Czech Republic - The opening ceremony of the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) featured a gravity-defying vertical dance performance with large-format projection and eight aerialists from Jednotka Rychlého Nasazení (Rapid Action Unit) who were creatively directed by brothers Michal Caban & Simon Caban, universally known as ‘Cabani’.
To light this choreography, they chose 24 x Robe MegaPointes, which were installed, together with custom trusses, motors and a bespoke people flying system into the Great Cinema Hall at the Thermal Hotel in the Czech spa city.
The MegaPointes were delivered by Prague-based rental / production company, AudioLight Service and operated by LD Ladislav Horak.
Cabani is an innovative boundary-challenging dance and physical theatre group founded by the brothers whilst they were at college 25 years ago. Since then, they have been thrilling audiences worldwide with their unique blend of adrenaline-fuelled acrobatics and imaginative expression, working on a diversity of theatre, film, video and multimedia projects.
This year was the 24th time that Cabani has designed and produced the opening and closing ceremony shows for KVIFF. While they keep coming up with multiple fresh performance ideas and concepts, the pressure is always on as audience expectations are now super-high that something visually outstanding will be revealed.
For this year’s OC event, they decided to create the vertical – and suspended – dance piece after being inspired by the graphics artwork for this festival ev

France - The Cartel des Mines is an annual three-day sporting event that was created in 1962 at the initiative of the École des Mines de Paris engineering school. The occasion brings together teams from European Mining Schools (Paris, Douai, Nantes, Alès, Albi, Saint-Etienne, Nancy, Madrid, Vigo, Oviedo, Turin, Bochum, Krakow and St. Petersburg), as well as the Emines-School of Industrial Management in Benguerir (Morocco), to compete in different sporting disciplines before enjoying evenings of entertainment.
The 2019 edition of the Cartel took place in Albi and drew some 2,000 students each night.
French technical services company, SC Management, was on hand to provide the audio reinforcement for the associated festivities, which included a rousing opening ceremony at the Sainte Cécile cathedral square and evening parties at the Parc des Expositions exhibition centre featuring full light, sound and video production.
In order to achieve the best possible results for such a high-profile event, SC Management opted to employ an APG-heavy audio setup across both venues.
“I discovered APG about 15 years ago,” said manager of SC Management, Sebastien Vaudez. “We worked together on a number of club and restaurant installation projects and subsequently began building our inventory of both rental and installation-focussed products. We now stock a large part of the range including their PA systems, subwoofers, amplifiers and processors.”
Sound reinforcement for the opening ceremony came from six APG SMX15 stage monitors and four TB215S

The Netherlands - Dutch national airline KLM celebrated 100 years this month, making it the world’s oldest airline and the first airline still operating under its original name to reach its centenary.
To mark this landmark occasion, Hangar 10 at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam was cleared out to host multiple days of a spectacular KLM Experience event, where guests were treated to an impressive overview of KLM’s past, present and future.
WIcreations, working for technical production suppliers United Productions, used their new WImotion system and new proprietary MCA automation control to animate a massive LED video wall which split into three sections and tracked across the stage. The screen was the centrepiece of the event’s show.
A special movie was screened taking an in-depth look at KLM’s development over the decades and its pivotal role in the history of international civil aviation.
The screen measured 17m long by 5.7m high, and split into three sections. The centre one at 10.5 wide was flanked by two at 3.36m wide, with a total weight of 2.6 tons.
The project was managed for WIcreations by Geert Stockmans who worked closely with Unlimited’s Bart Roelen.
Geert commented, “MCA offered a perfect solution for this high-profile event, combining accurate, dynamic control with reliability and all the correct certification. This was also an ideal scenario for the system which offers powerful and intuitive next-generation automation control for numerous applications.”
Other components of the automation system

USA - In Netflix’s new reality TV show Hyperdrive, car racing meets obstacle course in a type of American Ninja Warrior with cars. Lighting is in the capable hands of two long-time industry pros and Warrior lighting veterans, Ed Motts (lighting director) and Adam Biggs (director of photography).
Motts says it was through their work on Warrior that the team was brought onboard to light the new reality competition. “We’ve really developed a niche reputation for doing outdoor TV shows,” he says of the lighting team. “Whatever Mother Nature can muster we’ve been through it. Hence we’ve gone with Elation gear because the IP rating is tremendous for us.”
The inaugural season of Hyperdrive was released by Netflix to a worldwide audience in August. The series was filmed at the Eastman Business Park in Rochester, N.Y. The complex was transformed into 10 obstacle racecourses with contestants driving custom cars through a series of obstacles.
Motts used a large package of dynamic lighting to bathe the Hyperdrive course and cars in light, colour and effect. Some 200 Elation Cuepix 16 IP LED matrix panels, 245 SixPar 100 IP LED PAR lights, 145 Platinum Beam 5R Extreme narrow-beam moving heads, and 34 Proteus Hybrid moving heads, along with other lighting, played a key role in helping to create maximum TV drama. Aspect Lighting out of LA supplied the automated lighting with MBS providing conventional fixtures.
One of the show’s many challenging obstacles is called Walk on Water, a 50,000-gallon water hazard where ca

UK - London-based Spiritland Productions recently commissioned its new large-format Spiritland One sound and video OB truck, featuring a BroaMan point-to-point fibre transport system running between the truck and the stagebox.
The luxury mobile production vehicle, built by Megahertz, contains an end-to-end IP infrastructure, and audio runs entirely on a Dante network, which the BroaMan environment supports. Their system is based on two new Repeat48WDM-24 with 2Fiber boards, the layout allowing BNC SDI ports to be combined with SFPs, with all signals able to be multiplexed into common fibre.
Spiritland Productions co-directors, Gareth Iles and Antony Shaw, adopted this solution following a meeting at IBC 2018, and the order was duly placed with BroaMan UK dealers, HHB.
Built around a single 1RU device, the BroaMan architecture allows bi-directional multi-format, multi-signal transport via a quad fibre cable. Explained BroaMan Technical Sales Manager, Maciek Janiszewski, “This is a bespoke truck and the specific configuration of each device was equipped with 12 3G-SDI coax ports -which can be used for video or MADI - and six bi-directional SFP slots which can be populated with any SFP transceiver to transport different signals.”
Both the Repeat48WDM on the truck and the similar device on the stagebox connect via two DUO singlemode fibres, and also tied into the system are the SSL System T production desk (via singlemode fibre SFP), and 1G Ethernet for AES67 used in the Riedel Bolero comms network (via multimode fibre SFP). Spiritland One a

Canada - Julien Clerc is currently on the Canadian leg of his his 50th anniversary Piano et Voix tour. Supporting him is a powerful Eric Lapointe lighting design that features Chauvet Professional Maverick fixtures supplied by LSM.
The Quebec-based Lapointe’s theatrical background has played a prominent role in his design for Clerc’s Canadian shows.
“This tour is held in leading theatres, most of which have massive stages, so we wanted to trim high, as high as 30ft,” said Lapointe “Thus, I needed an instrument with the output to cut through the haze and still deliver gorgeous texture even in saturated colours. The saturates are essential to this show. Each song has its own flavour and visual mood with the lights only moving in two of the more than 20 songs performed. Instead of movement, we treat the audience to incredible colour fades and quiet textured zooms.”
Lighting specialist Gil Perron working with the LSM team consulted with Lapointe, and suggested that the Maverick MK3 Profile and MK2 Wash had the feature sets to help him achieve his vision. “LSM works thoughtfully and diligently with clients to match them with the fixtures that best fit their needs,” said Perron. “The more we studied this, the more we felt that the Mavericks were the ideal choice.”
Lapointe is lighting each musician with a single dedicated MK2 Wash. The MK3 Profile fixtures are being used to add texture to the scenic elements, as well as for specials on the artist and texture on the floor.
“In the end, every song is receiving a theatric

UK - Technical production specialist Adlib supplied lighting for two arenas at Creamfields 2019 and audio to four arenas, plus lighting and sound for the hospitality zone.
Creamfields attracts 70,000 dance fans each day for three days with a DJ line-up representing the diversity of dance culture and sounds. Merseyside-based Adlib worked directly for creative production specialist LarMac LIVE and their team led by Ian Greenway.
The logistics and planning of the lighting side of this highly detailed project were coordinated and project managed by Adlib’s Jordan Willis. The designs for arenas CF07 and CF09, for which Adlib supplied the full lighting packages, were created by Ian Tomlinson from High Scream.
A curved layered structure clad with LED video panels set the aesthetic tone for CF05, making a complete curve but with some strategic gaps left in between the LED where lighting could be secured to the scaffolding superstructure.
Adlib added 20 x Martin MAC Aura XB LED wash moving lights, 20 x Claypaky Axcor Beam 300s, 60 x Chauvet COLORdash PARS and 12 x CP Stormy LED strobes for blasts and accents. All of these were attached to the structure to keep the stage completely clean and clear. Control was a grandMA light and Adlib’s techs were Dave Smith and Ash Dawson, also both operating, supported by technician Peter Lea.
CF07’s lighting design was based around a combination of flown elements and a substantial ground support over the stage, installed by Prism.
Four raked finger trusses provided ‘roof cover’ for lighting a

Italy - Performers at The Lucca Summer Festival included Take That, Toto, Macklemore, Tears For Fears, New Order, Elbow, Mark Knopfler, Janelle Monáe, The Good the Bad and the Queen, Scorpions and Sting, as well as Italian stars Eros Ramazzotti, Giorgia and Francesco De Gregori, all of whom performed in Piazza Napoleone, the main square of the ancient Tuscan city’s centre.
To satisfy the sonic needs of such a wide variety of genres, an Outline PA was chosen for the second consecutive edition, supplied by this year’s audio contractor, Target Sound, one of Poland’s largest full-service production companies and an Outline GTO Partner based in the southern Polish city of Chorzów.
Lorenzo Patellani and Paolo Calza were the Outline system engineers at the event and the former explains, “Ensuring all the spectators an unforgettable sound experience was no easy task, as the square is wide and short and the stage-front also very wide, so considerable care had to be taken to ensure perfect coverage of the entire audience. To this end, the decision to field Outline’s new compact Superfly line array systems on out-fill chores proved a winner, thanks to their excellent control of rear dispersion, which avoided on-stage sound spill, and their 90° horizontal dispersion, optimizing coverage of the side sections of the audience area.”
The set-up featured nine GTO C-12 plus a GTO-DF as down-fill per side, plus 9 + 9 Superfly systems on out-fill duty. On stage there were two stacks of four Mantas 28 systems, and eight LIPF 082 enclosures along the edg

Portugal - A High End Systems Hog 4 lighting console was already declared a winner while contestants battled it out on Portugal’s Game of Games TV show.
Lighting designers Marco Silva and Ricardo Maia and lighting director Miguel Valerio shared duties on the Hog 4 with the first taping of a premiere season of Jogo De Todos Os Jogos for Warner Bros. Portugal. Based on the American version of Ellen’s Game of Games, the show is taped at the Valentim de Carvalho’s Studio 3 in Lisbon, and premiered 12 October on nationwide TV.
Silva chose the Hog console as he’s been using the platform since 2000. “I love it.” he declares. “Hog 4 is an easy and fast console to program. Just think: Source, Mask, Action, Destination.”
Each game had a customized logo, which was displayed on the LED screens. “That was our guidance in terms of colour. We recorded a total of 15 games this season, each with its own look and colour, together with lighting triggers that each game required, whether it was a red for a wrong answer or a green for right,” Silva explains.
“We had 600 channels of RGB ribbon on the set framing each window on the doors,” he continues. “We played a lot with the Hog 4 console’s pixel mapper, using pixel layers combined with the effects engine. The plot view allow us to lay out an LED product’s RGB strobe cells - which we were using in 68-channel mode - together with the 18 High End Systems Shapeshifters, and play with them using effects and pixel layers for those necessary bumps and whistles typical

UK - Specialist hire and events business, SLX, has been sold by the Stage Electrics Group in a transaction led by the existing chief executive Alastair Currie.
All staff will transfer as part of the transaction which completed on Friday 11 October 2019.
Alastair Currie says, “Two years ago I joined SLX and at the time had no idea what an amazing business I would find. SLX is brimming with some of the most knowledgeable, talented, passionate and dedicated individuals I’ve ever come across. From delivering on incredible West End productions and national tours to utterly unique corporate events as well as being in house providers at nationally recognised top tier venues, I couldn’t be prouder of the work we do.
“There is still an incredible untapped opportunity and I’m confident our plans for significant investment in the latest lighting products and further investment in our technical team will enable SLX to quickly become recognised as the leading player in the hire and live events sector.”
Maria Townsend CEO of Stage Electrics Group comments, “We believe that this decision is extremely positive for Stage Electrics, it will enable us to target our management time and focus our resources more effectively. As a market leader in installation, sales and venue services both in the UK and overseas, we felt the timing was right to concentrate purely on our core businesses.”
(Jim Evans)

USA - Registration is now open for the 2020 New World Rigging Symposium taking place 31 March – 1 April in Houston, TX in conjunction with the USITT Conference and Stage Expo. The event provides an opportunity for riggers and those interested in the entertainment rigging industry to network, discuss current issues and new technologies, and help shape the future of the industry. A complete schedule, session descriptions and a link to register are available at www.esta.org/nwrs.
Over the two days participants will be given a range of opportunities to further their technical knowledge in sessions covering video wall rigging, automation and motorization, and tension grids. They’ll keep up to date with codes and standards, have some of their most pressing questions answered by structural engineers, and learn about rigging for cinema and performer flying.
Jeanette Farmer will deliver the Keynote Address to open the symposium. Her career spans more than three decades of professional theatre technical support, show production, concert/theatre lighting design, theatre design consulting and themed entertainment project management.
(Jim Evans)

USA - Global design and BIM software provider Vectorworks continues to support the next generation of designers, naming Kristopher Clemson winner of the 2019 Richard Diehl Award, the grand prize for the Vectorworks Design Scholarship.
With over 1,600 submissions, scholarships were awarded to 20 student projects from the architecture, entertainment, landscape and interior design industries. Winners included both individual and group submissions.
The winning project, The Octagon submitted by Clemson, a recent graduate of Full Sail University and founder of Bifröst Lighting, focuses on lighting design, Vision and MA 3D renderings. Clemson used Vision alongside Vectorworks Spotlight to help with previsualization and implementing MA lighting on a PC.
“It is an incredible honour to receive this scholarship and to be the first entertainment winner of the Richard Diehl Award,” said Clemson. “As my first time applying to the Vectorworks Design Scholarship, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I struggled with the design process, but the usability, flexibility and overall presentation was achievable with Vectorworks software. I advise anyone looking to apply next year to suffer for your art and to ensure you have a well-balanced life of creativity surrounding yourself with creative mentors and friends.”
Pyura: The 333 Tour by Mauro Pujia, Polytechnic University of Madrid (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) was winner of the entertainment category.
“We congratulate all winners of this year’s Vectorworks Design Scholarship, an

Europe - Painting with Light has developed Realites, a real-time virtual lighting design tool for balancing and fine-tuning the lighting of people and 3D objects in relation to digital scenery that is appearing on LED video screens in the background or foreground of the same scene.
It enables the lighting designer / programmer to light both the video content – which will already have a pre-determined ambience – and the actors or set around it, using the show lighting console, and without the video content needing to be re-rendered.
This is a flexible solution for video-orientated shows, creating highly realistic effects as the blend between 2D and 3D elements onstage becomes imperceptible.
Additionally, lighting on both the actors and digital backgrounds can be perfectly matched or contrasted to achieve the exact desired effect, bringing a perfect visual harmony to each scene.
The big advantages are the real-time workflow and rendering; an extremely fast production process offering ultimate flexibility for video and scenic content right up until the show / event goes ‘live’ and the expansion of creative possibilities in a show environment.
PWL initially developed the technique for Studio 100’s 40-45 spectacle which launched in 2018. The production is still thrilling audiences at the Pop-Up theatre in Puurs, Belgium.
The ‘virtual lights’ are additional lights to those on the actual physical lighting rig in the theatre or performance space. They are built into a 3D model which is loaded in the video server being

UK - British pop-rock band The 1975 embarked on a two-year world tour, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, with a firm focus on the fan experience: what they see, hear and feel – whether in the front row or the gods – is paramount.
With drum and bass, ethereal pop and pulsating rock performed in venues ranging from regional halls to big city arenas, the production team required a flexible, powerful and clear sound solution. As a result, the tour is one of the first to take the d&b KSL System on the road.
“Musically, this band is very eclectic, so you really need a sound system that covers all of those genres and styles,” says Jay Rigby, front of house engineer for The 1975. “Lead singer Matty Healy and drummer George Daniel produce their own albums - they know exactly how they should sound live and they have the technical expertise to communicate that effectively.”
Rental house Eighth Day Sound has worked with The 1975 for their past two album cycles. As early adopters of new d&b technology, they collaborated with Rigby to specify the KSL System for this tour.
“One really interesting thing with the KSL,” says Rigby, “is that the vocal range is just incredible - that crossover point between the mid and the high is so smooth; you don’t really hear any horn distortion and the voice is just so smooth all the way through. The fans want to hear every word that Matty is saying and KSL has made it so much easier for every seat in the house to hear just that.”
Whether playing smaller venues such as The Bright

France - Amate Audio’s new X212AF advanced three-way line array was FOH for Boris Brejcha at the Positiv Festival on 5 September in the Roman Théâtre antique d'Orange in southeastern France.
Sound hire company DIDO Music supplied an all Amate Audio FOH system, comprising left / right stacks of just five X2121AF line array elements together with two further X212AF / X218WF pairings for front-fills, flooding the 9000-capacity filled Roman amphitheatre with sound.
The festival line up, featuring Nicolas Cuer and Reinier Zonneveld, was headlined by Berlin DJ and producer Boris Brejcha: purveyor of his own genre of ‘hightech minimal’ techno and man in the Viennese carnival mask.
(Jim Evans)

USA - This summer, Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry unveiled a new daytime backstage tour based around the new, purpose-built Circle Room theatre. Hosted by Opry members Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, a 14-minute long immersive media experience takes fans on a journey through nearly 100 years of Opry history, seen through the eyes of the musicians who played on the famous stage, and features archival footage and concert-like special effects.
The Circle Room serves as the centrepiece of a $12m Opry House expansion and renovation project aimed at enhancing the guest experience. This production marks the opening of the new backstage tour, which continues into the renovated Opry House Lobby, featuring a custom lighting element made with Gibson guitars and a special media presentation.
As the introduction for the new tour, The Circle Room experience is dominated by LED concert and mood lighting from GLP, specified by a consortium headed by design and production agency BRC Imagination Arts. Under the creative direction of Brad Shelton, Edward Hodge, and a team of designers, they conceived and designed the Opry Circle Room, which at night transforms into a VIP upgrade area for Opry show guests. It includes 340 lighting fixtures - many of them from GLP - as well as four projectors and five LED screens.
BRC, in turn, brought in Brian Gale and Manny Treeson of LA-based lighting design company, NYXdesign, while one of GLP’s dealers, Clearwing Systems Integration, handled the installation, with all three companies having collaborated regularly in the past.

USA - Kansas have announced the fourth and final leg of The Point of Know Return Anniversary Tour, with a lighting system supplied by Bandit Lites. With the third leg of the tour currently traversing the country, the group is performing the eponymous sextuple-platinum album in its entirety to near capacity and enthusiastic audiences through Spring of 2020.
“It’s exciting how popular the Point of Know Return Anniversary shows have been,” comments Kansas lead vocalist Ronnie Platt. “When we wrap up this fourth and final leg, we will have played nearly 100 of these shows over nearly two years. We have worked hard to give audiences a memorable musical experience with this tour. We are excited to continue it with the final leg of the tour, then see what we come up with next.”
Lighting designer Scott Pearson had no boundaries when building the lighting for the show, immersing himself in the music as he programmed and translated the music into a “visual representation”.
“It is all about the buildup,” Pearson explained, referring to the three-act element of the concert. “Each phase is different, and I start with the minimum.”
Bandit Lites provided GLP X4S fixtures, Martin MAC Viper Profiles, Wildfire Blacklite WF 101 fixtures and Elation CuePix WW2 Blinders. Fourteen Elation SixPars illuminate set pieces along with an Obsidian Controls M6 for control.
“Scott’s approach to details down to how the system is prepared, cabled and packed make a big impact in adapting to different venues throughout the country,” said B

UK - This year’s Cool Britannia at Knebworth Park built on the success of last year’s inaugural event, and now looks to have become a consolidated festival.
Capital Sound were again brought in to work alongside production manager Keith Morris, with whom they have historically partnered on the Rewind festivals - and as was the case last year they equipped both the Main and Ministry of Sound stages.
Both presented star-studded line-ups with James, Embrace, Sleeper, Basement Jaxx, The Coral, Starsailor, Fun Loving Criminals dominating the main stage and Danny Rampling, Seb Fontaine, Goldie, Norman Jay, Phil Hartnoll and Graeme Park the MOS Stage.
Capital Sound’s Robin Conway noted, “The biggest upgrade this year was that we were able to fly the MLA side hang stage right, thanks to the redesigned structures, whereas it was ground stacked last year. This not only freed up some much-needed space, but provided a superior, more even coverage.
“As production were happy with what we had done in 2018 there was no real need to tweak anything other than that.”
The main stage PA comprised 15 MLA and a single MLD Downfill per side, with 14 x MLX in broadside cardioid array providing LF extension. A further 10 W8LM Mini Line Array elements were placed in pairs on top of the subs as lip-fills.
For the MOS dance stage, which ran later into the night, strict sound limits needed to be observed. “But we were able to run at 98dB(A) average and 101dB(A) peak,” Conway confirmed.
To achieve this, they ground stacked five MLA Compact e

UK - AV technology pioneer Peerless-AV and LED manufacturer Absen have teamed up to install an LED video wall in the showroom of Mulgari Cars, bespoke styling and tuning body shop for performance and luxury vehicles. Mulgari wanted a video wall solution that would enable them to advertise their services to new and existing customers via a medium befitting its supercar studio image.
LED was the most suitable choice for its design flexibility, narrow pixel pitch, high contrast in ambient light, 24/7 performance and low power consumption. Absen N Series high bright panels and an easy-assemble, custom LED mounting system from Peerless-AV were chosen for the project.
Bracknell-based Mulgari Cars is owned by Iain Campbell, a former director at AV distributor Midwich Group. “The LED video wall has successfully addressed our visual goals,” says Campbell. “We have an in-house content creation team for our web and social channel advertising, which now extends to the new display platform and is clearly seen by visiting customers and drivers passing by the forecourt.”
A technical team of four managed the install, which was completed quickly and easily, without interruption to Mulgari.
(Jim Evans)