USA - Lighting designer Herrick Goldman used Elation Professional’s colour-changing Colour 5 Profile LED ellipsoidal spot as part of a large lighting package for the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s recent production of Alice in Wonderland.
The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s version of Lewis Carroll’s timeless classic ‒ first created in London 20 years ago by a design team at the English National Ballet ‒ ran 10-19 February at the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts in Pittsburgh.
“It was a fun challenge to update the work to a much more modern and vibrant aesthetic in collaboration with choreographer Derek Deane,” Goldman commented about his work on the ballet. “When Derek told me he wanted a modern Vegas feel to the show, [director of production] Curtis Dunn and I immediately began discussing adding LEDs to the plot. We were able to use 26 Elation

USA - Allen & Heath digital mixers are once again at the forefront of this year’s South by Southwest Music and Media Conference (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, USA.
Mixers from across the dLive, GLD and Qu ranges are employed in many participating venues across the city during the six-day event, most notably for the renowned British Music Embassy showcase.
Hosted at the Latitude 30 club, British production company, CATO Music, has installed three dLive systems to manage FOH, monitors and broadcast duties for up to 12 bands a day.
With a new band appearing approximately every 40 minutes, a quick setup and easy navigation for each visiting band engineer are the key system requirements. Secondly, the system needs to provide a multi-track recording feed for the BBC, which plans to broadcast much of the British Music Embassy programming.
A dLive S5000 Surface wi

Australia - The prestigious Robert Blackwood Hall at Melbourne’s Monash University has been equipped with a versatile inventory of Nexo sound reinforcement technologies, including a new Geo M6 compact line array as main PA.
Monash is a public research university based in Melbourne, one of the oldest in Australia. Named after its founding Chancellor, Sir Robert Blackwood, the Robert Blackwood Hall has become Melbourne’s most prestigious venue outside the Central Business District, now celebrating its 40th anniversary.
Group Technologies, the Melbourne-based design and installation company, was briefed to specify and supply new audio facilities appropriate for the Hall’s different uses. “Acoustically, it ranks with the best available in Australia,” explains GT director Mark Ladewig. “It has been the venue for numerous commercial recordings for the ABC, Melbou

UK - Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru recently staged a Welsh-language version of Macbeth at Caerphilly Castle. This new, site-specific production ran last month and was the company’s first show to be performed in this historic ruin. Following its work on several other site-specific projects, White Light was asked to provide the lighting equipment on this production.
Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru was formed in 2003 with the aim of offering a variety of productions that enrich Wales’ theatre culture in all its form, especially through the medium of Welsh. The lighting designer on Macbeth was Joe Fletcher and the production and lighting assistant was Joshua Kroon. Joshua comments, “I worked closely alongside Joe to help create the systems and structure that would facilitate his design. This was an extremely ambitious production and key planning at every single stage w

UK - Working alongside lighting designer/director Sturat Pring, LED Creative provided an array of their Alpha 60 RGB Wand Kits to add highlights to an absorbing performance by Ray BLK for Deezer Next, a new programme supporting music’s next generation.
Using the Alpha 60 to great effect, Stuart positioned the wands to create an intricate layered backdrop that pulsed in time with the rhythm, adding subtle accents to a suite of soulful, stripped back versions of songs by the newcomer.
Available as ‘plug and play’ rental kits, the LC Alpha Soft RGB Wands are available in a choice of length and colour temperature to provide a versatile, highly controllable illumination solution. For the Deezer installation the LD cleverly added a sense of depth to the intimate studio choosing to ‘float’ the wands within a haze filled darkness, creating a simple monochromatic ambi

UK - Matthew Bourne’s latest show Early Adventures is making a triumphant return as part of the company’s 30th anniversary celebrations. The show sees Matthew Bourne return to his roots with a programme of early pieces that launched his career and saw the birth of his enigmatic style. Following the company’s work on Matthew Bourne’s previous show The Red Shoes, White Light has been called upon once again to provide the lighting equipment.
Early Adventures is a triple bill of classic Bourne work: The Infernal Galop, Town and Country and Watch with Mother. The set has been designed by long-time collaborator Lez Brotherston with a lighting design by Andy Murrell. Andy comments: “My role was to create a design that would be suitable for the overall show whilst also ensuring that each piece had its own individual identity. For i

Spain - Held at the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona, the GSMA’s Mobile World Congress draws together leaders from the world’s largest and most influential companies in the mobile ecosystem, as well as government delegations from across the globe.
Creative Technology (CT), contracted by the Fira and working with creative communications and brand experience agency Line Up for the GSMA, provided their full suite of services to support the Mobile World Congress Conference and Ministerial Programme.
Project managed by CT’s Mick Jones and Nick Whitehead, these programmes utilised video, projection, cameras, audio, digital signage using CT’s Mercury system, PowerPoint management software using CT’s Apollo system, full networking, IT infrastructure and streaming services.
Almost 100 crew members from every CT service and department were on site for this project, for

UK - An Avolites Arena console has been selected to control the custom designed, automated house rig on debut electronic dance music series Issue 001 at London's new, experimental cultural hub, Printworks. The 001 series sees some of the industry's most progressive electronic dance music promoters including Junction 2, Melt Festival and Knee Deep host top and emerging dance music talent.
The Arena was selected and installed alongside the rest of the event's lighting package by Poole-based lighting and rigging expert Wolf Lighting. The console is networked in the venue's 'crown jewel' event space; a 16.8m high, 120m x 30m area dubbed 'The Press Halls' on account of the original printing presses that still flank its sides.
"There was never a question of not using an Avolites console for the Printworks project," says Jonathan Oliver, director of Wolf Lighting. "We needed

UK - Audio specialist Sennheiser has partnered with Pink Floyd to demonstrate its AMBEO 3D audio technology in action as part of the sound expert’s work for The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains, which opens to the public at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum on 13 May.
One of the most anticipated elements of the exhibition is a new immersive mix of Comfortably Numb from the Live 8 concert – the last time David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright played onstage with former member Roger Waters – created using Sennheiser’s AMBEO 3D technology in a brand-new format using 25 speakers. AMBEO 3D places sound both around and above the listener, delivering an immersive audio sensation unlike anything visitors have experienced before.
The 360° surround mix was presented earlier this month at Abbey Road Studios in London, where Pink Floyd r


USA - On 5 February Houston, Texas played host to the NFL’s Super Bowl LI, fought out between the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons at NRG Stadium. Entertaining the crowds in the hotly anticipated Pepsi Zero Sugar Halftime Show was Lady Gaga, whose high-octane performance earned the respect of millions in an intense 13-minute spectacular that was viewed by over 115 million people worldwide. The show was another world-class collaboration from co-production designers, Bruce Rodgers of Tribe Inc. and LeRoy Bennett of Seven Design Works, and lighting designer, Bob Barnhart of 22 Degrees.
Ayrton was, once again, proud to be part of this show with 81 new MagicDot-XT fixtures, 40 new MagicPanel-FX fixtures and a solitary CosmoPix-R chosen to adorn the major scenic elements of Barnhart’s lighting design.
Both Bennett and Rodgers had a message to

UK - When James Priddle, sales and project manager for Pyrojunkies, needed a console to programme a special effects show for the 2016 BPM/Pro trade show in Birmingham, they chose the MA Lighting dot2. The trade event was an opportunity for Pyrojunkies to showcase Magic FX products in a live situation. To do this they created a short but intense show that highlighted what could be achieved with the equipment, so he got on the phone to Ambersphere Solutions to see what they recommended.
Thor-André of Ambersphere’s Technical Sales reports, “I spent a lot of time with James, looking at the various options and how they could best work for him, and we eventually settled upon a dot2 Core.”
Priddle explains further, “We wanted to create a show that had the feel of a concert. We achieved this by using a large, high-definition screen, a crowd barrier and using a combi

USA - The good times never stop for Brothers Gow. The popular California jam band, which has been touring non-stop, doing close to 100 shows a year since 2007, shows no signs of slowing down. With each passing mile, this tightly woven quintet has expanded its musical horizons, mashing up a mixed brew of influences from Snoop Dogg-like funk to Grateful Dead-inspired psychedelia to create a cornucopia of sounds that is all their own.
Lighting designer Matt Collier is capturing the pure joy and live-for-music spirit of Brothers Gow on their Fall Tour with a compact, but punchy and fast-moving lightshow that is built around 10 Rogue fixtures from Chauvet Professional.
Collier, who the band describes as “the sixth member of Brothers Gow”, has loaded six Rogue R1 Washes and four Rogue R1 Spots into the band’s well-travelled trailer for the tour that started in San Dieg

UK - Adlib continues its work with top comedians having just supplied full production - sound, lighting and video - for Jack Whitehall’s sold out, three-week At Large UK arena tour.
All the crew were pleased to be working with TPi Award-winning production manager Neil McDonald who made sure everything was well organised and that there was a great flow of communications. Johnny Dodkin was the ever-cheerful tour manager who kept everything in check and Adlib were thrilled to be back working with Chambers Touring Ltd on another exciting comedy project.
Steve “Patto” Pattison mixed FOH, working with a strong team from Adlib including monitor engineer / sound crew chief Marc Peers and systems tech Tony Szabo, KSE, who were responsible for the precision and detail required to ensure that every seat in the house had crisp, clear and audible speech.
Tony wo

UK - DMX Productions’ managing director, SJ Grevett is the first to admit that he is something of an MA control newbie. “We were looking to expand our control inventory and, as MA control is requested on all our major rock ‘n’ roll gigs, it seemed the logical choice to investigate further. I was completely unfamiliar with the MA system having spent years working with other boards but within 30 minutes of the grandMA2 Command Wing arriving at my door I had it outputting art net and talking to our media servers via CITP, something that has caused considerable headaches with other boards. I just love the desk.”
SJ’s contact at MA Lighting’s UK distributor Ambersphere Solutions was sales manager Thor Andrè Saether. “The first Command wing and fader Wing DMX Productions bought was DMX’s first real encounter with grandMA2 control. Talking to SJ over the next cou

UK - Not since Adele performed Someone like you at the Brit Awards in 2011 has the O2 audience sat in such reverential hush. Chris Martin’s tribute ‘duet’ with George Michael at Brits 2017 was as spine tingling as it gets, and more authentic than you might imagine, as Michael’s long time sound engineer, Garry Bradshaw explains.
“Chris Martin was singing live while obviously, George’s vocal was a recording of A Different Corner, but not a studio recording; this was a live take from one of his concerts on the Symphonica tour. For me, hearing his voice again like that really raised the hairs on the back of my neck.” Not surprisingly a lot of attention went into this performance, “We rehearsed on site the previous day,” explains Bradshaw.
“Myself and Dan Green for Chris Martin had half the desk each, I had the left side, three faders, one

The Netherlands - Nearly 100 Claypaky Sharpys were exclusively selected to deliver an immersive eight-hour light show to 2,000 partygoers at an underground club night that was hosted by trailblazing Dutch techno music agency Claydrum at Complex nightclub, Maastricht for their New Year's Eve celebrations.
Dutch production designer Joël Lemmerling, from Maastricht-based production company, Stöd, selected 96 of the multi-award winning Sharpy fixtures to create a fastidious design formulated by gridded white, coloured and UV light beams and clever manipulation of angles. The fixtures were supplied to Stöd by Claypaky's Belgium distributor AED.
"We wanted a fixture that could deliver perfect beams of light that were easy to see, even with colours that are normally less visible, like red and UV," says Lemmerling, who utilised the Sharpy's 14-option colour wheel in conjun

UK - Wayne McGregor’s highly-acclaimed Woolf Works - his first full-length work for the Royal Ballet - returned for a revival performance at Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House. The ballet triptych is based on Virginia Woolf as viewed through her three major novels: Mrs Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves.
The high-tech multimedia production features an original score by Max Richter that called for a complex sound design by Chris Ekers, enabled and energised by a TiMax2 SoundHub spatial audio processor.
As this was a revival, the original challenges of a score incorporating both electronic music and a live orchestra, set in an environment not optimally suited to amplification, had largely been addressed previously. This time around, due to the efficiency and flexibility TiMax brings to multi-channel spatial audio production workflows, it was m

USA - A metal band that’s recorded hits with names like Cry For The Moon doesn’t normally cover music written by the likes of Antonio Vivaldi, Antonín Dvořák and Giuseppe Verdi, but then again, nothing about Dutch act Epica can be described as ‘ordinary’. In addition to performing the works of these and other classical composers, the six-member band has put its own fresh, original and totally captivating metallic symphonic spin on music from films like Star Wars, Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Having risen high on the charts in their native northern Europe, where they perform at large capacity venues, Epica has nevertheless retained a fearless desire to pursue new forms of expression. This was very evident in their latest North American tour, which concluded in early December, not just in their music, but also in their lights

Australia Adele debuts her new stadium show this month on a six-city tour of Australia and New Zealand, to be continued in the UK in June. The opening in Perth broke records with 65,000 in ticket sales for a single night. Anyone fortunate enough to attend one of these sold-out shows cannot miss 285m of Firefly FloppyFlex LED neon lining the star’s surround-walk in the 360˚ in-the-round production.
“This is Adele’s first arena tour and the design is stunning,” says Firefly founding director, Heath Williamson. “Everything is traditionally lit for a warm, classic tungsten look. The FloppyFlex RGB is mixed for warm and cool whites, as well as the occasional red – all done with the greatest taste.
“Double runs of FloppyFlex coupled together render them even more impressive than usual, whether from the upper rows of the stadium or even the news chopper flying

China - Immersive Chinese theatre work Encore Dunhuang debuted at the first Silk Road Dunhuang International Cultural Expo and was directed by Wang Chaoge, co-director of the stunning opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
During the 90-minute performance, audience members can travel through time as they walk through four zones and experience key moments and characters in the 2,000-year history of the city, once an important stop on the Silk Road.
For lighting control LD Wang Yugang used four grandMA2 light consoles, two MA onPC command wing, four MA NPU (Network Processing Unit), two MA VPU plus MK2 (Video Processing Unit) and 10 MA 2Port Nodes.
“An Encore theatre is different from the standard theatre. Depending on the needs of the scene, it is built to be a flexible space that meets all the regular theatre construction specifications whilst

UK - Colour Sound Experiment delivered equipment for a recent UK tour by pioneering d‘n’b music producer Wilkinson, a much anticipated series of sold-out gigs ahead of the release of his new Hypnotic album in April - working with lighting designer Sam Tozer.
Playing a variety of venues, this was an opportunity for the company’s new pre-rigged trussing - a Litec product specially modified for them - to provide a flexible and practical solution. Features include an expedient four-wide-two-high stacking truck pack combined with super-fast deployment onstage.
The regional dates were primarily at academy venues, culminating in a high profile high pressure performance at London's Roundhouse. The look and design developed for the tour was a total change from any previous Wilkinson live shows, and a big part of the aesthetic goal was to produce something new and e

Germany - When Jazz legend Al Di Meola played a sell-out gig at Darmstadt’s 1000-capacity Straatstheatre, Tonwerk’s Jan Weimann deployed a Uniline FOH system from APG. For Weimann, using the Uniline with this artist was the only possible choice. “Al Di Meola is quite specific about loud stage environments. The Uniline system has such a great directivity that there's so little sound spill to the stage from the PA system. We also shielded the drums with acrylic glass at his request.”
The system was configured to provide high-clarity coverage for every seat with minimal backward spill. Comprised of left and right hangs of eight UL210 three-way line array modules per side, with bass support from three stacked UL115B subs, the system was driven by APG controllers.
For Weimann, APG’s Uniline is his preferred system because, he says, it implements a “large stereo

Italy - Allen & Heath’s dLive, GLD and ME systems were employed to manage broadcast performances at the recent Sanremo Music Festival in Italy, an annual week-long event based around a popular TV singing competition.
Allen & Heath managed FOH, monitors and broadcast duties at the Fort Santa Tecla venue, which staged artist performances and DJ sets to be broadcast live during the festival on the national TV channel, Rai. The venue also hosted VIP festival guests.
Italian pro audio specialist, Exhibo, supplied two Dante-enabled dLive S Class mixing systems, with a S5000 Surface and DM48 MixRack managing FOH and monitors, and a S3000 and DM48 for broadcast and recording. A ME personal monitoring system was also supplied for rehearsals and the drum-fill mix, and a Dante-enabled Chrome Edition GLD-80 digital mixer was provided for the DJ sets, where the GLD Remote

USA - In what has been called Tennessee’s finest food and wine event, the Knoxville Museum of Art held its primary annual fundraising event, L’Amour du Vin 4 March, with a lighting package donated by Bandit Lites.
The sophisticated wine auction and dinner (prepared by three-time James Beard Award-winner and Relais & Châteaux Grand Chef Barbara Lynch), serves as the primary contribution event for the museum, which reaches over 60,000 annually and boasts an accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums, a merit less than ten percent of American museums share.
Bandit has been involved with L’Amour du Vin for 14 years and is trusted to both bring the fundamental lighting of the space, both functional and ambient, and to create an inviting, dazzling feel for the soiree, while not overpowering the museums architecture and installations.
Using a combinati

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