TPi’s Ste Durham catches up with Theis Romme of Victory Tour Production to find out how the company managed to provide lighting, audio, video and staging elements for one of the most talked-about live acts of the moment. It may seem naïve to utter such a statement in the year 2016 but, when it comes to live concert touring, chances are you really haven’t seen or heard anything quite like Japan’s BABYMETAL. For the uninitiated, the group is essentially an extreme metal band fronted by three teenage girls, singing anthemic, EDM-tinged J-pop (mostly in Japanese) as part of a theatrical…
Author: TPi
TPi’s Kelly Murray goes to London’s Roundhouse to speak exclusively with Tour Manager and FOH Engineer, Ben Hammond, about his experience on the road with cult post-hardcore crew, At The Drive-In. When the word ‘band reunion’ and ‘2016’ are typed into a search engine, you’re more than likely to be bombarded with articles referring to Guns N’ Roses’ long-awaited comeback. However, for those with a penchant for heavier rock music, the return of post-hardcore titans At the Drive-In is the true headline story of the year. It’s been a long 16 years since the band released any new material, with critically…
From its conception, Miss Atomic Bomb was made to push boundaries. The world premier of the new musical by Adam Long, Gabriel Vick and Alex Jackson Long brought together a renowned cast and crew to create an explosively funny dystopian fantasy with a unique staging concept – there is no set to speak of. The musical is produced by Tanya Link and is set in 1950’s Las Vegas, during an era where atomic bomb testing was not only a military endeavour, it was also a celebrated tourist industry with every businessman worth his salt trying to capitalise on the interest.…
d3 Technologies is pleased to announce that the Amsterdam-based Live Legends has recently upgraded its entire fleet of d3 4x4pro media servers with Video Format Conversion (VFC) quad DVI output cards. Live Legends, formed earlier this year by the merger of The Unit Showcontrol and content creator LiveLAB, is a d3 rental partner as well as d3 Studio offering a full d3 workflow as its in-house solution for pre-production and production of live events. Having collaborated on many global productions for major marketers such as Heineken, Nike, KLM, Disney, Tommy Hilfiger, Mercedes as well as musicals like Moeder Ik Wil…
David Dohrmann, Adamson’s technical director Asia Pacific, has teamed up with their Chinese Distributor, Real Music, to take the new S10 line array on the road. Real Music and Adamson will host technical seminars and S-Series product demonstrations in four Chinese cities in May 2016. Consulting firms, integrators and sound engineers are invited to attend any of the four Adamson events held in Beijing (9 May), Shanghai (11 May), Chengdu (13 May) and Guangzhou (15 May). During each seminar, David will provide a product demonstration of the S-Series S10 line arrays supported by the newly introduced S119 compact subwoofers. He…
Home to the world’s tallest building, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is accustomed to doing things big. The extensive festivities marking the 44th UAE National Day were no exception. The official National Day event at Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi was a high-end production featuring grandMA2 consoles. UAE National Day commemorated the Emirates’ 44-year union with fireworks, concerts, heritage attractions, regattas, and art and theatre festivals across the Emirates. The official National Day show at Zayed Sports City celebrated the spirit of the union and the Emirates’ national pride. Produced by Five Current with lighting and video design by…
Visual production expert FIX8Group is expanding its dry hire division with the addition of a wealth of new products under the direction of the company’s Technical Director, Nick Charalampidis. Charalampidis, who has been with FIX8Group since early 2013, is now responsible for enhancing the division’s dry hire inventory with industry-leading products, carefully selected to suit almost all requirements. “Before joining FIX8Group I worked with Green Hippo for five years, so my knowledge of Hippotizer servers and software is second to none,” said Charalampidis. “I am adding an array of Green Hippo kit to our stock, including the Boreal, Karst and…
Now in its 17th year, Coachella (or the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival as it’s formally called) is bigger, brighter and more musically diverse than ever. Among the 160 artists that performed on its various stages were legends from the world of rock like the reunited Guns ’N Roses, hip-hop artists including Ice Cube, gospel greats such as Mavis Staples and jazz icons like saxophonist extraordinaire Kamasi Washington. For those looking to enjoy a club experience, though, the centre of the two-weekend festival was the massive and air conditioned Yuma tent, where a bevy of talented house and techno…
Vanguardia, the UK’s leading independent audio engineering and design consultancy and currently celebrating ten years in the entertainment sector, has secured sole UK distribution rights to MeTrao – a pioneering tool set to transform audio management at live events. On 1 May 2016 Vanguardia is launching MeTrao’s distribution, through which audio professionals and event organisers across the UK will be able to benefit from the products technical wizardry. Offering an entirely new way of measuring sound and vibration, MeTrao was devised by Dutch entertainment technology experts Event Acoustics, based in Utrecht. The intelligent sound management product allows event organisers and…
JR Lighting Design has added two grandMA2 light consoles to its production rental inventory. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of MA Lighting products in North America. Chicago-based JR Lighting Design offers equipment sales, production rentals, integration and systems design to the house of worship, architainment, regional production, national touring, theatrical, live music, museum and educational markets. “We have sold MA Lighting products before, but we didn’t have any in our production rental inventory,” said President Jason Reberski. “grandMA2 consoles are clearly the market-leading choice. In fact we actually received requests to rent our consoles before we took delivery of…
Celebrating 30 years in 2016, the “South by Southwest Music and Media Conference” (SXSW) is a six-day event held every March in Austin, Texas. Allen & Heath’s digital mixers from across its dLive, GLD and Qu ranges were employed this year in many of the participating venues. Two dLive systems managed the popular British Music Embassy Showcase, hosted by Austin’s “Latitude 30” club and featuring 10 to 12 bands each day of the festival. A GLD-80 was installed at the Threadgills venue to manage their roster, plus local PA company, Rock ‘n Roll Rentals, supplied Qu mixers to various smaller…
Chris Maguire is not a guy who is known for going small. He has lit some of the biggest, loudest bands in the rock pantheon, including Ted Nugent, Cheap Trick, Foghat, Accept and KISS frontman Paul Stanley’s Live To Win tour. But right now he is out carrying an Avolites Tiger Touch II, plus an Avolites Quartz as a backup in his carry-on, lighting YouTube sensations 2CELLOS on a tour that proves that small does not mean meek. “I wasn’t even going to take the gig when I first heard the name 2CELLOS,” he laughed. “I thought, ‘What am I…
Broadwick Live partnered with Intellitix for the second consecutive year to deploy its Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to enable Cashless Payments and smoother Access Control at Snowbombing 2016, 4-9 April. Dubbed ‘the greatest show on snow’, Snowbombing takes place in the Austrian town of Mayrhofen and welcomes over 6,000 festival-goers for a week of world-class music and snow sports. Following on from last year’s success of taking Snowbombing fully Cashless for the first time, Intellitix once again deployed a bespoke system across the entire festival site, which included installing the system’s antenna 1,500ft above Mayrhofen. Intellitix’s RFID system was…
The new Maverick series of powerful moving fixtures from Chauvet Professional generated worldwide buzz when it was shown at Prolight + Sound in early April. Now the company has announced that the first product in the series to be available will be the Maverick MK2 Spot. Bright, fast and loaded with outstanding performance features, the new LED spot is already making waves in the marketplace, according to Chauvet. “The response to the Maverick MK2 Spot has been overwhelming,” said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet. “We aimed this product at the lighting professional and rental house who want a very bright…
Undergraduates of Backstage Academy’s Visual Production course showcased their skills to over 110,000 professionals from around the world this month, as they assisted in the success of a stand at the world renowned Prolight + Sound exhibition in Frankfurt. Employed by global entertainment fabrics firm, J&C Joel, to bring their stand to life with a number of ambitious projection mapping designs, the students received huge praise from both client and visitors alike with their professionalism and level of expertise, completing the project on time, within budget, and with astonishing results. “We were delighted with how the students made our exhibition…
Rental company Sound Design has purchased Nexo’s STM M28 modular line array system for Ireland’s edition of the popular TV talent show, ‘The Voice’, which is produced in the Mahony Hall at the Dublin venue The Helix. This is Sound Design’s fifth consecutive year of providing sound reinforcement for the live shows, keeping things fresh by changing the auditorium PA from the Nexo GEO S8 compact line array to the more powerful M28 cabinets. However, NEXO’s distinctive wedge-shaped 45°N-12 stage monitors remain in place, having become an integral part of the show’s design. Two circles, each formed out of 6x…
In the hands of Wicklow-based systems rental house Sound Design, Nexo’s STM Series line array systems have played a prominent role in Dublin’s month-long official commemorations of the 1916 Easter Rising, the long and bloody rebellion of the Irish people against British rule. ‘Ireland 2016’ was an ambitious and wide-ranging national commemoration with an extensive programme of music and speech, theatre and sport. As in 1916, some of the most significant events took place in Dublin, where large crowds attended ceremonial parades and entertainments, culminating in a multimedia spectacular at the legendary Croke Park Stadium. Irish president Michael Higgins and…
Canadian singer-songwriter Claire Boucher, who performs under the moniker of Grimes, recently made several appearances in the UK as part of her Ac!d Reigns tour. The production, in support of her critically acclaimed 2015 album Art Angels, used a versatile floor lighting and console package from PRG XL Video in Germany as they played venues across continental Europe before shows in Manchester, Dublin, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Nottingham and Glasgow; but for the sell-out extravaganza at London’s iconic Brixton Academy, Lighting Designer Sarah Landau called on PRG XL Video’s UK Senior Account Manager Roy Hunt to help add a little additional…
