Pharos - Leaderboard - May 2024

Projects

Details
South Africa - Having the right equipment for recording is of utmost importance to Amazing Discoveries Ministries Africa. The organisation is in the studio every day to produce content that is delivered over six video and three podcast platforms. That list of equipment has now been expanded to include DPA Microphones, thanks to a recent upgrade project with Prosound.
With nearly 100,000 subscribers on YouTube alone, Amazing Discoveries Ministries Africa has a large audience to serve. Its studio setup has grown over the years from equipment primarily used to service large-scale live events that could get the job done, to dedicated recording gear.
“The right equipment for the recording is of utmost importance, as the better the initial recording, the less time we spend in post-production editing,” explains Fanie Fourie from Amazing Discoveries Ministries Africa. “T

Details
Spain - On 17 January, the Art Nouveau jewel in Barcelona’s theatrical crown, the Palau de la Música Catalana, played host to the inaugural ESLAND awards gala. Billed as the ‘Grammys for streamers’ in the Spanish-speaking world, and hosted by streaming star of YouTube and Twitch TheGrefg, the three-hour gala, celebrating the best in content creation and streaming in 2021 throughout Spain and Latin America, was itself streamed live on its own Twitch channel.
Sound reinforcement for the event in the historic auditorium was provided by just four of Amate Audio’s latest Xcellence series X102FD self-powered point source systems and four accompanying X18T compact subs; with a couple of Nítid series N26 systems as front-fills.
An advanced performance compact two 10” design, the X102FD is capable of continuous output levels of up to136dB SPL - equivalent to four co

Details
UK - Abbey Road Institute is a specialist music production school and the training ground for the next generation of music producers and sound engineers. Its foundations are the expertise and innovation created at Abbey Road Studios.
Originally based in St Johns Wood as part of the famous studio’s complex, the school’s diploma became so popular with students that it needed to expand its facilities to accommodate the growing demand. During the summer of 2021, the Institute moved into and revived the historic Angel Recording Studios in Islington, near Kings Cross. VDC provided the Institute with a variety of Van Damme cabling as the foundation for the refurbishment; from custom manufactured D25 assemblies on 8 pair Studio Blue to microphone, speaker and console cabling.
The Institute opened the doors to its new home in June 2021. Building on the success of the existi

Details
Europe - In a live session from London on 27 January (17:00 CET), d&b’s Ralf Zuleeg will chat to Dom Bilkey, National Theatre London’s head of sound and video, about d&b Soundscape.
Bilkey will discuss his experience using Soundscape on Lehman Trilogy, Death of a Salesman, and more. Plus, there’ll be a live Q&A straight after the session.
Further details are available at https://www.dbaudio.com/global/en/events/db-live/.

Details
USA - Tickets for the first iHeartRadio ALTer EGO concert of 2022 at The Forum in Los Angeles were snapped up by eager fans within 20 minutes of going on sale - a thrilling response for producers Diversified Production Services, Firehouse Productions, and All Access Staging and Productions but one that also necessitated some adjustments to the stage design.
“On hearing that tickets sold out so quickly, we immediately realised that we were going to have to expand the production experience to a much wider audience, as there would be even more seating areas opened for extra ticket sales,” says Patrick Dierson of The Activity, which created the lighting rig for the Capital One sponsored concert, featuring artists like Coldplay, All Time Low, Imagine Dragons, Måneskin, and more.
To accommodate the larger crowd, the design team began angling each of the productio

Details
UK - Gloucester Cathedral is a building with many historic treasures. The cathedral, which dates to the year 1089, has centuries of history and craftsmanship on display - including important architectural features that are considered some of the best in Europe. The cathedral is also a favourite of Harry Potter fans as the cloisters served as the location for various Hogwarts scenes in the films.
Maintaining a Grade I-listed building is challenging, and upgrades to onsite technology must be carefully considered and planned to prevent damage. When the cathedral decided to upgrade its audio capabilities, it turned to the flexibility, scalability, and low-impact installation benefits synonymous with Audinate’s Dante.
The Dante platform is a complete AVoIP solution that allows audio, video and control data to be transported over standard 1GB ethernet networks.
Whe

Details
UK - Eric ‘EZ’ Wade, who runs production management company, EZ Services, has been touring UK theatres and clubs with the rapper, Little Simz - with active support from sound system supplier, Entec Live.
This is a new relationship which has quickly kicked into overdrive, after the West London technical services company had been strongly recommended. Wade was introduced to Entec head of sound Dan Scantlebury by James ‘Kedge’ Kerridge, monitor engineer for Little Simz and monitor tech on another Entec act, Gorillaz. This was at the beginning of the year as rehearsals were about to begin. Fittingly, Kedge had also served his apprenticeship at Entec, and so was able to provide the recommendation based on his own experience.
“I had worked with various production companies and was always struggling to find the right relationship. It was generally Entec’s approach

Details
USA - It’s been a difficult and challenging two years for concert and event spaces during the COVID pandemic, but what’s emerging at the other end of a long, gloomy tunnel is a new, more sonically shaped generation of venues. The Factory, which anchors a new entertainment and dining destination known as The District in the St. Louis suburb of Chesterfield, is an example of that dynamic.
The recently-opened 52,000sq.ft venue can hold between 2,350 and 3,400 concertgoers or event attendees in flexible dance floor and fixed-seating configurations that face a huge 60ft-wide stage. But what sets The Factory further apart is the scale of its L-Acoustics PA system, which provides complete coverage for every audience member no matter where they are seated or standing in the large performance hall.
“The Factory is built on the most valuable real estate in the region and t

Details
USA - Walnut Hill Community Church located in Connecticut, provides a combination of both in-person and online weekend services to their five-campus congregation. The central campus in Bethel, CT, has invested in top level production values and technology, which includes the purchase of a grandMA3 compact XT lighting console which is running with grandMA3 software.
Creative lighting senior intern Jonathan Martin, who designs, programmes, and operates lighting for most of Bethel’s worship service events, helped guide the team’s decision to purchase a grandMA3, backed by Walnut Hill’s production director, Christopher Ellington.
Jonathan explained how lighting was high on the agenda when the decision came to up the production stakes. “We kept coming back to grandMA3, which had the perfect combination of price point and hardware feature set,” he explained, whils

Details
UK - The Royal Albert Hall continues to mark its 150th anniversary through special events to the end of 2023.
The venue, which hosts over 390 shows a year including classical, rock and pop concerts, ballet, opera, awards ceremonies, charity performances and banquets, many of which are televised, is now fully equipped with four MDG ATMe haze generators, supplied by TSL.
The RAH lighting team initially invested in two of the ATMe generators in July 2019 before adding another two in November of the same year. The ATMe haze generators are in almost constant use with two free-standing machines located on stage and two permanently installed in custom flight cases on the stage edges at circle level.
“Good haze is particularly important at the Royal Albert Hall,” explains RAH lighting designer, Richard Rhys Thomas. “When lighting a concert there is no scenery, and

Details
New Zealand - Venues Ōtautahi manages five busy venues in Christchurch, including the city’s premier sporting, convention, and entertainment hubs, among them Christchurch Town Hall of the Performing Arts which has recently invested in Robe Esprite moving lights.
James Tull, a senior technician working across all five venues explained that the Town Hall was originally built in the 1970s and then rebuilt after the 2011 earthquake in which it sustained extensive damage. The building reopened in 2019 with a 2,222 capacity main auditorium and an 800-seat theatre space and was registered as a category 1 heritage building in 2020.
With all the reconstruction came the need to update and upgrade the lighting and sound, so James and his team started looking at options for modern lights that ticked all their boxes, were more sustainable, and that would make changeovers between

Details
South Korea - In 2018, South Korean construction company Hoban Co. began moves to take over Resom Resort from its creditors at a cost of $224m after being named as the preferred bidder. Resom owns three resorts in Chungcheong Province in Korea - including Splas Resom, a membership spa resort and Forest Resom, situated in a dense tree forest, which seeks to provide healing through nature and water.
A tender was issued for refurbishment of the existing Splas facility - as well as the construction of a new building - and Martin Audio distributor, Sama Sound, partnered with its dealer, Asea Sound, to submit the successful bid.
Sama Sound product manager, Edan Kwon, stated that the speakers had originally been specified with another brand. “And so we worked hard to get this changed to Martin Audio. With the help of a presentation we were able to show the company and its e

Details
Indonesia - The 16th National Paralympic Games were hosted in Indonesia last year from 2-13 November at the Mandala Stadium in Jayapura, Papua. Clear-Com’s Indonesian-based Partner, 86 Inc., was contacted by the organising committee of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies (OCC) to assist with the show management and live broadcast communications for the complex events. 86 Inc. recommended a solution based around Clear-Com’s HelixNet Digital Network Partyline and FreeSpeak II Digital Wireless Intercom.
“The OCC, the Paralympics COVID task force, and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) of Indonesia all had different concerns needing to be addressed by the comms system,” explained Dino Gonggalang, CEO, 86 Inc.
The OCC’s concerns were related to logistics given the overall scale of the event - in one of the key moments of the show, 950 d

Details
USA - When the state of Illinois eased its stringent lockdown rules, and Chicago’s busy outdoor events schedule resumed, one person who was primed and prepped was Matthew Brotz, who runs locally based LEC Event Technology.
Knowing that Chicago is capable of experiencing four seasons in a day, he realised that not only his large inventory of GLP product would need weather protection, but also moving heads from other vendors. GLP had the solution.
“Thankfully Matt contacted us in plenty of time,” declares GLP US president, Mark Ravenhill. “After discussing the comprehensive range of options that we offer, he settled on a combination of our Rain Covers, with different cover lengths, and a large quantity of Air Domes. Despite the current problems with the global freight system, we made it in time for all of his festival dates.”
LEC’s festival season reope

Details
China - The new Shanghai Astronomy Museum, now the world’s largest museum devoted to the celestial sciences, echoes the ‘music of the spheres’ with its bold curvilinear exterior devoid of any straight lines or right angles. On the inside, the museum’s two primary venues enhance stellar visual programs with complementary Meyer Sound immersive audio systems supplied by Shanghai Broad Future Electro Technology Company.
Designed by Ennead Architects of New York, the 39,000sq.m museum encloses three main exhibition zones - Home, Cosmos, and Odyssey - with the free-flowing architecture encompassing three dominant architectural features: Oculus, Inverted Dome, and Sphere.
Occupying the interior of the Sphere is the 8K Dome Theater, which hosts an audience of 250 for a 20-minute all-enveloping spectacle covering 4.6bn years of cosmic evolution.
Designed using Mey

Details
USA - The Music Centre at Strathmore, Washington DC, is a modern glass-and-steel multidisciplinary arts space. Well-appointed with excellent acoustics, it is like many other performance venues in American suburbs. But last month, this fairly typical space became, in the words of one critic, “a heavenly place to be”.
That happened when Sarah Brightman walked onto its stage as part of her A Christmas Symphony tour. The classical/crossover soprano brought her magic to Strathmore and 16 other venues across the US during the tour, mixing an array of music from Puccini to John Lennon into her two-hour (plus an intermission) show.
Supporting her was lighting and show design by Nathan Taylor. The timecoded lightshow was programmed by Plymouth, UK-based LD Jason Hyne using the suite at NEG Earth, and run during the US tour by Austin, Texas-based LD Ruby Leigh of Allume Li

Details
Poland - Opened in September 2021 and situated in the largest district of the capital city of Warsaw, Poland’s new purpose-built Ursynów Cultural Centre Alternatywy (Alternatives) was commissioned to provide a versatile public space ‘representing the very best in modern innovation’.
The venue’s name, which references a popular 1980’s Polish television series, Alternatywy 4, was selected through a competition amongst residents and encapsulated the centre’s vision of offering a rich and varied cultural programme for the entire community. Crucial to achieving its goal and pivotal to the project's success was the audio system design featuring breakthrough technology in the form of L-Acoustics L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound - specified and installed by Audio Plus.
“The South-West Warsaw community had waited a long time for a decent cultural centre,”

Details
The Netherlands - The Olympic Qualification Tournament in curling took place in the Netherlands in December and the ice has never looked better thanks to MHB AV and Elation’s tunable Kl Panel LED soft lights. Held at the Elfstedenhal sports complex in the town of Leeuwarden, a professionally illuminated surface of the highest standard was a must for the Olympic qualifying event.
The Olympic Qualification Tournament was the first international curling tournament to be hosted by the Netherlands. Teams from across the world competed in the two-week event in the hopes of advancing to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, which starts on 4 February.
Months prior to the event, MHB AV had contacted Bert Schmeits, key account manager Benelux at Elation, and as a result invested in the full-colour-spectrum and colour temperature-adjustable KL light panels. Schmeits reports tha

Details
UK - There were some showers during the red-carpet premiere of Dune outside the Odeon Leicester Square in London, but that did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the crowds or global press corps who turned out for the star-studded affair, produced by Limited Edition Event Design.
Impact Production Services (IPS), which provided technical services for the event, deployed a powerful the Chauvet Professional F4IP LED panel for setting up the outdoor video walls.
The IPS team used 236 of the 4.8 mm pixel pitch panels to create a 28m wide by 4m high video wall that ran almost the entire length of the red carpet. Displaying a series of dramatic images from the movie that were supplied by the film company and played back via a Disguise Media Server, the wall added a powerful and engaging cinematic flavour to the event, in addition to providing an attractive backdrop

Details
Turkey - To advertise the launch of the Istanbul Financial Centre (IFC) in January, Istanbul film production company Autonomy partnered with Formula 1 on a dynamic commercial featuring virtual production by MGX Studios and powered by the disguise Extended Reality (xR) workflow.
Holding 1.4m square metres of office space, a shopping mall, conference and exhibition centre and a five-star hotel, the IFC is a founding partner of the Formula 1 Rolex Turkish Grand Prix 2021. The metaphor of the IFC as a Formula 1 race car “driving forward the world of finance” provided a high-energy scenario for a commercial promoting its imminent opening.
The commercial features extreme close-ups of a Formula 1 race car cockpit, complete with revving sound design, as the vehicle speeds through Istanbul and glimpses of the IFC are reflected on the driver’s helmet visor.
Since t

Details
Norway - The first Robe Fortes in Norway were delivered to Den National Scene (the National Theatre) in Bergen, one of the country’s oldest permanent theatres, where they joined Robe Esprites that were another recent investment.
Opened in 1909, Den National Scene was initially built with a single stage, but currently hosts performances in three different spaces, which have just re-started with full capacity public shows post pandemic.
Head of lighting Geir Hovland explained that these latest moving light investments are part of an ongoing process to ensure the theatre is equipped with the best and most appropriate technology to facilitate its busy - and highly acclaimed - repertory schedule.
The positive relationship with Robe - via distributor Norsk Sceneteknikk - began in 2017 when 25 x Robe’s DL7S Profile and 15 x DL7F Wash fixtures were purchased for

Details
Japan - Located in the east end of the Tokyo metropolis, opened in 1992, Katsushika Symphony Hills cultural centre serves the ward with a range of cultural programmes. The centre consists of two halls. The main 1,318-seat Mozart Hall, which was named in honour of the ward’s friendship city agreement with the Floridsdorf district of Vienna. The hall boasts some of the best acoustics among Japan’s numerous concert halls. Its smaller companion, the 298-seat Iris Hall, takes its name from the symbolic flower of Katsushika ward.
Both spaces offer classical and pop music concerts by Japanese and international artists. Along with dance, theatrical and art performances, the centre also offers a diverse range of events for people of all ages since its opening in 1992.
As the centre’s 30th anniversary approached, and in response to audience feedback regarding the quality o

Details
Canada - The team at Audio Process in Toronto are long-time Lectrosonics users, and recently made the leap from their Digital Hybrid Wireless to the fully digital D Squared line.
Their cart and bag rigs run the gamut of digital receivers: DSQD four-channel, DCR822 dual-channel, and DCHR compact stereo units. Sending signal to these is a host of DBSM body-pack transcorders, the DPR-A plug-on transmitter for boom work, and DCHT camera hop transmitters. Communications are all-digital as well, thanks to the M2 Duet system’s four-channel M2T transmitter paired with M2R beltpack receivers.
“We dove into the Lectro digital world headfirst,” says lead location recordist Rob Morrice. “This past summer we did a show which follows a teenager who wins a singing competition, not unlike The Voice. It covered the behind-the-scenes of his life and the other contestants

Details
UK - In August 2020, Harrogate Town FC were promoted to the English Football League (EFL) for the first time in their history. With promotion came new responsibilities.
The League’s regulations precluded the use of the club’s Wetherby Road (EnviroVent) stadium’s synthetic pitch, and, as a narrow window of time did not allow the work on a replacement to be completed before the start of 2020/21 season, Harrogate Town arranged a temporary ground-share at Doncaster Rovers’ Keepmoat Stadium. Comfortably maintaining their new League status during a season largely played in empty stadiums due to COVID-19 restrictions, the club, with work on a new grass pitch completed, prepared to return home.
Other EFL infrastructure criteria also had to be met at the EnviroVent, one of which was provision for a permanent public address system, which according to the League’s regul
  1. Martin Audio Japan moves outside in Osaka
  2. Meyer rig reinforces Metallica celebrations
  3. Discostore installs complete Pioneer system
  4. Chauvet rig refreshes Connection Pointe
  5. Telegrafen Oslo opts for Bose-based solution
  6. Pharos hits the jackpot at Holland Casino
Page 99 of 381
GLP - MPU - May-June 2024
Robe - Large MPU

Latest Issue. . .