On The End of the Movie tour, Lizzy McAlpine used a set that was designed around her actual living room space with the help of CHAUVET Professional. “All the items in the room were chosen by Lizzy, and were very specific to her inspiration and interests,” said Kat Borderud, the tour’s Lighting and Scenic designer. Borderud intensified the effect of this living room set by accentuating its various elements with light and shadows.” Bordered continued: “Darkness and shadow play are incorporated in this design for bringing the room to life as another character in Lizzy’s show. Shadows and light move…
Author: Alicia Pollitt
Nordlite Veranstaltungstechnik is a regional provider of event technology and set construction solutions. The Hamburg-based company offers various complete solutions in the event sector, from conception and design through technical planning and implementation to dry hire. In the spring of 2023, managing director Wolfgang Frahm’s attention turned to GLP’s new impression X5 Series: “From our point of view, the impression X5 and X5 Compact are currently the best products on the market,” continued Frahm. “The X5 Series definitely sets new standards. We have always had the best experiences with GLP products. The devices have a long service life and the manufacturer’s product cycles are also reassuringly…
Festival Lent is the largest open-air festival in Slovenia and one of the biggest city centre festivals in Europe, To stage the broad spectrum of genres, the lighting designers of the respective stages relied on moving lights, LED bars and flood lights from Cameo. On a total of five of the seven stages, including the Main Stage, Jože Skarlovnik, Technical Director of the festival, relied on Cameo fixtures. The focus was primarily on IP65-capable outdoor spotlights, with which those responsible did not have to make any compromises in terms of performance, weight and flexibility, even in inclement weather. In addition…
Summer 2023 in the US has been extreme, when several outdoor festivals and events are on the program, this creates a challenge for any production company: “This is a very current issue,” stated Ryan Knutson, President of Brown Note Productions. “We’ve seen some really intense changing weather patterns and IP fixtures have become critical in outdoor applications.” Knutson credits Danny Wimmer Presents for initiating it’s move to weather-resistant lighting solutions: “DWP was really the first client we worked with who stressed that the dynamics of weather and shows had changed and therefore a change was needed in how we approached…
Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) has announced that the 2024 edition of the show will mark its 20th birthday, as the trade show returns to Barcelona on the 31 January to the 3 February next year. “Over the last 20 years, ISE has been at the forefront of audio-visual innovation, industry trends, and global collaboration,” said Mike Blackman, Managing Director, Integrated Systems Events. “Our new branding, reflects not only the evolution of our event but also our commitment to continuously push boundaries and shape the future of the industry. As we step into this significant milestone of 20 years of ISE,…
Almost a decade since his first London gig, Romeo Santos headlines The O2, with Bigabox Productions delivering a turnkey solution. With US singer-songwriter Romeo Santos making his long-awaited return to London for a one-off show at The O2, Bigabox Productions was brought in to provide a turnkey solution, scaling down the star’s usual stadium setup to deliver a realistically sized arena show. “We only had around a month to pull this all together, and given the time of year, this posed challenges with available kit,” reflected Bigabox’s Sian Teasdale. Robe and CHAUVET Professional fixtures featured heavily throughout the lighting rig,…
Production Futures, the initiative which creates opportunities for young people to learn and develop careers in production across the live event industry, has announced Martin Audio, as its latest high-profile partner. “It’s wonderful that Martin Audio have seen the potential of Production Futures,” said CEO, Hannah Eakins. “We’re particularly delighted to welcome them as a British manufacturer.” Production Futures is in the process of transformation, including the announcement of a new audio learning zone. Along with Martin Audio, this will debut at the 28 September event, which takes place at Production Park in Wakefield. The step change for Production Futures has been brought about…
The Backseat Lovers were on the road with interesting production and lighting design created by Meagan Metcalf, with 22 Robe ESPRITES and 24 Tetra2 moving lights at the heart of the lighting rig. Metcalf was offered an initial short tour with the band in early 2022 but as The Backseat Lovers are now on a much larger full production tour playing up to 5,000-capacity rock clubs, she was brought back into the fold. Metcalf’s starting point was that the band had desired projection as a part of the show, from here the idea of the ‘pillowfort’ drape design evolved as…
A circle served as a design motif for the main stage at Lake Festival and encompassed a diverse mix of artists across the three-day festival. LD Anđelko Popić and team at Chameleon Rental opted to build the production design around three concentric circles that expanded outward from the stage’s center. This arrangement gave designers the freedom to create different settings for the festival’s various acts, allowing them to move from the intimate, when almost all light came from the smaller center sphere, to the more elaborate, when crossing beam patterns from fixtures on different circles created complex patterns. The Chameleon…
The Mission concluded their 33-date European tour with Wires & Lights which featured the use of two Allen & Heath dLive S5000 consoles for FOH and monitors, along with a DM64 MixRack provided by TDA Germany. Looking after the mixes for the tour were Marek Komenda, FOH for The Mission, Thomas Neidhardt, FOH for Wires & Lights, and Pavol ‘Pogy’ Pogany, Monitors for The Mission delivered their expertise to the sold-out venues on the tour. Neidhardt commented: “Mixing on the dLive was very comfortable. The DEEP plugins are brilliant, and I love the analogue characteristics of the Bucket Brigade Delay.…
DAS Audio has appointed Jeff Taylor as the company’s new Senior Sales Engineer for the North American territory. His new position comes on the heels of DAS Audio’s continued investment in the US market, including the recent purchase of an additional 9,000 sq ft facility to augment its existing 24,000 sq ft facility that is home to a fully functioning demo room, training area, and service centre. Taylor brings a wealth of industry acumen and experience to his new position. He joins DAS Audio from his previous position with CODA Audio as Sales Director. Taylor played an intrinsic part in…
LED Creative adds to the visual canvas for Blur’s return to the stage, recreating the bands logo as a giant illuminated set piece. Eight years since they last played together, Blur were back illuminating Britpop in 2023 with a sold-out Wembley Stadium and multiple festival appearances across the world, performing classics from their back catalogue along with tracks from their new number 1 album, The Ballad of Darren. Wanting to make an impressionable return, the tour brought along LED Creative to create a large bright lightbox that hung above the artists in the shape of the band’s logo. LED Creative,…
French rapper Dinos played a one-off gig at Paris’ Accor Arena. For his first show at this prestigious venue, Lighting Designer Damien Dufaitre from BlackMoon Design created a unique environment with 90 Robe MegaPointes at the core of the concept. Dufaitre has worked with Dinos for some time, and his primary goal for this show was to keep the visuals pacey, lively, and provocative to achieve this he proposed an in-the-round concept with a central rectangular stage, covered in a video floor representing “a path of light”. Above this was a 4-sided ‘crown’ of 18 4m blow-through LED mimicking the…
zactrack celebrated its fifth year working with Starlight Express, a musical phenomenon that has been running for 35 years. A zactrack PRO system was first specified in 2017 by Technical Director Peter Lucassen, in that time he reported: “it’s been fantastic, completely stable and reliable.” Lucassen has been working on the show’s production since 1990, it is a 360-degree show, and the venue features U-shaped tracks or skate ways for the roller-skating action on three levels: the show plays with audience in the middle. At the end of 2017 and start of 2018, the show received a revamp and…
For summer 2023 NEXO’s Spanish distributor Sound Means have turned festival sponsor providing full technical services covering sound, light and technical staff for a select number of key events in and around the Barcelona. Technical Sales Manager for Sound Means Jordi Vaquero Pujagut explained: “We’re working in collaboration with our key rental company clients to provide the perfect opportunity for them to gain experience and training on the latest NEXO systems.” Girona-based events services specialists BTM Sound deployed an all-NEXO system: comprising a central hanging cluster of eight GEO M12 line array elements with left and right stacks of four…
Creative visual practice Painting with Light was asked by the Agoria Sports and Entertainment Technology club to design lighting for a visual spectacle which was the finale of the official 2023 Belgian National Day celebrations. The overall event which included a two-hour music Festival was attended by 60,000 people and broadcast on major networks, titled Happy Belgium. The 15-minute finale show was developed for the Syndicat d’Initiative-Bruxelles Promotion and staged against the Cinquantenaire Arcade in Brussels. The PWL team was led by the company’s Founder and Creative Director Luc Peumans who collaborated closely with Creative Director Patrick Awouters and Technical…
The story told in Newsies is very familiar to theatre goers and Clifford Michael Spulock, of CS Lighting, was excited to take on the challenge of lighting this theatre classic at the Slow Burn Theatre Company’s production earlier this summer. “It all plays back to the newspaper theme,” Spulock said of his design. “When you think of a newspaper at the end of the 19th century when this play takes place, you think black print on a white background, as well as sepia toned photos. So, my main goal was to use more sepia and white tones, as well as…
Polish lighting rental company, TRANSCOLOR, has invested in Robe iFORTES, currently the highest-powered LED fixture from Robe’s expanding iSeries of IP rated products. TRANSCOLOR owner Lucjan Siwczyk explained that they looked carefully at some different options when sourcing high powered IP rated luminaires before deciding on the iFORTE. “Lighting designers and show producers are often wanting to work with IP rated products now. Obviously for any outdoor work and for various other circumstances,” Siwczyk commented, adding that a great advantage of iFORTE is that it resembles the standard (non-IP rated) FORTE in aesthetics and almost all features. Siwczyk believes that…
