UK - Based on the novel by Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray - adapted and directed by multi award-winning Kip Williams, artistic director of the acclaimed Sydney Theatre Company - tells this classic story through an explosive interplay of live performance and video.
It recently opened at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and stars Sarah Snook, who plays 26 roles. It features a lighting design by Nick Schlieper who approached White Light (WL), a d&b solutions company, to provide the lighting equipment.
Whilst there have been several stage adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray over the years, it’s the first time that this version, which premiered four years ago at the Roslyn Packer Theatre in Sydney, has played overseas. Nick, who also lit the original Australian production, explains: “Although I’ve always been familiar with the novel, I have

Denmark - Aarhus Musikhuset has recently invested in Robe Painte moving lights and TX1 PosiProfiles for three of its halls. The Rhythmic Hall (Rytmisk Sal) also known as the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall has eight Paintes, the Small Hall (Lille Sal) has seven TX1, with another eight TX1s - four with gobos - for the 1,172-capacity Symphonic Hall (Symfonisk Sal).
The lights were specified by the Musikhuset’s head of lighting Henrik Hambro and his crew, and delivered by Robe’s Danish distributor, Light Partner.
The venue is a cultural and entertainment beacon at the heart of Denmark’s lively second city and stages over 1400 shows and productions annually. Originally opened in 1982, it was substantially expanded in 2007 to over 40,000sq.m of facilities offering seven differently sized and styled performance spaces including the three mentioned above.
A diverse and a

Italy - With his glowing bow that evokes a Jedi lightsabre, electric violinist Andrea Casta is known as the ‘Jedi Violinist’. Casta performs over 200 concerts a year that reach more than 2m live spectators. The artist has taken his music to over 30 countries and boasts a social fanbase of nearly half a million followers.
His recent tour, The Space Violin - Visual Concert, sold out in major Italian cities. He was awarded Best Performer at the Dance Music Awards in 2018 and 2022. Many of Casta’s performances are smaller, boutique events. For those, the artist has chosen a TT+ Audio System that satisfies his desire to bring the highest possible sound quality and musical clarity to his audiences while being highly versatile, portable and aesthetically discreet.
“My smaller performances were a real challenge,” said Casta. "I needed a compact and easily transport

USA - Low trim heights, limited hang points, the lack of house lights - these challenges seem to be present when lighting an event at any big ballroom. They certainly were at the Gatlinburg Convention centre when Andrew Dingman set out to light the Clayton King Ministries’ Crossroad Winter Conference this January.
Dingman comments, “The room and rigging will always be the biggest challenge when designing a show like this in a venue like this. But as is true in every case, there are always ways to overcome challenges.”
In this three-day conference, Dingman met the challenge presented by the relative lack of overhead space by modifying his plans. “Originally, I wanted to do another LED Banner above my mid stage LX truss, but was unavailable due to trim,” he explained. “Flying my MS LX truss to max trim allowed me to get bigger looks and more beam throw. A lot

USA - The Winter Jam Tour Spectacular returned for its bi-coastal celebration of positivity and spreading the Gospel with a lighting system provided by Bandit Lites. This year’s line-up included Crowder, two-time 2024 Grammy-award winner Lecrae, CAIN, Katy Nichole, Seventh Day Slumber, Newsong and more.
“Each year I lean towards putting most of my budget into the flown rig,” said longtime production manager Jerry Holcomb. “The tour usually has artists that bring some sort of ground package, so I leave room for that. Additionally, I have to be conscience of truck space and set up time. Winter Jam doors are early compared to most tours considering we have up to 10 artists and speakers each night; so, a rig that is efficient enough to fit into a truck and a half yet still look big enough for an arena is my goal.”
Holcomb sought Bandit client rep Allen Deneau’

Qatar - On 12 January 2024, Qatar hosted the opening ceremony of the AFC Asian Cup at the 88,000-capacity Lusail Stadium, the largest stadium in the Middle East. The ceremony comprised a full-size stage in midfield with a set featuring sand dunes, colourful costumes, and visuals around a central motif of giant mirrored petals.
Simultaneously broadcast internationally across the Middle East, Asia and Australasia, the 21-minute visual extravaganza, Mirrors, The Lost Chapter from the Book of Kelileh Wa Demneh, was ‘a triumph of theatrical story-telling’. It was struck in just 27 minutes by 700 stage hands, in choreography as coordinated as the performers who preceded them, before the first match of the tournament kicked off.
“It was like Superbowl on steroids,” says lighting designer, Roland Greil who, brought in by design and production agency, Sila Sveta

USA - Although a procession of major stars like Fall Out Boy, 30 Seconds To Mars, The Last Dinner Party, Bush, The 1975, and Sum41 graced the Honda Centre stage, the lighting rig for this year’s iHeartRadio ALTer EGO concert, which is traditionally held at the Kia Forum in LA, was smaller than it was in recent years.
The size of the rig, notwithstanding, the design team was given the mission of making the overall production for the nationally televised event, look bigger than previous shows.
“We wanted to make the show seem larger this year,” said Dierson of The Activity. “Yet, there’s no bravado when I tell you that this was literally the smallest lighting rig that I’ve been a part of in the past 20 or so years.”
Describing this challenge as “a blessed reality”, Dierson explained how it sharpened his creative visions. “It’s good to be forc

Australia - Hosted at The Hordern Pavilion in the heart of Sydney, last year’s B&T Awards revolved around the theme ‘Embrace the Extra-Ordinary’, with 40 categories presented during the night. Collaborating with their client, The Misfits Media Co., for whom Audio Visual Events (AVE) has been the preferred production partner for five years, a sophisticated LED structure powered by Brompton Technology’s Tessera LED processors was orchestrated.
“Before the B&T Awards, we assisted The Misfits team with their internal B&T & Travel Weekly programmes and agency event work,” explains Paul Keating, director at AVE. “The brief for this year’s event, encompassing the client's mood board, event styling, and content, featured dark backgrounds and vibrant colours. This was a perfect fit for utilising LED, allowing for deep, dark colours and contrasting vibr

UK - Reading & Leeds Festival is to debut a new outdoor stage, The Chevron, at this year’s events. The festival attracts 240,000 visitors combined across both sites over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
Reading & Leeds will now feature an additional 40,000-capacity open-air venue, including the world’s first floating video canopy made up of hundreds of thousands of programmable LED lights that appear to be hovering in the air. The mesh is 90% transparent so festival-goers can dance under the open sky into the night.
“The bespoke structure, exclusive to Reading & Leeds, promises an immersive atmosphere and incredible programming, raising the bar for dance music and hip-hop fans and artists alike, raising the bar for dance music and hip-hop fans and artists alike,” said a statement.
Positioned in the main arena of both festival sites, The Chevro

South Korea - Soyoun Lee’s is currently working for Lite Factory in Korea, designing and programming shows for several high-profile K-Pop music artists in Singapore and Korea. One of these is Korean record producer and singer-songwriter, Crush, who recently played several Wonderego concerts - in support of his i third album - at Seoul’s Jamsil Arena, for which Soyoun designed, programmed and operated the lighting.
For the first time, she chose to run the lighting control on a full grandMA3 system. Soyoun had used the grandMA3 console / hardware many times already (running in mode 2) and felt that this was a great time to ‘make the switch’, for which she prepared herself via online training videos and in-person training arranged via MA Lighting’s Asia Pacific base in Singapore.
Through the training, her grandMA3 knowledge increased exponentially and she reali

Argentina - Rock and pop musician Fito Páez continued his El amor 30 años después del amor tour last year with a 16 December concert at the Estadio UNO - Estadio Jorge Luis Hirschi in Buenos Aires where 54 Claypaky Sharpy Plus fixtures enhanced the energy on stage.
The tour marked the 30th anniversary of Páez’s breakout album, El amor despues del amor, the pinnacle of his commercial success. In 1992 the artist sold more than 750,000 copies of the album and played sold-out concert dates. Thirty years later he drew sell-out crowds to a commemorative tour from Gonna Go! Producciones that began in 2022. In the tour’s first year Páez played shows in South America and the US; last year he expanded the tour to include additional South American countries as well as Canada and Europe.
Lighting designer Gaspar Potocnik selected a large complement of Claypaky Sha

USA - Popular Americana and R'n'B singer songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff and his band The Night Sweats played their sold-out annual homecoming holiday concert at the Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado, in December.
It was the second time the annual event - which has been running for some years - was staged at this venue, after moving to the larger space in 2022.
The lighting was crafted by Jeremy Roth, who has been Nathaniel’s production designer since 2017. He utilised over 100 Robe moving lights - Fortes, Spiiders and MegaPointes plus a RoboSpot system - to help make it look spectacular and memorable.
Jeremy programmed and operated lights for this seasonal holiday performance himself, working alongside lighting director Adam Waguespack, who often takes the show on the road for him. At Ball Arena, Adam took on the vital role of coordinating the follow spots and Rob

Rwanda - Unusual Rigging faced a number of challenges when they were briefed to provide the rigging for the Global Citizen Move Afrika event at the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda, on 6 December.
This event, organised by Done & Dusted, was the first event in a five-year large-scale effort to pioneer a first of its kind international music touring circuit throughout the African continent.
Sam Carter, senior production rigger, Unusual explained: “This event was a pretty big deal - not just as a music gig but as an initiative which hopes to help expand the industry in the region. Each year, we are pleased to work with some local people, demonstrating what we do, how we do it and hopefully, by giving some training to these guys, we’re giving them the tools to develop their own entertainment industry.”
One of the first things that Sam and the team had to deal wit

USA - Mickey Sabbath, an aging, manipulative and sex-obsessed puppeteer is the subject of Sabbath’s Theatre, a new play by Ariel Levy and John Turturro, based on the Phillip Roth novel of the same name.
The play, which recently concluded its run by The New Group, evokes the eerie pathos of Sabbath’s life as he approaches death, and his own reality frays, evidenced by his imaginary encounters with people from his past. Supporting the play is a lighting design by Tony Award winner Jeff Croiter that relied on the Chauvet Professional COLORado 2 Solo Batten for part of its haunting effect.
Describing the overall mood conveyed by the production, Croiter noted: “The set is very simple, and not realistic, so lighting and video take the audience from one place to the next. At times, it was more important to have a dynamic shift, even if that meant breaking with r

Bahrain - A Dicentis conference system from Bosch was selected by the organisers of the recent International Paralympic Committee (IPC) General Assembly and Conference which took place in Manama, Bahrain at the end of September 2023.
Five new nations were added to the IPC family, taking the membership to 208 countries, and a pair of international federations recognised as governing bodies for para-sports. The event saw participation from more than 350 attendees from different National Paralympic Committees, International Federations, Regional Organisations and International Organisations of Sport for the Disabled.
Smooth communication was ensured thanks to an extensive Dicentis system which comprised 201 delegate devices, including eight multimedia devices, seven discussion devices with voting and 186 discussion devices with touchscreen. The conferencing solution for

Germany - The country’s biggest New Year’s Eve party, Willkommen 2024, took place in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and was broadcast live for several hours by ZDF Television. The event featured spectacular live performances from leading German artists. An estimated 3.5m TV viewers watched the spectacle, hosted by well-known presenters Andrea Kiewel and Johannes B. Kerner, with around 65,000 spectators present at the event.
Such a prestigious occasion demanded exceptional audio, and full-service production specialist Ambion was engaged to deliver on-site sound production as well as set construction for the main stage.
Ambion supplied Coda Audio systems to meet what was a challenging brief. Whilst the sound systems were required to cover a very large area, they also had to take account of the sightlines of many TV cameras and be as discreet as possible. F

UK - Unusual Rigging has dealt with a fair few strange and, well, unusual, requests over the years. So when Gary Beestone was brought on board as technical director for Netflix and Sonia Friedman Productions’ Stranger Things: The First Shadow, Unusual was chosen for the production’s complex rigging.
“Bringing Stranger Things to the stage is incredibly ambitious and challenging,” explained Gary. “The Unusual team and I are old friends, having worked on some pretty major events and productions over the years. I knew they were really the only sensible choice for this show and so engaged them to design, engineer, fabricate and install all rigging including specialist custom rigging for the production.”
With the original story by the Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne & Kate Trefry, this new production, based on the Netflix Series, takes audiences b

USA - Broadcast live from Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena for the second consecutive year, the 66th Grammy Awards were delivered by an expert production team who trust Shure wireless technology to ensure extraordinary audio.
“Shure’s Axient Digital wireless technology delivers the high-quality sound and reliability that our team depends on for the Grammy Awards,” shared Michael Abbott, audio producer for the 66th Grammy Awards show. “Their wireless, along with the wide variety of Shure mic capsules, ensures the artists sound their best for the live broadcast.”
To flawlessly broadcast the audio of the event worldwide to 16.9m viewers, a stalwart group of industry veterans, including Michael, relied on 28 channels of the Emmy Award-winning Shure Axient Digital Wireless Microphone System and eight channels of Axient Analog. Artists trusted Shure PSM 1000 in-ear

UK - Ed Warren’s lighting design for The Lottery Winners’ recent homecoming show at the 02 Apollo Manchester featured a strong floral element.
Warren had two rows of daisy set pieces arranged across the stage. Each had at its centre a Chauvet Professional Strike 1, single source 230W warm white LED blinder, ready to rock the house and transform the stage with intense strobes, audience lighting and immersive washes.
“The concept of the flowers came about from a creative meeting with the band,” said Warren. “They mentioned their logo/branding is daisies, so I had the idea of having some daisy set pieces built. The plan was that we would mount lights in the centre disc of the flowers. The Strike 1s seemed like the perfect solution since they provided natural looking light and a killer strobe. The daisy set pieces were custom made to suit a Strike 1 fixture. The

Finland - The celebrated LUX Helsinki light festival took place at venues across the Finnish capital during January, with a highlight being the specially created projection mapped visual display onto the intricate façade of the National Gallery Ateneum.
The looping, five-hour graphic animations formed a large, 8,000px-wide canvas and were projected by six Barco UDX 4K32 projectors and driven by Green Hippo Hippotizer Montane+ RTX and Karst+ Media Servers.
The festival was staged by Events Helsinki, which brought in Capital AV to deliver technical production and visual consultancy for the Ateneum projections. In temperatures plummeting to minus 20 Celsius, the Capital AV team set up a warm trailer next to FOH position and the three projector towers. The animation work was designed by Katri Tikkanen and commissioned to celebrate the 60th anniversary of famous Finnish c

USA - Fan experience innovator PixMob returned to the Super Bowl for a fifth consecutive year. The entertainment lighting tech experts delivered a crowd-captivating immersive experience during the much-anticipated halftime show.
This year’s PixMob activation set out to elevate the halftime show to ‘unparalleled heights’, enhancing the performance of Usher by outfitting performers on stage with their X4 Wristbands. PixMob’s signature sustainably-sourced LED wearables lit up the field with synchronised visual effects to match the performance.
In the crowd, 60,000 spectators were equipped with PixMob’s LED badges, transforming the audience into a dazzling canvas of light and immersive effects.
"PixMob is honoured to mark our fifth consecutive year partnering with the Super Bowl, a testament to our commitment to pushing the boundaries of immersive lighting

UK - The King’s Head is popular pub in the village of Bwlchgwyn, not far from Wrexham in North Wales. Providing a valuable focus for the community, owners Eddie and Abbie always strive to deliver the best customer experience possible, and recently took the decision to upgrade the pub’s sound system, which they no longer considered fit for purpose.
Specialists Pivotal Sound & Lighting of Wrexham were engaged to design and supply a solution for The King’s Head. Pivotal cover every facet of audio for live events, hire and installation, and their vastly experienced team has a reputation for excellence across the region. Pivotal recommended an Optimal Audio system to meet the pub’s varied programme.
Darren Hughes, director at Pivotal Sound & Lighting comments, “The existing system comprised a number of loudspeakers driven by a home cinema amplifier which w

Germany - Rea Garvey is one of the best-known musicians in Germany and is a guest on the biggest stages and festivals year after year. An arena tour for his new album Halo has already been announced for 2024. Prior to this, the Irishman took the opportunity to feel the intimate audience proximity of smaller clubs again with the Roots tour.
Chris ‘Rocketchris’ Glatthor, who has accompanied Garvey as a production designer since 2014, was also on board. Rocketchris relied on the Cameo PIXBAR G2, AZOR and ZENIT Series – among others – for the minimalist stage designs.
According to the experienced production designer, who is responsible for the entire visual realisation of the shows, the Roots tour was something special in more ways than one: "It's the first real tour in several years. What's more, there is no new Rea Garvey album, hence the name Roots. We pl

The Netherlands - Prolights DisplayCob TRWDFC illuminated the Dying in Beauty exhibition at the Drents Museum Assen, in an innovative collaboration with the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and the National Archaeological Park of Herculaneum.
The exhibition was illuminated with Prolights DisplayCob TRWDFC to tell the story of Pompeii's life before its destruction, showing how art and technology can merge to create a powerful visual narrative. The NorthenLight agency took care of the artistic design, relying on Lichpunt for the lighting setup and 50Lux for the lighting design.
Light was used as a narrative tool to differentiate life (white light) from death (red light representing lava). Lighting designer Frank Hulsebosch of 50Lux used 12 DisplayCob TRWDFC to achieve colourful, intense lighting effects, demonstrating the versatility of products in a complex exh

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