UK - London-born singer-songwriter and composer Ben Howard released his debut EP 10 years ago. Since then, he has won two BRIT Awards, been nominated for both the Ivor Novello Award and the Mercury Prize and had a number one album. His third album, Noonday Dream, was released in June 2018 to much critical acclaim. Now, Howard is on the road touring it, with FOH engineer Andy Magee and monitor engineer Niccolo Antonietti both working from DiGiCo SD5 consoles.
“It's very much art: Seventy minutes of non-stop music, which is never the same twice,” Magee explains. “We're

USA - Founded in 1908, Harvard Business School in Boston is known worldwide for its MBA and doctoral programmes. With a faculty of over 200 experienced professors and entrepreneurs, the school recently opened Klarman Hall lecture auditorium.
Designed by the architectural firm William Rawn Associates, Architects, the hall needed a lighting solution that could meet strict acoustic and performance criteria, so they worked with the design firm Theatre Projects who specified PHX 150W LED profile luminaires from Altman Lighting.
“This was a new construction project and our firs

Indonesia - Socialight recently collaborated with P.T. Chayolite to utilise a Martin by Harman lighting solution to enhance GWK Cultural Park’s Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue.
Created by renowned sculptor Nyoman Nuarta, the Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue is a monument overlooking the city of Bali. Measuring 393ft tall and 213ft wide, the statue consists of 24 segments and 754 modules, and took more than 20 years to construct.
In order to visually enhance the structure, Alam Sutera Realty engaged Singapore based lighting designer, Socialight, to design and oversee the implementa

UK - Lighting and visuals design partnership, Co1ab, produced the lighting show for a recent run of gigs by The Streets, led by hip-hop raconteur Mike Skinner.
Co1ab unites the talents of Jon Trincas and Steve Hough, two respected young designers who pooled imaginative and creative resources to deliver the right look for The Streets.
They utilised 120 x Robe Spikies and 30 x Robe Spiider LED wash beams, all delivered as part of a lighting package by Blackburn based rental company, LCR.
Hough was originally contacted by The Streets’ tour manager Keith O’Neill when t

Nigeria - Seven hundred thousand people attended The Experience, an interdenominational gospel concert. With an audience estimated at close to three quarters of a million people, The Experience is an interdenominational gospel concert held annually in Lagos. Convened and hosted by Pastor Paul Adefarasin, the colossal event debuted in December 2006 and is now the largest concert in Africa.
The Experience’s 13th edition - streamed live on the House on The Rock YouTube channel to viewers around the world - featured an impressive line-up of artistes. Renowned n

UK - January and early February saw Britannia Row Productions start the year in robust, if slightly inverted fashion. “Within two weeks of the Christmas break we had three arena tours out and one of the UK’s most exciting acts, Jorja Smith playing festivals,” explains sales director Lez Dwight. “The clue is in the word ‘festivals’, no-one is playing festivals in the frosty Northern hemisphere right now, but along with Jorja at the festivals, Mumford & Sons and Phil Collins have all visited arenas in Australia and New Zealand.”
While the balmy reaches of the Antip

UK - Adamson’s new S7 line array system, which has just been officially launched, was deployed during Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations at McEwan Hall.
Underbelly, producers of Edinburgh’s 2018/19 Hogmanay events, curated a three-day spectacular to celebrate Europe, and Scotland’s ties to Europe.
The 19th century McEwan Hall became a new venue for Hogmanay and hosted three major concerts - Symphonic Ibiza on 30 December and Capercaillie and Carlos Nunez with special guests on the 1 January, which also marked the start of a new collaboration between Edinburgh

South Africa - Urban Brew Studios was the home to The Voice South Africa. In time for the new season, Studio Ten - where The Voice was shot - as well as four other studios on the premises, received a massive upgrade ranging from walkways, trussing, hoists, curtain tracks and pulleys. DWR Distribution’s theatre manufacturing department were commissioned for the project by Protea Electronics.
Urban Brew has been in the television business since 1995 and has been responsible for a variety of game and reality shows, music and sport shows, documentaries and soaps.

UK - Lighting designer Jon Smith has worked for the last seven years with one of the more brash and humorous pop punk bands around, Bowling for Soup. In late November and early December, the band played a string of festive UK gigs dubbed the Almost Christmastour with Jon using an Elation lighting rig to light the shows.
This run was a bit different for the LD however, as his own company, JSES provided all the lighting, truss, crew, operation and special effects. “My company has only been operational for two years and I have gone from a freelancer with a desk to a large o

Sweden - Melodic death-metallers, Soilwork have kick-started 2019 with a bang - in the form of a co-headline tour with Finnish metal giants, Amorphis. Performing 31 shows in 35 days across mainland Europe, Soilwork were supported by an Allen & Heath SQ-5 digital mixer running FOH and monitors.
The band’s full set-up includes an SQ-5 at FOH, with two DX168 I/O Expanders positioned on stage. Monitors are controlled from FOH, with an iPad placed on stage for the backline tech to make minor adjustments.
Tommy B (FOH & monitor engineer for Soilwork) purchased the SQ sy

UK - Bacchus Bar & Club in Bishop’s Stortford’s recently brought in XS Audio Visual to design and install an extensive sound system, powered by just two amplifiers from Linea Research.
The entire project had to be completed to a tight deadline. “We had only four days to completely rip out the existing sound and lighting systems and commission a whole new nightclub sound, lighting, and video install, including relocating the DJ booth and existing TV video feeds,” recalls XSAV managing director Lee Michael.
Michael describes the Bacchus Bar as “a perfectly sized,

UK - Rehearsals are a valued ally of lighting designers. But for Olly Suckling, they were a luxury he couldn’t afford when he lit the famed fireworks display at Alton Towers Resort.
“Given the nature of this show, the first time everything is seen working together is on the opening night,” says Suckling. “It simply isn’t possible to have a rehearsal with all the fireworks and other special effects being set off due to the sheer cost of such a large display. This means that the creatives from each department have to work together closely to plan how the show will look, w

UK - Ministry of Sound The Annual Classical is an orchestral tour that recently received its world premiere at London’s Royal Festival Hall.
The event sets out to celebrate the famous club’s legendary dance music compilation The Annual dance compilation. Martin Audio has itself enjoyed a decade-long relationship with the south London club and tasked with faithfully reproducing the newly imagined sound on the road was RG Jones Sound Engineering, and their Martin Audio MLA compact PA.
Although the concept was new, reproducing major classical music events f

UK - KV2 Audio systems are currently on tour in the UK with a number of major productions, including Kinky Boots and Motown: The Musical, both supplied by Autograph Sound, as well as Tim Firth’s musical, The Band based on the music of Take That and Matthew Bourne’s convention-busting production of Swan Lake.
These and many more productions are currently gracing stages throughout the UK using a variety of KV2 Audio point source systems.
According to Andy Sharman, head of sound on the current UK tour of Kinky Boots, the real advantage of

USA - Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons and host of this year’s Super Bowl between the victorious New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams, features a challenging upper bowl devoid of acoustic treatments.
Nevertheless, a total of 58 Danley Sound Labs’ point-source SH96 Synergy Horn loudspeakers rocked the upper bowl with Danley’s characteristic fidelity and cliff-edge pattern control. In addition, VIPs enjoyed the musicality of 60 Danley GO-2-8CX loudspeakers installed in the luxury suites overlooking the game. For the 20-second year running, national A

USA - In a spectacular New Year’s kick-off, Insomniac Events produced two blockbuster EDM festivals at the National Orange Show Fairgrounds in San Bernardino, with stage designs by SJ Lighting. More than 70,000 fans attended Audiotistic and Countdown NYE, shows that featured dance music acts performing from a large DJ booth highlighted with 12 Solaris Flare Rayzr LED fixtures.
“The Flare Rayzr blades were so bright, they were overpowering even at the back of the venue,” says stage designer Stephen Lieberman, president of SJ Lighting. “We used the 1m models to detail the D

UK - After bursting onto the scene in 2007 with their debut album Take to the Skies, Enter Shikari established their reputation as a live band.
When the band began planning its current tour, its manager Keith Reynolds asked Matthew Knowles to create a lighting design that would not only support their multi-dimensional sound, but would also contribute to their stage presence with a classic but edgy look.
Knowles, who is with 10 Out Of 10 Productions, succeeded in doing just that, designing a show that paid homage to traditional stadium lighting while also projecting a

USA - Leisure World Seal Beach (LWSB) offers all the amenities of a small town in a resort-style setting for people aged 55 and over. A short freeway ride to Los Angeles and Orange County, LWSB spans 542 acres and boasts a nine-hole golf course, swimming facilities, fitness and exercise rooms and six club houses.
An impressive feature of LWSB is its 2,500-seat outdoor amphitheatre, where the Clair Brothers kiTCurve12 loudspeaker system was recently installed by Tim Metzger of TMAV Consulting & Integration and Ben Frederick of Production Access Group.
Frederick explains:

UK - Alex Webb used 28 x Astera AX1 PixelTubes - battery powered wirelessly operated fully controllable LED RGBW batons - to create The Heart of Manchester, a 20m high heart shaped light sculpture on the Quay Street façade of the #1 Spinningfields building in central Manchester.
Alex is a brand manager for Allied London, the property developer at the centre of evolving this vibrant area of the city, which has become a leading business destination, legal quarter and a thriving living and working community as well as a place for socialising and entertainment.
In celebr

UAE - In January 2019, The AFC Asian Cup returned to the UAE for the second time since 1996 and - for the first time - the month-long tournament saw 24 teams take part. It is the largest sporting tournament the UAE has ever hosted and took place over eight stadia across Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Al Ain and Sharjah.
Over 5,000 volunteers were on hand to ensure the event ran smoothly, taking on various roles from operations and logistics to media management and hospitality.
Creative Technology (CT) supplied perimeter LED for five of the eight stadiums that were dotted around the UAE

UK - Northern Irish band Snow Patrol embarked on a UK tour to support new album, Wilderness, which concluded at London’s SSE Wembley Arena in February. Lighting and show designer Davy Sherwin selected Claypaky Scenius Unico as the only moving lights of the production.
Sherwin has worked with the band since 2002 and describes the creative relationship as ‘excellent’. “Sometimes the band gives me a starting point for a design, and I build on that. There are discussions and it is collaborative process, but mainly I have an awful lot of freedom in the design process,” he sa

USA - One of the most elegant fixed sound system installations now graces the 400-seat sanctuary of the Valley Life Centre in Dallas. Nexo’s compact Geo M6 line array has been delivered by local audio specialists Alpha Sound, as the front end of a digital system featuring a Yamaha QL5 mixing console, and personal in-ear monitoring facilities.
“The 400-seat, intergenerational congregation sanctuary previously had a mono centre cluster of horns enclosed in a fabric cloud and a simple analogue console with a few wedges for monitors,” says Devin Sheets, head engineer at Alpha So

UK - White Light provided the lighting equipment for Arthur Miller’s The American Clock which has recently opened at the Old Vic Theatre, London.
The American Clock portrays the devastation that American citizens experienced when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began in 1929. The play uses an ensemble cast to explore the lives of several families across several cities. It is directed by Rachel Chavkin and features a lighting design by Olivier Award-winning Natasha Chivers.
Natasha comments: “This is an epic play that manages to tell a huge

UK - Hot on the heels of their latest studio release Holy Hell, British metalcore act, Architects, have recently completed their UK and European tour accompanied by an Allen & Heath dLive system. The tour included some of the band’s biggest headline shows to date - finishing off at the SSE Arena in Wembley, London to an audience of 12,500 fans.
“After touring with a variety of consoles over the last few years I decided to make the switch to dLive after having them recommended to me by fellow users Ben Hammond and Jared Daly”, comments FOH engineer, Jonny Burgan.

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