USA - As Clean Bandit continue their touring progress towards a transatlantic sojourn in the USA in the fall, it seems an appropriate moment to consider the merits of Rob Sinclair’s production design. In particular, the constructions that inhabit the upstage area from left to right, manufactured by specialist show and event design house, Specialz Ltd. These pods are four metres high with eight VDO Sceptron 10 fixtures in each pod. Each one is rigged on a stand that enables the pod to be rotated 360° to be either facing downstage or at 45° degrees making them all but invisible to the audience.
Sinclair elaborates on the basics: “The idea was to have the mirrored pods located behind a black mirrored riser - lots of reflection – with neon edges. They needed to be able to turn so we could choose to see or obscure a video screen upstage. From that original conce

UK - “This was our first ever Claypaky purchase,” opens Kieran Marklew of Marklew Productions. “We had been looking to invest in some new fixtures and one of our clients had specified the K20 B-Eye so we thought it was time for us to investigate.”
Marklew Productions has been in business since 2007 and has built up a very healthy clientele, from local Birmingham businesses opting for dry hire to those looking for a full production service alongside an extensive number of college and university customers and requests for weddings or special event lighting.
“We contacted Ambersphere Solutions and spoke to Thor Andre from Ambersphere Sales. I was so impressed with the fixture it wasn’t a difficult choice to make. I especially like the added feature of the front lens rotation. It gives an amazing vortex effect which is totally unique to the B-Eye. The colour p

The Netherlands - In July, the Dutch port of Rotterdam hosted the 42nd North Sea Jazz Festival, attracting over 75,000 people to enjoy a rich variety of music. Headlining the Nile stage on the final night was Jamiroquai, where a Yamaha Rivage PM10 helped a capacity audience of 10,000 to get funky.
Taking place across 15 stages in the city’s Ahoy arena, the North Sea Jazz Festival is so popular that it sells out every year. This is partly due, no doubt, to the variety of music on offer. As well as classical, contemporary and futuristic jazz from across the globe, the festival features blues, pop, hiphop, dance, soul, world and funk.
Yamaha Music Europe supplied the pianos and drum kits for all stages at the festival and actively helped to provide a range of backline for many of the artists.
Funk / acid jazz specialists Jamiroquai brought the festival to a close

USA - Over two million visitors come to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History every year to view pieces of American culture, from the original Star Spangled Banner, to iconic McDonald’s signs, to a pair of Mohammed Ali’s boxing gloves. It is pure and simple, one of the most concentrated celebrations anywhere of the American spirit and creative innovation.
For one night in July, not all of that famed “Yankee Ingenuity” was on display in the museum’s exhibits. Eric Hertsch of John Farr Lighting Design also exhibited some impressive resourcefulness in the museum, as he overcame a limited power supply and tight schedule to transform sections of the building into a sparkling red, white and blue colour scape with a rig made up entirely of Chauvet Professional and Chauvet DJ fixtures.
As soon as visitors entered this private donor event

Australia - The Brolga Theatre in Queensland’s Maryborough is a typical regional venue – its 900-seat proscenium arch theatre hosts an international ballet troupe one night, Jimmy Barnes the next, and a local dance school the day after.
Though the venue is just 17-years-old, changes in technology mean replacement lamps are no longer available for their wash lights, leading the staff to assess how to upgrade for the future. The future, as they see it, is Elation’s Platinum Seven RGBWAC-UV LED wash light.
“We knew we had to move to LED and intelligent fixtures,” said Robert Haigh, operations technician at the Brolga. “We could afford to replace our wash, but not our profiles, so it was an easy decision to go to a moving fixture that could provide a wash, and in the case of Elation’s Platinum Seven, work as a profile in many senses.”
Twelve Elation

UK - Cameron Mackintosh’s acclaimed production of Boubil and Schonberg’s classic embarked on a record-breaking run in the West End and is now touring the UK. Having supplied the most recent revival, along with the original run thirty years ago, White Light has been called upon to provide the lighting equipment for this latest UK tour.
The lighting designer for the tour is Olivier Award-winning Bruno Poet who also lit the West End revival. He comments: “When Cameron asked me to light the 2014 production for the West End, it was daunting to start work on a production with so much history, yet thrilling to be asked to approach it with fresh ideas. I treated it as a completely new show. After the successful West End run, and revisiting the show for Broadway, the UK tour has been an opportunity to revisit my design and hone it for touring.
He adds: “It’s a challe

Germany - The spectacular classical music production Schloss in Flammen (Castle In Flames) in the courtyard of the Mannheim Castle was recently mixed on an Allen&Heath dLive C Class C3500 provided by Auditiv from Kassel/Germany.
Schloss in Flammen – a classical music highlight in the festival season in Germany – is a stunning mixture of classical music and synchronised fireworks. The orchestra and solo singers from the National Theatre of Mannheim perform arias and other parts of various famous operas.
“The big challenge of this production is that we have nearly no time for rehearsals and soundcheck,” explains FOH engineer Rolf Dressler. “This is where the easy handling and flexibility of the dLive shines and it got even better with firmware 1.4 and 1.5 and new features like DCA spill and the improved scene management. I also love the sound,

UK - Evans Audio Visual Staging provided equipment and scenic elements across the whole site of the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta - the biggest event of its kind in Europe.
Thousands of people visited Ashton Court, on the edge of Bristol, during the four-day Fiesta, and Evans was involved in multiple locations across the large site, normally a country park.
For the Balloonists’ Marquee, where pilots gathered several times each day for all-important briefings, Evans supplied six Nexo PS8 speakers, hung from Utopium’s truss, for background music and announcements. These were relayed using Shure hand-held radio microphones and a Yamaha QL1 mixing desk. Evans provided a 42inch screen which was used for presentations in the media suite.
Multiple LED screens were placed around the Fiesta site to carry live close-ups from the displays, sponsor adverts, conten

Brazil - As one of the world’s most famous tenors, tickets for the final world tour by José Carreras have been in huge demand. The A Life In Music tour has seen sold out shows around the globe, but a particular highlight for Front of House (FoH) engineer Peter Schneekloth was the Brazil concerts, which he mixed on a Yamaha Rivage PM10 console.
Peter has been the live sound engineer for Carreras for 16 years, mixing hundreds of shows in concert halls, arenas and stadiums in more than 50 countries. The A Life In Music tour started in 2016 with a sold-out show at London’s Royal Albert Hall and has included concerts throughout Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, USA, Central and South America, Australia, Russia and other territories. Sell-outs and standing ovations have been a regular feature, with Carreras’ management hoping to book more for 2018.

USA - Graeme Flegenheimer, owner of El Club in Detroit, Michigan, fell in love with music at a young age. That may explain his diverse taste in music and the wide variety of acts that play at the popular live music venue, which has featured a customisable Elation Professional lighting rig since opening in 2016.
“I pride myself on El Club having an eclectic calendar,” says Flegenheimer, who has a background as a music publicist. “There’s not a typical night here. It’s always changing and Elation is able to meet every requirement of the artist coming in here and capture the vibe of the evening.”
Since opening in May of 2016, El Club has arguably become Detroit’s hottest night-time venue with a mixture of acts that is attracting a wide audience. “It's really an amazing room that's giving a massive high-end light show experience to underground artists in a

UK - Jubilee Library is the main public library in Brighton and forms the centrepiece of the Jubilee square development in the city centre. Opened in 2005 by the Princess Royal, Jubilee Library stands at the heart of a multi-million pound scheme for redevelopment of a 40-year-old brownfield site and was recognised at the time of opening as one of the most energy efficient structures in England with a carbon footprint half that of a traditional public building of comparable size.
In addition to an extensive literature collection, Jubilee Library offers local communities state of the art IT facilities within its IT Connect room, a full business suite with five conference rooms and a one-to-one meeting room.
Kier Group Facilities Management, responsible for the management of Jubilee Library for Brighton & Hove City Council, called in unified business solutions provide

Belgium - With many music stages and event spaces throughout the city’s UNESCO protected medieval centre, the annual 10-day Gentse Feesten is a go-to event for Northern European music lovers.
Shining brightly against the city’s beautiful gothic architecture was the festival’s Sint-Baafsplein square stage. Vince de Schinckel brought the stage (one of the festival’s largest) to glittering life with help from eight STRIKE 1, 20 Maverick MK2 Wash, and 16 Maverick MK2 Spot fixtures from Chauvet Professional, supplied by Belgian rental specialists Euro PA.
The 230-watt single source STRIKE 1 fixtures provided de Schinckel with an impactful tungsten emulating blinder and wash tool for creating classic main stage looks.
“After having a great experience with the STRIKE 4 on last year’s festival, I was excited to try out the single source STRIKE 1,” he said.

Europe - UK based creative design practice Okulus – James Scott and Louis Oliver – was asked to create a production design for rising Canadian singer songwriter Shawn Mendes’ tour.
This followed their work for the launch of his second studio album, Illuminate at Madison Square Garden in September 2016, and Okulus’ penchant for bringing fresh and interesting visual perspectives to a show.
39 Robe Spikies are incorporated into the lighting scheme, crafted with Okulus dexterity and imagination in close collaboration with the show’s creative director, Paul Caslin and 24/7 Productions. The overall stage look is clean and definitive with attention focused on the artist.
The set is built from a multi-layered fixed riser system with curved frontage and a high-gloss black floor, fabricated by TAIT. It keeps the band positions balanced across the upstage

Italy - Singer/songwriter and producer Tiziano Ferro is known as the modern face of Italian pop music and his phenomenally successful career has seen one chart-busting album and single after another earning him a dedicated fan following.
His live shows are also known for their visual flamboyance and style and the recent Italian stadium tour was no exception. Belgian engineering and automation specialist WIcreations was commissioned to find solutions for two primary motion-control ‘brain-teasers’.
The show was creatively directed by Claudio Santucci working in close collaboration with video designer Romain Sabella from Clonwerk and lighting designer Giovanni Pinna.
The two automation challenges were to provide a fluid and smooth movement system for a large video ceiling weighing 11 tonnes, which moved in all directions and to track two massive upstage LED scre

UK - Now in its third year, the three-day Ramblin Man Fair is an annual music festival celebrating classic and contemporary rock, progressive rock, blues and country music.
Promoted by Spirit Of Rock it is billed as “a rock festival designed for rock fans by rock fans”.
Set in Maidstone’s familiar Mote Park, sound production company Capital Sound were contracted to provide the audio infrastructure for the first time this year, and they were eager to show off the power of Martin Audio’s MLA PA to Kent’s rock community.
Project manager Robin Conway was himself responsible for winning the contract after meeting with the event’s technical production manager, Kev Sutherland. “I think he was impressed that we were able to come up with a total production package built around MLA,” he said.
Capital provided sound reinforcement for all four stages b

Germany - Forty years on the air and 1,000 episodes are really a reason for celebrating 1, 2 or 3, the legendary children’s quiz show from ZDF - with a 150-minute prime time show from the MMC Studios in Cologne. Moderated by Steven Gätjen and Elton, prominent guests included actress Stephanie Stumph, comedian Bülent Ceylan and singer Mark Foster. Günther Jauch, who presents Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, also made an appearance and superstar Helene Fischer appeared on stage.
For the lighting design of this special anniversary show, MBTV, the production company for ZDF, awarded the design work to mo2 design, run by lighting designer, Manfred "Ollie" Olma. Olma is one of the long-time users of GLP fixtures, and on this occasion he also made the most of it - specifying more than 100 impression X4 atom, as well as 92 GT-1 hybrids and 60 impression X4.
"W


UK – The 2017 Knight of Illumination (KOI) Awards has announced this year’s shortlist of lighting and video designers, recognised for their creative work in the Concert Touring & Events sector. The winners will be announced at the 10th anniversary KOI Awards ceremony, to be held at London’s Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith, on 17 September. The KOI Awards was established to publicly celebrate the achievements of lighting and video designers in the sectors of Television, Theatre and Concert Touring & Events. The annual Awards are open to designers whose work has been showcased in the UK in the previous twelve months. The Awards is now one of the most celebrated nights in the live entertainment design industry calendar, with more than 500 leading creatives and professionals in attendance at last year’s celebrations. The Concert Touring & Events shortlist is the

USA - It isn’t often that a rock star coming off three successive Billboard Top Ten albums takes time before a big show to hold a yoga class, but then Michael Franti has made a habit of defying expectations, whether it’s with his genre-bending music, or unconventional dress code. (He gave up wearing shoes in 2000 and hasn’t donned a pair since, save for the flip-flops he puts on to board airplanes.)
Franti’s iconoclastic and richly fertile imagination was on full display at his 13 July appearance with his band Spearhead at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Supporting their multifarious performance was a Matt “Jonezy” Jones designed light and video show run with a ChamSys MagicQ MQ80 console.
Kicked off after the conclusion of his Love Out Loud Yoga class, Franti’s show took the audience through a weaving musical journey that touched rock, hip hop, blues, da

USA - The Moody Blues have been touring since the fabled moment in music history referred to as the British Invasion, and while they have 18 platinum and gold albums, retail sales of more than 70m units and decades of touring behind them, the trio, consisting of Graeme Edge, Justin Hayward and John Lodge shows no plans of stopping any time soon.
The band’s illustrious career stretches across more than half a century. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the album Days of Future Passed, Bandit Lites supplied the lighting and video elements for the legendary group’s latest tour.
Bandit Lites supplied lighting designer Mick Thornton, now in his fifteenth year with the band, their exclusive GRNLite Moving Washes, GLP X4, Robe Pointes, 4 Lite Moles and LED Pars, along with Chauvet Video Panels (6mm) and Clay Paky Mirage Video Panels (20 mm).
“The bal

Europe - Front of House engineer Pete Johnson is impressed with DPA’s d:facto Linear Vocal Microphone, which he is using on the current Glass Animals tour.
“It’s absolutely great,” he says. “At points in the set Dave Bayley (Glass Animals’ vocalist) often sings quite softly while at the same time we want the show to be big, punchy and powerful. The d:facto Linear has excellent feedback rejection and lets me keep the amount of surgery I need to do to a minimum - always a bonus. We’ve used it in all different settings too, from tiny clubs to football stadiums. It’s taken all the stress out of achieving a solid vocal sound.”
Johnson has been a FOH engineer for 15 years and has worked with an impressive list of artists including Bonobo, Coldcut, Laura Marling, Leftfield and Django Django. He’s been mixing Glass Animals since May 2016 and is currently to

UK - The successful Brendan O'Carroll comedy creation Mrs. Brown’s Boys continues its popular live touring version with full technical production – lighting, sound, video, rigging and crew – supplied by Adlib.
Adlib has been involved with Mrs. Brown’s Boys live since its very first theatre tour in 2000, and since then it’s become a multi award winning TV show and a massive arena live show phenomenon.
The show has continued to invest in production values and technology to keep everything moving forward along with the humour. Adlib’s director and account handler Dave Jones looked after the audio elements alongside senior account manager Dave Eldridge who oversaw the lighting & video requirements. Jones comments: “We are immensely proud to have worked with Brendan and the cast over the years and to see the concept grow and develop. We’ve

UK - Old Barn Audio has completed its third Martin Audio CDD installation within Olympic class venues owned and operated by Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA).
Following successful fit-outs of the Lee Valley White Water Centre and Lee Valley Ice Centre, they have now completed a challenging installation at Lee Valley Athletics Centre in Edmonton.
This required the company to install a 30m-long roof truss section down the middle of the 200m six-lane oval track, six and a half metres up in the air, to support over half a tonne of Martin Audio’s popular CDD 12, CDD 10 and CSX sub woofers.
Built 10 years ago at a cost of £15m, the Centre plays host to a wide range of athletes - operating as an elite venue for Olympians as much as a walk-in facility for the general public. Boasting 4,000 admissions a week, it is the busiest indoor athletics facility in the

UK - Live Recording’s Rob Baldock took himself and his six Audient ASP880s up to Nottingham’s Splendour festival last month, to capture multi-track recordings of all the artists on the main stage, including Gabrielle Aplin and Busted.
Hired by local TV station, Notts TV, Baldock is in his fifth year at Splendour - where this year a record-breaking 25,000 people partied at Wollaton Park in the rain - and wasn’t fazed by the increased audience, or the weather. Indeed the eight-channel ASP880 mic pres from the British manufacturer continue to serve him very well. “The patch at a festival changes with every band, and the advantage of having the same mic pres across every single channel means that I can rely on that sound quality and gain without compromise - regardless of what microphone or line signal I'm being given,” he says.
“It did rain this year at Splend

Brazil - A personal dream to bring state of the art recording facilities to the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre has led producer/engineer Rafael Hauck to invest in PMC MB2 XBD monitors for his new studio, Audio Porto.
The monitors have been installed in the facility’s main control room, which links to five recording spaces including a large live room with a fibre optic internet connection for live streaming. Audio Porto also has a second, smaller control room and a 250-capacity lounge area with a stage for live gigs, presentations, courses and events.
Rafael Hauck chose PMC monitoring after hearing the MB2 XBD system at Metropolis in London and subsequently visiting PMC’s facility in the UK for further demos.
“I was immediately hooked,” he explains. “It didn’t take long for me to realise that this system was exactly what I wanted for Audio Porto. It

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