Pharos - Leaderboard - May 2024

Projects

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UAE - At the end of August an exciting event took place at Al Habtoor City in the heart of Dubai. La Perle, the spectacular new acrobatic water show from Franco Dragone, opened its doors for the first time, with four Robert Juliat Cyrano 2500W HMI chosen as La Perle’s followspots (read more about the production in LSi December 2017).
La Perle is a landmark for Dubai with a trio of firsts - Dragone’s first show in the Emirates, Dubai’s first large scale theatre dedicated to just one show and the only live residency ever to be performed in Dubai. Sixty five international artists are showcased against a dreamscape world in which they display their acrobatic, aquatic and aerial acting skills in a series of awe-insp

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USA - Wall High School in Wall Township in Monmouth County, NJ, was planning to replace its sound system as part of the overall facilities refurbishment.
JD Sound & Video had provided the sound for a number of schools locally and this led Tom Ridoux, the school’s athletics director, to call them in for discussion. The brief was for a system that would provide high intelligibility coverage for the home bleachers, field, visitors and concessions areas. Additionally, the system was required to provide entertainment quality music.
JD Sound & Video designed a system based around Community’s R Series loudspeakers and, following its presentation to the school, was awarded the project. “With considerable experience in R Series’ superb sound quality, coverage patterns and all-weather reliability, it was our first choice of loudspeaker system for Wall High School

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UK - The newly opened Darlington Hippodrome, formerly known as Darlington Civic Theatre, has been restored to its former glory and transformed with 21st century technical facilities that include new stage lighting, audio and video systems.
Featuring leading brands including Chroma-Q, Allen & Heath, Panasonic and many more, most loose equipment was supplied by A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET).
The theatre received a £5m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) towards the ambitious £13.7m project to regenerate and upgrade the venue, which also included restoring the exterior of the distinctive Grade II listed building and the beautiful Edwardian auditorium inside. In addition, seating capacity has been increased to enable larger shows to be accommodated as part of an expanded artistic programme.
Darlington Hippodrome is also managing the newly-buil

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USA - Winners in the New Group category at the 2016 Academy of Country Music Awards Old Dominion have been touring its Happy Endings album, and supporting the likes of Kenny Chesney and Thomas Rhett. The band has also been confirmed for Chesney’s Trip Around the Sun stadium tour in 2018.
Earlier this year, FOH engineer Ian Zorbaugh and monitor engineer Dean Studebaker decided to take SSL L300 Plus consoles, supplied by premier event production company Morris Lighting & Sound, on the road with Old Dominion.
Zorbaugh chose the SSL L300 because of the positive feedback he was hearing from other engineers - particularly Chris Rabold, who used L500 on the Kenny Chesney tour, which Old Dominion have been supporting. "The main thing I heard about the SSLs was that they sound absolutely phenomenal - that you need minimal EQ, less processing, and so on. I wa

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Serbia - Perched along the banks of the Danube river some 60 miles from the hustle and bustle of capital Belgrade, the city of Novi Sad has been traditionally renowned for its relaxed and welcoming character. In recent years, however, the local character of Novi Sad has expanded by a collection of locally hosted, yet internationally renowned music festivals, including the infamous Exit and the Novi Sad jazz festival.
Another event putting Novi Sad on the musical map is the Green Love festival, an electronic Mecca attracting thousands of clubbing enthusiasts from Serbia and neighbouring countries such as Hungary, Croatia and Romania. For the most recent Green Love event, which saw DJs such as Metodi Hristov, Lea Dobričić and NUSHA take to the stage, AVL Projekt supplied Chameleon Rental with 16 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK1 Spot and 16 Maverick MK2

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UK - Allen & Heath has partnered with Cato Music to outfit Cato’s South West London rehearsal studios and production facilities with an extensive array of Allen & Heath products, from QU series consoles to the flagship dLive mixing system.
Cato Music, a Production Park company, offers an all-encompassing tour production service, from rehearsal studios (including full production), transport and crewing to equipment rental and tour supplies. Its initial involvement with Allen & Heath’s dLive series came at SXSW 2017, as general manager Ant Forbes explains: “We first became aware of dLive in the run-up to SXSW, where Cato Music runs the production and stage operation at the British Music Embassy, at downtown venue Latitude 30. We used two S7000 surfaces and one C1500 surface in the venue this year – with 75+ artists playing the stage over the course of the w

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USA - Lighting designer Matt Guminski lit a reworked version of Ghost The Musical recently at the White Plains Performing Arts Centre in White Plains, New York, using a rig that included Elation Professional Satura Profile and Platinum Seven LED moving heads.
Guminski worked with master electrician and assistant LD Lizzie Mahoney on the adapted version of the play at the 410-seat professional theatre outside of New York City.
“We used the Satura Profiles several ways to help create the mood, as template washes, specials and aerial effects,” Guminski stated. “The framing was especially useful as it allowed for ultimate control. It was a box set with multiple projection surfaces so it was important that the projection on the scrim not be washed out.”
The LED-based Satura Profile with CMY colour mixing, four-blade rotating framing shutter system, gobos, pr

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USA - Two lighting designers built a shared rig for two bands performing at Portland’s House of Music, with a Chauvet Professional anchored floor package.
Matthew Calabrese is the LD for up-and-coming jam band Strange Machines. Touring in support of their Voice of Colour LP this summer, the band announced that it would be appearing at the popular downtown Portland music hall. Opening for them was Revibe, a funk fusion band. When Kyle Rose, the Revibe LD, saw that his client would be opening for Strange Machines, he immediately reached out to Calabrese.
“I had worked with Matt several times in the past when Strange Machines and another one of his clients, Kung Fu, played at Higher Ground in Burlington (Vermont), where I am the house LD,” said Rose. “I always liked his approach to lighting – the way he supported his clients without distracting from the

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USA - Christmas came early for worshippers at Faith Family Church. Although they attended services on Christmas Eve, more than 8,200 of them began celebrating the holiday nine days earlier on Friday, 15 December, during the annual Christmas At Faith Family.
Christmas At Faith Family is an uplifting contemporary celebration of the season. Contributing to the transformative impact of the programme every year are the colourful and engaging lightshows designed by Aaron Cole of Goliath Lighting + Stage. This December, Cole gave his show an expanded look by adding 24 Chauvet DJ COREpar 40 USB fixtures to a rig that already included 40 moving wash and spot lights.
“We had COREpar 40s on either side of the centre stage video wall,” said Cole. “This rather large side space had really been underutilised in previous years, so the new fixtures made a big differ

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USA - Christmas is a time for homecomings, and so it was this year for singer Billy Gilman. Back in 2000, Gilman made history when, at age 11, he became the youngest person ever to have a Billboard Top 40 Country hit with his Grammy-nominated double platinum single One Voice, which reached No. 2 on the charts. His life and music have gone through their share of twists and turns since then, but the Westerly, RI-born singer has always returned to his native state to connect to his original friends and fans.
Gilman’s most recent homecoming took place on 14 December, when he performed a sentimental holiday show at Providence’s 14,000-seat Dunkin’ Donuts Centre. A Cody James-designed lightshow transformed the stage into a winter wonderland with a combination of big gobo looks and richly saturated colours created with Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by JDI Pro

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Europe - From mid-October to early December, Finnish rock band Sunrise Avenue toured across Europe on their Heartbreak Century tour, a run of smaller venues before the five-member band hit the road on a bigger arena tour this year.
Light, set and video were supplied by Ambion GmbH. Lighting designer Stephan Aue, who supported the band for the first time in 2015 on their arena tour, was once again responsible for the lighting design, relying on products from Elation Professional, among others.
A total of 10 compact Elation ACL 360i beam effect lights were used, as well as five of Elation’s new Dartz 360 LED beam/spot fixtures. The fall Sunrise Avenue tour marked the touring debut of the compact narrow-beam Dartz luminaire.
The smaller venues presented a special challenge for Ambion and Aue, who explained that the entire production had to fit in a single

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USA - Texan evangelist Joel Osteen recently brought his Christian preaching to LA with a capacity crowd at the newly-refurbished LA Forum.
With a weekly TV audience topping seven million and an international monthly audience of more than 20m in over 100 countries, Osteen has been voted the most influential Christian in America. His Night Of Hope gatherings combine contemporary worship with live music, prayer time and inspirational messages.
A very different sonic challenge from most other live events, the principal technical requirement when presenting evangelism is vocal intelligibility - seamless full-frequency audio coverage, without ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ spots, delivered to every single person in the room at conversational levels. At the LA Forum that meant catering for a congregation of 18,000 and Special Event Services of Winston-Salem, North Carolina,

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Sweden - Alcons provided a new audio system for a 19th century theatre in Stockholm.
Vasateatern, which closed in 2010 during the transformation of the surrounding buildings into the new Scandic Grand Central, had poor sound-proofing and remained closed even after the hotel’s opening. To overcome the acoustic issues, the interior had to be rebuild on a smaller scale, making space for a sound-insulating air gap around the auditorium.
The new ‘floating box’ Vasateatern features most of the original fittings, but with modern acoustic materials, flexible seating and a brand new Alcons LR7 audio system.
Swedish systems integrator Electrosound has done the sound design and installation at a number of Scandic hotels, including the Scandic Grand Central complex. When it came to equipping the theatre, an Alcons LR7 system was chosen. This includes a main PA of 20 f

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The Netherlands - Dutch astronaut André Kuipers presented his SpaceXperience Live show as the central element of an immersive intergalactic journey in-the-round at Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome, with Kuipers relating his many stories and real-life experiences working in space on various ESA programmes.
Lighting designer Henk-Jan van Beek from Dutch creative visual practice Light-H-Art was asked to light the show by production company LiveLane. He’s worked on many shows in the Ziggo Dome throughout his career, but this was the first time a concept like this was central to the 90-minute presentation.
Audiences were also treated to a simulated rocket blast off right in the middle of the venue, a jaw dropping piece of theatre for which Henk-Jan specified 40 x Robe BMFL WashBeam moving lights and 16 x Robe Cyclones to assist in creating all the drama and excitement of

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Brazil - Developed and published by Riot Games, League of Legends has become one of the world’s most popular third-person multiplayer online battle arena games, attracting more than 100m active players each month.
This year the Brazilian finals took place on 2 September at the Mineirinho Arena to a live audience of approximately 8,000 and was also broadcast live on ESPN in Brazil. Audio supplier Gabisom were there to ensure the gamers aural experience would match the intensity of the final battles taking place, trusting DiGiCo as their weapon of choice.
Gaining popularity since 2010, multiplayer online battle arena or ‘MOBA’ is currently one of the most widespread forms of game play and League of Legends is at the forefront of this, attracting thousands of eager gamers to the championships.
For this large-scale, multi-facted production, Gabisom was

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UK - Cardiff-based events specialist 11th Hour will bring its 11th year in business to a close by supplying a huge New Year’s Eve fireworks spectacular to its home city.
Sayers Amusements, with whom 11th Hour work to deliver Cardiff’s Winter Wonderland, commissioned the public display which will be fired from Cooper’s Field in Bute Park on the stroke of midnight.
The six minute aerial show will comprise professional Category 1.3 explosives with calibres ranging from 75 - 200mm, culminating with a loud, rapid-fire finale. Fireworks are a growing area of 11th Hour’s portfolio, the company having already delivered a number of high profile displays, not least of which was at this year’s Pride Cymru Big Weekend in Cardiff.
The New Year’s Eve show will be its biggest to date but as 11th Hour Director and British Pyrotechnists Association qualified and regis

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South Africa - For two days in November, Sandringham Farm was transformed into a village of worshippers as Christian bands from the UK, US, South Africa and elsewhere performed gospel.
Providing an uplifting visual backdrop to this celebration was a dynamic and ebullient lightshow of vivid colour washes and powerful aerial effects created by JP Willson of Unfazed Productions. Key to Willson’s transformative design was his collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Wash fixtures.
Willson hung 11 of the RGBW LED washes on a mid and rear stage truss, using them to reflect the mood of the music. The Rogue fixtures were used to sweep the stage with colors as well as for backwashing performers and aerial washing. The fixtures’ wide 12° to 49° zoom range allowed Willson to change his coverage area; while the output from their 19 15-watt LEDs provided him with enough

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China - TrueColor in Guangzhou City is the flagship venue of a chain of clubs created in 1995, currently owned and managed by Alliance Art Group.
TrueColor Guangzhou City recently sought upgrades to its audio system. After consultation with Mr. Tan who represents dealer Guangzhou EGG Technologies Company, Alliance Art Group called on DMT – Clair Brothers Chinese distributor – to help make the necessary improvements on behalf of TrueColor customers. Right on the heels of a complete upgrade and redesign of the layout and style of the club in June of 2017, the decision to call on Clair Brothers made sense.
TrueColor is a nightclub where music plays constantly, seven days a week with a full house, and permeates the entire establishment, so it has to sound awesome and perform reliably. After the redesign of the interior, the old system just didn’t fit the bill.

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UK - Just like the fairy-tale glass slipper that glided effortlessly onto Cinderella’s foot uniting her and Prince Charming, lighting designer Andy Webb has designed a colourful and fitting lighting scheme for Cinderella, this season’s pantomime at Blackpool UK’s Grand Theatre, utilising entirely Robe LED products.
It’s the third year that Andy has been asked to light this popular panto for UK Productions. Returning to the same venue has some definite advantages he explains, both in terms of knowing the space and what you can and can’t achieve in it, and also having an ongoing relationship with the local crew and technicians.
As always, the challenge with pantos is having to do a massive amount of programming in a very short time to produce the intense, magical, high-impact visuals characteristic of the genre.
For the last three years, Andy had i

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Serbia - Philips Lighting reports that its newest stage lighting fixtures have helped to deliver a magical environment for the recent concert at Belgrade's Sava Center by leading Bosnian folk music artist, Bozo Vrećo.
To create this enchanted environment in the 4,000-seat Sava Center, Serbia's largest concert venue, lighting designer Nebojsa Milojevic required powerful lighting fixtures. They needed to be capable of delivering bright, crisp projections and striking beams and effects, and with enough presence to register even against the background LED screen. He settled on 60 lighting fixtures from the Philips Entertainment Lighting range, including VL6000 Beams, VLZ Spots and SL Hydrus 350 luminaires.
In bringing his critically-acclaimed show to Belgrade, the artist asked Milojevic to "paint with the lights and connect the eyes of the audience with the songs.". With

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UK - The Royal Albert Hall rolled out the red carpet for the European premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Green Hippo technology was there in force. UK creative Digital Insanity provided content creation and playback solutions for the premiere of the latest in the Star Wars franchise, and the team again relied on Green Hippo to help it create a spectacular.
Having successfully used Hippotizer Media Servers on the European movie premieres of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Digital Insanity immediately allocated control duties to its Hippotizer Karst Media Server. In an environment, which was at times harsh – outdoors on the steps of the Royal Albert Hall and with temperatures registering barely above zero – the robust Karst performed its duties to the max.
Digital Insanity used Hippotizer Karst in con

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UK - When Craig David brought his TS5 gig to Brixton O2 Academy in November, he called once again on long-standing collaborator Stephen Abbiss to add his own creative touch to the accompanying lighting and set design.
Favouring live lighting control over playback, Abbiss selected Avolites and its Arena console, running the latest Titan V10.1 software, for the TS5 show. Abbiss used the Arena to control his geometric lighting design.
The TS5 show originated as a Sunday afternoon DJ party at the artist's Miami home, and now sees him DJ and MC and sing on stage. Abbiss says: "I based my design for this show on the cover artwork on Craig's new album, The Time is Now. The picture is of him and a large clock face, so I decided to reflect that circular image with my lights and truss."
Abbiss produced a series of three concentric circles of tru

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USA - Lighting consultant Howard M. Brandston and artist Dan George created a light installation in the City of Syracuse featuring SGM’s i-2 White IP66-rated POI lights.
The permanent installation, part of the larger Connective Corridor project, was initiated to illuminate iconic buildings and public spaces between Columbus Circle and Armory Square.
Brandston explains: “The Jefferson Street project is really an investment in turning a typical motor-oriented roadway into a pedestrian-oriented city street. The installation reflects off people, making the installation essentially invisible until occupied; it takes people to show the light because the people become the light.”
The installation on Jefferson Street is the signature illumination under the larger Connective Corridor project, connecting Syracuse University to Downtown Syracuse.

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Latvia - The first Eurovision Choir of the Year contest took place in Riga, Latvia. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the Interkultur Foundation, the inaugural event hosted nine professional choirs, each representing a different European country.
The venue was the Arena Riga, a 14,500-capacity stadium, and Green Hippo technology was on hand to help deliver a live spectacular, in keeping of the EBU’s best known production, the Eurovision Song Contest.
Company NA and Latvian Green Hippo distributor, PRO 1 Stage, worked with Kristaps Skulte (stage design) and Maris Kalve (video content) to deliver the visuals. With two Hippotizer Boreals, and a trio of Hippotizer Karsts, the team had an impressive array of technology to work with. Andrejs Mefodovskis headed the Hippotizer set-up and configuration, with Ivars Vacers handling programming and control
  1. GLP joins Spider Murphy Gang celebrations
  2. GDS ArcSystem for Bijloke Gent Music Centre
  3. Bryant Park Winter Village warms up with Chauvet
  4. Ennio Morricone marks 60 years of music with L-Acoustics
  5. Bandit Lites spreads holiday cheer
  6. Adlib lives the dream at Wembley
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