Jo'burg Day is a family orientated concert and hosts only local South African talent, with artists such as Johnny Clegg, Prime Circle, Zebra and Giraffe and Flash Republic performing to a capacity crowd.
"We had the luxury of soundchecks with each of the bands the day before the concerts and are therefore able to build scenes for each of them," says Sound Stylists' Nardus De Lange. "In addition to this, a
The setup was similar to the 2008 event, with three stages facilitating the rapid changeovers required for the live televised event. However this year, a house band provided musical backing for three of the artists.
FOH duties were handled by two XL8s, one taking care of the 72-piece Norwegian Radio Orchestra and the house band, leaving the second console free for visiting engineers to mix their own artists, and for MCs Will and Jada Smith. This year's lineup included Donna Summer, Westlife, Wycliffe Jean and A
The band has been on this current world tour since the middle of 2008, with the schedule stepping up after the release of their third studio album Day & Age in November last year. It finishes up in February 2010 after visiting Asia and the Far East.
Killers' lighting designer Steven Douglas has worked with Gearhouse SA before on a Kanye West tour three years ago, and says he was confident that the production and service would be "excellent" when it came to the SA leg of the tour.
His original full production touring rig has several different permutations to allow for the variab
The old building at St George's Church, in Tufnell Park, has been renamed Rock Tower and has reopened as a place of worship. The building, which operated as a theatre and a community space in recent years, has been fully refurbished with a new extension, a cafe with free Internet access for the community, a youth centre and a day care facility for under-fives.
The charity approached SSE over two years ago at the earliest stages of the renovation. SSE was commissioned to install a complete audio and lighting installation for the church auditorium and adjacent spaces.
The audio design for the main auditorium was a challenge because the local Council had set de
JHS has been the exclusive distributor for Allen & Heath's PA and ZED Series in the UK and Ireland since September 2008. By sharing distribution with Allen & Heath in mainland Britain for the GL2400 and WZ range, the remaining A&H small-format PA mixers are incorporated in the JHS portfolio.
"JHS has a great track record and a prominent position in the MI market," says Allen & Heath UK sales manager, Martin Daley. "It was logical to share distribution of the MixWizard and GL2400 and expose their customer base to all of the relevant product lines in our range."
"It is a privilege to include these proven and award-winning produ
Danmarks Radio (DR), Denmark's national public service broadcaster, in cooperation with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, invited people from across the globe to make their voices heard during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
"The climate is a common concern, so we thought it was natural to use the Concert Hall's big blue screen to give everyone a chance to express their attitudes, hopes and expectations to the climate summit participants," says Lars Silberbauer Andersen, the man behind the initiative along with Web editor Casper Bech from the Foreign Ministry. Silberbauer Andersen is creatively responsible for DR's blue screen
The theatre hosts everything from seminars, AV presentations, one-man shows and Christmas pantomimes to full-blown rock concerts, so the console had to be both flexible and easily configurable. Sliman Maouchi, the convention centre's technical coordinator who was responsible for the refu
Designed by architects BDP for two clients, Tesco and Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, the new civic centre has rejuvenated this run-down area of town, offering two swimming pools, a sports hall, private gym and dance studio. Its curved roof wraps tightly over the building, and the stylish modern design is carried through into the large theatre at the heart of the building.
Equipped by Stage Electrics, the auditorium has a dedicated control room housing the 48-channel RSS M-400 V-Mixing console, which offers the house and visiting engineers a toolkit of 16 busses, channel and bus DSP, four stereo FX processors, fo
The pantomime season has been building up since early December, with White Light dispatching a wide range of equipment as specified by a variety of lighting designers to theatres around the UK. The show tally includes five Aladdins, seven Cinderellas, two Dick Whittingtons, one Humpty Dumpty, two Jack and the Beanstalks, seven Peter Pans, one Pied Piper, three Sleeping Beautys and four Snow Whites. The show's producers include First Family Entertainment, Evolution and UK Productions as well as independent productions in Camberley, Ha
From February 2010, Creative & Cultural Skills will work with Job Centre Plus and regional partners throughout England and Wales to secure employment in creative and cultural venues and organisations which are members of the National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural Skills. The jobs will be open to people aged 18-24 who have been claiming benefits. The jobs on offer will include theatre technician, costume and wardrobe assistant, community arts officer and business administrator. All will include a level of accredited trai
In addition to its contents, the show has distinguished itself for the exquisite set assembled in Mediaset's studio 11, the result of intense teamwork between photography director Franco Buso and set designer Dario Cavalletti. It all takes place inside a studio that has been outfitted as a real night club down to the smallest details with mood lighting, dancers, show girls, piano players and an audience seated at cocktail tables.
Franco Buso comments on the light design, "The goal was to
The UK Competition Commission revised its opinion that the deal could lead to music fans paying more for tickets to see live performances. The regulator found that it would not be in the new merged company's interest to shut out competition. The new company "would suffer significant and immediate losses, with very uncertain prospects for long-term gain," the Competition Commission said.
The reg
Delivering these musical styles with a modern sound was the challenge that sound designer Chris Full, Andy Pink (associate) and FOH mixer Matt McCarthy took on. The show started life at the Watermill where it played for two weeks before a UK tour. Due to the diversity of the theatres on tour, Full used Axys Scope loudspeakers as key elements to deliver the required punch and excitement at all levels from the smaller orchestral arrangements through big band to rock/ gospel whilst providing a consistent sound character through the full dynamic range of the show and across all of the individual venu
Focusing on two areas, the large Main Ballroom and the more intimate View Bar and Restaurant, the Point Source Productions team carried out necessary ad hoc repairs to the venues' lighting and control equipment whilst the ship was taking passengers on board at Southampton. The team's organisation and sympathetic approach ensured they completed the work without affecting the smooth workings of the ship. This was followed by a complete service of lighting equipment in both venues and the installation of architectural systems in the shop and Lido Restaurant when the Saga Ruby went into dry dock i
Taking place at the DG1 in Dumfries, a modern multipurpose venue, the awards took place on 28 November and were broadcast two days later on BBC television. Sound provider for the event was Midlothian-based event production company A&R Martin, which has a long and successful history of using the Yamaha / Nexo combination.
"I've been using the Yamaha M7CL and LS9 for several years and we've found them powerful, flexible and easy to use," says the company's Dougie Martin. "We first bought into Nexo about a decade ago, gradually increasing our inventory of PS and LS series loudspeakers and adding the GeoS12 system shortly after it
Routledge a founder of grandPA, the UK's only programming house for the grandMA control platform, was asked to light this show plus a warm-up at London's Electric Ballroom, following a TV special he did for the band at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium - for which his lighting design won a Welsh BAFTA Award.
grandPA was among the first UK companies to invest in the new grandMA2 consoles when it was released. "It's a beautifully comfortable desk to use," says Routledge, "with ergonomics and design carefully and intelligent
HSL was brought in to work with White Lies by Darren Snape of Vertical Management right at the start of their meteoric career two years ago, which has since experienced a steep upwards trajectory. This was their largest production tour to date and included two sold out nights at London's Brixton Academy. HSL's project manager Mike Oates says: "It's extremely rewarding seeing a talented band grow, and Chris's designs, which are always exciting and innovative, evolve."
Megginson began the creative process for this one by presenting some ideas to the band to get them energised about the lighting. They wanted a massive wall of PAR cans to
Playing to an average audience of 15,000, Oeckel was using the system in an arena configuration consisting of 24 K1 units with 12 K1 subs, 24 Kudo boxes plus 24 SB28 and 16 SB218 subwoofers.
"This provided high SPLs in all audience positions and a balanced frequency response," he says. "We were getting an SPL of 110dB at FOH and 103dB at the back row, with the same clear sound. It has brilliant rigging and quick handling, and its exact acoustic imaging provides a good starting point from the beginning. We've been getting a great
"We have 17 trucks in all, two and a half truck-loads of PA. Our first 'out' took just over two hours, now we regularly load out in one and three quarter hours." That might not sound too impressive until Vaughan points out, "That's in-the-round lights and LED system, with the main stereo PA, flown subs, side-hangs, and rear PA system. While playing 360° h
Solotech has maintained an active presence in Las Vegas since 2003. "We worked on the opening of some of Las Vegas's major showroom projects such as the Colosseum at Caesars Palace and the KÀ,/i> theatre at MGM Grand," says Pierre Leduc, vice president and general manager of Solotech US Corp. &
Legends 33 - named for both its featured sporting icons and its West 33rd Street location - is pitched at both the local office lunch / dinner market and tourists looking for a top quality all-American dining experience. It combines three floors of finely detailed old-world ambience with the sports bar mix of screens showing every available sports channel, along with background music to accompany gourmet burgers, steaks, pasta and traditional Irish fish'n'chips. Meanwhile, a VJ booth on a balcony level sets the party scene for Friday and Saturday nights.
The systems integrators were Starview Satellite, which has been designing and insta
Venuetech were asked to supply a Sennheiser SKM-5200 microphone for the regionally acclaimed artist Hussain Al Jassmi to use on a string of concerts arranged across the country for the 2 December celebration. When Venuetech approached Sennheiser with the request and advised on what the microphone was to be used, they came up with the idea of having it customised by Crystal-Roc. Crystal-Roc then emblazoned the microphones with coloured Swarovski Crystal in the style of a UAE flag.
"When we were asked to come up with something special for this event I immediately got in touch with Mig Cardamone, Middle East business area manager for Sennheiser, and asked him if we could come up with something unique and from there we agre
During 2009, the team at LSI Online have delivered over 3,500 news stories to an audience of entertainment technology professionals in no fewer than 177 countries across the world. It's been a record year for online traffic.
This was also the year we passed our first decade of delivering online news to the industry: Lighting&Sound International's first online news feed, via the PLASA website, appeared on 10 September 1999. On that day, we reported that Britannia Row Productions had invested in 48 stacks of Turbosound Flashlight at the PLASA Show, and that Martin Professional had opened a new UK-based manufacturing facility in Louth, Lincolnshire.
Since then, we have added more than 27,000 news stories to our online database - which remains f
Mike Blackman, managing director, Integrated Systems Events comments: "No tradeshow can thrive without bringing new customers and new markets to its exhibitors. Right from its first showing in Geneva in 2004, this is something ISE has proved it can do. AV manufacturers are turning to ISE as a platform from which to launch their products and services into new and emerging sectors, and that is one reason why we are hosting so many new exhibitors in Amsterdam in February."
The pro audio sector is a prime example of this trend, with the likes of L-Acoustics, HK Audio, Sonus, Ateïs, Out Board/TiMax, Baldwin Boxall, Seeburg, Cloud Electronics, and XTA/MC2 Audio all show
