The first North American production of the acclaimed 2016 London revival of Jesus Christ Superstar took place at Chicago Lyric Opera for a 4-week run. Billed as Lyric Opera’s annual spring musical, this ambitious staging of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice rock opera featured an all-star cast supported by an operatic chorus and six-piece rock band, requiring 74 wireless microphone channels. Nick Lidster, the Sound Designer from the creative team at Autograph that staged the show’s revival in London’s Regents Park, worked with senior sound engineer Peter Wiejaczka of OSA International to create a viable rock-based musical within the challenging…
Author: Jacob Waite
Production Park, a unique cluster of live event based companies in Wakefield, has announced that it will fund university places at its industry-leading training centre, Backstage Academy, making an initial pledge of £20,000 per academic year. The Backstage Academy Bursary Fund will provide a fully funded three-year place on one of the Academy’s BA courses to an outstanding candidate for whom university would not otherwise have been an option. Funds will also be available for part-funded places and support for accommodation costs. In addition, a percentage of the fund will be allocated to provide assisted places on Backstage Academy’s outreach…
The Knight of Illumination Awards, which in 2018 marks its 11th year of celebrating the achievements of show lighting and video designers in Television, Theatre, and Concert Touring & Events, welcomes 8 new additions to its judging panels in 2018. The judging panels for each of the 3 disciplines consist of a range of critics and specialists with expert knowledge in their field who, once nominations have closed, will meet to select the 3 final shortlisted designs and a winner for each award. David Benedict’s theatre panel welcomes 3 new judges: Zoë Anderson, critic for Dancing Times and author of The Royal Ballet:…
Event production house GVPmedia of Houston is responsible for lighting Ring of Honor events, a popular pro wrestling touring circuit that incorporates high-flying wrestling with mixed martial arts. Ring of Honor (ROH) puts on a high-energy, electric live show and GVP uses the power and dynamism of an all-Elation Professional automated rig to help build excitement and support the drama. ROH matches are intense affairs that are also filmed for TV, Internet Pay-Per-View or DVD release. An important step in building up the exciting atmosphere is the energy created from pre-match introductions as loyal fans anticipate seeing their favourite wrestler…
Allen & Heath put performers in control of their monitors with a new personal mixing app for its SQ mixers. The SQ4You app is available for both Android and iOS and up to eight phones or tablets can be connected at the same time, making it a great time-saver for the busy audio engineer who is mixing the whole show single-handed. SQ4You’s main ‘Four Wheel Drive’ view is designed to be big, bold and easy to use, providing straightforward level controls over 4 groups, a master level and mute. Double tapping on a group gives access to more granular controls,…
Mountain View Staging (MVS) opts for FLEXTour LED video solution from Nashville-based PixelFLEX. “We have been in business for 18 years and have been using LED products for the last 10,” began Peter Johnson, Mountain View Staging CEO and Owner. He continued: “Since LED now rivals projection, we have switched priorities to the new technology to keep up with changing demand from our clients. It’s all about the increased resolution, contrast, dynamic range and image quality, and the FLEXTour solution checked all the boxes for our priorities.” A robust, high-definition and curve-able LED video display, PixelFLEX FLEXTour is designed specifically…
EM Acoustics recently revealed the HALO Arena large format line array system to the North American market at InfoComm 2018 in Las Vegas. The larger HALO-A follows the same core design as the more compact HALO-C providing the signature EM Acoustics “maximum headroom” design approach that ensures consistency of performance regardless of SPL level. The compact enclosure (14.3/362 x 40.2/1020 x 24.4/619 in/mm) and low weight (145.2/66 lbs/kg) translates into less truck space used and smaller motors required. The HALO-A utilizes a proprietary patent-pending emulation manifold, which combines the energy of four 3.4-inch diaphragm, 1.4-inch exit compressions drivers into a plane-wave…
disguise has announced the introduction of its newest server, solo, designed for the next generation of content creation. solo brings the power of the disguise solution to smaller productions and experiences within the theatre, fixed installs, studio setups and smaller venues. It offers the support of our full disguise production suite with the power and performance to meet modern demands. disguise Sales Director EMEA, Sarah Cox, explained: “The solo has been created to enable artists and creatives to join our community, ensuring any project or budget can access the disguise software and hardware, without having to sacrifice on power and…
Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette, Louisiana attracted over 300,000 festival goers with a worldwide audience listening to an FM and streaming broadcast from the festival’s Main Stage mixed on an Allen & Heath dLive C Class C3500 digital mixing system with DM0 MixRack. Paul McCasland of Show And Tell Productions mixed the live broadcast from a temporary studio in the nearby Lafayette Science Museum. “I’ve been doing this particular event for over 15 years,” he said. “And, this year, we had a 48-channel Dante split from the Main Stage fed directly to us over a fiber network.” McCasland mixed…
German fiber network specialist BroaMan, who offer scalableSD/HD/3G video, data and intercom transport solutions down a single fiber, have appointed Clear-Com, the provider of real-time communications solution and services, as its new distributor in the USA. BroaMan has rapidly found favour not only in the Broadcast market but also with production companies, sports facilities, professional AV integrators and many more applications with its bespoke solutions and range of off-the-shelf converters. As the provider of intercom systems, Clear-Com will now expand its infrastructure expertise to include video signal distribution and routing networks. The BroaMan portfolio includes the MUX-22 and Repeat8-NANO Series interfaces,…
Keyboardist and Musical Director Wix Wickens and ace keyboard tech Howard “DJ” Howes recently shared why they rely on the QSC TouchMix-30 Pro professional digital mixer and K.2 Series loudspeakers to ensure that the myriad of musical parts that need to be covered on Sir Paul McCartney’s many tours are heard loud and clear. “I’ve worked for Paul McCartney for more than 16 years,” Howes begins. “When Paul started touring again, we designed, built, and programmed the current keyboard rig before the start of the first tour.” The first of many reasons Howes chose QSC was consistency: “Wix requires his…
CPL supplied its new Roe Visual 3.4mm LED screens and all associated processing and vision control for 2 major stages at the 2018 Hay Festival of Literature & Arts – an acclaimed and high profile annual 10-day literature event staged in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales. It was the first time the West-Midlands based visual and technical production specialist had worked on the event, for which they were approached directly by the event organisers and asked to be a video supplier after several recommendations. It was also the first time that the event had gone to LED for video display, having worked with…
ROE Visual successfully launched its ground-breaking high-resolution Sapphire LED display at InfoComm Show 2018 and congratulates WorldStage to be the first company to provide ROE Visual Sapphire for the US rental market. “Our investment in the next-generation of LED technology from ROE reinforces the reputation WorldStage has earned for being the industry’s leading provider of innovative LED solutions to our customers,” said Gary Standard, WorldStage CEO. “WorldStage offers a full roster of LED displays, including ROE CB5, Hybrid 18 and Strips. Now, we continue that leadership as the first to offer next-generation sub-2mm LED tiles for the rental marketplace with…
Elation Professional will hold another round of its popular PRO Service Days 10-11 July 2018 at its European headquarter office in Kerkrade, The Netherlands. The company invites technicians and all interested service professionals. July’s PRO Service Days will focus on providing in-depth technical knowledge of Elation Professional’s popular products, with a detailed look at technological construction while covering important service guidelines. The deadline for registration is July 6th. The lighting specialist is committed to educating lighting professionals in optimal methods of using, servicing and maintaining Elation products. A 30€ hospitality fee covers food and drinks and registration is required. There is…
LD Paul “Arlo” Guthrie from Minneapolis-based TOSS Film & Design selected a large complement of Claypaky Sharpy Washes and Mythos 2 fixtures, controlled by grandMA2 consoles, for the rig Hall & Oates latest North American tour. ACT Lighting is the exclusive North American distributor of Claypaky and MA Lighting products. Hall & Oates thrilled fans touring with Tears for Fears last summer. Now Daryl Hall and John Oates are back this time performing with Train. For the new show Hall & Oates and Train each do a set then the bands join forces for a dynamic finale. The tour launched…
Martin Audio and Capital Sound added a new event to their summer festival programme, with the 10-day All Points East (APE) moving into Hackney’s Victoria Park. Promoted by AEG, rental company Capital Sound was brought in by production company LarMac LIVE, with whom they have worked at this challenging venue on many previous occasions, to provide sound reinforcement for the 10-day event. Two weekends of top entertainment (including Björk and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds) bookended 4 days of ‘Open House’ community activity in the park, including open-air cinema. Capital Sound provided site coverage, and its account manager, Martin…
ADJ is pleased to announce the expansion of its popular HEX series of LED pars with the introduction of 3 durable new fixtures that all feature a tough weatherproof casing design. The 7P HEX IP, 12P HEX IP and 18P HEX IP combine the wide colour palette of HEX LEDs with the flexibility of a robust all-weather IP65 rated casing to create truly versatile professional wash fixtures. Each of the new pars features powerful 12-Watt hex colour RGBAW+UV (red, green, blue, amber, white + UV) LEDs which allow for a huge gamut of colours to be created. These include both…
RCF’s drive to emulate the success of the inaugural open day at Gateshead Sage in March 2018, by staging a similar southern event at Guildford’s G Live paid handsome dividends earlier this month. Set over 2 sessions, RCF partner Yes Production, rigged a number of the Italian company’s favourites, ranging from line arrays and subs, point source solutions, portable speakers and mixing desks, hosting a steady flow of current and potential rental customers and resellers eager to sample the company’s wares. Commenting on the event, UK Sales Manager, Dean Davoile, said: “We had a very successful two days. The venue…
