SLX has announced the successful applicants for its 2018 Bursary Scheme, which sees the company supporting 5 students enrolled in production courses with £3,000 of hire equipment as well as networking and development opportunities. Spanning the UK, the students attend different institutions and are enrolled on a variety of technical production focussed courses. Third-year students and graduating this year are Ashley Holdom (Rose Bruford) and Ryan Searle (Bristol Old Vic) and the 2nd year students receiving the bursary are Alex Silvester (University of Bolton – Backstage Academy), Georgia Wren – LIPA and Ben Linwood (Guildford School of Acting). As well as…
Author: Jacob Waite
Philips Vari-Lite VL800 BeamLine The new Philips Vari-Lite VL800 BeamLine from Philips Entertainment Lighting is an LED effects luminaire offering unique, dynamic looks which will appeal to lighting designers working in show environments of all kinds. The first LED effects unit from the Philips Vari-Lite brand, it produces a distinctive, collimated, flat sheet of light in a 3.5° beam with advanced movement, colour control and pixel-mapping capabilities. A linear strip moving light with 12 RGBW LED emitters, the Philips Vari-Lite VL800 BeamLine features a newly-developed optical system which provides a bright, collimated and elongated beam of light, adding extra depth and…
Around 500 CLF Lighting fixtures were deployed during De Coolste Baan van Nederland, which was held in the Olympic Stadium of Amsterdam, built for the 1928 Olympic Games. Center of attention was the 400m long speed skating track that was used for the ISU World Allround Speed Skating Championships 2018 during the last weekend of the event. In cooperation with production company For Live, Lighting Designer Henk-Jan van Beek (Light-H-Art) chose different CLF Lighting fixtures to illuminate the speed skating track and all the areas around it. With 350 pieces, the CLF Lighting Yara LEDPAR was everywhere. The majority of…
Avolites and MA Lighting recently joined forces with the organisers of entertainment technology trade event Prolight + Sound to shut down the booth of prolific counterfeit operation PPL (Popular Lighting from GuangZhou, China). This is one more step that both companies have taken to prevent the distribution of counterfeits and to send out a clear message to all product copier that their actions are no longer tolerated. Sales Director Koy Neminathan explained: “Avolites synchronised efforts with MA Lighting and with the support of Prolight + Sound to successfully close PPL’s booth down before the Prolight + Sound show even opened.…
Flemish performer, Nathalie Meskens, whose soul music tour Meskens in Motown has proved hugely popular, selling out shows in theatres and concert halls across Belgium in addition to rocking numerous festivals. Front of House Engineer Peter Claes chose Studio Haifax, a customer of CODA Audio’s Belgian distributor Viladco, to supply the audio and in consultation with the Dilbeek-based rental company, settled on a CODA Audio ViRAY system. Claes recalled: “I’ve used CODA Audio AiRAY and ViRAY systems in the past and the flexibility they offer is key. This particular tour presented a mixture of venue types and sizes, so I…
Whatever your involvement in live events, the stage lighting industry needs your help. Proposed changes in the laws surrounding efficiency of lighting equipment has the potential to seriously adversely affect the industry. In a nutshell, the familiar A to G energy rating and labelling legislation may be extended to professional stage lighting, which is currently exempt. Many lights used in live events does not reach even the lower rating, even LED fixtures, developments in technology will not keep pace with the requirements. With domestic lighting, switching to low energy bulbs is a simple swap; for stage lighting, that is not the…
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…
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…
