As part of the reorganisation of structures at Sennheiser and due to Fohhn’s solid and steadily growing market position, Fohhn Audio Schweiz AG was founded as a local subsidiary. The new Swiss subsidiary will be managed by two long-time Sennheiser employees and former Fohhn contacts, Pascal Luder and Chris Filter. They will be supported and advised by Marc Staubli, the former Managing Director of Sennheiser (Schweiz) AG, who has been recruited as a Delegate of the Board of Directors. French-speaking customers now also have a direct local contact in Christophe Luzège, who already works for Fohhn’s French sales organisation and…
Author: Jacob Waite
Following a decades-long tradition established by the Grateful Dead, the latest iteration of the legendary jam band is touring with audio production anchored by a Meyer Sound LEO system provided by UltraSound. The tour stops at a mix of sheds, amphitheaters and sports stadiums, including major league ballparks in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Meyer Sound’s enduring relationship with the Grateful Dead and subsequent spin-offs extends back prior to the company’s founding in 1979, with company President & CEO, John Meyer consulting on the legendary Wall of Sound. The band was often heard through the Meyer-designed JM-3 and JM-10 loudspeakers from…
Coalition Presents has acquired music promoters and management company, Sucker, in a deal which sees the company move into a new era of creating incredible entertainment. Director, Luke Joynes joins Coalition in a full-time position. Sucker’s management clients are viral pop band Deco, who recently supported Nile Rodgers and Culture Club, and Yorkshire indie-rock band Skylights. Their touring portfolio includes the likes of Just Jack, Bears In Trees, Clean Cut Kid, The Covasettes, M60 and Jason Allan, amongst a whole raft of the UK’s best rising indie stars. Sucker recently announced a partnership with BBC Introducing for live shows in…
Justin Kitchenman of Align Design Group is using some of his “favourite” Elation Professional lighting fixtures on Luke Bryan’s Proud To Be Right Here Tour scheduled through 16 October with over 35 shows. Kitchenman had just gotten the Cole Swindell Down To Earth tour design out the door when COVID-19 hit in 2020, then spent a year working on livestreams and other smaller projects. When he got the call this past April that longtime client Luke Bryan was planning a 2021 tour, he was understandably ecstatic. The LD, who has been designing for Bryan for a decade, had a design…
As the dust starts to settle on one of the most challenging years for the sector, Solotech is primed for a full strength return with the expansion of its US Live Productions leadership team, following key additions. “With brand new facilities in Nashville and Las Vegas opening in December, a huge investment in new equipment and more than a dozen shows already on the road, Solotech is really well positioned for the return of live productions,” said Mickey Curbishley, President, Live Productions, US and UK. Lee Moro has been promoted to the role of Vice-President, Operations, and will oversee all aspects of…
James Gueness, Rüfüs Du Sol’s longtime monitor engineer, recently reconfigured his setup, replacing an extensive collection of outboard equipment with three Solid State Logic Fusion stereo analogue outboard processors driven from an SSL Live L550 digital audio mixing console. Gueness, who signed-on with Rüfüs Du Sol at the beginning of 2015 having previously worked for audio rental and installed sound company Audio Technik in Perth, Western Australia, has strong opinions about digital desks. “Many digital consoles haven’t really sounded the best,” he said. “They have nothing to them; they’re vanilla sounding.” As a result, he’s often had to carry a…
Giacomo Puccini’s last opera, Turandot, has charmed lovers of classical music for almost 100 years. The combination of singers, an orchestra made up of 80 musicians, and the use of cutting-edge live event technology presents audiences with an unforgettable experience. The unique atmosphere of Quarry Sankt Margarethen comprising Europe’s largest natural open-air stage was further accentuated by the projection mapping content that was realised using the AV Stumpfl PIXERA systems. Habegger was tasked with the role of delivering the audio, lighting, and video solutions for the challenging opera project under the supervision of Technical Project Leader, Michael Artner. Covering the 60m wide…
Paris-based producer and head of the Mille Feuilles label, Romain Delahaye – a.k.a. Molécule – has been called “the pioneer of nomadic electronic music,” and the artist takes his musical inspiration from far-flung locations, recording ambient sounds on his expeditions around the globe and turning them into lively, atmospheric musical creations. He typically transforms his recordings into spatialised music with the help of Sound Designer Hervé Déjardin, engineer in charge of developing immersive audio at Radio France. Now, Molécule and Déjardin have brought a 360° spatialised sound experience to concert audiences listening in darkness, in the round. With the moniker…
The CPL crew led by Lee Gruszeckyj were “delighted” to be back working on a festival site again, providing video design and production for Camper Calling 2021 – a festival taking place over four days at Ragley Hall, Warwickshire during the UK’s August bank holiday weekend. The festival, organised by Jazz Events, saw CPL working via Urban Audio Productions who supplied a video equipment package comprising screens, cameras, and control. The last event was in 2019, and each year the production values and scale of Camper Calling are increased alongside the great attention to detail that ensures it retains its friendly…
Initiated by DJ and music producer, Michael Canitrot and visual activist AV-Extended in conjunction with Credit Mutuel, Monumental Tour was a unique livestream electronic music showcase with multiple performance areas across monuments in France. Lighting Designer, Cédric Davignon of Bordeaux-based Electron Libre Design was “delighted” to design lighting for the first digital gig of the tour, staged at the impressive Phare des Baleines (‘Lighthouse of the Whales’) on the Ile de Ré, near La Rochelle, France. Davignon selected 10 Robe Spiiders and 13 MegaPointe moving lights to create his lighting design, which complemented large-format projections beamed on to two Ile…
As the theatre industry gets back to more regular working patterns, Sound Designer, Ben Harrison has a Yamaha RIVAGE PM5 digital mixing system working 9 to 5 on a new touring production of the ever-popular Dolly Parton musical. Playing in venues from Inverness to Southampton and Plymouth, the UK tour of 9 to 5 The Musical runs through until March 2022, featuring a brand new sound design by Harrison. With a huge array of past credits – including Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Starlight Express, Evita, Fame, Hairspray, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Blood Brothers and many more – Harrison’s choice…
Absen will embark on a tour of events around Europe to present its MicroLED and Jade Dragon (JD) series LED panels to attendees of three major industry events in the region. The tour begins in France on 9 September at Tech in Lyon, before heading to Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, UK, for Peerless-AV – A New AV Experience on 16 to 17 September. The final stop of the tour will be MEDIALOG, which is set to take place on 6 to 7 October in Mainz, Germany. Absen’s MicroLED will be front and centre at all three of these events,…
New Yorkers gathered in Central Park on 21 August to celebrate the city’s comeback from COVID-19 with one of the most diverse and star-studded lineups ever assembled on one stage entertaining beneath a complement of Elation Professional IP-rated luminaires. Organised by NYC in partnership with music producer Clive Davis and Live Nation, the show offered a potpourri of genres from LL Cool J to Barry Manilow. Scheduled to be headlined by Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello and others, the concert was stopped a little more than halfway into a planned five-hour show due to lightning storms tied…
Following the successful KitPlus Show at MediaCityUK in Salford, Sennheiser is pleased to be heading to the KitPlus London event at Twickenham Stadium on 14 September to showcase its Evolution Wireless Digital, Digital 6000 System with ultra-light, SK6212 digital mini-bodypack, and its full range of MKE microphones for mobile content creation applications. Additionally, the audio manufacturer will present studio monitors and the latest solutions from Neumann, such as the V 402 microphone preamp and NDH 20 headphones. “We had fantastic feedback from the July event and are delighted to bring our latest range of Sennheiser and Neumann pro audio and…
Christie continued collaboration its with Dead Puppet Society, an Australian based production house and design company with international reach, by providing projection and content management support for its latest visual-theatre performance, Ishmael. Based on Herman Melville’s timeless novel Moby Dick, Ishmael makes its long-awaited world premiere on 3 September 2021 in the Cremorne Theatre at Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) as part of the annual Brisbane Festival. It features a talented Queensland cast and creatives, state-of-the art technology, brilliant puppetry and an outstanding original score to deliver an inspirational, thought-provoking and enthralling experience to audiences. Among the highlights are stunning projections…
The winners of the 2021 PLASA Awards for Innovation were announced on Monday at the PLASA Show as it made its return to Olympia London. 29 products were entered this year, with six awards being presented in addition to two special commendations. This year’s judging team was comprised of nine independent technical specialists from a wide array of backgrounds. They said: “The judges commend the controllable, adjustable low-mid dispersion of this product, adding that the inclusion of the different mid-high frequency waveguides increases the flexibility for a touring show and is a feature that has not been seen before in…
Yamaha and NEXO will be showing their latest professional audio products at the PLASA Show, which takes place at London’s Olympia from 5 to 7 September 2021. Stand E13 sees Yamaha and NEXO exhibiting together, where Yamaha’s latest RIVAGE PM5 and PM3 digital mixing systems will be making their trade show debuts. Building on the success of the industry-leading, large-format RIVAGE PM10 and PM7 systems, RIVAGE PM5 and PM3 bring all the benefits of the RIVAGE ecosystem within reach of a much wider range of venues, productions and rental companies. Also on the stand will be Yamaha’s D series Active…
Lighting Designer, Tim Lutkin, employed two Robert Juliat SpotMe systems in their first double use at the National Theatre on this summer’s hugely successful production of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. SpotMe is a unique performer tracking system that uses the skills of a followspot operator to determine positional data which can then be used to control any number of lighting fixtures in the rig, giving it a distinct aesthetic advancement over wholly automated tracking systems. Lutkin, who has extensive experience of automated tracking systems – but none with a real person behind the light – was curious to explore…
