Clear-Com has appointed Marco Lopez as the company’s VP of Engineering. Marco brings 30 years of experience in the broadcast market to his role at Clear-Com, where he will spearhead innovation across key strategic areas related to product development, including strengthening the company’s leadership in wireless technology and advancing its IP-based intercom solutions. Over the past three decades, Marco has contributed to significant movements in broadcast technology. In the mid-2000s, he played a key role in the transformation of analog to digital signals with Miranda Technologies and helped develop the Active Format Description (AFD) standard that defined aspect ratio control…
Author: James Robertson
Headquartered in Mocksville, North Carolina, Special Event Services (SES) offers audio, lighting, design, video, staging and live event production to a wide array of clients. The company recently invested in Ayrton Domino LT fixtures expanding its inventory of Ayrton luminaires and putting the fixtures to work on a variety of projects across the country. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America. SES had already purchased Ayrton Bora fixtures, which have been used for television key lighting and aerial effects for country music artist Luke Combs, Rod Stewart and Joyce Meyer Ministries (JMM), as well as…
As the Swiss city of Basel proudly celebrated its 15th year hosting the eponymous Basel Military Tattoo, the occasion coincided with the 15th year that sound designer Tom Strebel chose the unrivalled versatility of TiMax spatialisation to meet the myriad sonic imaging and musical timing needs of the 7000-cap arena-scale production. Inspired by the UK’s legendary Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which also makes extensive use of TiMax, this year’s Basel event featured acts ranging from the Welsh Guards, Swiss Army, Norwegian Guards, USAF drill team, Indian Kumudini Band, the Red Hot Chilli Pipers and Edinburgh favourites, the Basel Top Secret…
The Scorpions’ Rock Believer World Tour used a multicamera production workflow featuring Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2 cameras and ATEM Constellation 8K live production switcher. The Rock Believer World Tour follows the band’s Las Vegas residency at Planet Hollywood’s Zappos Theater, with Manfred Nikitser developing the creative concept, including video design and lighting. “A key consideration for the production design was that the show had to work in the Zappos Theater and the arena tour dates,” begins Nikitser. “Likewise, the stage at Zappos, which is wider than traditional venues and more oval in shape, also presented a challenge when developing the…
Since Luminex unveiled its GigaCore 3Oi 10Gb AV Network switch at Prolight & Sound back in April, the new product has triggered the interest of many partners and users. At IBC 2022, Luminex will continue showcasing to visitors how the GigaCore 3Oi together with the intuitive Araneo solution for planning, configuring and monitoring unleash the power of AV networking at booth 8.091. Luminex’s GigaCore 3Oi is a 10Gb ethernet switch that allows full network convergence of lighting control, audio, intercom, and compressed video, making it ideal for AV integration, installation, and touring. With a maximum of 1 OOOW of total…
Six the Musical was first presented by Cambridge University students at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe five years ago. It has since gone on to professional productions in the West End, on Broadway and internationally, and won prestigious accolades such as the Best Original Score and Costume Design at this year’s Tony Awards, whilst also being nominated for Best Sound Design and six other creative categories. Neumann’s Miniature Clip Mic System (MCM) was provided by Stage Sound Services for the current UK & US Tours and brought “discreet but high quality mic’ing” to the band on stage. Paul Gatehouse, a British…
Music Tribe appoints A.C. Entertainment Technologies as a Super Partner for its range of brands, which they will distribute across the UK. After several years of success distributing Midas consoles, AC-ET are delighted to be appointed official Music Tribe Super Partner. Large volumes of stock of the Midas M Series and Heritage D are already available for quick delivery, and AC-ET will continue to expand on these stock levels over the coming months, to ensure quick and efficient supply and service to the industry. Personal demonstrations of the range can also be arranged by contacting audio@ac-et.com. Steve Eaton, AC-ET’s Senior…
Currently playing an extended run in London’s West End theater district, The Drifters Girl tells the story of Faye Treadwell, the long-time manager of The Drifters, by interweaving her personal narrative with 20 concert-level performances of the seminal R&B/pop group’s chart-topping hits. To maintain the full impact of both the dramatic and musical elements, sound designer Tom Marshall deployed a strategically placed and meticulously balanced system of Meyer Sound point source loudspeakers and compact subwoofers. The Drifters Girl is staged in the intimate Garrick Theatre, an acoustically and architecturally challenging venue that was built in 1889 and now seats 712…
Expanding ADJ’s Hydro Series of powerful, reliable, and affordable IP65-rated moving heads, the new Hydro Beam X12 is a nimble fixture that outputs an intense, razor-sharp beam. Ideal for generating aerial effects at concerts, tours, festivals, and dance events, it combines the punchy Philips Platinum 12R LL MSD 6000-hour discharge lamp technology with a carefully curated selection of beam-shaping tools that include motorised focus and a dynamic 24-facet prism. The Hydro Beam X12 combines the rugged IP65-rated exterior casing design that made the original ADJ Hydro Series fixtures so popular with the light engine and optics that made ADJ’s Vizi…
ETC is set to return to Olympia London for the 2022 PLASA Show from the 4-6 September with the latest product innovations and seminars. The team will be on stand B29 to catch up and network with customers and visitors at the tradeshow. The PLASA show is a prominent event in the UK which showcases technological advancements from the worlds of lighting, audio, AV, rigging and staging. ETC will present a variety of its newest entertainment fixtures and controls including its latest line of consoles: Eos Apex. This powerful, next generation of lighting control offers cutting-edge technology, a variety of…
Avolites will showcase the latest software feature updates, along with a display of its leading state-of-the-art visual control consoles, including a showcase of its flagship console, the Diamond 9, on stand G30 at PLASA 2022, 04 – 06 September. A highlight at the show will be the release of Avolites’ standalone video application PRISM ZERO. The application expands the PRISM range of live production tools alongside significant upgrades to PRISM PLAYER. Further details will be released ahead of the show. Having shone all through the festival season, with a huge presence at Glastonbury and other festivals and tours around the…
Somerset House is inviting businesses to apply to become an accredited supplier. The venue hosts hundreds of events each year for a range of clients and is keen to ensure its suppliers and their services are equally inclusive and sustainable in practice. Rebecca Moore, senior event manager, said: “Somerset House is committed to building a diverse and inclusive community reflecting the nature of our society. Our newly accredited suppliers will reflect this and actively engage with it. There’s a lot of new, forward-thinking talent in our industry, and we welcome businesses both big and small that identify with our beliefs…
Glastonbury Festival 2022 will go down as the most iconic gathering in its 12-year history, with excited crew travelling from as far as Berlin to reunite, stand up and make their mark. Forming the biggest ever festival training team to date, Youth Production Network (YPN) crew had opportunities to join exclusive backstage tours, and supported eight production areas including Interstage, Pyramid, Other, Acoustic and Park Stages, Williams Green, Silver Hayes and the BBC Introducing Stage. Seasoned YPN veterans provided strong team support for those emerging from the pandemic for their very first festival experience. The YPN 2022 Crew included students…
Italian showman and megastar Vasco Rossi completed his Live 022 stadium tour this summer, comprising 11 spectacular, sold-out concert performances watched enthusiastically by three quarters of a million fans, with lighting designed by Vasco’s long-term LD, Giovanni Pinna. Giovanni took the 71-metre-wide stage and over 1000 square meters of video surface in Gio Forma studio’s set concept as a starting point for lighting. He also seized the opportunity to incorporate some interesting technical innovations in the design including a zactrack SMART system to which he assigned multiple moving lights to follow the artist and band at strategic moments throughout this epic…
The entries are now open for the 2022 UK Festival Awards, the only fully festival focussed awards that give fans the opportunity to vote for their favourite events. To be held on 6 December at Manchester’s Escape to Freight Island, the event presents the ideal opportunity for festival organisers and suppliers to get together and reflect on the past season whilst looking forward to the next; the awards themselves will be decided by either fan votes, expert panel, or a combination of both in categories including Best Major Festival, Outstanding Contribution and, for one year only, the Perfect Pivot Award…
Multi-genre English musician Jacob Collier is back on the road for a grand world tour to celebrate his DJESSE album series. The show features an energetic lighting design harnessing the rich colours of the VL2600 range of luminaires from Vari-Lite, a Signify entertainment lighting brand. The design was put together by Luke Edwards, Specification Sales Specialist at Signify. Edwards, who was a full time lighting designer before joining Signify earlier this year, took the opportunity to push the boundaries of his lighting design dynamism, to match five-time GRAMMY Award-winning Collier’s enthusiastic performing style. “Jacob’s concerts are as much about the…
The Milwaukee Irish Fest is the largest Irish music festival outside of Ireland. Located on scenic lakefront grounds at Henry Maier Festival Park, Irish Fest is a celebration of Irish music, food, and culture – organised entirely by volunteers. The festival has grown significantly since its inception nearly four decades ago, with 16 performance stages and over 100 acts this year. All 16 stages featured Allen & Heath mixing consoles – ranging from compact analog ZED mixers to dual dLive front of house and monitor splits at the larger stages. Performers this year included Celtic rock groups Skerryvore, Enter the…
Valjak I Prijatelji (Valjak & friends) was a very special show staged in Pula, Croatia, in the city’s magnificent Arena Roman amphitheatre venue and dedicated to Aki Rahimovski, lead singer of legendary Croatian rockers Parni Valjak. The enigmatic frontman died suddenly and unexpectedly in January aged 66, just ahead of a major tour, leaving everyone deeply shocked. Slovenian lighting designer Nikola ‘Niko’ Podlesnik was honoured to be lighting the emotionally charged gig. He chose Robe moving lights as the backbone of his rig to help deliver all the drama and sentiment of the evening, which saw the remaining members of…
