production news

Democracy for Listeners at European Parliamentary Elections

As the fountainhead of democracy in the Western hemisphere the EU is bound by its own conventions to give every citizen a voice, and in so doing make sure that as many voices as possible be heard. The elections for the European Parliament were no exception.

On Sunday June 7 an international press conference was convened at the EU headquarters in Brussels to hear the outcome of this Europe-wide poll. As vote counts were resolved the results were relayed to the assembled masses of the World's press by none other than d&b audiotechnik's innovative T-Series loudspeakers, and simultaneously broadcast via live TV across the whole of Europe.

The bi-polar system design, two line arrays of eleven T10 loudspeakers positioned directly above the broadcast dais from where the televised result announcements were staged, was made by Patrick Van Cauwenberghe, who barely two months ago attended his first T-Series seminar at the Cirque Royale in Brussels. "This system is simply the perfect one for the job," said Van Cauwenberghe. "Looks and size are important for television's aesthetic, and the lightweight T10 loudspeaker addressed structural considerations. Performance and propagation were critical for the acoustic of this domed installation environment; any colouration of the stage microphones was 100% unacceptable and the T-Series made that an easy goal to achieve."

The system was supplied and rigged by Laurent Fortier SPRL of Belgium. "We were the first buyer of the T10 in Belgium," said Monsieur Fortier. "We already use a lot of Q-Series loudspeakers; knowing the d&b quality I made my purchase without even hearing the system. I have never encountered a d&b product that didn't do exactly what the brochure says it will do and the multiple applications possible with T-Series is very attractive. For this particular project I am grateful for support from Amptec, the Distributor for d&b in Belgium. It was a great day for all of us."

HSL Tells a few White Lies!

HSL is supplying a specials package for LD Chris Megginson and the super-hot UK indie rockers White Lies' current European festival tour, which was boosted for the band's appearance at Glastonbury 2009.

Megginson went to HSL to help design a rig that was quick to install in the 20-minute changeover for their Friday afternoon slot on Glasto's Other Stage - which would also make real impact in daylight.

Additionally, the band played the second to headline slot on the John Peel Stage on Saturday night with a modified version of the rig, plus a set in the Guardian Tent on Sunday of the UK's best known festival.

The Other Stage lighting rig was built from five sections of vertical A-type truss towers - 2 metres in the centre, 2.5 for the next two and then 3 metres for the two offstage ones. All were placed upstage and gently curved around the backline for an arc effect when viewed from the front. These were mounted on HSL's special X-bases, then simply wheeled onstage and secured in place with screw-down pads.

Eighty PAR 64s were rigged in square arrays on the towers facing downstage. Above the PARs on the four outer towers, were 20 Martin Atomic strobes rigged on four IWBs and clamped at alternate 45? angles to draw people's eyes to the flown scenic 'WL' insignia'd backdrop.

Six Redheads and 6 PAR 30s were used for lighting the band close-up from the risers. The PAR 30s were fitted with 240V 75W lamps, allowing them to be run straight off the dimmers without transformers, minimising the chance of noise across the audio.

Two HSL techs - Andy "Paris" Hilton and Tom Wright - crewed at Glastonbury and HSL's Tim Fawkes project managed. " We came up with a quick-to-rig, cost effective solution for the design maintaining the aesthetics of Chris's rig which worked extremely successfully," says Fawkes.

Megginson merged the White Lies Glasto rig with his existing festival rig and the Glastonbury 'house' systems, and ran the show from Hog PC running on a laptop complete with a programming and a playback wing attached.

He says: "Thanks to Other Stage stage manager Chris Fitch for accommodating all our extras - it's very unusual for a band to bring on that much kit for a daytime set! White Lies' Glastonbury weekend was a huge success, in no small part down to the hard work and support given by the wonderful team at HSL."

Element Labs Stealth Screen for Britney Spears World Tour

Element Labs' Stealth LED technology has stood centre-stage with many of the world's leading performers, including Led Zeppelin, Kylie, Muse, Madonna and now also Britney Spears. Stealth, which set the industry standard for light, transparent video screens, is the ideal robust, reliable LED display solution for a demanding life on the road.

The Stealth displays, supplied by Solotech, are used in two separate circular screens: one screen above center stage and a smaller circular screen around the elevator. The main circular Stealth screen totals 1,300 panels with a height of 4 metres and a circumference of 58 metres. The rigging for the impressive screens was custom-made by Tait. The Stealth screen is used to show custom-made content developed by Franco Dragone's team under the guidance of Dirk Decloedt. The screen shows unique animated and stylized images created specifically for each song, which add brightly colorful content enhancing the Circus experience that themes the tour.

Barbara Nelson of Element Labs says: "Stealth has proven itself to be an absolutely fantastic LED product for the concert touring industry. It offers the visual performance expected of a high-quality LED product, yet also delivers the limited weight and size as well as ease-of-use that is so critical in this industry."

ADB's Svoboda Batten Turns Day to Night for Nine Miles Down

The ADB Svoboda Batten, one of the most distinctive and venerable lighting instruments in ADB Lighting's catalogue, but best known for its role in theatre, opera and live music productions, has had a major role in the production of a new psychological thriller from acclaimed film director Anthony Waller.

Nine Miles Down, set for release next year, promises a spine-chilling journey into the psyche of a man struggling to escape his tortured past. Set in an experimental deep-crust drilling station in a remote and sandstorm-blown region of the Sahara Desert, the movie opens with Thomas ‘Jack' Jackman (Adrian Paul), a security patrolman, battling through the storm to discover why all contact with the station has been lost.

The complex is empty yet well stocked with food and resources. It is eerie, inexplicable and unsettling, but, stranded by the howling sandstorm, Jack is forced to stay the night. Next morning the storm has abated and, to his surprise, Jack encounters a beautiful woman jogging in from the desert. She is Jennie ‘JC' Christianson (Kate Nauta), who claims to be the last remaining member of the science team. She tells how they breached the roof of a vast cavern at the unprecedented depth of nine miles, swiftly followed by a series of mysterious incidents. And from there, the plot thickens considerably.

A disused champagne factory in Budapest provided a suitably atmospheric location for Nine Miles Down, but wasn't without its challenges, as Director of Photography Roger Simonsz explains: "We were going to shoot all the interiors in studios in Hungary, but there were a lot of other shoots going on there at the same time, so we settled for the factory. It looked good but not being a real studio there was no lighting grid, so our first task was to design the rig. So, I relied on my old theatre experience and designed a truss which would do what I wanted to do in the complex."

"Because our principal source lighting in the corridors of the desert complex would be small sources of light from doors and skylights at intervals along the corridor ceiling, and it had to accommodate lighting from daylight to moonlight and sandstorms blowing in, the rig had to be quite versatile. We didn't have lots of time in there so I needed to be able to change from one look to another with a single lighting rig in place and change things very quickly."

The team suspended 18 downward-facing ADB Svoboda Battens, sourced from local supplier Vision Team, from the grid. Says Simonsz: "They were a little bemused at first and I them showed photos of the Svobodas and said ‘nothing else will do', because something more filmic like 5ks or PARs would actually have put a lot of lighting where it wasn't needed.

"The skylights were almost the same size as each Svoboda which allowed each beam to be shaped by the skylight itself, and I changed the colours from day to night with gels. So, for instance, for the nightmare sequence there's a 5k behind each door and a Svoboda glowing above each skylight - and the colour was achieved using Lee 161 slate blue. The beauty was that it was so easy to put the color on top of each skylight to change to a different look."

Simonsz had first encountered the fixture - named after its inventor, the Czech National Theatre scenographer Josef Svoboda - for a play at the Belfast Lyric Theatre at the height of the Troubles ("I took it through security as hand luggage and no one batted an eyelid," he recalls in amazement) and then, remarkably, lit no less a celeb than Pink Floyd's David Gilmour as part of a charity ‘super group' performance at Alexandra Palace in London.

"I lit Dave's solo using one slanted Svoboda from Neg Earth," he laughs, "which was part of the backlight along the truss, So it was a much more interesting chance this time to play with 18 of them! They're really fantastic; I can't praise them enough; the beam has a unique texture that you can really feel, even without smoke - great if you really want to make a statement."

In picture: Jennie ‘JC' Christianson, played by Kate Nauta, in the Svoboda-lit desert complex's corridor.

www.adblighting.com

RG Jones Rocks the Pyramid at Glastonbury

It's already been described by organiser Michael Eavis as the "best ever" Glastonbury and for audio rental company RG Jones Sound Engineering it marked the third year in succession in charge of the legendary Pyramid Stage. This year the London based company, a member of the Synco Europe Network founded by Ampco, supplied a full Synco package including Synco by Martin Audio W8L Longbow main PA line arrays and Martin Audio delays, a massive Synco cardioid sub-bass array and a complete Synco stage monitoring and drum fill system.

Yasha Morgenstern, deputy production manager of Glastonbury Festival, commented: "We asked RG Jones to provide a redesigned arena system for the Pyramid Stage, to give better coverage and less overspill in that notoriously difficult arena. We are more than pleased with the result, with many reports of improved arena sound this year. Control, monitors and stage ran faultlessly, and visiting artists' systems were dealt with smoothly. Overall a first-class job."

Among the Pyramid Stage legends that made this amazing weekend their own were Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Blur, Lily Allen, The Specials, Madness, Dizzee Rascal, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Kasabian, Tom Jones and Fleet Foxes. Performances from Dizzee Rascal's Bonkers to Neil Young's storming Keep On Rocking In The Free World, from Madness's Our House to Blur's Park Life were among a host of great Glastonbury moments.

RG Jones Sound Engineering returned with an advanced version of the Pyramid Stage PA design created last year in conjunction with Martin Audio's Jason Baird and Jim Cousins - both of whom joined the system design team again this year, along with Chris Ekers.

The main PA consisted of two 16-deep hangs per side of Synco by Martin Audio Longbow line array, powered by Synco drive racks and aligned via XTA AudioCore software. Coverage was extended to the rear of the huge bowl by a broad line of four 16-deep hangs of Martin Audio W8LC compact cabinets.

A new cardioid sub-bass array, arranged along the width of the stage front, also played a huge part in directing audio energy into the audience, while eliminating sound interaction between the Pyramid, Other and Jazz World Stages.

It comprised 35 Synco WS318X triple 18" sub-bass cabinets, with one rear-facing cabinet placed, out of phase and precisely delayed, between every pair of forward-facing cabinets. The design allowed the array to self-cancel rearwards bass spill, making both the stage itself and the backstage areas free of unwanted sub-bass. The horizontal directivity of the sub array was also adjusted to match the shape of the field, using computer-modelled time delay techniques.

Says Chris Ekers: "The combination of the line arrays with a cardioid sub array produced excellent directivity and propagation into the audience areas, often leaving some on stage to wonder if the PA was on! The addition of a fourth delay position this year provided near seamless horizontal coverage across the wider part of the field beyond 100m and up the hill to the boundary 250m from stage. Each hang was zoned so that the upper array sections were independently adjustable, helping reduce noise levels in the village of Pilton 1100m from stage." Working closely with the noise monitoring teams, Chris added, "when we breached our limit at the measurement boundaries and were asked to reduce levels, I was able to make small level changes to the system without affecting the engineers mixing at FOH or the enjoyment of the majority of the audience; it worked well".

FOH control comprised a pair of Midas XL4 consoles, with a Heritage 1000 as the central signal matrix serving the main system drive racks. The team opted for an all-analogue set-up at FOH this year as the XL4 had turned out, in pre-production discussions between RG Jones audio production manager and FOH engineer Steve Carr and this year's bands' engineers, to be the majority's preferred choice. System EQ was achieved using XTA digital EQ with a wireless tablet and Klark Teknik DN360 for grab EQ. Working alongside Steve Carr were Diarmuid McLennan and system engineer Chris Ekers, while Ampco's Remco Verhoek brought his long experience with Synco systems to the team as PA rigger.

Up on the iconic stage, the house monitor system comprised proprietary Synco low-profile dual-concentric CW15A 15" wedges, driven by Synco amp racks, along with a Synco drum sub-bass system with a triple-18" WS318X, a 2x15" Synco STS subwoofer and a 15" Synco CW15A wedge for the top end, run from a drum sub-bass drive rack custom-built by Synco for the occasion.

A dual Yamaha PM5D setup provided the house monitor mix, controlled by a single Yamaha DME64 which allowed both desks to access the same wedge system simultaneously for maximum flexibility. Monitor world was in the hands of Paul Meyers and George Hogan.

An RG Jones innovation introduced at Glastonbury 2007 was continued - the sophisticated shout system between stage and FOH, with all stage crew wearing a radio IEM and a push-to-talk radio headset, while FOH and monitors had switched microphones and wedges, controlled by a dedicated Yamaha LS9 mixer.

As a wet first day turned into a weekend's hot sunshine the stage and FOH teams delivered sound for a total of 24 bands. Pre-production manager and RG Jones stage manager / splits master Mark Isbister commented: "It was another faultless year on the Pyramid Stage with some amazing performances from a dream line-up. A big shout must go to the stage team of Ben Milton, Laura Yensen and Matt Sussex; without their teamwork all my pre-planning would have been wasted. Here's to the next one."

Technical Director Acoustics of RPS Planning and Development David Leversedge said: "RG Jones not only provided fantastic sound for the Pyramid Stage, but also worked closely with RPS to achieve the very tight off site noise limits."

RG Jones's Sarah Muggleton, on site throughout the weekend, added: "After all the positive feedback from Glastonbury and the artists we particularly want to thank our fantastic crew for delivering great results all weekend long."

In picture: Synco by Martin Audio Line Arrays Power the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury 2009

photo Mike Lethby

grandMA and her Sister Act

A grandMA full-size is controlling moving lights and LED elements for the latest musical sensation to hit London's West End, ‘Sister Act', a new musical comedy based on the smash hit musical starring Whoopi Goldberg. The show, produced by Stage Entertainment and Whoopi Goldberg, has just opened at the London Palladium.

Natasha Katz is the lighting designer. When she asked Stuart Porter to programme the show for her - the two have previously worked together on Beauty & The Beast - Porter wanted to use a grandMA system, a decision Katz was happy to support. Porter has increased his specification of the grandMA, and on this show he uses a grandMA full-size, a grandMA light for backup and four MA NSPs. A tablet PC running grandMA remote software is also used to run the lights from stage.

The rig contained over 100 moving lights - a mix of 62 Vari*Lite VL3500Qs, 60 VL2500s and 18 VL500s, all supplied by White Light. The many LED elements are ensconced in the set, with several custom scenic pieces designed and built by Howard Eaton Lighting Ltd (HEL). They include seven fibre optics with dimmer, colour wheel and twinkle disk functions and 160 other differently-sized LED panels, built to resemble stained glass windows of the abbey in which the principal stage action ensues. These RGB LEDs work off a grandMA virtual dimmer RGB profile for ease of programming, and really make the environment come alive with colour, creating different moods and atmospheres.

Another 28 RGB LED strips are embedded in the bar area, the steps and even integrated into a sofa, again on a virtual dimmer, with a total of nine DMX universes being run from the console. Porter reckons that grandMA is the "only" lighting console around at the moment capable of running this type and size of show with as much adaptability, and "it does the job extremely well."

The grandMA also triggers an Obsession that drives the show's generic lights. The grandMA is operated by the house crew each night, who are also giving plenty of positive feedback about the desk.

Sister Act is one of a number of other high profile UK theatre shows being run with grandMA - others include The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert (also programmed by Porter) at the Palace Theatre, and the UK tours of We Will Rock You and Never Forget The Musical (both programmed by Dave Sadler).

photo Catherine Ashmore

www.malighting.com

Martin Joins in FC Barcelona's Three Cups Celebration

FC Barcelona was crowned European champions of football on May 27 with a 2 - 0 defeat of Manchester United. That, perhaps, was not unusual. After all, FC Barcelona has won the UEFA Champions League before.

What is more unusual is that FC Barcelona is the first football club in Spain to attain the coveted treble: National League Cup, Kings Cup and UEFA Champions League Cup.

It is certainly not unusual that Martin Professional was chosen to share in a special Three Cups celebration for FC Barcelona at Nou Camp Stadium in Barcelona before nearly 100,000 spectators.

Supplier Serveis de l'Espectacle Focus, S.A. provided a Martin package that included MAC 2000 series moving heads, Stagebar 54 LED battens, Jem ZR33 Hi-Mass fog machines and AF-1 fans, together with a large number of followspots, lasers and other special effects for the event. All Martin lighting gear was supplied through Martin's Spanish distributor Ecler. Lighting designer for the event was by Xavier Costas.

PR Lighting's Glastonbury Workout

MilTec (UK) Ltd again joined forces with the South West Group to supply PR Lighting automated fixtures and LED effects for this year's Park and BBC Introducing stages.

SWG have been involved in the evolution of the Park Stage since its launch three years ago and as a result of their co-operation with MilTec (UK) have been able to keep up to date with the developing catalogue of products from the Chinese lighting manufacturers.

Said SWG operations manager, Mark Bott: "Last year the PR Lighting moving heads were really bright and functional, but the true test for a hire company is how those lights bear up in a live situation. These endured a raft of conditions and we didn't have a single fault, so we were more than happy with them and were pleased to be using them again."

This year the presentation was beefed up for acts which headlined Animal Collective and Bon Iver over the three days. Ten PR Lighting XL1200 wash lights and XL Framing 1200s adorned the stage's front, mid and rear lighting trusses and six lighting bars.

The occasion also provided a first major outing for PR Lighting's newly-launched XLED 590's. Using Osram's Diamond Dragon LED, one of the world's brightest single-chip SMT LEDs each head contains 90 high power 5W RGB LED's with an average lamp life of 100,000 hours. The light output closely resembles that of a conventional wash light containing a 1200W discharge lamp - and it really showed.

Also featuring as graphic effects were 28 of MilTecs' own MT Lighting LED battens. These 1 metre long IP65 rated units use 252 lensed LEDs to give a bright, focused beam from four individually controlled sections. At the same time South West Group redeployed 14 PR Lighting XL250s (used last year along with Pilot 150's on the main stage) and two PR Lighting XL700 on the BBC Introducing stage. Sixteen MT Lighting battens were used as audience blinders.

Said SWG's lighting designer, Tim Smith: "This was the first time I had worked with PR Lighting fixtures. They had been recommended by MilTec and I must say I was hugely impressed."

He added that they had not only worked closely with PR Lighting's UK distributors but also local company, James Ashdown's Automated Ltd., who supplied the XL1200 wash lights and XL250's.

But rigging the effects within the fabric of the Serious Stages 16m Supernova orbit stage had proved challenging. "We had to provide a lot of rigging to support a 4-tonne load because we were unable to fly the effects." All the lighting on The Park main stage was triggered from an Avo Diamond 4 lighting desk, while a Pearl Expert controlled the XL250 effects on the BBC Introducing stage, where South West Group's Lewis Beal handled the lighting programming.

One week earlier Beal had been on duty at GoldCoast Oceanfest 2009 - a three day Surf and Music festival held at Croyde Bay in Devon.

Here, the lighting dynamics were built around 12 XL250 automated heads, with Beal taking full advantage of the product's rich featureset, including interchangeable colour gobos and motorised zoom lens and iris These were complemented by four of the XLED 590's.

The event, which was headlined by.Jason Mraz and Newton Faulkner, was seen as a warm-up for Glastonbury and PR Lighting's UK distributors, MilTec (UK) Ltd also supported the production company at this event.

Summarised MilTec UK technical director, Graham Gosden: "The PR Lighting fixtures behaved superbly throughout both events, delivering bright, powerful colours, with a fast response time from the Avolites boards. They also showed their durability when functioning in outdoor conditions - and performed flawlessly at both locations.

In picture: performing under the XL1200's ... Animal Collective

Stage Electrics Under Water in Woolwich

The Greenwich + Docklands International Festival returned during the weekend with a spectacular water-themed programme for 2009. The four day free event was packed with performances by UK and international artists using water-based interpretations to explore and reflect the unique identity of Greenwich and East London.

On Saturday evening, the historic Royal Arsenal in Woolwich on the banks of the Thames, was transformed by Dutch company Close Act as they performed their Pi-Leau. Pi-Leau was set in a fictional Woolwich submerged by water, following rising sea levels. Part fairytale and part apocalyptic vision, giant structures and stilt performers combined with pyrotechnics to create an experience in which Waterworld collided with The Little Mermaid.

To bring this theme to life, Stage Electrics provided City Color outdoor architectural floodlights, six towers of 12 PARcans which lit the main performance area, followspots, Martin MAC 2000 moving lights in waterproof inflatable domes, sound, rigging and an Altair wireless intercom system for the company's technical crew on site.

The impressive production also used ingenious staging which put the audience right at the centre of the performance. Befitting its theme, the rain came down heavily during the 80-minute performance, but the performers and technical equipment carried on, much to the delight of the audience. This was the first time the Pi-Leau was performed in the UK by Close Act, a highly acclaimed professional group of actors, musicians, stilt-walkers, dancers, pyrotechnicians and acrobats.

photo: Briony Campbell

MTFX at ICC World Twenty20

MTFX were asked to provide the special effects for the Twenty20 men's and women's finals at Lord's Cricket Ground.

As each team ran on to the ground they were accompanied by a series of CO2 jets 5m high set in to a chase sequence using a specialist DMX controller.

The cup lift for the England women's team was enhanced by further CO2 jets and large scale streamer effects using 14 streamer cannons, each holding 1 kilo of streamers.

For the cup lift for the Pakistani men's team MTFX also provided the CO2 jets and arena streamer effects, together with a display of pyrotechnics comprising comets, mines and jets and their new five-way Firedance system to provide a colourful choreographed finale.

In picture: the winning England Women's team after the event.

The DiGiCo Difference Arrives in Montreux

It's than more 40 years since Claude Nobs created the Montreux Jazz Festival. In the intervening years, its diverse musical programme has grown to encompass much more than just jazz - Claude's original and enduring passion - and continues to attract music fans and artists from Switzerland and around the world.

This year, DiGiCo is proud to become a sponsor of the Festival, an opportunity that has come its way as a result of Claude's open minded approach to new ideas and technologies and his desire to make sure that everyone who visits the Festival has the best possible all round experience.

"We are up in the mountains, up with the cows and up in the sky," says Claude. "But for me it is so important that the Festival remains leading edge, that we adopt new technologies that bring improvements to the audience's experience.

"The introduction of FPGA design and the benefits for the engineers are quite impressive. DiGiCo are frontrunners in this change in audio processing and it is a great result for the Festival that DiGiCo has chosen to become part of the sponsorship programme."

DiGiCo had already won half the battle with Patrick Vogelsang, head of audio for the Festival, before he'd even experienced its consoles firsthand.

"It's refreshing to me that the company is so in tune with the industry and the engineers' needs," he says. "When we saw the SD7 and SD8 with the FPGA design, it was clear that for once we had a platform that would exceed our requirements at the Festival.

"We were up and mixing on the demo console in 15 minutes - and for a festival the shortest learning curve is crucial. We then asked a lot of questions as to how flexible the system could be and both consoles remove a lot of the work we had to put in place in the past."

"I'm excited about the Festival this year as we have an amazing line up and I'm looking forward to experiencing the DiGiCo difference over the Festival," Claude concludes. "I'd like to thank the Festival audio team and DiGiCo for making it happen."

www.digico.org

Five 103" Plasmas Flown for Whitbread Annual Conference

A staggering five 103" Plasmas were flown 10m in the air at Ricoh Arena, weighing in at an impressive 1,100kg, to relay the action for the annual Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants Conference.

The conference, produced by Buckmark Productions for the fifth consecutive year, took place at the Ricoh Arena and this year brought together more Whitbread employees than ever before.

With 2,500 attendees from the restaurant and hotel divisions of Whitbread meeting for the annual conference, Buckmark Productions had to redesign the conference set, creating an ‘in the round' seating system with a circular stage in the middle.

Blue i Event Technology was commissioned to design and install the AV equipment required for the event and the new conference format posed new challenges.

Ian Riley, project manager for Blue i explained: "Due to the sheer size of the audience, the ‘in the round' format meant speakers could engage better with the delegates, but presented new challenges with the AV production.

"With audiences facing different angles towards the stage, sight lines became critical as not everyone would be able to see the projection screens on the back wall of the set. We brought in five 103" plasmas from PSCo and flew them from the 10m high truss system spanning the stage perimeter. This allowed those people sat in the higher tiers and towards the edge of the circular stage, to not miss any of the action."

As part of the conference set, two 6metre Imag projection screens were hung to relay live feeds from the stage, and Blue i's Media Hub Rack conveyed over 25 inserts in a four-hour presentation.

John Roebuck, managing director of Buckmark Productions commented: "The team worked very hard to ensure this technical solution would work, as the client wanted every delegate to feel ‘involved' with the conference. Sight-lines were critical to achieving the objectives of the brief, and I was personally delighted with the 103" plasma screens. Every seat in the auditorium had a fantastic view of the screens - which carried both PPT slides and VTs - and the nett result was one one very successful event and one very, very happy client."

The 103" Panasonic plasma screens are available from PSCo for rental on the specially designed screenlifter which allows transportation and use of the screen more accessible for temporary use. They can also be easily flown or mounted on the wall for temporary installations. PSCo team of AV specialists offer 24/7 support for the product range.

Martin Gear for Elton John / Billy Joel Face 2 Face Tour

Two of the entertainment industry's top piano men - Sir Elton John and Billy Joel - have reunited for an extensive ‘Face 2 Face' tour, continuing what is being described as the most successful and longest-running concert pairing in pop history.

John and Joel are touring the US together in an extraordinary show that sees the musicians play a series of duets on twin pianos, perform separately for an hour each, and then conclude the performance together on stage. The show includes some of their greatest hits along with a selection of rock ‘n' roll classics.

Steven Cohen Productions, in conjunction with Epic Production Technologies and Syncrolite supplied a large lighting package that includes Martin MAC III Profiles, MAC 700 Profiles and MAC 2000 Washes with lighting control from a Martin Maxxyz and Maxxyz Modules. Video control for low resolution LED screens is from a Martin Maxedia Broadcast.

Production Designer for the show is Steve Cohen. Lighting design is by Cohen and Mark Foffano. Foffano programmed for both artists and served as the overall system designer. Kevin ‘Stick' Bye serves as Elton John's lighting director.

The lighting rig includes 32 Martin Professional 1500 watt MAC III Profiles located upstage on three separate hinged trusses that conform to the angle of the upstage.

"The MAC IIIs are extremely bright, and their optics are amazing," states Foffano, who has worked with Joel since 1998. "They're brute lights that push themselves through anything, the video screen, the background..." For both John and Joel the powerful MAC III beams are used to shine through the low res LED screen / scenery in what Foffano describes as an awe-inspiring look.

The MAC III Profile features a unique fat beam and houses an enhanced CMY color mixing system for a wider range of vibrant colors - true reds for example. A fixed color wheel houses interchangeable slots for an even broader color range.

"The colors are outstanding and color changes are incredibly fast," Foffano continues. "The color mechanism is crisp and the color saturations are excellent - the cyan and magenta are really clean and pure." When asked about reliability, Foffano reported no issues.

The MAC 700 Profiles sit atop LED built into a Tait Towers lifting system that allows the look of a skyline. The MAC 2000s are located in trusses both upstage and downstage.

Two Martin Maxedia Broadcasts - Martin's user-friendly media server for media composing and playback - feed graphical content to low resolution LED screens over the stage. One Maxedia Broadcast is used for pixelmapping and the other for video content purposes. Maxedia programming was executed by Curtis Cox.

The entire show and Maxedia servers are controlled by just one Martin Maxxyz console using more than 26 universes of DMX. The DMX is transmitted from the Maxxyz console backstage over ArtNet. Maxxyz Modules provide easy direct playback access.

"Maxxyz is a platform we are comfortable with," says Foffano. "We've been using it for about five years now. Its ease of programming is a great time saver - you can get to where you're going without having to push a thousand buttons. The support is great too. It doesn't matter where we are in the world, we can always call someone."

The Elton John / Billy Joel Face 2 Face tour is expected to run periodically over the next two years with a stadium tour this summer and more dates set for November.

Maximum Power: grandMA2 Road Tested with Maximo Park

The latest Maximo Park tour was the first in the UK to feature one of MA Lighting's new grandMA2 consoles - a grandMA2 light - which was specified and programmed by Glen Johnson to run the lighting rig which was designed by the band's LD, Stevie Marr. The console ran the new grandMA2 software - the very first touring show to demonstrate its power!

Johnson operated the show for the first part of the tour while Marr completed his work commitments with Die Toten Hosen, after which he took over running the Maximo tour. All lighting equipment including the grandMA2 light was supplied by Blackburn-based Lite Alternative, having just invested in two of the new grandMA2 consoles.

Johnson decided to use the desk after a demo a few weeks previously from the team at MA Lighting UK, and being really impressed - he has used grandMA consoles before, but not actually spec'd them onto a tour until now. "As soon as I touched the grandMA2 I liked the feel of it," he recalls, "It's neat and compact and the faders are just fantastic. They far surpass any previous motorised faders and in fact, you don't even notice that they are there!" He continues, saying that the "fine, smooth and gentle" tactility of the faders remind him of the Penny & Giles feel - for many years considered the absolute Rolls Royce brand in the world of faders! He's also impressed with the touch screens, commenting on their speed, saying "I think MA have really cracked it with grandMA2."

Marr's design for the band continued its characteristic hard edged rawness akin to the band's energetic performance style and music, utilising a lot of LED, white light sources and shadow-play techniques, primarily from floor-mounted fixtures on a series of stands and towers. For the newer songs, he introduced more effects and a slightly softer graphical style of lighting, primarily with effects created by a couple of moving lights positioned upstage on the deck.

Some further moving lights were rigged at head-height for laser simulation effects, joined by Martin washes distributed around the stage and on the front and back trusses, utilised for floor fills, key lights and some tasty silhouetting. 12 4-lite Moles, 12 Atomic 3000 strobes and eight floor PARs behind the band were all triggered each time lead singer Paul Smith stepped onto pressure pads concealed in a light box. He used this frenetically throughout the performance as an interactive stage prop.

For shadow gags and effects 10 Omni Foto Floods were dotted around the performance space, and a system of 48 high definition Element Labs VersaTubes was fed via a Catalyst media server.

The grandMA2 light was run in full tracking backup with another grandMA2 light console. The rig was versatile and adaptable so it looked good - and could be fitted into even the smallest venues on the itinerary.

Marr and Johnson programmed the video together and then Johnson used the grandMA 3D to plot the light show to Marr's instructions and style. Johnson was also really impressed with grandMA 3D. "I can't believe they give it away for free," he declares, adding that they have also received excellent support from MA UK and from Germany throughout the process that led to Lite Alternative investing in the two new consoles.

"It's done everything I've wanted it to do," he enthuses. "It's a great size, fabulous to operate ... and it just works."

photo: Louise Stickland

www.malighting.com

PRG Lights Britain's Got Talent

With more than 19 million people watching, PRG Lighting and Dave Davey lit the dramatic Britain's Got Talent finals as dance troupe Diversity beat favourite Susan Boyle.

The show became the highest watched reality show in history and with a 71% viewer share at peak, claimed the highest ratings of any UK television show since England lost against Portugal in the Euro 2004 football tournament.

PRG have a long history of lighting ITV's biggest shows and were proud to be involved again. Working alongside lighting designer Dave Davey, PRG project manager Kelly Cornfield provided a lighting package flexible enough to create the range of looks demanded by more than 50 unique performances across the semi-final and grand finale week.

The show was a visual spectacular with an expansive set, lined with curved pillars of Chromastrip and flanked by two 5m high cylinders clad with MiTrix. "With that amount of Scenic LED as well of the large high resolution screen at the rear of the set, the brightness of the lighting fixtures was a key consideration," commented Kelly Cornifield. "The rig included 38 VL3000 Spots which really cut though, creating the hard beam effect that worked so well for many of the fast paced, highly styled performances such as Diversity and Flawless."

Dave Hallett, crew chief for the show added: "I was very happy to be working with PRG again on Britain's Got Talent. I know that they have access to an enormous variety of kit, so they wouldn't be phased with my requests - whatever we need. There are always last-minute requests for the show, and I always know that the gear will be there on time and work first time. After all - if the lights go off in front of 19 million viewers there'll be hell to pay!"

Ever since the audition clip of Susan Boyle hit YouTube and clocked up more than 100 million views, the world's eyes have been on Britain's Got Talent, and the week of spectacular semi-final and grand final performances didn't fail to deliver.

photo: Ken McKay/Rex Features

Yamaha Digital Consoles Dominate at Glastonbury 2009

Despite early rain, much of the 2009 Glastonbury Festival was spent basking in uncharacteristic sunshine. And contributing significantly to the quality of a weekend already being touted as the best Glasto ever, this year the familiar presence of Yamaha digital mixing consoles had grown to an unprecedented high number.

"I've been coming to Glastonbury for years in a support capacity and I have never seen so many Yamaha desks on so many stages," reported a pleased Nick Pemberton from Yamaha Commercial Audio.

As usual, the festival saw fans embrace a remarkably diverse array of talent, from living legends like Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Crosby, Still and Nash and Status Quo, to high profile reunions, established contemporary acts and those still eagerly seeking a breakthrough into the big time. A large proportion were using Yamaha consoles, at one point there being no less than five PM5D-RH and an M7CL-48 on the Pyramid stage alone.

The John Peel stage ran PM5D-RHs at both front of house and monitors, combining them with three of Yamaha's new SB-168ES stage boxes to provide the Ethersound network.

Other stages to use the M7CL-48 included the BBC Introducing Stage, Dance East, Dance West, Dance Lounge, Pussy Parlure, the Dirty Boots stage, The Avalon Stage (which also hosted a PM5D-RH for Will Young) and the BBC's own Tree House which acted as a hub for their extensive TV coverage.

"Yamaha digital consoles were by far the dominant presence at the festival this year," says Yamaha Commercial Audio marketing manager Karl Christmas. "I was really happy to see so many companies being confident that they could rely on the Yamaha brand during what is typically such a varied and gruelling week."

The compact Yamaha LS9-32 was also put to good use on a number of the smaller stages, as well as making some guest appearances on the more prestigious ones.

VV Brown was making the most of the weekend, performing on the Pyramid, Dance East, John Peel stages throughout the event, with her front of house engineer Jimmy Sarikas using his own LS9-32 for the performances on the first two.

"I always get some mickey taking from the crews when I turn up for shows and put my LS9 down next to whatever huge desk they have up there," smiled Jimmy, as he made his way to the Pyramid Stage for Brown's Saturday performance. "I just say ‘We'll see who laughs last at the end of my show, shall we?'"

In picture: Jarvis Cocker performing on the John Peel Stage

Sennheiser UK Heads Backstage with Tour Supply Ltd

Sennheiser UK is joining Tour Supply Ltd backstage in production areas throughout the British Festival Season at the Tour Supply Mobile Store, branding the store with Sennheiser banners and posters and providing a comprehensive range of Sennheiser products.

The Tour Supply Mobile Store is stocked with a huge selection of equipment, solving all the last minute problems production managers, techs and engineers inevitably face at festivals. And included in that stock is a wide range of Sennheiser microphone and wireless equipment.

Speaking from the Production Area of the Download Festival in Donington Park, Tour Supply CEO Lance Wascom explained why the Company is delighted to have Sennheiser on board for the summer.

"People call us with orders when they know we're going to be at a festival," said Wascom. "Today we have orders waiting to be picked up by Marilyn Manson, Faith No More and Motley Crue. On every international tour stuff is going to break and people are going to forget things or lose equipment in customs. We're a service to a festival's production and a service to the bands. People are a lot less tense when they know we're here to solve those inevitable problems.

"Our relationships with the manufacturers are just as important for us as our relationships with the bands," he continued. "We have a great relationship with Sennheiser in the USA and here in the UK, and it's a fantastic addition having Sennheiser here working with us on a festival like Download.

"We were on board with Sennheiser when they launched the G1 in-ear monitoring system. That immediately became a staple product for bands on tour and us. The G2 followed this and is extremely popular also. Of course everyone at Tour Supply is very excited about the new G3 range. I'd hazard a guess 80 or 90% of the bands performing at Donington today are using Sennheiser in-ears."

In addition to the on-site branding and wide range of products, Sennheiser UK made sure one of their experts was on hand at Download in the production area to provide instant answers to questions that might arise.

"Rarely do engineers at this level need any advice about the equipment," points out Wascom, "but having someone from Sennheiser here on site to help answer technical questions lends a lot of credibility to what we do. We're not just a dealer. We're partners servicing the bands as part of the festival. So having Sennheiser here to be part of that is a huge thing for us."

The Tour Supply Ltd and Sennheiser UK festival partnership was set up by Artist Relations Managers Mark Saunders and Phil Cummings.

Saunders explains: "We have worked closely and very successfully with Tour Supply in the UK since they started business so when we were offered this opportunity by Tour Supply's Paul Collis, we were eager to get involved. Working with Tour Supply not only allows us to spend more time understanding our customers' needs, it helps us support our engineers and artists at the festivals."

Tour Supply is about to celebrate its eleven-year anniversary. Starting in St Paul, Minnesota in 1998, the Company now runs offices in Los Angeles, Minnesota, New York City, Nashville and Manchester and has become a fixture on the international touring circuit.

In picture: Lance Wascom of Tour Supply at Download photo: Robert Collins

 

 

New Martin Audio W8L Longbow Rocks Ness

When Production Hire realised the amount of summer festival work and Autumn dance events on offer if the company could provide adequate PA coverage, proprietor Mark Neal decided it was time to invest in a potent line array system. And the move paid instant dividends.

After evaluating a couple of leading systems he purchased 24 Martin Audio W8L Longbows, and gave them a powerful initiation at the RockNess Music Festival near Inverness this month, where Prodigy, Basement Jaxx, Dizzee Rascal and Flaming Lips were among the headliners.

‘Knocker' Neal ran 12 W8L hangs a side, with W8LD Downfills on the front corners providing the necessary infill, while Martin Audio's predictive 3D Display software made sure the coverage was fully optimised.

The Production Hire man instantly knew he had made the correct decision. "The system definitely throws and there must have been 25,000 in front of it when Prodigy appeared on stage," he reports.

Explaining the rationale behind the decision, he said, "I have a good relationship with Martin Audio, and already run their W8LC Compact line array and Wavefront boxes in my hire fleet.

"We always knew Longbow would handle live shows but we first tried it out at a dance music event -and it was sensational." But the clincher, he said, was the power of the low-mids. "We really like that because it's 1" instead of 1.4". This leads to a very sparkly system which goes all the way up and down the frequency range, which a lot of line arrays don't do."

He also noted that because the system is horn-loaded the sound tends not to flap around in the wind. "Again, this is a problem with many other systems I have experienced," he notes.

Mark Neal's marketing rationale also appears to have been spot on. Whereas last year he had only been able to cover Stage 2 at RockNess for production company Loud Sound Events (using the seven-a-side W8LC rig) this year he could handle both, adding W3's for infill support on the second stage.

"Aside from the additional festivals we can now do this summer, we have a series of Autumn dance events lined up, and Longbow will be perfect for that."

In picture: RockNess Music Festival in progress with Production Hire's new W8L Longbows.

The Sisters of Mercy are back with grandMA

Lighting designer Liz Berry is using a grandMA full-size to control lighting on the current Sisters of Mercy European tour. The maverick UK alternative rockers are back on the road again, continuing an impressive live performance career spanning nearly 30 years, with lead singer Andrew Eldritch and drum machine Doktor Avalanche being the constants in the line up.

Berry had previously lit ‘The Sisters' on a handful of festival dates, and was delighted to be asked onboard for the tour in February. When the itinerary was revealed, along with the decision to utilise house rigs supplemented with a small but very precise specials package, she decided the time was right to try the grandMA control platform.

"I'd seen the console more and more on shows and festivals," she comments, "And thought this would be an ideal opportunity to learn it, specially knowing that we'd be dealing with a wide selection of different moving lights every night, so I knew that the fixture cloning and exchange facilities would be a great asset."

The lightshow is a moody, heavily back-positioned mix of colour, beams and movement, with plenty of subtleties that require meticulous programming and execution, a task that Berry finds very straightforward with the grandMA once she'd grasped the basics. She also likes the flexibility of being able to set the desk out exactly as you want to suit the style of operation.

The band are extremely keen on immersing themselves in the lighting during their performance. Whilst Berry was given a free imaginative rein, Eldridge will also articulate ideas and enjoys working highly interactively with light, particularly using it as a concealment. Together, he and Berry weave the light into the set as a magic element of the performances as he walks partially into or out of it, playing with the beams amidst the impressive meteorological haze of smoke that has always characterised their show!

For Berry, this has been the primary creative challenge - and also extremely rewarding. She says: "Andrew has pushed me hard creatively, making me think about light beams as physical objects for him to interact with, and it's been absolutely brilliant." While the band had certain stipulations about the lighting, to further challenge herself, Berry also introduced her own visual rules - including using a maximum of two colours per look, plus black and white.

The European touring package - supplied by west London based Panalux consisted of six Clay Paky Alpha Beam 300s, four Martin Washlights, two smoke machines and a hazer - an expedient rig which she made go a long way.

Berry's show is almost entirely improvised, so that's how she's set up the desk to work, finding it "completely rock solid". Each song has a non-positional orientated preset on the spots programmed into a Cue Stack, with all the Wash and Beam activity busked and added over the top. Spot positions are also added live, in order to offer Eldritch opportunities to play as he prowls the stage, but should he choose not to be seen, a dark area upstage centre gives him a place to hide.

For the European section of the tour, the grandMA was supplied by TDA, from Essen, Germany.

photo: Louise Stickland

www.malighting.com

Stage Electrics Deliver Sound Clarity at Hay on Wye

Since 1988 the market town of Hay has been the unlikely setting for one of the world's biggest book festivals. The event is now an essential feature in the cultural calendar attracting authors, publishers and media attention from all over the world.

The main venue at the prestigious festival has always presented a particular challenge for audio reinforcement. To manage this Stage Electrics supplied L'Acoustics' Kiva Curve Linear Array this year with astounding results.

The numerous novice public speakers and interview format used creates a level problem along with acoustic challenges arising from staging the event in a marquee, the numerous reflections and the inclement Welsh weather.

Sound designer Paul Turner specified the L'Acoustics' Kiva system due to its formidable reputation for fantastic speech reproduction. Previous attempts to install a line array in the venue had presented problems due to limits on weight loading and sight line issues. Stage Electrics explained: "Size and weight are key factors here. Due to its throw and coverage, the system's ability to deliver speech in this application is perfect. Also, as you can power two drops of eight boxes with just two LA4 amps its technology footprint is tiny."

L'Acoustics' ‘Sound Vision' software enabled Paul to try out many different system designs and speaker models before settling on the ideal system. 3D modelling allowed the sight lines to be checked to screen and mechanical data gave accurate weight loading stats. "What really impressed me was just how accurate the prediction software was. I'm used to tweaking array angles given by other prediction programmes on site but this was startlingly accurate. The final result was a much more coherent image with fewer reflections in a much faster rig time. "It just sounds fantastic," commented front of house engineer Rob McNeil. "It delivers speech with remarkable clarity."

Stage Electrics also supplied the festival's second venue with the new Digico SD8 console. It benefits from all the major features and versatility of the acclaimed Digico SD Series and the advances already made in the SD7 at a price point more commonly associated with midrange mixing consoles.

Incorporating highly innovative Stealth Digital ProcessingT, the SD8 brings you the Tiger SHARC FX engine. This provides unrivalled audio quality, precision and processing power with an extensive range of built-in, world-class effects, reverbs, dynamics, output matrix and more, offering much more than its nearest rival.

Stage Electrics' Chris Vass explains: "A digital desk was essential as, along with musical entertainment, the venue was being used for talks, interviews and discussions. Frequently acts have to sound check in the breaks making an analogue desk impractical. The desk also needed to be flexible and of a high enough spec to meet the requirements of touring acts. The SD8 ticked all the boxes."

Tour engineer Philippe Dubich had not used the console before but was familiar with the SD7 and D5 desks. "It took only a short while to get used to it only having one screen, otherwise it has all the functionality of larger desks and sounds just as good. Really very clever." Venue technician Kyle Macpherson, who also used the console for the first time enthused: "It is very intuitive and remarkably flexible."

Norwegian PA Company Purchases Second iLive System

Norwegian rental company, Sceneservice AS, has purchased a second Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system to add to its hire stock inventory.

Based in central Norway, the company originally invested in an iLive system, comprising an iDR10 MixRack and iLive-144 Control Surface, in 2008, employing it for various tours, events and festivals on its roster. In autumn it managed FOH duties on the main stage at the Blues in Hell Festival in Stjørdal, which included headline performances from Walter Trout and Marcia Ball. More recently, it managed FOH at the Nidaros Blues Festival in Trondheim, which featured headline act, Little Feat.

"All the guest band engineers like iLive, without exception, which is why we decided to invest in a second system when the time came to increase our digital capability," claims Sceneservice's Stein Larsen. "Our faith in the brand is so strong, we picked up our new iLive-T system from the train station, immediately took it to a flightcase factory, put it in the pre-ordered case, and went to our first gig."

The iLive-T system, comprising an iDR-48 MixRack and iLive-T112 Control Surface, debuted inside Løkken Mine, a copper and pyrite mine dating from 1654. The unusual venue played host to a concert with young classical talent, Are Hembre, and guests.

"The only transport into the venue was on a small tractor and with water dripping from the cave ceiling, it was a tough start for our new T!" continues Larsen. "It managed the job very well, and the opera singers, piano and string quartet sounded great in the cave."

Sceneservice's iLive-T is set to embark on tour with Norwegian gold-selling band, Sie Gubba, for the rest of the year, while the original iLive system will be employed on the firm's summer festival season.

In picture: the iLive-T112 control surface at FOH in Løkken Mine.

Solaris T-Light and Hippotizer enhance Eurovision Song Contest

In May this year, contestants from EU nations and beyond gathered in Moscow to compete in the 54th Eurovision Song Contest, each hoping to become the next ABBA. The event has become one of the world's largest production spectaculars. Procon Event Engineering of Hamburg supplied lighting, sound, video, and rigging gear and services. Forty trucks and 70 technicians were dispatched, with an array of equipment including seven Solaris T-Light 85kW Lightning Machines, and six Hippotizer HD media servers controlling six PufferSpheres with full backup. 

The set and lighting design was massive, including 2,000 square meters of LED tiles, 700 moving lights, 250 LED fixtures, 500 Par lights, and approximately 100 km of cable. Rigging requirements amounted to 4,400 meters of truss, 520 chain hoists on 900 points with a total load of approximately 140 tons. The Lighting designer was Al Gurdon and Set designer was John Casey.

"Al Gurdon had previously used Solaris T-Lights for flash/strobe effects on the Echo Awards in Berlin, and after a close look at the product, we decided to add the T-Lights to our rental equipment pool," says Morten Carlsson, Procon CEO. "Mr. Gurdon chose the T-Light for the Eurovision Song Contest as well, where they proved to be reliable and daylight bright. They can be used in either strobe or "constant on" modes with a nearly perfect color rendering index that surpasses HMI."

Housed in a rugged stainless steel enclosure with yoke, the Solaris T-Light Lightning Machine has a flash length from 1/30 to 3.5 seconds and an output of up to two million lumens!  Pre-programmed or customized flash sequences can be triggered by DMX.  The beam is adjustable from spot to flood.

The six Hippotizers were connected to the PufferSpheres via DVI matrix and controlled by a grandMA console courtesy of Timo Kauristo of Sweden. Hippotizer media servers are recognised as the leading solution for real-time video effects, manipulation and playback.  Prominent productions worldwide, in a wide array of disciplines - concerts, theatre, opera, television, worship, corporate and more - are now specifying the Hippotizer, making it "the industry's favorite media server."

www.tmb.com

Oasis Breaks i-Pix BB Fixture Records

Over 140 i-Pix BB4 wash lights are featuring on the stadium shows of UK rockers Oasis' current ‘Dig Out Your Soul' world tour, together with 17 i-Pix BB7s.

This is an increase of nearly 100 BB4 units - the standard touring rig started with 42 along with seven BB7s - and is currently the record amount of i-Pix fixtures used on a single concert touring show.

Gawler's original basic over-stage rig concept which started the tour in October 2008 utilised 30 BB4s, with six units rigged horizontally onto each of five steeply raked upstage/downstage ‘finger' trusses. These were attached via custom brackets fabricated by lighting suppliers PRG, and are utilised to produce a general stage wash.

When the summer 2009 stadium shows appeared on the itinerary, it was time to maximise the impact and WOW factors, and let people experience a touch of 'large rock show' swagger! So - an extra finger truss has been added over the stage, making six in total, along with another six integral BB4s now rigged in vertical pairs, a nod to the 8=light Molefey format. (Another MiTrix video screen has also been added, making five, up from the original four)

The other 12 BB4s from the original rig are still there - mounted on six 4ft high vertical poles, three of which are positioned either side of the stage in boom positions, shooting directly across the band. A further eight BB4s have been added to the downstage edge, to provide some foot-lighting, the low profile of the BB4 enables the unit to stay concealed in both positions.

The majority of the extra stadium show BB4s are hung in pairs on custom soft ladders, built for PRG and suspended in front of the stage PA wings and delay towers.

A further seven pairs of BB4s have been added to the front truss. They produce extremely effective audience lighting, reaching far and wide, illuminating the massive crowds that have given Oasis a thunderously enthusiastic reception throughout the tour.

Nine BB7s have been added to the mother grid trusses over-stage for the first time, along with the original seven arena show BB7s, which are used together to produce a powerful top wash and for between-song looks.

Gawler originally spec'd BB4s because he sought a colour changing wash light offering a nice, even spread of high quality light, not too beamy and that was a less energy-hungry alternative to conventional 4-lite fixtures. He looked at several options before deciding to go with the i-Pix products.

"They are reliable, efficient and make good colours. I also really like the homogeneity of the light sources and the smooth and even output," he states. This feature eliminates the visibility of the individual different coloured LEDs, so they all appear as one unified point-source.

He's also impressed with the good CTO-like tint that can mimic a PAR bulb without the heat and cabling issues, dimmers or consumption of excessive electricity!

Gawler is operating the show on a Hog 3 console, which is also driving (for the stadiums) two Catalyst digital media servers (one for the standard show), running the playback video content and running camera cues on a Barco Encore via MSC and the genius of Richard Turner.

www.i-pix.uk.com

Hawthorn's New Scenic Backdrops

Hawthorn has recently acquired a massive stock of over 300 painted scenic backdrops on lightweight canvas which are now available for rental on a daily or weekly basis from both their Midlands and London warehouses.

The backdrops come in various sizes ranging from 10ft x 12ft right up to 40ft x 20ft. They have tie tapes and can also be suspended from our free-standing pipe and base support system, offering lots of flexibility in hanging to suit every venue.

The backdrops are ideal for cost effective theming with plenty of impact and the wow factor and can be used in conjunction with our vast stock of drapes, festoons and starcloths for the complete effect.

Hawthorn's new battery-powered LED up-lighters are ideal for lighting the backdrops without the need for cables or power as they are completely self-contained and last for up to 10 hours, offering a simple, cost effective and neat lighting solution.

Themes include: Olympics, Underwater, Circus, Forest, Carnival, Nautical, Pirate, Motor Racing, Football, Tennis, the Jungle, Christmas/Winter Wonderland, 60's, 70's, 80's, as well as themes such as Venice, Egypt, Paris, Rio and Africa.

www.hawthorns.uk.com

HSL's Got Talent!

HSL supplied substantial quantities of ColorWeb and ChromaStrip LED products to the latest ratings-busting series of ‘Britain's Got Talent' - the high profile and super-hyped final of which saw teenage dance troupe Diversity beat hot favourite, singer Susan Boyle.

The series, presented by comedy duo Ant & Dec, was shot over a week in Studios A and B of Fountain Studios, Wembley, London - the largest TV stage in the UK. The studio was packed with excitement, anticipation and a live audience of 750 each night. The highly versatile LED-based set was designed by Dominic Tolfts and featured several different types of LED, all of which were sourced and supplied to the production by Simon Deary of LED Poison who specialises in digital lighting.

The creative concept - which heavily involves lighting designer Dave Davey - was to produce a mega-flexible setting comprising low, medium and high resolution LED surfaces, offering at least 50 totally different performance looks for the 10 finalists as they battled it out throughout the week long series. On top of that, additional unique looks were needed from the same set for guest spots, plus a series of generic default states was also required including incorporation of the series' logo and branding.

Simon Deary has also procured all the LED for the last two BGT series and comments: "I know I can always get a fantastic service and a great package from HSL, and that's why I keep going back to them. In this case, we could also acquire the large quantities needed of both product from one source and one phone call - less administration and paperwork is always good." Simon Stuart and Sean McGlone were the project managers for HSL.

HSL supplied nearly 600 Pulsar Chromastrips, which were integrated into four large and one smaller metal fins running down each side of stage, and also used to highlight the two sets of staircases and the edges of the judges' rostra.

The 480 panels of ColorWeb 250 and 50 panels of ColorWeb 125mm pitch were used to wrap around the entire back wall of the set, which proved eye-catching camera candy and introduced further depth to the set, alleviating the black holes and creating background movement, colour and interest.

Simon Stuart comments: "We ordered additional ColorWeb from AC Lighting to supply this show. Ever since we invested in the first ColorWeb 250 about three years ago, it's never stopped working - it's a brilliantly versatile product." Simon Deary echoes this: "It's highly useful, very robust and looks good wherever it's rigged. The panels are easy to move around, connect up and use wherever needed."

Driving all the various different LED surfaces were four Hippotizer media servers run by Russell Grubiak via a Compulite Vector Blue lighting console and programmer Bill Peachment via his Compulite Vector Green and Hippo Critter. Bespoke media for the Hippotizers for each of the finalists and the main show was created by Jane Aspinwall of Timeslice films.

In picture: Simon Deary of LED Poison (left) and HSL's Simon Stuart.

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