Currently playing an extended run in London’s West End theater district, The Drifters Girl tells the story of Faye Treadwell, the long-time manager of The Drifters, by interweaving her personal narrative with 20 concert-level performances of the seminal R&B/pop group’s chart-topping hits. To maintain the full impact of both the dramatic and musical elements, sound designer Tom Marshall deployed a strategically placed and meticulously balanced system of Meyer Sound point source loudspeakers and compact subwoofers. The Drifters Girl is staged in the intimate Garrick Theatre, an acoustically and architecturally challenging venue that was built in 1889 and now seats 712…
Author: James Robertson
Expanding ADJ’s Hydro Series of powerful, reliable, and affordable IP65-rated moving heads, the new Hydro Beam X12 is a nimble fixture that outputs an intense, razor-sharp beam. Ideal for generating aerial effects at concerts, tours, festivals, and dance events, it combines the punchy Philips Platinum 12R LL MSD 6000-hour discharge lamp technology with a carefully curated selection of beam-shaping tools that include motorised focus and a dynamic 24-facet prism. The Hydro Beam X12 combines the rugged IP65-rated exterior casing design that made the original ADJ Hydro Series fixtures so popular with the light engine and optics that made ADJ’s Vizi…
ETC is set to return to Olympia London for the 2022 PLASA Show from the 4-6 September with the latest product innovations and seminars. The team will be on stand B29 to catch up and network with customers and visitors at the tradeshow. The PLASA show is a prominent event in the UK which showcases technological advancements from the worlds of lighting, audio, AV, rigging and staging. ETC will present a variety of its newest entertainment fixtures and controls including its latest line of consoles: Eos Apex. This powerful, next generation of lighting control offers cutting-edge technology, a variety of…
Avolites will showcase the latest software feature updates, along with a display of its leading state-of-the-art visual control consoles, including a showcase of its flagship console, the Diamond 9, on stand G30 at PLASA 2022, 04 – 06 September. A highlight at the show will be the release of Avolites’ standalone video application PRISM ZERO. The application expands the PRISM range of live production tools alongside significant upgrades to PRISM PLAYER. Further details will be released ahead of the show. Having shone all through the festival season, with a huge presence at Glastonbury and other festivals and tours around the…
Somerset House is inviting businesses to apply to become an accredited supplier. The venue hosts hundreds of events each year for a range of clients and is keen to ensure its suppliers and their services are equally inclusive and sustainable in practice. Rebecca Moore, senior event manager, said: “Somerset House is committed to building a diverse and inclusive community reflecting the nature of our society. Our newly accredited suppliers will reflect this and actively engage with it. There’s a lot of new, forward-thinking talent in our industry, and we welcome businesses both big and small that identify with our beliefs…
Glastonbury Festival 2022 will go down as the most iconic gathering in its 12-year history, with excited crew travelling from as far as Berlin to reunite, stand up and make their mark. Forming the biggest ever festival training team to date, Youth Production Network (YPN) crew had opportunities to join exclusive backstage tours, and supported eight production areas including Interstage, Pyramid, Other, Acoustic and Park Stages, Williams Green, Silver Hayes and the BBC Introducing Stage. Seasoned YPN veterans provided strong team support for those emerging from the pandemic for their very first festival experience. The YPN 2022 Crew included students…
Italian showman and megastar Vasco Rossi completed his Live 022 stadium tour this summer, comprising 11 spectacular, sold-out concert performances watched enthusiastically by three quarters of a million fans, with lighting designed by Vasco’s long-term LD, Giovanni Pinna. Giovanni took the 71-metre-wide stage and over 1000 square meters of video surface in Gio Forma studio’s set concept as a starting point for lighting. He also seized the opportunity to incorporate some interesting technical innovations in the design including a zactrack SMART system to which he assigned multiple moving lights to follow the artist and band at strategic moments throughout this epic…
The entries are now open for the 2022 UK Festival Awards, the only fully festival focussed awards that give fans the opportunity to vote for their favourite events. To be held on 6 December at Manchester’s Escape to Freight Island, the event presents the ideal opportunity for festival organisers and suppliers to get together and reflect on the past season whilst looking forward to the next; the awards themselves will be decided by either fan votes, expert panel, or a combination of both in categories including Best Major Festival, Outstanding Contribution and, for one year only, the Perfect Pivot Award…
Multi-genre English musician Jacob Collier is back on the road for a grand world tour to celebrate his DJESSE album series. The show features an energetic lighting design harnessing the rich colours of the VL2600 range of luminaires from Vari-Lite, a Signify entertainment lighting brand. The design was put together by Luke Edwards, Specification Sales Specialist at Signify. Edwards, who was a full time lighting designer before joining Signify earlier this year, took the opportunity to push the boundaries of his lighting design dynamism, to match five-time GRAMMY Award-winning Collier’s enthusiastic performing style. “Jacob’s concerts are as much about the…
The Milwaukee Irish Fest is the largest Irish music festival outside of Ireland. Located on scenic lakefront grounds at Henry Maier Festival Park, Irish Fest is a celebration of Irish music, food, and culture – organised entirely by volunteers. The festival has grown significantly since its inception nearly four decades ago, with 16 performance stages and over 100 acts this year. All 16 stages featured Allen & Heath mixing consoles – ranging from compact analog ZED mixers to dual dLive front of house and monitor splits at the larger stages. Performers this year included Celtic rock groups Skerryvore, Enter the…
Valjak I Prijatelji (Valjak & friends) was a very special show staged in Pula, Croatia, in the city’s magnificent Arena Roman amphitheatre venue and dedicated to Aki Rahimovski, lead singer of legendary Croatian rockers Parni Valjak. The enigmatic frontman died suddenly and unexpectedly in January aged 66, just ahead of a major tour, leaving everyone deeply shocked. Slovenian lighting designer Nikola ‘Niko’ Podlesnik was honoured to be lighting the emotionally charged gig. He chose Robe moving lights as the backbone of his rig to help deliver all the drama and sentiment of the evening, which saw the remaining members of…
ROE Visual will present its new LED platform, Graphite at PLASA Show 2022. The ROE Visual team can be found at stand F3. The PLASA Show continues to be an unmissable event for entertainment technology. The show offers a unique opportunity to meet major manufacturers under one roof, make meaningful connections, and network with fellow professionals. The show is taking place at Olympia’s Grand Hall in London and is held from 4-6 September 2022. At the show, you can find the ROE Visual team on their stand F3, where they will present the new Graphite LED platform next to existing…
Solotech has announced the appointment of Lee Unsworth as Director of UK Operations – Live Productions, working out of the group’s Manchester office. In this new role, Lee will oversee the day-to-day running of the company’s Live Productions operations at the five warehouse locations in Manchester, Redditch, Hemel Hempstead, London and Southampton. Lee first joined the group as Operations Manager for the Manchester office in June 2019 before stepping up to the role of General Manager. Lee Unsworth commented, “I’m looking forward to taking on this expanded role. Since becoming part of the Solotech group we have sought to standardise…
Genelec has further strengthened its growing AV business by appointing Audio XL as its distribution partner for the entire Genelec AV Installation range throughout the Benelux region. Audio XL’s appointment also deepens the relationship between Genelec and the European AV Group, providing Genelec AV customers with consistently high levels of experience, professionalism and service right across the six DACH and Benelux territories. Founded in 2004 and based in Utrecht, Netherlands, the Audio XL team specialises in the live, retail and installed sound markets and combines exceptional levels of sales and marketing expertise, technical knowledge and system design – all backed…
Following a successful launch event in New York City last week, the ADJ Future Focus Road Show will roll out to locations across the USA and Mexico throughout Autumn. First up will be an open house at ADJ’s Global Headquarters in Los Angeles, CA, on Thursday, August 25, before the Road Show hits cities across the USA and Mexico over the coming months. Each event will showcase ADJ’s latest product releases and also offer an opportunity for industry professionals to gather, socialize and share ideas. On Tuesday August 16, ADJ officially launched the Future Focus Road Show series at a…
Roskilde – Denmark’s largest and highest profile international music festival and a glorious and diverse celebration of music, art, activism, and freedom – celebrated 50 years this year with a fantastic line-up across multiple stages, with Robe moving lights playing a major role on the famous Orange Stage and in the expansive Arena Stage venue. The fiftieth anniversary had been due to take place in 2020 but was delayed two years due to the pandemic, and while a small version of the festival took place in 2021 in one of the barns on its site just south of Copenhagen, this…
Showlight will be exhibiting at PLASA Show 2022 on Stand A8 giving visitors the chance to meet some of the Committee that organise this unique quadrennial event and discover more about what the event has to offer. Showlight Chairman, John Allen, and Showlight Technical Director and past-Chairman of the Papers Committee, Bernie Davis, will also present a seminar “Discover Showlight 2023” as part of the PLASA Educational & Seminar programme, on Sunday 4 September at 12.45pm – 13.15pm in Seminar Theatre 1. John and Bernie will outline what you can expect – in form and content – at Showlight 2023…
Ayrton, which celebrates its 20th Anniversary this year, will be exhibiting its latest ground breaking LED lighting products on the stand of its exclusive UK distributor, Ambersphere Solutions (Stand C11). New for this year and being exhibited for the first time in the UK are Cobra, Zonda 9 FX and Domino LT. All three of these products have enjoyed phenomenal success on the plethora of tours and festivals that have taken place worldwide since their launch. Cobra is Ayrton’s first laser sourced, IP65 rated fixture. Designed for rendering a D65 white point that allows perfect colour reproduction, Cobra is the…
