Creative visual design practice Painting with Light helped take Belgium’s 2016 Schlagerfestival to a new level of presentational excellence with an impressive multi-dimensional stage, set, video and lighting design. The Schlagerfestival produced by PSE Belgium and Medialaan has been on the national event calendar for the last 10 years, and Painting with Light’s Luc Peumans has been involved since its inception. It has been a colossal success and features the best of Belgian and Dutch Schlager artists performing their biggest and best hits to wildly enthusiastic audiences. This year, to reflect the increased diversity of the artists and it musical…
Author: Stewart Hume
MA lighting grandMA2 control was once again considered the only choice for lighting and video control at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) staged in the Globe Arena, Stockholm handling over 60 DMX universes. Four weeks of intense technical, production and artist rehearsals and two televised semi-finals featuring 42 participants preceded the final itself featuring 26 performances, which was broadcast to an estimated TV audience of 180 million worldwide explained Lighting Designer Fredrik Jonsson. Jonsson, a freelance LD with a vast fund of experience in lighting the highest profile live TV shows, worked with a team of four lighting programmers…
Getsoundandlighting.com is an industry-supported web portal providing instant access to three vital needs of rental and production service companies. A one-stop platform for instantly-searchable nationwide production services and hire stock, as well as an online brokerage for all used equipment, including audio, video and special effects as well as lighting. The new website features three separate sections: Used Equipment Uniquely offering a brokerage for all used equipment, including audio, projection, special effects, as well as lighting, Getsoundandlighting.com enables companies to sell excess used stock and also purchase from the listings available on the site. Nationwide Hire For those times when existing hire…
Global flightcase hardware and 19 inch racking manufacturer Penn Elcom launches three innovative new climate control products for 19 inch racking systems. The CRC02-DTC, FT-DTC and FT01-Q-DTC are all thermostatically controlled for optimised heat management in 19 inch racking installations. Digital control gives refined and super accurate heat management via continuous temperature minoring and ‘set-and-forget’ fan control. All the products are optimised for quiet running, have over-temperature alarms and benefit from running off a universal power supply. The units are engineered to the robust and reliable specifications common to all Penn Elcom products. The CRC02 thermo exhaust blower is a…
Steven Tyler – best known as lead singer of legendary American rock band Aerosmith – played a concert in the David Geffen Hall, New York City called Out On a Limb, in support of Janie’s Fund. Lighting the show was LD Nathan Alves, who used 12 Robe BMFL Spots to produce most of the major signature looks. It was Alves’ first work with Tyler and the focus was on emphasising the intimate environment and the delicate subject matter inspiring Janie’s Fund which is Tyler’s new philanthropic initiative to serve abused and neglected girls. All the production was centred around the star…
Continuing a long running relationship with Teenage Cancer Trust, Producer Des Murphy, and Production team, Steve Allen, Julie Chennells, and Nancy Skipper, PRG XL Video have once again supported the charity’s annual run of fundraising live shows at the Royal Albert Hall. PRG XL Video supplied lighting, rigging and video technology for the week-long run of shows which included a comedy evening hosted by John Bishop, as well as concerts by The Vaccines, Simply Red, Bring Me The Horizon, and New Order. Supplementing the in-house lighting rig at the Royal Albert Hall, PRG XL Video Director Music Group, Yvonne Donnelly…
One year after Triple E’s successful launch of the award winning, universal building system, ModTruss, the company will return to the ABTT Show, Alexandra Palace, June 22nd and 23rd. Often described as full size Meccano by its users, ModTruss won Engineering Product of the Year at last year’s ABTT Theatre Awards for its lightweight aluminium construction and repetitious hole pattern, which ensures that build configurations and applications are practically limitless. Since then the product has been used in many prestigious locations, most notably at the Royal Opera House in London, Deutsche Oper in Berlin and to build the TV broadcast…
Il Divo latest outing represents the first time the Wimbledon-based audio company are using its recently purchased Outline GTO C-12 system, covering arena shows throughout the UK, Europe and Scandinavia. Capital have been the group’s choice of audio supplier from the beginning of the groups career. General Manager of Capital Sound, Paul Timmins, recalls: “Believe it or not this is year twelve! We started working with them at Ritz rehearsal rooms in Putney all those years ago…each successive Il Divo tour has brought new challenges and achievements for us as the band have grown and it’s now a very comfortable partnership.” The…
Adamson Systems Engineering is pleased to announce that Westbury National Show Systems, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, has joined the Adamson network. The announcement was made by James Oliver, Director of Marketing and Sales for Adamson. “Westbury has more than 45 years of experience in audio, video, lighting, staging and systems integration,” explained Oliver. “They bring a level of expertise to their growing client base that is invaluable. We are so pleased to have them join our team. I look forward to watching the organisation grow the Adamson brand and reputation in both live and installed sound in Canada.” Westbury National…
Audio Supervisor / Designer Bruce Arledge selected DPA Microphones for the television adaptation of the musical aired on FOX. Brought on by Producer Greg Sills and Production Mixer Mark King, Arledge was confident that the DPA mics would catch every syllable, both spoken and sung. Shooting on four stages at Warner Bros. Studios and outfitting multiple performers, Arledge needed microphones that would complement the unique sound setup, while still delivering unwavering audio quality. He chose 50 of DPA’s d:screet 4061 Omnidirectional Microphones due to their adaptability and ease of use in unusual miking applications. “My audio assistants worked directly with the teams in wardrobe, hair and makeup…
Electronic music innovators Above and Beyond played two high profile UK shows for their Acoustic world tour at the Royal Albert Hall in central London and the Albert Hall Manchester. Lighting and visuals for the tour are designed by Neil Marsh, while equipment and crew for these and a warm up in Utrecht, were delivered by Colour Sound Experiment. Colour Sound also took the opportunity to invest in more high powered Barco 30K projectors to service these shows, and having also just purchased some for another tour, are now in a position deliver the most demanding large format projection projects. The…
Over the past 12 months, White Light’s Audio department has grown exponentially and one of the manufacturers which WL has made a significant investment in is Shure. The company has drawn on Shure products for a series of national and international projects, with the two organisations collaborating closely. To signify this ever-growing relationship, WL has now been granted Shure Elite Rental Partner status. Richard Knott, WL’s Audio Business Development Manager, commented: “Shure is one of the true pioneers in the audio industry. Our clients expect the very highest standards from us therefore we need to invest in equipment which matches…
GLP newly-established UK Operation premieres to the new hybrid GT-1 spot and beam fixture and the latest accessories in the X4 atom RGBW line up operation at the recent PLASA Focus in Leeds. Led by Head of Operations at GLP UK, Noel ‘Roly’ Smith, the company gave UK premieres to the new products. Response was reported as being highly positive — right across the range, which included the latest products like the compact impression X1, the IP65-rated X4 atom, the pixel-mapping impression X4 L, and of course the new GT-1, which marks GLP’s return to discharge fixture technology in this new…
Event Acoustics has also assigned Istanbul-based ELIT the sole rights for Turkey, whilst audio visual design and distribution specialist ZAP S.A will cover Switzerland, with a headquarters in Geneva and branches in Lausanne and Winterthur. To further boost the UK venture, Vanguardia has recruited well respected Sound Engineer Roly Oliver as head of live business, with a focus on the distribution of MeTrao to rental companies, consultants and temporary and permanent installations. Oliver discusses why MeTrao is set to transform the audio management aspect of the live event industry: “From my experience, as both sound engineer and sound supplier, one…
Technical Director Ola Melzig, who has managed the event since 2000, specified the CyberHoist II system for the Eurovision Song Contest from the official technical supplier, [LITE]COM. [LITE]COM, which invested in 32 units and four MotionCue3D control systems prior to the event, supplied a 88-hoist system, supported by Ampco Flashlight Rental. Melzig worked alongside [LITECOM] CyberHoist II Project Manager, Mathias Sonntag and Martin Hoop of Ampco Flashlight to design the complex moving arrangement for this year’s automation-heavy show. “Once the set design was established back in September it was quite obvious that it required a significant automated element for both…
Shure UHF-R Wireless microphones and PSM1000 in-ear monitoring systems (IEMs) performed an essential role for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo when it toured Australia and New Zealand earlier this year. A total of 60 channels of Shure UHF-R — the largest number of wireless mics ever used on a military display like this — were used in shows in Australia (where technical services and equipment were supplied by a 12-strong team from audio facilities company Norwest) and New Zealand (where UK company Wigwam Acoustics and Wellington’s Western Audio Engineering were jointly responsible behind the scenes). Providing sound reinforcement for the…
Internationally acclaimed singer Arcángel was provided with a fiercely intense lightshow courtesy of David Ayala for the musician’s recent Los Favoritos concert, using a collection of high-output fixtures from Chauvet Professional supplied by Musique Xpress. Ayala, who served as the Production Manager as well as the Lighting Designer for the Los Favoritos concert at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José M. Agrelot, featured a collection of 24 Rogue RH1 Hybrid moving beam/spots, 20 COLORado 4 IP RGBW linear washes and 18 Next NXT-1 moving RGBW panels in his rig. The intense brightness, rich colours and rapid movements of these fixtures worked in harmony…
Off the back of their latest release, Music Complete, the group set out on the road with their long serving Lighting Designer, Andy Liddle. For this latest tour, Liddle used 16 Robe BMFLs as the backbone of the lighting rig, together with other lights, controlled via an Avolites Arena console. Liddle chose Robe’s BMFL Spots for their “amazing brightness, speed and optics,” and positioned four of the lights on each one of four over-stage trusses, along with other lighting and GLUX video panels, trimmed at seven, six, 6.5 and 1.5 metres, and positioned at three, six and nine metres upstage, respectively.…
