Pharos - Leaderboard - May 2024

Projects

Details
UK - Based in the heart of the West Midlands with a satellite office in North Wales, sound production company CS Audio has made an initial investment in Outline’s Newton FPGA processor, supplied by UK distributor CUK Audio.
“The unit had been on my radar for a while thanks to the industry ‘buzz’ it has generated - some products quickly develop a reputation for simply being the right tool for the job and Newton is definitely one of them,” says owner Paul Hatt. “It quickly became obvious that it was way ahead of any comparable product and ideal for our needs. Its ease of use, dual redundant PSUs and connectivity options, all in such a compact package, made it a very simple decision to invest.”
Paul continues: “It has become our go-to choice for our FOH drive rack, using Dante as the primary network with AES backup, and it works so well with our inventory

Details
UK - Sam Fender played two homecoming shows at St. James’ Park in Newcastle with lighting designed by Sam Tozer - also the show’s creative director - and equipment supplied by event technology specialists, Adlib, including 11 x Robe Fortes running on five RoboSpot systems.
Tozer has been working with the artist since he re-started playing live after the pandemic in 2021. Working alongside him was lighting director Luke Avery, who was heavily involved in the design process, together with set designer Flora Harvey. Video content was created by UDC.
Sam’s overall vision for these shows was to make the lighting look epic, large scale and ‘industrial strength’ to cover the dynamic range of Sam Fender’s music.
The Fortes were all rigged on the front truss and utilised for spot lighting, key lighting and specials. “I needed a very reliable and stable remo

Details
UK - For more than 15 years, Oxford’s Event Production Services has been a major fixture at Truck Festival. In 2023 EPS provided sound and lighting for five of the eight stages. For the second year running sound systems in these spaces were entirely based around Nexo products, from the Geo, P+ and ID series, with control surfaces from Yamaha.
Highlights included This Feeling and Rockin’ Chair stages, which both utilised Nexo Geo M1210 and MSUB18 with cardioid subwoofers; and The Tap Room, with a compact but potent system of Geo M620 and MSUB18. All systems were ground stacked but still offered consistent coverage and audio level across the spaces, with all the M12 systems running in active mode.
Robert Nisbet, managing director of EPS, reported flawless operation from the Nexo systems. “Having bought into Nexo in large quantities over the past five years, our te

Details
Hungary - In 2023, the city of Veszprém in Western Hungary and the Bakony-Balaton region is holding a year-long programme of events and celebrations as the European Capital of Culture. The Grand Opening of the festivities took place on 21-22 January under the title Come shine with us!, a spectacular event with lighting design by Balázs Varga. The LD illuminated the occasion using 120 IP-rated lighting products from Elation Professional.
January weather in Hungary can be freezing - it is the coldest and snowiest month of the year in the country - with temperatures often between 0° and -10° Celsius. “The rehearsal days and programming days were freezing and there was snow on show day,” stated Balázs, co-founder and managing director of Hybrid Production of Budapest.
“It was extremely hard on the fixtures because the equipment was outside for seven strai

Details
USA - World Cup champion Lionel Messi created shock waves when he passed up offers from better-known clubs to sign with the struggling Inter Miami team.
Anticipation was high when the seven-time Ballon d'Or winner suited up for his first game on Friday 21 July, but Messi, still recovering from an exhausting travel schedule, had to sit on the bench for the first 54 minutes. Then, with the sell-out crowd standing and cheering wildly, he entered the game and proceeded to score the winning goal.
A few days before, the player was greeted at the team’s DRV Pink Stadium in Fort Lauderdale with a welcome celebration.
Helping to create the heady atmosphere was a bright, bold, and colourful lighting design from José Laria, lighting designer Andres Albornoz and the entire team at LPS Production that drew on the intense output of over 100 Chauvet Professional IP65 rated

Details
USA - By any measure, the numbers for the Dead & Company final tour of 2023 are impressive. Although among the top-grossing acts since its first tour in 2015, with this year’s outing the band shattered all of their previous totals. Across 28 shows in 19 cities, according to Billboard Box Score, Dead & Company grossed $114.7m and sold 845,000 tickets.
However, the magnitude of this final leg of “the long, strange trip” must be measured by more than hard numbers. It marked the coda of a resilient cultural and sociological phenomenon - launched by the Grateful Dead - that has spanned nearly six decades and three generations. Appropriately, the tour’s significance as a milestone of Americana was recognised in a lavishly illustrated 2,500-word feature in The New York Times.
As has been the case since the outset, Dead & Company was again accompanie

Details
Indonesia - To provide the new Tokyo Riverside Apartment complex with vivid and engaging lighting, architectural firm PT Chayolite deployed a selection of Martin lighting solutions.
Located in the Pantai Indah Kapuk 2 precinct (PIK2) within Jakarta, Tokyo Riverside Apartment is a luxury living complex featuring modern Japanese architecture and smart living tools. Developed by Agung Sedayu Group, the complex is conveniently located near a variety of amenities, including sports and recreational facilities, a 2.5-mile white sand beach and the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
To accentuate its architecture, PT Chayolite and Harman Professional Solutions were appointed to illuminate its façade in a way that complemented its luxurious details. To meet this requirement, the installation team deployed Martin VC-Dot 1 outdoor LED lights.
Featuring individually co

Details
USA - Just when it seemed like this summer’s temperatures couldn’t climb any higher, R&B legends TLC and Jamaican icon Shaggy brought the heat to stages throughout North America with the TLC & Shaggy: Hot Summer Nights Tour 2023. The package tour, which blazed through 26 cities throughout the US and Canada in June and July, served up a feast of hits spanning three decades and showcased performances by special guests En Vogue and Sean Kingston.
Tour sound, provided by Major Tom, centred around a Meyer Sound Panther large-format linear line array loudspeaker system spec’d by Parker Vandenberg and the Major Tom team. Vandenberg, TLC’s production manager, took on an expanded role of production manager for the entire Hot Summer Nights tour, while also mixing monitors for TLC.
The Panther PA proved to be the right choice due to its versatility, compact size,

Details
UK - A Serious Stages Supanova provided the colourful focal point for Brighton’s Fabulosa Pride in Preston Park, with over 150 LGBTQ+ artists entertaining 60,000 fans, 5-6 August, 2023.
Widely acknowledged as the country’s most popular Pride event, Serious Stages supported the organisers of this year 50th Brighton Pride anniversary weekend. The Black Eyed Peas, Zara Larson, Steps and Melanie C were amongst the artists appearing on the 22m Arch Supernova stage, complete with front-of-stage thrust allowing the stars to get up close to the sparkling audience.
Two goalposts carrying giant LED video screens and PA speakers flanked the stage, creating a spectacular focal point for two days of music, looked over by the Serious three-storey front-of-house tower with the technical sound and lighting mixers. Serious also installed speaker delay towers across the park.

Details
France - One of the biggest heavy metal music festivals in the world, Hellfest recently wrapped its 16th edition in Clisson, where KISS launched the festival with Claypaky Xtylos and an array of Claypaky fixtures played key roles for other bands.
The four-day festival featured 180 bands performing on six stages in the concert area plus additional outdoor stages. KISS, Iron Maiden, Motley Crue and Slipknot headlined as more than 150,000 extreme music fans attended performances, camped out and explored the full Hellfest 2023 experience.
France-based B Live Group has been Hellfest’s technical partner from the start of the festival providing lighting for both of the main stages and the Warzone. This year, they chose Claypaky Sharpy X Frames to illuminate Main Stage 2, which hosted the biggest international bands, and Arolla Profile MPs and Sharpys for the Warzone, the st

Details
Finland - Bank 55 in the Helsinki district of Lauttasaari is the brainchild of Finnish stand-up comedian and actor, Sami Hedberg. Formerly a bank that was first inaugurated in 1955 – hence the name – today Bank 55 is a sauna and lounge dedicated to private events of all types, from conferences and meetings to corporate get-togethers or simply private parties with friends and family.
Music plays a vital role in the new events space, and Hedberg – who was already familiar with Genelec – had no hesitation in specifying custom painted Genelec 4000 series loudspeakers for his new venture.
"I’d been dreaming of opening an events space for some time, but I needed to find the right venue – and that takes time," confides Hedberg. "I finally came across the old bank premises in Lauttasaari which I loved. I bought it in 2016 and have been renovating it bit by bit, all

Details
USA - District E Powered by Ticketmaster is an esports venue situated in the heart of downtown Washington, D.C. Adjacent to the Capital One Arena, this venue spans nearly 14,000sq.ft and stands as a hub for esports enthusiasts and fans. With a prime location and partnerships with globally recognised esports teams including Team Liquid and Wizards District Gaming, District E offers a different and immersive gaming experience.
The audio system needed to accommodate diverse programming, from high-stakes esports matches to corporate events and viewing parties with a seamless integration with the cutting-edge LED video throughout the venue. Monumental Sports, an assembly of seven DC-area sports and gaming teams, turned to McCann, to design and install the audiovisual integration help to create an elevated esports experience.
For the main gaming space, McCann selected 1 Soun

Details
Belgium - There were over 230 Chauvet Professional fixtures at the Happy Belgium concert in the Cinquantenaire Arcade, but it’s doubtful that any of the 60,000 people who were there to celebrate the National Day of Belgium on 21 July noticed many of them. Lighting designer Jordi Vandekerkhof of the More To Show design studio would have it no other way.
For him, the purpose of the majority IP65 lighting fixtures at this exquisitely orchestrated evening event, was to be “seen” (in terms of their effect), without being noticed because of their protective domes. “We wanted to light the stage, audience and surroundings without drawing attention to the fixtures,” he explained.
Jordi credits Splendit, which supplied the fixtures for the event, with helping to put together a rig that was low profile, while still being powerful enough to create a stunning impression.

Details
USA - Lighting designer Eric Price turned to Elation’s Proteus Lucius as the feature light of an all-purpose floor package for rock band Taking Back Sunday as they headlined the travelling Sad Summer Festival in July. Reminiscent of the Warped Tour, the fourth incarnation of Sad Summer Festival ran coast to coast and featured a strong line-up of pop punk’s finest.
Price has been with Taking Back Sunday since 2017 and served as lighting designer, programmer and operator for the band’s Sad Summer set. He says he had used the Proteus Lucius before, on a tour with Mastodon, and knew the all-purpose LED moving head well. “The Proteus Lucius is great technology with a lot of features and you don’t lose anything with it being IP rated,” he said. “It makes no feature compromises and is just what you would expect from a professional moving fixture.”
Proteus Luc

Details
USA - A 500-mile-long NASCA cup race, the Daytona 500 is an annual event held at the Daytona International Speedway. This year’s event marked 75 years of NASCAR, and to celebrate this anniversary, the event included a special virtual final lap. The Famous Group were chosen as NASCAR’s preferred partners to bring this ambitious project to life.
“We were asked to recreate 18 historic NASCAR racecars and show them racing in a single lap together on the Daytona racetrack,” explains Erik Beaumont, head of mixed reality at The Famous Group. “The fantasy lap would include a Dale Earnhardt Jr. No.88 car and a Dale Earnhardt Sr. No.3 car, a nod to some of the most important moments in Daytona 500 history.”
Creating a virtual mixed-reality event for live broadcast required careful tracking to ensure the seamless fusion of the imaginary and the real. Stage Precision

Details
UK - Last Autumn Martin Audio partner, 22live, completed its first full production tour, with The Australian Pink Floyd show, which provides an authentic tribute to the original band and has long used Martin Audio PA on tour.
For the band’s late 2022 UK tour Paul Timmins, now hire director and one of the founders of the recently formed pro-audio service company, 22live, was reunited with the long-term team of band manager Kevin Hopgood, production manager Chris Gadd, and FOH engineer Trevor Gilligan.
There were a number of factors to consider for Timmins, along with 22live technical director, Simon Gladstone, and operations director Stefan Phillips, when they were preparing their bid as a new player in the market. In addition to general touring economics this included the choice of PA.
With regard to the latter, 22live knew they couldn’t offer Gilligan, who h

Details
USA - Fire blasts, frenzy and rock ‘n’ roll bombast is bolstering American emo-pop-punkers Fall Out Boy’s current US tour, which is playing amphitheatres across the country backed with LED and projection driven by Green Hippo Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 Media Servers.
Screen content is guiding the audience through the hitlist set via colour, with strong orange content for the daytime and cooler blues, greens, and purples for the night time scenes. The Boreal+ MK2 Media Servers are running pre-made content and Notch Blocks as well as live feed for the IMAG screens, with one live and one as backup.
BAFTA and Billboard Award-nominated creative directors, TAWBOX, consisting of London-based visionaries Amber Rimell and Bronski, have created a theatrical show for the band as they tour to support their 2023 album, So Much (for) Stardust. It sees an array of high-produ

Details
Italy - Massimo Pezzali, commonly known as Max Pezzali, is a prominent Italian singer-songwriter. He embarked on his musical journey as a member of the band 883, and together, they released six albums before he decided to pursue a solo career. In 2004, Pezzali unveiled his debut solo album, II Mondo Insieme a Te, which marked the beginning of his meteoric rise to becoming one of the best-selling Italian artists of all time.
Since March of this year, Pezzali has been captivating audiences during his Italy tour, accompanied by his sound engineer, Michele Nicolino, who utilises a DiGiCo Quantum7 digital mixing console at the monitor position.
By working closely with professionals such as Riccardo Parravicini and Luca Morson, among others, Nicolino honed his expertise as a monitor engineer for renowned artists such as Mannarino, Willie Peyote, Michele Bravi, Bowlan

Details
USA - Solstice: Reflections on Winter Light is a multimedia and meditative art experience celebrating the shortest, darkest day of the year, created by Masary Studios from Boston, and presented at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts.
It started as a small two-day installation idea in 2020 during the pandemic and has grown rapidly and organically to become a hugely popular and accessible 10-day annual public art festival. Visitors engage with the magic and ephemeral beauty of lighting and sound and its relation to the algorithms, mystery, and energies at work in the greater universe.
Masary Studio’s Sam Okerstrom-Lang initially needed “high quality and durable kit to withstand tough environmental conditions of New England in the winter”, so when their technical partner AVFX introduced them to Astera in 2020, they were delighted

Details
Europe - UK-based rock band Marillion has built up a formidable and near cult-like following over a career spanning five decades that has spawned 20 studio albums plus a string of top 40 hits since their formation in 1979. For the last 21 years, they have staged biennial two and three-day summer convention events for fans, which include special live performances plus additional Marillion world activities.
Lighting designer Yenz Nyholm’s specification for the 2023 Marillion ‘convention tour’ included nearly 100 Robe moving lights - 31 Robe Esprites, 22 LEDBeam 150s, 16 MegaPointes and 30 Spiider LED wash beams.
Conventions were staged in the UK, the Netherlands (twice), Germany, Italy, and Canada. For the shows at Berlin Tempodrom, Leipzig-based rental company Konteg supplied the full Robe package. It was also a completely new lighting design for this year.

Details
Australia - Tumbalong Park, a five-hectare respite of green in the centre of Darling Harbour is serving as the site of a FIFA Women’s World Cup Fan Festival this month.
A vibrant celebration of all things football, and much more, the festival features giant live streams for watching FIFA Women’s World Cup games, a variety of fun football-related activities, a cornucopia of street food, and live performances by popular Australian artists like Jessica Mauboy, Jack River, Mia Wray, and Jacotene.
Enhancing the festive atmosphere and providing memorable visuals at the event, which began 20 July and runs through 20 August, is a bold and colourful lighting setup by dplr that is anchored by 108 Chauvet Professional fixtures from Showtools International. Included in this collection are 16 Maverick Storm 4 units, 20 Outcast R2X Washes, eight Colorado PXL Bar 16 motorised ba

Details
USA - Rapidly rising folk and indie star Lizzy McAlpine’s The End of the Movie tour featured a set that was designed around her actual living room space. “All the items in the room were chosen by Lizzy, and were very specific to her inspiration and interests,” said Kat Borderud, the tour’s lighting and scenic designer. “The set contained her own personal clothing, family photos, books, and other cherished items.”
Borderud intensified the effect of this living room set by accentuating its various elements with light and shadows. “My role was to fulfil Lizzy’s vision and transform the stage,” she explained. “Darkness and shadow play are incorporated in this design for bringing the room to life as another character in Lizzy’s show. Shadows and light move and reflect on the walls from inside and outside the windows to move us through the set in a nar

Details
Slovenia - From 23 June to 1 July, the city centre of Maribor was transformed into a large festival area for music, art and culture. Festival Lent is the largest open-air festival in Slovenia and one of the biggest city centre festivals in Europe.
For the 30th anniversary, national and international artists performed on the numerous large and small stages, including this year's Eurovision Song Contest participant Joker Out as well as funk legend Fred Wesley. To stage the broad spectrum of genres, the lighting designers of the respective stages relied on an equally versatile range of moving lights, LED bars and flood lights from Cameo.
On a total of five of the seven stages, including the Main Stage, Jože Skarlovnik, technical director of the festival, relied on Cameo fixtures. The focus was primarily on IP65-capable outdoor spotlights, with which those respons

Details
USA - At 46, Floyd Mayweather still packs a punch, even five years after the former champ retired undefeated from professional boxing. This was plain to see during his recent exhibition bout against John Gotti III. But the Boxing Writers of America’s ‘Fighter of the Decade’ wasn’t the only one flashing impressive firepower at the sold-out FLA Live Arena. Also displaying its prowess was a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue Outcast 1L Beam fixtures from The Design Oasis that were used to rev up excitement during the exhibition.
“The 1L beams really created an impact throughout the arena,” said Abbas Ritscher, of The Design Oasis. “They were small, which allowed our lighting designer John Hollingshead to bunch a lot of them together, keeping the cables clean but still creating impact by directing beams of lights across the entire venue. They have a very tigh
  1. Brown Note and Elation weather wild summer
  2. Light:Bridge crosses the Seine with Ayrton Cobra
  3. Austrian Audio supports Poznań Philharmonic
  4. MLA makes its mark with Marisa Monte
  5. Backseat Lovers back on the road with Robe
  6. Dude Perfect creates Panda-monium with Bandit
Page 31 of 381
GLP - MPU - May-June 2024
Robe - Large MPU

Latest Issue. . .