Patrick Dierson oversaw the production design at the Jay-Z curated Made in America festival. “I love this event, because it never fails to surprise with unexpected challenges,” he said, looking back on the 2022 edition of the festival. “That’s what makes it fun.” Made In America more than lived up to Dierson’s expectations this year, as just a few days before load-in he got a message that one of the headliners at the urban and Latin music festival, Lil Uzi Vert, wanted two Lamborghinis on the stage for his performance. “This required a little more than your average production coordination,”…
Author: James Robertson
More than 2,100 participants celebrated the premiere of LEaT con from October 18-20, 2022 at the Hamburg exhibition center. The concept of the new networking convention for the event industry quickly met with great approval, and the first inquiries for the next LEaT con have already been recorded. General conclusion: Great opportunity for relaxed networking, industry-internal exchange at the highest level and successful stage program on really important pain points of the industry. After the exclusive LEaT con X in the fall of 2021 was enthusiastically received by the industry, this year the organizer Ebner Media Group dared to take…
Old time country is in good hands with ACM and CMA award-winning singer/songwriter Jon Pardi whose classic country sounds on his Ain’t Always the Cowboy Tour are being complemented by lighting from Elation Artiste Mondrian and Artiste Monet luminaires. Described as ‘the kind of honkytonk that gets people drinking, dancing and drowning their heartaches,’ Pardi combines an old-fashioned country vibe with youthful energy. He hit the road July 14 in support of his new album Mr. Saturday Night with stops all over the US. Chris Reade and Jay Ballinger of KYVA Design have been designing and conceptualizing with Jon Pardi for…
Heavily supported by the local City Council, Brighton & Hove Pride—a celebration of Brighton’s LGBTQ+ community, annually attracts crowds of around 250,000 people to the seaside resort. While the origins of the event date back to 1973, Capital Sound (part of the Solotech UK Group) has provided main stage sound reinforcement for the last three events. Having supplied PA and control for headliners Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue, following a break for COVID they were back in the 63-acre Preston Park site for the 2022 edition which featured Christina Aguilera and Paloma Faith as headliners on the Saturday and Sunday…
Network of Women In Events (NOWIE) has today announced ‘Level Up’, a brand new mentoring programme aimed at women in the mid stages of their career to support them in taking the next step. Level Up will pair women early to mid-career in the industry, with a mentor whose career has taken her to senior roles with relevant experience. Pairings will be tailored according to a mixture of factors, from area of work, specialisms, employment status and many more. With the majority of interaction taking place online, geography isn’t an obstacle for those wishing to participate. The scheme will last…
HARMAN Professional Solutions has introduced the JBL PRX900 Series of loudspeakers and subwoofers, which feature advanced acoustics, comprehensive DSP, unrivalled power performance and complete BLE control via the JBL Pro Connect app. The line, which includes three powered two-way loudspeakers and two powered subwoofers, is built from the ground up to leverage JBL’s most advanced acoustic innovations. All-new proprietary driver systems—powered by ultra-efficient Class D amplifiers—deliver clarity and definition even at maximum volume, with improved dispersion and beam width and smooth low-frequency extension. The PRX900 Series’ class-leading DSP package, accessible via onboard LCDs and the JBL Pro Connect app, includes…
Australia’s The Cue Company has recently purchased fourteen PROLIGHTS Astra Wash7Pix. “It just seems to hit every single mark,” said Rob Ness. “It’s a go-to fixture with every selling point you can imagine right now – all at a great price!” Ness particularly likes that the Astra Wash7Pix has the same LED chips as other leading manufacturers. “We wanted a fixture that would match other manufacturer’s fixtures and we found that going with a name-brand LED chip inside of the unit helps us match it with other units out there,” he said. As well as more obvious features such as…
To provide rock legend Alice Cooper with impactful and dynamic audio for his 2022 US tour, SLS Production Services implemented a diverse selection of JBL Professional audio solutions. Often referred to as “The Godfather of Shock Rock,” Alice Cooper is one of the most successful and influential rock artists working today. While he has sold over 50 million records, Cooper is perhaps best known for his onstage persona and visuals inspired by horror films, injecting a sense of camp and theatricality in rock music that still inspires artists to this day. For his latest US tour, Cooper and his band…
Returning for the TPi Awards 2023, the Green Award sponsored by Hilton Hotels, shines a light on sustainable practices within the live events industry. There has undoubtedly been a sea change when it comes to the attention and importance of sustainability both on the part of artists and fans – and it has fallen to our industry to create solutions to reduce the impact that live music has on the planet. The Green Award is open to an individual, company or organisation that has gone above and beyond to make live touring more sustainable. From new working practices or company-wide…
A casual observer might describe Rowdytown as a concert, but the event’s organisers, the talented electronic music duo Big Gigantic, and their legion of fans, prefer party, a term that more accurately captures the close-knit, free-flowing and fun-filled vibe that fills the air during this two-day affair. Regardless of what they call it, however, there’s one thing fans can be sure of: Rowdytown will take them on a journey that’s as unforgettable visually as it is musically. From the very beginning, Big Gigantic has insisted that their event engage the eyes as well as ears by having their designers create…
Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys has embarked on her sixth concert tour playing 31 dates in North America and 21 in Europe on the Alicia + Keys World Tour. The show, which celebrates the 15-time Grammy winner’s career from her early R&B music to her seventh and eighth studio albums, finds Keys singing, playing piano and DJ-ing to the delight of fans. Lighting designer, Bryan Barancik, Principal of Luxious Creative in Boston, selected 142 Ayrton Perseo Profiles as the workhorse fixtures on the rig in the European leg. He also chose two grandMA3 full-size consoles with five NPUs to control the lighting…
Funktion-One introduces the Evo X, a development of the full range, completely horn-loaded loudspeaker. Utilising the latest Funktion-One waveguide technology, it provides 90° horizontal dispersion and high SPL. Evo X’s advanced driver technology delivers outstanding clarity, resolution and detail across 90° horizontal dispersion, making it an excellent choice for live venues, small clubs and theatres. It is capable of high SPL from a relatively compact speaker and can be deployed as a one per side or four-point system. While Evo X’s horizontal dispersion delivers even coverage across a wide area, its focused 15° vertical dispersion ensures the sound is concentrated…
Comedian Nikki Glaser’s first HBO comedy special is a hilarious, no-holds-barred hour of comedy that covers a range of ticklish topics like sex, dating, and private parts. Taped late last year at the Paramount Theater in Denver, Colorado in front of a sold-out audience, Nikki Glaser: Good Clean Filth premiered on HBO on July 16 and is available to stream on HBO Max. Chief Designer at E26 Design, Marc Janowitz, who served as lighting and production designer for the special, sought a sparkle lighting effect to go along with the set’s backdrop glitter curtain. He found what he was looking…
Great talent often defies easy categorisations, especially when it is driven by an equally-great drive to expand its reach and push boundaries to explore new ideas. Legendary Romanian polymath, Florian Pittis embodied this Renaissance-like vision in a four-decade career as a singer, actor, director, producer and internet radio pioneer. Heralded as “the prophet of the blue-jeans generation,” Pittis was instrumental in introducing the electronic folk/rock sound to his country as a founding member of the iconic band Pasărea Colibri. Along the way, he also found time to star in seminal plays, translate Dylan songs into Romanian, start a radio station,…
British metalcore band While She Sleeps recently wrapped up a UK & EU tour supporting Australian act Parkway Drive, taking in 18 shows across 9 countries in rooms ranging from 3,000 to 12,000 capacity. When FOH engineer James Hill got the call for the tour, he was keen to find a solution that would keep his mix position footprint to a minimum whilst still delivering the goods sonically. Enter a compact Allen & Heath dLive C1500 Surface paired with a DM64 MixRack, supplied by SSE Audio, providing 128 input processing channels and class-leading 0.7ms latency, all controlled via a rack-mountable control surface with…
Staged by the Country Music Association in Nashville, CMA Fest is considered one of the largest country music festivals in the world, attracting tens of thousands of fans from all 50 US states, as well as 37 other countries. The 2022 event saw an Alcons LR24 pro-ribbon system bring ‘throwback’ performances by new and established artists to enthusiastic audiences at the Dr Pepper Amp Stage. Alcons Audio is enjoying an increased profile in the US live audio market, with high profile demonstrations of its LR24 pro-ribbon touring system in Hollywood and Nashville attended by many leading US touring sound engineers.…
Neumann&Müller has developed an IoT-based system for checking and monitoring safety-related suspension points used to bear loads in the event sector: “Loadwatch” has been designed to monitor a large number of such suspension points in parallel. This new product underwent its first major acid test at Fira de Barcelona. It provides trade fair companies and venue operators with greater safety in load distribution to load-bearing structures. The planning and implementation of suspension points are currently mainly reliant on calculatory and empirical values. These provide the basis for dimensioning load-bearing capacity and assessing the distribution of loads to the load-bearing structure.…
Solotech has appointed of John Probyn as Head of Business Development in Europe for the Live Productions Division. This new position is an important milestone towards continued growth in the global market of live productions. Probyn will be responsible for the business development of the company’s touring activities in Europe. He will be cultivating new relationships while continuing to provide expert service to Solotech’s customer base. With almost 20 years’ experience in leadership positions at Live Nation Music UK, Probyn has earned a strong reputation in the audiovisual and entertainment technology industry. John started his career in live music in…
