD in his own right.
The production design saw both lighting and video technologies share the stage, based on a scaled-up version of their current The Future tour which hit the road in April 2023, and an augmented package used for another high-profile set of sold-out local shows at Red Rocks last summer.
The video screens, which were framed by single LED blinders, were one of Jeremy’s creative starting points for the Ball Arena show, with the overhead lighting rig like the t
Rwanda - Unusual Rigging faced a number of challenges when they were briefed to provide the rigging for the Global Citizen Move Afrika event at the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda, on 6 December.
This event, organised by Done & Dusted, was the first event in a five-year large-scale effort to pioneer a first of its kind international music touring circuit throughout the African continent.
Sam Carter, senior production rigger, Unusual explained: “This event was a pretty big deal - not just as a music gig but as an initiative which hopes to help expand the industry in the region. Each year, we are pleased to work with some local people, demonstrating what we do, how we do it and hopefully, by giving some training to these guys, we’re giving them the tools to develop their own entertainment industry.”
One of the first things that Sam and the team had to deal with was a lack of engineering papers, so several conversations were needed with the engineers to get things moving.
Sam said: We knew that the building could take more weight than stated but we had to have some proof behind this. The original team of Turkish engineers pulled out of the project at the last minute, so at the eleventh hour, another company, based in South Africa was found.”
With more calculations and mountains of paperwork to get through for the engineers before any work could begin, an agreement was reached just days before the Unusual team flew out to begin load in.
Sam added: “We had 18 tonnes to hang in total from the roof - it took three days to get the
USA - Mickey Sabbath, an aging, manipulative and sex-obsessed puppeteer is the subject of Sabbath’s Theatre, a new play by Ariel Levy and John Turturro, based on the Phillip Roth novel of the same name.
The play, which recently concluded its run by The New Group, evokes the eerie pathos of Sabbath’s life as he approaches death, and his own reality frays, evidenced by his imaginary encounters with people from his past. Supporting the play is a lighting design by Tony Award winner Jeff Croiter that relied on the Chauvet Professional COLORado 2 Solo Batten for part of its haunting effect.
Describing the overall mood conveyed by the production, Croiter noted: “The set is very simple, and not realistic, so lighting and video take the audience from one place to the next. At times, it was more important to have a dynamic shift, even if that meant breaking with reality.”
Rather than focusing on advancing the narrative of the play, Croiter used his lighting to support different events in this episodic, dream-like drama, in which Golden Globe winner Turturro played the leading role. Sticking to a tight, subtle colour palette, Croiter leaned heavily on the interplay of light and shadow to capture the mood of each moment in this compelling story.
“The scenery in this play is far from realistic, so the lighting wouldn’t look real even if I wanted it to, but there is still a nod towards real,” he said. “Since Sabbath is a former puppeteer, we used the motif of silhouetted images as a nod to that. We also use lighting to carve the sp
Bahrain - A Dicentis conference system from Bosch was selected by the organisers of the recent International Paralympic Committee (IPC) General Assembly and Conference which took place in Manama, Bahrain at the end of September 2023.
Five new nations were added to the IPC family, taking the membership to 208 countries, and a pair of international federations recognised as governing bodies for para-sports. The event saw participation from more than 350 attendees from different National Paralympic Committees, International Federations, Regional Organisations and International Organisations of Sport for the Disabled.
Smooth communication was ensured thanks to an extensive Dicentis system which comprised 201 delegate devices, including eight multimedia devices, seven discussion devices with voting and 186 discussion devices with touchscreen. The conferencing solution for the event was provided by local Bosch partner Mohammed Fakhroo & Brothers W.L.L.
The Dicentis discussion device with voting was specifically chosen for the general meeting, thanks to its accessible options for visually impaired participants. The orientation sheet as an optional accessory added clearly noticeable braille cells to help distinguish between the different voting buttons. Added to this, audible feedback from the device helped to facilitate voting- when a participant casts a vote, a beep sounds in their headphones to confirm the action.
“The Dicentis conference system has been proven to be very successful for this event as it provides options for being inclusive
Germany - The country’s biggest New Year’s Eve party, Willkommen 2024, took place in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and was broadcast live for several hours by ZDF Television. The event featured spectacular live performances from leading German artists. An estimated 3.5m TV viewers watched the spectacle, hosted by well-known presenters Andrea Kiewel and Johannes B. Kerner, with around 65,000 spectators present at the event.
Such a prestigious occasion demanded exceptional audio, and full-service production specialist Ambion was engaged to deliver on-site sound production as well as set construction for the main stage.
Ambion supplied Coda Audio systems to meet what was a challenging brief. Whilst the sound systems were required to cover a very large area, they also had to take account of the sightlines of many TV cameras and be as discreet as possible. Florian Vollmer, senior specialist panning and head of sound technology at Ambion describes the scale of the task: “It’s true that the specifications were quite demanding! We had to cover the entire area from the Brandenburg Gate to the Victory Column, all with a limit of 84db. In total, this was a distance of almost 2.5 km, which required uninterrupted sound at the desired level.”
Florian began planning for the show three weeks before construction began, creating a Vectorworks plan to be used to generate a detailed Coda Audio System Optimiser file, before checking the various band riders and liaising with other contractors to see what infrastructure could be shared:
“Cod
UK - Unusual Rigging has dealt with a fair few strange and, well, unusual, requests over the years. So when Gary Beestone was brought on board as technical director for Netflix and Sonia Friedman Productions’ Stranger Things: The First Shadow, Unusual was chosen for the production’s complex rigging.
“Bringing Stranger Things to the stage is incredibly ambitious and challenging,” explained Gary. “The Unusual team and I are old friends, having worked on some pretty major events and productions over the years. I knew they were really the only sensible choice for this show and so engaged them to design, engineer, fabricate and install all rigging including specialist custom rigging for the production.”
With the original story by the Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne & Kate Trefry, this new production, based on the Netflix Series, takes audiences back to the beginning of the Stranger Things story - and may hold the key to the end.
Before the rigging work could commence, some temporary remedial works were needed at the venue first. Leading the project for Unusual, Jeremy Featherstone, senior design engineer commented: “We got into the Phoenix Theatre on the August bank holiday and had our work cut out from day one. If this show, with all its tricky rigging requirements can fit into the Phoenix, it can fit in anywhere. To say that some pieces of rigging were kissing the grid is no exaggeration. There is a cluster of grid-works, fly floors on either side and a massive ground support structure - all within a few inches of e
USA - Broadcast live from Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena for the second consecutive year, the 66th Grammy Awards were delivered by an expert production team who trust Shure wireless technology to ensure extraordinary audio.
“Shure’s Axient Digital wireless technology delivers the high-quality sound and reliability that our team depends on for the Grammy Awards,” shared Michael Abbott, audio producer for the 66th Grammy Awards show. “Their wireless, along with the wide variety of Shure mic capsules, ensures the artists sound their best for the live broadcast.”
To flawlessly broadcast the audio of the event worldwide to 16.9m viewers, a stalwart group of industry veterans, including Michael, relied on 28 channels of the Emmy Award-winning Shure Axient Digital Wireless Microphone System and eight channels of Axient Analog. Artists trusted Shure PSM 1000 in-ear monitoring systems during their performances, with a total of 190 Shure bodypacks used throughout the evening.
Frequency coordination serves an essential role in managing the staggering amount of wireless used throughout the Grammys. Working in the already frequency-dense downtown Los Angeles, Stephen Vaughn, Soundtronic’s RF Coordinator, oversaw this pivotal function with Axient Digital and, for monitoring, Wireless Workbench.
“Shure’s Wireless Workbench and Axient Digital prove themselves year after year on the Grammy stage,” shared Stephen. “Tools, like Wireless Workbench, give me reliable control and flexibility in LA’s challenging RF environment.”
“S
UK - Ed Warren’s lighting design for The Lottery Winners’ recent homecoming show at the 02 Apollo Manchester featured a strong floral element.
Warren had two rows of daisy set pieces arranged across the stage. Each had at its centre a Chauvet Professional Strike 1, single source 230W warm white LED blinder, ready to rock the house and transform the stage with intense strobes, audience lighting and immersive washes.
“The concept of the flowers came about from a creative meeting with the band,” said Warren. “They mentioned their logo/branding is daisies, so I had the idea of having some daisy set pieces built. The plan was that we would mount lights in the centre disc of the flowers. The Strike 1s seemed like the perfect solution since they provided natural looking light and a killer strobe. The daisy set pieces were custom made to suit a Strike 1 fixture. The lights were mounted on upright pipes and braces.”
Like the rest of the lighting rig, the 24 Strike 1 fixtures used in the show were supplied by Dragonfly Lighting. “Big shout out to Tom and Jack from Dragonfly,” said Warren, who, in addition to positioning the Strike 1 fixtures within the flowers, had other units flown over downstage. This reflected the emphasis he placed on audience lighting.
“The audience are a huge part of this band’s show,” he said. “There is an incredible connection between The Lottery Winners and their fans, and I didn’t want that feeling to be lost in such a huge room as the Apollo.”
This bond, engendered by Warren’s lighting was
Finland - The celebrated LUX Helsinki light festival took place at venues across the Finnish capital during January, with a highlight being the specially created projection mapped visual display onto the intricate façade of the National Gallery Ateneum.
The looping, five-hour graphic animations formed a large, 8,000px-wide canvas and were projected by six Barco UDX 4K32 projectors and driven by Green Hippo Hippotizer Montane+ RTX and Karst+ Media Servers.
The festival was staged by Events Helsinki, which brought in Capital AV to deliver technical production and visual consultancy for the Ateneum projections. In temperatures plummeting to minus 20 Celsius, the Capital AV team set up a warm trailer next to FOH position and the three projector towers. The animation work was designed by Katri Tikkanen and commissioned to celebrate the 60th anniversary of famous Finnish clothing brand Marimekko’s cherished design pattern, Unikko. Marimekko and Ateneum joined forces as major sponsors of the festival, making the projection project a reality.
A music score was composed by Matti Ahopelto, with the piece coming together as projected visuals that danced on the front of the imposing building.
“We deployed two Montane+ RTX and three Karst+ Media Servers to drive the projected visuals as we needed a reliable solution in the cold weather and with enough power for the large canvas, amount of graphics and the five-hour loop,” says Capital AV’s Max Lapinsuo-Sylwén. “The Hippotizers proved to be a powerhouse, running the show for the entire five-da
USA - Fan experience innovator PixMob returned to the Super Bowl for a fifth consecutive year. The entertainment lighting tech experts delivered a crowd-captivating immersive experience during the much-anticipated halftime show.
This year’s PixMob activation set out to elevate the halftime show to ‘unparalleled heights’, enhancing the performance of Usher by outfitting performers on stage with their X4 Wristbands. PixMob’s signature sustainably-sourced LED wearables lit up the field with synchronised visual effects to match the performance.
In the crowd, 60,000 spectators were equipped with PixMob’s LED badges, transforming the audience into a dazzling canvas of light and immersive effects.
"PixMob is honoured to mark our fifth consecutive year partnering with the Super Bowl, a testament to our commitment to pushing the boundaries of immersive lighting technology and continuously innovating the fan experience," said Jean Olivier Dalphond, CCO & partner, PixMob.
In 2014, PixMob immersed 80,000 fans and 500 on-field performers in synchronised light with their wearable LED technology during the Bruno Mars performance. From 2020 onward, PixMob has supercharged every subsequent Super Bowl halftime show with its immersive LED tech.
UK - The King’s Head is popular pub in the village of Bwlchgwyn, not far from Wrexham in North Wales. Providing a valuable focus for the community, owners Eddie and Abbie always strive to deliver the best customer experience possible, and recently took the decision to upgrade the pub’s sound system, which they no longer considered fit for purpose.
Specialists Pivotal Sound & Lighting of Wrexham were engaged to design and supply a solution for The King’s Head. Pivotal cover every facet of audio for live events, hire and installation, and their vastly experienced team has a reputation for excellence across the region. Pivotal recommended an Optimal Audio system to meet the pub’s varied programme.
Darren Hughes, director at Pivotal Sound & Lighting comments, “The existing system comprised a number of loudspeakers driven by a home cinema amplifier which was running as a single zone, including in the outside area. Given the range of events that the pub hosts, a zoned system was essential. This would allow for example, a ‘loud zone’ around the bar area, a ‘quieter zone’ in the snug, or perhaps keep the outside area audio-free during karaoke or DJ sets. They also wanted the facility to input audio from their TV screens. Ultimately, it was about having better quality audio and better control.”
Pivotal has worked on many projects supplied by distributor Audio-Technica and were aware of the Optimal Audio ecosystem. Darren immediately settled on the Zone 8 controller for the new system because of its flexibility, internal DSP, HDMI
Germany - Rea Garvey is one of the best-known musicians in Germany and is a guest on the biggest stages and festivals year after year. An arena tour for his new album Halo has already been announced for 2024. Prior to this, the Irishman took the opportunity to feel the intimate audience proximity of smaller clubs again with the Roots tour.
Chris ‘Rocketchris’ Glatthor, who has accompanied Garvey as a production designer since 2014, was also on board. Rocketchris relied on the Cameo PIXBAR G2, AZOR and ZENIT Series – among others – for the minimalist stage designs.
According to the experienced production designer, who is responsible for the entire visual realisation of the shows, the Roots tour was something special in more ways than one: "It's the first real tour in several years. What's more, there is no new Rea Garvey album, hence the name Roots. We play in small clubs with capacities of around 600 to 1000 people, and the budget is manageable. Despite this situation, Rea wanted to take material with him to ensure that he could achieve the same looks every day and offer the audience the same experience everywhere – regardless of the nature of the room and what material is available in the clubs."
Chris Glatthor's Cameo setup comprised the PIXBAR SMD IP G2 LED bars, AZOR S2 spot moving heads, and ZENIT Z180 G2 LED PAR spotlights. The PIXBAR SMD LED bars had the greatest effect on the look of the shows, as they were distributed in a stacked version across the entire width of the stage and also illuminated the accompanying projection
The Netherlands - Prolights DisplayCob TRWDFC illuminated the Dying in Beauty exhibition at the Drents Museum Assen, in an innovative collaboration with the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and the National Archaeological Park of Herculaneum.
The exhibition was illuminated with Prolights DisplayCob TRWDFC to tell the story of Pompeii's life before its destruction, showing how art and technology can merge to create a powerful visual narrative. The NorthenLight agency took care of the artistic design, relying on Lichpunt for the lighting setup and 50Lux for the lighting design.
Light was used as a narrative tool to differentiate life (white light) from death (red light representing lava). Lighting designer Frank Hulsebosch of 50Lux used 12 DisplayCob TRWDFC to achieve colourful, intense lighting effects, demonstrating the versatility of products in a complex exhibition context.
The Luchpunt team expressed great satisfaction with the performance of the DisplayCob TRWDFC, praising the quality of the light output, in particular, stating: “The quality of the white light is excellent. The DisplayCob TRWDFC maintain the intensity of the light output even during the color change.”
This lighting setup contributed to the exhibition winning the German Design Award 2024 in the Excellent Architecture category. The jury praised the use of lighting and colour, which allowed ancient artefacts to appear in a new light, revolutionizing traditional perceptions and captivating visitors with an exhibition that combines beauty and lightness.
UK - Singer-songwriter Callum Beattie captivated sellout crowds on his recent winter tour of his homeland, Scotland. Supporting him with some fiercely bold visuals was a power-packed light show by Steve Mccraken of Mac-Events, who programmed the show and ran it throughout the tour on his ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M Stadium Console.
Working with a kit supplied by Limelight Event Services, Mccracken busked some manual flashes, strobes, and other looks, but most of his show was cue stacked. “We kept the looks consistent from show to show to create the experience that fans expected,” he said. “Although we had to make some changes to accommodate some venues, we remained consistent overall.”
The looks that Mccracken designed seemed to be tailor-made for his client’s genuine up-from- the-streets stage presence. For example, Mccraken created some interesting effects mixing silhouettes with wide prisms and gobos. This look was notable in the song Don’t Walk Alone, during an instrumental break down, when the band are silhouetted and many of the lights are chasing. “The band appear out the dark every second or so,” said Mccracken. “It’s a simple look and it brings so much to this part of the show.”
Given that Beattie and his fans thrive on close contact, Mccracken arranged his fixtures to maximise the artist-audience connection. “I deliberately put my front lights low, so Callam could see the crowd a little easier,” he said. “I also had blinders on during the talking sessions.”
Mccraken, who designed the show in Capture and
USA - Rock band Lord Huron burst onto the charts with The Night We Met, a viral hit that caught the attention of billions. Capturing the intricate and delicate nature of their music while recording is crucial for the band, and they put just as much emphasis on recreating that listening experience for live audiences.
To ensure the band delivers a sound on stage that is consistent to their studio sessions, Front of house sound engineer Justin Chechile selected the band’s favoured DPA Microphones vocal and instrument mics, including the DPA d:facto 4018VL Vocal and 2011 Twin Diaphragm Microphones. For recorded and live applications, the band also deploys the DPA DDK4000 Drum Microphone Kit, comprised of the 2012 Cardioid and 4055 Kick Drum mics, along with a stereo pair of the 2015 Wide Cardioids and three 4099 Instrument Microphones.
“Lord Huron first started using DPA mics for the recording side of things,” Chechile says. “The team loved the mics’ performance in those cases and thought it would be nice to bring them out on tour - and I’m so glad we switched the live setup to DPA.”
Chechile explains that lead singer Ben Schneider frequently moves around stage during shows, which caused a significant high-end bleed from the drum set. “The d:facto was first to come on the live side,” he says. “We were struggling to find a vocal mic that wasn’t super coloured and offered a really flat sound. The d:facto fixed all these issues and provided context and clarity
“I could talk about this mic all day. It’s very open sound