UK - Beauty and the Beast enjoyed a six-week run at Byre Theatre in St Andrews, Scotland, as a pantomime produced by Bard in the Botanics.
To accent the twists and turns of the story,  lighting designer Rory Beaton relied on the vivid colours and bright output of four Chauvet Professional Maverick MK2 Spot and four Maverick MK2 Wash fixtures.
“The Mavericks provided the subtle ‘theatrical’ element to the lighting whilst simultaneously supplying flashy, showbiz looks to make the big numbers feel like a large-scale musical,” said Beaton. “The colour mixing ability of the MK3 Washes was what allowed us to switch between the pastel world of the story and the bright, vivid saturated energy of the musical numbers. I was really impressed by their sheer punch - in fact, I’m not sure we ever had the washes at full output.”
Whereas the wash fixtures p

China - Chinese rock star Wang Feng set out last September on a 30-date national tour, The Times Tour, to support his album 29 Guoling Lane.
At the heart of the audio system for this ever-growing production lies a DiGiCo SD7 at FOH and an SD5 at monitors, supplied by Racpro, DiGiCo’s distributor for the territory.
Mr Shaogang Jin, Wang Feng’s chief FOH engineer and sound designer, is no stranger to such productions. He is one of China’s foremost sound engineers and has been involved with events such as the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony and The Voice of China. He has been working with Wang Feng for many years.
Mr Shaogang Jin and Mr Guobang Lu are making good use of the SD7 at FOH, with monitor engineers Mr Yong Shao and Mr Longfei Ai utilising the SD5. Mr Shaogang Lin comments that the choice of mixing consoles is based on their in

Taiwan - The opening of the Silks Club, a five-star hotel in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, was marked with a launch party spanning across various venues within the hotel.
The main lighting focus was on the entrance lobby performance area, with further abstract performances at the pool deck. Roger Sansom Productions masterminded this, commissioning experienced Malaysia-based LD Steve Nield, who specified 40 GLP X4 atoms.
The lighting designer has a long relationship with GLP Asia’s Søren Storm, who met up at GLP’s Hong Kong office late last year where Michael Muenz, general manager of GLP Asia, demoed the units. “At the same time, we also discussed some mounting options for the X4 atom,” remembers Storm.
In keeping with the Japanese-themed design, the lighting at the entrance lobby was designed to reflect a very stark and linear concept while at the same time havin

New Zealand - Veteran FOH engineer Kevin Bennett recently mixed Bic Runga’s Drive 20th Anniversary Tour on a complete JBL by Harman VTX A12 sound system, provided by distributor Jands NZ.
Released in August 1997, Bic Runga’s debut release Drive is regarded as one of the most successful albums in New Zealand music history. In addition to winning Album Of The Year at the 1998 New Zealand Music Awards, Drive sold more than 70,000 copies and catapulted Bic Runga to international success.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album’s release, Bic Runga recently embarked on a series of concerts in which she performed Drive in its entirety, along with a selection of greatest hits from her subsequent multi-platinum albums.
Jands NZ provided FOH engineer Kevin Bennett with a complete JBL by Harman VTX A12 sound reinforcement system for

USA - Located inside the Fiesta Rancho Hotel and Casino, the Kuwa Nightclub is a Latin-themed club that incorporates a sound reinforcement system that draws from the Event, Vantec, and Action Series catalogues of Spanish D.A.S. Audio.
International House of Music (IHOMI), a full-service music and audio equipment supplier, was contracted to design and deploy the new sound system at the Kuwa Nightclub, along with the lighting and video provisions. Oscar Naranjo Jr. is the company's sales manager and primary audio technician. He discussed the Kuwa Nightclub project and his decision for installing D.A.S. loudspeakers.
“Kuwa’s new sound system is a pretty comprehensive setup,” Naranjo explained. “The house mains consist of 16 Event 210A 3-way active line arrays, with eight enclosures each for the left and right hangs. Positioned behind each of these loudspeaker clus

USA - For decades, Sammy Hagar has been considered one of rock and roll’s all-time greatest lead singers and musicians. Hagar’s passion for music is rivalled only by his commitment to giving back. The best of both worlds recently came together when Hagar was honoured for his philanthropic work at the annual Adopt the Arts Rock Gala at the Avalon Theatre in Hollywood.
Kings of Chaos FOH engineer and production manager Greg Rideout chose a selection of microphones from DPA Microphones for the high-profile event. Adopt the Arts co-founder and former drummer for Guns n’ Roses and Velvet Revolver Matt Sorum took to the stage along with an all-star line-up of some of the biggest names in rock and roll, featuring the Kings of Chaos including Matt Sorum, Steve Stevens, Billy Duffy, Dean and Robert DeLeo, Kenny Aronoff, Michael Anthony, Paul Ill, Steve Luthaker, Phil X,

The Netherlands - With seven Grammy Awards and more than 100m albums sold worldwide, Gloria Estefan is one of the most successful Latin crossover artists of all time. The superstar’s latest smash hit, however, came in the form of a sell-out Broadway musical, On Your Feet, which depicts her moving and inspiring life story.
Tony Award-winning Lighting Designer Kenneth Posner utilized the Chauvet DJ Intimidator Beam LED 350 on the show’s original Broadway run. Now the fast-moving fixture is enjoying an encore in the musical‘s current run at the Beatrix Theatre in Utrecht, courtesy of Stage Entertainment Netherlands.
New York-based Dutch LD Gertjan Houben, who functioned as the Associate LD on the Utrecht show, has specified 48 Intimidator 350 Beam fixtures, supplied by Ampco Flashlight. Although the décor and scenic elements of the Dutch production were id

Croatia - Central, a high-end night club in Split, has been fitted with a sound system from d&b.
The two-floor, 1,000-capacity venue is a short walk from the Diocletian’s Palace and comprises four bars and three VIP areas. Working closely with Tomislav Koran (Kuki) at Croatian distributor Audio Tehnika, d&b was the system of choice.
Kuki explains: “Central’s owners have a lot of experience and success in running clubs. They understand the importance of system design in terms of the customer experience inside the venue, and also the exterior environment. Split is an ancient, tightly packed city - so emission problems will be disruptive to their business.”
The d&b system designed by Kuki is based around a L/R Y-Series line array and a Bi6-SUB array with E12s for fills around the venue. The DJ booth is equipped with a pair of MAX2 monitors for fo

USA - Former One Direction band member Niall Horan has gone solo and is on his current Flicker Sessions tour, with Special Event Services supplying the lighting for a string of North American tour dates last autumn, including 16 pixel bar wash luminaires from the Elation Professional Chorus Line.
Production, lighting and scenic design for the tour is courtesy of UK-based production design company Okulus with lighting direction by David ‘Bickie’ Lee. Creative direction for the tour was by Modest Management and Okulus.
The Chorus Line 16 pixel bar fixtures, 42-inch long (107 cm) colour-changing pixel bars, played a special role from static positions behind the risers. Projecting high and low through the band or aligned to shoot above musicians’ heads, they gave what lighting director Lee describes as an unbroken blade-like look. “From behind the risers th

Europe - English indie rock band alt-J headed out last June on their Relaxer tour in support of their latest album. The trio performed in Europe, North America and Asia through to February 2018, with an L‑Acoustics K Series rig providing consistency of sound across diverse venues.
The system was supplied by the rental arm of Rat Sound Systems, whose association with alt‑J started in 2015 and the company has been their worldwide audio supplier ever since. With a couple of years touring with the band under their belts, FOH engineer Lance Reynolds, monitor engineer Brett Heet, systems engineer Tom Worley are fully versed in the requirements of a show that plays in vast spaces, such as the Olympiahalle Munich or Hallenstadion in Zurich and outdoor venues such as Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado.
“The simple answer to why we use L‑Acoustics is that I think

UK - Singer-songwriter Duo Lipa, who recently performed at the BRIT Awards, has enjoyed a strong 2017.
For a year and a half, FOH engineer Will Nicholson and monitor man Alex Cerutti have used their DiGiCo SD5 and SD12 consoles respectively.
Nicholson, who has a previous working relationship with the artist's production manager, Pete Abbott, says: “We worked together on Icona Pop, and a couple of smaller artists; also, [musical director] William Bowerman is a friend of mine, so when Pete gave me a shout to see if I was interested, I was keen to get involved.”
Nicholson has been a DiGiCo user for five years and says the scalability of the SD range is ideal for his FOH workflow.
“Modern pop touring is often characterised by two significant factors: time and budget,” he explains. “Whilst I haven’t had to make use of the smallest surfaces in the [

South Africa - Singer songwriter Jesse Clegg recently completed his traditional national December acoustic tour, which utilised Martin Audio’s MLA Mini.
The system was introduced to him by Audiosure, Martin Audio’s South African distributor, with whom he has enjoyed a close relationship in recent years, since they first introduced him to a mixing desk. When he and long-term sound engineer, Verny Scholtz, saw the need for a compact, portable, high quality PA Audiosure jumped in.
Alison Taman, general manager of Audiosure, knew right away that Martin Audio’s MLA Mini would the right fit for Jesse’s tour. The locations ranged from open-air botanical gardens to intimate lounges and only the MLA has the power, control and portability to pull off every situation without compromise.
“As the distributors for Martin Audio in South Africa, we are thrilled that a

South Africa - The Ultra South Africa music festival took place in February over two legs, visiting the Cape Town Stadium on 9 February and the Expo Centre in Nasrec, Johannesburg on 10 February.
Supplying the full technical for the Ultra events, Gearhouse Group was going into the production raincoats. For the Johannesburg leg of the tour, Gearhouse invested in 128 Selbyguard Rainroof covers and bases, along with 12 Selbyguard Air Domes from DWR Distribution. To transport these items, a further 11 Dolly Rainroofs and 2 Dolly Airdomes were bought.
The Gearhouse team was spot on in its predictions about the rain and utilised 128 bases with Rainroof covers (64 medium and 64 extra-large) and the preplanning really paid off - in JHB not a single fixture went down this year.
Setting up the Selbyguard covers is simple and is really like rigging a standard moving light.

UK - The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) has upgraded its lighting fleet, adding seven new Martin by Harman MAC Encore Performance moving heads to its shared stock.
Commissioned by Paul Halgarth, lecturer in lighting, electrics and programming at LIPA, and supplied by Martin by Harman dealer Stage Electrics, the new fixtures will enable students on the Theatre and Performance Design and Technology degree courses to access the latest technology.
Halgarth says: “We always need the latest technology and we pride ourselves in having industry standard equipment. It’s vital as students can go from our course straight into employment.
“I specifically wanted units with framing shutters because we didn't have any,” he continues. “Stage [Electrics] were extremely helpful and I looked at all the leading [competitive] brands as well as the Martin M

UK - Thanks to songs such as You Raise Me Up and Have I Told You Lately, Russell Watson’s blend of classical opera and catchy pop has succeeded. On the road recently with Watson’s latest tour was LD Ollie Wilkinson of Arranpaul LTD, who treated Watson’s show to an all-encompassing visual spectacle with a selection of Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Wash fixtures.
Wanting to provide a stunning set of visuals for the Manchester-born opera singer, Wilkinson worked together with Production Manager Dan Tiley to produce a show of grandiose measures. To provide illumination for one of the defining features of the stage - a wraparound curtain behind the band - Wilkinson utilised the 19 (15W) RGBW quad-LEDs of the Rogue fixtures to excellent effect.
“I wanted to wash the entire backdrop with colour,” commented Wilkinson. “The saturated colours of the Rog

USA - When Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas presented its annual The Gift of Christmas show in December 2017 design collaborators UVLD took control to a new level employing Claypaky Scenius Profiles and Mythos2 fixtures for the spectacular, 90-minute multimedia production.
The production featured Santa and his workshop in Act One, a choral interlude in Act Two and a living nativity in Act Three. This season, new music and a new script opened the show; two-thirds of the lighting cues occurred in Act One and five days were devoted to programming them.
“In the past we’ve had 10 or 12 dedicated follow spots to cover people flying and various audience activities,” says UVLD lighting designer Matt Webb. “We discovered a new follow spot system and decided to give it a shot. It allowed us to utilise moving lights as follow spots.”
“We could

USA - The Admiral Theatre, an art deco movie house in Bremerton, Washington, is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.
The Admiral Theatre Foundation, which helped renovate the venue in the 1990s, raised $1.2m and recently completed upgrades to its infrastructure and sound reinforcement system, adding 11 new Clair Brothers 1AM+ and 1.5AM+ powered monitors.
"Performers these days are looking for hi-fi sound in their monitors. The days of a simple 'horn-in-your-face' are gone," said Andrew Saylor, production manager for the Admiral Theatre, who also plays the role of Audio 1, house system tech, and frequent FOH mixer.
"In our search for new monitors, we wanted something that could handle volume while still remaining punchy, transparent, and bright. We demoed a lot of different top-name manufacturers, and the Clair Brothers 1AM+ and 1.5AM+ powered monitors stoo

USA - Rock band Avenged Sevenfold has been busy with its latest world arena tour, following the release of the group's most recent album, The Stage.
FOH engineer Bob Strakele - also known for his work with The War on Drugs, Awolnation, Papa Roach, and James, amongst others - has been with them at every stop, and chose the Solid State Logic L500 Plus live console for mixing duties. Audio kit on the tour has been supplied by Solotech.
On this tour, Strakele has around 48 inputs from stage, with about 23 of those accounted for on the drum kit. The rest of the set includes bass, two electric guitars, two acoustics, plus five vocal mics. According to Strakele, the main sonic challenge arises from the sheer size of the tour venues, so clarity is a priority: "With double kick drums and blazing fast songs, it might be hard to keep it punchy - keep it together... So I'm

UK - Broadcast and event lighting specialists Version 2 has continued its investment into its power distribution equipment offerings.
Version 2 prides itself on being at the forefront of technology and innovation with its power distribution systems. The company offers monitoring that utilises its propriety SMARTdistro technology.
The company once again turned to its manufacturing partners SES (Entertainment Services) who have built the companies entire distribution inventory since its inception. The design process was led by Sam Crook, Version 2’s technical director who collaborated with SES managing director Mark Cooper on the specification of the latest units.
SES’s Mark Cooper commented: “SES loves working with companies like Version 2; they come to us with a clear outline of what they want both technically and physically, but still allow us to build th

Thailand - Com 7, a technology retail chain, has relocated its headquarters to a new six-story office building in Bangkok. AV integrator Mahajak Development selected an end-to-end Harman networked audio solution consisting of JBL speakers, Crown amplifiers, Soundcraft mixers, BSS audio processors and AMX control systems to create a multi-zone AV system for the conference and training rooms.
Pongsakorn Kanchanachayphoom, project director, says: “Harman solutions incorporate the latest advances in technology with seamless integration, allowing us to achieve their goals and install a conference audio system that delivers consistent intelligibility and advanced networking capabilities.”
Mahajak outfitted Com 7’s conference and training rooms with JBL LSR305 two-way studio monitors and Control 25-1 compact speakers. Mahajak also installed Control 14C/T full-range cei

Belgium - Luc Peumans and the team from Painting with Light created a lighting design and supplied media servers for the production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid staged by Marmalade Content at Flanders Expo in Ghent, Belgium.
Luc had worked in the same role on Marmalade’s 2016 Beauty and the Beast productio and was delighted to be reunited with set designer Stefan Haudenhuyse and director Frank Van Laecke, with whom he collaborated on 14-18, a Spectacular Musical. The technical director was Bart De Coensel from The Production Box.
The creative process began with a brain-storming session between Luc and the producers, Frank and Stefan, from which this basic aesthetic framework emerged and Luc started to develop the lighting concepts.
An underlining theme was to make it properly ‘spectacular’ in both impact and presence, so the audienc

China - The Mr. Future Music Festival brought nearly 40,000 fans to Wuhan, China to enjoy an impressive line-up of hip-hop and electronic artists in front of an interactive set design.
Sharing the massive stage with the acts were over 100 Adamson loudspeakers supplied and supported by the company’s exclusive Chinese distributor Real Music.
“Mr. Future is a unique and innovative event that brings people from all kinds of different circles together,” begins Real Music owner Zhen “Richie” Wang. “Of course, music is the central component, and Club Muse, the organiser, chose an Adamson system to ensure every single ticketholder had a powerful and exciting experience that exceeded their expectations.”
The substantial system included main reinforcement from arrays of 15 Adamson E15 three-way, true line source enclosures per side. Because the unique stage d

UK - Lighting designer Nathan Wan, who designed the light show at last year’s Autosport International, returned for the show’s 2018 edition at the Live Action Arena in Hall 5 of the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham.
Wan utilised over 250 Robe moving lights, working for the Live Arena’s equipment suppliers and technical consultants Network Productions. Network Productions’ Nick Halliday looked after the Live Arena’s technical direction and management aspects, with Dave Beel as production manager.
Nathan introduced the power of Robe BMFLs into the mix last year for the first time, which enhanced the dynamics he could create with the rig.
Apart from getting enough brightness in there, other parameters to consider include not blinding drivers as they belt round the short track at supernatural speeds, so fixture placement was crucial.
In

USA - The recently-opened World Club has quickly become popular among visiting LDs for artists like Hardwell, Tiesto, Alan Walker and Armin Van Buuren. The spacious 21,000sq.ft venue at the south end of Charlotte’s famed Music Factory complex provides designers with a broad, colour-neutral canvas to work on. And, with eight universes of lighting hung from its ceiling, they can let their creative impulses scream out in wild, eye-shattering explosions of patterns and colour.
“The space really gives the LD creative freedom to set the mood,” said Eye Dialogue’s Travis Pagels, who used a collection of Intimidator fixtures from Chauvet DJ to anchor his rig. “All the walls and furniture in the venue are black or metallic silver, so there really isn’t a colour scheme restricting the lighting designer. Then with all those universes in the ceiling, it’s easy to turn the

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