UK - Event production specialist Leisuretec UK, headed by Phil Jameson, has utilised imagination and resources to light up Wigan’s DW Stadium in a variety of vibrant colour combinations, showing support for the National Health Service (NHS), essential workers and various community initiatives as everyone pulls together to beat the coronavirus pandemic.
The venue is used by both Wigan Athletic football club and Wigan Warriors rugby league club, and Leisuretec UK is the preferred event technical supplier, which entails providing kit, services and crew for numerous corporate activities happening there – around two to three a week for most of the year.
With all that and other work on hold, the idea of firing up some lights started at the Leisuretec UK warehouse in support the UK’s weekly Thursday night Clap For Carers action which Phil illuminated with their 12 x Rob

USA - When the Coeur d’Alene casino, hotel and resort in Worley, Idaho, refurbished its technical facilities, Alcons Audio pro-ribbon systems were chosen.
Established in 1993, Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel is a premium hotel and resort with a casino, spa, golf club, a large live events space and additional, more intimate entertainment lounges. The first phase of a major upgrade covered the main live performance space, which included an enlarged stage, new bleacher seating at the back of the venue and radically updated technical infrastructure.
“Casinos like Coeur d’Alene attract international performing artists and the owners wanted to set themselves apart from other venues. They wanted a high end system that would meet rider specifications and be something that engineers were excited to mix on,” says Alcons Audio North American sales manager David Rahn.

Australia - Northern Beaches Christian School (NBCS) In Sydney, Australia, has recently completed an AV upgrade of its key performance and worship spaces, anchored on Allen & Heath’s dLive mixing system.
The school’s Marina Pryor Centre for the Performing Arts (MPC) and CITY indoor / outdoor meeting space each have a capacity of 800 and play host to an ever-changing programme of student assemblies, worship services, musicals, concerts and celebrations.
Alan Schutz, the school’s general manager, explains the decision to update: “The MPC systems were designed in 2009 and the CITY systems in 2012. Technology has forged ahead and some of our needs have changed since that time. The age of some components was apparent in the difficulty of operation. There were major differences between the MPC and CITY infrastructure and gear and the complex systems required sign

USA - The concept was key to everyone behind Keith Urban’s Nashville drive-in concert on 14 May, not just for the Vanderbilt University Hospital medical heroes, in whose honour the event was held, but also for the team that managed to create an immersive stage setting for the one-hour show on short notice.
“The paramount thing about this gig for Keith and everyone else was being socially distant and as safe as possible,” said Brent Maxon, Urban’s lighting director. “Our goal was to involve the fewest people possible in setup, while still putting together a quality show for this very important audience of special guests.”
Maxon and the rest of the team began working on a plan to achieve this goal only five days before the surprise show was scheduled to begin. They had no precedent to draw ideas from, since this was the first drive-in theatre concert by a maj

Australia - Lighting designer Brenton Slattery from Scene Change Brisbane chose Astera AX1 and Titan Tube wireless battery-powered LED fixtures to create a memorable light sculpture and high-impact messaging for the 2020 Anzac Day commemorations.
The sign spelt out ‘LEST WE FORGET’ in bold, bright, positive letters and was highly visible on the waterside lawn at Howard Smith Wharfs in the Queensland state capital.
Brenton is based at the Howard Smith Wharfs multi-venue site comprising a series of regenerated – and now heritage-listed – riverfront buildings on the Brisbane River, overlooked by Story Bridge which was constructed around the same time, between 1934 and 1940.
He took up his post in February after three years of freelancing, and now he and his team coordinate technical requirements for Scene Change Brisbane’s diverse events schedule that incl

Israel - A star-studded line of music stars and artists performed during a protest concert in Charles Clore Park, Tel Aviv, titled Behind The Scenes: An Assembly of Solidarity to draw attention to the plight of freelancers, backstage technicians and all the zero-hours contract workers in the Israeli event industry whose livelihoods have been decimated as the music and live event industry has been paused in the fight to control COVID-19.
This solidarity rally was initiated and produced by Tali Yaacobi Events Production and backed by Inbar and Marius Nacht – an Israeli entrepreneur, social activist, and philanthropist – who made a generous donation to all the crew working on the show.
The lighting and audio were supplied by Argaman Systems – including a large Robe moving light rig which was designed by Cochavi & Klein and operated by two of Israel’s b

USA - Roger Sharp is proud of his region’s music tradition. His upstate New York stomping grounds have nurtured a wealth of talent in virtually every genre, from Lana Del Ray, the Goo Goo Dolls, and Ani Di Franco to Moe, Rick James, Lou Gramm, 10,000 Maniacs and Chuck Mangione.
The owner of High Peaks Event Production, Sharp has always entertained the idea of putting on a summer festival honouring this local tradition, even starting a Facebook page dedicated to this mission. But keeping up with the demands of his growing business prevented him from getting around to realizing this dream. He finally found the time though after the COVID-19 lockdown put all events on hold.
With his event business halted, Sharp built a lockdown-safe recording studio and stage in his warehouse, and launched a weekly Sunday night livestream, NY Rock N Roots Festival to highlight lo

USA - Stephen F. Austin State University, located on a forested campus in Nacogdoches, Texas, is home to more than more than 13,000 students enrolled in approximately 80 undergraduate majors. In total, the university offers 120 areas of study across its six academic colleges: business, education, fine arts, forestry and agriculture, sciences and mathematics, and liberal and applied arts.
Among the many points of pride within Stephen F. Austin are its music and sound recording technology programme and its school of music’s jazz bands - a pair that has found a harmonious relationship with one another thanks to a powerful Dante network.
“The sound recording programme was started in 2010 with the idea of focusing heavily on the technology that was transforming that space,” says James F. Adams, assistant professor of music and director of sound recording technology a

France - Over the course of a three-year hiatus, the newly-renamed La Halle ô Grains theatre in Bayeux, Normandy, reopened to the public at the end of 2019 after a thorough redesign to address the latest expectations in terms of reception, accessibility, aesthetics, visibility, and comfort.
This update was undertaken in order to offer the best possible experience to spectators, and a more versatile technical palette for incoming artists and crews. The new hall now boasts a complete APG loudspeaker system installed by the ISA Group, an integrating partner of the APG network, enabling the theatre’s management to count on high-precision, high-quality acoustics.
“The specifications were drawn up around the programming and shows, 80% of which are theatrical,” comments Romain Motte, general manager of La Halle ô Grains for the past five years. “We were looking for

Germany - DRIVE.IN Concerts of Monheim has come up with a solution that allows music fans of the area to attend a live concert again.
DRIVE.IN Concerts Monheim is a series of events in which the crowd park their cars in front of the stage just like at a drive-in movie. Running through June, with a variety of live acts and DJs performing, the concert series features an impressive stage set-up that relies on Elation Professional and ADJ lighting fixtures.
The series kicked off in early May with a live performance by Cologne-based rock band Kasalla as part of their Et Jitt Car-Salla tour of drive-in concerts. Since then, most weekends have seen two or three concerts taking place at the outdoor site, featuring artists such as DJ Quicksilver, Da Hool, Moguai, TOPIC and The Disco Boys. Future performers are set to include electronic acts Fiasko and YouNotUs, as well a

USA - The Ahava Festival held its inaugural event at the Woldenberg Riverfront Park in New Orleans, Louisiana in early March. With no admission fee, attendees were encouraged to take in the sounds, sights, and tastes and, if possible, to donate to 110 hard-working local charities.
The weather was beautiful, and the event raised over $100,000. Danley Sound Labs supported the Ahava Festival with loudspeakers, subwoofers, and multi-channel amplifiers for all of its three stages.
“The whole concept behind the Ahava Festival is based on sharing love and giving to the people in New Orleans who are in need,” explained Matt Dupuy, Ahava Festival technical director. Dupuy is a system designer and installation technician at local AV integration firm Assurance AV Solutions of Mandeville, Louisiana, as well as the FOH engineer for New Orleans’ party band favourite, Groovy 7

Spain - Occupying a downtown location just a stone’s throw from the famous Passeig de Gracia, the Khalijia Lounge & Restaurant is Barcelona’s newest nightspot with an oriental twist.
Offering everything from Lebanese and Moroccan-inspired food to exotic cocktails coupled with live music, Khalijia aims to cater for a discerning clientele that appreciates quality at every level. Barcelona-based AV systems integration specialists, Silence Electroacústica S.L., were commissioned to design and install the audio, lighting and DMX control systems throughout the new venue. Silence opted for a KV2 Audio system based on the EX Series of active loudspeakers.
From an audio perspective, the system needed to handle a wide spectrum of requirements, from extremely high quality, low level music reproduction for the lunchtime and early evening crowds going right through to high

USA - New York City may be over a thousand miles away, but local company, JEM Productions, created the look and feel of Manhattan jazz club at its warehouse- turned-studio in Wausau, WI, as it hosted a livestream fundraising show by the Sara Rifleman Trio.
The performance by the Wisconsin-based musicians was the latest in a series of livestreamed shows emanating from the lighting and audio company’s makeshift studio. It was the smoothest production to date, according to Joe Ellis, president of JEM Productions.
“We’ve been doing these for weeks now, ever since the Covid-19 shutdown started,” said Ellis. “I think we’re getting familiar with this process! Our lighting and production crew did a really great job creating the look of a classic New York jazz club on the set. Sometimes, the simpler the look, the harder you have to dig into the art of design. This

USA - Chicago-based Charles Ford and his business partner Brandon Clark from Creative Live Control have developed a professional streaming production service - lighting, audio, cameras and broadcast - that meets all the social distancing requirements, can be installed and run by the two of them.
While the challenges of producing special high impact lighting for community lighting projects like Chicago Unite at Night have been stimulating and fun, Charles and Brandon also need to generate some business as all their touring work has currently been cancelled, so they hit on the idea of the professional live streaming service.
The living room of Charles’ condo has been transformed into a pop-up studio space and after a couple of test runs, there is a queue of local artists lined up to visit and use the facilities.
Brandon completed all the networking, intern

USA - Bending Lite Productions’ Erik Mahowald has enjoyed a long tour of duty with American electronic musician and DJ Dillon Francis, noted for popularising the ‘Moombahton’ genre - a fusion of house music combined with reggaeton.
Last summer, Erik conceived a lighting design for Coachella 2019 based around 60 GLP JDC1 hybrid strobes, but with the intention of bringing it to major headline events following the reveal.
Working alongside creative content director and VJ, Mario Adato; production manager, Nathan Rebolledo and tour manager, Mike Finn, Mahowald programmed the lighting to animate a set that combined complementary surround elements with creating big moments of drama to produce a high-octane party vibe for audiences to become immersed in.
In the centre of this was Dillon Francis himself, performing from an elevated booth, housing his CDJ setup. The

Albania - Headquartered in Tirana, ASLV (Albanian Sound, Lighting and Video) has operated nationwide since 2013 and, with its team provides sound, lighting, video, staging and structures, as well as creative technical solutions for concerts, festivals, theatre and opera productions, key corporate events, expos and more throughout the country. Specialist services also include consultation and design.
Recently appointed as exclusive Outline distributor for Albania, following its corporate policy of ensuring its clients equipment that is technically the best for perfectly meeting their requirements, ASLV has also taken delivery of an Outline Superfly Silver audio package, one of the three turnkey set-ups conceived in recent months by the Italian audio manufacturer.
Superfly loudspeaker systems have a true three-way (HF-MF-LF) design, but the dual high-efficiency 10” tra

UK - Seventy-five years after the end of the Second World War in Europe, London’s Royal Albert Hall (RAH) hosted We’ll Meet Again for VE Day 75 with Katherine Jenkins to honour those who gave their lives so that subsequent generations could come to know peace and freedom. Event production supplier, SFL provided the audio and video production for the live performance. The event was organised by TBI Media and Snappin’ Turtle Productions, both long-standing clients of SFL.
With the world overcast by the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic, the SSAFA armed forces charity and The Mayor of London joined together with the noted London venue, brought the nation together by offering an authentic musical experience.
For the first time since The Blitz, the RAH stood empty for an event, but its true life force - the audience - were able to enjoy the performance of Welsh m

UK - GoboPlus.com continues to operate in these difficult times with reduced staff numbers, but remains determined to support to its customers with a continued service of both custom and stock gobos. In recent weeks the company has seen a huge increase in gobos celebrating the NHS. Goboplus.com responded by designing a range of NHS gobos for its website and has seen this move mushroom into an online campaign which is steadily growing week by week.
“We have received orders from across the UK from many customers who have been expressing their support on Thursday nights as they #clapforcarers in celebration of the commitment and strength being made by all front-line staff,” says GoboPlus.com’s Paul de Ville. “We have been sharing these pictures on social media in the hope that the message will spread far and wide to show how proud we are of all the hard-work

USA - Just as it does at outdoor festivals, nature can work with or against the LD who lights a drive-in concert. Matt Collier got a taste of both on Saturday, 23 May when he lit a two-hour show by jam band Spafford at the Digital Drive-In outside Phoenix.
The brilliant orange sunset that filtered through the feathered clouds at the start of the show served up one of those breath-taking spectacles that happen on special evenings this time of year in the dessert. Along with this gentle touch, however, nature also showed its harsher side with some strong southwest winds.
Drawing on his extensive experience touring the festival circuit with Spafford and other bands, Collier adroitly handled whatever Mother Nature dished out, incorporating the colourful sky into his design for the drive-in show, while also coming up with a substitute for the fog he planned to use before t

USA - XR Studios leveraged the latest technology from disguise to bring the future of broadcast to primetime American television when Katy Perry performed her new single Daisies on the season finale of American Idol. The project relied on the collaboration between the creative and technical teams led by XR Studios, with content by Silent Partners Studio using Notch VFX, direction by Silent House Productions and PRG North America as the production vendor.
“Started on the #AmericalIdol stage, ended up in a whole new world,” as Katy Perry wrote on her Instagram, the performance has since been watched by over 9m viewers around the globe with over 2m Youtube hits on top of the 7.3m strong viewers on the night.
“Having disguise for delivery of this content was crucial. There's simply no other solution out there that I would trust with this,” says JT Ro

USA - The 62nd Grammy Awards became the first major broadcast event to utilise a large complement of Claypaky Xtylos fixtures when lighting designers Bob Dickinson and Noah Mitz of Full Flood Inc. deployed 60 Xtylos for Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani’s duet, Nobody But You.
In addition, 118 Claypaky Mythos 2 fixtures were part of the main set rig and the dish stage at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. PRG was the lighting vendor.
The show’s creative producer Raj Kapoor asked the lighting designers for a lighting installation that would separate Shelton and Stefani from the band and enfold them as they performed the romantic ballad.
“Raj was looking for lighting as architecture to surround the duo,” says Mitz. “We first thought of Mythos 2, but when we realised Xtylos would be available we made the switch.”
He notes that Xtylos had been

USA - The new Cross Church DFW satellite campus that sits on 27 acres on the busy Blue Mound Road is reflective of the dramatic expansion that has taken place in North Fort Worth recently. Parent church, North Richland Hills Baptist, opened the spacious satellite in September 2019, after two years of planning, to reach the increasing number of worshippers settling in the area.
Reflecting the forward-looking orientation of the new campus is an AVL system designed and installed by Paragon 360. Outfitted with the latest audio and video equipment, the new system is used to broadcast services and events to lobbies and classrooms throughout the expansive Cross Church facility, as well as to the North Richland Hills Baptist home base, strengthening the connection between the two campuses.
Helping to ensure the quality of those videos is a stage lighting rig that features Cha

South Africa - On the evening of 19 May, Mark Gaylard of technical production company MGG and his crew of 20 replicated a version of the South African flag using 214 lighting fixtures, predominantly Robe, at the company’s premises in Johannesburg.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, MGG has thought on its feet and adapted to the new environment, becoming an ‘essential service’ provider by offering a virtual studio for broadcasting and streaming. Other activities have included assembling information noticeboards, developing a hands-free door opener, and producing essential PPE kit like masks.
“I wanted to shine our lights in solidarity for South Africa, and I wanted to reach out to Robe and the other various #TogetherWeAreStronger and #LightTheSky projects,” Mark explained. “Also, I wanted to highlight the plight of the thousands of freelancers in our industry, m

Belgium - The 150-year-old Koningklijke Stadschouwburg (Royal City Theatre) is the largest and most prestigious of five venues managed by Cultuur Centrum Brugge (CC Brugge) in the historic Belgian city.
In late 2019 the organisation invested heavily in new Yamaha digital mixing systems for all venues, with eight CL and QL series digital mixing consoles, associated I/O racks and Ethernet switches installed on new Dante networks.
Opened in 1869, the 700-seat Koninklijke Stadschouwburg was originally designed as an elite temple of culture. Nowadays, together with the Magdalenazaal, De Biekorf, Daverlo and De Dijk theatres, it welcomes a diverse audience to a variety of modern theatre, live music, dance, seminars, movies, presentations and much more.
Philip Van Loo of PVL Sound & Light BV is a long-time supplier, consultant and project manager for CC Brugge. He i

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