UK - Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting and rigging for the most recent Rudimental UK tour renewing their long term working relationship with designer Jonny Gaskell, culminating in a show at Alexandra Palace.

The tour started back in March and Jonny's visual concept - in its full incarnation - gradually revealed more elements as the set unfolded, an effervescent and cheeky mash-up of colour, movement, bouncing beams and lively visuals delivered with the band's characteristic carnivalesque and slightly edgy vibe - matching the infectious beat of their music.

The launch of the We The Generation album which shot to the UK number one slot in early October generated yet more excitement as eager fans flocked to catch the band's epic live performances.

The stage set was

Germany - Vive la France was the motto of this year's Wassershow at the Autostadt in Wolfsburg. The four largest water events in Europe were dedicated to Louis XIV, the French King famous for the water shows he held at Versailles. They took the spectators on a virtual journey through La Grande Nation.

The combination of fire, water, video, lights, lasers and music involved almost all the expanses of water found in the car city's park. The lighting designer Andreas 'Mini' Mertens used grandMA2 consoles once again. A total of four grandMA2 light consoles, three grandMA2 full-size consoles and 1 grandMA2 fader wing were used to control the lights, pyrotechnics and fountain effects.

The moving lights included 50 Clay Paky Sharpy Wash 330s and 20 Clay Paky Mythos units. "I asked specifically for these moving heads and LED lights for the Wassershow especially since I wan

The Netherlands - The new Stage Entertainment Holland production of The Bodyguard has recently opened at the Beatrix Theatre in Utrecht, The Netherlands, to rave reviews, sold out houses and nightly standing ovations. The colourful, richly textured and highly entertaining performance has plenty of theatrical magic and intricate and spectacular lighting by Luc Peumans of creative practice, Painting with Light.

Luc, well known across Benelux for his innovative lighting and visual designs for theatre, live music shows and television, has worked for the producers on several other projects including Dream Girls, however this is the first time he collaborated with director Carline Brouwer.

The ambitious video set was designed by Carla Janssen Hofelt who commissioned Ad de Haan to produce the content, and together with technical director Ed Wielstra chose the material t

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Case Study: Hans Zimmer Live

When award winning film composer Hans Zimmer brought his smash-hit tour Hans Zimmer Live to North America fall 2024, the show's audio team sought out to bring infrafrequency bass to the show to add new depth to the show's audio experience. The team chose Danley Sound Labs.

USA - PixelFLEX has won its second consecutive Parnelli Award for Indispensable Video Technology. At LDI 2015, this year's award was presented to the Nashville-based LED video screen manufacturer during the 15th Annual Parnelli Awards Ceremony held at the Rio All-Suite Las Vegas Hotel and Casino for their innovative FLEXCurtain HD LED Video Screen.

"What a tremendous honor for PixelFLEX to not only be nominated for two consecutive years, but to actually bring home the award once again, we are all very thankful to the voters and Timeless Communications," said David Venus, PixelFLEX director of marketing. "We strive every day to create the most technologically advanced LED video screens for the live event and entertainment production industry, and the 2015 Parnelli Award is a wonderful validation that we remain on the right path."

(Jim Evans)

UK - BGLX Production Services started life as Blue Giant Lighting just half a dozen years ago. Since then the company, under the guidance of director Francis White-Robinson, has grown and expanded enormously. Now a fully fledged production house, BGLX services the complete needs of an eclectic mix of clientele, supplying lights, sound, AV and crew for corporate events, touring acts and one-off shows.

"I was pretty much bought up on MA consoles; my very first professional job was at Cromer Pier Pavilion Theatre with a grandMA1 light which I believe is still in use," opens White-Robinson. "When I went to university, I purchased a 2-port node and that quickly became the standard control along with OnPC. Since then, I have used a grandMA2 on numerous occasions but the company has never been in the position to purchase one. Then I heard about the dot2."

White-Ro

Argentina - The country's biggest reggae festival is La Fiesta Mas Popular del Reggae, this year using Nexo STM modular line array systems for an impressive list of international performers, including Kenyatta Hill and local stars Nonpalidece.

With six studio albums to their name, festival headliners Nonpalidece have been Argentina's leading reggae band for nearly twenty years and regular performers at music festivals all over the country. Also on the bill was Ponto de Equilibio from Brasil, the Daara J.Family Sound System from Senegal, and C4, also from Argentina. All acts were using Nexo's 45°N12 line monitors on stage.

Rental company Valiente Produciones, with support from Los Angeles Musica, designed a substantial STM rig for the venue, the Platense Stadium in Buenos Aires, which has capacity for 32,000 people.

Argentina is now one of the primary markets in south Ame

UK - Cult US punk rock band Offspring recently played two major UK dates in Manchester and London whilst warming up for a festival run, with all their characteristic onstage rambunctiousness, further energised by a lightshow created by long term LD Lawrence Upton who is based in Chicago. The gigs were also part of on the ongoing Coming For You world tour ahead of the band's ninth studio album, which is expected in 2016.

Lawrence utilised Robe BMFL Spots for the first time, 16 of which were provided by Leeds based Zig Zag Lighting, together with another 52 Robe moving lights - 20 x Pointes, 22 x LEDWash 600s and 10 x 600E Spots. Zig Zag, was one of the first rental companies to invest in the fixtures.

Lawrence's show - he has worked with the band for some years - is full of big, bold, loud, hard-edged rock-out looks, for which BMFLs are absolutely bang-on to match the ba

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OPUS X4 PROFILE – the most powerful LED moving head from Cameo to date

The OPUS® X4 PROFILE is the new flagship model from Cameo and is among the most powerful LED moving heads on the market. Equipped with a 1,400-watt LED white light engine, this spot profile moving head produces an enormous light output of 50,000 lm, providing powerful spot and gobo projections on even the largest stages and much more.
www.cameolight.com

Mexico - A crown jewel of Mexico City's club scene is Hyde. Decorated with LED panels and colour changing Swarovski candelabrums, the club makes a powerful visual impression. Recently that impression was ramped up even further by the installation of a new lighting system featuring 32 Rogue fixtures from Chauvet Professional.

Rodrigo Molina of Light Moxion created the new system, using a lighting design fashioned by Michael Meacham of iDesign Productions (Miami) to bring more movement and energy to the popular club, which regularly showcases big name DJs from Las Vegas, New York and Europe. Molina and Meacham's plan called for 16 Rogue RH1 Hybrid and 16 Rogue R2 Beam fixtures to be installed over the dance floor and performance area.

The new lighting design is built around two concentric circular structures in the middle of the ceiling, which were positioned around a huge cande

Spain - Chosen for festivals throughout Europe over the summer, the Roland M-5000 and M-5000C Live Digital Console combination once again proved to be a hit with the engineers at the recent Barcelona Acció Musical (BAM) Festival.

Taking care of FOH and monitors for the La Mercé headline stage at BAM, the M-5000 and M-5000C together with Roland Digital Snakes provided a flexible and intuitive solution with their O.H.R.C.A architecture rapidly adapting to all the changing requirements and offering appropriate workflows for each situation.

The BAM Festival, now in its twentieth year, comprises of more than 40 bands playing different venues across Barcelona over five days and coincides with La Mercé, the city's patron saint festival. BAM is renowned for bringing together technology and tradition, music and the performing arts and 2015 saw Marc Campillo, the founder

USA - The new season of MTV's America's Best Dance Crew (ABDC) premiered on 29 July with lighting designer Victor Fable turning to a lighting rig from Elation Professional to light the recently revived dance reality show competition. Victor served as lighting designer for the first five seasons of the show, which had a seven season run that ended in 2012, so when the dance competition was resurrected this year for season eight, they knew exactly where to find an experienced television LD who also knew what the show was all about.

Season eight, titled America's Best Dance Crew All-Stars: Road to the VMAs pitted six all-star dance crews against each other - including five previous champions - with the stage at Warner Brothers Studio 19 in Los Angeles the site of weekly dance offs for the $100,000 grand prize.

"They didn't have a huge budget and I had little ti

USA - Just in time for AES 2015, MADI specialists DirectOut, has brought out MADI.MONI, a highly ergonomic MADI tester and mobile MADI monitoring tool. MADI.MONI has been specifically designed for MADI testing and monitoring in the field and has the smallest footprint of any mobile MADI monitor on the market, says the company.

MADI.MONI offers a simple, uncluttered interface enabling users to see at a glance all format parameters as well as the signal quality of a MADI stream. Operation is extremely straightforward via four push buttons on the UI including a volume/channel selection to monitor individual channels of a MADI signal via the 3.5mm headphone jack. The device is battery powered and provides one coaxial and one SFP MADI port. A traffic light like display delivers immediate information about the physical signal condition (amplitude/jitter).

The state of the incoming M

The Netherlands - Eight years after the introduction of the original, Alcons has launched the mkII version of its successful CRMS Cinema Reference Monitor System.

The CRMS is a three-way sound system design to offer "the most natural 1:1 Digital Cinema and HD audio sound reproduction possible".

Featuring the patented RBN401 pro-ribbon driver, the CRMS combines a remarkable clarity and intelligibility, with a unusually high headroom SPL. The Alcons pro-ribbon drivers have up to 90% less distortion than any conventional mid/high transducer, while the very high peak power handling offers a 1:16 RMS-to-peak ratio, enabling maximum screen compensations without any audible stress on the MHF performance.

The patented horizontal dispersion of the RBN401 extends the stereo-imaging and depth-of-field to a larger number of seats in the auditorium; Due to the "compression

Germany - Shure has announced the availability of a new version of its ShurePlus MOTIV Mobile Recording App - designed for use with Shure MOTIV Digital Condenser Microphones. Version 1.1 of the newest iOS app offers a host of new features, including five-band EQ and gain adjustment controls for the MV51 Digital Large-Diaphragm Condenser Microphone, the MV5 Digital Condenser Microphone, and MVi Digital Audio Interface.

For an optimised experience, the list of user-friendly ShurePlus MOTIV features now also includes AirPlay compatibility and Bluetooth support for instant playback over a speaker system. Additionally, transport controls in the control center simplify the process of pausing, playing, fast-forwarding, and rewinding a recording. For low-light environments where a bright screen might become a distraction (such as a club or other live event venue), Shure has added a dark

USA - Pulse Stage Lighting of Union, NJ recently provided a range of Avolites consoles for The Rock Carnival at Oak Ridge Park in nearby Clark, lighting acts like Godsmack, Slash, Stone Temple Pilots, Anthrax, Sevendust and dozens of other hard rock bands on three stages over two days.

To best accommodate the festival's lighting needs, every stage was equipped with an Avolites desk: a Pearl Expert with Touch Wing on Stage A, Avo's flagship Sapphire Touch on Stage B, and a Tiger Touch on a third smaller stage featuring mostly rock tribute acts.

When Pulse Stage Lighting president Scott de Villers first took his company out of his basement and into a pickup truck in the early '90s, he worked with Avolites products. Today, Pulse has grown into a regional powerhouse supporting acts like Alicia Keys, Neil Diamond, Smashmouth, Salt-N-Pepa, Coolio and Adam Lambert, as well as events

UK Central Hall Westminster is Central London's largest conference centre. As Production Service Partner, White Light oversees all of the technical production support inside the venue and, over the next few months, will be installing the very latest lighting, AV and rigging technology. As part of this long-term upgrade, WL recently added a brand new motorised rigging system to the Great Hall, which will enhance any event that takes place inside this iconic space.

Prior to the installation, the rigging system inside the Great Hall had to be set up every time a different event took place. Jason Larcombe, WL's project manager, comments, "The motor rigging system consists of several LTM LoadGuard motors which are extremely adaptable to events of all sizes. Previously, if we wanted to rig equipment from the ceiling, this had to be manually carried and installed; quite an arduous

USA - It is one of New York's chicest event venues. Commanding incredible views of the city's harbour from Brooklyn's trendy Red Hook neighbourhood, Liberty Warehouse has been the scene of parties for big name celebrities from every field. Jay Z and Beyoncé danced the night away at this Civil War-era waterfront warehouse to celebrate the release of Hov's Magna Carta Holy Grail. When Hillary Clinton declared her candidacy for the presidency, her first stop in Brooklyn was at a Liberty Warehouse fundraiser.

When New York A-listers tie the knot, they often choose to hold their weddings and ceremonies at this prestigious facility. This was the case recently when a prominent event planner got married. She called on Jeffrey Kwan of Canal Sound and Light to light the ceremony. Kwan delivered an elegant lighting package with mood-setting uplighting and stylish pin spotting

UAE - A team of Avolites S4 servers, Expert Pro console with Wing and TitanNet Processors were deployed to control more than 350 fixtures and 150sq.m of LED screens for an extraordinary party to open WHITE Club Dubai's new season.

Procom Middle East, the Dubai-based professional audio, lighting and video equipment supplier and Avolites official distributor delivered the venue at the request of Addmind, the venue's owner and manager.

They teamed up with club lighting designer Dave Parry of Most Technical, lighting programmers Ross Chapple and Tony Chidiac, and Immersive's John Munro and Martin Harvey to create the awesome event.

"The club's opening party set a new frontier in entertainment technology, giving a 'reality-altering' experience with impressive lighting shows, effects and a cutting edge video mapping show on a 3D video wall," says Procom's Rami Harfouch.<

Canada - October is a big month for Montreal-based crowd activation pioneers, PixMob. After illuminating crowds at a massive event for every day of the month they're finishing the month with their own North American tour.

Four NBA teams chose PixMob to light up their season openers, taking place over three days. From 28-30 October the Sacramento Kings, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Indianapolis Pacers will transform their audiences into a human canvas made of light.

After illuminating the NBA All-Star weekend earlier this year, PixMob has become the go-to company in the sports world, known for transforming an arena of 20,000 people into a crowd united by technology.

NBA season openers aside, next week will be a busy one for PixMob. Its creative and production teams will be in the following places simultaneously: Dubaï for Sensation, an electronic

South Africa - This year's Rocking the Daisies - which coincided with the festival's tenth birthday - was the biggest and best year yet. It was the fifth time that Kilowatt AV saw involvement in the festival, this year being commissioned to conceptualise, design and fully execute four of the eight stages (where they incorporated Avolites Ai technology and Robe fixtures) as well as multiple activation areas.

Rocking the Daisies was held at the start of October at the Cloof Wine Estate in Darling, under an hour's drive from Cape Town, and included a line up of international and local musical acts, camping, relaxing and good food. In fact the owners never suspected that what started off, as a small festival on their tranquil grounds, would turn into one of the most popular annual music occasions on the South African calendar.

"We were commissioned by Seed Experiences to prov

Sweden - Hyrljudet is a fast-growing technical production and rental company based in Goteborg, founded in 2005 by Kristoffer Jansson.

Literally translated, the name means 'Sound Rental', but Hyrljudet supplies complete production packages - incorporating design, sound, lighting and video - to a variety of concert tours, music events and corporate clients, with a special interest in the creative and atmospheric engineering of clubs and parties through exciting and challenging visual elements.

The most recent equipment investment has been in 24 of Robe's Pointe multi-purpose fixtures, which have gone to work over the summer in the two largest of the three separate summer club venues that Hyrljudet is servicing with equipment and crew.

"The Pointe is a good lightweight, medium-sized fixture with great cross-rental potential," comments Kristoffer, "Looking at the

USA - In a ceremony at the Las Vegas Convention Centrelast week during the LDI 2015 tradeshow, Live Design recognised the new ProPlex EZ-LAN Unity 20 with an LDI 2015 Best Debuting Product of the Year Award.

ProPlex's EZ-LAN makes managing today's complex show networking easier and accessible for everyone. These simple to operate yet powerful managed Gigabit Ethernet switches distribute up to four discrete networks - e.g. lighting, audio, content, server, console, communications, etc. - quickly, effortlessly, and simultaneously. Users untrained in the complexities of managed networking can easily isolate networks and access and change VLAN assignments with one button.

"Managed Ethernet switches are very complicated to use," explains TMB product specialist, Ashley Simper. "The ability to distribute up to four discrete networks with a single button makes life easi

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