Josef Valchar, CEO of Robe lighting is petitioning the Czech government and Czech Euro MPs to request that it exempt all stage lighting equipment (EN 60598-2-17, IEC 60598-2-17:2017) from proposed legislation that will prohibit its manufacture and sale immediately across Europe in 2020. “I cannot stress the importance of this enough,” stated Valchar. “Every manufacturer, rental company, venue, LD, technician and other individual or organisation involved in any aspect of entertainment lighting or in producing events and performances should have a vested interest in opening a sensible and measured discussion about how it affects stage luminaires producing less than 85 lumens…
Author: Jacob Waite
There was a real buzz surrounding the High End Systems booth at the recent Prolight + Sound trade show in Frankfurt. In addition to sneak previews of new products, visitors were treated to a visual spectacular in the form of the latest instalment of the world’s leading academic lighting programming competition, Hog Factor. In 2018, in collaboration with the German branch of parent company ETC and German distributor LMP Lichttechnik, High End Systems opened up the competition to teams of students and trainees from across Europe, giving the contest a real international flavour. As in previous years, LMP provided valuable…
Lighting and visuals rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting and video for the recent UK tour by Welsh rockers Feeder, who are back on the road with the band’s Arrow album campaign. Bryan Leitch is the band’s LD and visual designer and the person who took the tour to Colour Sound after previous excellent experiences with the west London based company. “It was a video-based tour so ideal for Colour Sound” he commented. Colour Sound Experiment also invested in some new lighting fixtures to ensure that Leitch had exactly the rig he wanted. Leitch has worked for Feeder since…
Lighting Designer Will Potts found inspiration in the subtle shapes of nature for his current lighting and show design for award-winning singer Rag’n’Bone Man. Potts’ design incorporates ‘sacred’ geometric shapes and an illustrated backdrop of personal significance to the singer. To carefully light these elements, he chose the Claypaky Scenius Unico. Having worked with the singer for little over a year, the designer delved deep into the psychology of Rory Graham’s (a.k.a Rag’n’Bone Man) music, drawing on recurring themes within the artist’s debut album ‘Human’ to inspire and craft his detailed show design. “There’s lots of religious and spiritual references…
LD Matthieu Larivee relished the chance to work with American singer / songwriter Børns on his current Blue Madonna tour, which sees the interesting young star receiving plenty of attention and acclaim, with 15 Robe MegaPointes at the heart of the lighting design. The founder and artistic director of Lüz Studio in Montreal also designed set and lighting for Børns’ first tour, Dopamine, having received a call after his management saw and heard good things about his creativity for indie rockers, Broken Bells. A total of 15 Robe MegaPointes are central to the entire stage design. “They are bright, compact, and…
Some of the biggest names in EDM including Martin Garrix, Tiesto, Afrojack, Hardwell, R3hab, and more took the stage for China’s massive ISY Music Festival, held March 2-3, 2018 at Haitang Bay Beach in Sanya. An expansive Adamson Systems Engineering E-Series sound system from Adamson Systems Engineering blasted out the beats for the 60,000 fans in the main venue and also kept the artists in the mix with a powerful Adamson Systems Engineering S-Series monitor solution in the DJ booth. “Adamson’s E-Series is my favourite audio system. It meets all of our requirements in terms of volume, clarity, and impact,” said Stephan…
With the first live presentation of the new grandMA3 series the MA Lighting booths at Prolight + Sound 2018 were the place to be. Founded on the legacy of the previous MA Lighting grandMA consoles, the MA Lighting grandMA3 represents a radical re-think of what’s possible from a lighting control platform. The elegant new system-architecture incorporates new fixture, feature and effects-handling at its very heart. The system features ground-breaking concepts from top industry visionaries, presented within a refined user interface, and is designed to make practical tasks more intuitive. The physical design detail of the MA Lighting grandMA3 range is…
Philips Lighting has announced that its Philips VL6000 Beam luminaires are delivering stand-out visuals for American rock band Foo Fighters’ current world tour, which heads towards Europe during summer 2018. Foo Fighters’ long-term lighting designer Dan Hadley chose the powerful, retro-styled Philips VL6000 Beam fixtures for very particular reasons. With the diagonal square artwork of the band’s 9th studio album Concrete and Gold as the inspiration for his basic motif, he wanted to incorporate its distinctive 45˚ and 90˚ angles into his lighting design. “The main thing I needed from the ground row was a fat beam and a fixture…
London-based Capital Sound Hire becomes the first in the UK to increase its Outline inventory with the addition of the Italian company’s latest multi-role processor, the Newton. Officially launched at prolight+sound 2018 in Frankfurt, the extraordinary flexibility of Newton brings a new level of convenience and system integration possibilities to professional users throughout the audio industry. Capital Sound’s Paul Timmins said: “We were introduced to the concept by the Outline team when we were buying into the Outline GTO C-12 system during late 2015 and early 2016. We took an immediate interest and, having then followed its development over the…
Slash Enterprises in Hyderabad has recently invested in a DiGiCo SD9 digital mixing console. It was purchased through India distributor, HiTech Audio Systems, New Delhi. “We were looking for something compatible for our line of work and were introduced to DiGiCo SD9 by HiTech,” said Ronald Daniel, owner of Slash Enterprises. “I was awestruck by the features of the console and instantly loved everything about it.” Slash Enterprises was found by Francis Daniel, who used to handle DJ events for weddings and corporate shows. The company has now expanded its sphere of work by adding mixing for live bands, as…
A range of top Portuguese singers, such as Paulo Gonzo, Diogo Piçarra, D.A.M.A, C4 Pedro, Marco Paulo, etc, were all converged on Gondomar´s Pavillion for Radio Festival Party, considered the biggest Portuguese Music Party. Brought in to energise the nearly 8,000 strong crowd at this year’s Radio Festival’s Party in Porto were over 64 NEXT-proaudio’s Loudspeakers, supplied by Mega Ensaio Rental Company. These NEXT-proaudio systems included arrays of 20 LA212x 3-way enclosures for main reinforcement. For low-end, 16 NEXT LAs418 subwoofers stacked by pairs of 2 units below the main arrays. Two-way Active Line Array LA122A cabinets were deployed as…
As a technical supplier to the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon, audio specialist Sennheiser and its local partner Magnelusa have supplied Digital 6000 wireless microphones and 2000 series wireless monitors to the world’s largest live music event, hosted by Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP). With rehearsals ongoing since 22 April, the equipment is already in heavy use in Lisbon’s Altice Arena and the ESC press centre. With 43 participating nations, the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest will feature live broadcasts of the 2 semi-finals on 8 and 10 May 2018 and the grand finale on 12 May 2018. All…
Today’s AV system professionals face a unique set of challenges posed by integrated audio, video and lighting systems combined with an expanding range of networking protocols and rapid advances in both hardware and software. To help designers and installers meet these challenges, Allen & Heath veteran audio installation expert Martijn Verkerk will present a special training session, ‘Designing Efficient, Cost-Effective Distributed Audio and Integrated Hardware Control,’ at InfoComm 2018 in Las Vegas, California. Verkerk, who is Allen & Heath’s Installation Product Manager, brings 25-plus years of experience in real-world integration, training and the development of audio products. His session is…
Throughout the past 10 years, the show laser light industry has undergone, and still undergoes, a significant change process: the manufacturing of show laser light systems has separated from the laser show creation and laser show production. Technological developments made home-building of show laser light systems uneconomical, lead to a significant price drop for laser systems in general and provided new opportunities for high precision manufacturing specialists to develop more and more advanced laser source technology. Throughout the past 10 years, the Laserworld AG with its Laserworld Group actively took part in the change process of the industry: Technological and…
The recently launched Arion SL 210A line array speakers from installation and pro audio manufacturer Work Pro Audio were put on PA duty at a historic Spanish bullring in early April. The array system was part of a temporary sound reinforcement installation for the Valencia-based quarter-final Davis Cup tennis match between Spain and Germany. Together with its parent company Equipson, Work Pro Adio is also based in Valencia. When the call went out from the bullring project’s integrator for a temporary PA to be installed at the bullring for the Davis Cup quarter-final, Work Pro Audio stepped into the breach,…
MGG, South Africa rental and production specialist, is the first to invest in Robe’s new MegaPointe moving light bringing high quality spot, wash, beam and effects capabilities – all in one unit. MGG’s owner and founder Mark Gaylard explained that they have done phenomenally well with the standard Robe Pointe, where again they blazed the trail with the first 12 in SA rental stock, having bought them off the distributor DWR Distribution’s booth at the 2013 MediaTech expo in Johannesburg. “These have been a company workhorse and a big success for us, they have travelled all over Africa on a…
Manchester-based audio specialist tube uk has become the first sound rental and live-production company in the UK to take delivery of Yamaha’s brand new RIVAGE PM7 digital mixing system, which received a high-profile launch at 2018 Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) expo in Amsterdam during February 2018. tube’s Melvyn Coote commented: “We’re always excited to be among ‘the first’ to utilise new technologies and are delighted to be THE very first company in the UK with a PM7!” The powerful and flexible Yamaha RIVAGE PM7 fills a gap in the product range left by the iconic Yamaha PM5D, which was launched…
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of their eponymous debut album, Irish rockers The Script are currently on a world tour, with FOH engineer Steve Pattison (Amy Winehouse, Wet Wet Wet, Glasvegas) behind the controls of an Allen & Heath dLive system. Supplied by rental and production specialists Adlib, Pattison’s dLive set-up comprised an S7000 console, DM64 MixRack (with Dante, Waves V3 and superMADI cards) and DX32 Expanders. As Pattison explains, he chose the Allen & Heath dLive primarily for its overall sound quality and powerful built-in DEEP processing. “The dLive system is really clear and open-sounding, so I…
