Projects

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Europe - FOH engineer Matt West (Motorhead, Snoop Dogg, The Cure, Eminem) has specified Solid State Logic L500 live mixing desk for the latest tour of French indie pop band Phoenix.
The band's latest Album, Ti Amo, came out last year and has been the focus of their most recent world tour. While West has extensive experience on digital consoles, he says he has mostly used them for ergonomic reasons, rather than sound. "I'm an analogue engineer and I come out of that world,” admits West. “Perhaps it's semantics, but there's a warmth that you don't normally get with zeros and ones - at least that’s what I thought that until I came across the SSL.
"On previous tours I had an outboard rack that I'd carry everywhere with me, with some nice compressors like DBX160s, Distressors, 901s. All that lovely sort of stuff. During

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UK - SSE Audio Group’s JBL VTX system was specified by Enrique Iglesias’ FOH engineer Brad Divens for the Spanish singer’s UK autumn arena tour.
Divens, already a seasoned JBL VTX user, fielded JBL’s flagship line array system for five arena shows in the UK and Ireland. All the shows were a complete success, due to careful preparation by SSE Audio Group, led by hire project manager Dan Bennett and system engineer Nick Lythgoe, with support from Stuart Strachan, application engineer at Harman UK distributor Sound Technology and Ed Jackson, senior application engineer at Harman EMEA.
The tour is a Sound Image account in the USA, and thanks to the collaboration between Sound Image and SSE through the formation of United Audio Companies in 2015, both companies are able to service their clients on both sides of the Atlantic with each other’s support.
The sys

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USA - In February 2021, NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet. The spacecraft will be able to capture imagery and sound as the Mars 2020 vehicle descends through the Martian atmosphere and lands on the surface of Mars. To capture sounds from the Red Planet for the first time ever, the Mars 2020 Rover will be outfitted with a selection of equipment from DPA Microphones.
The Mars 2020 spacecraft is currently being assembled at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena and the DPA products will be installed onto the vehicle in early 2019. DPA’s d:dicate 4006 Omnidirectional Microphone will capture the audio while the MMA-A Digital Audio Interface will be used to record and send audio to a computer through its USB connection. Both mics will be paired with MMP-G Modular Active Cables, which act as ultra-transparent preamplifiers.

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USA - Tenth Avenue North released their gold certified Over and Underneath debut album in 2008, but the Dove Award-winning Christian band’s musical virtuosity stretches back much further in time. This is evident in their current Decade The Halls tour, which features a decade-by-decade cornucopia of Christmas music covering more than a half century.
Supporting this musical mix with richly coloured visuals that evoke images of different Christmases from times past is a Mike Marcario lighting design that features Chauvet Professional Rogue and Nexus fixtures, supplied by Bandit Lites. Marcario’s transformative lighting seems to move through time with the music, changing colours and the tempo of its movement to reflect the passage of holiday seasons through the years.
“This show is definitely fun to do from a lighting standpoint,” says Marcario. “

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Japan - Ayrton reports that Tokyo’s Studio Tanta chose the French manufacturer’s lighting products for its rehearsal studios. The successful installation includes 10 Ayrton NandoBeam S3 units, six WildBeam R fixtures and four Arcaline 2 100 battens which were permanently installed in Rehearsal Studio-C.
Studio Tanta is an impressive seven-storey building which took five years to build from planning to completion. It has two recording studios, a rehearsal studio, two artists’ rooms, and a restaurant. Hibino Lighting, Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for Japan, was responsible for the supply and installation of the Ayrton fixtures and a lighting console.
Takahisa Hasegawa, the owner and CEO of Studio Tanta, comments: “It has always been my long-term goal to build a large-scale studio in Tokyo so, before designing Tanta, we went on a study trip to visit famous s

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The Netherlands - Navarone, one of the best, most energetic and appreciated rock bands in the Netherlands returned to their home base in Nijmegen, launching their fourth studio album with help from the new CLF Orion hybrid.
Lighting designer Roy Baarslag was looking for an extensive floor setup to emphasise all the accents in Navarone’s dynamic musical style. “The band wants me to create a lively and energetic show with a lot of variety. I needed fixtures that offer a huge amount of effect versatility, so that’s why the CLF Orion definitely caught my attention.” A powerful light source and efficient optics enable the Orion to produce heavy mid-air effects. “Their output really surprised me, sometimes I even had to reduce it to achieve a balance with the house rig.”
In addition, the extensive feature package of the Orion was a useful tool for Baarslag. “I

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UK - Diwali is the Hindu, Sikh, and Jain festival of lights, which symbolises victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. The 2018 Diwali was celebrated with a huge event in the heart of London on 7 November with music, dance, workshops, foods, crafts, and, of course, plenty of lights from SGM Light.
“The brief was to create something that was both visual and memorable. We mainly chose SGM fixtures because of the outdoor usage, and Ethix has a very long relationship with SGM and their products, and an excellent record of support. The high IP classification in SGM’s products is very important to me as the majority of our projects are outdoors. Ensuring that a fixture is up to the job is paramount,” explained Paul Jones from production company Ethix Management.
For the project, Ethix used G-Spots, G-Spot Turbos, P-5s, and Q-7s.

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South Korea - Star Events’ VerTech Ultra system provided for a production at Riot Games’ League of Legends World Championships final in South Korea.
The opening ceremony at Incheon Munhak Stadium, Seoul, used augmented reality (AR) to fit virtual/in-game band K/DA onstage, and across over 2,000sq.m of screens, for the first musical performance, alongside Madison Beer, Miyeon and Soyeon of (G)I-DLE, and Jaira Burns later in the show.
The 85-minute multi-player League of Legends final was broadcast across more than 30 platforms and TV channels and saw China’s Invictus Gaming beat Europe’s team Fanatic 3-0 to take the trophy and $834,375 in prize money.
Total production ‘frontage’ for the live event stage was 165m wide and 27m high, Star T-towers built on top of the Ultra structure lifting audio hangs fully clear of the screens with a hook height 32m ab

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UK - Choose Love, a charitable movement that provides humanitarian aid to refugees, opened a pop-up store in London to operate in the four-week run up to Christmas.
Pioneer Pro Audio was selected to donate a sound system.
The store works on the principle that visitors ‘shop their hearts out’ but leave with nothing, having bought essentials like solar lamps, blankets, bags and women’s products to enable similar items to be given to refugees. As a way of attracting attention and driving further footfall to the store, it hosts a variety of DJ sets from luminaries such as Jarvis Cocker and even has a Banksy artwork on display.
Pioneer Pro Audio was happy to supply two XPRS 10 tops complemented by two XPRS 115s subs, to provide crisp, punchy audio for the store’s generous customers.
Mark Grotefeld, general marketing manager at Pioneer Pro Audio, comment

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UK - Some Voices, a 500 strong London choir hosted three consecutive seasonal Speakeasy nights of choral performances at Troxy last week.
The 1925 dress and theming were accentuated perfectly by Troxy’s art decor architecture, but when it came to production the events were firmly rooted in the present day.
Troxy’s head of sound Ben Ellis was on hand, from Monday’s 7am load-in to Wednesday’s show close to assist the choir’s technical production – in particular the incoming sound and lighting engineers.
“In terms of the PA system we used our in-house front-of-house, the new JBL VTX A12 speaker system installed this Autumn by SSE. Their engineer brought in his own Alan and Heath dLive console that he had built his show on and was familiar with, which we ran FOH and monitors from.
“A show with this many singers generates a fair amount of

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Slovenia - Ales Pirman runs a successful lighting rental company, Intralite, and in 2018 decided to promote his own event - Castle - Kolpa Music Festival, staged over four days at a beautiful site near the Kolpa River, close to the Croatian border.
Around 12,000 people enjoyed an international line-up of over 25 artists including Swedish / Norwegian rap metal band Clawfinger, darlings of the avant-garde Laibach, singer songwriter Magnifico, Serbian alt rockers S.A.R.S., Bosnian pop rockers Plavi Orkestar, Slovenian rock band Big Foot Mama and many others. To ensure that they and all the other artists enjoyed the best possible lightshow and production values, over 100 Robe moving lights graced the main stage.
This included Intralite’s newest Robe purchase, 20 x MegaPointes, which joined the inventory earlier this year.
Ales had dreamed about running his o

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UK - The Young Vic recently hosted a different take on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The tale received a shake-up as soulful melodies and R&B beats weaved through an enchanting musical adaptation with sound reinforcement courtesy of KV2 Audio products.
It was the latest in a long line of successful KV2 theatre productions featuring sound design by Richard Brooker – who once again chose to use KV2’s EX products to transfer every detail of the performance and energetic musical arrangements from the stage to the audience.
Twelfth Night follows in the footsteps of Dream Girls, Annie, Sister Act and Funny Girl in successfully deploying KV2’s range of True Point Source loudspeakers and Richard has been instrumental in the rapid rise in profile of KV2 in UK theatres – a trend that has now been emulated on Broadway and in

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UK - Given the time of year, chances are, if you told your friends you saw two 8m slugs flying above the skies of Chelsea, they'd think you'd had a few too many drinks at the office Christmas party. But this is exactly what happened earlier this month as Unusual Rigging was brought on board by Tate Britain to help install their seasonal decorations.
Sam Carter, Unusual's rigging project manager, says: "Every year, Tate Britain commissions an independent artist to come up with a scheme for its Winter decorations. This year it was the turn of artist Monster Chetwynd, whose gastropod inspired artwork also includes swathes of blue and white LED slug trails across the facade of the building."
The Turner Prize nominated artist took inspiration from Sir David Attenborough's 2005 nature series Life in the Undergrowth. The piece also reflects "her interest in alternative ener

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Australia - For a company specialising in events, a festival that takes over an entire city can be both the best of times and the worst of times. Tasmania’s Dark Mofo winter festival is all of that for the Hobart-based Alive Technologies Group, but it’s a challenge the team delights in rising to.
Dark Mofo, created and run by MONA - Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art - is a fortnight of festivities which celebrates the dark through large-scale public art, food, film, music, light and noise, all held at venues which may be created or re-designed just for the occasion.
A huge amount of that venue staging, lighting and audio is taken care of by ATG and the company’s lighting project manager Nathaniel Collins was at the heart of much of the work.
“We do a lot with MONA so as a result of that connection, they brought us on, as the largest local supplier. W

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UAE - Qasr Al Hosn is the oldest and most significant heritage site in Abu Dhabi. It was built after more than 11 years of restoration and the site has now reopened its doors as a museum to the public, showcasing the development from a community reliant on fishing and pearling to the modern Abu Dhabi.
Creative Technology Middle East (CTME) were on hand to deliver 9,750sq.m of projection for the historical event on behalf of client, People.
The Qasr Al Hosn Inauguration was opened by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi on 5 December 2018. The large projection show featured content supplied by Fly Studio, showcasing the UAE’s heritage and the history of Qasr Al Hosn Fort. The content was delivered across three buildings, the Musalla, the Cultural Foundation and the Qasr Al Hosn Fort. The projection covered such a large area of the event that the

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Europe - Capital Sound recently completed one of their more unusual mini-tours when they provided sound reinforcement, including Martin Audio’s MLA, for three shows by Japanese ‘android diva’ Hatsune Miku. The ‘Vocaloid’ music sensation uses a computer generated voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media.
This virtual persona is actually a 16-year-old blue haired girl, who is seen onstage as a 3D hologram projection. Her repertoire is entirely original and she has over 2.5 million followers on social media.
The Expo 2018 Europe tour came to Capital via Jamal Chalabi of Proper Productions, with whom they work frequently. Since the London date was the densely populated Kensington Olympia, a hugely noise sensitive site, it was obvious that only MLA would offer the level of containment necessary while reaching the considerable levels required by the Japanese pro

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UK - Pearce Hire regularly collaborates with corporate production specialists Hawk Audio Visual on large scale events. This successful partnership recently provided a circus themed entertainment and dining space for over 1,000 company staff and stakeholders at the BGL Awards Ball held at Manchester Central.
BGL Group is a financial services company based in Peterborough and the biennial event which celebrates and rewards staff achievements, was also part of the company’s 25th anniversary celebrations.
Pearce Hire’s project manager John Huson provided some insight into the support and co-operation between Hawk and Pearce Hire. “Hawk Audio Visual has been a client of Pearce Hire for over 20 years and during that time we’ve actually partnered with them on four previous BGL Balls alongside many other events which usually averages 15 to 20 jobs every year. Hawk Au

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USA - British musician and singer-songwriter Steven Wilson is about to wrap the 2018 leg of his To the Bone Tour (see LSi May 2018), named for his fifth studio album. Bandit Lites provided the lighting package for the production, helping to provide a layer to the visuals of the show while keeping the emphasis on Wilson’s music.
Lighting designer Tellson James credited the visual experience to the video footage produced by Steven Wilson, Lasse Hoile and Jess Cope, lighting the scene around the video and song accordingly, all the while paying special attention to the mood each song suggestions.
He utilises Claypaky Sharpy washes on the front truss, illuminating the

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Belgium - The Jacques Brel musical La Vie Est Brel captivates a blend of classic and contemporary, both in its songs and in the powerful lighting design that supports them.
Created by Revolution Event Support, the design relied on the intense output and versatile performance features of 12 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK2 Spot fixtures.
“The general idea of our lighting concept was retro, going back in time to the period Brel was performing his shows in the 1960s and 1970s,” says Revolution Event Support’s Bart Faut. “As a result, the look of the stage retained a classic and minimal feel, with a lot of classic visual elements such as warm white lighting required to create the appropriate atmosphere within the auditorium in Ostend.”
Hung on downstage and mid-stage truss as well as stage left and stage right booms, the 440W moving fixtures create

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UK - At the end of 2017, Pete Tong, Jules Buckley and the Heritage Orchestra, treated UK fans to a live production of his acclaimed album, Ibiza Classics. Such was the reception that dates for the outing in the run up to Christmas 2018 were booked almost immediately. While the essential elements of last December’s tour remain the same, changes have been made.
“For me, what has made it different this time around is the change of musicians, with different players in the orchestra; their physical technique affects how it looks and feels and consequently where I place the cameras,” explains video director Mark Davies, pointing to one area that has been refreshed. “That’s a subtle distinction but when you get to an instrument the size of a cello posture and playing technique has a big influence.” Paddy Hocken Productions are once again using the services of Vi

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USA - With a nod to Game of Thrones, the Vegas Golden Knights hockey team now enters the ice through a 20ft, 2,375-pound medieval jousting helmet accented with 60m of FloppyFlex Digital LED neon.
Originally conceived for the Stanley Cup, the team’s entrance is now a standard feature for all home games at the T-Mobile Arena. Designed and built by Water FX, the large helmet features lighting by Sean Guarino, with the FloppyFlex provided by PRG Las Vegas.
“Outlining the helmet to create a portal worthy of the team required something cooler than conventional LED tape,” says Golden Knights LD, Sean Guarino. “I wanted this to pop, and Tim Brennan of PRG suggested FloppyFlex Digital, which exceeded my expectations. Using the pixelated Digital RGB version, I can create spectacular multi-colour chases. The colours are bright, vibrant and warm, and installation wa

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Mexico - Lighting designer Pablo Gutierrez utilised 52 of Robe’s Pointe multi-functional moving lights for the launch of Mexican singer Fey’s new Desnuda (Nude) tour.
The tour kicked off in full-on style at the 18,000 capacity Arena Ciudad de México (Mexico City Arena) in the country’s vibrant metropolis.
Fey is a multi-talented Latin Grammy nominated singer, songwriter, designer, dancer, record producer, director and actress who has recorded seven successful studio albums and was massive in the 1990s following the release of her first album Fey in 1995. The proactive celebrity wanted to make maximum impact for her singing and live touring comeback, so her management team asked Gutierrez to create a suitably high impact production design for the show.
As well as being spectacular, the design had to be scalable for an arena tour which follows

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UK - S+H Technical, specialists for LED visual effects, drapes and starcloths, supplied around 350sq.m of its LED Animation cloth and 450sq.m of standard RGB starcloth drape for the BBC’s 2018 Children in Need telethon, broadcast live on BBC One and BBC Two.
Featuring a star-studded line-up, the event raised over £50m for the 2018 appeal in what was the crescendo of this year’s fundraising activities for disadvantaged children and young people in communities across the UK.
The telethon production design was created by Alex Craig - working on his 10th Children in Need - and this new look for 2018 featured some threads from the previous design to keep a strand of continuity, together with some spectacular new elements including lots of LED and a large upstage LED wall, 14m wide by 5m high, which split in the middle and opened for performer entrances and exits.

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UK - London-based LD Dan Saggars had the opportunity to put Elation’s new Artiste Picasso LED profile to the test on the new Park Theatre drama, Distance in September.
Saggars required a flexible light that could both wash wide to cover the stage and isolate for dramatic specials and placed the units in overhead and side positions to achieve the desired result. “I was able to get massive coverage with the overhead units,” the designer states, “and then extremely specific specials from the sidelights that were able to perfectly isolate areas, people, even body parts.”
Distance, which played 5-29 September in the theatre’s intimate Park 90 space, is a powerful examination of the trials and tribulations of mental illness. Male suicide provides the context for the play, an intense dramatic experience played out on an express train and through a s
  1. Chauvet shines at Lille’s Pirates Paradise
  2. Danley double for Bellamy Brothers
  3. DiGiCo in the mix Latin Grammy Awards
  4. Audio-Technica on CMA Country Christmas
  5. L-Acoustics synthesizes Evanescence
  6. MGG in the frame for Comic-Con Africa
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