Technical Arts Group (TAG) has invested in Ayrton Perseo Beam and Ayrton Domino IP65-rated fixtures, supplied by ACT Entertainment. TAG was formed in early 2021 and specialises in lighting, audio, video, staging, special effects and event management. The company has offices in Secaucus, New Jersey and Miami, Florida. “We were getting more post-COVID event work than we had equipment for, so we needed to increase our overall fixture count and quickly,” said TAG CRO, Kevin Mignone. “We are also seeing more outdoor festivals happening than ever before, where IP-rated fixtures are a necessity. Doug Mekanik at ACT arranged an Ayrton…
Author: Jacob Waite
Elation Professional LightJockey is considered one of the longest available lighting control software solutions on the market. Now, after over two decades of service and with tens of thousands of systems in the market, the time has come for LightJockey to gracefully retire. As ongoing security changes to Windows prevent LightJockey from functioning reliably, the decision was made to phase out the lighting control software with the release of Windows 11 in October. The last LightJockey kit has been sold and this iconic software – the starting point for many professionals in the business – will no longer evolve. The…
The 17th Kinderlachen Gala (Laughter Gala) took place at Dortmund’s Westfalenhalle, along with presentation of the KIND Awards – and the technical support of GLP. Kinderlachen e.V. has been supporting needy children all over Germany since 2002. With the annual KIND Awards, the association also honours people who have committed themselves to children in need in a special way. This year the actor Ralf Bauer and the podcasters Patrick Esume and Björn Werner were honoured with this award. The gala, which has been taking place since 2005, is organised by all involved on a voluntary basis. Since 2019, GLP has…
Running at London’s Greenwich Theatre until 2 January 2022, Christmas panto production, The Queen of Hearts, boasts a new sound design from Michael Woods based on an EM Acoustics HALO-C compact line array system. Woods, now in his fourth year of designing sound for pantomime at Greenwich Theatre, last year received an Offie nomination for Best Sound Design for his involvement in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at Southwark Playhouse in spring 2019. In previous years for Greenwich Theatre’s panto, Woods opted for two point source loudspeakers on the proscenium for main LR and two more on towers in…
Adlib has invested in a Data Strategy QC-Check workstation for its Liverpool facility. The two-bay workstation is configured primarily to test cables. “The system came well-configured and documented, so it’s been easy and straightforward to create a robust test code structure for the simple management of the 400 different types of mains cable we stock,” Adlib Technical Designer, Simon Pettitt commented. Adlib made the investment into the safety and peace of mind that Data Strategy QC-Check affords, to improve efficiency and data integrity in its warehouse. Now, according to Pettitt, the company is seeing the benefit with staff spending less…
Vanemuine Theatre – Estonia’s oldest and first native language theatre – celebrated its 152nd season with an elaborate gala event staged in Tartu’s main square with a Robe-heavy lighting design, created by Tõnis Järs. The event’s main stage included a vibrant array of ballet and operetta pieces, culminating with an orchestral concert, showcasing a unique collaboration between the Vanemuine Symphony Orchestra and Estonian electro-pop artist, NOËP. Järs specified Robe lighting fixtures as the core luminaires on the event lighting design. However, with all three venues in use for daily performances, rental company E&T stepped in to provide any shortfall in…
In what is already a milestone year for the ALPD – one which has seen the association not only mark its 60th anniversary but also change its name to reflect its membership more closely – the ALPD has launched an evolution of its apprenticeship pathway, the Lumière Scheme. Built on the success of the traditional Lumière Scheme, which provides a pathway into the industry by creating professional opportunities that include both practical training and professional experience for emerging lighting designers, the new Production Lumière Scheme was established as a pilot in 2021 to assist young and emerging lighting technicians in…
Producer/Engineer Elliot Scheiner, harnessed Royer Labs R-121 ribbon microphones to capture a string quartet performing as part of the Broadway musical Caroline, or Change. Based on the book and lyrics by Tony Kushner, with music by Jeanine Tesori, Caroline, or Change is set against the tumultuous backdrop of the Kennedy assassination and the Civil Rights Movement. The show uses fantasy and reality to explore a story about ordinary people facing extraordinary change. Scheiner discussed his experience capturing the music using his Royer ribbons. “For this project, I used two R-121s on the violins and a third R-121 on the viola,”…
Following an incredible record-breaking run on Broadway, Pretty Woman: The Musical has gone global with productions in London’s West End, Germany, the US. Determined to stick with a winning formula, the production team has remained faithful to John Shivers’ and David Patridge’s original sound design based on a comprehensive KV2 Audio point source system. The show originally opened, and at London’s Piccadilly Theatre and had already broken the theatre’s advance box-office records, when theCO pandemic intervened. A year later and the show has now moved to London’s prestigious Savoy Theatre on the Strand and continues to play to record-breaking audiences.…
Ministry of Sound celebrated 30 years of dance in style with a spectacular concert at London’s O2 Arena, with dance classics reimagined by the 50-piece London Concert Orchestra in company with Paul Oakenfold and other guest DJs. Ministry of Sound Classical presents Three Decades of Dance took clubbers on a journey through the dance anthems of yesteryear. Martin Audio’s signature sound, as featured in Ministry of Sound clubs worldwide, was provided by RG Jones and mixed by Phil Wright — a devotee of Martin Audio MLA. Working for promoters, Coalition Presents, who produced the event with Raymond Gubbay, RG Jones…
L8 now supports MA Lighting grandMA3 viz-key compatibility. The grandMA3 viz-key is the unique solution for transferring DMX parameters to the visualiser that MA Lighting presented at a time when grandMA3 generation of consoles is gaining popularity on the market. It is possible now to connect any grandMA3 or onPC software to L8 with the maximum number of parameters. Thus all current 255 universes from L8 can be used. L8 supports grandMA3 viz-key for its media, trace, and unlimited dongles with FP21 update package. The FP21 package is already included in all licenses sold in 2021 and can also be…
London Grammar hit the road in support of their latest album, Californian Soul, with a control package from Britannia Row Productions and a PA system from Eighth Day Sound, following Eighth Day’s acquisition by Brit Row parent company, Clair Global Group. “I use Brit Row because Tom Brown is an amazing client handler,” declared Production Manager, Mark Sunderland. “And for this tour, I was worried because Jake [Rudd, FOH Engineer] wanted to move to a d&b audiotechnik system. At first I thought it wouldn’t be available to us, but it worked out due to Eighth Day becoming part of Clair.…
With the eagerly anticipated return of the touring industry, North Carolina based Special Event Services (SES) seized the opportunity to deploy a d&b audiotechnik KSL rig on 3 Doors Down’s The Better Life – 20th Anniversary Tour. SES also called upon industry veteran Michael Mordente as their Audio Crew Chief and System Tech to coordinate the effort and to introduce them to DirectOut PRODIGY Series, specified for the tour. “The PRODIGY.MC was deployed in tandem with the stage box as a modular converter to manage critical aspects of the I/O topology and redundant signal distribution on stage and to FOH,”…
Panasonic and AED group are helping international Music Producer and DJ YVES V deliver an early Christmas present to music lovers around the world with a free YouTube stream on Wednesday 15 December at 17:00hrs GMT/18:00hrs CET. Panasonic’s glass-to-glass production solution will capture the electro house master in action at BENELUX’s first Virtual Production Studio at AED Studios. As well as streaming the main music event, a second simultaneous behind-the-scenes stream will show the full technical production featuring Panasonic’s studio and PTZ cameras with robotic control systems working with KAIROS, its live production platform, at the heart of the operation.…
Dutch girl band, Dolly Dots hit the road this autumn, celebrating 40 years since they first burst onto the euro-pop scene and dominated the charts for the best part of a decade with a string of hits. Lighting and Set Designer, Pepijn van der Sanden alongside Associate LD and Programmer, Thomas de Vries of Live Legends relied on a MA Lighting grandMA3 hardware and software system – supplied by HVE Show Equipment – to control lighting and video on the road. The show was programmed on two grandMA3s, a full-size and a light, during production rehearsals at the Zaan Theater…
SIXTY82 continues the expansion of its distribution network with the appointment of PSP Elektronik as its exclusive distributor for the Republic of Serbia. PSP Elektronik started its company in 1990 with its main activity being the service of pro audio and video equipment, before expanding into the sales and hire of this equipment to meet the increasing demand in the entertainment industry market for professional products. PSP Elektronik’s Miodrag Tarailo commented: “I have known many people from SIXTY82 for many years and I have always had a very positive experience with them. With such great, professional and positive people behind…
While the COVID-19 pandemic compelled performing arts companies to stretch their horizons to reach audiences, Michigan Opera Theatre went further than many during the period. During one weekend in September, Blue, a contemporary American opera by Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson, was staged at the city’s open-air Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre, a mostly pop-music venue where recent shows included performances by Chaka Khan, Machine Gun Kelly, Erykah Badu, and UB40. Awarded Best New Opera of 2020 by the Music Critics Association of North America, Blue is about a young Black couple raising a son in modern-day Harlem and their struggles with police…
Houses of worship, conference centres, corporate and government meeting rooms, schools and universities, production studios, live entertainment venues and touring sound companies all face the same question, “How can we effectively disinfect our microphones after an event?” The Li.LAC Microphone Disinfector answers that question with a fast, simple and effective product that uses controlled exposure to ultraviolet light (UV-C), to kill over 99% of bacteria and viruses on microphone surfaces, metal grilles and the windscreens underneath. Designed by live event touring professionals, the Li.LAC Microphone Disinfector is rugged & road-ready in a professional 19” 3U rackmount format. Li.LAC can be…
