Front-of-house engineer John Buitrago (J Balvin, Sebastian Yatra) and monitor engineer Robin Barrera (Ryan Castro, Piso 21, Maluma) recently chose the Waves eMotion LV1 Live Mixer and Waves plugins for Colombian artist Karol G, winner of the 2018 Latin GRAMMY Award for Best New Artist, who performed at the main stage of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. “We did a very successful, solid and consistent U.S. tour, using the LV1 in 2021 with Karol G,” notes FOH John Buitrago. “Everyone was very happy with the mixer’s performance, so we continued using the LV1 throughout 2022 and for the…
Author: James Robertson
Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres U.S. tour kicked off in North Texas at the Cotton Bowl followed by dates in Houston and Seattle and continued through mid-June. The band’s sustainability initiative for this tour is adapting all tour operations to minimise CO2 emissions in line with the best science and practices from set build and travel to freight, power, and sound. The tour will plant one tree for every ticket sold with a portion of the proceeds earmarked for a variety of green initiatives around the world. The Coldplay camp has required that the sound system be 50% more energy…
Swedish pop icons ABBA kicked off ‘ABBA Voyage’ – a concert residency taking place at a purpose built state-of-the-art 3000 capacity arena at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Joined by a ten-piece band, the group perform classics as well as tracks from their platinum-selling new album ‘Voyage’. In this highly anticipated immersive digital concert experience, band members Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus perform virtually as their younger selves via custom-built digital avatars. International technical production practice, Wonder Works were delighted to have been approached by Aniara Film Ltd to take on the Technical Design and Coordination…
Allen & Heath has announced the release of Avantis firmware V1.2, a major update delivering new features including a next-generation RTA engine, Sennheiser wireless integration and a trio of new additions to the dPack bundle of DEEP processors. Front and centre in V1.2 is Allen & Heath’s new RTA engine, built around a comprehensive 61-band bar or line display which can be displayed behind the PEQ curve to enable swift and accurate EQ decisions. Additionally, a sonogram view is provided making it simple to identify room resonances or mix imbalances. With all RTA views also visible on iPad and Director,…
Gearspace.com commemorates its 20th year as the go-to place for audio engineers, music producers, audio schools and organizations. What started as a hobby in 2002 by founder Jules Standen has grown to more than 400,000 members, with over one million discussions and 13 million replies. The forum was born out of the analog-to-digital crossover in the early 2000s that inspired so many enthusiasts to build their own studios. Gearspace covers pro audio gear―from inexpensive microphones to half-million-dollar mixing consoles. As a predominantly user-generated content platform, the forum has become a trusted industry peer resource on the latest products and pre-purchase…
After a two-year postponement, Craig David’s UK tour commenced in April 2022. Initially visiting 13 arenas across the country with a large-scale production based around DiGiCo’s premium Quantum console range. The tour will continue into the summer with festival appearances, formatted as either full live band sets or the artist’s TS5 boutique DJ shows. To ensure seamless audio quality across the range of performances, the sound team specified consoles from DiGiCo’s portfolio. Entitled Hold That Thought, the tour celebrates 20 years since the release of David’s critically acclaimed Born To Do It debut album, which established him as one of…
The Tante Mia Tanzt open-air festival is the largest electro event of its kind in north-western Germany, this year attracting around 20,000 visitors to the Stoppelmarkt grounds in Vechta, Lower Saxony. With DJ acts such as Don Diablo, Felix Jaehn, Lost Frequencies, Monika Kruse and Wildstylez, the one-day event featured an outstanding line-up after a two-year break. Eventures GmbH was responsible for the event technical equipment at the open-air festival. Lighting designer Milan Spira relied entirely on moving lights from Cameo for the electro spectacle, including the new Cameo OTOS H5 Hybrid Beam Spot Wash. In order to enhance the special…
As part of its plans to introduce new talent to the industry, Hertfordshire-based Rigging Team has launched its Entertainment Rigger Training Scheme. Trainees will be provided with the necessary skills, knowledge, experience and confidence to enable them to undertake the role of an Entertainment Rigger and to achieve their National Rigging Certificate (NRC) Level 2 during the 30-month programme. Adam Searle, Managing Director at Rigging Team, said: “We’re always eager to invest in what will be the next generation of people in our industry. Rigging Team is passionate about providing opportunities for young people and actively works to inspire individuals…
PROLIGHTS has debuted the EclNanoPanel TWC, the smallest member of the successful EclPanel range, containing all the outstanding features of the larger format soft lights in a compact-sized, battery-operated luminaire. The new fixture has a 30W RGB+WW source, producing a surprisingly powerful 1,800-lumen output. Its colour technology is the same as the other ECL soft lights, producing rich colours, high-quality white tones, colour gel matching, and onboard pixel cinema effects. The EclNanoPanel TWC is also Spektra calibrated, matching in colour and whites as the other fixtures in the soft light range. The EclNanoPanel TWC has three precision encoders, with multiple…
PALM expo marked a new chapter for ChamSys in India, as it worked the show with its recently appointed dealer, StageMix. “We are extremely happy to welcome StageMix as our Indian dealer,” said Aziz Adilkhodjaev, ChamSys’ International Business Development Manager. “Given the recent surge of interest in our products, we’ve been looking for a partner with the passion for growth that could help us seize the opportunities in front of us. We’re confident we found that partner in StageMix.” Nitesh Narayan, sales manager of StageMix is equally optimistic about future growth. “This is a wonderful opportunity for our company,” he…
Lighting supplier, Limelite Lighting provided 150 Martin MAC Aura PXL units for the Queen’s Jubilee Thanksgiving Service on Friday 3rd June. St Paul’s Cathedral is a venue that is steeped in tradition, even when it comes to lighting, the traditional Par 64 has always been the fixture of choice for lighting designers. However, for the Queen’s Jubilee Thanksgiving Service, Lighting Director and Bafta Award winner, David Bishop stepped away from tradition, opting for an all-new LED lighting rig, with the new Martin MAC Aura PXL taking the leading role as the main lighting fixture. David Bishop explains, “For the Queen’s…
During a 2022 theatre tour through Belgium and the Netherlands, K3’s “Giddy Up & Go” the foot-tappingly catchy third song of the set, features 15 Astera Titan Tubes which are used highly effectively as illuminated props in a skilful collaboration between the tour’s lighting designer, Jeroen Opsteyn of Painting with Light (PWL), choreographer Tommy Gryson, the three K3 girls and 12 dancers. Managed and produced by Studio 100, K3’s new show is a lively, colourful, slick, and streamlined hi-energy performance to entertain all ages. While their major audience comprises the under 10s … parents and grandparents also universally enjoy the…
K-array USA has appointed Matt Schwartz to the post of Regional Sales Manager. He will be report to National Sales Director, Sam Spennacchio. Schwartz comes to K-array USA with over 20 years of experience in design, operation, installation and training for all types of audio, video and lighting systems for houses of worship ranging from cutting edge to simple traditional. He was recently the Main Audio Sales Engineer in the HD Pro Division for HD-Media. During his tenure, he specified several K-array systems for installations. Prior to HD-Media, he was with Diversified where he was also keen to specify K-array…
On May 12, 2022 the historic Palais-Royal in the heart of Paris was the site of an EDM dance fest—Monumental Tour Europe—with a crowd of 2,000 raving to pulsating beats and bass drops beneath a canopy of powerful beam effects from Elation Proteus Excalibur moving heads. Technical solutions provider Magnum provided all of the lighting, sound, power and truss for the event, including the Excalibur fixtures. Elation French distribution is by Best Audio & Lighting. Needing an outdoor-rated beam light that could project far into the night sky, six Excalibur fixtures worked from the top of the building in a…
Eurovision returned to its full splendour in Turin for 2022 after the challenges of the pandemic in 2021. Even the continuing horror of war in Europe failed to affect the event, in fact, only serving to intensify the joy, the magic and the music that Eurovision brings to the world every year. To bring a kaleidoscope of SFX to the stage in Turin, Luca Toscano, CEO of Artech teamed up with Lucas Gerritzen of Pyrofoor de Amsterdam who supplied the FX for the 2021 show in the Netherlands. Artech is a group of companies, that specialise in delivering SFX and…
SLX has opened applications for the 2022/2023 edition of its student support scheme, The Lighting Programme. The programme aims to foster young, upcoming talent within the industry. Students joining the programme will have access to expert mentorship, along with networking opportunities with industry professionals and leading manufacturers to help prepare for the start of their careers. SLX will also provide specialist project support and an equipment package for one of their final year productions. The live event specialists, who work on high profile events like The Commonwealth Games and the West End musical Six, were recent winners of the inaugural…
Following on from its successful range of LED bars introduced last year, Claypaky has now expanded the Tambora family further and introduced Tambora Linear, an advanced line of static LED Pixel mapping bars designed for versatile lighting effects and artistic set decoration. These are hybrid bars, which incorporate two complementary effects into one fixture. The first is driven by a system of 400 RGB pixel LEDs, which offer a background light very similar to that of a high definition LED wall in appearance. This LED array can be controlled as 16 LEDs in 25 groups to provide high quality motion…
Creative Technology (CT) provided technical delivery of the Buckingham Palace projection and main stage LED screens for the BBC’s Platinum Party at the Palace celebration. 2022 marked the 3rd Jubilee celebration the company has been involved in with previous experience in delivering various other high-profile BBC events of this calibre including Election Night Results at BBC Broadcasting House, The 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele, and more recently the 75th anniversary of VJ Day. To seamlessly deliver such a large-scale and high-profile event, Creative Technology assembled some of the industry’s most skilled engineers to display the stunning content which…
