Pharos - Leaderboard - May 2024

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Germany - Countless parties take place on May Day in Germany and this year one of the best took place in Cologne as hometown band Brings rocked Lanxess Arena with a high-energy Polka Party. TSL Production of Cologne supported the event as the full-service technical provider and used a full complement of Elation lighting gear to support the rock ‘n’ roll show.
Brings have been performing for over 25 years and the evening proved a nostalgic journey through the band’s long list of hits. Some 13,000 guests attended the four-hour concert, which took place in combination with an after-show party. Lighting design was by Dominik Schmid, head of lighting for Brings, along with Frank Schmitz, technical supervisor and owner of TSL Production.
TSL Production supports Brings as technical provider at all their concerts and developed the entire technical concept (lighting, vi

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UK - LM Productions has added two new AV products to its expanding rental fleet.
The Eastbourne-based event production company has taken delivery of Digital Projection new M-Vision Laser projectors. These projectors pack a real punch at 18’000 lumens and 10’000:1 contrast ratios and produce amazing images, says the company. All LMP’s rental projectors come complete in flying frames ready to go and we offer 8’000 to 35’000 lumens and everything in between. LMP has also added a Kinetic lighting system with over 150 pieces. This system offers high performance DMX winches with a drop of up to 6m coupled with 25cm RGB LED lighting spheres and is controlled by the latest Matrix5 software & hardware systems.
The Kinetic lighting system is modular and offers the flexibility to configure to bespoke designs. The system had been well received on a recent project of

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China - Daydream Festival, first staged in Belgium in 2010, is a multi-national music festival that has travelled to Mexico, Spain and the Netherlands, and landed in China in April 2018. Daydream China boasted more than 54 international artists playing across three stages in Shanghai International Music Park.
The organisers chose NEXT-proaudio for the Bass Dream Stage, with the equipment supplied by Real Music, local distributor for NEXT-proaudio.
The main hang was 10 LA212x per side, and 24 LAs418 stacked in front of the stage as low-end-fill. The DJ monitor featured two LAs118 plus three LA122 per side and another four X15 deployed as the floor monitors.
Richie Wang, Real Music’s CEO, adds: “The sound pressure on the Bass Dream Stage with LA212x was amazing.”
(Jim Evans)

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South Africa - South African rock band Prime Circle have acquired Robe lighting fixtures for their current live tour. DWR Distribution supplied Robe MiniPointes, Robin LEDBeam 150s, Robe VIVAs and a Le Maitre MVS Hazer.
“We’ve worked with DWR for quite some time now and the products are just amazing,” said Marco Gomes, bass guitarist and Prime Circle’s manager. “We firstly wanted to get lighting kit for touring purposes, but we also wanted to make sure that the product would be right. To us, there is no better product than the Robe gear.”
Prime Circle are currently touring their seventh album If you don’t you never will. Their new gear includes eight Robe MiniPointes, eight Robin LEDBeam 150s, two Robin VIVAs and a Le Maitre MVS Hazer.
“We are excited and hope that this will up our game, up our touring, and take the performance a step highe

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UK - Christie Lites UK has made a major investment in Kinesys automation equipment. The stage lighting company’s British operation has purchased 24 half-tonne Liftket motors with Kinesys Elevation 1+ vari-speed controllers, complete with LibraCELL load monitoring shackle pins and the brand’s powerful and flexible Vector control software package.
Christie Lites UK account handler Andy Strachan comments: “Kinesys is constantly appearing on riders and technical specifications - a strong sign of their success and that is across all sectors of our work - corporate and industrial, concert touring, television and theatre”.
Christie Lites CEO and founder Huntly Christie made the decision to go with Kinesys, together with Andy Strachan, Roy Hunt and Mathew Ilott who are all part of the Christie Lites UK’s account management team.
The Kinesys investment is an in

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Finland - Hippotizer is the media server of choice for Finnish National Opera and Ballet’s landmark production to mark 100 years of Finland’s independence.
The Finnish National Opera and Ballet (FNOB) marked 100 years of Finnish independence with a number of exclusive events. Its headline event, Land of Kalevala, premiered in November 2017 running for 26 performances until February 2018.
Taking place in the FNOB’s home base, the Opera House in Helsinki, Kenneth Greve’s ballet spectacle explores the very essence of Finland and the Finns through dance. The team behind this occasion was very carefully assembled, with Mikki Kunttu taking charge of set, lighting and projection design.
The main concept of the stage design was 38, 12m tall pillars flying through space, creating different three-dimensional scenes and transitions. Mikki’s wish was to crea

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USA - The annual Billboard Latin Music Conference landed in Las Vegas in April with a series of star-studded events featuring Avolites-controlled lighting supplied by Miami-based production specialist 3G Productions.
The four-day conference was held at The Venetian hotel's Marcello Ballroom and hosted a series of performances and talks from Latin music stars including Steve Aoki, Maluma and Bad Bunny. The conference's audio, lighting and video were provided by 3G, who this year introduced Avolites consoles for the first time following the company's recent investment in the brand's Titan and Ai ranges.
"We've been doing this event for 12 years in conjunction with our client ACME Productions," says Juan Ugas, 3G's lighting sales manager and production manager for the conference. "ACME trust our ability to be able to control the conference's various shows live and delive

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UK - The National Theatre has embarked on a ‘progressive upgrade’, predominantly of its Martin TW1 halogen tungsten wash inventory. This month, the theatre took delivery of a total of 42 MAC Encores from Martin by Harman dealer Stage Electrics. All 42 units have been installed in the permanent rig at the Olivier Theatre.
The acquisition forms part of a 10-year plan, as Paul Hornsby, the NT’s lighting resources manager, explains. “We review which equipment has reached end of life and decide what needs to be retired first - but the decision is driven by LDs as well. We only go dark for five days a year and we managed to replace these on the rig without losing a show.”
The purchase was authorised jointly by Hornsby, head of lighting Matt Drury, and Jack Williams, lighting supervisor for the Olivier Theatre, following a three-day evaluation against a number of co

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Hungary - Event management company TéDé Rendezvények has invested in a Martin Audio Wavefront Precision Series (WPC) system. The order comprised iKON iK42 amplifiers and was completed via Martin Audio distributor BG Event Kft.
The new PA debuted at the two-day Bősi Motoros Találkozó (Bősi Motorcycle Meeting), with 10 bands entertaining 2,000 people. “We received a lot of positive feedback from visiting technicians, many of them amazed by the sound of the system. It not only delivered power but pure, highly intelligible sound in every way.”
According to Balázs Szentiványi, purchasing manager at BG Event Kft., the idea of upgrading the rental company’s inventory came about as soon as Martin Audio announced the Wavefront Precision family. He says: “TéDé already owned a W8LM Mini system and since they are on a healthy growth path they were in need of a l

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Russia - Funktion-One Russia has supplied and installed a permanent sound system for Volgograd Arena - one of the World Cup 2018 stadia. Working closely with the Funktion-One design team in the UK, the company’s Russian arm specified a system comprising 638 Funktion-One loudspeakers and 50 MC2 Audio amplifiers.
The project, which began in spring 2017, demanded significant support and commitment from both manufacturers in order for Funktion-One Russia to meet all criteria and deadlines en-route to delivering the audio installation.
Funktion-One sales director, David Bruml comments: “We are extremely happy with the sound system installation at the Volgograd Arena and are grateful to our Russian partners for their unwavering support and excellent communication throughout. The whole company was energised by this major contract, which is amongst the largest Funktion-On

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Europe - Bullet For My Valentine have recently embarked on their summer trek across the UK and Europe, supported by two Allen & Heath dLive S Class systems.
Supplied by SSE Audio, the band’s set-up includes two S5000 surfaces, each paired with its own DM64 MixRack, covering FOH and monitors, with gigaACE split and Dante Cards for virtual soundcheck.
“The Allen & Heath Range has been a ‘go to’ for a number of years now for me. I used to mix BFMV on iLive, then the GLD for fly shows, before making the move to dLive at the end of 2017,” comments FOH engineer, Adam Boole.
He adds: “The effects on the board are great. The depth of the sound is deep, warm and very precise. Functionality wise I’ve not managed to get into a situation I can’t get out of with this console, there’s always a way and it is limitless.”
The band themselves are

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USA - The 130 year-old Cathedral Church of the Advent holds a place in the National Register of Historic Places and is the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. It’s also home to 4,000 congregants, who fill its sanctuary for five services every weekend.
The church’s music programme has earned accolades, and includes a modern music ensemble for its last service on Sunday. Georgia-based AV design and integration firm, dB Integrations, recently remedied Cathedral Church's sonic woes with a single Danley GH-60 Genesis Horn loudspeaker, two Danley SM-60s for side-fill, a Danley SBH-20 column loudspeaker for choir-fill, and a Danley TH-118 subwoofer.
In addition to delivering impactful, highly-intelligible music and speech reinforcement, the new Danley system performs without taking away from Cathedral Church's impressive architecture, woodwork, and stained glass. <

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USA - Steely Dane, an 18-piece tribute band, captures the sound that made Steely Dan one of the most influential shapers of post 1960s rock. Their musical kinship with the original band was evident recently when they performed at the Schauer Arts & Activities Centre outside Milwaukee.
Paying careful attention to each instrument, providing crystal clear backup vocals and serving up signature Steely Dan slash chords, the band took their audience on a musical journey back in time. Supporting it all visually was a Glenn Ottenbacher-designed lightshow that blended the best of old and new looks with help from Chauvet Professional Rogue and COLORado fixtures.
“We had a wide stage with a lot of musicians on it, so we used a lot of lighting fixtures to create some big looks,” says Ottenbacher, owner of AGS Event Productions. “We had some flash and colours reminiscent

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USA - The Racine County Courthouse in southeast Wisconsin was built in the 1930s and, at 11 stories, remains the tallest building in the county. The bold, art deco style of Chicago architects John Holabird and John Root earned it a place in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and it continues to actively serve as the seat of justice for Racine County.
The professionals at local A/V integration firm Sound Specialty Company have been working their way through the Racine County Courthouse’s 12 courtrooms. In each, they have installed an Ashly ne8250 eight-channel 250W network amplifier to provide clean and reliable audio reinforcement. The most recent Ashly ne8250 to go in includes an optional Dante networking card to allow easy setup for court recordings.
“We’ve been working with the county for a long time, but it has only been in the last three year

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South Africa - As Stellenbosch University celebrated its 100th birthday, the 19th SU Woordfees took place earlier this year. For the first time, DWR Distribution were part of the festival, sponsoring dot2s and a DiGiCo SD12 console.
Presented by the Stellenbosch University, SU Woordfees brings the entire town on board and before long, restaurants, schools, the city hall and theatres such as the HB Thom, become home to lovingly produced creations.
“In the current South African economic climate, festivals do not have the financial backing they deserve,” says Duncan Riley of DWR. “Technical companies are often willing to work alongside the organizers for very little income just to keep the arts alive. This year DWR approached event companies involved and asked if we could also help carry the load by sponsoring consoles and providing a team on site for technical supp

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Qatar - Creative Communication Group (CCG), a Doha-based rental, event management and production company, has recently purchased a number of Robe MegaPointes and Spiider moving lights for its rental inventory.
CCG’s director of lighting Michel Khairallah explained that as a busy rental operation over the years, they have dealt with moving lights from several brands. “Having had good experiences in the past with Robe’s fixtures and knowing the reliability, toughness and quality of the light output, I was convinced that increasing our Robe stock was a solid investment.”
The events CCG produces include many large-scale government and cultural shows and festivals, for which they need the brightest and most durable luminaires. They also organise and deliver executive events and entertainment driven experiential projects for corporate, and private clients, dealing w

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Japan - Billboard Live Tokyo recently upgraded their sound system with a full JBL by Harman Professional VTX Series solution provided by Hibino.
Billboard Live is a club and restaurant that hosts more than 200 performances each year. Celebrating their 10-year anniversary in 2017, Billboard Live decided to upgrade their sound system with an audio solution that would earn them global acclaim for another 10 years to come.
Billboard Live hired sound and visual specialists Hibino to supply a top-tier sound system that could deliver stellar sound for any type of music - from the subtle nuances of acoustic performances to full-scale pop productions. After hearing the clarity and precision of the JBL VTX Series speakers, Billboard Live knew they were the right fit.
“The level of detail that the VTX Series provides is exactly what we were looking for,” said the plann

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USA - Victory Christian Centre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has enhanced live audio production by installing Solid State Logic L200 consoles at FOH and monitor positions. The consoles were supplied by SSL partner CCI Solutions.
Victory Christian Centre was founded in 1981 by pastors Billy Joe and Sharon Daugherty and has grown to become a large and multi-faceted hub, incorporating a school, college, plus a wide range of ministries and outreach initiatives. The current lead pastors are Billy Joe and Sharon Daugherty's son, Paul Daugherty, and his wife Ashley.
The Tulsa campus sees around 8000 people attend services during one week at Victory, using the 3,800-seat auditorium for four main services on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Chris Trowbridge, technical director and Front of House engineer, comments, "We run a high production value, concert-style service. Comparativ

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France - For more than a century, the streets of Pau city in the south of France are transformed into a race track as the city welcomes the Grand Prix of Pau.
Over two weekends in May each year, visitors enjoy a spectacular festival of motor sport events. The festival includes the Pau Grand Prix, a main event of the FIA F3 European Championship, and the Historic Grand Prix, which combines race track competitions, parades, vintage car shows and private track sessions
Since 2017, the festival has also included the FFSA GT French Championship, the French Formula 4 Championship, and European Formula Renault 2.0 racing. The 2005 Pau Grand Prix saw victory for a young Lewis Hamilton, who later went on to become Formula One World Champion.
Rain during the first weekend of the 2018 event provided nature’s ubiquitous challenge for both the racing drivers and the PA syst

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UK - Folk punk singer-songwriter Frank Turner recently played four sold-out nights at London’s Roundhouse venue, performing four different sets and presenting lighting designer Tom Mason-Smith with the task of creating four totally different lighting designs.
Tom’s company Dragonfly Lighting provided a Robe specials package including 12 x MegaPointes, 24 x BMFLs, 24 x PATT 2013s and 12 CycFX 8s to cover the four shows and assist him make each one “a personal and memorable experience for Turner’s eclectic and loyal fanbase”. Tom also used elements of the house rig including 18 x LEDBeam 100s.
The first night featured a snappy touring set – they have recently finished a UK tour - for which Tom needed flashy, bright, punky and folky lighting and chose a mix of traditional and contemporary lightsources as specials, with 12 x MegaPointes on a large box truss in

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World - British progressive rock pioneers Marillion are currently delighting fans with their hit world tour, which marks over three decades of the band's music. A celebration of musical storytelling, the show is enhanced by a theatrical lightscape created by the band's long-term lighting designer Yenz Nyholm, who selected the Claypaky Scenius Spot to deliver key animation lighting effects and rich, vibrant colour onstage.
Integral to Nyholm's design is an intricate back wall of light that surrounds an 8 x 5m projection screen. Above the top edge of the screen, Nyholm places a row of Scenius Spots to create a varied web of jewel coloured beams and wide, saturated washes. Supplying the fixtures for the UK leg was British lighting hire specialist Siyan.
"The band as a whole is very theatrical," says Nyholm. "You don't just 'light' them, but play along with the music and

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UK - It has been another outstanding year for multi award-winning UK songstress, Paloma Faith. Paloma and co. are now touring on the strength of her fourth album, The Architect and her engineers are using DiGiCo consoles to run the show, provided by UK rental company, Adlib.
Mixing the Paloma show is no mean feat, it seems. The show's channel-count out front is at 75, which is broken down into drums and electronics, 20 lines of keys, guitars, vocals, and various drum triggers. The sheer size of the show meant a DiGiCo console was a must-have, says Paloma's FOH engineer, Andy Williamson.
“I could have done this show on an SD5, but we're using that on monitors [with James Neale], so I'm on the SD7; and I have to say, this show really is an exercise in chopping,” Andy says. “There is that much going on, it had to be a DiGiCo to make it work - and I have a c

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USA - Since their start in California’s Newbury Park in 2011, alternative indie rock band The Neighbourhood has gone on to chart multiple times in the US, release three albums, tour internationally, and perform multiple times at Coachella. The band stepped up to an Allen & Heath dLive Digital Mixing System at FOH and monitors, with two C1500 Control Surfaces, a DM32 MixRack and a DM64 MixRack.
Monitor engineer Jason Hines sums up the dLive system as being “intuitive and flexible.” Hines noted a number of particularly useful features for touring monitor engineers. "The flexibility of the External Input to PAFL Source in the Surface Audio Preferences and PAFL Settings is amazing. The way it is designed takes the annoyance out of talkback systems on stage. Another great feature that I love is the option of having an IEM fader and a wedge fader.”
Michael Bangs

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USA - The future was on full display in Manhattan early this May during Digital Content NewFronts, a week-long showcase for media buyers of the latest digital and video creations from the leading names in entertainment, news and information technology.
A must-see venue for the executives who descended on New York for the event was Pier 26, where Oath, a division of Verizon that reaches over one billion people worldwide through its digital media brands, introduced an exciting array of new content.
Hosted by Jamie Foxx, Oath Digital Content NewFronts offered guests a smorgasbord of live entertainment options to go along with the chance to preview upcoming productions from brands like Yahoo and Huffington Post.
Taking place on two main stages, along with a half dozen smaller satellite units, the evening event featured performances by stars like DJ Irie, Broadway da
  1. Elite Multimedia provides worship experience
  2. Firefly Festival glows with Bandit Lites
  3. Eclipse delivers with Harman MAC Quantum
  4. Chauvet rig fills multiple roles at August Hall
  5. Aurora heads back into The Crystal Maze
  6. Technical Arts chooses K-array for Glaziers Hall
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