USA - For their Art of the World Gallery in Houston’s River Oaks area, co-owners Liliana Molina and Mauricio Vallejo wanted to augment their guests’ appreciation of the outstanding contemporary artists they display.
Southwest Building Systems of nearby Silsbee was engaged to realize this vision, and an audio visual system was installed to support artist presentations and provide background music. There is also a sound system in the VIP room, where patrons can privately view art they are considering for purchase.
“The idea was to create a warm, comfortable ambience throughout the gallery, while keeping the visual focus on the art itself,” says Brent Thornhill of Southwest Building Systems. “We knew that a combination of Bosch signal processing and the new EVID Compact Sound loudspeakers by Electro-Voice could produce the audio impact they wanted while being,

USA - When Brandon Baruch first heard from a friend about Nick Wylie’s plans to produce the Bataré tour, he realized that this innovative show was something he would like to light. “I tend to gravitate towards projects that require an unconventional design approach,” he said. “So, when Nick told me the concept of the piece, I was immediately drawn in by the fusion of styles and genres. I was also intrigued to learn there was a narrative arc for the performers, because it speaks to my theatre background as well.”
After a meeting with Wylie of Testu Productions, Baruch got his wish. Designing for the current Bataré tour, he has conveyed the emotional flow of this multi-faceted acrobatic Taiko rock show with a colourful and flexible lighting design, using a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Kinetic Lighting.
“It’s a really fun product

UK - Solan Fitness has opened its latest fitness centre following a £1.2m development in East Grinstead, Sussex.
The 15,500sq.ft. strength training facility, situated in the town’s Atrium Building, has developed out of the martial arts concept at the company’s pilot venue in Orpington. All zones - including Cardio, Weights, Spin and Dance/Fitness - are serviced by Martin Audio CDD loudspeaker systems, specified and provided by Old Barn Audio.
Entrepreneur Josh Ahmet had originally contacted the Martin Audio partners, for whom fitness clubs is one of their specialities, following an internet search. Director, Neil Kavanagh, was soon undertaking a site survey, noting that the facility also included a touchscreen accessible FitboxVirtual, a powerful technology platform to run virtual classes in the fitness centre out of hours.
Mindful of the high degree of rev

USA - S. Jeremy Peters loves piloting small FPV drones. There is, he says, “no rush quite like it.” He and his wife Alison Peters wanted to share their passion for drone flying with a wider audience. As owners of SJP Productions, a lighting and projection company experienced working festivals, they were in an excellent position to do so. Hooking up with a local brewery, they created one of the first spectator-oriented drone racing events, complete with festival-like lighting, atmospherics and live video feeds all controlled with a three-universe set up built around ChamSys Software.
“Typically drone races are geared toward the racers themselves without a lot of spectators,” said Peters. “Generally, they don’t have much production. Alison and I wanted to draw on our production experience at festivals like Lockn, Peach, Bisco, Mountain Jam, Taste of Country and Gat

Europe - Boston-based lighting designer Jeff Maker once again chose Robe as his main moving lights for the most recent UK and European tour for US rockers All Time Low which was a teaser for their upcoming Last Young Renegade album release, scheduled for release in June.
The band combine their hi-energy, in-the-face mix of gritty pop punk rock with a relentlessly busy touring schedule and are renowned for their live performances. Europe is an ever-popular destination and on this tour they played a whole range of venues encompassing academies, town halls and arenas.
Lighting was supplied by Zig Zag Lighting from Leeds, UK. Prominent on the rig were 15 Robe Spiider wash beams, part of a batch newly purchased by the rental company for this tour, together with other Robe luminaires like BMFL Spots, Pointes and CycFX 8s.
(Jim Evans)

USA - American heavy rock band Tesla has cultivated a loyal fan base over the last 30 years, playing an unpretentious, blue-collar style of music that hard rock audiences love. For an ongoing tour that started in January, band lighting designer and creative director Ignacio “Iggy” Rosenberg is using an Elation rig to complement the band’s big rock sound and surprising (to some) long list of hits.
“The main thing was they were venturing into having more of a production for the first time in years, so we were trying to be cautious about spending too much, but also giving them as much of a show as we could,” commented Iggy, who has been working with the band for the past three years. “This was a great tour to understand the concept of providing something that was inexpensive, but not cheap.”
Working from a short production timeline, Iggy chose Platinum FLX

USA - LD Matt Guminski was called in to design American pop singer-songwriter JoJo’s 2017 Mad Love Tour just a week before the tour launched in February and turned to Elation Professional moving heads and effect lights to light the re-emerging popstar’s show. Touring in support of her Mad Love album which came out last October – her first album release since the mid 2000s – JoJo is selling out 900-1800 capacity venues at nearly every stop and is clearly on her way back to top star status after charting in 2004 as a 13-year old.
His first time working with JoJo, Matt felt an immediate bond with the artist, who grew up in Boston near where he calls home, and took the short lead time in stride. Matt acts as lighting designer and operator on tour (he programmed the show on the road) and often handles lighting crew duties as well. To light the artist’s R&B-inspired

Poland - Nearly 100 Claypaky fixtures illuminated the interior of UNESCO world heritage site, the Centennial Hall in Wroclaw, Poland, for its live production of large-scale theatrical performance Niebo as part of the closing celebrations of the city's year-long status as European Capital of Culture 2016.
Creative producer and multimedia lighting designer for Niebo was Pawal 'Spider' Pająk, founder of Polish production design company Fish Eye. Spider specified a number of Claypkay Mythos, Sharpy and A.leda B-EYE K20 fixtures from Polish rental outfit Transcolor to craft the production's vast spot, beam and wash effects.
"The Centennial Hall is an extremely high venue," says Spider. "For the Niebo production I needed to rig all my fixtures at around 23/24 metres above stage level. This meant I had to look for fixtures with brightness and quality tha

USA - The Chanhassen Dinner Theatres complex has been a beehive of activity since it opened in 1968. In a typical year, its kitchen will serve 14 tons of steaks, four tons of prime rib, 120,000 chicken breasts, 18 tons of fresh green beans and half a million dinner rolls. Things are equally busy on the theatrical side. Over 10m people have seen shows at the Chanhassen, which is the largest professional dinner theatre in the US. Most productions run eight shows a week for six months, separated by breaks of only a few days.
The production schedule at the theatre complex, which is located 20 miles from Minneapolis, is not only full, it’s also varied, with musicals, concerts, dramas, comedies, one-person shows and ensembles all being performed on its stages.
Sue Berger, the theatre’s lighting director has three main criteria in mind when selecting fixtures for her of

UK - The all-wooden box drum or cajón may be the world’s most popular percussion instrument, yet it is also one of the hardest to amplify, because it produces sharp bursts of sound energy (transients) when played. Finding the right microphones to capture the subtle “woodsy” tone and transient-rich sound of his cajón was proving to be a challenge for percussionist David Mortara – until he discovered the DPA d:dicate range.
Malambo has performed in many of London’s top music venues and festivals, including the Southbank Centre (Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall), the Bloomsbury and Ealing Festivals,and on the club and corporate entertainment circuit. Corporate gigs can take place in some very unusual and acoustically problematic spaces not designed for critical listening – such as the Victoria & Albert Museum Refreshment Rooms and Cannon Bridge Roo

USA - Penn & Teller’s outrageous blend of magic and comedy has remained one of the hottest tickets in Las Vegas for over 20 years, and when the production team decided to upgrade the show’s set and scenery, it was also time to invest in new stage lighting technology. Lighting designer Jeff Croiter specified eight High End Systems SolaSpot Pro 1500s, purchased through 4Wall, for the Penn & Teller Theatre in the Rio Hotel.
Croiter explains, “I was in Las Vegas during LDI, at meetings in preparation to do the Penn & Teller show renovation. I had a day off and went to the convention, and I ran into Al Ridella from 4Wall. He said ‘you have to come over and see this light - I’m thinking about buying some’, and that light was the SolaSpot Pro 1500. Al introduced me to Bobby Hale and the High End team, and they ran the light through its paces. I was very imp

USA - With ardent fans still clamouring to see the living legend live, musical genius Brian Wilson extended his 50th anniversary tour of Pet Sounds, an album hailed as one of the world’s greatest musical endeavours.
Bandit Lites provides the lighting package for the tour, which features Pet Sounds being performed in its entirety with band members Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin along with other hits from the Beach Boys and Wilson’s more recent albums.
“When I was a kid, there was magic in music,” said lighting designer Chris Stuba of working with Wilson. “When I started studying Pet Sounds last year, I realized these pop songs are true, pure music magic, full of honesty and heartbreak. The audiences have been so incredible going on this journey with us every night, and the music is so full of joy, it makes people who hear it happy. I am ve

Poland - Nearly 100 Claypaky fixtures illuminated the interior of UNESCO world heritage site, the Centennial Hall in Wroclaw, Poland, for its live production of large-scale theatrical performance Niebo as part of the closing celebrations of the city's year-long status as European Capital of Culture 2016.
Creative producer and multimedia lighting designer for Niebo was Pawal 'Spider' Pająk, founder of Polish production design company Fish Eye. Spider specified a number of Claypkay Mythos, Sharpy and A.leda B-EYE K20 fixtures from Polish rental outfit Transcolor to craft the production's vast spot, beam and wash effects.
"The Centennial Hall is an extremely high venue," says Spider. "For the Niebo production I needed to rig all my fixtures at around 23/24 metres above stage level. This meant I had to look for fixtures with brightness and quality tha

India - At the end of last year, over 80,000 people descended on the MMRDA Ground in Mumbai for the first ever Global Citizen Festival India. This was the biggest music festival ever produced in the country and required the biggest L-Acoustics systems ever seen or heard in India. In fact, its sheer scale dictated that India’s most prestigious rental companies join forces to supply the required 200-plus loudspeakers.
The Global Citizen Festival is organised by Global Poverty Project. Based in New York, it has been running since 2012, bringing together the biggest international stars to raise awareness of extreme poverty across the world, its goals being closely aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Global Citizen Festival India was produced by Wizcraft India and featured international artists including headliners Coldplay – lead singer Ch

Slovenia - One of the 43 Eurovision hopefuls for this year’s event in Kiev, Ukraine, in May is Slovenia’s Omar Naber whose song On My Way was chosen at a spectacular Eurovision Melody (EMA – Evrovizijska MelodijA) show staged in Hall A2 of the Gospodarsko Razstavisce exhibition centre in Ljubljana.
A stunning lighting design by Crt Birsa amazed audiences – both onscreen and live – for which Crt utilized over 200 Robe fixtures on the rig including Spiiders, BMFL Blades, Pointes, MMX WashBeams, Squares, LEDBeam 100s, PARFect 100s, CycFX 8s, LEDWash 600s, ColorSpot 1200E ATs and a single Robin 600E Spot … supplied to the show by Slovenia’s largest rental company, Event Lighting.
Crt worked closely with set designer Greta Godnic to create a striking visual environment for this high-profile show, which was broadcast live on Slovenian national TV in thre

Germany - On board the AIDA-fleet’s newest flagship, AIDAprima, sound solutions from Sennheiser prove their capabilities every single day. The audio specialist’s premium products help deliver high level entertainment on one of the world’s most modern cruise ships.
Alongside Sennheiser’s reliable wireless technology, AIDAprima uses the innovative MobileConnect streaming solution, which has been recently updated to allow for seamless integration into existing networks.
One of the most technologically advanced ships on the planet, AIDAprima has its own excellently equipped TV-production environment, the Broadcast Centre, which channels all picture signals and distributes them to the numerous clients on board. To monitor sound, this facility uses four Neumann KH 120 A active speakers. The newest addition to the Broadcast Centre is a Sennheiser ConnectStation CS1-M,

UK - Over the past year, Pearce Hire has witnessed a substantial growth in the demand for their technical production skills and teams to work on a range of running events. During 2016 Pearce Hire supplied up to 20 different running events around the UK, including the Plusnet Yorkshire Half Marathon (Sheffield) and Marathon (York), almost a dozen 10K runs, the Great Birmingham Run and the Great Bristol Half Marathon.
“Sporting events provide a different dynamic and set of challenges from the outdoor events and festivals Pearce Hire might be better known for”, observes John Huson, project manager. “But in fact we have considerable experience providing distributed sound systems for sports events where the PA system needs to cover several hundred metres to provide the necessary information to the competitors, as well as keeping the spectators and supporters fully updated t

UK - Matrix has just purchased “one of the most diverse, user-friendly LED products currently available to the live event sector”. This 2.6mm pixel pitch LED can create a high definition crystal clear image, suitable for exhibitions and conferences that need a superior display platform.
Matrix is able to supply up to 500m2 from the same batch of LED – ensuring the LED panels and quality is of an optimum undiluted quality. The panels themselves are designed with an individual magnetic attraction function. Matrix has invested in 2in1 rigging bars for the LED. An advantage of both of these is the capability to allow single person handling, an appealing option to potentially reduce crew numbers for the build and de-rig.
This adaptable 2.6mm LED product can be displayed in numerous bespoke formats – curved (concave/convex) and straight. The cable management has be

Germany - In the more than 10 years of its existence, the Theaterstübchen Kassel has developed into one of the country's finest jazz music venues. In order to successfully develop the purely privately run house, renovations took place from 2012 onwards, during which a new public address system was installed. Operator Markus Knierim trusted the clear recommendation of sound engineer Rolf Dressler and chose a pro-ribbon sound solution from Alcons Audio.
Auditiv GmbH from Kassel installed two Alcons pro-ribbon LR7 (left / right) micro line-array in the 120 seats (about 300 without seats) large Theaterstübchen (little theater room), supplemented by one Alcons BF151 single 15” per side as bass support. The system is operated by the Alcons ALC2 (2 x 1kW) amplified loudspeaker controller. This small system "is absolutely sufficient for 95% of the events in the room," as Rolf Dr

UK - Petrolheads and adrenaline junkies were treated to a new look for the Live Action Arena at the 2017 Autosport show staged in Hall 5 of the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham, UK.
An audacious, eye-popping lighting design by Nathan Wan featured nearly 300 Robe moving lights to provide the power, punch and luminosity needed to match the roaring engines, burning rubber and screeching brakes of the races and performance car action.
Nathan has lit the show for the past few years working with technical consultants and equipment suppliers Network Productions. This year, their technical director Nick Halliday and production manager Dave Beel were working with a new creative team who wanted to inject some turbo-charged theatricality into the tyre-slaying speed drama unfolding on the track.
When it comes to lighting, the Live Arena is notorious as a ‘lum

Italy - Nuovi Orizzonti (New Horizons) is a Christian, non-profit organisation which has ‘citadels’ in Italy, Brazil and Bosnia-Herzegovina where the socially disadvantaged and marginalised can receive support, care and training. The organisation’s newest facility is at Frosinone in Italy, where a Yamaha Commercial Installation Solutions (CIS) audio system is helping to bring people together.
Named Cittadella Cielo (Citadel of Heaven), the new facility expands the Nuovi Orizzonti mission to ‘bring joy to those who have lost hope’. Its recent gala opening saw performances by Italian stars including Andrea Bocelli, Nek, Raf and Cristina Scuccia (aka Sister Cristina, or ‘The Singing Nun’, winner of the second series of The Voice of Italy).
The Yamaha CIS system is installed in Cittadella Cielo’s 600-capacity main hall and features eight VXS5W and e

Germany - On 9 February 2017 five candidates presented themselves before a specialist jury and a Europe-wide television audience, and fought for the right to represent Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Kiev.
With the eloquent Barbara Schöneberger presenting the show, former ESC winner Lena Meyer-Landruth sat next to Tim Benzko and Florian Silbereisen in the three-piece jury.
The show was broadcast live under the management of the NDR from the studios of Cape Cross Studio + Filmlichtgesellschaft mbH, one of Germany's leading suppliers of film and TV stage and lighting technology, in Cologne-Mühlheim.
The lighting design for probably the most important pop contest on German TV, came again from the hand of Jerry Appelt, who is almost a fixture at the Eurovision Song Contest.
In 2011 in Düsseldorf and 2012 in Baku he was already lighting designe

UK - The RBS Six Nations rugby tournament ranks alongside the greatest sporting competitions in the world. The average attendance at games exceeds 70,000 and worldwide TV coverage expands its reach to millions.
11th Hour is a regular provider to its client Event360 at The Principality Stadium in Cardiff, one of the finest sporting arenas in the world and home to Welsh rugby. For this year's tournament, reprising its role during Wales' autumn internationals, 11th Hour supplied power and lighting for the players tunnel and pitch-side entrance at The Principality Stadium, as well as mains distribution for the now famous flames that flare high into the air as the drama begins.
The tunnel/entrance lighting comprised Clay Paky B-EYE K20s, Chauvet 230 SR Beams, Atomic Strobes, RGB rope light and Avolite control.
As well as this provision for Wales's home fixtures, 11th

Australia - The recent refresh of the entire Perth Concert Hall lighting rig (made possible through the State Government’s Department of Culture and the Arts Infrastructure Improvement Program) saw head of lighting Alex Spartalis with a lot of decisions to make. The choice to make the PCH home to nine Elation Sixpar 300 RGBAW+UV LED fixtures was not one of the difficult ones. With the whole rig headed to LED, Alex had to audition a huge range of luminaires, and the Sixpar 300s were an easy winner.
“I loved the six-chip design, the inclusion of amber, their narrow beam angle capability, the 5-pin DMX, and the build quality,” Alex listed. Added to this is the fanless design, a must in acoustically sensitive applications like classical concerts. “All of the features Alex mentioned were a big plus,” added Sean McKernan of lighting supplier Evolution 512, “but the fa

Latest Issue. . .

Save
Cookies user preferences
We use cookies to ensure you to get the best experience on our website. If you decline the use of cookies, this website may not function as expected.
Accept all
Decline all
Analytics
Tools used to analyze the data to measure the effectiveness of a website and to understand how it works.
Google Analytics
Accept
Decline
Advertisement
If you accept, the ads on the page will be adapted to your preferences.
Google Ad
Accept
Decline