UK - Twenty years after its inception, Newham Council’s annual free festival Under The Stars continues to pull in crowds of up to 10,000 at East Ham’s Central Park.
Graham Baker of turnkey technology providers, Centre Stage, has been servicing the event for all but one of those festivals. In order to keep the production fresh for a roster of headline acts including Naughty Boy, Norman Jay, Cocojam, Musical Youth and the traditional Sunday showcase of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Baker this year turned to his friends at W1 Productions, knowing they had recently acquired JBL’s new VTX A8 / VTX B18 line array from UK and Ireland distributors Sound Technology Ltd. Both parties agreed that this would make the perfect debut for a rig that could be flown 12-aside, with six B18 subwoofers a side in a cardioid sub array. A further four A8 provided infills along the front while the entire system was powered and processed by W1 Productions’ newly-purchased Crown VRacks.
Ensuring that the system was fully optimised were W1 Productions project manager, Lawrence Chichon, FOH sound engineer, Jack Hale, and systems engineer Tom Matthews, with the support of Sound Technology’s Stuart Strachan. Centre Stage, whose sister company, Alistage, was also involved in providing front of stage barriers and risers, found the tie-up with W1 Productions and the new JBL rig to be mutually beneficial.
“We have dry-hired systems from W1 for many years, and it was nice to give this new PA a test drive,” states Baker. JBL’s next generation dual 8" compac
New Zealand - To create a more immersive movie-going experience for audiences, Avid Automation and JPRO recently upgraded the Lido cinema with a JBL by Harman surround sound system with 7 Series reference monitors.
Established in the 1920s, the Lido Cinema is one of New Zealand’s oldest and most prestigious cinemas. Originally opened as a single-screen art house cinema, the Lido expanded with a second 44-seat capacity theatre known as The Lounge in 2005.
The Lido recently decided to upgrade the aging 5.1 sound system in The Lounge to a state-of-the-art 7.1 surround sound system. Unable to place speakers behind the screen due to the rear-projection system in the Lounge, the Lido recruited the help of AV integrators Avid Automation and JBL distributor JPRO to install a custom solution. After surveying the location, Avid Automation and JPRO designed a Harman surround sound system comprised of JBL 7 Series reference monitors.
“It’s always been a bit of a troublesome venue for speaker placement due to the rear-projection screen,” says Richard Dalton, managing director, The Lido. “We’ve had about three sound systems in there since it opened and none of them have been particularly good. The idea of working with the AV Integrator and JBL to create a custom solution was rather exciting. The amazing work in the Lounge has exceeded my expectations with a premium audio result - I love it.”
Avid Automation and JPRO equipped The Lounge with JBL 708i reference monitors in the left, centre and right channels in a bi-amplified configuration. T
Australia - Sydney Opera House on September 7 for Multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier gave presented “a two-hour exploration of music’s outermost boundaries” at Sydney Opera House.
Stopping at the venue on his Djesse World Tour, musician from North London wove an intricately layered tapestry of sounds into his performance, captivating his audience with lightning fast piano lines one moment, and haunting bass playing the next, before veering off into a mesmerizing Harmoniser solo, all while making everything flow together with a simple, natural elegance.
Reflecting the essence of Collier’s music in all of its complex, yet accessible, possibilities, was a deftly balanced Luke Edwards lighting design that featured Chauvet Professional ÉPIX Strip Tour fixtures.
Edwards used 32 of the 1m long RGB strips in his 12 universe show. Each of the ÉPIX Strip Tour units was topped with an old school Edison bulb, an arrangement that symbolised the way his client’s multifarious music bridges the gap between the digital and analogue worlds.
The ÉPIX units were positioned in free-flowing fashion throughout the rig. Working from his 16 pages of cues, Edwards pixel mapped the strips using a pixel mapper and effect generator to create a galaxy of fluid patterns that changed and moved in harmony with Collier’s music.
“We go from sweeping lines to random twinkles on the ÉPIX fixtures, which all looks incredible in real life and on camera,” says Edwards. “Our show pretty much encompasses every colour, even pastels, and the strips ha
Australia - Regarded as the ultimate production showcase by long-term technical partner, Novatech Creative Event Technology, the Australian Hotels Association (AHA) South Australia’s annual AHA Awards for Excellence raised the bar once again this year.
With over 30 awards to present, comperes and performing artists, around 200 time-lined cues, all driven by bespoke video content, the technical design required a solid framework. This was provided by Novatech’s suite of Brompton processing and distribution products, which integrated and simplified the whole LED screen system.
“We have been the technical provider for the AHA Awards for eight years now,”says Bryan Goh, video project manager at Novatech. “It’s one of the signature events in our calendar and we love doing it. It’s a very ambitious event, with fresh concepts every year. They entrust us with creative control over the stage design and technical aspects of the event, which gives us the opportunity to go wild with technology, show off the new toys, and give the hotels industry a great experience.”
For the 2019 ceremony, Novatech went with all-LED screen for visuals. Two 6 x 6.3 metre ROE Visual CB3 3mm LED screens were set left and right of stage, with three curved 4.8 x 4.8 metre ROE Visual CB5 screens were hung on motors to fly in and out, revealing the performing band behind them. Two ‘ticker’ type 9.6 x 1.2 metre long CB5 screens graced each side of the stage, whilst at the rear of the stage, a string curtain digital drape formed a backdrop.
A pair of Brompton S
UK - As Central London’s largest conferencing and events centre, Central Hall Westminster recently played host to the Oscar Events House Live in London concert with Assi El Hallani and Mahmood El Turki. As the in-house technical production partner at Central Hall, White Light provided the lighting and audio solutions for this sell-out event.
The concert, held in celebration of Eid El Adha, saw both singers perform with their accompanying musicians to an audience of over 2000 people in the Great Hall. White Light were on hand to enhance the event with atmospheric lighting, utilising a combination of LED moving units and haze effects, and to provide full audio coverage and support.
Remon Hanna, director of marketing at Oscar Events House comments: “Central Hall Westminster was the ideal choice for our first London concert and the magnificent Great Hall looked and sounded perfect. It was a great experience working with the White Light team, whose production expertise made the whole event planning process a pleasure. We look forward to returning for future concerts and working them again.”
Paul Southern, managing director of Central Hall Westminster, adds: “Music concerts are an integral part of our business and it was an honour to host the first in this high-profile series. As always, our in-house production partner White Light, knew exactly how to enhance the audio capabilities of the venue and turn our historic Great Hall into a beautiful concert setting.”
(Jim Evans)
USA - A 48-channel Allen & Heath SQ-6 digital mixer landed a role in the Shakespeare Centre of Los Angeles (SCLA) production of Henry IV, one of the Bard of Avon’s most popular historical plays.
Built from the ground up outdoors on the West Los Angeles Veteran Affairs campus under the artistic direction of SCLA founder Ben Donenberg, Henry IV was staged with a cast that included Tom Hanks as Falstaff, Hamish Linklater as Prince Henry, and Joe Morton in the title role. Sound design fell under the guidance of Diablo Sound, an LA-based firm that has brought audio to many of SCLA’s most acclaimed productions.
Diablo Sound president and principal designer Drew Dalzell looked long and hard for a compact console with a feature set and price point that could facilitate the audio blueprint he envisioned for the play. His moment of discovery occurred when the SQ-6 landed in his lap.
“The SQ-6 is indeed small, feature rich, and sounds great,” he notes. “That’s the trifecta for me, especially in theatre. I’ve always loved the Allen & Heath sound, and this one lives up to its heritage.”
Front of house engineer Anna Grossman used eight of the SQ-6’s DCAs to create a template of scenes that managed the play’s Broadway-style, line-by-line mixing format. “It’s not an easy mix method to learn or execute,” Dalzell explains. “But by keeping it down to just eight DCAs in front of you, you actually stand a fighting chance.”
Grossman’s scenes were programmed in what Dalzell calls a “modified round-rob
UK - Leeds Castle in Kent recently played host to the spectacular open-air Leeds Castle Classical Summer Concert in celebration of its 900-year milestone. This gave around 11,000 concert-goers the opportunity to witness the world premiere of the fanfare, A Tribute to Leeds Castle, composed by Tom Hodge, performed by the Band of the Royal Marines and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted by John Rigby.
Set in this picturesque location, with its natural amphitheatre and the castle as the backdrop, the visitor experience of this setting was augmented by the clarity, and even distribution of the sound, delivered by the Martin Audio Wavefront Precision Longbow (WPL). This was supplied, optimised and controlled by RG Jones Sound Engineering.
Working for concert organisers Heritage Events, the sound production company, under project manager and FOH engineer Ben Milton, had to contend with a site that was both deep and wide (180m x 200m), with a steep incline. But he knew the WPL would mitigate many of the idiosyncrasies and even out the 180° sound dispersion required to cover the audience area.
Programming the optimisation for depth in the dedicated DISPLAY software, Milton says: “We produced a very even tone, deploying a system optimisation at 3dB drop between the auditorium boundary and the downstage edge. This produced a totally even coverage throughout.”
To achieve this they deployed 16 WPL elements per side for the main hangs, with eight Wavefront Precision Compact (WPC) for the out-fills, 12 WPL for the hill-fill (the s
Belgium - Filipe Dos Santos, director of photography at RTL Belgium, called on the high-performance features of the VL2600 Spot luminaire from Vari-Lite in his design for Belgium’s annual charity television broadcast, Télévie.
Produced by RTL-TVI, Télévie raises funds to help fight cancer and leukaemia in adults and children, so the creation of vibrant, sumptuous television images which both enhance the on-stage entertainment and engage the audience to the full is a key requirement.
With its wide and deep studio stage hosting a broad range of live entertainment, the show makes serious demands on lighting. It requires lighting capable of filling the space with a quality of light, a variety of looks and effects, and the textural depth needed to create beautiful television pictures for various acts, over a long period.
“A television production has two challenges for lighting: the functional and the decorative,” says Dos Santos. “That is, what is technically good for the camera and what is pleasing and entertaining for the television audience.”
He added, “I was looking for luminaires that could produce a powerful, quality white light, that could open wide. I needed projectors, wash effects and bright beams to carve large volumes of space and give depth to the image.”
To achieve this, Dos Santos included 24 VL2600 Spot fixtures in his rig. “I chose them for their great openness and incredible focus, plus their gobos and their beautiful mixed and fixed colours,” he says. “The finesse of the optics and the
UK - Harrogate’s spa heritage is being celebrated with a light display in the town’s Valley Gardens.
As Harrogate prepares for the arrival of the UCI Road World Cycling Championships, a new illuminated sculpture has been unveiled in the gardens. And, two weeks later, 36 wells within the park - together with the imposing Harlow Hill water tower - will be lit with light shafts to complete a 3D art installation, which will be seen in the night sky for miles around.
Called Harrogate 1571, the work has been commissioned by Harrogate Borough Council as part of a wrap-around cultural programme for the UCI World Cycling Championships.
Whilst over 100 wells are set within Harrogate, Bogs Field in the Valley Gardens is the source of 36 mineral springs. The waters are Magmatic or Plutonic in origin, and never existed as rain, flowing deep beneath the earth for 20,000 years before surfacing through vertical shafts in the strata.
Harrogate International Festivals chief executive Sharon Canavar says: “Our beautiful town owes its fame and fortune to the large number of mineral water wells that converge in a relatively small area. For our part, we have taken the waters that ‘made’ Harrogate as our inspiration, and Harrogate 1571 is a unique celebration of our spa heritage, demonstrating that there’s definitely something in the water here in Harrogate!”
This is one of our most exciting projects to date, and to reach this stage has taken a lot of hard work and the co-operation and support of a number of organisations, namely
USA - Luke Bryan’s Sunset Repeat tour started on 31 May and continues in to the autumn. Contributing to the good time atmosphere on stage, as Bryan and company move exuberantly through their 23-song set, is a 28-universe Justin Kitchenman-designed video and lightshow that features Chauvet Professional Maverick and ÉPIX fixtures supplied by Elite Multimedia of Nashville.
Displaying the free-flowing energy of a beach party where everyone is invited, Bryan’s performance gleefully pulls in a diverse mix of music that includes his popular country hits like Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset (from which the tour got its name), as well as renditions of crowd-pleasers like Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer.
A large vertical video wall over the set, flanked by two equally impressive square walls, creates an evocative environment on stage by displaying a wide range of images that include ‘neon’ cowboys, clear blue skies, and red sunsets.
Working in unison with the video walls are 16 Maverick MK Pyxis fixtures that are arranged four apiece on vertical light ladders. Drawing on the continuous 360° pan and tilt movement of the beam/wash effect, Kitchenman creates a variety of multi-dimensional patterns on stage.
Kitchenman also relies on the outer ring of nine zoomable RGBW LEDs in the MK Pyxis to conjure up a continuous flow of eye candy effects. At times, the looks from the Maverick units seem almost to grow out of the videos because of the way they mirror the colours and patterns displayed on the walls.
“The Pyxis works be
India - In August, Grammy and Oscar winner A.R. Rahman staged a concert in his home city of Chennai, relying on Mumbai’s Sound to supply and support the live audio system for the show, which this year was built around Adamson Systems Engineering’s E-Series.
“A.R. Rahman has been a client of Sound.com for the past eight years,” begins Sound.com founder and managing director Warren D’souza. “When we completely replaced all of our tour sound products with Adamson systems earlier this year, we knew we could offer the best possible solution to our high-end clients like Mr. Rahman. This was our first major outing with our new inventory and I think it proved beyond doubt that we made a wise investment.”
The system deployed at the YMCA College of Physical Education grounds for the show included main left and right arrays of 15 E15 three-way, true line source enclosures over three E12 three-way, full-range enclosures per side in front of nine flown E119 subwoofers in FBF cardioid configurations. An additional 15 E119s were ground-stacked on each side of the stage for more low-frequency support while eight S10 two-way, full-range cabinets handled front-fill duties.
The single delay ring included left, centre, and right arrays, with nine standard S10s on the left hang, 12 on the right, and a complement of 16 narrow-dispersion S10ns for the centre. D’souza notes the unorthodox configuration was due to the uneven and asymmetrical layout of the audience area, and adds that in previous years, they required an additional delay ring to properly cover
UK - The official opening of Samsung KX, Samsung Electronics Co’s new ‘digital playground’ in London’s King’s Cross, featured ‘the world's first vertical gig’.
The multi-tiered performance space in Coal Drops Yard was erected as part of the launch of Samsung’s new multi-sensory experience and saw performances from R&B artist Mabel.
The concept was devised by Iris Experience’s creative director Henry Scotland, and realised with support from video rental house Universal Pixels.
The structure itself was fabricated by Star Live using three shipping containers to create a 9:16 format. The finished stage was an impressive 9.1m tall, showing three stories of tech and performance space to the 2,000-capacity crowd. UP provided the vertical 4.5m wide by 7.5m high portrait Leyard CLM6 LED screen with a custom rigging solution and a disguise GX2 media server playback package.
UP’s Roly Oliver comments: “The genius thing about this gig is its simplicity. It’s bold yet not particularly complex, and it seems almost strange that it’s never been done before. Video is a blank canvas and as we work in a consumer-led market, the ticket-buying public has made it clear that they want to view the world in portrait. I think we’ll be seeing this a lot more in the future.”
Henry Scotland adds: “We hadn’t worked with UP before, so were keen to give them a shot at slotting into a fairly ambitious bespoke design. The team worked super hard alongside Star Live to devise a plan which maximised the screen real estate in each aper
UK - Les Miserables: The Staged Concert is playing packed houses at London's Gielgud Theatre, with Unusual Rigging supplying the rigging and automation for the shows' four month stint.
The concert version of the world's longest running musical opened at the end of July, following the closure of the Queen's Theatre. It will re-open after extensive refurbishment of both its backstage and auditorium as the renamed Sondheim Theatre. Unusual Rigging is also a part of this project, lowering the stage and installing a complex engineering system.
With the production team of this limited run show briefed to make the Gielgud feel like a miniature version of the 02 Arena which hosted the 25th anniversary concert, production manager Chris Boone brought Unusual on board to make it happen.
Chris explained: "Unusual Rigging is my go-to company for rigging jobs and this particular one was no mean feat – I needed a team who knew what they were doing. With Jeremy Featherstone and Simon Stone at the helm, Unusual has worked with designer Matt Kingley to replicate the scenic elements for this fully staged concert while also providing the automation and lighting trusses too."
For the concert, Unusual has installed 36 Kinesys hoists for the lighting trusses. At Cameron Mackintosh's request, the concert still features some scenic elements including a bridge which makes its entrance from the fly floor with six performers stood on it.
Chris continued. "The other thing that Unusual did was to come up with a solution for a large LED screen positioned a
Belgium - The word ‘individual’ comes up often when Martin Thomas talks about lighting his long-time client Alan Parsons. It isn’t necessarily Parsons himself that the Tucson, Arizona-based LD is referring to, but each of the musicians that make up the pioneering Grammy winner’s band.
“The music of The Alan Parsons Project has always been founded on a variety of musicians based on their individual strong suits - and the live show is no different,” said Thomas. “All members have specific harmony parts in the music; and lead vocals shift throughout the show. Because everyone sings, key light and backlight for all musicians is critical. So, layers and atmospheric architecture make up most of the production with several negative space moments in the performance.”
At the last stop of the band’s European tour at the iAncienne Belgique in downtown Brussels this August, Thomas was faced with a challenge when he had two electrics to work with instead of three. He nevertheless was able to achieve the layered looks his design called for, thanks to a collection of Chauvet Professional Maverick fixtures supplied by Coruna Sound & Light.
“On this tour, my design is based on having three overhead electrics, FOH truss and a floor package,” said Thomas. “At this particular venue we had only two overhead electrics, making layering the focus that much more critical, as there are eight active artists on stage at any given time.”
The 28 Maverick MK1 Hybrid fixtures in Thomas’ rig were instrumental in helping him maintain the focus
Australia - After a first sold-out season at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Muriel’s Wedding has returned with a Melbourne run finished and Sydney currently packing in the audiences. Next stop is Brisbane for the production that has grown and changed a little since the 2017 premiere.
JPJ Audio are supplying the audio equipment with Michael Waters once again in charge of the sound design. Michael won the 2018 Helpmann Best Sound Design for the original production of Muriel’s Wedding.
“Conceptually it’s similar but in terms of delivering the audio, it’s quite different,” Michael clarified. “We have a Clair PA and I believe it is the first time in the world that a Clair Cohesion CO-8 system has been used for theatre.”
The CO-8's diminutive size allows for a high degree of flexibility when integrating into virtually any application. Sydney’s Lyric Theatre saw 36 x CO-8 line array speakers utilized, along with four CP-218 subs, and Michael was thrilled by their performance.
“The CO-8 is such a punchy little box, slightly smaller than an L-Acoustics Kara or dV-DOSC, but they’ve got a really good bottom-end and low mid-section,” he added. “In fact it’s so good, I don’t need additional subs.”
This show has a wide dynamic range, ranging from ballads to pop/rock songs with a little rap here and there with severe bass drops, and Michael commented that the CO-8 system lends itself well to Kate Miller-Heidke’s and Keir Nuttall’s pop music. Having said that, Michael confirmed that he would be happy to use
UK - The Den is a new pop-up theatre that forms a key part of the Royal Exchange theatre’s local exchange programme. Funded by a generous £1m gift from the Oglesby Charitable Trust, this inventive performance space was designed by the award-winning architectural studio, Haworth Tompkins as an informal space-within-a-space for residents to make and share theatre and to see work from the Royal Exchange.
Pro audio specialists, Autograph Sales & Installations, provided key elements of the sound reinforcement equipment for the new space including seven EX10 compact, full range active loudspeaker systems from KV2 Audio, and an Allen & Heath Qu-16 rack-mountable digital mixer.
Sorcha Steele, head of sound at the Royal Exchange, was responsible for designing the audio system for The Den, a task she found slightly daunting given the scope of requirements for the space and the range of possibilities before her. “I had to give a lot of thought to what we are using the space for, who is going to be operating it and how easy is it to rig and put together the system within the space quickly and easily,” she recalls.
“The first thing I had to consider was the type of venues it will be going to and how that impacts on practical things like power supplies and cable runs. The Den will only ever go into existing buildings – it’s not designed to be outdoors; for example, in Stalybridge it was in the old market hall, but it could easily be constructed in a school gym or warehouse. In all likelihood, power in those venues will come down to standard 1
USA - Bandit Lites once again provided the lighting package for the fourth annual 2019 Black Music Honorus, where Xscape, Freddie Jackson, Arrested Development, Tamia and Yolanda Adams were honoured for their contributions to African American culture and American music.
Held on 5 September at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre and produced by Central City Productions, the television special was hosted by Rickey Smiley and LeToya Luckett and featured performances by Jagged Edge, Jekalyn Carr, Tevin Campbell, Kelly Price, Naughty By Nature, Le'Andria Johnson, Tony Terry, Travis Greene, 702, Smokie Norful, Jade Novah, Dee1, June's Diary, Mali Music, Mumu Fresh, Major, Keke Wyatt, Jessie Woo, Leon Timbo and Avery Wilson.
Veteran lighting designer Mark Carver illuminated the two-hour affair and utilised the gear to provide a stylised, contemporary look.
Bandit Lites supplied nearly 200 fixtures for the event including High End Systems SolaFrame 3000s for stage texture and primary back lighting, Chauvet Rogue Hybrids for beam graphics, Claypaky B-EYE K20s for colour toning and eye candy and Elation ACL 360i fixtures for eye candy looks around the LED screens. Two grand MA 2 Full consoles provided control.
Due to the scale of the event and the large number of varying musical performances, preparation was key in making the most of the limited amount of time in the actual performance hall.
“Having a pre-prepped lighting system is key so we can get the system in place and begin programming as soon as possible,” explained Carver. “I
USA - The St Malachy church outside Detroit recently installed a modern colour-rendering LED lighting system that features Chauvet Professional fixtures.
“Colour and lighting have always been critical elements to the Catholic mass even before lighting fixtures were invented,” said St. Malachy LD Dave Corbat. “This parish takes a proactive role in reaching out to worshippers. This led to the idea of introducing colourful lighting to create an immersive environment in the sanctuary.”
St. Malachy engaged system designer Nathan Cole of Sound Planning Communications to create and install a new lighting system that augmented the 800-seat church’s existing rig with LED fixtures. His design adds four Rogue R2 Wash fixtures to the main lighting pipe, and called for two more units to be arranged on the ground near the altar. A collection of COLORdash Batten-Quad 12 linear wash fixtures was also positioned on the ground for uplighting.
“The combination of the Rogue R2 Washes and COLORdash Batten-Quad 12s gives us unparalleled flexibility in what we can do with the lighting in our space,” said Corbat. “We are able to get creative with our lighting design, and use it in a way that enhances the liturgical experience for our congregation.”
In addition to serving as stage lights and reaching areas that are not covered by the church’s ellipsoidal units, the Rogue fixtures are bringing a new visual dimension to services. Drawing on the wide 12° to 49° zoom range of the RGBW fixtures, Corbat is able to focus richly coloured light on variou
UAE - The new Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai was packed out last month as thousands of Westlife fans relived their youth at the band's Twenty Tour. Taking a walk down memory lane, the boy band performed hits from the past 20 years to the 17,000-capacity venue, with Unusual Rigging and Engineering LLC providing the house rigging points for the production.
Unusual Rigging are sole house rigging service supplier for the installation of all rigging points at the Coca-Cola Arena. One of the main talking points of the venue is its rigging system and unique roof structure. All rigging is done from a raised catwalk – it has shallow braids and is easy to access. With a distance of 24m from the catwalk to the floor and 26m to the I-beam, this covers most height requirements of touring shows. The arena also boasts 90 tonnes over the stage, 60 tonnes for the middle and 40 at the far end – all of which can be hung individually, giving the roof a total weight load of 190 tonnes.
Unusual Rigging’s Alex Taylor worked closely with the production manager on the Westlife gig and explained: "The brief from the client was to install a total of 68 rigging points with the rigging plot broken down into 12 x points for PA, 12 x points for Video, 34 x points for LX and 10 x points for drape truss. There was a large video screen up stage centre with two smaller screens down stage left and right, as well as two LX towers stage left and stage right of the main screen. We also needed to install six runs of LX truss to light up the stage and the audience."
Alex and the Unusual R
USA - Evergreen Ministries had put its faith in acoustical orthodoxy when the Hudsonville, Michigan church had its previous sound system installed. However, with the worship space residing in a mid-sized square building with largely metal construction that created reverberation problems, speech intelligibility and musical articulation were a frequent challenge.
“They had a pretty typical flown PA, but it wasn’t really the kind of system they needed for a space like this,” recalls Todd Billin, design/sales engineer at Parkway Electric & Communications, a Holland, Michigan-based AV systems integrator with a long history of working on sound and video designs with houses of worship.
The solution came in the form of the slim L-Acoustics Syva colinear system that is suited to medium-throw applications like Evergreen Ministries’ 550-seat sanctuary. The Syva system designed and installed by Parkway comprises a pair of Syva and Syva Low enclosures on each side of the half-moon stage, plus four Syva Subs that are installed underneath the stage, two per side.
In addition, an L-Acoustics X12 short-throw loudspeaker is flown above the centre of the stage to reinforce speech intelligibility, while four ultra-compact 5XT are arrayed across the lip of the stage as front-fills. Three L-Acoustics LA4X amplified controllers power the entire loudspeaker system.
Billin says the Syva system not only solved the problems caused by the reverberant space, with its attendant speech-intelligibility issues, but also provided a much more musical sound system f
Europe - Wärtsilä Entertainment Systems has solved the challenge of delivering a premium nightclub experience at sea with the first ever installation of Martin Audio’s recently launched WPS optimised line array. The latest member of the Wavefront Precision family was specified long before its official launch to cater to the entertainment needs of Scarlet Lady, the very first ship in the Virgin Voyages fleet.
“We started audio specification for the ship back in 2016 but thanks to the strength of relationship with Martin Audio we were able to glimpse into the future product roadmap and as a consequence believed that the product that would become WPS was a perfect fit for the nightclub,” explained Rob Shuard, vice president, design & engineering of Wärtsilä Entertainment Systems. “We felt WPS would offer the perfect marriage of high performance, control, consistency and coverage in an ultra-compact format, befitting of the Virgin Voyages vision.”
The Manor nightclub is named after Virgin’s first music studio in England. The space was designed utilising two ship decks of height to maximize how the room feels and mimic the structure of land-based clubs. Wärtsilä Entertainment Systems has equipped The Manor with a state-of-the-art acoustic design as well as industry-leading equipment to support DJ sets, and Martin Audio’s WPS will take pride of place.
The set up in the nightclub consists of four WPS left and right of the stage, flown over two SX218 subwoofers. Supplementing this are a further four arrays, each of three WPS, flown o
Germany - Dry hire specialists, HELi Showequipment GmbH supply technology for events of all types and sizes. The company, based in Bodenheim near Mainz, continually invests in new equipment from leading brand manufacturers, as well as offering full service back-up.
with a three digit quantity of impression S350 Spot and Wash from GLP - and is thus opting for white light solutions of the highest quality.
“While we already have sufficient quantities of the powerful, larger moving lights, it was the smaller, more compact fixtures that interested us,” explained CEO Uwe Heinrich. “The S350 series struck me immediately because it is dHELi is currently expanding its inventory of LED moving lights designed to be very compact, in keeping with the GLP design ethic of having no bulky base. Also, the important electronic shutter capability on both the Spot and Wash is impressive.
“We recently serviced a trade show with over 100 pieces of these devices and did not have a single failure. They are completely reliable. In addition the devices, despite their relatively small size, have a high output. Basically, I see GLP’s S350 series being deployed in all kinds of indoor events, but specifically TV and theatre. And even in clubs and at concerts—be they rock ‘n’ roll or electro—the devices are highly relevant.”
(Jim Evans)
Egypt - Jennifer Lopez played her first-ever Egyptian concert in August in New Alamein as part of her It’s My Party tour to celebrate her 50th birthday.
Lighting for the occasion included 60 Chauvet Professional Rogue R3 Wash fixtures supplied by Prolite.
“Rabih Mokbel, one of the most prominent concert organizers in Egypt, retained Prolite to provide the rig for this event because of our reputation,” said Baher George, general manager of Prolite. “We recommended the Rogue fixtures for this project because of their output and colour and Mr. Mokbel and the LD agreed. Ahmed Aziz did a magnificent job bringing the fixtures into Egypt so we could use them for this show.”
LD Shaheem Litchmore flew the Rogue R3 Wash fixtures on midstage truss, and positioned them on Stage Right and Stage Left truss ladders. From these positions, the fixtures covered the stage with smooth fields of radiant colours. Hitting the stage from different angles, the Rogue lights created a sense of depth and texture that accented the evocative movements of Lopez and her dancers.
Drawing on the 12° to 49° zoom range of the Rogue R3 Wash, Litchmore was able to effect dramatic changes in coverage areas. This allowed him to create close intimate lighting in mellow hues for the star’s more reflective songs, then spread out to create a panorama of light for the bigger and bolder dance numbers.
Along with the flexible Rogue R3 Wash, the hard work of the production crew helped make the lighting a success. “Everyone contributed to the great outcome,” said Ba
UK - High End Systems lighting gear illuminated Leith Theatre for the duration of the recent Edinburgh International Festival. The fully LED rig comprised a selection of Sola Series fixtures, but the real highlight was High End’s latest innovation – TurboRay – which made its international debut at the event.
In his role as lighting designer for Leith Theatre’s contemporary music programme for the 2019 festival, Grant Anderson facilitated the lighting needs for a diverse roster that included poetry, rapping and alternative rock. He designed a rig that offered flexibility and a multitude of possible looks for the featured artists including Jarvis Cocker, Teenage Fanclub and Neneh Cherry.
“It’s been great fun having access to the world’s first TurboRay fixtures,” Anderson states. “I put eight of them on one truss and positioned it so the audience could see the face of the units. The diffusion offers striking dynamic effects – you really see that lens shift. You can also get a very tight beam and create impressive shapes through the air and on the floor – you can open them up and get a textured look.”
“What’s brilliant about the High End Systems range is that it’s cohesive,” Anderson says. “All the fixtures offer beautiful dimming and the color rendering is really effective. I also absolutely love the gradual diffusion, so you don’t just get a clunk in of a diffusion like you do with a lot of products. I often use a sharp gobo and slowly drop that in across 30 seconds of a song – it looks gorgeous, people really li