Former Baywatch and Knight Rider star David Hasselhoff hit Austria and Germany in his 30 Years Looking For Freedom tour with a lighting rig that included effects from Elation Professional Chorus Line 8 and Lumina Matrix fixtures. Audio, video and lighting for the tour, which ran 11 April to 4 May 2018, was by Austrian-based rental and production company MartinKames.com with lighting design by company owner Martin Kames, who developed a special rapport with the television and music star. Kames landed the job after sending Hasselhoff a 20-minute video in which he presented his company and his design ideas. “It…
Author: Jacob Waite
High End Systems lighting fixtures were riding high in the rig of RodeoHouston. LD Nathan Brittain specified 14 HES SolaSpot 1000s and 10 HES Sola HyBeam 2000s to meet his demands for lighting with an impactful kick while reining in power consumption. LD Systems provided the gear for the nightly concert series during February and March at Houston’s NRG Stadium. After each day of bull riding and mutton busting, with horses, clowns and kids kicking up the dust, the self-propelled stage steered itself to the centre of the arena for the evening’s performance with top name acts. This year’s new…
Lighting Designer Jerry Appelt returned to The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), the world’s largest music event, working alongside stage designer Florian Wieder, specified a total of more than 600 German Light Products lighting fixtures for the mega event. Among the most impressive elements of the show were eight rings, set within truss circles over the audience area, for which Jerry Appelt used the KNV Arc modules from GLP for the first time on TV worldwide. “The most secret light in the world”, as Production Manager Ola Melzig described the modules, at the same time making no secret of how powerful…
The 44th edition of the EO Youth Day took place in the Gelredome Stadium in Arnhem, The Netherlands on 26 May 2018. Traditionally, this event draws quite an audience, young people with a religious background meet here for inspiration, music and fun. This one-day event boasts an impressive line-up of keynote speakers and bands, like King & Country, Matt Redman, Britt Nicole and Guvna B. Designed to the overall theme Walk on Water, the elaborate stage design used over 250 square meters of LED screens and additional LED strips. Faber Audiovisual supplied all visuals for the event, including ROE Visual LED…
After 10 years of globe-trotting around the world amazing festival goers with a unique and brilliantly crafted production, Arcadia Spectacular finally made a long-awaited debut appearance in London. It was on the UK’s early May Bank Holiday weekend that it celebrated its 10th Anniversary and presented its own special brand of immersive production magic in the capital city. The unique installation that is Arcadia’s Spider appeared alongside fellow stages and temporary installations – The Bug and the Reactor – and was the centrepiece at a 2-day festival at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, East London. The ‘Spider’ installation was the…
Taking in selected venues, the multi-talented artist, who stunned the judges to claim victory on Britain’s Got Talent has been showcasing his genre-straddling fusion of classical and contemporary musical experiences on stages across the UK. Collaborating closely with Vision Factory Show Designer, Sam Tozer, the VER London operation has announced its pride in supporting the tour with a comprehensive video, projection and lighting package that helped realise the Designer’s state of the art, creative vision for the shows. Set against a 9 x 4 metre upstage LED wall, the show blends live performance with filmed footage, cutting-edge graphics and intense colour that…
American country music singer, songwriter and rising star Kane Brown hits the road opening for Chris Young’s Losing Sleep tour, with LD Andrew James turning to Robe moving lights. Specifically, 18 Robe Pointes and 5 Robe Spikies – supplied to the tour as a specials package by 4Wall Nashville. “They’re [Robe Pointes] super versatile with strong beams and also a great wash with the frost incorporated; the colours are bright, the gobos cut through and … they hardly ever break! Perfect to fit my needs!” he declared. James has been working with the artist for just over a year, and…
ArKaos launches GrandVJ 2.5 – a brand new version of its hugely popular GrandVJ software designed for fast intuitive control of video sources by VJs, and video operators working in all ‘live’ scenarios – from concerts to festivals to clubs. Good video and media visuals are integral and vital to the visuality of most events and entertainment environments – from corporate presentations and parties to the largest concerts and festival performances. ArKaos’s core philosophy has always been to ensure that users and fans of the platform have the most flexible and powerful tools to create potentially spectacular shows. Right at…
Since its formation in 2017, Lights Control Rigging (LCR) have supplied kit for many high profile tours and artists ranging from Ed Sheeran and Dizzee Rascal to rising stars such as Wolf Alice and Sundara Karma. “At the moment we seem to be sending out equipment for a different tour every week,” said LCR Director, Mike Oates. “The key is being able to work with the artists, their lighting designers and make sure we have the right, high-quality equipment available at the right time. We work closely with A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET), who supply much of the equipment we hold…
Stage engineering specialist WIcreations supplied 4 of its heavy-duty TP06 stage elevators to the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) production which was headed by technical directors Ola Melzig and Tobias Åburg. The 4 WIcreations TP06 lifts were installed under the stage which was part of the elaborate set designed by Florian Wieder, and were used for two of the 43 finalists, Austria’s 3rd placed Cesár Sampson and Belarus contestant Alekseev. The project was designed and co-ordinated for WI by Geert Stockmans and tech’d and looked after on site by Mateo Marastoni working alongside Robert Roos who was the production’s props…
MxU and audio technology solutions company d&b audiotechnik have joined forces for MxU’s 2018 one-day events. Created for engineers, musicians and creatives, the aim of these events is to realize the MxU vision, as the MxU team explained: “Better Leaders. Better Mixers. That’s it. It’s pretty simple. We think it’s a bit unorthodox for FOH engineers to engage in leadership, but to us, the leadership component is the secret sauce. Show us one amazing audio engineer that displays poor leadership — it’s actually quite rare. Unlocking great leadership skills as a FoH engineer is really the key to becoming a…
The 2018 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), hosted at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal, saw the latest range of Claypaky and ADB lighting fixtures dominate the beautifully evocative, multi-dimensional, theatrical and camera pleasing lighting design by award-winning lighting designer and Director of Photography (DOP) Jerry Appelt. A statement against the often flattening overuse of video in entertainment presentations, Appelt’s design is one of the biggest lighting set-ups in Eurovision history. Appelt employed over 2,000 lighting fixtures – 750 of which were Claypaky Arc and LED moving heads and 100 of which were the ADB asymmetric cyc LED fixture, ADB Klemantis.…
Backup’s Kart-Fest 2018 is back on the 5 July 2018 at Daytona Sandown Park in Surrey, with Chauvet Professional helping drive the event forward, with ‘Wimbledon’ named as this year’s theme. “We all know people in it who have suffered or are suffering right now in our crazy industry family,” said Matt Hallard, Chauvet’s UK Sales Manager. “Having an opportunity to support friends and colleagues by sponsoring one of the backup’s amazing events is simply the least we can do. Here’s to many more opportunities to shout loud about the great work the trustees and team are doing at backup and…
As soon as Nashville-based Premier Global Production took delivery of 26 GHIBLI fixtures, Ayrton’s first LED spot luminaire with a factory-equipped framing system, they quickly sent them on tour with country music singer/songwriter Brett Eldredge. ACT Lighting is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America. The Long Way Tour is Eldredge’s first headlining tour. Supporting his latest single of the same name, the first leg of the tour kicked off in April; it resumed in June and will play dates in the US and Canada through October. Premier Global Production provides lighting and staging equipment to some of…
ADJ Products has announced it will now take over the development, support and sales for the Compu Show lighting control software previously offered by Elation Professional for the past 10 years. ADJ USA’s National Sales Manager, Alfred Gonzales, explained: “As ADJ’s fixtures have evolved, we felt it was important to grow our DMX software line as well. Our existing myDMX control software has been a very successful product worldwide for ten years, but we felt we needed to offer something with more power and possibilities. Compu Show is a proven system that offers lighting designers powerful features and flexible control…
LED solutions and bespoke installation provider, Light Initiative (LI) were ‘on board’ at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) to design and manufacture a custom-built LED scenic element for the UK entry, SuRie, with her hit song Storm. LI worked with long-term client creative show director Dan Shipton of Black Skull Creative on a series of eighteen video-mapped LED chevrons that created the perspective guiding ‘corridor’ of light in which the artist performed. The design was created to read as a flat video visual from the front, then stretch out to show depth and distance when viewed from the side. “I…
RapcoHorizon, an RHC Holdings company, has announced the acquisition of all assets of Lava Cable. The Lava Cable brand and its products will be supported by RHC. Mark Stoddard of Lava Cable will be joining the RHC team as the Lava Cable product specialist and will support all sales efforts of the product line. “We are thrilled to bring Lava Cable, an esteemed brand in our industry, under our umbrella of product offerings,” says Darius Seabaugh, vice president of marketing for RHC Audio. “The company’s products complement our existing offerings to the MI market and we are excited for the…
Queen + Adam Lambert will complete their current year-long, 78-show world tour in July 2018, which has seen them play sell-out shows across the globe. The tour provider is Clair Global, and at the heart of all things audio, is a pair of trusted DiGiCo consoles. FOH Engineer, Tom New, moved into live sound when a former bandmate began promoting live shows at a small venue in Brighton asked him to help out with the sound. “With limited knowledge, and a healthy enthusiasm, I threw myself into it, and didn’t look back,” said New. “Nowadays, I try to view things…
