Ayrton’s MagicDot-R has been awarded the Live Design Product of the Year 2016 in the Effects category at the ninth annual Live Design Awards. The awards ceremony took place in Manhattan on Monday 13 June, and marked the second year running in which Ayrton’s product designers won Product of the Year, having won the 2015 award for the MagicBlade-R. A member of Ayrton’s Radical product line, the patented MagicDot-R is the first professional moving head LED luminaire with a single optical collimator. Since its release last year at Prolight + Sound, Frankfurt, the MagicDot-R has been put to use by…
Author: TPi
With Hampshire’s Matterley Estate once again playing host to BoomTown Fair, which this year welcomed an increased capacity of 60,000, Mojo Barriers installed 600 metres of kit across the site. Mojo’s barriers were installed at all festival stages, including The Lion’s Den, The Jolly Dodger and Sector 6, a new district introduced to the 2016 event. Kevin Thorborn, Mojo Barriers’ UK Manager, commented: “The individual and quirky nature of BoomTown makes it such a special event and it’s great to see organisers pushing boundaries when it comes to creativity and imagination. “BoomTown Fair is famed for its impressive stages and…
Italian electro-pop artist Francesco Gabbani recently took Allen & Heath’s Qu-Pac digital mixer on tour, selected by renowned FOH Engineer Fabrizio Fruzzetti. Gabbani recently released his award-winning second studio album, Eternamente Ora. His current tour is in support of the album release and includes dates across Italy. Fruzzetti has served as Sound Engineer for many top artists and festivals in Italy, including Primavera Jazz Festival, Stadio, Dolcenera, Nina Zilli, Grignani, and several TV commercials. www.allen-heath.com
Martin Audio’s MLA multi-cellular loudspeaker array featured at one of Japan’s biggest music festivals, as Rock In Japan Festival 2016 welcomed a sold out crowd to the Hitachi Seaside Park. The MLA, supplied by MSI Japan, was installed on the main Grass Stage, as well as the Park Stage and Sound of Forest stage. A total of 20 elements of MLA were required for each stage wing as main PA, with a further 16 each side for the side fills. Rock In Japan Festival ran from 6 to 14 August. www.marting-audio.com
The judging panel for the Knight of Illumination (KOI) Awards 2016 Concert Touring and Events category has announced its shortlisted designers for next month’s ceremony at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith. Led by new Chairperson Coral Cooper, the panel is made up of Deputy Editor of LSi magazine Claire Beeson, Head of Lighting Design at creative agency Imagination Jonny Milmer, LD and experienced video content creator Miguel Ribeiro, and TPi magazine Editor Kelly Murray. “The incredibly high standard of entries for the KOI Awards Concert Touring and Events category made selecting a shortlist a real challenge,” said Claire Beeson. “It’s been…
British crewing company Gallowglass is set to celebrate its 20th anniversary in September. The company came into being when brothers Paul and Nick Grecian pulled together a small team of players from the London Scottish Rugby Club, and has steadily grown into an international group of events services companies. Gallowglass has supported the Olympic Games opening and closing ceremonies at London 2012, as well as the G8 and G20 global summits and the events surrounding the final flight of Concorde. Group Managing Director Nick Grecian said: “The range of structures that we have built for corporate events is astonishing: from…
Autograph Sound, Stage Sound Services and new UK distributor Sound Network held a seminar for Sound Designers and Theatre Technicians at the National Theatre on Tuesday 12 July. Thee event as held in response to increasing market interest in the Sony DWX wireless microphone system. Assisted by a team of professional actors, the system was put through its paces with a series of duologues and songs, using industry standard DPA microphones. A technical team made up of Autograph Sound, Stage Sound Services, Sound Network and Sony personnel supported the day and all were on hand throughout to answer any critical…
Powersoft has announced the latest software release for its Armonía Pro Audio Suite. Armonía v2.8 adds a further set of features including operator view, which gives users the ability to customise new window tabs. Users can choose from a range of pre-configured objects with the following functionalities: mute, gain, delay, scene recall, magnifier to EQ window, VU meter of a selected channel, status LED, background image and notes. In addition to the operator view, the access manager now includes further access levels such as Admin, Engineer, Operator or Guest. The new software release also sees the X Series fully integrated…
Once it was certain that Leicester City Football Club had defied 5,000/1 odds to win the Premier League title, backstage the spotlight was turned to Kasabian’s production team as they began to plan two back-to-back stadium shows in less than a month. TPi reports exclusively. It is amazing what people will do for their local football club; some will get their team’s badge tattooed, while others will name their children after their favourite player. But how many would organise a two-day stadium rock show? Well with Leicester City’s recent success, there was no way that life-long fans, Kasabian were not…
A total of 40 Philips Showline SL NITRO 510C LED strobes from Philips Lighting delivered maximum impact on chart-topping British DJ Wilkinson’s performance at Manchester’s Parklife festival. Following on from his live shows at more than 20 venues around Europe, the drum and bass giant has embarked on a string of festival dates. One of the first stops was Parklife, with Wilkinson performing his live show on the Sunday of the Heaton Park takeover. LD James Baker of Creative Video Design chose the Philips SL NITRO 510C strobes as part of his dynamic yet flexible floor package. Baker’s team rigged…
Dave Gillett has been named Head of Technical at PR Live, as the south London-based company expands its team with three new additions. Karl Travers and Rhys Williams have also come on-board as Senior Project Managers. PR Live founder and MD Ian Coull commented, “I’m delighted to welcome Dave, Karl and Rhys to PR Live, and we all look forward to the hectic pace continuing for the rest of the year. It’s great to attract three people of this calibre to join our excellent and highly committed team who all share our core values, ideas and personality”. Gillett has a…
Event technology service provider Nordlite has expanded its rental fleet to include 60 of GLP’s impression X4 Bar 20’s. “You can no longer avoid the X4 Bars,” said Nordlite MD Wolfgang Frahm. “They are being increasingly requested by our customers and it was time to reinvest again in GLP products.” Nordlite, one of the leading full service technology service providers in northern Germany, provides its customers with technical design and consulting, as well as planning of events, CAD and 3D visualization and design, décor and technical equipment. Overall, the company has 35 employees, its own fleet and 2,000 sq metres…
Serious Stages was tasked with producing a 30-metre tall by 70-metre wide stage structure, complete with cascading waterfalls, crystal towers and a giant owl’s head, for this year’s UK edition of Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) in Milton Keynes. The EDC owl incorporated 1,000 lighting fixtures, over 400 video tiles, 28 lasers, pyro and 15 CO2 cannons, and Serious Stages was entrusted to ensure the stage could withstand its weight-loading requirements. Serious Stages also designed and built the stages’ bespoke crystal towers. To support the stage set and the three pyro platforms, the Serious Stages scaffolding was constructed using three heavy…
Event technical production specialist Central Presentations Limited (CPL) has invested in 80 sq metres of new ROE Black OnyX 3.4 mm LED screen plus ROE LED strip product. CPL’s own custom single point projector brackets can be used with the LED panels, which can be attached vertically to the truss and also rotated. The new LED panels, strips and processing will join CPL’s extensive stock of projectors, media servers, cameras and PPUs. This investment comes after a high demand for LED, which is being increasingly specified for events of all sizes and budgets. www.cplav.com
Earth Wind and Fire’s latest UK and European tour, which included a closing headline slot on the West Holts Stage at Glastonbury 2016, had its lighting supplied by British company HSL. Lighting was designed by Merle McLain who has worked with the band for 23 years. He was on the road operating the key and conventional lights and directing and switching seven robo-cams. Running the moving lights was Robin Seefeldt. Lester Cobrin was HSL’s Project Manager on the road, with everything at the warehouse end managed by Sean McGlone. The version of the band’s current tour’s lighting design used for…
Enttec has announced the release of the Pixelator Mini, a compact version of its Pixelator LED controller. The Pixelator Mini can control up to 2720 pixels using 16 universes of DMX over ethernet. There are eight Pixel Link ports in the Pixelator Mini that utilise two universes each. Physically, the unit is compact, and measures in at 1.75 inches high by four by 7.5 inches deep. Multi-protocol support is part of the Pixelator Mini, and the unit works with ArtNet, sACN and ESP, and supports WS2812B and APA-104 LED protocols. Users can connect Enttec Pixel Tape to the Pixel Link…
Jeff Lynne’s ELO has received the help of an MA Lighting grandMA2 console, with Matt Pitman the man operating it all. Chosen by the show’s designer, Tim Routledge, to run the lighting and elements of the video display, Pitman began by explaining how he came to be there. “My thing when I first started in lighting was this: I didn’t have the money to buy WYSWYG or a grandMA2 back then but the point is, if you want to one day do the best jobs in the world, and work on the biggest tours, then you need to start with…
Bruno Poet, LD for Icelandic cult band Sigur Rós, has chosen GLP’s impression X4 Bars for the band’s current tour. Poet was introduced to the impression X4 Bar by White Light’s Dave Isherwood. While prepping the Sigur Rós tour, he was simultaneously designing the lighting for Brian Friel’s play Faith Healer at Donmar Warehouse in London’s West End, deploying 16 of the impression X4 Bar 20’s to light a rain curtain. Explaining the challenges of designing lighting for a band, Poet said: “Nearly all the other work I do is for a production that tells some kind of story, and…
