Israel - I Am Jerusalem is a new multimedia interactive experience designed to welcome visitors to one of the most famous cities in the world, offering a fast-moving history and snapshots explaining how cultural diversity is fundamental to the dynamics and development of life in this vibrant gateway to the Middle East.
Robe Pointes moving lights were specified by the installation division of Danor Theatre & Studio Systems as part of the entertainment lighting scheme in the movie theatre which features 270 degree wrap-around HD video and a video ceiling. The venue is located in the basement of Jerusalem’s central retail environment - Mamilla Boulevard.
During the 25-minute show, the city’s rich and colourful history is unfolded to an intimate audience of 200 complete with pitching and moving seats to ensure a roller coaster ride!
Orphan Group Creative, who delivered the ‘ride’ concept to the city of Jerusalem appointed AVS as the principal AV contractor to provide all the audio lighting and AV technology needed for the theatre. They in turn approached Danor to consult and specify the specialty entertainment lighting required.
Danor Erez Hadar takes up the story, “We looked at the brief and realised a multi-purpose moving light would be a perfect solution to create the wide range of effects and atmospheric elements needed, and we felt that eight Pointes would meet the many requirements”.
These were supplied along with LED battens, PARs and some DMX controlled fans for wind effects. Danor also supplied all the trussin

UAE - Maestra Dubai is supplying full technical production – lighting, audio, video, staging, rigging, special FX and power distribution - to the 2016-17 series of Groove on The Grass dance events.
Now in its fifth edition, the five events for this season are produced by the Artists Network and being staged at the Emirates Golf Club, Dubai, each enjoyed by around 5000 dance music fans.
A sizzling line-up for the last Groove a couple of weeks ago included a host of leading international music makers like Rӧyksopp, Agents of Time, Dewalta, Marc Houle and Steve Bug …among many more who played on two stages, and kept going despite heavy rain at some points.
“We’re excited to be part of the energy and success of this great phenomenon which is known for putting production values high on the agenda,” says Maestra Dubai’s managing partner Tom Clements, adding, “It’s always good to be asked to supply a full technical design and equipment package and efficient to provide just one point-of-contact for the client.”
Maestra’s crew have to be super-quick on both the in and the out for the Groove events - a process that starts a day in advance of the show with the erection of a 20 metre wide ground supported stage and decking system to which lighting, video, PA towers and a complete sound system are added. This is set up below a saddlespan tent structure from Wicked.
This is completed in 24 hours and lighting and video is programmed and ready to go for sound-checks the next day and then kick-off at sundown.
The lighting desi

USA - Recently named as the fastest growing church in the United States, Cherry Hills Community Church in Highlands Ranch, Colorado found itself in need of an audio system that could adequately keep up with its spectacular growth.
After turning to the team at Franklin, Tennessee-based Mankin Media Systems to design and supply a new system, the Christian church is now enjoying a new house loudspeaker system based on L-Acoustics Kara elements.
“It was one of the more complex projects we’ve ever been involved with,” says Mankin’s Tim Corder “The entire leadership of the church had changed since the last system was installed about eight years ago and the new team really wanted a system worthy of their reputation as a growing, dynamic congregation.”
That was no easy feat. Corder described the room and the previous install as “the most polarizing audio experience I’ve ever had,” he says. “Cherry Hills had reached the point where the leadership felt that their worship experience was being compromised by the quality of the audio, which is a tough place to be for a church that is so outreach-focused, and the stakes were high.
“You know how people will talk about the hardest room they have ever worked in? Well, it’s no exaggeration to say that everyone who came in said some variation of that. The audio quality didn’t just change in different parts of the room; it would change drastically from seat to seat. You could stand in front of one seat and it sounded like there was a blanket over the speakers, then move over just one sea

USA - Back in 1991, Jeffrey Metter was board operating the band lighting console for The Grateful Dead when he got a call inviting him to Atlantic City. Country and pop superstar Kenny Rogers needed a lighting director for an upcoming concert. It was supposed to be a weekend gig, but 26 years later the South African- born lighting designer is still with the multi-platinum singer, lighting the final Kenny Rogers tour. Travelling with them as they crisscross the US is a touring package comprised entirely of Chauvet Professional fixtures.
Made up of 14 Rogue R2 Wash and eight Rogue RH1 Hybrid fixtures, as well as an assortment of 20 COLORado par units, the rig is substantially smaller than the lighting package Metter used when he began his association with Rogers. Still, the rich warm colours and tight focus of the Chauvet Professional fixtures is helping the designer create a deeply engaging atmosphere that connects the legendary artist to the fans who fill the tour’s mid-sized venues.
“Remember, when I started with Kenny, he was huge, with a capital H,” said Metter, who has served as Rogers’ lighting designer and director since that weekend over a quarter of a century ago. “The first rig I designed for Kenny had 196 moving fixtures. Now I rely on 22 moving Rogues. Although the two rigs are very different in size, my goal as a lighting designer is the same: to help my client tell his story and strengthen the connection to the audience. In this respect, the rig on this tour is succeeding with flying colours.”
Metter is using the Rogues and

Europe - Swiss artist DJ BoBo is celebrating his 25th anniversary on stage by touring the grand new show, Mystorial.
From April 2017 it will visit Switzerland, Austria and other parts of Europe, including 24 arenas in Germany before heading down to South America.
But it has already received its world premiere during a two-week opener at the vast Europa-Park amusement park in south-west Germany, where a new arena has been built specially to host the production.
Mystorial takes fans on a fascinating journey through time, mixing well-known hits with new songs, supported by a five-piece band, backing singers and 60 dancers.
TV and industrial lighting specialist, Thomas Gerdon of GERDON design, was responsible for the lighting in conjunction with his partner Thomas Dietze, who has worked with the artist for nearly 25 years as his touring LD. Together they chose 65 of GLP’s true hybrid GT-1 fixtures as their workhorse - and they had many reasons for doing so.
Gerdon explained, “We wanted to do something really special and talked at length about fixtures. We wanted something small and light, with high output for keylighting and with the versatility to perform the role of Beam, Wash and Spot. So we opted for the GT-1 knowing the incredible 22:1 zoom ratio [from 3.5° to 58°].”
He was already familiar with the fixture having seen a demo at last year’s Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt before specifying them for the huge Nature One EDM festival. “For Mystorial I told GLP I wanted a fixture that would wash scenery and at the same time d

USA – Lighting designer Bob Barnhart, who has lent his talents to 19 Super Bowl Halftime Shows, chose Claypaky Mythos and Sharpy fixtures to help illuminate Lady Gaga in her solo turn at Super Bowl LI at Houston’s NRG Stadium.
Lady Gaga began the Halftime Show with a tribute to America singing God Bless America and This Land is Your Land on the roof of the stadium. She performed some dizzying flying effects, crooned a medley of her hits, led high-energy dance routines and closed with a rendition of Bad Romance in an action-packed, 12-minute show.
Barnhart first used Claypaky Mythos fixtures on a Super Bowl Halftime Show two years ago with Katy Perry. This year he employed 56 Mythos on field truss set against the upstage wall below the first row of seats. The lights were positioned on 2.5-foot spacings from the centre of the field out to the 20 yard lines.
“I’ve used Mythos many times since Super Bowl XLIX, including two VMA shows,” says Barnhart. “They’re a useful tool beyond being a great light; their ability to zoom in and out gives me a lot to work with. For Lady Gaga we used Mythos with colors, gobos, zooms – I think we used all of its features in 12 minutes.”
The Mythos fixtures were clearly visible in broadcast coverage of the Halftime Show. They appeared in the background in close ups of Lady Gaga and the dances routines. “Mythos gave a good strong dynamic and was fast enough to keep up with the tempo of the music,” Barnhart reports.
He also used 126 Claypaky Sharpys, which were bolted t

USA - It was a night of heart wrenching insight, professions of love and thoughtful musings as singer-songwriter Erick Baker serenaded a sold out crowd at Knoxville’s historic Bijou Theatre with a lighting package provided by Bandit Lites.
In what could have been right out of a movie, Bandit Lites production manager Allison Burchett found herself bumping into Erick at the world-renowned Blackberry Farm resort, only then he was known as the brother of event planner Jennifer Laraia and husband of Jenn’s business associate Mandy.
“I would always hear Erick happily humming and singing as we set-up,” shared Allison. “So one day I said to him, ‘You should sing for a living!’ I was surprised when he responded with, “Well, actually I do!’ I can only imagine the look on my face, so he said, ‘My name is Erick Baker,’ and before he could say another word, ‘I said, oh my goodness, Erick Baker, I’ve even seen you in concert, I am so embarrassed. You are wonderful! Please let me know if Bandit can ever help you in any way!’”
When Erick reached out to Allison regarding the lighting for his annual Valentine’s performance, he initially requested romantic chandeliers and candles on stage, a detail Allison noted didn’t really connect with his rugged, outdoorsy personality, especially considering Baker also hosts the PBS show Tennessee Uncharted.
“I suggested chandeliers made up of wooden, twisted grape vines to give him that romantic look for the show, but not overly girly,” she explained. “Erick loved it! Also, I w

Mexico - Justin Bieber kicked off year two of his comeback tour with a sold-out concert at Monterrey, Mexico’s Estadio BBVA Bancomer arena. Accenting the star’s performance and lending an aura of timelessness to the evening was a powerful and evocative Corey FitzGerald lightshow that featured 88 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK2 Wash fixtures, supplied by Serpro Producciones of Monterrey.
“We were very honoured to have provided lights for this concert,” said Renato Betancourt, CEO of Serpro Producciones. “Recently, we made an investment in the Maverick MK2 Wash because we wanted a fixture that could deliver the output and colours that would be needed for major productions – and at the same time would be flexible enough to work well for a range of musical styles.”
With 12 40W Osram RGBW LEDs, the Maverick MK2 Wash met Betancourt’s criteria for output and colour rendering, while its 7-49° zoom range provided the flexibility to cover widely different areas on a stage. All these features came into play at the Bieber concert, where the Maverick MK2 Wash was the principal fixture on the main stage truss, with added units also being arranged on the stage deck.
The Mavericks were used for backwashing performers, general stage washing and aerial washing at the Bieber concert. “It was exciting to see how the Mavericks performed,” said Edi Sosa, lighting manager at Serpro Producciones. “After Monterrey, the Justin Bieber tour is going to other countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. We’re proud that the 2017 tour started here with

USA - December saw the opening of Rumba Room Live, an upscale Latin-themed nightclub and concert venue in Anaheim, California. Located at the Anaheim GardenWalk and built new from the ground up, the club, which features state-of-the-art Elation entertainment lighting and video systems, has energised the nightclub scene in Anaheim. The 10,000sq.ft venue has the flexibility to host 1,000 people and hold a variety of events yet maintains a chic, intimate feel.
Working with the club’s architect and ownership to develop the design and look of the venue was Michael Betancourt, general manager at Southern California-based Props AV, the production company that designed, supplied and installed the Elation lighting and video package. “When the Rumba Room Live project first came to the table the feel that they wanted to go for was a Latin-themed nightclub and live venue with a sexy Las Vegas feel,” Betancourt says.
“It was a completely new idea for Anaheim. With that being said, the sexiness and the party needed to start on the exterior. Elation lighting features throughout the inside of the venue - lobby, dance floor and stage – but it is outside where the lighting makes its first impression.”
Downlighting the Rumba Room Live facade in a wash of customizable shades are 12 Elation SixPar 200IP colour changers, weatherproof fixtures with six-colour LED multi-chips. “We wanted to really create a sensual yet inviting look and the SixPars do the job perfectly,” stated Ramon Chavez, VP of business operations at the club, who helped oversee construc

Portugal - An array of Audio-Technica microphones was recently used for the fourth series of TV show The Voice in Portugal, broadcast by RTP1, the main television channel of the country’s public broadcasting corporation.
The microphone line-up was supplied via Audio-Technica’s Portuguese distributor NAN Audiovisuais to AV company Auditiv, which has been involved in the show since its launch in 2011.
The show’s house band was miked entirely with Audio-Technica models, from dynamic instrument mics to large-diaphragm condensers, with shotgun types picking up the studio audience. Auditiv (who operate across TV, live event and studio recording sectors with clients including Universal Music, Endemol, Vodafone and MTV) came to the decision to use the microphones on The Voice partly as a result of the company’s experience with Audio-Technica microphones at the Rio Olympics.
“We’d used some stereo shotgun models from Audio-Technica’s Broadcast & Production range for the Olympics ceremonies and really enjoyed them,” explained Joâo Escada, Auditiv managing partner and founder. “So, I was keen to try a variety of mics for The Voice. While the band set-up is relatively straightforward, it’s important that the microphones are as unobtrusive as possible – the producers never want to see them. So models like the new ATM350D cardioid condenser mic worked very well, with the new drum mount making it easy to position.
“The AE2500, with its dual dynamic/condenser capsules is a very useful microphone that we could

USA - The latest in a succession of lighting professionals to adopt GLP’s award-winning X4 Bar 20 platform has been designer and programmer, Brian Jenkins. Part of an experienced team based on America’s West Coast, along with people like Roy Bennett, his verdict was unequivocal. “In the moving LED batten market, GLP has hit it out of the park.”
Jenkins is no stranger to the German company’s products, having originally been introduced to the Volkslicht by Seth Jackson when he was designing the Selena Gomez tour. This kick-started an enduring relationship with GLP and its staff. Now in his fourth year with Maroon 5, the LD says, “When we first fired-up in 2015, Roy Bennett designed the production and lighting, with Jason Baeri and myself handling programming and associate design duties. We’ve found a workflow that we both enjoy.
“Outside the main tour, which Roy designs, I handle all the other designs and show direction and am given creative freedom for each show.” And this included two shows at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Events Centre on 30-31 December.
Regarding his lighting plot as “an extension of Roy’s vision”, Brian Jenkins kept returning to a promising, and pre-existing structural concept but recognised that it needed some “extra legs”.
Having been introduced to the X4 Bar 20 by Matt Shimamoto at Volt Lites he could see instantly that it had great potential.
“A few designers were present and we rammed through all the normal FX: colour saturation, dimmer curve, speed, pastels, homogenisation, etc. Fast f

USA – In the Texas tradition of going big, Houston welcomed Super Bowl LI with a number of exciting attractions, including the Houston Skylight high atop the George R. Brown Convention Centre(GRB). Houston First Corporation, which maintains GRB, asked Nimblist to conceive and execute the Houston Skylight, a rooftop beacon that marks the centre of the city’s cultural activities.
Nimblist designer and creative consultant Spike Brant devised an array of 36 Claypaky Supersharpy fixtures, mounted on staging on the GRB roof overlooking Discovery Green park. The Supersharpys swept the sky with powerful searchlight-style beams and created numerous lighting effects as well.
“We have an ongoing conversation with Mike Waterman with Houston First about using light as a beacon to connect all of Houston,” says Spike Brant. “The Houston Skylight would symbolize energy as light and serve as a visual metaphor connecting the Super Bowl festivities. The installation was commissioned as a proof of concept for a broader effort to illuminate Houston to the world and create a citywide attraction using multiple types of lighting installations.
A.C.T Lighting helped Brant arrange for Claypaky’s factory in Italy to build and ship 20 Supersharpys, which Houston First purchased through local dealer LD Systems. “A.C.T got us the lights quickly. I can’t thank them enough for their efforts,” Brant says. Other vendors brought the Supersharpy inventory up to 36; the array was mounted in a 6x6 grid.
The Houston Skylight debuted on 27 January and remaine

USA - Set in the vast expanse of the Sonoran Desert in early February, the Gem and Jam Festival has a way of inspiring flights of imagination. Originally an after-party for the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, the four-day electronic music festival, which this year featured stars like The Trancident and The Floozies, pays tribute to its roots by embellishing its grounds with a captivating and sparkling array of crystalline artwork.
This enchanting atmosphere was apparent at the Festival’s Onyx Stage, the only indoor stage of the four gem-inspired stages, set to go off at closing of the mainstage and continue to sunrise. The building was centred in a fantastical courtyard that housed an eclectic mix of sculptures and vendors. The stage was bejewelled with enormous clear quartz matrixes, large wooden panels riddled with intricate cut-outs of coyotes, symmetric crystal and interweaving geometric shapes.
Cody Lisle brought out the full aesthetic qualities of the stage and its surroundings with a richly coloured and deeply textured lighting and set design that featured a collection of Chauvet Professional and Chauvet DJ fixtures supplied by LIT Lighting.
“The idea was to create an organic look that blended with the surroundings, and not just have a standard cookie cutter stage design,” said Lisle. “I put a lot of effort into even small details and tried to put meaning behind my design so it contributed to the overall atmosphere of the festival. To give the stage texture and depth, I used these custom panels created by Alaska Piper from Coyote Prism,

Germany - Production company LaserFrame recently installed Elation Professional Platinum HFX hybrid moving heads and ACL 360 Bar effect lights into one of the world’s top clubs, Bootshaus in Cologne.
Located at the Cologne shipyard, Bootshaus has been an integral part of the city’s club culture for more than a decade. Primarily a techno club, Bootshaus attracts a clientele of sophisticated clubbers who often dance to the beats of top DJs like David Guetta, Avicii, Hardwell, Afrojack and Tiesto. The club is all about quality and as a top club maintains high standards when it comes to its lighting and sound systems. Pyro, Co2, lasers and confetti are part of the standard repertoire as well.
Bootshaus houses three rooms – the Mainfloor, the BLCKBX and the Dreherei, an old workshop – plus a large outdoor area where open air parties can be celebrated. The Mainfloor is the largest space with a total capacity of 1200 guests. It is here that 16 Elation Platinum HFX and 20 Elation ACL 360 Bars are used as part of an integrated lighting concept around the dance floor.
“We decided on the HFX due to its excellent price:performance ratio,” stated LaserFrame owner Guido Schütz. He adds, “From my perspective it was the best on the market. We tested it against hybrid lights from some of the top manufacturers and it came out on top. The most convincing fact about the HFX is that it´s a fantastic and bright spot-moving head that can also do a fantastic beam - that is the quite the opposite at all other manufacturers.”
Located in the town of K

Belgium - After experimenting with a number of different microphones, Belgian folk group Skratt has opted for DPA’s d:vote Instrument Microphones to capture the sound of a variety of unusual instruments, including accordion, bagpipes and nyckelharpa.
All seven members of the band have very different musical backgrounds covering a diverse range of styles, from heavy metal and pop to folk and classical. This allows their music to branch out from traditional folk and incorporate influences from all over the world and many different genres.
Skratt founder Mathias Van de Vliet says it was the search for a microphone that could truly capture the sound of an accordion that led the band to DPA.
“To begin with we tried other microphones but they sounded thin and were terrible on monitoring. We just could not hear the accordion,” he explains. “We also tried a condenser mic on a stand for the violin, but that wasn’t practical.”
The wide range of clip mounts available for d:vote microphones proved a big draw.
“The clip mounts are great because they are made for a different kinds of instrument shapes, so they fit really well,” Van de Vliet says. “They are super versatile and that’s what I like most. You can use them on just about every instrument because they are so well thought out.
“With a bit of creativity, you can even fit the clip mounts to instruments they were not originally designed for – for example, I use the piano clips on the accordion with some small metal plates and the guitar clip on the nyckelharpa. Th

USA - SGM Q-7 strobes were the main cannons of the stage lighting for Justin Bieber’s exclusive show at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, FL.
Everlast Productions have carried out the New Year’s Eve Party at Fontainebleau Hotel for several years. It was the first year that Tyler Frank spearheaded the overall design. Tyler and his crew took the shell of the structure from previous years and incorporated that into the new design for the stage.
He wanted to create something that had more depth, immersion and dynamics, all the while fitting into the tight restrictions of the space. They built a 18m wide x 15m tall x 13m deep (60’ wide x 50’ tall x 40’ deep) structure and stage over an existing poolside bar. The lighting design had to be practical, bright and resilient to South Beach weather conditions. He explained why he chose the Q-7s for the stage setup:
“The Q-7s were the main cannons for the show. They were the only fixtures that I could trust to fill in the void between the LED walls and to have an output bright enough to make it across the pool. The Q-7s were going to be out in the open to the elements and so the IP-rating and the durability of SGM was a no brainer. The fixtures acted as bookends to the LED wall and really brought synergy between the lighting and video elements.”
Tyler was very satisfied with the performance of Q-7s from SGM: “The Q-7s set the bar for a LED strobe fixture. It’s a tank and can handle anything you throw at it. I didn’t have a single issue with these fixtures, whereas I had several with

UK - For a band named after Bastille Day (so named because lead vocalist Dan Smith’s birthday falls on 14 July), it seems somewhat appropriate that their Front of House engineer, Paul ‘Coop’ Cooper, has chosen to use a French loudspeaker brand for their Wild World tour. But his choice of L-Acoustics has nothing to do with a nod to any Gallic connection. It is simply because whenever he encounters L-Acoustics, he knows exactly what to expect and he knows it will be good.
The K1 and K2 system Coop is currently using is supplied by SSE Audio, who have been working with Bastille since 2013. “As Coop is a local lad to SSE one of the guys that works in our fabrications department knew him from the club scene in Birmingham. They said he was working with a band that just might have something about them,” explains SSE’s Dan Bennett. “At SSE we have a policy of supporting emerging talent, so I got in touch with Coop to see how we could help and it all started from there.”
Bastille certainly do have something about them. They now have two number one albums under their belts and, on this latest tour, have sold out arenas around the UK and Northern Europe, including London's 20,000-seater The O2 Arena.
“They did the summer festival run, which went really well,” says Dan. “They loaded out of SSE for the Wild World tour in October and now they’re going back out for a short run in Europe and then on to the US.”
“My use of L-Acoustics stems from installs at venues and at festivals all over the world,” says Coop. “As soon as it w

UK - Claypaky Spheriscans were selected to deliver a display of spectacular lighting effects that merged architectural and entertainment lighting during Edinburgh's famous Hogmanay torchlight procession. The award-winning fixtures were supplied and installed on The National Monument of Scotland at Calton Hill by Edinburgh-based production and rental outfit Black Light.
Project manager James Gow from Black Light worked alongside lighting designer Grant Anderson and production manager of the torchlight procession John Robb, to create a lighting plan that offered maximum impact and versatility for the event.
Gow explains: "We chose to use the Claypaky Spheriscan thanks to its 360-degree pan with an IP54 rating, which makes it a unique fixture on the market. With no need to add extra weather proofing, the unit has a sleek and discreet design."
One Spheriscan was placed between each of the eight front columns of The National Monument of Scotland. The remaining two were positioned in front of the monument where the fixtures bright beams and inbuilt gobos provided texture and illuminated the stone - making it prominent against the night sky.
"A key requirement for this event was 'in air effects'," explains Gow. "The Spheriscans offered us fast moving, strong beams of light that were captured perfectly by the smoke given off from the event's bonfire, fireworks and flames from the torches."
The National Monument of Scotland came to life as the static lighting progressed to a sequence of fast-moving effects during the event's firework display. The

Belgium - International creative design practice Painting with Light was commissioned to design lighting and a video system, plus produce video content for the recent staging of Disney’s Beauty & the Beast musical by Marmalade in Hall 8 at Ghent Expo in Belgium.
The Belgium based company’s Luc Peumans also seized the opportunity to use their new BlackTrax real-time motion tracking system for the first time on a major production . . . to ensure that all the principal cast members were perfectly illuminated as they moved around the performance space.
When Luc came on-board, the set designed by Stefaan Haudenhuyse - under licence to Disney with the producers having to meet certain criteria – was already initiated. Spectacular and dynamic, it was based around a 50m long performance area in the shape of a rose in the centre of the hall with audience seated 180 degrees in the round. Upstage of the ‘stage’ end was a large LED screen backdrop which split into four sections and tracked into different configurations.
The show, production managed by Bart de Coensel, also featured multiple flying props and scenery pieces which came in and out throughout, including large objects like show portals to books from the library and trees from the forest scenes, church windows and a host of others.
Luc – working with associate lighting designer Carlo Zaenen - created a series of ideas about lighting the show, while Jos Claesen produced the video content which had to be approved by the executive producers at Disney.
A mother grid was

UK - Originally performed at the Chichester Festival Theatre before transferring to Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Running Wild is now back and embarking on a UK tour. The show is based on Michael Morpurgo’s best-selling novel and uses live-action puppetry to tell the story of Will, whose visit to Indonesia sees her and elephant Oona having to ride deep into the jungle in order to escape a tsunami. White Light was called upon to provide the lighting equipment.
Running Wild is being produced by the Children’s Touring Partnership, which is a collaboration between producers Fiery Angel, CFT and a consortium of regional theatres.
The lighting design for the tour is by James Whiteside. He comments, “This is an extremely busy show, with the setting ranging from the Indonesian rainforest to a rural part of England to the tsunami itself. The highly-stylised set is based around the debris left by the destruction of the tsunami. We have a full-blown ceiling and masking legs of debris which form the jungle. One of my biggest tasks was to get the light pouring through the ceiling which would create the dappled light of the jungle.”
As the ceiling made it impossible to focus any lights above it, this meant that James would need to rely on moving fixtures. As a result, he drew on a series of 16 x Martin MAC 700 Washes for the backlight above the ceiling pieces. James also drew on Elation SixPar RGBW LEDs which provided additional colours to accentuate the jungle scenes.
James comments, “The show opens with a pair of sails

South Africa - The twelfth season of Idols South Africa wrapped up with a stunning finale at Carnival City Big Top Arena in Johannesburg, broadcast live on the Mzansi Magic network with a highly vocal audience of 3,500 packing into the venue - and lighting designer Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier choosing nearly 200 Robe fixtures to be at the core of his rig.
As always, the challenge was to make this final season look better and different than before, and with over 80m votes cast across Series 12, a lot of eyes are on it and production values have been honed accordingly to reflect the intense public interest and impress fans. A skilled and imaginative creative team once again united to produce amazing results.
Technical production – lighting, sound, video, set and rigging - was delivered by Dream Sets for producers SIC Entertainment and the series, which also included nine elimination rounds recorded on the Drama Stage at the State Theatre in Pretoria, was directed by Gavin Wratten.
The popularity of this and other singing / talent contests in South Africa, highlights how a diversity of music, song and lyrical based entertainment is integral to the culture and heartbeat of the country.
Throughout the 2016 Idols final series, there was a big emphasis on lighting supported by video – rather than the other way around – and this continued at Carnival City, with a framed half-circle of LED screen upstage and the rest of the set architecture and lighting positions following this curvature.
Two side arches flanked the centre stage

USA - Officially, the theme of this year’s Portland Winter Light Festival was ‘Between the River and the Stars’. In reality, though, it could also have been described as ‘connecting people to light’. Held at the beginning of February on Portland’s beautiful Willamette River waterfront, the free four-day festival engaged visitors with an abundance of immersive lighting displays and interactive events like Illuminate Bike Rides and a Glow Jam circus show.
Among the festival’s most engaging attractions was Harmony Park, an interactive exhibit created by Justin Metras, the founder of Portland-based Ellumiglow. Setting an appropriately immersive backdrop for this one-of-a-kind participatory exhibit was a celestial display created with six Iluminarc Colorist Line 6Qa fixtures.
Metras used the RGBA linear fixtures to create a starry night sky, which he set against a fantastical Harmony Park “river” that immersed visitors in a multi-sensory experience. At the heart of this river were custom designed LED lily pads that emitted light and sound signatures when pressure was applied to them.
Visitors to the exhibit encountered these pads “floating” on faux water. When they jumped from pad to pad, they sent vividly illuminated ripples running through the water-like surface below them. Along with these ripples came a sound signature. Since the pads were connected to a central controller that varied the sound signatures based on the amount of weight applied, different people created their own unique sounds as they hopped

Poland - Cadac’s Polish distributor, Tommex Żebrowscy has been working hard to keep pace with demand to supply Cadac’s CDC six compact live production console, as it was being spec’d on events across the country. Throughout November and December, and moving into the new year, Tommex has supplied CDC six consoles, with CDC I/O 6448 or CDC I/O 3216 stage boxes, to local sound companies for a diversity of events, including gala performances, cabarets, church carol concerts and numerous concert performances.
Notable applications throughout the closing months of 2016, saw the CDC six / CDC I/O 6448 deployed FOH at the Final Gala of the Screen and Sound Festival on 29 October at the Kino Kijów.Centrum (Kijów.Centrum Cinema) in Krakow. Screen & Sound Festival - Let’s See The Music! is a project produced by the Bielecki Art Foundation as “a platform integrating artists’ visual imagination with the world of symphonic music”. Technical production, including sound, was by Wojciech Lipczyński, who spec’d the CDC six / CDC I/O 6448 configuration for its high I/O and channel count within a compact footprint, top end features, exceptional operational simplicity, and stunning transparent sound quality for a live orchestral production.
Events in November included the occasion of the 60-anniversary of famous Krakow based cabaret Piwnica pod Baranami (Cellar Under the Rams), and a special gala performance, in The Krakow Opera. A CDC six / CDC I/O 6448 system and CODA Audio ViRAY was again deployed by AUDIO-TECH Wojciech Lipczyński.
Popular Po

Sweden - An orchestral arrangement of David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy has completed a series of sold-out concerts in Gothenburg Concert Hall and Stockholm’s Berwald Hall, with Allen & Heath’s dLive S Class and ME mixing systems managing FOH and monitors.
Arranged by renowned Swedish conductor and composer, Hans Ek, and performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and choir Zero 8, the technical production was managed by FOH engineer Hans ‘Surte’ Norin from Musikalisk Ljudteknink with Peter Fredriksson from PF Ljuddesign on monitors.
Mixing a total of 126 channels, the dLive system comprised two MADI-enabled S5000 Surfaces and DM64 MixRacks connected by GigaAce, with an additional DX32 Expander for monitors, an IP8 Controller for FOH remote control, and ME-1 personal monitoring mixers for the orchestra. A Waves V3 network card was also fitted at FOH for recording/Virtual soundcheck, and a broadcast feed was sent to Swedish Radio via MADI.
“This is a big production, with over 100 people in the orchestra, band and choir to manage,” explains Surte Norin. “With superior processing power and ample channel capacity, dLive easily handled the production, and the results sounded wonderfully rich and natural.”
The production is set to embark on an extensive European tour in 2017 with the same setup.
(Jim Evans)