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Chauvet balances video and light for Wizard of Oz

Over 100 actors featured in the production (photo: Louie Lee-Horton / LLH Films)

Details: 01 March 2023

UK – Lighting designer Ollie Wilkinson lit The Wizard of Oz at Blackpool’s Grand Theatre with a video wall backdrop.
“This was definitely a first for me,” he said of the experience. “I have lit many theatrical shows that feature projection, but never a wall of LED tiles. This presented a challenge in terms of how bright and vibrant the video wall was, but it turned out very well.”
Helping Wilkinson meet this challenge were the 18 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK2 Spot fixtures in his kit. Supplied by Arranpaul, the 440-watt moving fixtures were flown on upstage and mid-stage electrics. From these positions, the high output (up to 20,200 lux at 5m) luminaires provided the light Wilkinson needed to balance the LED video wall.
“I needed a workhors

The 2023 Zamna Festival in Tulum (photo: Jesus Arce)

Robe up all night with Black Coffee at Zamna

Details: 01 March 2023

Mexico - The beauty, magic and history of Mexican Caribbean indigenous cultures blended with dance beats as the rhythm and free spirit of rave sent a rush of positive energy and human experience coursing through the 2023 Zamna Festival in Tulum.
The eye-catching jungle venue surrounded by nature reserves and sacred cenotes, provided an appropriate setting for this event, and into this dreamscape reality stepped lighting designer Eran Klein, working with artist Black Coffee on the Island Stage.
Eran was asked to light Black Coffee’s performance by Oren Heknin – a long term client and underground club promoter / presenter. Eran insisted on having Robe Spiiders, MegaPointes LEDBeam 150 and Tetra2 moving lights on his rig, which involved swapping out the originally proposed moving lights for his Robe luminaires.
“I could not contemplate producing such a specia

Electronic Audio Systems’ Andrew Latham (left) with Mark Bonner from Delta

DeltaLive delivers for The Queen’s State Funeral

Details: 01 March 2023

UK - The State Funeral of Her Majesty The Queen took place at Westminster Abbey on Monday 19 September, with the funeral service paying tribute to The Queen’s long and dignified reign. It was broadcast live around the world, with crowds of mourners paying their respects along the procession route from the Palace of Westminster to Westminster Abbey, and then to Wellington Arch via The Mall.
Arcadis LLP was contracted to manage the event and they turned to DeltaLive, a long-time supplier to both Royal events and Electronic Audio Systems, providers of the audio project management. Together, they provided the public audio requirements along the route in both London and Windsor, as well as site-wide comms.
Although familiar with Royal events, this was, says DeltaLive director Mark Bonner, the company’s most important project to date. With complicated logistics to deal

Renkus-Heinz partners with Mountain AV

Details: 01 March 2023

USA - Renkus-Heinz has announced a newfound partnership with Mountain AV Marketing in the Rocky Mountain region.
Based in Phoenix, Arizona, Mountain AV Marketing is a manufacturers’ representative in the commercial AV and pro sound & lighting market channels. Owner and founder Chris Henley has over 30 years of experience as an end user, AV integrator and independent representative.
“I'm honoured to represent a leader like Renkus-Heinz throughout the region, and look forward to bringing dynamic, cutting-edge audio solutions to our dealers and consultants,” Henley said. “Always at the forefront of research and development, Renkus-Heinz brings the type of forward-thinking technology and solutions our customers are looking for along with the right team and end-user support to truly have an impact in this region.”
“We’re proud to partner with Mounta

The 2023 Olivier Awards take part on 2 April

Unusual Rigging to sponsor Olivier Award

Details: 01 March 2023

UK - Unusual Rigging will join in the 2023 Olivier Awards with Mastercard at the Royal Albert Hall this year as an official sponsor of an award.
The event, which takes place on the 2 April and acknowledges the best of British theatre, will see Unusual sponsoring the Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre category. This award, introduced in 2004, recognises work produced at affiliate members of the Society of London Theatre, recognising excellence beyond the West End theatres eligible in the main theatre categories.
This is the first time that Unusual Rigging has been involved with the Olivier Awards in a sponsorship capacity. However, the event rigging has been supplied by the Unusual team in previous years.
Speaking ahead of the event, Tom Harper MD commented: “In an era of increased pressure on the UK theatre industry, Unusual recognises the importance

Sound engineer Enrico La Falce selected DPA Microphones’ d:facto 4018V Vocal Microphone

DPA d:facto on song for Måneskin dates

Details: 01 March 2023

Italy - Grammy-nominated and Eurovision-winning Italian rock band Måneskin continues its ascent with a world tour and dozens of festivals in every corner of the globe.
Måneskin puts its trust in sound engineer Enrico La Falce, whose experience spans the panorama of Italian pop and rock music. Building off his first role as a studio assistant in London and his career as a mixing engineer and producer in Italy, La Falce knew he wanted a natural and uncoloured microphone to support the band’s glam-rock sound on tour. For this, he selected DPA Microphones’ d:facto 4018V Vocal Microphone.
“When we were planning the rehearsals with Måneskin for their first ‘big’ concerts, I met with the band’s monitor engineer, Remo Scafati, to exchange ideas regarding gear,” says La Falce. “He suggested that I test the DPA d:facto 4018V for vocals. I have other colleagues

London’s largest ever New Year’s Eve celebration

AC-ET supplies ‘rock-solid’ wireless for NYE party

Details: 28 February 2023

UK – London welcomed 2023 with its largest ever New Year’s Eve celebration, and its first after two years of Covid cancellations. To source the wireless DMX control system which would be essential for the event, lighting supplier Neg Earth Lights turned to A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET), the UK & Ireland distributor for Swedish innovator LumenRadio.
Produced by Identity, with creative direction from Dan Colbourne and David Zolkwer, the celebrations included an enormous fireworks display, along with a drone light show and a large-scale lighting spectacle created by lighting designer Tim Routledge. With the television cameras in mind, Routledge knew he needed powerful lighting fixtures inside each of the London Eye’s 32 pods to provide the visual ‘punch’ required, and chose Elation’s new Proteus Excalibur beam moving heads for the job. He also knew tha

The Week in Light & Sound

Details: 28 February 2023

Eurovision Funding - The Eurovision Song Contest, being held in Liverpool in May, will get £10m from the UK government, it has been announced. It will be spent on operational costs like security and visas, as well as making sure the event "showcases Ukrainian culture". Local authorities in Liverpool have already pledged £4m in funding. About 3,000 tickets to the song contest will also be made available for Ukrainians living in the UK.
Liverpool is staging the event at its M&S Bank Arena on behalf of Ukraine. It will be the first Eurovision Song Contest to be held in the UK for 25 years. The government funding is intended to "support security, visa arrangements and other operational aspects of the contest", the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said.
The money will also support Liverpool City Council as well as host broadcaster the BBC's partnerships

Ten TRE-1501 speakers were mounted on the rear stanchions of the main stand

HH Electronics scores at Kampong Speu Stadium

Details: 28 February 2023

Cambodia - Kampong Speu Provincial Stadium is located in Chbar Mon, central Cambodia. Completed last year at a cost of $4m, the facility aims to raise the profile of Kampong Speu Province and contribute to the government’s development of the Kingdom’s sporting culture as it prepares to host the 32nd Southeast Asian Games.
Constructed in a little over six months, the Stadium covers 40,000 sqm, can host up to 3000 spectators and features a football pitch and public gymnasium. At the stadium’s inauguration, Minister of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, Chea Sophara, urged the provincial administration to use the venue for the widest possible range of events for the benefit of the local economy. Cambodian Premier League football club NagaWorld FC will play at the stadium.
Essential for any modern multi-purpose stadium is provision for a high-quality a

Bespoke Events' production director, Peter Hope (left) and operations director, Steven French

Bespoke Events London praises QC-Check

Details: 28 February 2023

UK - For Bespoke Events London, the decision to invest in a QC-Check workstation from Data Strategy was a simple one that would quickly make warehouse processes more effective.
Integrated into the company’s warehouse management system, QC-Check tests and inspects the integrity of every electronic device, distribution unit and cable before its next use to ensure the highest standards of safety are maintained.
The company, which creates high-end luxury, and high-profile productions, is reliant on the highest calibre of well-maintained event technology to ensure every event is executed without a hitch.
Bespoke’s production director, Peter Hope, confirms, “QC-Check gives us great peace of mind when working with our accredited venues.” His assurance is founded upon the “…tenfold increase in testing and inspection in the warehouse,” since the integration

Next to Normal at Yale’s David Geffen School of Drama

Vari-Lite Spots add drama to Next to Normal

Details: 28 February 2023

USA – Yale’s David Geffen School of Drama staged a performance of the American rock musical Next to Normal recently, with a lighting design by David DeCarolis using VL2600 Spot luminaires as part of the Vari-Lite University Outreach Programme from Signify.
DeCarolis employs a musical approach to his lighting designs, having studied music in the past. He structures his looks based on form, harmony and dynamics, even seeing a lighting console as something of an electronic drum kit. He collaborated with the team at David Geffen School of Drama and Vari-Lite to deliver the right luminaires for the production of Next to Normal, choosing the VL2600 Spots as he required a high-output fixture offering a broad range of rich colours and effects.
The Vari-Lite University Outreach Programme initiative is an ongoing project allowing talented students to use Vari-L

The online event is scheduled for 12 April

Martin Audio revisits streamed launches

Details: 28 February 2023

UK - Following the successful formula first introduced at the recent ISE 2023 show in Barcelona - whereby non-attendees could share, remotely, the same product launch experience as those who made the trip to Barcelona, Martin Audio has laid out its stall for a similar online experience in advance of its biannual open days. These will take place at their High Wycombe HQ, the difference this time being that the visitor experience will take place within the company’s newly refurbished facility.
“The international launch of our new Torus 8 in Barcelona was very much an experiment in the way we presented new products to both the market and the media,” said director of marketing, James King. “Fortunately both the real-world attendance at our booth and our demo room, alongside the number of logins and catch-up replays to the two streamed events fully vindicated our decision

Wake The Tiger Amazement Park is an immersive art experience in Bristol

Genelec adds flexibility to Wake the Tiger

Details: 28 February 2023

UK - Born from the creators of Boomtown Fair Festival, Wake The Tiger Amazement Park is an immersive art experience in Bristol consisting of 27 different creative environments including artwork, installations, narrative, soundscape, secret passageways and more.
Once through the portal you’re transported to the world of Meridia, a world not too dissimilar to our own, where you’ll discover an abandoned factory, a time capsule of messages, theories and wild experiments.
AF Live, an award-winning technical production company, took on the project and designed a bespoke sound system suited to their specific requirements.
Paul Rose, founder and director of AF Live comments: “AF Live has managed Boomtown Fair’s technical production for over a decade. So, when we were approached by Wake The Tiger in Spring 2022, we were already onboard to help create a sound syste

In each of his shows, Bad Bunny was supported by a fast-moving lightshow

Chauvet sets the mood on Bad Bunny dates

Details: 28 February 2023

Mexico - Bad Bunny’s two-hour show on the recent World’s Hottest Tour delivered all of the power-packed passion that fans have come to expect from this Puerto Rico-born superstar. The Latin American leg of his sold-out tour included stops in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic.
In each of his shows, Bad Bunny was supported by a fast-moving lightshow that featured 96 Color STRIKE M and 40 STRIKE Array 2 fixtures from Chauvet Professional, supplied by different vendors in various countries.
The lighting designer for the tour, Travis Shirley reflected the transformative mood created by the beaches of Puerto Rico. Tour director, Roly Garbalosa, and the LD/programmer Krizia Velez helped bring this imaginative panorama to life at every venue.
“The looks were inspired

Smith chose Claypaky Scenius Spots and Mythos 2 fixtures for the sold-out North American leg of the tour

Claypaky lights Conan Gray’s Superache Tour

Details: 28 February 2023

USA - Working with Solotech US, UK-based production and lighting designer Will Smith designed the lighting, video and set for the North American, Australia and Asia legs of American singer-songwriter Conan Gray’s Superache Tour.
Smith chose Claypaky Scenius Spots and Mythos 2 fixtures for the sold-out North American leg of the tour, which is in support of Gray’s second studio album of the same name. Superache was released in June 2022, debuted at number nine on the US Billboard 200 and spent 12 weeks on the chart.
Smith, who also worked with Gray on his previous tour, designed Superache “to befit the new album with its very romantic and rose-based aesthetic”, which includes “a big entrance and incorporating a heart in the video design,” he explains.
“I was inspired by the great romantic music videos of the ’80s and early ’90s that Conan i

The DiGiCo consoles were provided through ATK Audiotek/Clair Global

DiGiCo Quantums have The Grammys covered

Details: 28 February 2023

USA - The 65th Grammy Awards, which took place Sunday, 5 February at the Crypto.com Centre in downtown Los Angeles, was an even busier affair than in the past. While it may not have had as many individual song performances as past Grammy Awards events, it more than made up for it with more complex productions, most notably the 35 rappers and four DJs who turned the stage into a 15-minute-long history of rap.
Getting and keeping all the audio together fell to a cohort of veteran mixers of the show and an all-star cast of DiGiCo mix consoles, provided through ATK Audiotek/Clair Global, the event’s sound-reinforcement vendor.
Two Quantum7 consoles were located at front of house, manned by Ron Reaves and Michael Parker, who alternated mixing live performances by the evening’s artists, including Harry Styles, Bonnie Raitt, Lizzo, and Adele, all of whom were also categor

CP Communications deployed 60 Green-GO LTE beltpacks for use by the broadcasters on site

Green-GO on track for Super Bowl LVII

Details: 28 February 2023

USA - Super Bowl LVII provided an opportunity for Green-GO’s LTE Private Wireless product to show off its capabilities. First introduced for use by the NFL for coach-to-coach wireless communications, the big game provided an opportunity to deploy the system on an even larger scale.
“Wireless communications are always a vital part of any large broadcast event,” said Jim Casey, president at JAC Specialty Distribution, the US distributor for Green-GO Digital Communications, “and it’s even more difficult when there are multiple broadcasters coordinating frequencies and technologies over a large area.”
The NFL has already benefited from using the Green-GO LTE products. CP Communications, a Green-GO Dealer, was in search of a wireless intercom solution that did not depend on the already-crowded 2.4 GHz and DECT spectrum.
“We needed a secure, reliable wire

The entire temporary sound system was flown

Rihanna and L-Acoustics fly high at Super Bowl

Details: 28 February 2023

USA - On Sunday, 12 February, nine-time Grammy Award-winner Rihanna took centre-stage during halftime at Super Bowl LVII, which pitted the Kansas City Chiefs against the Philadelphia Eagles. Or, more precisely, she took off, riding a gravity-defying platform flown from the rigging of Glendale, Arizona’s State Farm Stadium, in a production that was as stunning as her eye-popping red outfit.
It was a performance that rivalled the game itself: 13 minutes featuring the best of her big hits, including Umbrella, Work, Diamonds and Run This Town, and a cast of an estimated 100 dancers, many of whom were also suspended in the air. Sound reinforcement was provided by an L-Acoustics K2 system deployed by ATK Audiotek, a Clair Global brand.
The deployment of the halftime sound system was very different this year. In the past, the temporary music syst

The unit is designed for large-scale touring and exterior installations

Prolights launches the Astra Profile600IP

Details: 28 February 2023

Europe - Prolights has released the Astra Profile600IP, a bright, IP65-rated LED moving profile. The unit is designed for large-scale touring and exterior installations.
The Astra Profile600IP offers’ an outstanding performance’ that utilises a 600W white LED engine, reaching 21,000 lumens whilst achieving a flat field beam projection. Its optical system moves linearly from 7° to 62°.
This fixture has a CMY colour mixing system that delivers saturated colours, linear CTO correction from 2,700K to 5,600K and a colour wheel with six colour filters plus a 5,600K high CRI filter.
The Astra Profile600IP includes four-layer motorised framing shutters, an animation wheel, a rotating gobo wheel, one frost filter, a four-facet prism and an iris.

LG‘s True Curve LSCB 1.5mm ultra slim series

LG appoints Midwich MiSupport LED repair centre

Details: 28 February 2023

UK - Midwich and its specialist LED division, PSCo, have announced they have been appointed as LG’s authorised service and repair centre for LED products, delivered through its service department, MiSupport.
The enhanced partnership will see Midwich become the official service partner for in- and out-of-warranty repairs in the UK and Ireland, acting on behalf of LG Business Solutions.
PSCo, part of the Midwich Group, is already the official distributor and accredited technical and service delivery partner for LG LED across the UK & Ireland.
Michael Mclewee, UK & Ireland LED Sales Manager at LG, said, “We partnered with Midwich’s MiSupport because it has enabled us to widen our support coverage and will provide resellers with a clear process for LED product repairs.
“As our authorised service centre, channel partners will receive the best pos

The BT.innotec team - Michael Timmer, Malte Kass and Raphael Berndzen

Ayrton appoints BT.innotec distributor for Germany

Details: 28 February 2023

Europe - Ayrton has announced the appointment of BT.innotec as its new, exclusive distributor for Germany with effect from 1 March 2023.
A new company, yet with 44 years of professional industry experience, BT.innotec was established in 2021 by Michael Timmer and Raphael Berndzen to focus on the distribution of carefully selected professional lighting, trussing and control technology for the entertainment lighting market.
The company will be responsible for the distribution and support of the entire range of Ayrton products.
“Ayrton is a well-recognised A-brand in our industry and we are honoured to be chosen as a partner in the worldwide Ayrton sales network,” says BT.innotec managing director, Michael Timmer. “It is a great opportunity and challenge at the same time, and we are convinced that, due to Ayrton’s technological leadership and stable product

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