Business

Details
France - The Comédie Francaise in Paris is one of the most revered performing arts institutions in the world, and since 2013, is now operating with Tannoy's QFlex beam-steering technology in its main theatre.

With the recent restoration, the main focus was to restore the room to its former glory, both acoustically and aesthetically. DV2 was commissioned to design, supply and integrate a new sound system and they found the solution in Tannoy's digitally steerable, multi-channel, column array loudspeaker system.

The technology within QFlex means the system is able to achieve even, full-range coverage and SPL which is maintained across the listening plane, and can create an asymmetrical pattern to allow similar SPLs in both the near and far field. It can steer focused beams of acoustic energy to frequencies beyond 12 kHz, which makes it suitable for full-range musical mate

Details
UK - Liberty Stadium, home to both Swansea City Premier League football club ('the Swans') and the 'Ospreys' RFU club, has become the first English Premier League Football ground to install a Q-Sys audio management system from QSC throughout their arena.

The new system was chosen to provide networked monitoring and control of the existing PA loudspeakers, amplification, monitoring and Voice Alarm systems at the stadium, and required the addition of a new fire-rated fibre-optic backbone and network switches, all of which was installed during the upgrade.

Shure Distribution UK, exclusive distributor of QSC and Q-Sys products in the UK and Ireland, supplied the Q-Sys hardware, which comprised two Core 250i compact integrated processors, six I/O Frame interfaces (two master interfaces in the control room, plus one at each of the main four seating stands at the stadium), and severa

Details
Russia - Elkruff , the Novosibirsk-based lighting rentals company and one of the biggest in the Urals region, has chosen to invest in 24 of Clay Paky's Sharpy Wash 330s and 12 Alpha Spot QWO 800 STs.

The Russian production company's key market is to develop and deliver integrated creative and technical solutions for events of all sizes. For Elkruff this meant it was looking for robust, fast, compact feature rich fixtures that would offer its diverse client base the most value for its investment.

"Elkruff chose to buy Clay Paky equipment because the company's mission is to stock the latest, most up to date technology," explains Slawa Gartung, Clay Paky sales manager for the region. "In particular the company wanted fast moving fixtures that would offer a wide spectrum of effects, not generally available together in other products. This made the Alpha Spot QWO 800

Details
USA - Ten Robe Pointes have been delivered to Christ Fellowship Worship Centre in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA, specified by lighting designer Aaron Leahy who is responsible for all lighting designs and systems at the 1,747 capacity purpose-built venue.

Christ Fellowship Worship Centre was established in 1984 and stages around four regular weekend services plus additional events.

Leahy first saw Robe's new Pointes at PLASA Focus in Orlando, shortly after the product - Robe's fastest selling to date - was launched at Prolight+Sound 2013 in Frankfurt. He knew immediately that it was the right light for their venue.

Following that, he discussed the matter with Nathan Carroll, director of live production who oversees all Christ Fellowship's technical aspects and arranged for the entire technical team from the Palm Beach Gardens CF campus to have a demo of Pointes at Infocomm

Details
UK - Mixing Engineer, Gerard Albo, whose credits cross every genre and extend from Amy Winehouse and Anastacia to the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, chose the new Avid S3L for the current Madeleine Peyroux UK tour.

With Peyroux's style and a voice that has carried her from busking on the streets of Paris to mainstream recognition, the tour embraces her much-loved songbook of reworked and contemporary classics. The tour venues included a sell-out concert at the Royal Festival Hall for the last night of the London Jazz Festival, where she was supported by Manchester-born singer, Josephine.

Gerard Albo has worked with Avid since 2006, when he first used a Venue console for Corinne Bailey Rae. The software gave Albo the method of working and results he wanted and it became the start of his long term rapport with Avid's Sheldon Radford, senior product manager for Live Systems a

Details
Australia - ULA Group has announced a partnership with LumenRadio and its appointment as Australian distributor of their wireless CRMX technology systems.

"It is with great pleasure and excitement we announce our partnership with LumenRadio", comments Cuono Biviano, managing director of ULA Group. "The CRMX product line is without any doubt the most reliable and advanced wireless DMX/RDM technology in its class, making it a perfect fit into the ULA Group stable of products. Their wireless products range from touring to architectural projects and beyond making most demands a reality. I look forward to working with the highly skilled team at LumenRadio and providing these solutions to our loyal clients and beyond."

Peter Kirkup, VP of Entertainment from LumenRadio says, "ULAs commitment to their product portfolio and to their customers is outstanding! UL

Details
UK - When faced with the overwhelming choice of lighting fixtures on the market, how can a lighting design and rental company be sure it is making the right decision for its business and its clients when investing in new products? Reading based event lighting specialist, Blinding Light has been in business since 1999 and over the last 14 years has undoubtedly made its mark in what is a fiercely competitive sector. With a diverse client base that demands a range of solutions from corporate and architectural lighting through to full stage artistic rigs at high profile events such as BBC Proms in the Park, Blinding Light has to be sure that its warehouse inventory matches exactly what the client is looking for.

Renowned as one of the industry's stalwarts, lighting designer Anthony (Turbo) Hall has been part of the Blinding Light team since 2011 and played a key role in the company'

Details
The Netherlands - Solid State Logic has appointed Pro Audio specialist Audio Electronics Mattijsen (AEM) as its Live console distributor in The Netherlands. AEM has been serving the Dutch pro audio industry for over 30 years and is the latest addition to SSL's Live console partner network.

"SSL Live is the high-end mixer solution for which we have been looking for years to complement our portfolio," says Roland Mattijsen, applications specialist and AEM co-owner. "Being ambitious, innovative and able to exceed expectations is not an easy task for any manufacturer. With the Live console, SSL is offering its highly respected SuperAnalogue front-end, 64-bit FP DSP processing and high channel/bus counts at 96kHz throughout.

"With those specs, Live would attract the attention of top sound engineers and designers, even without the SSL badge. We are very proud and

Details
Peru - Lima-based DBLUX S.A.C. recently debuted its new Meyer Sound Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system at the Pilsen Callao Festival in Lima's National Stadium (Estadio Nacional). The Leo system is the first in Peru, and it supported an all-star Latin American lineup headlined by salsa superstar RubénBlades. Covering over 120m of the concert field with no delay towers, the Leo system made a strong impression on veteran FOH mixers.

"I've worked with almost every line array from the major makers, but I've never before had that feeling of unlimited headroom, where there is always room for more, and uniformity is still preserved," recounts Guillermo "Memo" Gómez, FOH engineer for Rubén Blades. "Leo is very different from other systems. The sound quality and coverage are exceptional."

The system was purchased by Andres Cua

Details
Germany - When we think of tragic love stories, Romeo and Juliet comes instantly to mind, together with the feud between the two families, the Montagues and the Capulets. The story has been rewritten several times over the centuries, always in new ways. This time William Shakespeare's play returns to the stage in the form of a touring rock ballet that starts out in Hamburg and stops over throughout Germany.

This rewrite is the fruit of the creative minds of Rasta Thomas and Adrienne Canterna, the duo behind the international Rock the Ballet show. The lighting was designed by Patrick Woodroffe and Roland Greil from Woodroffe Basset Design, who chose, among other equipment, sixteen Sharpy Washes made by Clay Paky, and a grandMA2 light and Network Processing Unit (NPU) made by MA Lighting.

"Clay Paky Sharpy Washes are unrivalled thanks to their compact size. T

Details
Germany - Dart Rigging GmbH has been handling rigging on Rammstein shows since 2005 and for the band's last two tours has been using Ron StageMaster wireless load cells by Eilon Engineering to monitor the large set up and any overload issues.

"Rammstein rigs continue to get increasingly complex," states Dart co-owner Martin Gehring, who served as head rigger on Rammstein's 2009-2011 Liebe ist für alle da tour, as well as the 2011-2013 Made in Germany tour, which ended in August.

"When you take into account the automation systems, custom set elements like the special bridge we had for the latest tour and the band's famous logo-cross, and then add in the lighting pods and sound equipment, it's a lot of weight to worry about and load cells were a must."

The Ron StageMaster system's extremely long battery life gives continuous operation for up

Details
Denmark - The design goal of The Blue Planet, Denmark's new national aquarium, was to make the aquarium's visitors feel like they had entered the world of the sea surrounding it. Using Rosco's X24 effects projector, lighting designer Jesper Garde Kongshaug created a realistic and controllable water effect to accomplish that goal as he projected that effect throughout the vast concourse areas inside the aquarium.

Aquariums are filled with the ethereal, wavy effect of light shining through or reflecting off of the various pools and tanks of water in their exhibits. Copenhagen's new Blue Planet Aquarium wanted to incorporate those effects into its 'swirling water' inspired design to bring the visitors "into the world of the fish and the life they live under the sea". Lighting designer Jesper Garde Kongshaug knew that, in order to immerse the visitors in an underwater expe

Details
UK - Aurora Lighting Hire supplied full TV lighting facilities to the Robbie Williams One Night at The Palladium on Friday 8 November for a performance of swing songs old and new.

The evening was a one off to introduce his new album Swing Both Ways, which was released a week later.

Nick Edwards, managing director of Aurora said, "Lighting director Oli Richards approached Aurora early on with an interesting concept. Oli had the vision of creating a staggered celling sculpture out of Martin Mac Aura's. The Auras were required to be rigged on individual scaff drops to make 'sleek' 'smart' vertical drops."

He continued, "Aurora worked closely with rigging experts Actus Industries to develop these bespoke custom pipes. Richards rig also featured Martin MAC Vipers, and Clay Paky Sharpies. Aurora were also able to provide some new retro tungsten lights

Details
UK - Manchester- based dbn Lighting are once again supplying an integrated lighting and visual design plus equipment - including lighting and LED screens - to The Warehouse Project (WHP), which has grown in popularity under the curation of founders Sacha Lord-Marchionne and Sam Kandel.

WHP operates for two regular nights each week from September to New year's eve on a timeline coinciding with the new university and college terms. It attracts all the hottest international EDM DJ's and live acts and sells out months in advance. It's the second year the club is operating out of its new Victoria Warehouse venue in Trafford Park.

dbn's Pete Robinson has been involved with WHP right from the start and this year he created the production and lighting design for all three rooms in the space.

In the Main Room he started with a new blank canvass and the intention to make it look total

Details
Germany - At the Volkswagen Group's general meeting, an event that this year marked its fifteenth running and has become a company tradition, which this year was held on the evening preceding the opening of the 65th International Automobile Show (IAA), Frankfurt, tarm Showlaser wowed the crowd of attendees from around the world with a spectacular laser show accompanying the performance by the Pet Shop Boys.

A crowd of nearly 2,000 journalists, VIPs, and group representatives experienced at first hand an extremely complex staging that had been specially developed for the evening's show and individually highlighted every one of the group's ten makes.

(Jim Evans)

Details
Internet - City Theatrical will be hosting the fourth free webinar in a series of five on Wireless DMX on Tuesday, 10 December 10, 2013 at 11am EST (16:00 GMT). This webinar will focus on how to set up a permanent outdoor architectural wireless DMX system using SHoW DMX Vero and Vero Net.

If you would like to learn more about this application of wireless DMX products please register for this event by simply logging on to City Theatrical's website.

(Jim Evans)

Details
UK - XL Video is supplying dance company Sadler's Wells with a projection system for m¡longa, a new work by Belgian born choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, which was inspired by the magical communication of tango dancing the intimate, almost conspiratorial social setting of the m¡longa (social tango dances).

XL Video's Ed Cooper is the project manager. XL Video have worked on several previous projects with Sadler's Wells including recent tours of Russell Maliphant's Still Current and the world tour of TeZukA, another mixed-media Cherkaoui production using the stylised imagery of Japanese Manga cartoons as a starting point.

Sadler's Wells production manager Adam Carrée once again called on the skills and expertise of XL Video to provide a video solution for the m¡longa tour - with the current tour making its UK Premiere at their north London base

Details
USA - The Miss America pageant returned to its Atlantic City origins this year and lighting designer Allen Branton was charged with lighting the cavernous Boardwalk Hall and making sure 53 beautiful women looked their best whenever the TV camera turned their way. He was aided by grandMA2 lighting consoles from Atomic Lighting in Lititz, Pennsylvania.

Branton marked his sixth consecutive year lighting the pageant, which was televised on ABC-TV. After spending a number of years in Las Vegas the show moved back to Atlantic City where "the venue, audience and scenery doubled in size," he reports. "Given the size of the hall and way the show was set in the room, every single element of production had to be rigged from overhead - and there's no permanent rigging infrastructure. So there were 240 individual rigging points for lighting, sound, video, scenery, cable manage

Details
UK - Lighting designer Nick Richings has specified Showline's high-output SL PAR 150 ZOOM luminaires to create a 'jolly', bright wash for the current hit musical tour of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Richings - who has 25 years' experience working in theatre lighting in the West End and Broadway on hit shows including La Cage Aux Folles and Starlight Express - is utilising 36 of the SL PAR 150 ZOOM luminaires to wash the stage in the traditionally bright musical colours.

"The SL PAR 150 ZOOMs have only recently come onto the market so this is the first time I have ever used them and I'm really impressed with the light output," says Richings. "The lens is great - they go nice and narrow, and they offer really good colour mixing. The warm and cool whites are also surprisingly good."

Richings is using the die-cast aluminium LED SL PAR 150 ZOOM luminaires

Details
UK - Mood, drama, invention and Robe moving lights were at the heart of the elegant, intricate lighting design created by Rich George from 3DL&S for jazz-pop singer and songwriter Jamie Cullum's Momentum tour, which has just completed its first UK leg and now heads to Europe.

George is based in London. This is his second tour with Cullum and his first as LD, where he works very closely with Cullum's Artistic & Visuals Director Nickin Corrigan to produce the captivating live performance aesthetic. This is based around creative, quirky and highly effective use of IMAG camera footage which was George's starting point for the lighting design.

The lighting equipment is being supplied by Leeds, UK based rental company Zig Zag Lighting who have serviced Cullum's live work for some time. His tours have also incorporated Robe products for a while.

For Momentum, the lighting design in

Details
Europe - New York-based psychedelic rock outfit MGMT are at the core a duo comprised of Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser. But live, they are one of those bands that are expansive. And by all indications of reviews from their current global invasion in Europe, that axiom is reinforced nightly with the touring six-piece outfit, bring music from their current, self-titled release to the masses.

Behind the controls at monitor world for the past seven months has been Fabian Quiroga, back on his DiGiCo SD8 desk since his departure earlier in the year from a lengthy stint with The Black Keys. The SD8 was provided by Eighth Day Sound's UK shop.

"After doing a few small tours with the band's previous console, I knew I had to go back to my DiGiCo board," he muses. "When I came into this camp, management wanted the transition of a new monitor engineer to be as smooth

Details
Spain - In Seville, Spain, a Meyer Sound Mica line array loudspeaker system has been installed in the new auditorium at FIBES Conference and Exhibition Centre (Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos). With its seating flexibility and sonic excellence, the FIBES auditorium is a popular venue for international conferences, major concerts, and musical theatre productions. The audio system was specified by Carlos García-Diéguez Acuña of Seville-based GD Consulting.

"We selected a Meyer Sound Mica solution based on its overall sound quality, high efficiency in compact enclosures, and the availability of strong technical support in Spain," explains García-Diéguez. "For conferences, it delivers high clarity and intelligibility in all seats, while for concerts, it is excellent for all music styles, including folk, classical, and rock."

The Meyer Sound

Details
USA - Lighting designer, Benoit Richard can lay claim to the first use of Ayrton's new MagicPanel 602 fixtures in the USA with his lighting for Carrie Underwood as she performed 'Waiting All Day for Sunday Night', the opening theme song for NBC's weekly coverage of NFL Sunday Night Football.

Richard used 36 MagicPanel 602 fixtures when the opening sequence for the National Football League's weekly prime time show was filmed. Previous years have seen Pink and Faith Hill sing the opening night theme songs, but this year the torch was passed over to former American Idol winner, Carrie Underwood, who made her debut during the first week of the NFL season on September 8th, 2013.

Richard was determined to create something impressive to mark Underwood's debut. "With a new Artist singing the theme song for this year's 'Sunday Night Football' Season, I envisioned that we needed to

Details
USA - LDI premier show sponsor Elation Professional enjoyed perhaps its busiest LDI Show ever as the company continued to raise its profile in the industry with a number of key product launches that included the surprise announcement of a distribution agreement with High End Systems.

The agreement, which allows Elation to distribute High End's new HedgeHog 4 and Nano Hog 4 lighting consoles in the US, Canada, Latin America, South East Asia and India, caused quite a stir on the show floor.

"The distribution announcement started things off with a bang and really set the tone for the rest of the show," said Eric Loader, director of sales at Elation Lighting. "This gives us a powerful and intuitive industry-standard lighting control platform and we're thrilled to be involved with it. Customers were equally excited and interest in it was great throughout the show so

  1. Showgroup kaleidoscope awards production
  2. Jands increases participation at Entech Connect 2014
  3. Focusrite and RCF join OCA Alliance
  4. Chroma-Q Color Force at the National Theatre
  5. DWR on Avolites training course
  6. SGM Italy reborn
Page 1558 of 1813

Latest Issue. . .