USA - Over 16,000 athletes representing 800 teams from 40 countries participated in the 2022 Allstar World Championship in Orlando this spring.
Craig Huddleston, the designer and show director, comments: “This is a competition, but it needs to be fun. We wanted to highlight the athletes and make them feel like rockstars when they ran out on stage.”
Huddleston and his team at AVOS agency succeeded in doing this in spectacular fashion. Athletes competing in 50 different divisions were greeted with a walk-on light and video display reminiscent of a NBA championship game, complete with flurries of strobing and aerial effects, as well as dynamic neon-like video wall patterns heralding their arrival.
Helping them accomplish this on the event’s main stage was a 4Wall Entertainment Nashville supplied rig that featured over 300 Chauvet Professional F 5IP LED panels

UAE - Lighting designers Travis Hagenbuch and Bob Dickinson lit the Expo 2020 Dubai Closing Ceremony and turned to Elation Professional’s powerful Proteus Excalibur beam moving head to create a spectacular finale look that brought to a close the six-month Expo journey.
The Emmy-award winning designers - who also lit Expo’s Opening Ceremony back in September - sought a compact, IP-rated beam light with power to project an impactful ring of light out of the Al Wasl Dome. “We were tasked with how to make it happen within the constraints we had,” comments Travis Hagenbuch, who notes that the brief came from Expo 2020 director-general Reem Al-Hashimi. “It was a beautiful poetic moment, simple and elegant, and a fitting way to end the Expo.”
The Expo story began during the Opening Ceremony when a young Emirate girl was given a ring, which unlocked a world of dis

UK - The eyes of the world were on the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Concert to witness a host of big-name singers perform on a specially created stage in front of Buckingham Palace. As the royal family, politicians, dignitaries and the public looked on, a show fit for a queen unfolded, backed by LED screen content driven by Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 media servers.
More than 200sq.m. of Roe Black Quartz LED screens, supplied by Creative Technology, were erected on the stage, which surrounded the famous Victoria Memorial statue in front of the Palace. These were split into one large LED screen upstage centre, and eight LED pillars edging out toward the audience.
Tasked with media server programming was Matthew Lee, who was approached by lighting designer for the event, Nigel Catmur. “We had two Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 servers, one main and one backup,” says Lee. “LED sc

UK - Britannia Row Productions is providing equipment and personnel for Scottish rock royalty Simple Minds as they play an extensive world tour consisting of over 80 shows across more than 18 countries.
Simple Minds’ 40 Years of Hits Tour (see LSi June 2022 for an in-depth feature on the production), which included a homecoming show at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro, celebrates an impressive four decades in music for the genre-defying band and features a set spanning their back catalogue.
Britannia Row Productions - Simple Minds’ audio supplier of choice since 2012 - re-joined the band for this ambitious arena run to provide a full PA system, FOH and monitor consol

UK - Great Britain marked the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's reign with thousands of events and street parties over a long weekend, including a large-scale live concert at Buckingham Palace. 22,000 spectators gathered in front of the three stages, where Queen & Adam Lambert, Rod Stewart, Alicia Keys and Ed Sheeran played, among many others, and another 13.4 million watched the BBC's mega-event live on TV. For the lighting of the main stages, Buckingham Palace and the Tree of Trees sculpture designed by Heatherwick Studio, Version 2 Lights supplied more than 600 cameo spotlights, including over 60 of the new hybrid outdoor all-rounder Otos H5.
The forecourt as well as the Palace itself was staged by 62 Otos H5, 156 Zenit W600, 392 Flat Pro 7 G2 and 72 Flat Pro 12 G2. The lighting design was done by Nigel Catmur, who used the Cameo spotlights for the numerous live

USA - In 2010, The Wonder Years released The Upsides, followed a year later by Suburbia, I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing.
As the 10th anniversary of these albums approached, the band intended to celebrate with successive tours. But with the pandemic lockdown putting a crimp on live music, The Wonder Years had to hold off until this spring to mark the anniversary of the LP releases with a coast-to-coast US and UK tour.
Supporting them every step of the way is a David Summers lightshow featuring Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Squeek Lights.
True to the spirit of a tour that celebrates not one, but a pair of albums, Summers’ design has two distinct personalities. “Dan Campbell, the singer of The Wonder Years, told me he wanted to do a special set up for their double album anniversary tour,” explains Summers. “In essence, h

Indonesia - Leisure and entertainment brand, Holywings, has partnered with PT. Electro Audio Engineering to bring Funktion-One sound to its latest venues. The group, which has over 30 café, bar and club venues across the country, has set its sights on growing to 100 outlets and is in the process of creating ‘Asia’s largest beach club’.
The design concept of each Holywings venue is guided by the latest trends, taking inspiration from major cities around the world. “We bring ideas that we’ve picked up from other countries that are new to Indonesia,” explains Holywings Group’s Marvin Saputra. “Then we tailor them for our audiences and add a unique energy that can compete with other countries.”
This includes the Funktion-One sound systems that are helping to bring a new level of experience. Saputra reveals: “We think Funktion-One offers the best sound

UK - Digital Stages, five dynamic digital events celebrating Chichester Festival Theatre (CFT) across the decades, will be released over CFT’s birthday week in July for audiences across the globe. The events range from VR tours and online performances to a new virtual game created by CFT’s community companies for adults with learning disabilities.
In Visionary Stages, actors Sir Derek Jacobi and John Simm, author and playwright Kate Mosse and designer Joanna Scotcher join CFT artistic director Daniel Evans and the artistic director of the Stratford Festival Theatre in Ontario Antoni Cimolino, for a virtual meet-up using modern technology to recreate Chichester’s 1962 stage.
During lockdown, the Festival Theatre auditorium was scanned by the specialist company Preevue with LiDAR technology, enabling them to recreate the 1962 stage using plans, photog

South Africa - Blue Array Productions, a professional rental and production company, has invested in two Fenix Stage Hercules 8 front-loading lifting towers supplied by DWR Distribution. The units were put to work for the first time at Liefde by die Dam, a festival attracting 8 000 revellers and held recently at Emmarentia Dam in Johannesburg, where Blue Array supplied the audio solution.
The Hercules 8, made from aluminium, is the tallest tower by Fenix at 8m high. The system lifts line array systems, trussing or LED screens with a maximum load of 300kg from the floor and is height adjustable.
“We initially tried out the smaller AT-906 Fenix towers, only to find that we had some weight limitations which forced us to go for the bigger towers,” explained Nathan Thiart, senior sound engineer at Blue Array. “It was a happy coincidence because we definitely had a ne

Chile - The city of Viña del Mar is renowned for its colonial architecture, vibrant nightlife, and the annual Festival Internacional de la Canción de Viña del Mar (Viña del Mar International Song Festival).
Coupled with a Mediterranean climate and beautiful, abundant greenery, the city, nicknamed Jardín Ciudad (Garden City), is one of the country’s most-visited spots. In 2010, a devastating 8.8 magnitude earthquake severely damaged some of the city’s best-known buildings, including the heritage site Teatro Municipal of Viña del Mar.
Today, the Teatro been fully restored and fitted with the most advanced L-Acoustics Kara sound system in the country, delivered by L-Acoustics certified provider distributor for Chile, VGL.
Built between 1925 and 1930 by famous architects Renato Schiavon and Aquiles Landoff, the Teatro Municipal de Viña del Mar features a f

USA - Outline’s Newton FPGA processor played key operational roles at Coachella and Stagecoach Festivals. Both returning after two-year layoffs caused by Covid, the back-to-back festivals and their big crowds returned to the Californian desert in style this year.
With its roots going back to 1993 and still held at its original venue, the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, and now one of the world’s largest music festivals, The Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival was staged over two consecutive weekends in April, once again showcasing an array of established and emerging artists.
Presented the following weekend in the same location, its sister production The Stagecoach Festival is a leading event for folk, mainstream country, bluegrass, roots rock, Americana and alt. country.
As they have been for every Coachella since 2000, Camarillo-based Rat Soun

Zimbabwe - Napoleon Nyanhi knew what kind of look he wanted to project for the music video he was directing on 30 April for The Vine music collective in Harare. It had to be warm, intimate, and all-encompassing to reflect the familial spirit of the Grammy winning Soweto Gospel Choir and other artists in the ensemble.
What Nyanhi was less clear on was how he was going to create this image on a small music video stage that would hold as many as 78 performers at a time. That was when he reached out and called his friend Tatenta Gaylord Rushwaya of Events Evolution.
“Napoleon’s request was straightforward; he wanted a beautiful harmonious stage,” recalled Rushwaya. “But when he told me how many people would be on it, the request was suddenly not that simple.”
Taking the challenge, Rushwaya contacted his friend and colleague Blessing Bero and described some

USA - Grammy Award winning, Puerto Rican mega-star Bad Bunny kicked off his 36-date sell out El Último Tour Del Mundo 2022 from the Ball Arena, Denver in February. Featuring a show design as stylishly unconventional as the artist himself, lighting designer Alain Corthout, chose to deploy a battery of VL10 Beamwash luminaires from Vari-Lite.
“Bad Bunny takes an alternative approach to his live performance, so the show design had to be as outspoken as he is,” explains Corthout. “I was looking for a lighting workhorse that would offer the ultimate in creative versatility, while delivering consistent, high output light, even at the more saturated end of the spectrum. I also needed a versatile palette of effects. The VL10 Beamwash fixtures gave me all of this and more.”
Challenging the conventions of traditional show design, Corthout had to accommodate the fact tha

UK - The much-anticipated and publicised ABBA Voyage brings the 70s supergroup back to the stage in a blend of the virtual and physical worlds.
Several years in the making, the ABBA Voyage show opened on 26 May 26 in a purpose-built arena designed by Stufish Entertainment Architects at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London. The production adds a new element to the live music experience by blurring the lines between CGI and reality, with The Guardian calling it a “jaw-dropping avatar act that’s destined to be copied”.
Solotech worked under the direction of director Baillie Walsh, working alongside Aniara’s technical producer Nick Levitt and technical director Joe Frisina, and collaborating with concert producers Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and TETRO and Greenwall’s Fredrik Stormby to provide audio, lighting, and v

USA - Founded in 1940, the Church of St. John the Divine in Houston, Texas, today hosts 900 attendees on any given Sunday across its traditional, contemporary and family services.
While the church’s sanctuary is ideal for traditional hymns, providing amazingly long reverb times, there were notable challenges with an aging sound system. With such challenges, a new system was needed. Brightengale - formerly Houston Sound Service - was selected for the project through a recommendation from another area church.
“The prior installation leaned heavily on digital signal processing and beam steering to fill the room with intelligible sound,” said Adam Keho, system designer at Brightengale. “Acoustically, the room is fantastic for pipe organ or choral music but it’s very difficult for speech intelligibility. When the system was first installed, it was only designed t

Columbia - Latin Grammy winner Karol G blends a mix of genres in her rhythmic sound, treating fans to generous helpings of reggaeton, trap, sertaneja and a host of other influences.
Karol G concerts are intense with no lulls in the action. Reflecting this explosiveness in light requires a bold, fast-moving design, which is what the team at Línea Estratégica delivered for the star with help from a massive collection of the new IP65-rated Chauvet Professional Color Strike M.
Conrado Santamaría, CEO of the Línea Estratégica, added 120 of the versatile fixtures to his inventory soon after they became available in Colombia, purchasing them from distributor Yamaki. His vision was to use the motorised strobe/wash lights to add an extra level of impact to shows. He hasn’t been disappointed, as the fixtures have already worked their magic at concerts by the likes of Rub

Germany - The Giovanni Zarrella Show is a quarterly highlight on ZDF, Germany’s second TV station, featuring Schlager (a style of European popular music) with established stars from pop and classical plus promising newcomers performing new arrangements, previously unreleased duets and exclusive live performances. DiGiCo SD consoles are at the heart of the audio system.
The show appears in a prime-time Saturday evening slot with its second edition attracting a TV audience of almost five million. The eponymous host, formerly a member of the pop group Bro’Sis, regularly duets with his guests and his February show (broadcast just before Valentine’s Day) took love as its theme throughout.
The show’s audio infrastructure is provided by Kürten-Herweg-based B&R Medientechnik, a full-service company with roots in recording mobiles but now delivering event te

The Netherlands - Powersoft’s compact transducer, Mover, is at the heart of a new four-dimensional nightlife experience in Amsterdam which allows visitors to take a deep dive into the culture and history of electronic dance music from its roots to the present day.
Based in Amsterdam’s Rembrandt district, Our House has been a thriving nightclub and the beating heart of the electronic music scene since the 1980s. The venue has upheld its musical legacy by recently becoming a digital storytelling museum, promising a 75-minute journey into the music genre via interactive exhibits, shows and performances, telling the story of how electronic music - once a rebellious and secretive underground scene – has evolved.
“When we came here, about two years ago, the place was very analogue: There was a sound system, strobes, smoke machine and some LEDS - that was about it,

UK - Stage Electrics recently installed a pair of Robert Juliat Arthur 800W LED followspots at The Lowry, Salford Manchester. The Arthur 5°-15° followspots were supplied to Stage Electrics by Ambersphere Solutions, Robert Juliat’s exclusive UK distributor.
The 1700+ seat Lowry is an important theatre for the north-west of England and runs a varied programme of plays, musical theatre, ballet, opera, stand-up comedy, and rock and roll gigs, and has also hosted ITV television’s Britain’s Got Talent and The Royal Variety Performance.
The RJ Arthur followspots were selected for their impressive output which is capable of matching the lumen output of an HMI 2500W Aramis followspot at similar angles. “The Lowry has been operating with RJ Aramis followspots since we opened in April 2000,” says Dave Wimpenny, one of the technical managers at The Lowry.

Japan - Situated in Japan’s Miyazaki Prefecture, Saito City Hall recently upgraded its loudspeaker systems, opting for an all-Martin Audio solution, including the latest WPS optimised line array. The multi-purpose Hall has a seating capacity of 1000 and is used for such events as ceremonies, lectures and cultural presentations.
Mr. Fukui of F Enterprise, the company that manages the Saito City Hall, comments, "My goal was to create an environment in which an identical sound can be experienced in every audience seat. The reason for choosing Martin Audio products is because we have used Martin Audio F215, X12 and LE100 point source systems for monitoring, which place the focus on the sound produced by the performer. Thanks to the resolution and clarity of the sound, making it easier for us to respond to the monitor requests at the site, I had no concerns.
“As Yoshika

Estonia - The final evening concert of the 2022 Volbriöö event in Estonia’s second city of Tartu took place on the Kaarsild (Arch) Bridge, an elegant pedestrian link that connects the centre of town with the Ülejõe District, traversing the Emajõgi River.
Andres Sarv, lighting designer from Tartu’s famous Vanemuine theatre and a team from production and rental company E&T were asked to assist with the technical elements including lighting which had a key role in the presentation. Andres specified Robe Pointe, LEDWash 800, Spikie and LEDBeam 100 moving lights.
These were used to light all the stage action, structural aspects of the bridge, plus the river, riverbank and surrounding areas as thousands congregated to enjoy the music and live artist performances, including headliners popular rapper Genka and famous Estonian singer / songwriter Orelipoiss.

Singapore - Twelve MA Lighting grandMA3 consoles have been specified as part of a technical upgrade at Singapore’s national performing arts centre, Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay.
Instrumental in the decision to replace the older consoles with new grandMA3s - delivered by MA’s Singaporean distributor, Total Solution Marketing - were Heryadi Yusof (head of lighting) and Ismahadie Putra (technical manager).
The lighting team underwent a thorough procurement process explained Heryadi, which included exploring the various industry consoles that could replace the ageing lighting desks.
“All consoles were vetted based on the criteria we set, which included having the flexibility to support the diverse range of productions across different genres that are presented at Esplanade,” he explains. In tune with the latest industry trends, they also took note of the

UK - Exhibition centre ExCeL hosted Move It, an event that invited some 75,000 people to spread their creative wings and dance, either on stage, or in one of its many workshops and classes.
Described as “the largest dance event in the world”, Move It featured performances by 150 acts, ranging from professional troupes and college dance groups, to community organisations and local schools. Supporting them on stage was a highly flexible production design by Steve Yeardsley and the OneBigStar team that featured over 170 Chauvet Professional fixtures from the company’s own inventory.
Engaging the services of David Howard Lighting Design, the OneBigStar team endeavoured to create stage lighting that was versatile enough to reflect the event’s diverse range of dance genres, a collection that included everything from ballet and ballroom to freestyle and

USA - The first shipment of the Chauvet Professional Color Strike M fixtures arrived at The Design Oasis right as Abbas Ritscher was about to head out to sea from Miami as the production manager of the 2022 Nursecon cruise. He was so eager to try the new IP65 rated motorised strobe/wash that he decided on the spot to add two units to the rig that he and lighting designer Joe Donnelly put together for the Royal Caribbean pool side party stage.
“The Color Strike M got into our warehouse, so it was the perfect excuse to get my hands on it,” said Ritscher. “Being on a cruise ship you need to load in fast. You also need fixtures that have a lot of impact for their size, and of course, everything needs to be able to take the weather, which comes in fast and hard. This fixture fit the bill perfectly.”
Ritscher and Donnelly positioned a Color Strike M on either side o

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