Projects

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UK - Full technical production services provider Pearce Hire has added a Prolyte Arc Roof staging system, supplied by Stage Electrics, to its hire stock.
The Prolyte Arc Roof System is a fixed construction, based on three inward-curving trusses which are mounted to side masts. Since its delivery, the system has been used for a festival and an urban running event and has also been specified for several Christmas Light switch-ons and outdoor winter festivals.
Jim Brown, general manager at Pearce Hire, comments: “We’ve got a significant amount of Prolyte kit already - trusses, towers, rigging towers and accessories. So we were already familiar with the quality of Prolyte products and ease of handling. We were particularly attracted to the Arc Roof system because of its well-considered assembly process which is critical to the challenging set-up times our client proje

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Denmark - Lighting designer Mike Holm has been in charge of many light installations throughout his career but had his first encounter with SGMs G-4 Wash for the successful Danish musical Seebach. After almost a year-long run with over 200,000 tickets sold, Seebach became the best-selling musical in Denmark in 15 years.
“Besides living up to all our performance demands, we chose the G-4 Wash because of its compact size that makes it easy to adapt to various staging designs,” says Mike Holm.
In the past, Holm has used moving-head fixtures that were a lot more difficult to install due to their bigger physical size. With great performance in a compact size, the G-4 Wash turned out to be the perfect luminaire for both the Seebach and Tarzan musicals.
“The G-4 Wash has a Fresnel lens, which avoids having to work with multiple shadows that you get from

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UK - On 25 October at London’s St. Bartholomew-the-Great at Smithfield, storytelling singer-songwriter Hazel Iris celebrated the release of her first full-length album, Nine Sisters.
Shure supported the event with KSM8, BETA52, SM137, SM81, KSM141, BETA98, SM57’s and SM58 microphones and PSM300 in ear monitoring systems.
Peter Junge, engineer in charge of recording and filming the event, comments: “For the Hazel Iris album launch, we used Shure microphones on every instrument. Not only was the live-sound superb but the recording also came out really well. Listening back I was very surprised by how focused it all sounds and how little issue with bleed or ambience we have on the signals. Very often, when using that many condenser microphones in a church, there can be a problem. However, the sound is nicely separated and I’m pleased I'll be able to make a

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Romania - Romania’s five-star Black Sea hotel, Nyota, offers luxurious accommodation coupled with conference and theatre facilities to cater for tourism and business.
A premium solution was required, according to systems integrator and Powersoft distributor Marius Craiu, sales & marketing manager of AudioVision Store, who spec’d Powersoft Ottocanali power amplification systems to manage the zoning and room audio systems.
The hotel needed the AV system to cover all areas, with priority for EVAC announcements and both local and remote control of the zones.
Systems integrator and Powersoft distributor Marius Craiu explains: “The hotel’s prime objective was for it to be simple to use and reliable. We began working with the hotel before building was started and although the initial specification was settled early on, there were inevitable modifications al

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USA - Fusion band Intocable have enjoyed a 25-year career, winning three Grammy awards and and playing record-breaking stadium concerts. Their latest Highway tour has taken them all over the US since June and culminates in November in Houston, Texas.
The band's tools of choice at both FOH and monitors are SSL L300 consoles, and Jose Ramon Quintero has engineered with both, previously as monitor engineer, and now as FOH engineer. "When I started with the L300 on monitors, the band immediately noticed a huge change in the mix and in the 'room image',” he says. “There is a great separation between the instruments, and there’s a much warmer, more analogue sound than the console we were using before."
According to Quintero, the band's reaction to the technology was an important moment, as they are all accomplished musicians, and most have their own personal st

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UK - Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rex Orange County (Alexander O'Connor) has been on a UK tour, with LD Will Kinnaird looking after the lighting for the musician’s first full production.
Kinnaird took 24 Robe’s LEDBeam 150 moving lights on the bus-and-trailer tour; the fixtures proved the right tool for the low-profile aesthetic he crafted for the tour as he worked closely with show designer Jed Skrzypczak. The LEDbeam 150s and some other lighting were used at every show in conjunction with the 'top' rigs at each venue.
At the musician’s London gig at the Hammersmith Apollo, the LEDBeam 150 count was boosted to 51 and six MegaPointes were added to the rig, all supplied by High Wycombe rental company, Siyan.
For the main tour, the 24 LEDBeam 150s were deployed in three horizontal lines across the stage - upstage, mid-stage and downstage - wher

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UK - Pop rockers The Feeling recently celebrated the 12th anniversary of their debut album with their Twelve Stops and Home tour - supported by an Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system.
Supplied by SSE Audio, the full set-up included an S7000 surface on FOH, accompanied by a DM64 MixRack on stage. Both FOH and monitors were mixed from the S7000 with the dLive’s 128 input processing channels enabling duplicates of input signals to be made for discrete FOH - MON processing. Additionally, the MixRack was fitted with a Dante card for multi-track recording.
“The 128 processing channels and 64 buses were perfect for duplicating channels for monitors and band members who needed further processing in their IEM’s. I never had to compromise on anything, giving the band what they needed on stage and for what I needed out front,” comments FOH engineer Jon Le

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Germany - The International Automobile Exhibition (IAA), which took place in Hannover on 20-27 September, is the one of the world's most important trade fairs for mobility, transport and logistics. This year saw two of the show’s biggest names - DAF Trucks and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles - rely on Absen’s Polaris products to ensure that their respective booths packed a visual punch.
DAF used its stand to showcase 90 years of vehicular innovation. This was illustrated by the classic DAF A1600 from 1967 through to the future DAF CF Electric Innovation, while a prominent position was taken by DAF’s latest LF, CF and XF ranges. The stand was based around the theme, ‘Proud of our Heritage, Leading Today, Ready for the Future’.
Providing the striking 30m x 4m video wall for the 2,500 sqm DAF stand was Netherlands-based rental and sales company, Bazelmans AV, whi

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UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has provided a range of video solutions, including an additional Hippotizer V4+ Media Server to Illuminate Lighting, to expand their rental stock offering.
Illuminate Lighting was founded by entrepreneur Jonathan Pask to provide lighting control systems exclusively to rental houses. Since then, he has expanded their offering to include video control systems.
Jonathan has deliberately kept the focus on these systems and credits that to the business’s strong growth. He commented: “I think what makes us successful is that we offer a concise range of services. Rather than offering everything, we strive to excel at what we do offer.
“Green Hippo Media Servers are our preferred choice because of their power, reliability and ease of use. They are the perfect tool for our diverse range of clients.”
Alongside th

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UK - British heavy metal titans Saxon are on the road again, touring Thunderbolt, their twenty second studio album. Jacky Lehmann, the band’s trusted Front of House engineer has chosen to use a combination of DiGiCo’s SD12 and S21, purchased from DiGiCo’s German distributor, United Brands, ensuring the band’s classic sound benefits from the most up to date audio technology.
DiGiCo has been Jacky’s choice of console since 2011 and since he joined the Saxon crew in 2012, he has mixed over 300 shows. For the current tour, he deploys the SD12 with a D2-Rack, which he purchased himself, and an S21 and D-Rack for smaller shows and corporate events.
“I started with an SD9 / D-Rack setup, which was my main rig for a lot of Saxon shows in Europe at the time,” says Jacky. “I was looking for a smaller console for fly-in shows, so in 2013 an SD11i joined my

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Curaçao – Since it started in 2015, the Flying Dutch festival has employed a novel method of spreading DJ wealth in The Netherlands. Taking place simultaneously in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Eindhoven, it shuttles the country’s leading DJs from city to city by helicopter throughout the day, so every fan in each location gets to see the entire all-star line-up of performers. This year, the festival added a fourth site to its roster - the island of Curaçao.
Taking place 25 October, a stone’s throw away from the white sanded Seaquarium Beach (aka Mambo Beach), Flying Dutch Curaçao offered breathtaking vistas, a nonstop party atmosphere, and a chance to take in performances by artists like Armin van Buuren, Sunnery James and Ryan Marciano, as well as local stars DJ Menasa and multi Latin Grammy-nominated Jeon and other leading DJs on a massive 45m wide by 19m high stage.

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USA - Brave Church, located in Englewood, Colorado, is a church on a mission. This inspired the desire for an impactful sound reinforcement system in their new Broomfield sanctuary that could more than keep up with Brave Church’s unabashedly contemporary services, as well as defining the need to update the audio infrastructure at their main sanctuary in Englewood.
“Brave Church had already planned to launch their first multi-site facility in Broomfield in a building that is thirty miles northwest of the main campus,” explained Kurt Butler president of Butler Engineering & Technology Group (BETG) who provided consulting and technical infrastructure design services to church leadership. “BETG designed the audio system using the Clair Brothers kiT12+ and kiT-Sub+ powered loudspeakers and subwoofers. The kiT Series was a perfect match with the performance criteria,

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Estonia - Recreating the dark and gruesome world of Sweeney Todd, the fictional Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Vanemuine Theatre in Tartu, Estonia, was a tricky task requiring the juxtaposition of a classic Victorian east London docklands ambiance as the historical industrial backdrop, shot through with lighting and effects to recreate multiple locations.
It laid down a few challenges for lighting designer Margus Vaigur who had the house Robe luminaires at his disposal including 20 x MMX Spots, 52 x LEDWash 1200s, 16 x LEDWash 600s and 12 x CitySkape Xtreme’s together with 12 new Robe DL7S Profiles which are a recent addition to the venue’s Big Theatre house lighting inventory.
Margus lit the entire production with the Robe moving lights together with some other LEDs, around 200 in total, using no conventionals at all.
The production - the first time the

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China - Shanghai Tower, China’s tallest building (and the world’s second tallest), measuring 632m high, has been brought to life by powerful beams from PR Lighting’s IP65-rated AQUA 480 Beam -from 128 storeys up.
It was selected following comparative tests with other leading brands by Beijing Fengshangshiji Culture Media Co. They were tasked with finding a solution, having been approached by the builders, Shanghai Construction Group. As a result, 129 of the waterproof heads have been installed on the top three of eight interlayers, installed in the body of the tower to store building cleaning devices. There are 43 fixtures mounted at each level.
The contractors have enjoyed a long-term relationship with PR Lighting having collaborated with the Guandong based company most notably in the construction of the Birds Nest Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games, followed b

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World - The Lenny Kravitz 2018 Raise Vibration tour, in support of his new album of the same name, kicked off earlier this year in Mexico City. The tour has created a lot of excitement around the world. The stage show is a large and lively affair with lighting designer, Leroy Bennett, incorporating 224 Ayrton MagicDot-XT fixtures into his multi-layered design.
The main set changes at different venues, but the backdrop setting and lighting design stays the same and consists of 14 diamond-shaped pods with 16 MagicDot-XT fixtures tightly packed into each one, with just a 250mm offset between each fixture within each matrix. The pods are rigged in two rows of seven and partially concealed behind a massive louvre blind back wall.
Bennett, who was keen to use the MagicDot-XT fixtures for this particular lighting design, explained, “The idea for the design was based

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Lithuania - At the end of September, Pope Francis kicked off his four-day Baltic tour, which included Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, with a holy mass in Sàntakos Park in Kaunas, Lithuania. The event attracted over 100,000 faithful to the park where local rental company, NGR Service, provided an extensive sound system, deploying two SD12s for the live mix, as well as the broadcast and press feeds.
“NGR was chosen for this important event because of the quality of its equipment, of which DiGiCo is an important part, and its exemplary service,” says Ramūnas Alenskas from DiGiCo’s Lithuanian distributor Sonus, which supported NGR with additional stage boxes and cabling. “They used the two DiGiCo SD12s along with two SD-Racks, a D2-Rack and an SD-Mini Rack, which were deployed for their sound quality and their ability to connect to all six racks in fully redundant mode

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UK - For the last 93 years, the Blackpool Dance Festival competition - probably the most globally acclaimed international bastion of ballroom dancing - has ensured that the genre continues to have a relevant role in popular culture in the UK and beyond.
This year, 3,000 couples from 60 nations competed in the event. Providing them with a stylish and sophisticated visual background was a lighting design by Oliver Wilkinson of Arranpaul that featured 10 Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Spot and16 Rogue R2 Wash fixtures, and 32 Q-Wash 560Z-LED washes.
Wilkinson has been part of the Blackpool Dance Festival for six years, but in 2018 it was his chance to design the event. He strove to bring a new level of smoothness to his efforts. “We have provided equipment to this event since 2012, and each year we set the bar higher for ourselves,” he said. “This year, I wanted to

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USA - Known locally as The Rock, M.M. Roberts Stadium is home to the University of Southern Mississippi’s Golden Eagles football team. It originally opened in 1932 with 4,000 seats and has since expanded to hold 36,000-plus Southern Miss fans. Its most recent expansion happened a decade ago, and although the expanded infrastructure and seating is in great shape, the sound reinforcement system that went in didn’t fare as well. After an overhaul installed by AV integration firm Sound & Communications, of Flowood, Mississippi, M.M. Roberts Stadium now commands a full Danley Sound Labs loudspeaker, subwoofer, and amplifier/DSP system.
“The old system didn’t stand up to the elements, and pieces of the speaker cabinets and components were failing,” explained Jeff Crowe, director of operations with Sound & Communications. “The coverage was going, the high end wa

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Norway - Celebrating its 25th anniversary next year, Skudefestivalen is one of Norway’s largest coastal culture festivals. This year marked the first European outing for EM Acoustics’ new HALO-A large-format line array system, where it made a big impression on visiting sound engineers for the festival’s main stage performances from many of Norway’s top acts, including Jan Ove Ottesen, Heine Totland, Plumbo, Just 4 You, Keipstein and Slogmåkane.
The HALO-A line array was supplied by Haugesund-based AV rental specialists, Livepro, with support from EM Acoustics’ Norwegian distributor, Norstage. Livepro’s system engineer, Geir Larsen, has become the first adopter of HALO-A in Europe. “This is a huge improvement over the sound systems we’ve used in previous years,” he said. “I’m really impressed with the way it sounds, even in a tent which is not the frien

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The Netherlands - Christie Digital’s latest HS Series projectors are currently in use at the GLOW Eindhoven international light art festival in Eindhoven.
A total of 12 Christie D20WU-HS projectors, provided by Christie partner Sahara Benelux, are utilised in a video mapping installation on the face of the 19th century Catharinakerk, a neo-gothic Roman Catholic church located in the centre of Eindhoven.
“We’re delighted that Sahara Benelux has chosen to invest in our latest HS Series models, and it’s rewarding to see them already being used in high profile global events like GLOW Eindhoven,” says Miles Donovan, senior channel development manager, enterprise, EMEA, Christie. “The HS Series is an excellent choice for a wide range of applications, delivering high brightness and vibrant colours in a lightweight and compact form factor. It’s our pleasure to p

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USA - Morris Integration has expanded audio capabilities at Missouri’s First Baptist Church of Arnold using Allen & Heath’s dLive consoles.
The systems upgrade is based around an Allen & Heath dLive S7000 control surface at FOH and a dLive S3000 for monitors. Services at the church range from traditional to contemporary, using an average of 80 inputs on any given Sunday. With an Allen & Heath dLive DM48 MixRack serving the house and a DM32 MixRack standing-in at monitor world, both MixRack processors utilise gigaACE networking cards to provide 96kHz audio and control transport via Ethernet over standard Cat 5e cabling.
“Not all that long ago, it would have been crazy to think you could transmit that much audio over Cat5,” says Morris Integration design engineer, Collin Adams. “But here we are today, and it’s reality. Being able to draw upon th

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USA - Elation once again had a presence on the Kaaboo festival as lighting designers Chris Lisle and Erik Parker turned to the LED-based Platinum 1200 Wash moving head to light headlining acts Foo Fighters, Imagine Dragons and Katy Perry on the main Sunset Cliffs stage.
Lisle and Parker used 12 Platinum 1200 Wash fixtures - each housing 19 x 65W LEDs with wide zoom - spread out across the mid-stage and upstage trusses primarily for general stage wash. “It’s hard to compete with the sun of course, but even during daylight they were able to lay some base colour and show up on the camera/IMAG shots for some eye candy,” explains Lisle. “We loved their overall intensity. In a rig full of a lot of horsepower, they held their own and were great at driving down some base colour.”
Meanwhile, on the Trestles Stage, bands like The Zombies, Tower of Power, Blondie, and

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UK - Adlib was the audio supplier for the Giant Spectacular show staged in Liverpool, produced by the street and outdoor theatre company Royal de Luxe.
The extravaganza attracted an estimated 1.3m people to the city centre over the weekend of 4-7 October to see this tale of epic proportions, and the fate of the much-loved oversized marionette puppets unfold. Characters comprised The Explorer, the Little Boy Giant, his dog Xolo, and a surprise appearance by the Little Girl, who re-entered the story on the Sunday for the finale.
It was the third Liverpool Giant Spectacular, and having delivered the previous events in 2012 and 2014 so successfully, Adlib was commissioned by production manager Stu Stalker of Event Design Co (EDC) and Royal De Luxe’s production manager Jeff Havart to provide audio.
Adlib provided on-board sound systems mounted to the s

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Europe - Lights Control Rigging (LCR) has provided 20 Chroma-Q Color Force II fixtures for Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm Tour, to create a spectacular back wall wash.
The set design for the show features five individual cyc panels spaced apart, which together display the Silent Alarm album artwork. Color Force II LED battens at the top and bottom of each panel flooded the back of the stage in vibrant colour, with the units' strobe effects used during some of the faster paced songs.
LD Ryan Hopkins, who's also a director of LCR, comments: “It was great to have our Color Force II’s at my disposal for the tour. They provided incredibly bright colour across the stage. I was very impressed by their seamless blending across the entire artwork and I am really happy with the results.”
(Jim Evans)
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  4. Chauvet provides thrilling backdrop for Bazyliszek
  5. DiGiCo in control on Stereophonics tour
  6. GLP KNV makes the difference for Nature One
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