Tour Designer and longtime Russell Dickerson collaborator Scott Cunningham of Cut2Black Designs served as Production Designer for the Russell Dickerson shows. Programming was carried out by Cunningham working together with Luke Elrod, while the role of touring LD was filled by Nathan Augustyn. From the outset, Cunningham was clear that a strobe fixture had to feature in the rig and soon chose the Jolt Panel FX ticked all the right boxes. “Russell is a very high impact show,” explained Cunningham, “so we knew we needed some kind of strobe and wanted to go with something that offered the versatility of…
Author: Alicia Pollitt
Tasked with bringing Alegria: In a New Light to life is down to Francois Lanteigne, Head of Sound, Cirque du Soleil. “Britannia Row has been providing our sound at the Royal Albert Hall since I came to the venue in 2003 with Dralion, when I was blown away by their turnkey solution. Mixing a Cirque du Soleil show is not a traditional gig; there is a live tableau in front of you, it’s almost like a movie, and you’re mixing the soundtrack live.” Lanteigne continued: “This can change from a group of 18 acrobats performing stunts with powerful music, to…
Having supported Michael McIntyre tours for many years (as Capital Sound) with Martin Audio solutions, Solotech UK has again been entrusted with providing sound reinforcement on the comedian’s current 2023-24 arena tour. MLA had graced the last two tours, but this time Solotech switched up to the British manufacturer’s newer flagship large-format line array, WPL. The Off The Kerb production team behind the tour remains the same, with Neil McDonald once again overseeing the tech. “It’s a pleasure to be working again with Neil and the team at Off the Kerb,” stated Solotech UK Senior Account Manager, Robin Conway. “We…
Prolight + Sound 2024 is set to be an important event for KV2 Audio and its customers. One of the highlights is the Live Sound Arena situated outside Hall 11 where KV2 holds four demos daily that invariably attract a huge audience. “We have participated in the Live Sound Arena demo area at Prolight + Sound every year for nearly 20 years (COVID years excepted of course),” noted George Krampera, jr., KV2’s CEO. “In our experience, this demo area is the best demo setup of any trade show anywhere and it has always been hugely successful for us. In fact,…
ADJ will utilise the upcoming Prolight + Sound exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany to showcase a variety of the company’s newest lighting and LED video products. On display will be the latest additions to the company’s Vizi and Hydro Series of automated luminaires, as well as the new ElectraPix Series of battery-powered wash fixtures. The booth will also showcase the WMS2 high-resolution LED video panel and the IP-rated Jolt Series strobe/blinders, as well as the Aria X2 wireless lighting control solution. The next in ADJ’s Vizi Series of automated luminaires, the new Vizi Beam CMY is a dedicated beam fixture. Harnessing…
The Swansea Music Venues Working Group’s campaign to preserve Swansea’s music scene is gaining momentum, with music venues across the city joining forces to address the critical situation that the Music Venue Trust (MVT) warns could result in 10% of grassroots music venues closing in the near future. The Swansea Music Venues Working Group is a new collaboration that will enable the city’s music scene to face the industry’s challenges and create opportunities together. Following the hugely successful Swansea Arena House Party which raised £10,000 for the Music Venues Trust (MVT), the organisation is now petitioning the Senedd (Welsh Government)…
Soundwise of Denmark chose to carry Elation lighting products. “Denmark has traditionally been quite conservative when it comes to entertainment lighting equipment,” shared Lars Thorsager, founder and sales director at Soundwise. He says however that the trend is beginning to turn, albeit slowly. “As the market here begins to realize that there are other innovative products out there that can set them apart, it’s getting a bit easier to specify other gear.” Thorsager founded Soundwise in 2001 and first invested in Elation Lighting in 2014. “Elation offered something unique that other companies didn’t have,” he said, “something that looked different,…
Allen & Heath announced its expanded partnership with SXSW. Allen & Heath has been a long-time supporter of the SXSW festival, providing a variety of mixing consoles for the various stages and venues over the years. This year, Allen & Heath will have a larger presence than ever before, supplying consoles for dozens of venues throughout the festival; including Lady Bird Lake, Mohawk, and The Victorian Room. “With the size and scope of the SXSW Music Festival, we have artists and crews visiting from a wide array of backgrounds and skill levels,” explained Nate Cross, SXSW Director of Production. “The…
Follow-Me are looking forward to exhibiting at Hall 12.1 D40 during Prolight & Sound. The stand is focused on demonstrating the full feature set of the manual system, Follow-Me 3D and Follow-Me Track-iT auto-tracking solution for lighting, audio & video. Showing for the first time at the show is the newly released feature, Proximity. This feature allows Follow-Me to take control of conventional lights based on the position of the performer. Customise the radius within which conventional lights should be turned on and off, creating dynamic and responsive lighting that moves with the performers, elevating productions. The Follow-Me product range…
Aspiring to “reach across worlds,” ChamSys proclaimed its statement defining its mission for Prolight + Sound 2024. The company is supporting the collection of MagicQ and GeNetix products it will be showcasing at Hall 12.1, booth E21 in Messe Frankfurt with a schedule of educational and training sessions in both German and English, including a keynote talk by Christian (“Rocketchris”) Glatthor, whose work has included tours by Rea Garvey, Evanescence, Snow Patrol, and others. ChamSys’ learning sessions will take place in the Jade Room, located near Hall 12.1. All those who attend a training session will be entered into a…
Karno announced the formation of its distribution arm now known as SMK (Sales and Marketing by Karno). Previously Karno covered the distribution of well-known brands, such as Sony’s Pro Audio portfolio, alongside the development of its technologies. This strategic move consolidated Karno’s efforts towards distribution under the new SMK banner, streamlining its operations and enhancing its distribution services. As Director of Karno, Adam Pierce forms the foundations of SMK, with Sam North at the helm as Sales Manager. Together, alongside a supporting team, they leverage their experience to drive growth and success for SMK within the Professional Audio Market. SMK…
Amanda Smith built up International Women’s Day by speaking at a international drone conference in Switzerland. Smith represented the UK, and shared a panel with Kevin Young of the Idaho Environmental Coalition, at the sold-out event on the shores of Lake Geneva between the Jura Mountains and the Alps. She hopes her career journey will inspire other young women to push the boundaries of what’s possible. Smith’s presentation at the Flyability User Conference held in Lausanne, described how she and the team at Sellafield nuclear decommissioning site in Cumbria operate drones to deliver operations safer, faster and more cost-effectively. “The…
At Prolight + Sound tradeshow in Frankfurt, ETC will be showcasing brand-new products and a series of presentations on stand C39 in Hall 12.0. Attendees will get a first look at a brand new entertainment lighting fixture, new Hog software and a preview of Eos lighting control software with expansion processing on stand C39. ETC product specialists will also host a series of mini-presentations during the four-day tradeshow on the stand. These sessions will delve into whole system solutions and integration, exploring how to make workflows more efficient, and taking a closer look at some of ETC’s advanced technologies. Attendees…
Disguise announced the public launch of its brand new VX 3 video playback hardware solution within its flagship VX range. Revealed at ISE earlier this year, the VX 3 features three 4K video outputs suitable for both projection and LED displays and the capability to handle both pre-rendered and real-time video playback from any third-party render engine. With live events currently undergoing an “IMAX-ification” effect through larger canvases, more pixels, higher content fidelity and greater bit depth, the VX 3 was built to unlock power per output for mid to upper-tier live shows, corporate presentations and immersive experiences, striking the…
Lighting Designer Alex Reardon looked to VL5LED Wash and VL3600 Profile IP luminaires from Vari-Lite to light the Jonas Brothers. The design included 108 VL5LEDs and 145 VL3600s from Solotech. One unique issue for the design was the 360-degree seating environment. “The biggest challenge was the dichotomy between needing a suitably scaled wall of lights and the fact that the tour was sold 360,” explained Reardon. To achieve the look, Reardon used pods of VL5LED Wash luminaires connected to a motion control system that could pull the rig out of the way when the band moved to the B Stage. “This…
Optocore NA have been accoladed by the German parent company, who have presented them with this year’s Best Distributor Award. The presentation to Bill and Brandon Coons was made by Optocore founder, Marc Brunke, during the ISE2024 expo in Barcelona recently. Optocore Sales Manager, RadhaMohan Rajani, said, “From their base in Canada Bill and Brandon have been our longest-serving partners, educating and serving the whole of North America. And having enjoyed a record year, they are showing that they are still introducing new customers to the Optocore family.” Bill Coons started to represent Optocore as far back as 2007 under…
https://issuu.com/mondiale/docs/tpi280_digitallr/124 Steering away from the long-standing voting process, this year’s TPi Awards saw a restructure which aimed to diversify the shortlist with the introduction of the TPi Academy – largely made of the 2023 winners. This shortlist was then put out to the industry which resulted in more female winners than ever before. With such a marked change in this year’s results, we were keen to speak to a number of this year’s winners to get their thoughts on this significant shift. Since the Awards inception in 2002, there are six categories that have never seen a female winner. This…
The Queens Hotel was the focus of an art installation which saw LeedsBID (Leeds Business Improvement District) collaborate with Barcelona-based creative studio Onionlab on ‘Magical Night at The Queens’, a visual spectacular which used the architecture of the Hotel as a canvas for multiple projections. LeedsBID engaged Bradford-based Pro Audio Systems (PAS) to co-ordinate and supply every technical aspect of the installation, which saw the ten-minute show, voiced by Celia Imrie, repeated every thirty minutes between 4.30pm and 8.30pm for nine nights in the run-up to Christmas. PAS’s Joel Sheldon commented: “Our first contact with LeedsBID was back in the…
