Business

Details

14 March 2016

"Jazz World is generally regarded as the musicians' stage," according to APR Audio's crew chief Matt Gunter. "This is where the real musical talent plays, and I suppose we do go the extra mile for them. But this stage is respected by the performers, engineers and audience because of the consistency of the sound. Jazz World uses the same PA every year, and we bring good experienced crew. We saw the noise police only once - we ran at 96dB all weekend, and had no problems at

Details

14 March 2016

James Gunnell, head of global logistics at FT Conferences and Events, says: "We are delighted to be working with SPS. The professionalism and passion displayed by the team has impressed us immensely and they have delivered an exceptional service so far. I am looking forward to developing our relationship with SPS throughout the course of the year."

Robin Coles, managing director of SPS, adds, "We are very proud and excited to be working with the FT. With a company of this stature it is imperative to captivate and impress the highly successful business professionals who attend FT Conferences.

Details

14 March 2016

Lighting designer Abigail Rosen Holmes worked with production designer Tom McPhillips of Atomic Design to develop the tour design.

"Tom McPhillips' fabulous set design was the great starting point," says Holmes. "Martina is also very involved in the creative process. She has a very good eye and a real knowledge of what works for her, which makes it a huge pleasure to work with her."

Holmes suggested that a key component to the lighting design was working with McPhillips to create a set that co-ordinated with the lighting scheme. McPhillips chose the Barco MiTrix panels because they are reasonably see-through, so lighting can work behind and through them. He explained that the recent advances in LED, like video scrims, strips and pixel blocks, that can be used as integral set e

Details

14 March 2016

The six schools and colleges that make up the AHC include the disciplines of medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, public health, and veterinary medicine. The Mayo Memorial Auditorium is used primarily as a lecture hall, but also serves many other functions.

Architects Smith Group, based out of Minneapolis, with principal architect Ted Davis and project architect Nick Woodard, were awarded the task of renovation, while technology consultants Elert & Associates of Stillwater, MN were engaged to analyse the auditorium and design a system capable of delivering seamless, first class speech quality.

In effect, the

Details

14 March 2016

The concert was the only show in Germany that the artist played during his current tour. Lighting designer and director Kevin 'Stick' Bye uses two grandMA full-size, one as backup.

With the console, Bye controls a lighting rig including 40 VL3000 spots, 12 VL 1000AS, 12 VL2402, 10 VL6c, 32 MAC 2000 washes and a 60ft wide and 33ft high Mainlight Soft LED curtain.

The co-designer of the show is Benny Kirkham who is also is responsible for the media server content. Demfis Fyssicopulous and Benny Kirkham work as grandMA programmers.

(Jim Evans)

Details

14 March 2016

A crucial part of guitarist Pete Townshend's stage set-up is a Crest XR-20 rack-mount mixer which has performed every show with him since the beginning of the tour.

Dick Hayes of Entec Sound and Light, long-time suppliers of audio equipment to The Who, explained that Townshend uses the XR-20 to do his own band mix onstage. "It receives sub mixes from the main FoH and monitor consoles and then Pete takes it from there. I'm pleased to say that, contrary to our initial expectations it does an extrao

Details

14 March 2016

The tour kicked off in the US and Canada and is currently scheduled to run until February 2008, hitting the UK and Europe in September and October. There are two formats for the lighting rig - to fit both arena and stadium sized shows.

Nolan was asked onboard by Woodroffe back in January 2007, so was involved right from the very beginning. Woodroffe came up with the whole show design including the set concept, and he and Nolan shared the lighting design credit. "Patrick's idea was not to make it too techie," Nolan expl

Details

14 March 2016

Aside from the Gaiety, Shea also has the complex's Royal Hall, Villa Marina and 250-seat Promenade Suite under his charge, and last month he again consulted the Shepperton-based company to advise on a compact and flexible sound reinforcement upgrade solution for the Promenade Suite.

The Promenade Suite is a low-ceilinged venue which is used equally for conferences and staging emerging unsigned acts - so fast derigging was essential to the brief.

Marquee Audio's sales director, Andy Huffer, recommended an RCF 4PRO powered solution, and in addition to

Details

14 March 2016

The Theatre has been Waterford's main centre of culture and entertainment since the mid Seventies, providing the region with a varied programme of professional and community-based music, drama, dance, variety, pantomime and other live productions.

DBL's Dirk Baumann was appointed to re-design the existing lighting grid and provide a much more flexible system to suit the theatre's current and future needs. Once the lanterns, grid and dimming were in place, Baumann was also asked to specify a more powerful console to make the most of the new lighting infrastructure.

The Theatre has purchased a Vista T2 console for its ne

Details

14 March 2016

The restructure, one of the key items on a packed agenda, was voted in on a show of hands by an overwhelming proportion of the record number of members who attended the AGM at the Hurlingham Club in London on 6 June.

The restructure, which is designed to ensure that PLASA represents the highest possible professional standards, will also provide a framework that better reflects the industry. As such, the existing nine categories of membership have been simplified to just four - Business, Educational, Individual and Affiliate. PLASA is now working on the fine detail behind the restructure and the new scheme will be officially launche

Details

14 March 2016

The wall is adorned with 2ft and 3ft square openings running the entire circumference, giving the building a Spanish Mission look. This architectural parapet detail is accentuated with LED lights from Acclaim Lighting, which are mounted inside the wall and fill each square with a palette of slowly-changing colours.

MOLAA's colour-changing parapet is the artistry of Richard Rutherford. Asked by the museum to come up with a cost-efficient, easy-to-run solution for lighting the new façade, Rutherford chose Acclaim X-Bar LEDs.

A DMX-controllable RGB-colour-mixing LED tube, t

Details

14 March 2016

The Abbey can trace its origins back to 907 AD and remains the largest parish church in Hampshire. Recently named as one of the 100 best loved places of worship in Britain in a national newspaper survey, the Abbey also hosts several high profile concerts a year and various community activities.

The Abbey approached A.C. Lighting to provide a complete turnkey solution to address the poor general lighting and expensive running costs of the Church's existing system. As the project's primary lighting contractor, A.C. employed David Atkinson Lighting Design (DALD) to design and specify a new lighting system, then supplied, installed, commissioned, and programmed the system.

To increase the general lighting levels along the nave,

Details

14 March 2016

"Besides the expectations on sound one would have for a tour of this calibre, the Turn It On Again tour scenography has a strong emphasis on video and pyrotechnics," says Colin. "Moreover, the stage was primarily designed for stadia and large format arenas with a total width of 90m. Therefore, the sound design is challenging as it requires high throw capability and must be as visually unobtrusive as possible with an unusual spacing of 46m between the L/R V-DO

Details

14 March 2016

"Harman sent us a C5 and a D5 just recently when they were launched here in the UK," comments Davies' live sound engineer Tristan Mallett. "We asked Ray to try them and he's been using the C5 on stage ever since. I also use AKG C535s for backing vocals and a C416 miniature mic on the accordion. The new C5 and D5 have been great, giving us a quality sound in the monitors and front-of-house even at very high sound pressure levels."

Davies' monitor engineer Chris Wibblerley adds, "The C5 is one of the best vocal mics I have ever used, with the feedback rejection of an SM58 and the clarity

Details

14 March 2016

The Lighthouse screen was used as a backdrop of the catwalk that featured girls who had replied to an appeal on the band's MySpace web page.

Video director Charlie Lightening says: "Having seen other music videos using LED video walls I knew that, as a video director, I could do something amazing with it.

"I wanted a strong, clean image when the cameras were zoomed back, but also to have a pixellated style of image when the cameras zoomed in close. I approached R16 from an artistic point of view, it was the right screen to achieve the effect that I want."

(Jim Evans)

Details

14 March 2016

The show was halted after just six scenes on its opening night for about 10 minutes due to "technical difficulties", the audience was told. Fans were left waiting while the problem was sorted - thought to be an issue with the rotating floor.

It was not the first occasion in recent times that a technical issue has hit a high profile West End production - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang also had difficulties in its early shows. And a West End preview performance of the Lord of The Rings musical had to be cancelled earlier this year when actor Adam Salter broke his leg after getting it trapped in set machinery.

Despite the first half hiccup, it was a standing ovation for t

Details

14 March 2016

Patrick Woodroffe was the global designer for the project, creating a formal plot that would be developed into the flagship London rig. As it was impossible for him to be present at all the events, he appointed a team of lighting designers - one in each hosting country - to re-create individual designs based on the availability of fixtures in the various locations.

In New York, Performance Environment Design produced the show and lighting designer Patrick Dierson explains, "We were approached not only out of trust, but also due to our past efforts in promoting environmental sustainability within live entertainment production. The crux of Woodroffe's vision for

Details

14 March 2016

One of the Vi6 desks is used as the mixer for the on-stage monitoring, the other as the main front-of-house desk. The installation completes RAG Support's refit of Koko's new sound system, which was designed by Harman Pro UK's engineers and which RAG Support has been putting together at the venue over the last few months.

Tim Hamper, FOH engineer at Koko, comments, "It's great to finally have our two Vi6 desks permanently installed here. Harman Pro UK have been closely involved with the design of the refit at Koko from the outset, and so we were offered a Vi6 when it was still in development. We've had a test desk in as the FOH console here for months and it's been easy to learn

Details

14 March 2016

Charcoalblue's specialist consultants worked in close association with architects Haworth Tompkins on the award winning Young Vic; John McAslan and Partners on the critically acclaimed Roundhouse and Ian Ritchie Architects on the RSC's groundbreaking temporary new home - the Courtyard Theatre.

Andy Hayles, managing director of Charcoalblue comments: "It was a great night. We're extremely proud to have been so closely involved with all three winning projects. It's great to see our contribution recognised from time to time."

(Jim Evans)

Details

14 March 2016

Staged by Seensee Musical Company at the Seoul Arts Centre Opera House, Dancing Shadows is an adaptation of the play Forest Fire, written by the celebrated Chilean Ariel Dorfmann. Music and lyrics are by Eric Woolfson of the 1970s rock band, Alan Parsons Project, with direction by Paul Garrington, lighting design by Simon Corder and sound design by Richard Brooker.

With plans to bring the show into both the US and Europe over the next couple of years, this initial production was designed to match up to international standards in all respects. Richard Brooker assembled a talented local sound tea

Details

14 March 2016

La Parrilla is owned by Daniel Tercero, who commissioned Swansea-based interior design practice Thomas Parry to create the interiors, who in turn asked PAI to come up with the relevant technical infrastructure. The PAI team has worked with Thomas Parry on many previous projects, and on this one they collaborated closely with main designer, Matt Bailey.

High production values were at the core of the technical installation, for which a C-Burn computer music system wa

Details

14 March 2016

"For the complex setup that was spread over a long distance, the grandMA control system proved to be an invaluable tool. Its huge pre-programming abilities saved a lot of time during the design as well as during the programming part of the project development," says lighting designer Pawel Pajak.

One grandMA full-size and one grandMA light were used for the stage lighting and video server control. Additionally, another grandMA light controlled the searchlights using two wireless DMX lines. Two MA NSPs and grandMA 3D were also included in the event.

"Since the setup consisted of intelligent lights and video on stage with the searchlights being set on the other side of the river, we found working with the MA Net etherne

Details

14 March 2016

At the Monterrey Arena, Adamson long-time Yaxis partner Audio Systems del Norte provided 24 Adamson Y18 cabinets with 8 Y10 under hang for the main PA, and 12 T21 subs ground stacked, plus16 Y10 subs flown beside the main arrays. Additional side-fills featured eight Y10s per side.

The official Guns n' Roses website described the Monterray arena show: "From the opening notes of Welcome To The Jungle to the final encore Paradise City, Guns N' Roses had the rabid crowd going wild all night long.

(Jim Evans)

Details

14 March 2016

Production design was conceived by Roger Waters and LD Marc Brickman and manned by video director Alastair MacDiarmid and his crew, LED techs Clark Anderson, Icarus Wilson-Wright, Rob Maloney and John Scruggs.

John Wiseman, president of XL Video, notes: "This is a perfect execution between our UK and US offices. It was a great effort by myself and Chris Mounsor, but truth be told, we were just the pretty faces, all the hard work was done by Phil Mercer."

(Jim Evans)