Lighting Designers Roland Greil & Patrick Woodroffe of Woodroffe Bassett Design specified over 100 Chroma-Q Color Force II LED battens to provide spectacular effects lighting for Rammstein’s European Stadium Tour 2019. One of the most technically ambitious concert productions this decade, the legendary German industrial metal band’s first-ever stadium tour – which sees them play 31 European dates this Summer to promote their number one self-titled studio album – further ups the ante on their explosive and ground-breaking live shows. Working in collaboration with production designer, Florian Wieder; production director Nicolai Sabottka; lighting directors Faren Matern & Marc Brunkhardt; and…
Author: Jacob Waite
More than 50,000 people turned up for the Firefly Music Festival, the east coast’s largest music festival, where a packed line up of Travis Scott, Kygo, Death Cab for Cutie, Post Malone, Vampire Weekend, Passion Pit, Panic! At the Disco, Zedd and Tyler, the Creator kept the crowds entertained all weekend long. Bandit Lites worked with lighting designer Gabriel Fraboni and Lamda Productions to provide the lighting package for the main Firefly stage and Lawn Stage. Bandit Lites has been involved with the Firefly Music Festival since its beginning eight years ago, and this year saw a fresh makeover of…
The first UK arena leg of Westlife’s Twenty Tour culminated in two phenomenal shows in Croke Park stadium in Dublin, packed with 170,000 wildly enthusiastic fans in attendance. Lighting and Production Designer Tom Sutherland of DX7 Design collaborated with show producer / director Brian Burke to create the tour’s stunning production design, and integral to the slick ‘televisual’ aesthetic that Tom created for the stage was automation. Sutherland wanted certain elements of the rig to move in an elegant and refined way, changing the architecture of the performance space subtly and smoothly as the show unfolded, so he specified Kinesys…
A.C. Special Projects has expanded its team with the appointment Muraly Kuhan in the role of Business Development Manager. Muraly will work closely with AC-SP’s project managers and architectural lighting brand partners – including Traxon/e:cue, CLS, Acclaim and Chroma-Q® – to develop and implement new business. He has extensive architectural lighting sales experience on both the product manufacturer and project specifier sides, encompassing supply through to specification, design and installation. Muraly has worked closely with Lighting Designers, Lighting Consultants, Architects, Engineers and other specifying customers to provide solutions for them to realise their lighting schemes in a wide range of…
The French production designer Jean-Christophe Aubrée has taken over the lighting for two major stadium shows, featuring legendary French band Indochine (aka Indo). It was a comfortable position for Aubrée, to find himself in. Having previously worked with other well-known artists, and formerly operated in an assistant design capacity with Indo, he stepped up for the last two last shows of the long-running 13TOUR, which took to the road back in February 2018. Nicola Sirkis, Indochine’s leader, decided to create a whole new show for these two last stadium dates as a big surprise and experience for the fans. And…
Time seemed to stand still at the Centre Vidéotron, 25 May, French-Canadian stars from the 1960s and 70s performed at La Tournée des Idoles. The artists were supported by a light show designed by Andre Langevin, with help from programmer Francis Guitard and systems tech Jerome Guitard. Anchoring the rig, which was supplied by LSM were 36 CHAUVET Professional Maverick MK3 Profile fixtures. The new high output (51,000 source lumens) profile fixture was selected by LSM after extensive research. “This is the first of what will be many shows for us with the MK3,” said Gil Perron, the resident Lighting…
Using unfamiliar gear can often present challenging situations for recording professionals. But taking that leap into the unknown can also lead to new experiences that help you to develop better quality recording solutions. This is something that award-winning producer and engineer, Siegfreid Meier experienced when recording a new live album for punk icons, Face To Face, using the JoeCo BLACKBOX BBR64-DANTE recorder as part of his setup for the first time. The 250-capacity venue of Saint Vitus presented a challenge for Meier’s usual recording setup. “The stage at the venue is tiny – there’s barely enough room for the band…
The 2019 UK incarnation of the art and music festival, WOMAD, once again featured the d&b Soundscape, delivering an enhanced live sound experience that equally served the huge dynamic range of program, the touring front of house engineers, the artists, and the musically inquisitive audiences . The WOMAD d&b Soundscape stage line up featured some of the most inspiring artists and performances of this year’s festival, including the acoustic mastery of Saving Grace feat. Robert Plant, drum and bass DJ LTJ Bukem, Kenya’s Muthoni Drummer Queen, and Roosevelt Collier, whose blues, rock and gospel sound was described as ‘dirty funk…
A&T Trade and Music Trade have deployed Martin Audio’s premier WPL PA on the main stage of the Zolotoy Gorod eco park—one of the largest country parks in Russia, and located near the city of Tula. The park operates all year round and receives guests from all over the world. Music Trade, A&T Trade’s Tula-based partner, were requested to design a sound system that would serve artists all summer long. The main stage of the Zolotoy Gorod presents a multi-genre line-up featuring artists for pop, folk, orchestra, rock, electronic and theatrical performances. “We needed a universal speaker system that would…
Don’t miss the “Temporary Outdoor LED Screen Structures” presentation by Area Four Industries Technical Director, Dipl-Ing. Norbert Tripp, on 16 September from 13:30 – 14:15 in the Lighting and Production Theatre (London Olympia Hall). Temporary outdoor LED screen support structures are an important part of today’s leading live events, and this will become more and more prevalent going forward. With this in mind, Norbert dives into their proper use, design, advance planning in their set-up and important safety measures to consider. During the presentation, Norbert will provide answers to such questions as how LED screens react under wind loads, as…
The French production designer Jean-Christophe Aubrée has taken over the lighting for two major stadium shows, featuring legendary French band Indochine (aka Indo). It was a comfortable position for Aubrée, to find himself in. Having previously worked with other well-known artists, and formerly operated in an assistant design capacity with Indo, he stepped up for the last two last shows of the long-running 13TOUR, which took to the road back in February 2018. Nicola Sirkis, Indochine’s leader, decided to create a whole new show for these two last stadium dates as a big surprise and experience for the fans. And…
Lighting Designer, Matt Tyler used PROLIGHTS LED fixtures to provide stunning lighting for space-age performances by Orbital, Public Service Broadcasting and The Radiophonic Workshop at Apollo 50, a one-off event celebrating the 50thanniversary of the Moon Landing. Held at Cornwall’s Goonhilly Earth Station to celebrate the technological accomplishment of the Arthur satellite dish, which in 1969 beamed the moon landing footage live to 200 million people in Europe, the anniversary was marked with a day of music, science, art and culture. For the evening’s triple-bill concert, Tyler drew upon the technological advancements of PROLIGHTS’ LED fixtures to deliver spectacular lighting…
In lighting Musicalteatret’s Jack the Ripper musical at Copenhagen’s intimate Folketeatret, Lighting Designer, Mikkel Bedsted faced some major lighting challenges. He found his solution in the new VL2600 Profile, the versatile, feature-rich LED stage luminaire from Vari-Lite, a Signify entertainment lighting brand. Bedsted’s main challenge was the venue’s limited weight loading. With the small theatre’s fly bars able to support only around 125kg, it became essential that his lighting fixtures were lightweight and compact in size. Versatility was also a crucial factor, as the more functions a single fixture could fulfil, the fewer units would be needed overall. Next, as…
Home to some of North America’s finest vineyards, California’s Napa Valley has long been celebrated for its picturesque views, amazing cuisine and, of course, spectacular wine offerings. But music enthusiasts might argue that the best attraction is Napa Valley Expo’s annual BottleRock music festival, which marked its seventh anniversary this summer with a new L-Acoustics K1/K2 loudspeaker system deployed at its main stage by the festival’s primary audio and lighting vendor, Camarillo-based Delicate Productions. Promising its 120,000 attendees “the first taste of summer” over May’s Memorial Day weekend, BottleRock was memorably referred to as “the fancy Coachella” by Bruno Mars…
Summerburst is the biggest EDM festival in Sweden. The inaugural event was held in Stockholm back in 2011, and by the following year had also opened its doors in Gothenburg. Since then it has remained a two-city festival, both with a capacity of around 25,000. Daniel Hellsten has worked closely with Summerburst since its inception, as production manager and designer. At the recent event at Gothenburg’s Ullevi Stadion he introduced GLP’s KNV Cubes for the first time, to the amazement of the many visiting LDs (and daily audience of 25,000 who came to see globally-famous DJs such as Tiësto, Alesso,…
The “Big Gig” turns to DiGiCo for a fifth consecutive year as the exclusive provider of audio consoles, including the festival’s inaugural deployment of 4REA4 on three of its largest stages There’s a good reason that Wisconsin’s Summerfest is colloquially known as the “Big Gig.” For 11 days in late June and early July each year, somewhere between 700,000 and a million people flock to Milwaukee’s Lake Michigan shoreline to watch more than 800 top artists and bands perform on a dozen stages, earning Summerfest its double-decade-running Guinness World Record title as “The World’s Largest Music Festival.” As one can…
The team at WorldStage prides themselves in being “technology specialists at heart,” and they have the track record to prove it, being among the earliest adapters of a long series of breakthroughs like moving LED fixtures. This summer, the innovative company took another step toward the future, when it added 50 Chauvet Professional Maverick MK3 Profile fixtures to its inventory. “This is a new technology fixture,” said Terry Jackson, Vice President, Director of Lighting at WorldStage. “We have been searching for a large LED fixture to upgrade some of the older 3K range units we own, and this is it. …
All eyes were on the pitch at the Stade de France even after the finals of the French National Rugby League’s Top 14 concluded on June 15. French hip-hop brother duo Bigflo & Oli closed the event playing to packed stands as a large complement of Claypaky fixtures illuminated their dynamic set. The Top 14 competition has been played in France since 1892 and features 14 participating teams, hence its name. The choice of Bigflo & Oli to entertain fans at the finals must have seemed inspired since the rugby champions and the rappers both hail from the city of…
