USA - With go-karts, mini golf, bounce houses, an arcade, rock climbing, zip lines, and plenty of food and drink for patrons of all ages, Sonny's Place is a top family fun destination. It's located in Somers, Connecticut, an easy drive from New York City, Boston, and all of the large and small New England cities between.
Success feeds on success, and Sonny's Place recently completed its third expansion. Because the sound system from its second expansion had proven so reliable and headache-free, Sonny's Place again hired ALSS (Advanced Lighting & Sound Solutions) from Manchester, Connecticut for its latest expansion.
And because the reliable Ashly Audio amplifiers that ALSS had installed in the second expansion were a big part of its success, ALSS owner Glen Aliczi again called on Ashly amplification, this time adding Ashly processing and Ashly's custom iPad interfa

UK - Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, one of the UK’s leading drama schools, utilised effects lighting fixtures from Chroma-Q and ProLights for its recent annual Christmas Concert - supplied by A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET).
This evening of songs, speeches and a chance to see all of Mountview’s undergraduate and foundation students perform under one roof, took place in St. George’s Catholic Cathedral, Southwark, Central London.
Mountview senior lighting tutor, Alex Cann, created the Christmas Concert's lighting design in partnership with a student of the Academy's 3rd year BA (Hons) Theatre Production Arts course.
The lighting brief was to enhance the overall production, but also to ensure that the whole audience could see the performers. The design therefore needed to be practical whilst also subtly enhancing the overall performance.
Whe

USA - Sid Gattis, owner of Gattis Pro Audio, heard Danley Sound Lab's new SM-80F point-source loudspeaker with built-in subwoofer support at InfoComm and specified it for the First Baptist Church in Lincolton, NC.
Gattis had always been sober-minded about the limitations of even the best line array systems, and he saw that the Danley SM-80Fs would save the church $12k, provide higher-quality sound, and – at half the size of the line array – limit the visual impact to First Baptist Church's aesthetic.
"First Baptist Church has a large, traditional sanctuary, and they've long had a traditional Baptist service to go with it," explained Gattis. "But they're also making a slow shift to a more contemporary service. However, the audio system they had in place for the past twenty years was not going to support that shift. On top of being just plain old, it was buried in th

USA - The iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Tour presented by Capital One visited 12 cities from 28 November to 7 December. Select dates included Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, the Chainsmokers, and many more – with a spectacular lighting rig including many Solaris Flares.
“Love those Flares,” says the shows’ LD Tom Kenny. “A few years ago, TMB gave me some Flare demos to try out. Since then, after using Flares very successfully on many TV shows, including Kids’ Choice Awards, as well as the VMAs and Europe’s EMA award shows, I specified them for The Who Hits 50! tour.
“I always get wonderful compliments when I use Flares because of the fixture’s terrific colour and strobe effects. I was introduced to the Linear Flares last year and eagerly used them on this year’s iHeartRadio Music Festival, and then on the Jingle Ball tour. Both of those

USA - Seattle-based duo Odesza (Harrison Mills, Clayton Knight) wanted to make an outstanding visual impact with their current A Moment Apart Tour that kicked off in San Diego and Staples Centre in LA and ran through Barclays Centre in mid-December.
Their creative team led by Luke Tanaka, Sean Kusanagi and the two artists called on Kyle Kegan of Voyage Productions to help sculpt a lightshow and add extra visual magic that would work harmoniously around their video and striking overall concept.
Kyle, known for his lighting and visual designs for Major Lazer and others, specified 185 x Robe fixtures to assist him in the task, with 27 x BMFL Spots, 74 x Pointes and 84 x Spikies.
“By the time we came on-board the concept design had been evolved and developed by Luke and the team, so we took that and applied practical elements like truss, motors, fixtures an

Germany - Independent lighting and show designer Patrick Rabus used SGM's new all-in-one P-10 for the recent Itchy tour.
Being on tour with the punk band posed certain challenges when it came to equipment - Rabus needed to achieve maximum output with just few resources and he chose four SGM G-4 Wash-Beams, two SGM P-5s, and six of the brand new SGM P-10.
Rabus says: “The new features that SGM has implemented, such as the power-out and the degree indicator on the side of the lamp, make setting up much easier. So, if it has to be really bright and flexible, I'll take the P-10.”
“For bands this size, the budget and the equipment weight are usually the main challenges. Since we were traveling with two Sprinters, there was not much room for lighting gear,” he reveleals. “In this equipment situation, I needed a fixture with a large coverage and, of course, th

USA - Worship technology provider AGI has joined the Adamson Network and is now providing sales and integration services for Adamson loudspeakers.
The Oregon-based company recently installed a S-Series audio system at Capital Christian Centre in Sacramento, CA.
“We had the opportunity to hear the Adamson S10 when [applications engineer] Rick Woida set up a system in our parking lot. Within moments, I knew we needed to be involved with this ground-breaking product,” says AGI CEO Greg Slape. “Being able to offer our customer base new technology in form factors designed for their market is exciting. The new IS-Series, along with the S-Series, are premium products with a very good cost-to-performance ratio, providing the HOW community with excellent premium loudspeaker solutions.”
Rick Cole, lead pastor with Capital Christian Centre, explains: “AGI provide

UAE - La Perle by Dragone is the Middle East’s latest resident show, featuring a cast of 65 artists including acrobats who perform aerial and aquatic stunts diving into an on-stage pool (read more in LSI December 2017).
The immersive production is staged in a purpose-built, 1,300-seat theatre in newly-constructed, multi-use Al Habtoor City in Dubai. The theatre is not only vast, but is a complex space, with real estate for the L-Acoustics audio system shared with automation lines, water pipes and nozzles for water effects, as well as lighting, projection and rigging.
Franco Dragone was the creative mind behind Cirque Du Soleil. In 2000, he set up Dragone, which has been the visionary behind some of the

USA - The Thomaston Opera House in Thomaston, Connecticut, recently added an Allen & Heath dLive S Class digital mixing system with an S5000 Surface, DM48 MixRack and DX32 Expander.
The Opera House is home to the Landmark Community Theatre which performed Spamalot, Hairspray, Grease, Mamma Mia!, The Diary Of Anne Frank and It's A Wonderful Life during its 2017 season.
The Opera House’s new audio system was designed and installed by DNR Laboratories of Watertown, CT. DNR’s Ian Jones (‘Dr. Jones’), who also acts as an independent FOH engineer, recommended the dLive and mixes many performances at the Opera House.
“The dLive is the perfect console for a theatre of this type,” says Jones. “For Hairspray, we had around 50 mics and I could put any of them anywhere on the desk. And all of this can be cha

USA - Roughly 7,000 dairy farms closed in Wisconsin between 1993 and 1998 according to the US Department of Agriculture as part of a reorganisation of production facilities in America’s “dairy state”. While most of their barns faded from the landscape, in the northwest part of the state one farm was given new lease of life.
The 180-seat community theatre and concert venue St Croix ArtBarn, expanded its production capabilities with the addition of a new colour rendering lighting system featuring Chauvet Professional COLORdash fixtures supplied by Monkey Wrench Productions.
“The time had come for a lighting system replacement,” said Chad Leonard, technical director of the St Croix ArtBarn. “The fixtures that we had were almost 20 years old and were in bad shape. We replaced all of them. Aside from greatly improving our lighting for shows and concerts and giv

Poland - The Voice of Poland was recorded in the ATM studios in Warsaw, with the set featuring about 100 Prolights fixtures.
Those were 16 Panorama IP AB, 24 Sunblast3000FC, 24 Starbar1000, 44 Arenacob4FC. Artur Szyman has been entrusted as lighting designer and director of photography for The Voice of Poland and he took responsibility for artistic, visual and technical direction of the production.
An experienced LD in Polish TV, he says, “I was aware that Prolights fixtures were performing well and collecting lot favourable reviews on several tours and rental productions around Poland. When I was designing the lighting and video concept for TVoP, and knowing that ATM could supply this equipment, it was a good chance to try them in a TV application, where quality and refinement of the details are on top of my checklist. The fixtures have done the

UK - The latest tour by Gorillaz proved one of the must-see events of 2017. The band, production and technology all conspired to present something so much more than a bunch of musicians in front of a giant TV screen.
“In the beginning, we didn’t know how the tour would be received. It’s been quite some time since the last one,” muses lighting designer Matt Pitman. “Joel’s [Stanley, production manager] remit to me was to give the show something better than they’d had before,” Pitman continues. “We did our first show at the Printworks in London in March. It was a one-off in a small venue, but Joel gave us a generous production budget. He hasn’t turned down any of my technical requests at any point since, with lighting or video, and it’s the same in all departments. We have grown the production to where we are now.”
They are now at the end of a ru

UK - The OXO Tower on London’s South Bank was the scene of a recent sound system upgrade at its popular Restaurant, Bar & Brasserie.
London-based Evolve Install has upgraded the brasserie's existing JBL system with a bespoke JBL Pendant speaker solution and also equipped the fine dining restaurant with a similar sound system.
The work was project managed by Evolve Install director, Elliot Patterson, who saw the layout of the existing speakers was awry while surveying the site. He notes: “They were not positioned in the right area to get optimal coverage and there were a number of blind spots - the sound would reflect off the large windows and bounce around. Also it had been zoned in a clumsy way.”
He consulted the application team at Sound Technology, the UK and Ireland distributors for the Harman Pro brands, and with the venue mapped using JB

World - Philips Lighting reports that its stage lighting fixture, the Philips VL6000 Beam, is delivering a powerful impact for the Crazy World Tour by German heavy metal band Scorpions.
The power and quality of the output from the 36 Philips VL6000 Beams solves several challenges for Scorpions' lighting designer, Manfred Nikitser. His lighting fixtures need to provide enough punch to cut through the light from the LED screens on the stage, and be strong enough to deal with long throw distances, as the lighting trusses are trimmed at between 10m and 14m above the stage.
"The VL6000s give exactly the strong look this kind of rock show needs," says Nikitser, "and even with full content on the screens, I can still make an awesome light show! If you look for fixtures that will work with this amount of video, the selection is small. And with this height, it's even ha

UK - The Natural History Museum in London made waves on New Year’s Eve with 700 guests celebrating Under the sea festivities inspired by the Hintze Hall’s newly-installed blue whale skeleton.
The evening saw celebrations of oceanic proportions organised by Amy O’Brien, senior event co-ordinator, in partnership with Guilty Pleasures who provided DJs and live entertainment.
During highly competitive games of Musical Bingo, guests battled it out marking off songs played in Museum-themed rounds to win a range of prizes from the shop. Revellers also engaged with the latest ‘Massaoke’ craze sweeping the nation, a mass participation karaoke sing-along with crowds guided by big screen lyrics.
White Light enhanced the spaces with lighting and audio elements to create an immersive experience for the party-goers with atmospheric soundscapes throughout to h

USA - Fans who pack the Pageant Theatre to capacity for six or seven El Monstero shows every holiday season never quite know what to expect. Certainly, they’re re going to hear spot-on renditions of The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon and other Pink Floyd classics, but beyond its music, this Christmas tradition in America’s heartland is full of delightful visual surprises.
Drawing on a cast of up to 75 characters, the annual tribute show in St. Louis has been coming up with novel and enthralling dramatizations and set designs every year since it was started by members of different local bands in 1999. True to form, the 2017 rendition of El Monstero sparkled with a lively and fresh-looking stage presentation, thanks in no small part to a convention-defying lightshow designed by Chip Self that featured a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures, including the

USA - Andrew Peterson’s 18th annual Behold The Lamb Of God Tour returned to Nashville for two shows featuring a lighting package provided by Bandit Lites.
The moving show presents the Christmas story with musical numbers that move from the Old Testament to the New. Lighting designer Winn Elliott is nearly a dozen years into designing this production and credits his history with Andrew Peterson into knowing what direction to take the lighting each year.
“Andrew and I have worked together for so long that I have a good understanding of what he will and won’t like,” said Elliott. “We’re in many ways cut from the same cloth from a design standpoint: my goal is to add a very intentional visual interest and beauty to the evening and to complement all that is happening on stage. That typically involves building looks that don’t have a ton of movement or

USA - Scorpions have wrapped the first North American leg of the Crazy World Tour 2017 with Megadeath. A large complement of Claypaky fixtures hit the road with the German rockers
The North American leg’s September and October dates included a performance at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, the first time the band played the venue since 1984.
Lighting and show director Manfred Nikitser, of Manfred Nikitser Show Lighting, designed a “classic rock show” with “big, strong looks” to please audiences who expected “a good rock show”. He created a “clean overall look with big LED screens, thrust and ego risers plus a massive angled stage set. My intention was to meld lighting and video, so LED screens were a lighting element that actually immersed the stage with saturated colour” for some songs. Live camera integration was a big part too, bu

Australia - Sir Paul McCartney brought his long-running One On One tour to Australia this December - his first Australian tour since 1993’s The New World tour.
The show featured nearly three hours’ worth of the greatest moments from the last 50 years of music. FOH engineer Paul ‘Pab’ Boothroyd has been with Sir Paul for a fair portion of this journey.
“I first started working for him in 1989,” said Pab. “As well as being on stage for three hours, he also does a one-hour sound check every day. With line checks and system checks as well, I’m probably behind the console twiddling knobs for five hours so it’s quite an extensive day technically.”
That FOH console was an Avid Venue S6L which Pab has used ever since it was released and he describes it as one of the best consoles on the market. Pab’s S6L carries dialled-in snapshots fo

UAE - At the end of August an exciting event took place at Al Habtoor City in the heart of Dubai. La Perle, the spectacular new acrobatic water show from Franco Dragone, opened its doors for the first time, with four Robert Juliat Cyrano 2500W HMI chosen as La Perle’s followspots (read more about the production in LSi December 2017).
La Perle is a landmark for Dubai with a trio of firsts - Dragone’s first show in the Emirates, Dubai’s first large scale theatre dedicated to just one show and the only live residency ever to be performed in Dubai. Sixty five international artists are showcased against a dreamscape world in which they display their acrobatic, aquatic and aerial acting skills in a series of awe-insp

USA - Wall High School in Wall Township in Monmouth County, NJ, was planning to replace its sound system as part of the overall facilities refurbishment.
JD Sound & Video had provided the sound for a number of schools locally and this led Tom Ridoux, the school’s athletics director, to call them in for discussion. The brief was for a system that would provide high intelligibility coverage for the home bleachers, field, visitors and concessions areas. Additionally, the system was required to provide entertainment quality music.
JD Sound & Video designed a system based around Community’s R Series loudspeakers and, following its presentation to the school, was awarded the project. “With considerable experience in R Series’ superb sound quality, coverage patterns and all-weather reliability, it was our first choice of loudspeaker system for Wall High School

UK - The newly opened Darlington Hippodrome, formerly known as Darlington Civic Theatre, has been restored to its former glory and transformed with 21st century technical facilities that include new stage lighting, audio and video systems.
Featuring leading brands including Chroma-Q, Allen & Heath, Panasonic and many more, most loose equipment was supplied by A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET).
The theatre received a £5m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) towards the ambitious £13.7m project to regenerate and upgrade the venue, which also included restoring the exterior of the distinctive Grade II listed building and the beautiful Edwardian auditorium inside. In addition, seating capacity has been increased to enable larger shows to be accommodated as part of an expanded artistic programme.
Darlington Hippodrome is also managing the newly-buil

USA - Winners in the New Group category at the 2016 Academy of Country Music Awards Old Dominion have been touring its Happy Endings album, and supporting the likes of Kenny Chesney and Thomas Rhett. The band has also been confirmed for Chesney’s Trip Around the Sun stadium tour in 2018.
Earlier this year, FOH engineer Ian Zorbaugh and monitor engineer Dean Studebaker decided to take SSL L300 Plus consoles, supplied by premier event production company Morris Lighting & Sound, on the road with Old Dominion.
Zorbaugh chose the SSL L300 because of the positive feedback he was hearing from other engineers - particularly Chris Rabold, who used L500 on the Kenny Chesney tour, which Old Dominion have been supporting. "The main thing I heard about the SSLs was that they sound absolutely phenomenal - that you need minimal EQ, less processing, and so on. I wa

Serbia - Perched along the banks of the Danube river some 60 miles from the hustle and bustle of capital Belgrade, the city of Novi Sad has been traditionally renowned for its relaxed and welcoming character. In recent years, however, the local character of Novi Sad has expanded by a collection of locally hosted, yet internationally renowned music festivals, including the infamous Exit and the Novi Sad jazz festival.
Another event putting Novi Sad on the musical map is the Green Love festival, an electronic Mecca attracting thousands of clubbing enthusiasts from Serbia and neighbouring countries such as Hungary, Croatia and Romania. For the most recent Green Love event, which saw DJs such as Metodi Hristov, Lea Dobričić and NUSHA take to the stage, AVL Projekt supplied Chameleon Rental with 16 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK1 Spot and 16 Maverick MK2

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