USA - American singer Andy Grammer spread his refreshing brand of feel-good music across North America this spring on his The Good Parts tour, a club outing of mostly sold out shows in support of his latest release.
Lighting design and programming was by Joshua Koffman of Interrobang, Inc., who used a combination of Elation ACL 360 Bar moving battens and Platinum Beam 5R moving head beams to light the show. Lighting vendor for the tour was RK Diversified Entertainment of Claremont, California.
Koffman, who has worked with Grammer on one-off shows in the past, says that the lighting rig’s flexibility was key as tour venues varied a great deal. “When we were planning the stage design for this tour we needed to accommodate a wide range of venues, both in stage size and height,” he explains. “Some places had existing rigs, some didn't. Some had high ceiling

USA - It’s 8,504 miles from the island of Manhattan to the South Pacific’s Solomon Islands, but now anyone in the Big Apple can experience this underwater treasure and a host of other nautical wonders right in their own backyard by visiting National Geographic Encounter: Ocean Odyssey.
Located in Times Square, this 60,000sq.ft multi-media experience digitally takes visitors on an entertaining and immersive adventure across the ocean, from the South Pacific to the coast of California, where guests can get up close with dozens of species, including mischievous sea lions, sharks up to 20’ long, a 50’ Humpback whale, a battle between two ferocious Humboldt squids, and much more.
Adding to the immersive environment in the multi-room experience is an elaborate and detailed lighting design by Lightswitch that features a collection of over 200 Chauvet Professio

Europe/USA - The Gorillaz tour in support of their latest album Humanz grew to be the band’s most successful and the hot ticket of 2017 in the USA and Europe. Part of that success is down to some nurturing tour-craft by production manager Joel Stanley.
“The tour started off with some warm ups in little venues,” says Stanley. “Eventually that grew as we added flown scenic elements of video, more lights and ultimately a completely new, and to my mind, quite remarkable PA system. I know Matt [Gorillaz FOH engineer] is really enjoying using it.”
Matt Butcher has been Gorillaz FOH since the band’s inception. Accompanied by Dave Guerin on monitors, neither are shy when it comes to extolling the virtues of their new d&b audiotechnik GSL System as provided by Brown Note Productions of Denver, Colorado. “It is quite a major step forward,” says Butche

UK - In October 2017, former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher released his debut solo album As You Were. The record went straight in at number one in the UK, and went gold in its first week, outselling the rest of the top 10 of the UK Albums Chart combined. It has since been certified platinum. Though the record is outstanding and has received much critical acclaim, Gallagher is in his element in the live arena. The guys responsible for helping make that happen are FOH engineer Shan Hira and monitor man Jon Simcox, both of whom are dependent on their DiGiCo mixing consoles.
It was when playing in bands as a young man that Shan developed an interest in the technical side of the music industry, which began in the recording studio.
“I was fascinated by recording and took an interest in what was going on; that's where my love of mixing desks and outboard was born,

UK - Triple E’s heavy-duty curtain and scenery track took the weight for a new multi-function ‘innovation space’ at The Crystal, Siemens’ recently-completely sustainable UK headquarters on Royal Victoria Dock.
Rigid enough to serve as a suspension joist, UniBeam can be curved to a minimum radius of 2m and has the same dimensions and component range as UniTrack. As a result, The Crystal project benefitted from Triple E’s full range of accessories and carriers, capable of taking up to 385kg.
Commissioned by Siemens to create the space, design agency Jotta tasked Shape Studio with the build, specifying materials such as Bencore, a lightweight/light-permeable, honeycombed panel, custom moulded in Italy, to reflect The Crystal’s unique architecture and environmentalism.
Moving those elements, together with the other components, securely and efficiently,

USA - Resourcefulness runs deep on the high arid plains of West Texas. One way this quality has manifested itself is in the impressive tributes to faraway famous structures that locals here have erected, from the Globe of the Great Southwest (modelled after Shakespeare’s original Globe Theatre in London), to the popular Stonehenge Replica at Odessa’s state college.
The leaders of Life Challenge United Pentecostal Church weren’t trying to duplicate a famous house of worship when they opened their new campus on the city’s Grandview Avenue earlier this year, but they did want to emulate best practices from around the world, which is why they opted to add more colour to their stage and sanctuary lighting.
“Colour rendering has come a long way since our church last installed a lighting system,” said Gabriel Loera, the technical director of Life Cha

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) went back to its roots to support the town of Aylesbury and its Friars music club with their David Bowie statue in the local Market Square, created as a permanent tribute to the location of his 1970s live performances at the club.
Designed by Andrew Sinclair for Friars Aylesbury Community Projects, to celebrate David Bowie's music and local legacy in a permanent way, Earthly Messenger features Bowie as Ziggy Stardust and other characters from his career. A Bowie track is played at random on the hour every hour above the statue.
Unveiled on 25 March 2018, the statue also received extensive local, national and international media interest. It was followed by a special fundraising concert featuring Friars Aylesbury local heroes Marillion, Howard Jones, John Otway and the Dung Beatles.
David Stopps, music promoter

Turkey - High-end restaurant The Galliard has opened a second venue in the north of Istanbul, complete with a Funktion-One sound system.
After five successful years’ operating in the affluent Etiler district of Istanbul, The Galliard restaurant was recently joined by a sister venue, located in the new Vadistanbul development in the northern suburbs of the city. While the new Galliard Brasserie maintains the same emphasis on culinary excellence, it offers a more relaxed setting than its sibling, one which - towards the end of the night - shifts into a DJ-led bar/club mode, powered by the Funktion-One sound system.
Taking its name from a Renaissance dance that swept through France, Spain and Italy in the 16th century, The Galliard family of restaurants waltzes its patrons through a rich menu of western European flavours. Walls decked with the works of respected artists

USA - WADE - Music for River and People is a music experience that has been installed on the centre span of the John R. Siegenthaler Pedestrian Bridge in Nashville. The project is part funded by the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission and free to the public.
Expanding the definition of what is considered songwriting in music city, interactive music composer Aaron Hoke Doenges uses Nashville area rivers and the movement of people to compose constantly evolving and interactive music. Shifting notes and volumes are created in the work using the waters’ changing depths and speeds. To achieve this, Doenges downloads live data about local rivers from the United States Geological Survey website and translates the information into music.
The music moves to reflect the changes in the waters’ flow as the online data is updated. Data from the USGS sensors in the Cum

USA - The much-anticipated new Broadway musical Mean Girls, based on the hit film, premiered at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway in April. Responsible for the production's video sets is British video design team FRAY Studio, who worked closely with director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw and set designer Scott Pask to create the sophisticated, fast-paced and at times, surreal worlds of North Shore High's famous students.
"I love a gratuitously long fade but this was not the show for those," says Finn Ross, co-founder of FRAY Studio on Mean Girls' insta-fast scene changes. "Casey had an absolute stage vision for the show. He sees the video as part of the choreography, so that content moves and changes to the same beats and counts as the performers. The choreography on stage is very detailed, very fast and Tina Fey's script can change location in a beat. O

USA - A little over two years ago, lighting designer Peter Spadaro III dropped in at a local pub outside New York City. He left with a future client, one who would help push his career in new creative directions. His new friend was Matisyahu, a fiercely independent artist who has blazed new paths since he arrived on the music scene in 2004 by blending his Orthodox Jewish heritage with a mix of reggae, beatbox and alternative rock sounds.
Matisyahu, who reached the Billboard Top 40 with his single King Without a Crown, happened to be looking for a lighting designer at the time of their meeting. Spadaro, who was designing an upcoming show at the iconic Capitol Theatre, was seeking a new creative challenge. The two hooked up. In March, the latest chapter in this history was on display, as Spadaro unleashed an intense razor-sharp lightshow for his client at the New Orlean

USA - Over the last two years, American rock band Kansas has toured the country performing their five-time platinum album Leftoverture in its entirety in honour of its 40th anniversary. Following more than 80 tour dates and on the heels of its impending closure this summer, the band has now thrilled fans with the announcement of The Point of Know Return anniversary run.
“We have been blown away by the positive fan response,” comments Kansas guitarist and original member Richard Williams in a press release announcing the tour. Our hope is that fans will enjoy this tour just as much, and hopefully even more.”
Bandit Lites has supplied the lighting for the Leftoverture anniversary tour, crafted by lighting designer Scott Pearson, which features Martin MAC Viper Profiles as the primary spot fixture with half in the air and half in the deck. Pea

Portugal - A range of top Portuguese singers, such as Paulo Gonzo, Diogo Piçarra, D.A.M.A, C4 Pedro and Marco Paulo converged on Gondomar´s Pavillion for Radio Festival Party, the biggest such event in the country.
Brought in to energise the nearly 8000-strong crowd at this year’s Radio Festival Party in Porto were over 64 NEXT-proaudio’s loudspeakers supplied by Mega Ensaio Rental Company.
These NEXT-proaudio systems included arrays of 20 LA212x three-way enclosures for main reinforcement. For low-end, 16 NEXT LAs418 subwoofers stacked by pairs of two units below the main arrays. Two-way Active Line Array LA122A cabinets were deployed as both side-fills, in arrays of four enclosures per side with four LAs118A Active Subwoofers.
The monitoring included 12 active 14” stage monitors LAm114xA while the front-fill comprised four LA122A. The entire setup was p

UK - London-based Capital Sound Hire has added yet further to its Outline inventory with the addition of the Italian company’s latest multi-role processor, the Newton.
Officially launched at Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt recently, the flexibility of Newton offers “a new level of convenience and system integration possibilities to professional users throughout the audio industry”.
Capital’s Paul Timmins reports, “We were introduced to the concept by the Outline team when we were buying into the Outline GTO C-12 system during late 2015 and early 2016. We took an immediate interest and, having then followed its development over the last two years, we are incredibly excited we have received our first production units.”
Robin Conway adds, “My interest was immediately piqued during my first introduction to the unit and the concept, then our internal team

UK - KV2 Audio’s rise and rise within the Broadway, West End and UK touring theatre world has happened in no small part due to a band of sound designers willing to listen to products outside of the so-called established mainstays of the theatre market.
One of these designers reaping the rewards of KV2’s True Point Source approach to loudspeaker design is UK based Tom Marshall.
First exposed to KV2 in 2014, Tom has been specifying KV2 products with increasing regularity and currently has five UK-wide touring productions out with KV2 – An Officer & A Gentleman, Jungle Book, Sunset Boulevard, Crazy For You and Flashdance.
These are in addition to numerous other shows at Leicester’s Curve, pantos in Richmond and Glasgow and the recurring UK winter tour of Nativity! The Musical2017-2020.
“I was introduce

Europe - Philips Lighting reports that its Philips VL6000 Beam luminaires are delivering stand-out visuals for American rock band Foo Fighters' current world tour, which heads towards Europe this summer.
Foo Fighters' long-term lighting designer Dan Hadley chose the powerful, retro-styled Philips VL6000 Beam fixtures for very particular reasons. With the diagonal square artwork of the band's ninth studio album Concrete and Gold as the inspiration for his basic motif, he wanted to incorporate its distinctive 45˚ and 90˚ angles into his lighting design.
"The main thing I needed from the ground row was a fat beam and a fixture that would keep a balance with the fixtures that hang above," says Hadley. "Once I saw the VL6000 I knew there was no substitute. There wasn't another fixture that I knew of that came close to offering the look of the fat beam and the big reflecto

Denmark - With the summer festival season just round the corner, bringing live productions from small to huge out into the open air, sales of Yamaha’s new Rivage PM7 digital mixing system have made a strong start throughout Europe. In Denmark three companies have already invested in four Rivage PM7 systems.
The first Danish company to take delivery of Rivage PM7 was Dansk Lyd og Lys A/S (Danish Sound and Light) in Odense, a company with 45 years at the heart of the country’s music and entertainment market. As one of Denmark’s foremost technical production companies, the company provides sales, dry hire and full productions to high profile national / international performers and corporate clients.
”We have been using Yamaha digital mixers since the LS9 and M7CL, through to the CL and QL series,” says Dansk Lyd og Lys chief operating officer and partner Kristia

World - Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of their eponymous debut album, Irish rockers The Script are currently on a world tour, with FOH engineer Steve Pattison (Amy Winehouse, Wet Wet Wet, Glasvegas) behind the controls of an Allen & Heath dLive system.
Supplied by rental and production specialists Adlib, Pattison’s dLive set-up comprises an S7000 console, DM64 MixRack (with Dante, Waves V3 and superMADI cards) and DX32 Expanders.
As Pattison explains, he chose the dLive primarily for its overall sound quality and powerful built-in processing.
“The dLive system is really clear and open-sounding, so I can mould the sound and tones of the instruments to get the result I want,” Pattison says. “If I want to warm up an instrument and give it a valve edginess I can do that, just by choosing a preamp from the library and tweaking away. It’

The Netherlands - Around 500 CLF Lighting fixtures were deployed during De Coolste Baan van Nederland which was held at Olympic Stadium Amsterdam. Centre of attention was the 400m speed skating track that was used for the ISU World Allround Speed Skating Championships 2018 on 9-11 March.
In co-operation with production company For Live, LD Henk-Jan van Beek (Light-H-Art) chose different CLF Lighting fixtures to illuminate the speed skating track and all the areas around it. With 350 pieces, the CLF Yara LEDPAR was everywhere. Most fixtures illuminated all the flags in the surrounding area.
Ruud van den Berg, owner of For Live, comments: “We have seriously challenged the fixtures. The fixtures were deployed 24/7 with temperatures below zero for a significant period but the fixtures didn’t flinch. We have a large rental stock of multiple CLF fixtures and we wi

USA - A High End Systems Hog 4 console is touring the world with rock group Evanescence.
LD Marty Postma of NY-based Retinal Resonance has been using the Hog 4 console to control Evanescence’s Synthesis Live tour in North America. Postma designed and operated this tour until the end of 2017 and for the 2018 leg, he turned the reins over to LD Dan Hardiman to direct the tour in Australia in February, followed by dates in Europe and the UK.
Considering crazy weather patterns, unpredictable festival rigs in fields, to the bumpy cobblestones of European truck touring, Postma finds the Hog 4 console to meet and beat all challenges.
"It’s been through extreme cold and extreme heat. I’ve run the console at minus 20 and minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and the console booted up, no problem. Through three tours of South America, bouncing off air freight every day

Canada - Being creatively involved with emerging artists is always exciting, and lighting designer Matthieu Larivee has relished the chance to work with American singer-songwriter Børns on his current Blue Madonna tour.
Matthieu decided to put 15 x Robe MegaPointes right at the heart of the lighting design.
The founder and artistic director of Lüz Studio in Montreal also designed set and lighting for Børns’ first tour, Dopamine, having received a call after his management saw and heard good things about his creativity for indie rockers, Broken Bells.
For that first Børns’ tour there was no LD on the road, so Matthieu produced a design and spec which could be followed by local LDs.
With Børns’ rising popularity, everything has moved up several levels on the production for this one, and the visual starting point for the Blue Mado

Romania - When Romanian sound engineer Alex Serb left distribution and integration company Paradigma Teknik to become a freelancer, he soon started to provide technical support in live shows for Hard Rock Café Bucharest.
He contacted his former colleagues to indicate the facility needed a new sound system - and Paradigma wasted no time in recommending a Martin Audio W8VDQ and CDD solution based on trust and the reputation of previous Martin Audio installations undertaken by the distributors.
"They wanted to change the entire sound system with a new modern setup and we provided a solution. We sent a technical proposal, taking into consideration the specification put forward by Alex," recalls Paradigma general manager, Laura Angelescu. She added that the bid had been highly competitive, with several other front-line speaker manufacturers delivering proposals. Paradigma

UK - Lighting designer Will Potts found inspiration in the subtle shapes of nature for his current lighting and show design for award-winning singer Rag'n'Bone Man (see LSi April 2018 for a detailed report). Potts' design incorporates 'sacred' geometric shapes and an illustrated backdrop of personal significance to the singer. To carefully light these elements, he chose the Claypaky Scenius Unico.
Having worked with the singer for little over a year, the designer delved deep into the psychology of Rory Graham's (a.k.a Rag'n'Bone Man) music, drawing on recurring themes within the artist's debut album 'Human' to inspire and craft his detailed show design.
"There's lots of religious and spiritual references in

USA - Stars from all musical genres came to headline shows and after parties during the Masters Golf Tournament this month. Among this stellar group is rapper and film star Nelly. The double Grammy winner, who has sold 21m records in his career, got a jump on the festivities this year, when he came to Augusta in early March to perform a Masters warmup concert of sorts at the city’s popular Country Club live music venue.
With an artist of Nelly’s stature visiting his mid-sized venue, house LD John Berret wanted to go all out to create some special looks on stage. He did just that, with help from a collection of ground stacked Chauvet Professional Rogue fixtures, supplied by Quest Sound & Productions LLC.
“Normally, we keep a lot of intense lighting on the dance floor, but with Nelly we wanted to pull everyone’s attention to the centre of the stage,” says

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