In early May a cluster of live entertainment companies proudly rooted in Rock Lititz HQ partnered with the non-profit Keep The Beat Alive in order to certify over 60 staff members in CPR, AED device and active shooter training. “Rock Lititz is on the leading edge of reducing cardiac deaths in touring professionals,” stated Dr. Damian Brezinski, President of Keep the Beat Alive. “Rock Lititz gets it!” The training was held on site at Rock Lititz Studio where some of the world’s largest tours come to prep before hitting the road. With companies such as Atomic, Beame, Clair Global, PEDG and Rock-It…
Author: Stewart Hume
Visual production expert FIX8Group were part of the team operating the stunning video content for all 43 competing acts as well as pop megastar Justin Timberlake’s performance at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Managing director Neil Trenell led the FIX8Group team, working with Eurovision 2016 Content Designer, Mikki Kunttu and Lighting Designer, Fredrik Jönsson to create a cohesive, broadcast-ready visual picture. “This was an incredibly large-scale project,” explained Trenell. “We had around nine terabytes of content, and seven and a half thousand files. Each output required seven different media maps to get a single image on the screens.” The carefully…
In a continuing commitment to update its inventory with the latest rigging, lighting and video technology, PRG XL Video has chosen the EXE Rise range of chain hoists to update its rental offering. During the development of the Rise hoists, PRG XL Video worked with Area Four Industries UK to give feedback on the design and specifications. The selection of the EXE Rise units followed extensive evaluation of different hoists by a team of PRG XL Video’s rigging experts including Chris Walker, Account Director, Q Willis, Head of Rigging Services, and Richard Gorrod, Head of Event Services. The units are…
One of the best known pro-audio sales and hire operations in the UK, The Warehouse, has become a distributor of Nexo professional sound reinforcement products in the UK. Founded in 1980 to provide sales, hire and operation of pro sound equipment in Scotland, the company has extended its reach from Edinburgh and Glasgow to a new Manchester location, bringing its blue-chip brand portfolio and specialist expertise into the north of England. Company directors Derek Blair and Janet Murray joined Gareth Collyer, Sales Manager of Nexo UK, for a symbolic contract signing at the PLS Show in Frankfurt swiftly following up…
At 82 years old, legendary singer is still playing live and touring two weekends a month for most of the year with Robe as the first choice of moving light on the rider. Los Angeles-based Dean Egnater is Lighting Designer and tour manager and has been working for Valli for 15 years since originally being hired for a three week period in 2001. Valli and his crew’s touring schedule includes a variety of venues encompassing theatres and arenas which are always sold-out, and for which the largest version of their lighting plot includes around 46-48 moving luminaires – Ideally an equal…
At the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Billboard Music Awards delivered a soulful, action packed, star-studded and powerful show but it was P!NK who flew away [literally] with one of the best performances. Consistent with some of her previous performances, P!NK took flight and soared acrobatically above the Billboard Music Award audience, for her world television debut of her latest single Just Like Fire, a song from the Alice Through the Looking Glass soundtrack. To accomplish this seemingly dare-devil like feat, TAIT Towers, provided P!NK’s performer flying elements and proprietary automation software, TAIT Navigator, which guaranteed her safety by controlling the speed and…
Global Infusion Group (GIG) was ranked 70th in the SME Export Track 100 which ranks the UK’s private, small and medium sized businesses with the fastest growing international sales. It is produced by Fast Track, a firm that researches Britain’s top-performing private companies. In the report, Fast Track stated that events caterer GIG had grown exports by 48.27%. GIG’s entry in the report continued: “This Buckinghamshire company’s chefs have cooked on the Caribbean island of Martinique and in Moscow’s Red Square. Catering at corporate and sports events – including the Sochi Winter Olympics – as well as for pop stars…
Ayrton has released a whole series of new products for 2016. The first to be showcase is the WildSun-S25. The fixture colour-mixing cousin of Ayrton’s WildSun-K25 wash light. The new full colour model packs 217 highly efficient single RGBW LED emitters into a compact moving head and punches out 60,000 lumens of light. This output rivals that of 4000W HMI luminaires fitted with colour filters, but with far greater flexibility of use and lower maintenance. WildSun-S25’s four-colour mixing is based on an ingenious arrangement of emitters combined with a holographic filter, which optimises the colour mix to create an infinite palette of…
NEXT-proaudio supplied the sound reinforcement setup required to Club Awards in Denmark. The whole sound system for the Club Awards, held on 19 March, was provided by the Danish Rental Company Showtech Event Group. Showtech increased its NEXT-proaudio inventory two months previously, having purchased a large quantity of NEXT LA212x and Las418 cabinets from the Portuguese manufacturer NEXT-proaudio. Sound reinforcement for the Club Awards comprised models from the manufacturer’s LA Series, with a total of 16 LA212x, 16 LAs418’s, 28 LA122 as outfill and delay system, eight LA122W, two Las218’s as front fill and DJ monitoring, eight Lam112x as stage monitors…
It’s an even-numbered year so it was time for rock band 311 to celebrate their biennial 311 Day with two arena shows in New Orleans on March 11 and 12. Lighting designer Joe Paradise of House Lights Go and Assistant Designer/ Programmer Bobby Grey selected Clay Paky fixtures and an MA Lighting grandMA2 console for the event, which drew 15,000 fans representing every US state and 17 countries. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of Clay Paky and MA Lighting products in North America. Paradise was charged with enhancing and interpreting the band’s diverse and unique musical style while bringing some…
Nathaniel Kunkel, a Grammy and Emmy Award-winning Producer, Sound Engineer and 5:1 surround mix specialist has had a long association with Composer Hans Zimmer, but said this event was a “totally different animal”. Kunkel employed the services of Britannia Row Productions after he supervised and mixed Zimmer’s highly acclaimed exploratory outing at London’s famed Hammersmith Apollo in 2015. “Since then I have been the main liaison between the Hans team and Lez [Dwight] at Brit Row in relation to staffing decisions and system specification approvals. I was also responsible for the architecture of the show control, capture, and sync setup…
Melbourne’s MPH Australia has enthusiastically embraced Robe as an in-house brand – with LEDWash 600’s, MMX Spots, LEDBeam 100’s – and was an early adopter of Robe’s BMFL series fixtures. MPH started as ‘Matt’s Party Hire’ 11 years ago with the fabulously tongue-in-cheek trestle table and balloons logo for which Matt Hansen is still known and loved, a free-spirited attitude to life plus a selection of niche LED products, control and media servers also offering bespoke and off-beat lighting system designs. The original stock included Robe’s classic workhorses like the ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200 and 2500 series. More recently, MPH…
When Bud Light decided to throw a party at South by Southwest Music Festival (SXSW), it went all out with a full-blown production. Working with Mosaic and LiveNation, Bandit Lites provided the lighting package for both the Brazos Event Center and the rousing upstairs party, where musical performances throughout the weekend included Bleachers, A$AP Ferg, Yo Gotti, The Struts, MisterWives, Santigold, and Bloc Party. With the party taking place in an event centre with a low trim height, the crew was tasked with coming up with a design that made up for the tight space and limited mounting options.…
Mariah Carey recently packed arenas across Europe with a Meyer Sound LEO linear large-scale sound reinforcement system. The powerful and transparent system clearly delivered Carey’s five-octave range to every seat without the use of delays. Mixed by FOH engineer Lorin White Jr, the 22-city Sweet Sweet Fantasy tour was Carey’s first European run in 13 years. “The LEO system is superb for handling Mariah’s voice, particularly when I’m tracking her extended high notes,” reported White Jr, whose mixing credits include Roberta Flack, Jon Secada, Hilary Duff, Melissa Manchester, and Machine Head. “She always gets a strong crowd reaction when she hits those extreme…
Popular New Zealand vocal trio Sol3 Mio recently completed a national tour which was lit by Joel Stanners using 16 Robe BMFL Spots as the main hard edged fixtures. These were supplied by leading NZ lighting and production rental company Oceania from Auckland. Stanners has worked with the trio for the last two years, and this was a completely new design involving a greater LED screen element than previously, together with more lighting. Set and video was designed by Pak Peacock and included a thrust stage that dropped to reveal three different levels … plus various height risers onstage to…
Flexibility was key for Sean Coates of RK Diversified Entertainment when he put together the rig for the eclectic Gobi Stage at Coachella, relying on the Rogue R2 Beam from Chauvet Professional. Coates flew 15 of the Rogue moving fixtures on ‘five fingers’ of overhead truss that angled upstage to downstage. Spanning the entire 50ft by 40ft Gobi Stage, the five fingers delivered wall-to-wall lighting coverage. This wide coverage, together with the variety of looks produced by the Rogue R2 Beam’s eight-facet rotating prism, resulted in a versatile rig that was more than capable of keeping up with the diverse range…
Leona Lewis has been on a 14-date tour of the UK with an SSL L500 console and K-array Slim Array technology, chosen by celebrated FOH Engineer Dave Wooster. Lewis’ I Am show provides Wooster with around 65 inputs from the stage. “It’s a full-on set-up,” he said. “The drummer alone has two mics on the bass drum, three snares – each with at least two mics on, four toms, all the cymbals, electronic kick and snare… So he was up to about 20-odd channels on his own!” According to Wooster, the show absolutely benefitted from the L500’s exceptional…
Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur recently staged the first full UK performance of their new project, Junun, at the London Barbican with FOH engineer, Gavin McComb selecting Allen & Heath’s dLive system to manage the diverse audio requirements. Heralded as “a powerful coming together of Eastern and Western musical traditions,” Junun comprises compositions performed by Ben Tzur and the nine-piece Rajasthan Express band, with Greenwood adding electronic elements. “Having used iLive for many years, this was my first opportunity to use Allen & Heath’s new dLive system,” explained McComb. “The Junun act is a big sound…
