Projects

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USA - Audio-system integrator Solotech recently completed the world’s first permanent installation of JBL by Harman VTX A12 loudspeakers at The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor Hotel & Casino resort.
The Colosseum is a 5,000-seat venue that hosts a wide range of performances - from chart-topping rock bands to acclaimed comedians. In order to improve the sound quality in the venue, The Colosseum hired Solotech to replace its entire audio system in three separate phases. In the first phase, which was completed earlier this year, Solotech replaced the venue’s aging main hangs with 26 VTX A12 loudspeakers, JBL’s latest line array technology.
“We've got a world-class venue, and thanks to the VTX A12, we now have a world-class PA,” said David Cyrenne, production supervisor and audio engineer at The Colosseum. “We needed something reliable and versatile to complem

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Finland - Helsinki City Theatre, the biggest professional repertoire theatre in Finland, has recently reopened its doors after an extensive three-year refurbishment and upgrade process. The technical part of the multi-million Euro renovation project was designed and managed by international theatre consultants Theatreplan.
“We were first approached by HCT in 2014 to work with them on a complete refit of the entire building,” explained Theatreplan director and stage engineering specialist, Dave Ludlam. The project started in March 2014 and was delivered in July 2017 for inauguration in August to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the modern Finnish nation.
Theatreplan carried out work on two of the six stages within the building: the ‘big stage’ with a capacity of 947, and the 347-seat ‘small stage’. The big stage now benefits from a re-shaped proscenium

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UK - Southampton Solent University has upgraded its performance studios as part of a £100m facilities improvement programme running up to 2020, with VDC supplying the cabling infrastructure.
The university’s TV, Film and Media Technology department already boasts a number of professional-standard facilities including 4K-ready broadcast studios, radio suites and newsrooms, and the decision was made to invest in similarly high-quality facilities for the Music and Performance students. The department has nine rooms in total, five full studios and four smaller workstations which can be used for mixing. Studio 1 was upgraded in 2016 but the remaining studios hadn’t been touched for around ten years so much of the kit was showing signs of wear and tear.
When the decision was made to redevelop Studio 1, Technical Instructor Jon Wills contacted VDC to provide the cabling

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Europe - Production manager Will Wilkinson engaged the services of Video Design, Negative Earth lighting and SSE for sound during Lady Antebellum’s recent European tour.
The band visited the Netherlands, England, Scotland and Ireland during the European leg of the tour comprising six dates between 1 October and 10 October, with the crew and band arriving on the continent on 27 September.
Wilkison says: “When you tour with such a tight schedule at an arena level, the key is being able to source close what we use in the US. In that sense of matched equipment, it was a very smooth transition from the US into Europe. As far as Video Design was concerned, our biggest concern was over the video content. With almost no time for production prep ahead of our first show in Amsterdam we needed to send our content over before we arrived and have it loaded onto the server.

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UK - Rental company Ian Livie Concert & Corporate Lighting helped set up Paul Rodgers’ Free Spirit Tour with a minimalist rig of moving light and Leko fixtures and video content on Resolume controlled from a grandMA2 console.
Ian Livie and LD Jared Trinnaman are committed MA Lighting control aficionados. Livie says: “I had worked with Warren Cracknell for many years on Joe Bonamassa, the US blues guitarist so when he discussed the option of working with Paul Rodgers on the Free Spirit Tour I knew I had to invest in a console I was confident would stand the test of touring time both now and into the future. The LD, Jared Trinnaman felt the same way; I saw the show at the Royal Albert Hall and was so impressed with what he did with the console.”
Trinnaman himself had already invested in MA control. He says: “I’ve been an MA user since 2012. I

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France - Airstar became an official partner to the Régates Royales Cannes this year after five consecutive years of cooperation.
Airstar’s lighting solutions were once again installed at the heart of the historic classic yachting event - the 160th edition of which took place between 23 and 30 September.
Airstar’s Crystal lighting balloons took pride of place, with two 160cm and three 200cm envelope balloons in situ on the docks around the boats and at the stands in the exhibiting village in the centre of Cannes opposite the Palais des Festivals. Some were then relocated to Palm Beach for the evening’s festivities.
With a set up time of just 15 minutes, yet designed to withstand tough outdoor conditions including wind gusts of up to 70 km/h, the Crystal range is perfectly suited to an event of this nature and are maintenance free. The Crystal lighting ballo

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Czech Republic - Colours of Ostrava is the biggest international music festival in Czech Republic and one of the largest in Central Europe. With its unique location at the Dolní oblast Vítkovice, an old Czechoslovak mine with UNESCO World Heritage status, the festival draws some of the biggest musical acts from around the globe. This year, it treated fans to performances from the likes of Imagine Dragons and alt-J on five stages.
Tasked with creating a high octane lighting rig for one of the festival’s Absolut stage, lighting designer Martin Vocetka supplied a number of Chauvet DJ Intimidator Spot 375Z IRC and Chauvet DJ SlimPAR Pro H USB fixtures.
Vocetka used four Intimidator Spot 375Z IRC fixtures from Chauvet DJ to set the right visual tone for the intense musical performances on stage. Particularly stunning was the interaction between the Intimidators and the

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USA - Grammy award-winning bluegrass singer Alison Krauss recently concluded a 21-city autumn tour with a lighting package provided by Bandit Lites. Lighting designer William Anglin held a singular focus in his design: make the artist shine. “Her talent and the talent of the band do not require a cue intensive show,” he said. “We treat her show in more of a theatrical style. It's always such a pleasure to work with a performer of her level.”
Bandit Lites supplied Martin MAC Viper Profiles, GLP X4S and GLP X4 Bar 10 fixtures, Elation CuePix WW2 Blinders, Robe Robin 600 LED Washes, Coemar Halos along with two grandMA2 Lite consoles.
“Alison is not a fan of spotlights, so it is very important to light her with two nice warm tungsten key lights,” said Anglin of the design. “We were really surprised by the Coemar IWash halos. They are a bit older fixtures but

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Europe - Chilean composer Nicolas Jaar brought in Colourblind to design the lighting and video on his European tour.
The tour made its way through a host of venues and famous festivals, including Glasgow’s Barrowlands and Barcelona’s Sonar. Colourblind, headed by Lynden Gare, designed a show to compliment the Chilean’s explorative music creations, and centre to the operation was a Hippotizer Media Server. The Karst unit used both SDI outputs, as well as splitting the DP to feed the LED strips. Running Hippotizer, it also fed IMAG screens at a number of the festival appearances.
Scenarios covered during the run included projection at front of house on to a special 3m reflection surface (replaced with upstage LED at festivals); rear projection through smoke; LED strips by Light Initiative; and IMAG were present at festivals. The lighting team also used Marshall SDI

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USA - Superfly, organisers of the inaugural Lost Lake Festival in Phoenix, Arizona, entrusted long-time collaborator Bandit Lites with providing the lighting for the event’s two mainstages.
The lighting company supplied the lighting package for the Camelback and Piestewa stages, where performances included The Killers, Chance the Rapper, Pixies, Huey Lewis & The News, The Roots, Dreamcar, Run the Jewels, Odesza and Major Lazer.
“The main brief for the two SAM575 stages was to make them individual, so they each had their own character, and to make them logistically friendly for changeovers and any band lights or scenic pieces that would come in,” said Bandit production manager Dizzy Gosnell.
The Camelback stage had over 130 fixtures and featured Magic Panels, Rogue Hybrids, Cuepix WW2, VL6000 Beams and Illumipanel architectural washes controlled w

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USA - SRae Productions and Clear All Visuals were responsible for the video & lighting production design for Lady Antebellum’s world tour.
Matt Geasy of Clear All Visuals specified two separate setups, each with a pair of Hippotizer Boreal Media Servers. Both setups were used to feed the LED screens and each one was triggered depending on the performer, switching between two or three outputs.
During the global event, the SRae team ran Hippotizer in conjunction with an automation system. The Kinesys motor control system fed PSN data to the servers, so that they could live-track the screen positions in real-time. The end-result was the content tracking of the screens as they moved throughout the show.
For Lady Antebellum’s automated screens, the system provided information regarding the vertical position of the two motors for each truss. This was a challeng

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UK - The Howl Scream Park made its annual return to Mead Open Farm for 13 ‘nights of terror’ in October, where the likes of Topper the Clown and Grandma Lycanthrope waited to greet you with rotting arms. FunFear is a team of experienced engineers, technicians and designers who specialise in creating Halloween attractions and for the past three years, they have been in charge of turning the much-loved family farm into a land of torment and nightmare.
There were five haunts to be explored at The Howl including Toppers Twister, The Shed, Hotel de Basquervilles, Squealers Yard and the House of Hounds. In each maze you could expect to encounter impressive audio, lighting and special effects, along with a legion of terrifying actors which combine to create an immersive experience where you were the bait.
The maze with the highest “sca

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UK - S+H Technical supplied a 12mm LED surface for the 2017 TV Choice Awards.
The award ceremony brought together over 400 TV and entertainment celebrities at a gala dinner evening in The Ballroom at the Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane in central London.
Stoneapple Productions designed and produced the ceremony for many years and S+H has been supplying screen for the last three.
This year, four columns – two per side - of the S+H’s 12mm LED product flanked a main projection screen positioned upstage centre. The LED columns each measured 7m high by 1m wide, and in between each of these was a vertical row of blinder lights.
The LED columns were used to display a variety of video content produced by Stoneapple for the event, including Awards graphics and aminations, for which they were highly effective.
The 12 mm is an ideal product for events like this.

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Kenya - An Audient ASP8024 has been installed in Nairobi-based studio Supersonic Africa as part of a project to expand the facility.
The upgrade was prompted by the arrival of weekly music TV programme Coke Studio Africa, which was filmed at Supersonic earlier this year.
“Musicians from all over the world come together and work on original compositions and mashups,” says producer at Supersonic, Muna Chuba, explaining that this was the second year running that they have hosted the show. “This gives us a lot of coverage as a studio - it’s actually how some of the international musicians get to know about us.”
Those who’ve recorded and mixed at the studio include multi award-winning, local pop band Sauti Sol and international artist Wizkid. Enter the large format mixing desk from Audient, which according to music producer and Supersonic studio own

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South Africa - DWR Distribution provided new lighting installation for the annual Christian Revival Church (CRC) Dreamweek Explosion conference held simultaneously in Bloemfontein and Pretoria in October.
Phase 1 of the upgrade saw CRC Bloemfontein’s Main Auditorium receive a huge facelift. The 5 000-seater Auditorium situated in the South of Bloemfontein was extended to accommodate an additional 1 200 people. The ceiling was removed, air conditioning installed, and a new 24m wide stage, more than double the size of the original stage, was built.
The DWR team, headed by Robert Izzett, installed Prolyte H40V trussing above the revamped stage onto which both the church’s existing lighting fixtures and the new LED power saving units comprising of 18 Robe Spiiders, six Robe Pointes and 28 LED Parcans for audience wash were hung. An 8 Port Node was added to the MA syste

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UK - The audio system in the main concert hall at the Lighthouse arts centre in Poole, Dorset has been upgraded.
The venue was originally conceived as the home of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and has adequate acoustics for classical performances, but the increase in speech orientated material performed there in recent years meant a new system was needed to improve speech intelligibility.
Jake Sutton, technical manager at the Lighthouse explains: “The system we had in place was really only suitable for public address and simple amplification for events. We augmented this for music and other performances that required more audio support but it was very hard work to get an acceptable sound. Our main issue was lack of direct speaker coverage and uniformity of sound across the whole auditorium. We, alongside theatre consultants Charcoal Blue, invited three PA compan

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UK - Stormzy’s Gang Signs and Prayers tour was extensively lit with Ayrton fixtures.
Lighting designer Steve Bewley opted for an Ayrton-laden specification for each incarnation of Stormzy’s show, which visited various academy venues this year before concluding with two Brixton Academy gigs.
“There were 38 MagicPanel-R units and 10 MagicBurst on my list. The UK and Ireland shows were all of a decent size, Brixton Academy has a capacity of nearly 5,000 and then we had various festival variations and a special rig for Glastonbury. Altogether, there were six different designs but the Ayrton fixture choices were always central to the show. Their dynamic look is not something that can be replicated and they were versatile enough to adapt to all the different venues and configurations.
“For the academy shows, we stripped out the house rigs to make it enti

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UK - L-Acoustics ARCS WiFo system was specified for the Belfast Empire’s Empire Laughs Black Comedy Club to cope with the venue’s challenging configuration and architectural restrictions.
Owners Wine Inns Ltd required a new, high specification FOH sound system installed that would deliver excellent audio coverage across the venue’s dancefloor, as well as the raised tiers of seating areas and audience vantage points. The company’s technical manager, Will Barrett, contacted technical production company, Adlib, who recommended the L-Acoustics.
“The venue operator required an updated sound system that would supplement and support live performances for a wide number of genres from spoken word and comedy, to folk music and rock ’n’ roll at their vibrant and very popular city venue,” says Adlib director, Roger Kirby. “The venue’s ornate interior architectu

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UK - White Light has provided the lighting equipment for the UK tour of Flashdance – The Musical.
Based on the Paramount Pictures Film, the musical tells the story of 18-year-old Alex who dreams of attending the prestigious Shipley Dance Academy and becoming a professional dancer. Yet when a romance complicates her ambitions, she harnesses this to drive her dream.
Flashdance – The Musical is being produced by the award-winning Selladoor Productions and features a lighting design by Mark Howland. He comments: “Having never actually seen the film, this allowed me to approach the piece with a completely fresh perspective as though it were a new piece. The show is very rooted within 80’s music so I was keen to push some of the bold 80s colours which are largely associated with the music videos and concerts of that time. We also keep a lot of the ligh

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Spain - Robert Juliat added some French flavour to the celebrated Spanish music festival at Cap Roig, Girona this summer.
Local rental company ABS Entertainment Service supplied two Robert Juliat Merlin 2500W and two Robert Juliat Aramis 2500W followspots as front of house support for the duration of the two-week event.
The festival originated in 1927 when it began as an art and architectural and music show. This, the sixth edition of the festival in its present form, ran from 7 July to 22 August 2017 in a site spread over 17 hectares of gardens, complete with castle. The line-up of singers and bands included Anastacia, Passenger, Silvia Pérez Cruz, Norah Jones, Wilco, Woody Allen, Els Amics de les Arts and The Pretenders.
Merlin and Aramis are two of Robert Juliat’s most popular followspots and the team from ABS rigged two of each on front of house towers fo

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UK - CPL returned to the attractive leafy environs of Ragley Hall in Warwickshire to provide a full video production package for the Main Stage at the 2017 Camper Calling festival - a new event staged by Jazz Events, part of the Jazz Publishing Group.
Building on the success of last year’s inaugural two-day Camper Calling, this year the capacity was doubled from 3000 to 6000 and another day of fun and entertainment for all the family was added, making it three days, which allowed people to enjoy some rare and endangered glorious late August bank holiday weekend weather – apparently the hottest on record.
Main Stage headliners included Cast, The Lightning Seeds and the Flying Swordfish, and CPL was working for Urban Audio, with a team on site led by Simon Haydon.
Fifty panels of Roe 3.4 mm LED screen was installed onstage, flown off a mid-stage truss and confi

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UK - Event Sound and Light were contracted to provide a full turnkey production solution for Outside Live 2017, which took place at Taverham Hall, Norwich on 28-30 July.
Sound designer Jason Fenn deployed a full Martin Audio system for the event, preferring a combination of MLA Compact cells with MLX subs in cardioid format. He says: “The concerts were sold as a ‘picnic’ style event so we knew we had to have even SPL from the front row to the very back. On top of that, the event site was very close to a neighbouring village so keeping our off-site noise to a minimum was essential.
“The other deciding factor for choosing Martin Audio MLA was the superb audio quality and sonic excellence that the system delivers.” Additional Martin Audio DD12s were deployed for in-fill and centre-fill duties, with the entire system managed by Martin Audio’s dedicated M

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UK – Chauvet fixtures have been installed at one of Manchester’s most famous industrial-era buildings, Victoria Warehouse, which was transformed into a multi-purpose cultural hub with a corporate event space, The Bays.
Installed by the Sterling Event Group, the venue benefits from a collection of 165 Chauvet Professional COLORdash Accent Quad fixtures.
Richard Nicholson, project manager at Sterling Event Group, positioned the COLORdash fixtures next to the industrial-era steel columns to ensure more immersive coverage.
“Given the architectural setup within both bay areas, the compact build of the COLORdash Accents ensured that we could provide a discrete solution for downlighting each pillar,” he said. “What’s more, we know from past experience that these fixtures are incredibly easy to set up and install. As a result, we were able to integrate them s

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UK - Students from The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) are preparing for a rare London revival of David Hare’s Stuff Happens, supported by the launch of the new Video and Digital Design training strand.
As the new academic year gets under way, Edward Kemp returns to the Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre to direct Stuff Happens. Premiered at the National Theatre in 2004, David Hare’s examination of the build-up to the Iraq War combines verbatim theatre with speculative conversations. This new RADA production will integrate projected video into the design to counterpoint the action on stage, adding to the layers of documentary and drama already present in Hare’s script.
Designer and illustrator Jane Heather is collaborating with video artist Ali Hossaini on the production. In the Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre, and with the support of state-of-the-art equipment provid
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