USA - LifeWay Students, part of LifeWay Christian Resources, holds summer camps that travel across the nation. The annual X. WKND kick-off event is an opportunity for all the summer camp staff members to come together as one before heading out on the road.
Held inside the Shocco Springs Conference Centre, production designer Jake Brantley wanted to give the 2018 event an in-the-round worship experience, so he worked with Elite Multimedia Productions who provided a full rig of audio, lighting and LED video.
“This year we wanted to do something a little different, so we started talking about what was possible in a gymnasium with very limited rigging points,” says Brantley. “We started playing around with the idea of doing it in the round, but one of the challenges was that the highest point in the ceiling is only at 26ft, so we decided to push our LED video surfac

USA - The Firefly Music Festival wrapped this weekend with Bandit Lites once again providing the lighting package for multiple stages where more than 60,000 people took to the forest for the seventh year.
The weekend’s line up was packed with a wide array of performances with Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, The Killers and Arctic Monkeys headlining. Odesza, Lil Wayne, Logic, Martin Garrix, SZA, Alt-J, Foster the People, MGMT and Cold War Kids also took to the stages.
Bandit Lites supplied more than 200 fixtures for the main stage system including Clay Paky Mythos, Robe BMFLs, VL 3500 Washes, VL 3000 Spots, GLP X4 Bar 20, Solaris Flare Strobes, Lycian M2 spots, and grand MA 2 Full consoles for control.
“Lambda Productions Scott Cadwallader, Brian 'Tuffy' Knight, Kat Harris and Joe Gordon worked long and hard on this huge festival and really pulled out all the stops,

Australia - Eclipse Lighting and Sound recently secured multiple Martin by Harman MAC Quantum fixtures from Show Technology to supply music festivals, concerts, musical theatre shows and more.
Eclipse Lighting and Sound is an all-in-one production house that provides audio and lighting solutions for music festivals, concerts, corporate dinners, and musical theatre shows of all sizes across eastern Australia. MD Chris Neal was preparing for the upcoming festival season, and decided it was time to replace his aging Martin MAC 2000 fixtures with something that could deliver sensational lighting on stages of all sizes.
In order to meet these needs, Neal contacted Show Technology to find a powerful yet versatile fixture. Show Technology suggested the MAC Quantum, which combines the latest in LED technology with Martin's proprietary optical design.
"The Quantum fixt

USA - August Hall is following in some giant footsteps. Opened this spring in the heart of Union Square, San Francisco, the 1000-capacity club is only a short distance from legendary music halls like the original Fillmore West, as well as leading current day entertainment sites like the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, The Masonic, and Great American Music Hall.
Building on this tradition, while adding new lighting and sound technology, the venue, which has a partnership with Live Nation, is hosting artists from every musical genre as well as comedians and corporate events.
Providing visual support for the diverse mix of performers that appear on its stage is a flexible lighting rig installed by Don Lynch of Commercial Audio Video Solutions, Inc, that features a collection of over 100 Chauvet Professional fixtures and LED panels.
“We worked closely with house LD

UK Aurora Lighting is collaborating once again with lighting designer Gurdip Mahal plus gaffers James Tinsley and Adam Mitchell on Channel 4’s hit reboot of TV cult classic The Crystal Maze.
Following the production’s hugely successful format, Maze Master Richard Ayoade is back in the driving seat, guiding teams of intrepid adventurers through various themed ‘zones’ to take on a variety of dastardly challenges.
Filmed on an expansive set created by original series designer James Dillon at The Bottle Yard, Bristol, the show captures the charisma of the 90’s maze whilst incorporating a number of contemporary twists to update and enhance the look of the individual zones.
The sheer scale of the set requires a truly flexible lighting package that can both maintain ambient levels and shift easily between the moods created to accompany each specific are

UK - Originally constructed in 1808, Glaziers Hall is characterised by a blend of refined tradition and contemporary design. Sat beside the Thames, the building offers seven strikingly individual spaces for corporate events and functions. It also adjoins the historical London Bridge - a distinction made all the more tangible following the completion of the London Bridge Arches, a new subterranean space where the foundations of the bridge’s original wharf are visible.
Beyond the bare brick walls of the venue flows the Thames, while within the acoustically challenging space, an almost invisible K-array solution delivers smooth and precise audio coverage.
Previously a back-of-house zone, the newly transformed space is the seventh function area available for hire within Glaziers Hall, offering three long, arched vaults where original bricks are complimented by minimalist

Qatar - Losail International Circuit hosts the Grand Prix of Qatar every year, one of the flagship events of the MotoGP season. In 2008, the race became the first to take place by night, at a more advantageous time for television broadcasts but also in order to benefit from milder temperatures.
Thanks to a permanent lighting system, riders can ride on the 5.4km track at any time of the day. Since 2016, the Losail Circuit Sports Club team relies on Airstar to light up the paddocks where teams prepare and adjust their motorcycles.
The Airstar balloons have also provided lighting for the public area, where additional entertainment and attractions are offered to visitors, such as camel riding, falconry, or traditional Arabic coffee making. This year, the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani attended the event for the first time.
“The Grand Prix of Qatar

The Netherlands - Poppodium (Pop Stage) Patronaat is a popular three-room venue in Haarlem, a historic city outside of Amsterdam. The venue has recently upgraded the audio systems in two of its rooms by installing four SSL L200 consoles at front of house and monitor positions, all supplied by SSL Live distributor Audio Electronics Mattijsen (AEM).
Patronaat was started in 1984, in the renovated patronage hall / gymnasium of a former school building by the Pop Music Foundation of Kennerlerland. The venue went from strength to strength, and in 2005, after a brief relocation, a new Patronaat building was officially opened on the original site. The Foundation has been a long-term beneficiary of a substantial arts subsidy - common in cities around the Netherlands - and a founding principal of Patronaat was to use that subsidy, and income from bigger touring acts, to give smaller,

Germany - With 35 acts performing across three floors over 14 hours to around 18,000 dance aficionados, the traditional Mayday EDM event in Dortmund followed a familiar theme.
For LD Thomas Gerdon, who has provided production design for five of the last seven events, the only important aspect was that a radical change, relocating the stage from the end of the hall to the long side of the rectangular room, gave him a massive 24m wide performance area to light.
This he accomplished with well over 200 fixtures from GLP - predominantly GT-1 and JDC1 hybrids - but also around 36 of the powerful impression X4 XL. This huge inventory was provided or sourced by Wiesbaden-based schoko pro.
This year Gerdon lit not only the main Arena stage but also the second Empire stage for promoters, I-Motion GmbH - commending their CEO Oliver Vordemvenne for his vision in endorsing th

USA - Hall & Oates have hit the road with Train co-headlining a North American arena tour this summer.
Lighting designer Paul ‘Arlo’ Guthrie from Minneapolis-based TOSS Film & Design has selected a large complement of Claypaky Sharpy Washes and Mythos 2 fixtures for the rig.
For the new show, Hall & Oates and Train each do a set then the bands join forces for a dynamic finale. The tour launched 1 May in Sacramento and will conclude in Seattle in mid-August.
Guthrie has designed a look for the tour that “feels modern but harkens back a bit to Hall & Oates’s legacy,” he says. “The lighting is reminiscent of rigs past with newer fixtures and more modern equipment. The video component is also larger than before.”
Downstage a front-projection screen has the form of a curved theatre proscenium. Mid-stage is an upside-down ‘U’ c

Singapore - Show production and equipment hire company The Show Company (ShowCo), supplied 120 Claypaky Scenius Unico fixtures for Katy Perry's performance at the Singapore Indoor Stadium as part of her current worldwide tour Witness: The Tour.
Designed by production designer Es Devlin and lighting designer Baz Halpin, who also produced the tour, Witness hooks in audiences with its whirlwind of rich video content, large-scale props and wide-eyed lighting effects, delivered in part by the powerful capabilities of the Claypaky Scenius Unico.
"The production is large format and makes a bold statement with its enormous 'eye-shaped' LED screen," says Halpin, "I wanted to make sure that the lighting design complemented not just the screen's shape, but was also able to compete with the incredible amount of light emitting from it."
After discussion with associa

France - In December 2017, France’s Sorbonne prepared to ring in the new year and a new era of highly intelligible audio with the installation of an L-Acoustics Syva system in the university’s Grand Amphitheatre.
The configuration was designed to address the challenges of a reverberant space while complementing the architecture of the room, originally inaugurated in 1889 and classified as a national Historical Monument since 1975.
“The events we hold in the Grand Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne range from conferences, speeches, and awards ceremonies to concerts, and are all highly prestigious,” says the venue’s AV technical manager Mathieu Miot. “However, this is a very reverberant space with few sound absorption elements. Our old system was desperately lacking in directivity and resulted in a significant loss of intelligibility. We needed a system that would

UK - Michael McIntryre’s Big World Tour is selling out arenas around the world.
With just one microphone and playback music, there is no need for a large format console, but the desk of choice needs to deliver sonic quality and extensive functionality. For Steve Carr, McIntyre’s Front of House engineer, the choice is the DiGiCo SD11, supplied by audio rental company Capital Sound for the UK and Ireland leg of the tour.
“The SD11 has all the wonderful features of the larger consoles in the DiGiCo SD range in a really compact, lightweight format, and that’s important on several levels” says Steve. “We use the SD11 because we don’t need a large surface to handle the show. It’s also great for the truck pack, it’s great for the service provider because it’s relatively inexpensive to hire out, and it offers a similar sound quality and power to th

USA - The Hangout Music Festival, a three-day event that takes place on a sandy beach on the Gulf of Mexico, served up a diverse line-up featuring The Killers, The Chainsmokers, Kendrick Lamar, The Man and a host of other stars.
Supporting the music on the popular Surf Stage was a rig that included Rogue RH1 Hybrid moving fixtures from Chauvet Professional and Ilumipanels from sister company Iluminarc, supplied by Bandit Lites. Put together by lighting designer Dizzy Gosnell and project manager Gene Brian, the rig was run by festival LD Alexandra Gagnon.
A key element of the Surf Stage design was a series of overhead curved truss structures that conveyed images of rolling waves. Riding on those “waves” and adding movement and colour to them, were 18 Rogue RH1 Hybrid fixtures. The Rogue units were arranged in groups of six, flown on the three curved truss formation

UK - The annual Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts is one of the highlights of London’s cultural season, and its VIP Preview Party is attended by the elite from the art and fashion world as well as wealthy buyers. The Burlington House courtyard is turned into a concert venue for the event, and this year, the champagne set was entertained by chart-topping singer-songwriter Anne Marie.
London-based rental house Fisher Productions provides production for the show, which presents some interesting acoustic and practical challenges. Following its success with the Nexo STM Series modular line array with Laura Mvula last summer, Ben Webb of Fisher AV decided to specify STM ground-stacks again, “for the simplest reason, we have extremely tight set-up deadlines at the Royal Academy, and we can wheel in the plug-and-play STM system and be ready to go in minutes”.

Israel - Moshe Kimchi Lighting Design has recently invested in Robe technology, with an initial purchase of 60 x Halo RGB LED rings, quickly followed by 18 x MegaPointes. The purchases were made via Robe’s Israeli distributor, Danor Theatre and Studio Systems.
Company owner Moshe Kimchi is an Israeli lighting designer whose work typically involves designing the project as well as supplying the lighting kit. He used the Robe fixtures for his Journey into Space installation at the 2017 Festival of Light in Jerusalem where he was one of the contributing artists. The Halo RGBs were an integral element of a symbolic giant spaceship that he created, complete with lighting effects synced to a soundscape.
Kimchi also used them to help light a large sculptural, illuminated menorah (nine-branched candelabrum) built at the Jerusalem municipality square for the Hanukkah h

UK - Live coverage of the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was viewed by millions worldwide - and ‘attended’ by four Hogs.
UK lighting designer and programmer Bill Peachment, Gaffin Riley and Will Plenty supplied four High End Systems Road Hog 4 consoles for Sky News’ live coverage of the 19 May event in Windsor.
It was a marathon for everyone watching and for the media covering it. While Peachment’s day started at 4am and stretched to midnight, he’s used to long days and was “proud to be a part of it." Activities surrounding the wedding were scripted to the minute, but anything could happen at a live event. Peachment wasn’t worried. He’s trusted Road Hog 4 consoles to see him successfully through his career of television and musical events in the UK.
"Live TV is a fast-moving environment," says Peachment. "We don’t get rehearsal t

Europe - A-ha are currently out for an extensive tour of the UK and Europe, running from early June till late August, playing a variety of headline shows in UK stadiums and European festival appearances.
With the band revisiting their original trademark electronic sound, show designer Stu’ Farrell has conceived a thought provoking staging for the band that sees specialist supplier Video Design provide some unusual LED and a distinct degree of autonomy for Julien Hogg, Farrell’s long-time collaborator and custodian of all things video.
“The visual concept is intended to make the audience think about what they are seeing,” Hogg began. “Stu’s design sees three long strips of LED on the front of double wide risers approximately three-foot tall, one for each band member. The Vanish25 panels we have from Video Design are chosen to allow the lighting behind to shi

UK - Rumoured to have cost £20m to develop, the opulent new Hide Restaurant in London’s Mayfair, is the brainchild of chef, Ollie Dabbous in collaboration with Hedonism Wines.
With spectacular views over Green Park from the three-storey building on Piccadilly, it features a sound system infrastructure comprising matched Harman components, specified and installed by Penguin Media Solutions.
The three floors, swathed in an earthy combination of antique oak, bronze mirrors and aged brass, are linked visually by a spectacular pressed-oak spiral staircase, and audibly by background music, routed by BSS Soundweb, delivered by an array of JBL ceiling speakers and processed in Crown’s advanced multi-channel DCi network amplifiers. Two amp racks - one in the basement and one on the Mezzanine - are connected via BSS’ proprietary BLU-Link, with all channels fully assigned.

USA - After performing more than 70 concerts so far this year, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats continue their 2018 tour for fans in Europe and North America with monitor engineer Davy Gleeson using an Allen & Heath dLive S Class to mix the band’s in-ear monitors. “They started with wedges,” he said. “But the in-ears help Nathaniel balance his voice with the band. And, the boys like to boogie on stage so this keeps it clean for them.”
Gleeson, who also acts as production manager and stage manager on the tour, had used an Allen & Heath GLD when he worked at Black Box Pro Audio of Glasgow, Scotland. “We were very impressed with the GLD’s sonic quality and user-friendliness,” he said. “So, when the dLive came out, I put it on the rider for Rateliff’s tour. It’s got the same work flow as the GLD but pumped up on steroids. And, I’ve AB’d i

Poland - Production company PogoArt, owner of the largest Nexo PA system in Poland and a recent investor in Yamaha’s new Rivage PM7 digital mixing system, has helped Wroclaw Opera to stage an epic production of Guiseppe Verdi’s Nabucco. The sell-out performances of one of the most recognisable operas in history was presented outdoors, with the Wroclaw Opera building itself featuring in a special stage design capable of accommodating up to 350 artists.
Wroclaw Opera is accustomed to outdoor performance, but the production of Nabucco in Wroclaw’s central Plac Wolnosci was a most challenging one, featuring a 700sq.m stage with three levels for orchestra, ballet dancers, soloists and the Wroclaw Opera Choir. Marcin Nałecz-Niesiołowski, director of the Wroclaw Opera, who was conducting the performances, admitted that large productions are always a compromise

Australia - Novatech Creative Event Technology has given its 12 Elation Proteus Hybrid fixtures some serious punishment over the last few months. First, they left them outside for five weeks in February in Adelaide, copping the full heat of a SA summer. They then migrated north for four weeks on the beach at The Gold Coast for the Commonwealth Games.
The Adelaide Fringe Festival’s Parade of Light saw projection art from creatives including The Electric Canvas and Illuminart light up the heritage-listed buildings along Adelaide’s North Terrace, while Novatech’s Proteus stock beamed colours and break-ups.
“We had the Proteus out in three pods of four, controlled from a PC,” said Ashley Gabriel, director of sales and marketing at Novatech. “We were projecting across a major six-lane road onto buildings, while fighting lots of ambient light and a backgro

USA/UK - The latest incarnation of The Killers’ stage set owes much to the band’s Nevada heritage. As the band originally emerged from 20th Century Las Vegas, the design was to reflect an image of the small towns that straddled the American West.
Long-time Killers LD, Steven Douglas explains the process, “Our set designer, Josh Zangen from Fireplay had already put in place a large water tower stage right that harked back to the original look of the small American town and we felt something was required to balance that look on stage left.”
“We talked about something that was reminiscent of old Las Vegas signage and casino awnings. Josh came back with the initial drawings of large lit arrows pointing at a downward angle; the band loved them.” The design was put out to Jon Perry of Perry Scenic who, in turn, subcontracted the project to Specialz.
Specia

UK - Field Day 2018 celebrated its short move from Victoria Park, Hackney, to Brockwell Park in Brixton by spectacularly overcoming the noise pollution issues with which both these sites have traditionally been dogged.
PA specialists, Capital Sound, ended up equipping all seven stages, with their account manager Paul Timmins able to declare an astonishing SPL of 100dB(A)15 on main stage - thanks to the deployment of Martin Audio’s MLA, with its unique ability to limit offsite noise thresholds while maintaining unprecedented levels in the main bowl.
Residentially bordered on all sides, Timmins was mindful of Lambeth Council’s restrictions on sound escape at the nearby Clapham Common. But with careful orientation of the stages, and strong focus on rear rejection - coupled with some inspired optimisation programming in the Martin Audio software - they were able to del

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