UK - Shure collaborated with Adlib to upgrade ACC Liverpool’s RF system. The result is a future-proofed system ready for today’s challenging RF environment.
The ACC Liverpool is a conference centre situated on Liverpool’s waterfront. The event campus is an interconnected arena, convention and exhibition centre, which plays a leading role in shining a spotlight on the city. The venue has successfully staged a wide array of national and international events, from shows to conventions and business gatherings to showcase exhibitions.
Welcoming more than 7.9m people through its doors since they first opened, the venue is home to a flexible layout configuration. A tiered auditorium, break-out rooms, the exhibition centre and an event arena can be split, joined, and arranged in a variety of ways.
Owing to the ever-changing configuration of the building, ACC Liverpool had an increasing need for RF on their site that would work across large venues. The solution had to be fit for the future, given the venues ever growing client base. The kit provided also replaced all previous ACC wireless systems operating in the 700MHz band, which was an essential change given that all PMSE (Programme Making & Special Events) wireless users need to vacate this part of UHF spectrum by the 1 May.
Adlib supplied the ACC Liverpool with 64 channels of Shure Axient Digital including 16 four-way receivers, AD1 bodypacks, AD2 transmitters, and an AD610 Showlink access port.
Harry Brown, sales manager at Adlib, comments: “The ACC Liverpool had no previous di
USA - Dollywood, the popular theme park in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, debuted a new area in June 2019 - Wildwood Grove - at the heart of which is a magical Wildwood Tree illuminated using Elation Professional luminaires with lighting design by Susan Rose.
The Wildwood Tree comes to life each evening during a light and sound experience created by The Imagination House for Dollywood and narrated by Dolly Parton herself. Designed and built by LifeFormations, the 50ft tree’s gnarled trunk emerges from a rock base before spreading into a beautiful green-leaf canopy covered with 650 custom RGB LED butterflies, controlled and programmed by Weigl Controls.
Lighting designer and lighting programmer for four separate seasonal experiences is local resident Susan Rose. She has previously designed lighting for Dollywood shows and spent nearly a year on the Wildwood Tree project. “When I started on the project the tree didn’t even exist yet so we really started from the ground up,” Rose comments, adding that she was given a sample piece of the tree trunk to see how light would react on it.
Bandit Lites also got involved in the project early on, she says, and were critical in setting up demos and helping her look at the various lighting possibilities. “I knew we needed outdoor-rated lights to fight with Mother Nature and we needed something with good intensity to shine through at dusk. Bandit recommended we go with Elation and as I was already an Elation fan and it was also in our budget range, I took a closer look.”
Each season
India - With redesigned drivers, an all-new rigging system and three flexible models to choose from, JBL Professional VTX A Series line array loudspeakers are quickly becoming a favourite of live sound professionals in the Indian market.
Building on the success of the venerable VTX V Series, VTX A Series loudspeakers feature several new innovations. Next-generation transducers deliver high-output performance with improved low-frequency extension. A redesigned Radiation Boundary Integrator waveguide ensures a smooth transition between mid and high frequencies. An all-new rigging system features auto-locking suspension for faster, safer and more precise deployment than ever, and the speakers’ reduced weight makes transporting them easy and efficient.
“The VTX A-Series is JBL’s next-generation tour sound solution, and we’re glad to see so many industry leaders make the best of legendary JBL sound,” comments Aditya Todi, senior director of sales and marketing, Harman Professional Solutions, India and SAARC. “The VTX A12 - the flagship offering from JBL Professional’s tour sound inventory - was designed from scratch to address the challenges that rental companies, FOH engineers and tour sound production crews face.”
“We like the VTX A12 and A8 as it offers a compact sound system with an amazing design,” says Mahesh Saniddhya of Sound Bulls, a professional live sound company that also specialises in lights, laser systems and trussing. “We have been part of the JBL Professional family for the last 10 years, and it seemed only natural
Spain - Technology experts from around the world descended on Barcelona for the annual Cisco Live EMEA conference in January to learn, share and drive the digital future.
For the third consecutive year, Christie Lites UK was commissioned by production company GPJ to design, supply and crew a lighting solution for the conference’s main stage and party area.
It is a major project, with Christie Lites UK working alongside production managers, technical managers and lighting designers to design a lighting and control package. This year, the team specified more than 850 fixtures and a crew of 27 experts, as thought leaders shared visions and performers including Nile Rodgers entertained the crowds.
GPJ’s head of technical production, Mark Bannister, worked alongside GPJ production managers John Carss for the main plenary and Isobel Webb and Dave Whitty for the party area to realise the project. Christie Lites UK account rep Andy Strachan managed the delivery of the lighting solution to the event.
“GPJ US and Christie Lites have built up a good relationship over the last decade in the States, and we were keen to develop that with Christie Lites UK, and that is a decision that has delivered huge benefits over the last three years of working together on Cisco Live,” says Mark Bannister. “The kit is well prepped and the crew work seamlessly with the other departments on site. Simon Grant’s design and Christie Lites’ delivery in the Party Area was breath-taking, and helped the team deliver the best-ever Cisco Live party - as rated by t
Germany - Von Welt spent 18 months in the studio together, writing and producing songs, before publicly launching the band in 2015. Those hours clocked up in the studio in their home area of the Black Forest in southern Germany have produced an interesting hybrid, and it is one that translates equally well to recordings or onto the stage.
“Our music is a symbiosis of alternative rock with German lyrics and modern electronic sounds,” responds Nico Kuri when asked to summarise the band’s output. Technology is clearly important to this close-knit unit whose songs and concepts almost all begin on a laptop and are produced digitally at home. Von Welt spent a year assessing which route to take towards developing a more compact and high-quality system for their live work. A friend pointed them in the direction of DiGiGrid, suggesting that it might offer them exactly what they needed.
“Technology has been an integral part of our work from the start. We decided to switch to a software-based live system because we’re all studio nerds and always work with a lot of plugins! We wanted our live engineer, Moritz, to use the plugins for live work - the DiGiGrid / SoundGrid / Waves system jumped out at us as the best way to achieve our aims. We like the fact that it’s future proof as well - it can be expanded as required.”
Working in the studio with the Waves LV1 digital mixer meant it was an entirely natural extension of the band’s methods to deploy DiGiGrid in their stage setup. They use two DiGiGrid IOS-XL units - one for FOH and one for monitor
Indonesia - British pop rockers Suede played Soundrenalin in Bali. Sharing the stage with alt rockers was a wide range of artists, from the hard driving Indonesian metal band Jamrud, to local R&B legend Glenn Fredly.
Tying this diverse musical offering together visually on two stages, while still creating looks that reflected the different personalities of each of the more than 40 artists who appeared at Soundrenalin, was a challenge, according to festival lighting designer Iwan Hutapea. It was one he met with help from two ChamSys MagicQ MQ500 Stadium consoles.
“The diversity on the stage was impressive,” says Iwan, owner of Etcetera Lighting. “We designed the lighting rig to be very flexible. As for the console, we used ChamSys, not just for its capabilities, but also because it is very user friendly for programming and networking, which made it easy to add ArtNet.”
When Iwan ran the boards during the festival he was grateful that he could work with playbacks and pre-set faders without swapping between modes, which made it easier to busk. “We did a lot of busking, because many of the bands gave us their song lists only at the last minute,” he says. “This is when you really appreciated that the ChamSys is so user-friendly.”
Iwan also appreciated how easy it was for LDs who have never worked with the MagicQ MQ 500 Stadium to familiarise themselves with the new console. “ChamSys was the festival console, so visiting LDs were given the opportunity to use it of course,” he says. “It was really a very straightforward
USA - City Theatrical’s Multiverse wireless DMX/RDM technology was recently used to provide wireless DMX/RDM for the lighting installation by Dynamic Productions USA for Super Bowl LIVE presented by Verizon at Bayfront Park, a week-long, free-to-the-public fan fest leading up to Super Bowl LIV in Miami, Florida.
A total of six Multiverse Transmitters and 20 Multiverse Nodes using Multiverse’s dual band 900MHz/2.4GHz technology were used to create six zones of wireless DMX throughout this 32-acre park from January 25 through February 1, 2020.
“Multiverse worked great for us,” says John Fitzgerald, lead technician for the project from Dynamic Productions USA. “When starting to design this show, Multiverse was the best option for us to get data around Bayfront Park. It made our load in process much quicker as well.”
Each Multiverse Transmitter 900MHz/2.4GHz was used to broadcast within a single zone, using a Panel Antenna. Multiple Multiverse Node 900MHz/2.4GHz units, each with a Yagi antenna, were set up within each zone to receive DMX data. All antennas were installed at the top of truss towers around the park to maximize the distance of the wireless broadcast and reception despite unique project challenges concerning radio spectrum congestion, distance, duration of use, and tropical weather.
While the Panel and Yagi antennas were attached on the top of truss towers, the team was able to install the Multiverse Transmitters and Nodes within waterproof cases at the bottom of the towers. This allowed for easier access and overal
Singapore - Ayrton’s Diablo profile fixture is gaining increasing popularity in the Singapore region. Creative Technology Asia Pacific and Yale-NUS College are just two of the latest organisations in Singapore to invest in this compact LED fixture which were supplied by Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for the region, Total Solution Marketing Pte.
Audio-visual company, Creative Technology Asia Pacific (CT), initially purchased 16 Diablo-S fixtures for its rental stock, but after experiencing the great capabilities and performance of their newly acquired Diablo-S, decided to purchase another eight fixtures to increase the CT offering to 24 units in total.
As one of the world’s leading suppliers of specialist audio visual equipment to sports, corporate, exhibition and entertainment industries, CT had specific reasons for its choice: “Diablo is a smaller wattage fixture that is on par with other big brands, and in a shootout proved itself to give a higher return per dollar than the others,” commented the company. “It has the versatility, good build quality and ease of maintenance which is so important for a rental house. It also has a rich set of features and, with its small body and great output, is much easier for our technicians to handle, day in and day out, on the road. In terms of size versus power and functionality, what you see is definitely not what you get . . . in a good way!”
Ayrton was delighted to hear that Yale-NUS College, a well-respected international arts college, has also chosen Diablo-S fixtures for its Blackbox Theatr
UK - Robe played a major role in delivering the lighting design for the Total Production International (TPi) Awards 2020, staged on Monday, 24 February, at the Evolution venue in Battersea.
Around 350 Robe moving light fixtures were used inventively by lighting designer Nathan Wan, associate LD Andy Webb and Robe’s own creative team, for whom the pressure was on to ensure that the 1,700 plus attendees and award winners were treated to stunning and memorable visuals for the evening. Wan and Webb worked closely with the video team from Visual Edge.
Robe took the opportunity to offer selected NRG (Next Robe Generation) initiative students the chance to work hands-on on a high pressure, high-profile gig including Becky Gaskill from the Backstage Academy who was Nathan’s assistant LD for the main room.
The theme for this year was a 1970s disco dancing vibe - inspired by legendary New York nightclub Studio 54.
With that as a starting point, Nathan’s lighting scheme was also developed to show off the scope and creativity of Robe’s latest technologies, in particular illustrating the power and versatility of Robe’s newest product releases - the Esprite LED Profile with transferrable LED engine and the Tetra2 moving LED batten.
An arched shaped LED screen along the back of the stage provided a physical focal point this year, while the video graphics and content were a neo-deco nod to Studio 54’s stylised graphics which themselves dated back to 1927, when the building first opened as an entertainment venue.
Nathan wanted to recrea
USA - English indie-electronic band Metronomy is wrapping up their current North American tour with a lighting system supplied by Bandit Lites. Known for their distinctive sound and flair for visuals, Metronomy is comprised of Joseph Mount, Oscar Cash, Anna Prior, Olugbenga Adelekan and Michael Lovett and recently released their sixth studio album Metronomy Forever.
“Tour manager Victoria Simpson was our initial contact and responsible for bringing Metronomy and Bandit Lites together for the US tour,” said Bandit Lites client representative Shawn Lear. “Vix’s organisation, advance work with contracts, routing and all the minute details coming from overseas is first-rate. It is truly a pleasure to work with her, and I only hope we cross paths again.”
Following discussion with the band and drawing on the album artwork, lighting designer Jaz Hewitt crafted a system that melded the fluidity and blending of lights and colour, as well keeping focus on the band and immersing fans in a multi-sensory experience.
GLP X4 Bars were placed along the floor in a curve, creating a cone of light around the band. Additional X4 Bars create backdrops of colour fades and double as side lighting, saving crucial space in the trailer pack while avoiding compromising the design’s integrity.
“Because we have less space than the design we had in Europe, it was important to work with Bandit and Victoria Simpson, our lovely tour manager, to learn about trailer space, case sizes and how we could make the design more compact.”
JDC1 add the
USA - Summit Woods Baptist church is a large but relatively young church in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. It moved into its first permanent sanctuary in 2004, a space that it had helped to design. Although most aspects of the 650-capacity, fan-shaped sanctuary (with room to expand to 1,000) were serving the congregation well, its acoustics and sound reinforcement were not.
Their blended service style - everything from a contemporary band to choir to orchestral instruments - lacked the impact it deserved. Avoiding the expense, footprint, comb filtering, and destroyed sightlines of a line array, AV integration firm Advanced Sound & Communication, of Kansas City, Missouri, designed and installed a Danley Sound Labs system with intelligibility, pattern control that minimises the impact of the poor acoustics, and a small footprint that maintains a clear view of the video screens and stained glass windows from any pew.
“Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Summit Woods was a desperate need for acoustic treatment,” explains Brent Handy, consultant, engineer, and integration project engineer with Advanced Sound & Communication. “Reverberation time is near four seconds. They had an aging central cluster that lacked bass, provided poor coverage, and generated plenty of SPL on stage and thus a lot of low-mid feedback problems. They couldn’t afford acoustic treatment for this upgrade, but they could afford a new sound reinforcement system.”
Handy continued, “Given everything they were up against, Danley Sound Labs was my first thought. Danley’
Germany - For the eighth time the open-air festival Electro Magnetic took place in Germany. For the 2019 edition almost 60 DJs and live-acts performed a variety of electronic music - mainly house, techno, trance and minimal - on different floors in the UNESCO World Heritage Völklinger Ironworks, a large industrial compound, developed at the end of the 19th century.
In 2019 and for the first time the Electro Magnetic Festival celebrated two nights at Völklinger Ironworks. RCF audio-systems were used on all floors. German event company TRIACS GmbH was responsible for the technical implementation of the main floor.
More than 16,000 people met, dancing to the beats of big names like Carl Cox, Boys Noize or Amelie Lens, making the 2019 edition one of the biggest electro parties in GermanyKey to the event’s success were the PA systems from RCF, used throughout all floors and stages of the festival. TRIACS was responsible for the main floor and implemented a RCF HDL 50-A system. Together with the several production partners, organising company 4 plus 1 Konzerte GmbH around managing director Thilo Ziegler was able to present an event that sets standards.
To reproduce the electro stars’ performances, TRIACS used several RCF modules on the main floor. Two 10 HDL 50-A Line Array Modules (hanging) together with 16 SUB 9007 (sub arc cardioid) were in place as the main PA. Additionally eight HDL 30-A were used as near-fill. Four TT 1-A covered the VIP zone. TT 052-A modules in combination with In-Ear acted as the monitoring for the control rooms (light, las
Australia - Event architects Moon Mother Productions, based in Melbourne, turned to Allen & Heath for the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, held earlier this month, deploying a number of Qu, SQ and dLive systems to provide live and broadcast feeds across a number of sites and locations.
Set in the surf town of Torquay and hosted by the 2011 Tour de France winner Cadel Evans, the four-day event consists of multiple bike races, that sees some of the world’s fastest cyclists compete across miles of scenic coastline.
Stocking one of the largest hire inventories of A&H consoles and accessories in Australia, Moon Mother Productions (MMP) rely exclusively on them for a range of events, as Tim Dalton, business development manager at MMP explains, “As a very busy and growing audio company we need products that work flawlessly 100% of the time. The variety of A&H products at our disposal gives us the flexibility to deploy the appropriate piece of kit for the job in a cost and space effective manner, and with an event such as this where space really is at a minimum, A&H consoles were perfect for the job.”
Taking place across a huge site with complex audio requirements, multiple audio systems that could communicate with each other were essential.
Thanks to its high I/O count, flexible routing options and ability to handle the complex distribution of audio signals, a dLive system was placed in an isolated cabin in the backstage compound; comprising a dLive S5000, which tackled FOH and monitor duties for the main stage, paired with a
Ireland - Nestled in the glorious countryside of Southern Ireland sits the Curragh Race Course. Initially founded in the coffee rooms of Kildare, the Irish Turf Club was quickly established as the governing body for horse racing throughout Ireland. The first recorded race on the plain took place in 1727 and now Curragh is home to Ireland’s five classic races.
The Curragh site has recently undergone a 65m euro redevelopment project across its entirety. Works carried out included the stable yard (featuring 135 stables) and the building of a new grandstand with a spectacular sweeping roof. Covering 10,500sq.m, the new grandstand can cater for up to 6,000 people within its four levels - in fact, the site as a whole, has a crowd capacity of 30,000.
Visitor enjoyment and responsible ‘crowd’ control during any event at Curragh are equally important to the site owners and managers; therefore, all aspects of this were to be considered carefully during the planning stage of the redevelopment.
To carry out the works required, a selection of top consultants were selected for the different aspects of communication throughout the site. Dublin based, Sound Productions Ltd was chosen to design and commission the PA/VA and EVC, as well as the TV and other audio distribution systems required for the Curragh buildings and surrounding grounds.
The brief to Sound Productions was to supply a flexible multi-zone audio and voice alarm system with top quality audio. The specification was for a complex zone arrangement, with multiple audio inputs from broadcast
Europe - Adlib supplied audio and lighting production for the UK dates of Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen’s ongoing Dedicated world tour. In addition, Adlib supplied a lighting and audio control package for the European leg. This is part of the ongoing live campaign for her fourth studio album of the same name.
Production manager and FOH engineer Zach Snyder had not worked with Adlib before but was recommended to the Liverpool-based production specialist by their tour director, Tony Marino, who’d used Adlib before with Panic at the Disco.
“It was a great decision,” states Zach, who was delighted with the service and support from Adlib.
He specified an Avid S6L 24d for the FOH console and a DiGiCo SD12 for monitors which was run by Spencer Jones.
Lighting designer Charles Ford chose a grandMA2 light as his control desk of choice, for its power, flexibility and compatibility as an ‘industry standard’ workhorse piece of kit.
For the two sold-out UK shows at Manchester’s Victoria Warehouse and London’s Brixton Academy, Adlib supplied an L-Acoustics K2 & KS28 system.
“This is a great PA; you can source it worldwide and this spec is based on a ‘standard’ rig that we have been using for festivals,” explains Zach.
The artist and her outstanding four-piece band - expanded to include more musicians for the US sections - all have their own Sennheiser mics and IEMs.
Charles’ theatrical styled lighting design for the larger shows included 16 Ayrton Khamsin LED profiles with which he
Indonesia - To deliver clear, intelligible sound for sermons and special events, AV integrator IMS Indonesia recently outfitted GSJA Bandengan Church with a Harman Professional Solutions networked audio system.
Established in 1964 under the auspices of the Church of the Assemblies of God, GSJA Bandengan Church has been bringing people together for more than 50 years. Located in the heart of Jakarta, Bandengan Church hosts a variety of events including musical performances, children’s prayer conferences and special events, attracting worshipers from all age groups.
The venue features a sprawling ground floor as well as a balcony with extensive seating capacity. In order to ensure pristine sound with even, balanced coverage, Bandengan Church hired AV integrators IMS Indonesia to upgrade their existing sound system with a networked audio solution featuring JBL loudspeakers, a Soundcraft mixing console and a dbx loudspeaker management system.
“GSJA Bandengan Church required an upgrade for their existing sound setup,” comments Christian Prasetya, brand manager, IMS Indonesia. “Since the church hall is spread out over a fairly large area, the setup had to provide even sound distribution across the worship space. To energize the church services, they needed excellent vocal clarity, reliability and smooth reproduction of sound across all frequencies. To meet these requirements, we chose the JBL VRX series speakers.”
IMS Indonesia equipped Bandengan Church with JBL VRX932LAP line array loudspeakers to ensure consistent coverage in every seat
Belgium - WIcreations used its new WImotion system - motors, tracking and control - to automate five ski lift cable cars as part of a visual extravaganza for the two-day Moose Bar XXL event at Antwerp’s Sportpaleis venue, Belgium’s only après ski party.
The brainchild of organiser and lBelgium night scene inspirator Yves Smolders, Moose Bar XXL ran for two nights this year after 2019’s inaugural event, and featured an epic scenic production design and a slew of music and live entertainment that transported 20,000 party-people to the mountains over the two nights.
A total of five cable cars were involved - sourced from an original ski lift in Tignes in the French Alps, reconditioned and re-branded as highly visible Moose Bar props.
Four cable car gondolas were positioned in each corner of the Sportpaleis and these were flown up and down 6.5m into the venue ceiling throughout the evening, filled with guests, offering the opportunity for exclusive panoramic views of the event over the crowds.
The fifth cable car was in the centre of the room and - in addition to moving up and down - it tracked up to 51m along the roof of the space, transporting performers between the multiple stages over 48m.
The trussing for the tracking gondola was supplied by the production. The WI team, project managed by Jasper Mattijs, rigged their tracks and trolleys (one active, one passive) plus two 500kg hosts and then picked up and attached the gondola.
The other four gondolas were all rigged and flown in the same way - each suspended on two 500kg
UK - The Pump House Theatre and Arts Centre in Watford is a thriving hub for local and national performing arts and emerging talent and a busy receiving house with a lively programme of drama, musicals and dance, working to provide “arts for everyone”. The intimate 124-seat venue has just upgraded its power distribution and dimming system with the installation of three 24-channel Zero 88 Chilli Pro bypass dimmers.
The theatre has both a resident youth theatre group and an adult theatre company and a raft of regular and occasional external companies and clients who hire the space for their productions and events, all of which use the house technical facilities.
Jason Brameld, who is technical director at Torpedo Factory Group - a long-standing professional customer of Zero 88, has also been Pump House Theatre’s volunteer technical director since 1996, and he specified the new Chilli system that was needed to deal with the increasing amount of LED light sources now in the rig and user demands for more flexible power distribution, a trend that is set to continue.
Chilli Pro dimmers are available in 4, 6, 12 and 24 channel modules, featuring 10, 16 and 25-amp load capacities, with optional RCD protection, relay channels, bypass switches, RCBOs and HF dimming, all contained in slimline wall-mounting enclosures.
The Pump House’s new dimmers replace older ones, some of which were also Zero 88 products still going after 30 years, a testament to the brand’s build quality! However, the change was driven by the need to update due to general ad
UK - Sennheiser microphones and IEM systems were recently put into use at the 2020 BRIT Awards.
Hosted by comedian Jack Whitehall and held at the O2 Arena in London, this year’s BRIT Awards celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Britannia Row Productions, long-time audio supplier for the show, provided the requirements for the audio system. The BRITs always present challenges for the audio team led by live sound supervisor Colin Pink, and this year was no exception, with three stages and two separate flown PA systems designed by Brit Row’s Joshua Lloyd.
Brit Row deployed 16 channels of Sennheiser Digital 6000 and 40 channels of 2000 series IEMs for all Sennheiser performers and presenters on the night.
Stormzy, the winner of British Male Solo Artist performed a medley of his hits, and was joined by Tiana Major9 and Teni Tinks as well as choir members and dancers, all standing on the stage under a solid wall of rain.
Raphael A. Williams, Stormzy’s sound engineer, reports: “The first time that we did the waterfall effect in 2018 it was just Stormzy in the rain and then the rest of the production cast and BVs were outside of it. And now this time, the TAWBOX creative team just thought ‘let’s put more people there!’, so we had Stormzy, Tiana and Teni with Sennheiser microphones on stage together with the 60 choir members and 60 dancers.”
Performing with Stormzy on the night were Burna Boy, Tiana Major9, and Teni Tinks all using SKM 6000 with MD 9235 capsules and 2000 series IEMs. An additional 19 channels of 2000 series IEMs
USA - When Nashville Underground first opened its doors on Lower Broadway two years ago, the four-level music venue, restaurant, bar, and event space co-owned by singer-songwriter brothers Joey and Gavin DeGraw added a new justification for Nashville’s Music City moniker.
Boasting the city’s highest and largest rooftop deck - a double-level one, at that - the impressive space is also home to two kitchens, four bars, and three stages plus a DJ booth that host live music seven days a week. To bring these performances to life, Nashville Underground invested in a new L-Acoustics A Series system provided by Camarillo, California-based Rat Sound Systems.
“When Nashville Underground operating partner Joshua Pemberton called me, he was looking to bring more high-calibre artists into the venue. He needed a powerful, high-fidelity sound system, but also needed it to be easy to set up, since it would be constantly moved between their multiple performance areas,” says Rat Sound’s Dave Rat. “The new L-Acoustics A Series had just been introduced and we knew it would give the venue extremely high-quality sound and a brand name that is very attractive to top DJ and artist riders - but, also be ultra portable and quick to deploy to wherever they needed it that day.”
Rat Sound supplied the venue with pairs of medium-throw A15 Wide enclosures, KS21 subs and LA4X amplification from its own rental inventory, which Pemberton demoed onsite, then immediately called Rat back to order a set. This established Nashville Underground as the first venue on the Broa
Czech Republic - The new - fourth-generation - Skoda Octavia was launched to a VIP audience and the global press in the Czech Republic at the Prague National Gallery’s Trade Fair Palace.
Lighting designer Michael Kuehbandner created a lighting scheme for a special presentation show attended by 700 guests. Included in his brief was also lighting a number of periphery areas covering the entrance, reception and after-show display, for which he specified over 200 Astera wireless LED fixtures.
This included the venue’s impressive and vast six-storey atrium and ridged roof space which was used for the after-show, complete with a display area on the ground floor with four Skoda Octavias, a bar and drinks section and a band stage, where everyone could mingle, network and socialise before and after the main launch show.
Michael’s lighting plot utilised 218 AX7 battery powered LED SpotLites - a PAR style fixture - and a kit of 12 Astera Titan Tubes. All fixtures were run wirelessly.
The venue is primarily a museum with a café in the entrance area, and due to the layout and day-to-day functionality of the building, it was not possible to run long lengths of power or data cabling, so this lighting rig had to be wireless.
Eighty-four of the AX7s - 21 per floor - were deployed across the middle four floors of the atrium (the first and sixth floors could not be used) for up-lighting the balcony ceilings and structural columns, creating a smooth glow of colour around the top of the building. This helped to transform the space from modernist funct
UAE - For a recent concert performance by Indian singer, composer, actor and all-round megastar, Sonu Nigam, event production specialist Lightech AV turned again to their go-to media server solution from Green Hippo to drive the high-definition screen visuals. The show, designed in collaboration between Lightech AV and Nigam’s own team, was staged at Dubai’s World Trade Centre Arena in January.
Lightech AV’s head of video Yevgeniy Karyagin chose to use two Hippotizer Boreal+ media servers as his main and backup systems. Each had a Lightware 16x16 Matrix Switcher with 4K DP Datapath capture card. “For this production, 4K input was very important,” he says.
Working in conjunction with Sonu Nigam’s visual specialist and VJ, Arveen Sabharwal, Yevgeniy used the Hippotizer Boreal+ to feed a mix of custom graphics and live Imag footage, triggered from a MIDI controller, to the five large, portrait-format LED screens that formed a striking backdrop to the stage.
An experienced practitioner who has mastered his toolkit, Yevgeniy took the whole project in his stride. “There were no real challenges for us on this show,” he says, “because Hippotizer media servers give us so many possibilities and features that help us to quickly solve any difficulties that may arise - with picture mapping, or with the signal distribution, for example. Also, the efficiency and stability of Hippotizer machines gives you that extra confidence at show time. Thanks to the developers!”
(Jim Evans)
Zimbabwe - This year’s edition of the annual Worship Experience 2020 gathering at the aptly named Rainbow Towers in Harare was ‘an ecstatic, full throttled celebration of hope’.
This was evident in the musical segment of the event, which was organised by Kayse Connect, to showcase new talent, with a special emphasis on Zimbabwe’s abundance of emerging women artists. Adding to the occasion was a bright, bold, and fast-moving five-universe lightshow designed by Blessing Bero and programmed by Tatenda Gaylord Rushwaya of Events Evolution that featured Maverick and Rogue fixtures from Chauvet Professional.
Relying on the intense output of the Maverick MK2 Spot, Rogue R2 Beam, and Rogue R1 Beam, Bero and Rushwaya sent multi-coloured and white aerial effects in every direction, symbolically raising the visual voice of the stage in concert with the uplifting music. They also added depth to the stage by crossing beam patterns and playing light off against the video panels that were flown overhead.
To complement the aerial effects, the Events Evolution team rounded out the lightshow by creating texture on stage with gobo patterns. They also personalised the show by spotlighting the performers.
“There was a total of 11 Maverick MK2 Spots in our rig,” says Rushwaya. “We positioned three of them on FOH truss, and remote controlled them to work as follow spots, in addition to spotting the DJ. The rest of the MK2 Spots were placed four on each upstage and mid-stage truss for gobo effects on the stage. Thanks to the throw distance of these fixt
UK - Martin Audio will unveil new products and demo its most recent offerings during a series of open days to be held at its High Wycombe HQ in March.
Over three days and five sessions spanning 17-19 March, much interest will be focused on the new Adorn on-wall and ceiling speaker range, which was formally launched at the recent ISE 2020 show in Amsterdam.
During the course of the presentations, delegates will have the opportunity to sample all four of Martin Audio’s new Wavefront Precision Series, namely the WPM, WPS, WPC and WPL, offering comparative listening across all four arrays.
There will also be a wide range of subwoofers on show, including the new cardioid SXC118, as well as the new BlacklineX Powered portable series.
Finally, all the CDD-LIVE will be on demo, offering visitors the chance to experience the company’s proprietary Coaxial Differential Dispersion technology.
Following the sessions, delegates will have the opportunity to ask questions and mingle with sales and technical staff over snacks and refreshments, as well as take home some fun new swag in the form of Martin Audio’s version of the popular card game, Top Trumps.
(Jim Evans)