Robe has received two PLASA Innovation Awards for its Footsie and iFORTE LTX products at PLASA 2023. Also previewed were new Robe products, the HolyPATT and MolyPATT, both new additions to Robe’s PATT range of luminaires. Six Robe NRG (Next Robe Generation) students from five associated colleges worked alongside the Robe international team, with one assisting the Avolites team, all gaining valuable experience, contacts, and insights into the world of production technology. Three of the students operated RoboSpot systems during the live shows. Using around 200 lighting fixtures, the live show was storyboarded, designed, and produced by Robe’s creative team…
Author: Alicia Pollitt
Astera has won a PLASA Award for Innovation for its new PlutoFresnel product. The Awards were announced during the three-day PLASA London 2023. Astera’s award was received by R&D director, Simon Canins. Astera Sales and Marketing Director, Sebastian Bückle was delighted to win the award and stated: “We’re honoured to receive a Plasa Innovation Award for PlutoFresnel, which is a groundbreaking lighting solution designed for film, studio, and event settings. The cutting-edge technology complete with built-in battery gives 3 hours of operation on MAX brightness, and its full-spectrum Titan LED Engine sets a new standard in lighting innovation. This recognition…
Costa Nikols has joined Riedel Communications as Vice President of Sales Enablement. In this role, Nikols will design, develop, and institute sales enablement programs to build foundational and technical knowledge for the global sales team. “We are thrilled to have Costa take the reins of our global sales enablement initiatives, which consist of connecting people to the information they need. Costa brings an impressive and quite extensive background of experience successfully guiding both colleagues and customers through several huge technological disruptions,” commented Daniel Url, CCO Product Division at Riedel. “As Riedel continues to grow and evolve, Costa will ensure the…
This year’s production at the Bregenz Festival was Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. KV2 Audio solutions made up the core of the system serving the Seebühne and its auditorium. Clemens Wannemacher explained: “We have been using a point-source based system for many years now as we found it was the most efficient way to handle the various constraints of working on an outdoor production with a live orchestra and a complex set. I’d had my eye on KV2 since 2019 when I was working on another lake stage in Mörbisch am See and was looking to upgrade the front fills and main…
Production Futures will hold its ON TOUR event at Production Park, Wakefield on 28 September. Following last year the event will once again be livestreamed by Production Futures and feature as part of Leeds Digital Festival, which runs from 18 to 29 September. This will be the eighth edition of a festival that is an open, collaborative celebration of all forms of digital culture. Leeds Digital Festival Director, Stuart Clarke commented: “The Leeds Digital Festival celebrates the region’s vibrant digital and creative sector, so we’re very happy to promote the Production Futures event. Helping to bring the organisation’s work to…
Green Hippo’s London-based manufacturing operation is reporting high demand for its range of Hippotizer media servers and is ramping up production to meet orders. The team says the first quarter of 2023 saw a huge rise in sales across all Hippotizer models, including the flagship Tierra+ MK2 and high-performance Boreal+ MK2. The recent launch of the Hippotizer v4.8 software update included major enhancements of the new software including Show Manager, Timeline feature and the SHAPE tool. Built-in integrations were also upgraded, with a notable addition being the NDI update to version 5.5, which includes features to its media over IP…
PROLIGHTS fixtures lit up Skënderbej Square in Tirana, setting the stage for the Ricky Martin Symphonic. PROLIGHTS local distributor, ASLV Albania, supplied the sound and light system contributing to the success of the show. Comprising approximately 307 PROLIGHTS luminaires. This array included the PanoramaIP Spot, PanoramaIP WBX, Stark 1000, Razor 440, Sunrise 2IP, LumiPar 12IP, LumiPix 16H, and Lumipix 15IP. “The show was a terrific success,” declared the ASLV Albania team. “We are immensely proud to have contributed to this extraordinary event. Once again, PROLIGHTS fixtures proved to be the ideal choice, elevating the concert to new visual heights.” prolights.it
SLX has invested in a stock of Ayrton lighting fixtures as part of its new focus on environmental sustainability. The fixtures, which include Ayrton Diablo, Mistral, Eurus, Perseo, Karif and Cobra, were supplied by Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for the UK, Ambersphere Solutions. SLX used the hiatus of the pandemic to reassess and reset its aims, choosing to focus on environmental and social sustainability, as CEO Alastair Currie explained: “We examined how we operate within a circular economy, what we expect from our manufacturers and suppliers in terms of sustainability, and aim to give opportunities for minority and disadvantaged groups to…
XD Motion has appointed Andrew Gordon as its new Chief Commercial Officer. Benoit Dentan, CEO of XD motion, explained: “Andrew’s vast expertise, especially in the fields of robotics and automation, aligns seamlessly with our company’s direction. We’re moving beyond being solely service-focused, with eyes set on the future – IO.BOT, the promise of automation, and the boundless potential of our other divisions. We are eager to journey through this transformative phase with Andrew guiding our commercial endeavours.” Gordon’s enthusiasm towards IO.BOT, resonated with XD motion’s vision of future-driven innovation. He remarked: “I’m deeply excited to be part of the XD…
Scott Holthaus has created some shows with large centre-stage video screens. But sooner or later, most things in life run their course, and at this point, the designer was ready for a change. “I have said it a hundred times… I’m bored with the big TV in the back,” remarked Holthaus, when discussing his design for Disturbed’s just concluded 36-date Take Back Your Life Tour. On this tour, Holthaus achieved his vision, going outside the box to create a design that flowed with the musical narrative on stage without the use of a central video wall. In place of the…
From the smallest comedy tent to the main stage, NEXO sound systems featured exclusively at this year’s Lakefest. In a feat of collaboration, the festival organisers and Bluestone Audio brought together no fewer than 13 UK NEXO rental partners to provide sound systems on the various stages. “Lakefest this year was a great festival for showcasing our NEXO GEO M12 line array with flown MSUB18ssupplemented by cardioid pairs of RS18 subs across the front of the stage,” reported Bluestone owner Sam Brook. “We used NEXO GEO M10s for delays and NEXO P+ point source boxes as front and side fills,…
The NETRON EN6 IP, one of three devices in Obsidian’s new IP65 range of signal distribution, won a PLASA Award for Innovation September 4 at the 2023 exhibition. The PLASA Award judges recognised the EN6 IP as a “device that brings lighting control distribution and format conversion to the outdoors at an accessible price point.” The 6-port EN6 IP EtherDMX node, along with a 6-port RDM Splitter (RDM6 IP) and an 8-port managed POE switch (NS8 IP). The NETRON IP65 range blends the proven chassis and connector technology of Elation Professional’s market-leading IP65 Proteus range of lighting fixtures with the…
Performers at this year’s Festival International de Dougga included Dhafer Youseef, and Algerian Berber singer, songwriter and guitarist Souad Massi. Also appearing were Assyrian-Syrian singer Faia Younan, Mauritanian singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Noura Mint Seymali and Tunisian musician, composer and singer Zied Gharsa. Sound for the festival was provided by local event technology specialists and NEXO distributors SYBEL EVENT COMPANY, deploying a NEXO STM M28 system comprising eight M28 main cabinets, six B112 bass extension cabinets and four S118 subs for the main FOH system, supplemented by four M28 and four S118 front fills, and two NEXO PS15s with LS18 subs…
DSL and Stairway Productions collectively provided several hundred enclosures, plus amplifiers and accessories, site-wide at Liquicity Festival. This included the deployment of WPL Wavefront Precision line arrays by DSL for the premier two performance stages — and seven separate zones in all. The main Galaxy stage saw 20 WPL left and right (in two box resolution), with 12x WPC for delays (also in two box resolution) and 21 SXH218 subs in cardioid (14 front-facing and seven back), with a further four W8VDQ for front fill and six Blackline X12 for outfill. These were powered by 17 IK42 multi-channel amps. On stage,…
ChamSys stand at PLASA 2023 engaged crowds of attendees with products and ideas designed to help them take their creative visions to new heights. Visitors got a look at products like the MagicQ MQ500M Stadium, is currently touring with the likes of Ed Warren for Mumford & Sons, and Will Thomas on Bonobo’s Fragments Tour. Also the ChamSys MagicQ Compact series, including the new MagicQ Compact Connect, a USB control surface that connects to a PC or Mac to deliver control of lighting, media, and LEDs. It can send up to 64 universes of ArtNet and sACN directly from its…
Janet Jackson has just completed her latest North American tour, Together Again, with tour direction, production design and technical direction by Eric Wade from Dallas, Texas-based Crossfade Design. Eric has worked with the artist for two years, and he developed this show in collaboration with Jackson herself plus her long-term creative director, Gil Duldulao. Wade decided, together with his son Brandon who was on the road as lighting programmer & director, to implement a zactrack SMART real-time tracking system. “We needed anything between 10 and 14 follow spots depending on the venue to ensure that Janet and her four primary…
Handling mixing duties for the tour are Daniel Good and Nahuel Gutierrez, who started working with Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O following her Danger Mouse collaboration Lux Prima in 2019. “We did two shows at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles and the band performed one more show in New York,” explained Good. “At that point we weren’t sure if Yeah Yeah Yeahs would ever be performing again, so it was cool to get contacted again after their album came out.” Good and Gutierrez are each mixing on Allen & Heath dLive S5000 surfaces, along with DM0 MixRacks handling 128…
DirectOut has introduced multiformat audio matrix, the PRODIGY.MX. PRODIGY.MX offers a capacity of 1,664 by 1,668 audio channels. Its hardware accommodates multiple audio formats, selectable between Dante, RAVENNA/AES67, SoundGrid, AVB/MILAN, and MADI. The modules feature bidirectional sample rate conversion (HD SRC), operational control is facilitated through globcon control software, compatible with both Mac and PC, an intuitive touch display, providing essential monitoring and control capabilities. Third-party control protocols, like Ember+, are available as options. In its first release PRODIGY.MX will incorporate processing features, such as gain control for all inputs and outputs, and channel grouping. Additional DSP functions are planned…
