TPi July 2018 - #227

TOTAL PRODUCTION INTERNATIONAL LIVE EVENT DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY • JULY 2018 • ISSUE 227

ED SHEERAN

TPi talks to the award-winning team behind the singer/songwriter’s stadium tour.

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EDITOR’S LETTER

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SOUNDING OUT THE HISTORY BOOKS In June, I took a trip to NYC for an immersive audio show courtesy of British trio alt-J and innovative French technology L-ISA (a brand of L-Acoustics) which together, demonstrated a hyperreal surround sound show like nothing I’d experienced before. Tom Worley of Rat Sound Inc and the band’s FOH Engineer, Lance Reynolds - with the help of a few pals - created a large format live gig environment that has set a new precedent for how we enjoy live music. Read all about it on Pg.8.

In other pro audio news, British manufacturer Martin Audio has announced that mid-market private equity investor, LDC, has backed the company’s management buyout. The designer and manufacturer of loudspeaker systems was previously owned by global audio specialist, Loud Audio. As part of the deal, LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group, has invested £12m for a significant stake in the company, alongside its current management team which is led by MD, Dom Harter.

In this issue, Stew meets the team - some of whom are 2018 TPi Awards winners - behind looping success story, Ed Sheeran. Led by PM & FOH mixer, Chris Marsh, the tour played stadium shows worth shouting about. (There’s lots more of that in the months to come.)

Meanwhile, Ste was in Rome attending what can only be described as his dream production (K-array, what on earth will we get him for his 30th now?!), when he saw his all-time favourite film, Gladiator, screened at the Colosseum, and introduced by the film’s star, Russell Crowe. There’s no sign of things slowing down this summer, so thanks for having us along for the ride!

Kel Murray Editor

EDITOR Kel Murray Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7738 154689 e-mail: k.murray@mondiale.co.uk ASSISTANT EDITOR Ste Durham Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8385 Mobile: +44 (0)7891 679742 e-mail: s.durham@mondiale.co.uk STAFF WRITER Stewart Hume Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8385 Mobile: +44 (0)7702 054344 e-mail: s.hume@mondiale.co.uk ADVERTISING EXECUTIVE Lauren Dyson Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7415 773639 e-mail: l.dyson@mondiale.co.uk GENERAL MANAGER - TPi MAGAZINE & AWARDS Hannah Eakins Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7760 485230 e-mail: h.eakins@mondiale.co.uk CHIEF EXECUTIVE Justin Gawne Tel: +44 (0)161 476 8360 Mobile: +44 (0)7768 850767 e-mail: j.gawne@mondiale.co.uk

GRAPHIC DESIGN & PRODUCTION Dan Seaton: d.seaton@mondiale.co.uk Zoe Willcox: z.willcox@mondiale.co.uk ACCOUNTS Lynette Levi / Sarah Miller: ar@mondiale.co.uk MONDIALE GROUP CHAIRMAN Damian Walsh DIGITAL EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Jacob Waite: j.waite@mondiale.co.uk

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COVER Ed Sheeran by Lee Allen PRINTED BY Buxton Press • www.buxpress.co.uk Issue 227 - July 2018 Annual subscriptions (including P&P): £42 (UK), £60 (Europe), £78/$125 (RoW).

Subscription enquiries to: Subscriptions, Mondiale Publishing Limited, Strawberry Studios, Watson Square, Stockport, SK1 3AZ, UK. Tel: +44 (0)161 476 5580 Fax: +44 (0)161 476 0456 e-mail: subscriptions@mondiale.co.uk www.tpimagazine.com www.tpiawards.com

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ISSN 1461-3786 Copyright © 2018 Mondiale Publishing Limited. All contents of this publication are subject to worldwide copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, in any form whatsoever, is expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of the Publishers. Every effort is taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this publication but neither Mondiale Publishing Ltd, nor the Editor, can be held responsible for its contents or any consequential loss or damage resulting from information published. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Publishers or Editor. The Publishers accept no responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, illustrations, advertising materials or artwork. Total Production International USPS: (ISSN 1461 3786) is published 12 times a year by Mondiale Publishing Limited United Kingdom. The 2018 US annual subscription price is 117USD. Airfreight and mailing in the USA by Agent named Air Business, C/O WorldNet Shipping USA Inc., 155-11 146th Avenue, Jamaica, New York, NY11434. Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. US Postmaster: Send address changes to Total Production International, Air Business Ltd, C/O WorldNet Shipping USA Inc., 155-11 146th Avenue, Jamaica, New York, NY11434.

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ITINERARY

EVENT FOCUS

08

08

alt-J: Live at Forest Hills Kel witnesses the British trio’s New York immersive audio spectacular.

16

22

Gladiator: In Concert K-array invites Ste to a live orchestral screening at Rome’s Colosseum.

26

EM Acoustics The audio specialist takes over LH2 to show off its Halo-A line array.

30

Adam Hall Group Opening TPi was on site at the German company’s new Experience Center.

Grayscale version C/50 M/50 Y/50 K/100 C/0 M/0 Y/0 K/0

Black version C/50 M/50 Y/50 K/100

Liam Gallagher Live at Finsbury Park Really Creative Media gives an insight into the singer’s video needs.

SERIES

PRODUCTION PROFILE 32 Ed Sheeran Divides & Conquers Stew visits the Etihad Stadium for the looping superstar’s ÷ stadium tour.

16

C/0 M/0 Y/0 K/0

46 Rita Ora’s Touring Return The singer’s 5-year hiatus ceases with an action packed academy tour.

52 Introducing All Points East Kel reports from one of the newest additions to the annual festival circuit.

60 Echo & The Bunnymen The Liverpudlian band revisit their greatest hits with a live string quartet.

TOUR TALK 64

32

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ER Productions runs through its highlights from 2018 touring season.

FESTIVAL FOCUS 66

This month: Field Day, Merlefest, City 65 Music Festival, Pinkpop and many more.

ON THE ROAD 72

As well as paying a visit to InfoComm, Stew checks in with several companies that call Las Vegas home.

IN PROFILE 78

Colour Sound Experiment explains the importance of business independence & the next generation of event crew.

MARKET FOCUS

46

82

TPi profiles the industry’s leading projector brands.

PRODUCTION FUTURES 88

TPi talks to 2016 TPi Breakthrough Talent Awards winner, Ria Sioux Byers.

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GEAR HEADS 90

An in depth look at the DTS Synergy 5.

PSA: THE BIGGER PICTURE 92

Andy Lenthall discusses the pressing issue of hearing damage.

INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS

52

94

The latest movers and shakers.

BACK CHAT 98

TPi sits down with Ayrton’s Global Sales Director, Michael Althaus.

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EVENT FOCUS

ALT-J & THE GIG THAT MADE PRO AUDIO HISTORY On 15 June 2018, Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York, was the venue of choice on for an L-ISA immersive audio system to be utilised with British rock trio, alt-J. The concert was a live environment surround sound first, as Kel Murray exclusively reports.

Tickets for this groundbreaking show were sold as general admission so the audience could experience it from anywhere in the stadium, enabling 360-degree audio perfection. We’ve all experienced this 360-degree soundscape notion in a cinematic capacity at interactive theatre shows, and even from the comfort of our own homes, but creating, and successfully maintaining, detailed sound effects during a live gig has fundamentally altered the possibilities of live sound production. In short, our live concert experience has been changed forever.

The band’s sound reinforcement was supplied by Rat Sound Systems, which deployed an (enormous) L-Acoustics rig to provide consistency of sound throughout the venue. The company has been alt-J’s worldwide audio vendor since 2015. The level of trust between band, crew and rental company is what tourable pro audio dreams are made of; a challenge that would wow fans and critics, and revolutionise the touring industry.

In the months prior to the gig, alt-J keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton, told [my old haunt!] the NME about the concept in a bid to let the mainstream press known what a big deal the project was: “As I understand it, it’s a 360-degree speaker system... so wherever you’re standing in the audience, you’ll be able to hear the music coming from all around you. And

using clever computer stuff, we can make sounds move around the room so if there’s, say, a helicopter sound, you can have the helicopter start from behind you and fly over your head, or have beeps and bloops bouncing around the arena in different directions, generally creating quite a cool atmosphere.”

The young musician might have coined the term ‘clever computer stuff’, but this was an understatement. As I moved from FOH on that highly anticipated Saturday night in Queens to the nose bleed seats at stage right; the helicopter noises began to infiltrate the stadium to dramatic effect.

The patrons in front looked to the sky, then behind their heads, then to the sky again before mouthing ‘wow’ at the notion that those sounds weren’t courtesy of the NYPD as perhaps first assumed, but rather, courtesy of the outdoor live music extravaganza happening all around them.

THE ORIGIN Before we dive into the implementation of this groundbreaking technology, we must ask: how and why did this concept come about with this particular band? Stephen ‘Tav’ Taverner, alt-J’s Manager, is a man with a curious mind: “alt-J are a band that have a lot of space in their music, so it struck me a 08

ALT-J

Sherif El Barbari, Director of L-ISA Labs, L-ISA Applications Engineer, Carlos Mosquera , David Brooks, L-Acoustics Touring Liaison, Lance Reynolds, alt-J FOH Engineer, Rat Sound’s Tom Worley, KSE, Scott Sugden, Head of Application, Touring.

few years ago that they could be well-suited to an immersive audio show, and I began to enquire. Initially, I went to Dolby Atmos in LA to discuss the possibilities of surround sound at a gig, but it was apparent that they weren’t the right kind of engineers for live concerts.

“Lance Reynolds, our FOH Engineer, then got talking to the folks at L-Acoustics, and mentioned what we’d been thinking about. When L-Acoustics told him they believed they could help, I went to listen to their L-ISA system in London. I remember being told that they could do something ‘close’ to a surround sound system, but that it had never been done in a gig environment. Then they played me a live Radiohead track another band that uses L-Acoustics - and it just blew me away. I was sold.

From that moment on, I knew I wanted to take the risk. Of course, the band were really up for up, and so we were the test pilots for the first ever truly live surround sound gig.”

Once the project was agreed, Reynolds set about mixing and preprogramming in the audio special effects. Tav continued: “It’s so clever. I know there was a lot of algorithms and mathematics involved in making this happen, and that what the team have achieved is truly amazing.

Watching people’s reactions to being completely encircled by sound was really quite something!”

SO… WHAT IS L-ISA? L-ISA is a technology for multidimensional sound that encompasses a new way of designing, processing, mixing and experiencing sound. L-ISA enables sound engineers to manager immersive environment easily and intuitively; the L-ISA ecosystem consists of a comprehensive toolchain that can handle multi-dimensional audio projects at any stage. With the upcoming L-ISA plug-in for the Avid S6L – Reynolds’ console of choice for the gig – endusers will have access to all ‘source object’ controls, including pan, width, distance and elevation, as well as a designated aux send, and, all L-ISA parameters can be stored in the console’s snapshots engine and recalled in the same way as other console parameters. This integration offers benefits for live interaction, and the loudspeaker layout can easily be adapted to location changes while maintaining the spatial properties of the mix.

L-Acoustics’ Scott Sugden took up the story: “We’ve been developing L-ISA for some time, looking at how we can improve the quality of the show for the audience... it’s something that we look at daily in this industry. You go to tradeshows and look at the latest consoles, mics and PAs, and make all this equipment to make live music sound as good as possible, and then we do the silliest thing... we put the artist on both sides of the stage in mono. L-ISA started as a solution to address common sound problems, and naturally create more interesting audio systems. We started to introduce the product a few years ago, and Lance was one of the early adopters, so when alt-J and their management were introduced to the technology they were in search of, Forest Hills was soon identified as a great platform to be able to the introduce the concept to 12,000 of their fans at the same time.

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“We had to go through the implications of it all such as sound effects needing to be drone-y based rather than snare based. The band and Lance did a great job of disguising sounds and also making them very apparent.

Once everyone agreed to the idea, we had to make sure that everyone knew what it would be like having the speaker placement that far apart across the back and sides of the venue,” he said.

Okay, so we know why people in the pro audio industry would like a near perfect sound system, but why is this so important generally?

“We need to be as engaged as possible with the fans, they’re buying tickets,” continued Sugden, matter-of-factly. “It’s not always an enjoyable experience at every spot in the venue, and that’s what we want to change.

The Forest Hills show didn’t fee like it had 12,000 people there - it’s a much more intimate experience with the band. As Lorde’s crew demonstrated, when they took the frontal system out, we can tour this concept to a very high level, so we’re allowing artists to deliver more interesting shows to their fans. Artists really care about their live sound and about how their fans engage with them at shows, so there’s a lot we can do to facilitate that.

That’s our job. We’ve not even discovered things that in the next few years we’ll be leveraging to create more interesting sound experiences for the concertgoer. There’s a whole new way of thinking about live sound, and how we mix it. Who knows what we’re yet to envision...”

Another L-Acoustics’ audio wizard, Sherif El Barbari [AKA The Egyptian Magician if you’ve ever seen him work his magic on tour], was on site at Forest Hills, and explained a bit about how the idea of L-ISA came to be: “In December 2012, Christian Heil [the manufacturer’s founder] called me

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ALT-J

Hervé Guillaume, Managing Director of L-Acoustics, Scott Sugden, Head of Application, Touring and Laurent Vaissié, CEO of L-Acoustics North America; Rat Sound’s Tom Worley & FOH Mixer Lance Reynolds were instrumental in this gig; The render shows the frontal system and the deployment of the 16 Syva around the outdoor venue; Rat Sound Inc’s Dave Rat was on site for the pivotal event.

and suggested that we get together and realise a long time vision of his to once again revolutionise live sound reinforcement. I considered it the best Christmas gift ever!” he laughed. “In early January 2013 Christian, Guillaume Le Nost [now Director of R&D L-ISA] and myself got together for the very first L-ISA brainstorming meeting.

“The initial idea and driving force behind L-ISA is Christian’s ‘frustration’ with the ‘emotional’ auditory experience live shows offer to the audience despite the progress in speaker system design and advancements in optimising the whole electronic signal chain from microphone inputs to the last stage of amplifier outputs. The given locations (allowed by productions) of a perfectly designed and optimised speaker system dictate the results that can be achieved. And that’s a substantial problem in conventional L-R (dual mono) sound reinforcement. The PA is in the least optimum position to engage the audience and connect them to the show.

“We knew it is going to be a huge challenge to break the established route, but we were and still are very passionate and optimistic, especially that we have proven the benefits over and over again during the last 3 years on each and every platform.”

Radiohead’s FOH mixer, Jim Warren, was invited to explore the new technology at an early stage of its development [hence the mix Tav heard] - even before most of L-Acoustics’ own staff were aware of what the L-ISA team were secretly doing. “My contribution was to guide Jim in this new way of mixing and offer suggestions of how to use the created tools. Jim and I have shared a few years of great teamwork together from doing Radiohead’s world tours, and I have great respect for his creativity and his mixing skills.

On tour, my main objective as a PA system designer was to translate his

amazing mix to the majority of the audience. I can imagine that now, with L-ISA, we have a much better means of delivering this experience to a much larger part of the audience area.

“Lance is also a great mixing engineer with a perfect feel for the music and a clear vision of what he wants to achieve in his own mix. My role for alt-J’s show was to show him how to best utilise the tools that we’d developed to facilitate what his creative mind could possibly imagine. In our L-ISA concept and infrastructure, we have included various possibilities to be able to program a dynamically spatialised mix. It is always very exciting for us to experience how talented and creative minds use our technology and this is a continuous source of inspiration for us to further develop and enhance our tools. For decades, I believe that sound systems have been regarded as a commodity in a live performance meaning sound didn’t receive the level of importance in a live event that a stage set, video or lighting design have been occupying in recent times. With our development, live music productions can benefit from the best of both worlds, giving audio its deserved status.”

BOXING CLEVER As mentioned, Kiwi songstress Lorde took the frontal system out on a US tour earlier this year, but not with the surround sound speaker system in tow, and it impressed the masses. Yet the configuration of the Forest Hills system was unlike anything I’d seen before. Part Mecca, part monster, the box count was staggering: 3 hangs of 12 K2 across the centre stage; 2 hangs of 16 Kara also across the centre stage, flanking the K2 hangs; 2 hangs of 8 K2S8 subs flown in the centre, behind the central K2 hang; 2 12 Kara 10

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ALT-J

extending the system on either side of the stage; 3 hangs of 2 Kara and 2 pairs of ARCS II across the stage floor for front fill and 2 hangs of 9 boxes of K2 as side fill. But that’s not all, once the frontal system was designed, the all-encompassing surround sound speakers were 16 Syva hung around the perimeter of the arena bowl in order to gain the full immersive mix.

What, I hear you ask, is a Syva? The slim line install speaker is not from our world, granted, but it’s very much a part of it now. Syva is a colinear system suited to medium throw applications, designed for professional sound reinforcement and high-end residential applications requiring high fidelity and SPL with minimum impact.

Rat Sound’s Tom Worley, who tours with the band, explained: “When I look back at the conversations and ideas about doing this, it’s interesting now to see and hear it as a reality. The design at Forest Hills was a collaborative effort between the L-ISA team and myself. There are always multiple factors to bear in mind when designing a system like this, such as weight capacity and trim height just to get started; you have to know your limitations before you can start inserting loudspeakers into the Soundvision software.

“K2 and Kara are the obvious choice due to their 110-degree horizontal directivity and their lightweight for rigging purposes. The L-ISA Focus design allows you to reproduce the LF that you’re used to reproducing from a conventional system. The 16 Syva used for the surround speaker were very impressive and kept up with frontal system without fail,” noted Worley.

“Being so light and easy to rig made for an efficient load in and load out too.

It’s easy to take for granted being involved in these types of events. It really was a special show, and to see the reaction on the audiences’ faces was quite remarkable. Its very exciting for the industry and I’m sure we will start seeing some real changes in how we enjoy concert sound.”

spilling into the vocal mics, and no feedback worries from wedges. It allows me a lot of room; they’re a dream to mix.

“Luckily for me, alt-J’s music is full of interesting sounds, loops, and special effects. For this show, I dug a little deeper into alt-J’s records, and included some sounds and effects that are not featured in our typical show.

The concept was to take the current live show, expand it, add some extras from the records, and surround the audience with sound. The guitar, bass, drums, and vocals were positioned across the front, while the strings and synths were spread into the surrounds. I ‘moved’ some of the instruments and special effects around the venue as well. For instance, the song Adeline featured a helicopter ‘flying’ around.” Yes, I had indeed noticed that little trick.

He continued: “Pleader had police sirens swirling around the surrounds, and also included one of my favourite moments... the boys choir that is featured on the last chorus. The choir is always part of the show, but hearing it coming from the surrounds was inspiring; it filled the entire stadium.”

Carlos Mosquera was the first person to introduce Reynolds to using the controller. “I spent a couple of days with him in March of 2017, learning the system in the L-ISA lab in Los Angeles. My first thought was ‘wow... this is fun’. It was intuitive and easy to use. Then in February 2018, I met with Sherif El-Barbari at the L-ISA lab in London and began to prepare the Forest Hills show. He took me a little deeper into the software, and from there I started building snapshots, and automating movements of sources around the soundscape.

“For a standard show, I mix on the Avid S6L, using the built in comps and EQs, and a few Avid stock plug-ins here and there. I send L+R+SUB+FILLS via AES to a Lake LM44, and then out to the amps / speakers. For Forest Hills, 32 outputs were routed via MADI coax to the L-ISA processor. We had 26 discreet outputs feeding the speaker network... quite a few more than the typical 4 outs for L+R+SUB+FILLS. All EQ shaping was done using the LA Network Manager software.

“On this gig, alt-J gave me complete creative control over the surround content. In general, the band is very liberal towards my mixing anyway, but compared to a typical gig there was a lot more of ‘me’ in this show. It was very rewarding. Listening to the crowd cheer for the surround effects was especially rewarding.

“This was a much more complicated FOH set up. This show was not only our first foray into L-ISA, but it was also the first alt-J surround sound

LIVE IN NYC: THE FOH FIRST Man of the moment, Lance Reynolds, prepared his L-ISA mix at L-Acoustics’ Westlake Village, CA, studio in the weeks before the gig. He took the hot seat: “I’ve been mixing FOH for alt-J since their first North American tour back in September 2012. I continued mixing the band’s North American shows through 2013 and after the release of their second record in 2014, I began touring with them worldwide.” They must be a fan of each other’s work, then. “The band is very quiet on stage. There are no guitar or keyboard amps on stage, no floor monitors apart from a couple of sub speakers, and no cymbals on the drum kit. There’s no guitars or cymbals 12

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ALT-J

FOH Engineer Lance Reynolds using L-ISA at Forest Hills; The frontal system and the far smaller Syva units.

show, and the first live surround show using L-ISA. The positioning of sound sources using the L-ISA controller is fairly simple, but I found that I gravitated toward the centre quite a bit. This was not as apparent in the L-ISA lab where the speakers are quite close together, but out in the real world with the 7 arrays spread across several metres, It quickly became obvious that I needed to spread things out a bit more. That was the small challenge... finding the ideal placement of sources across the front.

“The big challenge was the surround. The stage was about 250ft away from the surround speaker near the top of the back row. If you’re sitting near that speaker at the back, you could potentially hear musical parts well out of time... actually ahead of whatever mix is coming from the main speakers at the stage. I once heard this happen at a concert mixed in ‘quad’, and though it probably sounded right at FOH, it sounded completely wrong as I stood close to one of the ‘quad’ speakers. To me, this would have been the worst outcome at Forest Hills. It would have been a mess. Delay can be added to compensate for 250ft, but then anything you place in that delayed surround will now sound like it’s 500ft away for anyone standing near the stage. I needed to find the right balance, and figure out how to blend some delayed and distant content with the band on stage. I realised that the audience seated in different parts of the venue would have a somewhat different surround experience, so my goal was to make sure that it was a good experience everywhere, even if not identical.

“Both L-Acoustics and Rat Sound were extremely helpful in making this show. I’d especially like to thank Tom Worley at Rat for the long hours he spent organising the extra equipment needed and making sure the sound design was accurately deployed. There will always be venues where the

L-ISA system will not be possible. However, the uniformity of coverage and the clarity that L-ISA provides will be attractive to most live sound professionals. We may not see everyone doing a surround show, but surely we’ll see more of L-ISA in arenas and theatres. For me, this is definitely a career highlight alongside mixing the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury and the main stage at Coachella. There’s nothing quite like hearing an audience cheer for the sound effects you’ve created. It’s just awesome!”

As the show in NYC drew to a close, the band made a point of thanking their production team for working so hard to make the gig happen. And as the night’s proceedings ended, the roars from the crowd spoke volumes; alt-J’s surround sound performance at Forest Hills stadium had gone down in the history books for the pro audio industry and general gig-goer alike, and the band’s manager is more than pleased he took the ‘risk’. Tav said enthusiastically: “It worked so well that we’re planning to do it again. It’ll get better and better as the future of live music goes on. So many people said to me along the way that this wouldn’t work, and that the audience would be confused rather than impressed. But no... hats off to L-Acoustics and the L-ISA teams; they’ve done something no one has ever managed before.”

TPi Photos: Drew Gurian & TPi www.altjband.com www.l-acoustics.com www.l-isa-immersive.com www.ratsound.com www.avid.com

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EVENT FOCUS

GLADIATOR: IN CONCERT K-array technology was deployed across 2 of Rome’s most famous landmarks to provide the crystal clear audio required for one of the year’s most exclusive events. TPi’s Ste Durham was on site to speak with the people behind this historic undertaking.

Last July, in the pages of this very magazine, some smart arse wrote about “the alchemy of pairing an artist with their perfect venue”, in reference to a blistering performance by Rammstein at Horsens State Prison in Denmark.

While this show certainly was - and remains - a strong example of this concept, Gladiator: In Concert is its embodiment.

For one night only, Ridley Scott’s historical epic was screened in HD and accompanied by a live performance of the Hans Zimmer-composed soundtrack, courtesy of Conductor Justin Freer and the musicians and choir of the Italian Film Orchestra. Australian vocalist, Lisa Gerrard, who sang on the movie’s soundtrack and served as its co-composer, also

added her otherworldly talents to the event; all of which unfolded within the storied ruins of antiquity’s most infamous entertainment venue - the Colosseum… Beat. That.

This prestigious event was staged by film score performance specialist CineConcerts, in support of Rotary’s End Polio Now campaign, and attended by stars of the film such as Maximus himself, Russell Crowe, and ‘the eighth king of Rome’; former AS Roma striker Francesco Totti. Such a luminous occasion required a truly world class audio setup; with the gauntlet ultimately being thrown down before technical supplier Planet Service - and the K-array Firenze system.

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GLADIATOR: IN CONCERT

THE BEATING HEART OF ROME The relationship between CineConcerts and Planet Service began in 2016, with the latter providing gear and tech support for the Harry Potter Film Concert Series. The success of this collaboration left CineConcerts in little doubt as to the perfect audio partner for this most august of occasions.

As well as the charity curtain raiser for an exclusive crowd of 300 at the Colosseum on Wednesday 6 June, a pair of larger events were held on the Friday and Saturday of the same week, around the corner at former chariot racing stadium (and modern day concert venue), Circus Maximus. These shows required a scaled up production across the board, which also meant bringing in kit and crew from K-array itself.

K-array Product Specialist, Klaus Hausherr, explained: “While any audio manufacturer could have deployed for a show like this, I think the K-array system was chosen because it’s different. It really sounds like you are listening to studio monitors, which is perfect for an engineer mixing a show as intricate as this. Everything is in the right place.

“The other important factor is the impulse - the transient response is really fast, which means you have no reverberation on a snare shot, for example, unless you want it. This allows the engineer to have fun with reverb, and work from a clean slate.”

The PA system at the Colosseum comprised of 3 K-array Firenze-KH7’s per side as main hangs, 4 K-array Mugello-KS5 subwoofers, 16 KobraKK102’s as front fill, and 3 sets of Python-KP102 lined down the entrance as left and right delays. There was also a pair of KH7’s flown in the middle of the truss, used specifically to project the film’s dialogue.

The orchestra was mixed using a DiGiCo SD7 (with 2 SD-Rack 56 analogue In, 16 analogue output and 8 AES/EBU output each), while the

film’s dialogue was handled on a DiGiCo SD12 (with 1 SD-Rack 56 analogue In 32-bit and 24 analogue output). A TC-Electronics System 6000 reverb was chosen for the orchestra, with an additional TC-Electronics System 4000 for vocal soloist Lisa Gerrard. Speaker management at the Colosseum came from an Outline Newton 16+8 system.

Audio Crew Chief for Planet Service, Alessandro Saudelli, explained: “The major challenge was to have perfect PA coverage without being able to put the cluster in the correct position. The screen was on the back of the stage so we needed to stay as wide as possible with the main left and right hangs, in order to allow the best sight lines. The problem was that the speakers were so wide that they didn’t cover the central corridor adequately, so we added 3 rows of Python-KP102 as delays to cover it with the same precision and quality of the rest of the venue.”

The extensive cache of microphones used on stage was consistent for both venues, and consisted of 43 DPA d:screet 4061’s, 22 DPA d:vote 4099’s, a DPA d:dictate 4011A cardioid microphone. 11 Schoeps MK4’s, 3 Schoeps MK21’s, 8 Schoeps MK41’s, 2 Neumann TLM 103’s, 11 Neumann KM184’s, 7 AKG 414’s, 2 Audio-Technica AT4040’s, 2 Sennheiser MD421’s, 9 Sennheiser 416’s, 8 Shure Beta 57’s, 3 KSM9’s, a Beta 52 and 2 PG48’s.

On stage monitoring for the choir came from 8 Nexo PS10’s, while 10 K-array Mastiff-KM112’s provided various section-specific mixes for the musicians with the exception of conductor Justin Freer, whose mix came from a Behringer B207 MP3.

Emanuele Vischi and Giangi Alessandro were both still ironing out the finer points of the Colosseum setup when TPi arrived on site. “We’ve had 3 days here so far to set up,” began Vischi. “It’s quite difficult, as time is short and the venue is unusual. We can’t do any audio rehearsal before 7pm 17

GLADIATOR: IN CONCERT

Below: K-array Product Specialist, Klaus Hausherr, at Circus Maximus; Planet Service’s Giangi Alessandro and Emanuele Vischi; Star of the film, Russell Crowe, gave a speech prior to the screening, and an impromptu address at its conclusion.

merging the worlds of cinema and live music, as Vischi explained. “The audience is very near to the stage, so we need to try and compromise between the PA and the acoustic qualities of each instrument, as well as synchronising this via timecode with the images on screen. Harmonising these spatial relationships is difficult, but we calculate this well in advance using a combination of the best software and our ‘onboard analogue equipment’,” he laughed, gesturing towards his ears.

The rest of the Planet Service audio team - comprised of Daniele Tramontani, Gennaro Carlo, Francesco Passeri, Raffaella Gatti, Michele Celleno, Alessandro Giommarelli, Simone Mazzi, Emanuele Candido, and Andrea Severi - was scattered between the 2 venues on the day of the Colosseum show, ready to transfer the on-stage and FOH gear around the corner the following day.

because it’s open to the public, and space is at a premium - as soon as a case is empty, back in the truck it goes.”

As well as having very little space, the crew also had to deal with the relatively slender load limits that were afforded by the venue’s floor. This surface, which was originally installed to allow visitors to stand atop the labyrinthine bowels of the Colosseum, can only support a maximum of 200kg/sqm. Vischi continued: “We cannot fly a large PA because of these load limits, but the Firenze-KH7 is very small and perfect for the job. This also helps with manoeuvrability during the load in and setup, which helps when you are essentially working inside a museum!”

Alessandro added: “With a job like this, organisation is key. We have been planning for a year and have dealt with changes in both audience size and budget. The cost to rent this location is, understandably, very high.”

When it came to configuring the PA for the Colosseum show, the Planet Service crew used their experience of providing the perfect sound when

CIRCUS MAXIMUS The more substantial audio setup required at Circus Maximus meant that K-array was asked to provide supplementary kit, including 24 of its flagship Firenze-KH8 speakers. The full rig at used on the more conventional festival-style stage at Circus Maximus consisted of 12 units of K-array KH8 per side, 16 K-array KS8’s for low end reinforcement, 6 K-array KH7’s split as central left and right hangs, 8 K-array Mugello-KH2’s as front fill, and 3 more KH7’s per side as delays. Speaker management came from a Meyer Sound Galileo 616 system.

Saudelli said: “The basic idea in use at the Circus Maximus was the same as the Colosseum - a big main L&R, with 2 central L&R hangs, 2 delays and the front fill. The only thing that worried us was the subs. In order to make

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GLADIATOR: IN CONCERT

Below: Gladiator was at home in the Colosseum for an exclusive charity screening.

sure the coverage was sufficient, and to keep the stage as clean as possible, we opted for a hybrid sub arrangement - a mixture of end-fire and arc array.”

K-array’s Hausherr explained his duties at the Circus Maximus: “I use Meyer Galileo to manage the left and right signals, subs, and fills. I started to build a standard system with the special requests from the client, but there’s nothing too unusual. Although we didn’t need a lot of low end, the sub configuration is strange, with a mixture of arc and end-fire.”

The system tech used EASE Focus for 3D modelling of the venue, and his laptop was open and running Powersoft Armonia at all times. He said: “The best chance for the FOH engineer is to have equal frequency response - the SPL must be balanced everywhere as much as possible. With Electronic Beam Steering you can do this because the phase and the frequency response is so good. EASE Focus is used to calculate FIR filters, and send the information to Armonia to get the virtual boxes. Then it’s just a case of connecting cables, managing network communications and sending the right presents and filters everywhere. It’s quite simple - and very important that you can fly 12 boxes of KH8 in 10 mins!”

It’s been 2 years since Hausherr first sang the praises of the KH8 in our magazine, and time has certainly not dampened the Product Specialist’s enthusiasm: “I love this system! It’s really powerful and precise, and the definition is really amazing. It’s not exactly flat, but it provides a neutral starting point for any FOH engineer. The audiences at these shows know what they want to hear - you must have good energy pressure, good

☞

presence, and the emotion of the soundtrack has to come across. This is 80% in the hands of the FOH engineer; but the Firenze systems are the best starting point one could ask for.”

The final word from the crew on this triumphant spectacle came from Saudelli, who summed up a whirlwind few days in Rome: “It was a unique event, and certainly a challenging time, but the great experience of all the audio team, the support of K-array and the hard work done in the design phase, has made it suceed beyond our most optimistic expectations.”

WHAT WE DO IN LIFE, ECHOES IN ETERNITY Once the initial buzz of the red carpet had died down and the beating sun descended behind the Colosseum’s ruined walls, the long-awaited event began. Though the movie was familiar, the setting and imposing orchestral accompaniment took each scene - from blood-soaked action to tender whispers - to a breathtaking new level. The pressure to succeed with stakes this high must be massive, but as you’d expect, the crew retained an air of quiet determination. As Alessandro laconically put it: “It’s an honour to be involved in an event such as this, but when you finish one job, it’s on to the next. That’s simply the nature of what we do.”

TPi Photos: Nicolò Nisi & TPi www.cineconcerts.com www.planetservicesm.eu www.k-array.com/en

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EVENT FOCUS

LIAM GALLAGHER: AS YOU WERE Following the release of his debut solo album, As You Were, Liam Gallagher began a tour that has now reached the summer festival circuit. With a Production Design by Cassius Creative and technical aid from Really Creative Media, the singer’s show is a visual feast as TPi reports...

Liam Gallagher is bringing new music, a fresh band and some iconic festival sets to the UK this summer. The Mancunian rock ‘n’ roll star is back on the road, including a healthy dose of festival and outdoor shows before heading further afield to play indoors for European and Japanese audiences.

Teaming up to help design and deliver the creative backdrop to Gallagher’s stage presence was Cassius Creative, a production design partnership between Dan Hill and Chris ‘Squib’ Swain. The production designers joined forces with Nick Dew and Jack James of digital experts, Really Creative Media.

Dew outlined the history between the companies: “Having teamed up with Cassius Creative on Dua Lipa’s The Self-Titled tour and Rudimental’s

performance at V Festival 2017, we have enjoyed a great working relationship already, and complement each others’ artistic skills.

“The creative process first began a few weeks before Liam’s appearance at BBC Biggest Weekend show in Coventry, with the stage vision brought to life through predominantly live camera and augmented with some textures and using Thundering Jacks software, Video Dust.”

Video Director Phil Woodhead ran the Video Dust through Really Creative Media’s Catalyst V6 media server, which was then controlled via MA Lighting grandMA2 consoles. “This software gave us the opportunity to further manipulate and replicate live camera feeds to create a unique experience for live audiences, utilising the IMAG wing screens either side of the stage to full visual effect,” explained Dew. 22

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LIAM GALLAGHER

He continued: “To complement Liam’s familiar performance style, often The Director also gave his thoughts on Really Creative Media: “It’s been standing still and singing up into the microphone, Phil ensured our camera great working with Nick and Jack as well. Their attention to detail and backfeeds captured close-up footage of Liam, the band and instruments being up is excellent. Both of them were on site for rehearsals, which shows their played to fill the stage’s LED screen backdrop with a variety of layouts. Phil commitment to the production. They supplied nicely engineered racks and even utilised a microphone camera to give an ‘in your face’ angle of Liam.” top personnel, so I am full of praise for them. Top guys!” he smiled.

Cameras provided by Really Creative Media For Gallagher’s own headline shows, included 2 Blackmagic Design URSA Broadcast Really Creative Media supplemented camera cameras and 1 additional URSA Broadcast RF numbers to replace the kit usually on site for a enabled camera. Lenses from Canon included festival line-up, in order to generate the same the new Canon CJ20 UHD lens, 2 Agile Remote level of visual coverage.

Arc360 Lite robotic cameras on stage driven A semi-transparent ROE MC-18 LED by the new ARC Maxi Controller and a Marshall screen was also installed - when possible - to “It’s been great working with CV200-MB HD lipstick camera for Gallagher’s implement on the headline tour dates, with an Dan and Squib again; we worked microphone. array of lighting fixtures set behind the screen Really Creative Media’s Panasonic Touring to complete the full show package. together on a Years & Years PPU provided 5 outputs into the Catalyst Gallagher’s UK dates include his appearance project a while ago & that was media servers making use of multiple AUX at London’s Finsbury Park, TRNSMT Festival outputs. in Glasgow, RiZE Festival in Chelmsford and a when Cassius Creative first came Video Director, Phil Woodhead, added: “It’s hometown gig at Lancashire County Cricket across Video Dust. Since then, the been great working with Dan and Squib again; Club in Manchester. we worked together on a Years & Years project As you were. software has evolved into what we a while ago and that was when Cassius Creative TPi have today and it adds the right first came across Video Dust. Since then, the Photos: Really Creative Media software has evolved into what we have today www.liamgallagher.com amount of visual effects to shows and it adds the right amount of visual effects to www.cassiuscreative.co.uk without overdoing it...” shows without overdoing it. It’s intuitive to use www.reallycreativemedia.co.uk and integrates with Catalyst V6 very well.”

Video Director, Phil Woodhead. www.thunderingjacks.com

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EVENT FOCUS

EM ACOUSTICS LAUNCHES HALO-A TPi heads south as British loudspeaker manufacturer EM Acoustics demonstrated the capabilities of its new HALO Arena series at a bustling LH2 Studios in Park Royal, West London.

Demo day fever certainly has been sweeping the continent of late, and the world of professional audio has been at this phenomenon’s forefront. The latest such event called for TPi to once again jump on the first off-peak south, this time to London’s LH2 Studios to experience the new HALO-A large format line array from EM Acoustics - the very first opportunity to do so in the UK. The event was organised into 4 2-hour sessions, repeated throughout the day at 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 and 16:00, each one starting with a short product presentation on the HALO-A system to explain its features and technology. This allowed attendees to inspect the rigging in detail, and see how the system is packaged, amplified, and transported. This was followed by a series of listening tests with a variety of programme material - both standard audio playback and also multi-track recordings so visitors had a chance to mix on the system.

Engineers were also encouraged to bring their own show files and recordings to play via the DiGiCo SD7 console at FOH position in LH2. As well as the HALO-A, the company also displayed products from its various

ranges of line arrays, subwoofers, passive 2-way loudspeakers and floor monitors.

Giving his take on the day was Operations Director at EM Acoustics Loudspeakers, Mike Wheeler, who commented: “We were extremely pleased with both the attendance and the feedback from the HALO-A launch event. We realise that a large-format system is something of a new market sector for us, so to hear such positive responses from respected industry professionals is brilliant. We look forward to getting HALO Arena out there on shows in the coming months and really showing what it can do.”

ENTER THE ARENA The larger HALO-A follows the same core design as the more compact HALO-C, providing the now signature EM Acoustics ‘maximum headroom’ design approach that ensures consistency of performance, regardless of SPL level. The compact enclosure (362m x 1020mm x 619mm) and low weight (66kg) translates into less truck space used and smaller motors required.

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Below: EM Acoustics’ David Kelland, Mike Wheeler and Ed Kinsella.

The HALO-A utilises a proprietary patent-pending emulation manifold, which combines the energy of 4, 3.4-inch diaphragm, 1.4-inch exit compressions drivers into a plane-wave array. This assembly gives not only a significant moving area for the high frequency section but also provides twice the headroom of comparable systems.

The HF section is flanked by a pair of high power 3.5-inch voice coil, 12-inch neodymium low frequency transducers. These 2 drive units combined with optimally-tuned low turbulence porting and generous cabinet volume ensure HALO-A has a low frequency performance to match the incredible highs.

A single HALO-A exhibits a flat, free-field frequency response from 48 Hz to 19kHz (+/-3dB) and a phase response which is +/- 20 degrees between 150Hz and 18kHz. Due to the unique loading technique applied to the low frequency drivers, combined with the high frequency waveguide, the dispersion pattern control is maintained down to 250Hz. HALO-A requires 2 amplifier channels and makes use of the latest in FIR DSP technology requiring use of the EM Acoustics DQ20 advanced system amplifier. The enclosure (is constructed from premium 15mm and 30mm multi-laminate Baltic birch plywood, rebated, screwed and glued together for maximum strength. Intelligent bracing combined with low-loss porting structure minimises panel flexure removing unwanted resonances while keeping the overall enclosure weight low, and the enclosure is finished in a weather-resistant polyurethane coating.

Each enclosure offers a simple and intuitive 3-point flying system, assembled from ultra-high tensile strength steel parts coated with Zylan for enhanced durability.

TPi www.emacoustics.co.uk www.lh2studios.co.uk

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The new standard for live events High performance from invisible speakers

Firenze-KH7 Powerful system with Electronic Beam Steering for precise coverage used at Rome’s Colosseum. www.k-array.com

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EVENT FOCUS

ADAM HALL OPENS EXPERIENCE CENTER On 14 June an exclusive celebration for customers, industry partners and employees worldwide heralded the official opening of the new Experience Center at the Adam Hall Group headquarters located in the Hessian town of Neu-Anspach near Frankfurt, Germany. And TPi were invited…

The Adam Hall Experience Center is another component in the overall concept of the event technology solutions company that aims to enable more people to realise their creative ideas. Using the theme ‘Come Together’, the benchmark was set from the beginning by a fantastic sound and light show, with pyrotechnics, special guests and famous musical acts. Speeches by company Founder David Kirby and Managing Directors Alexander Pietschmann and Markus Jahnel rounded out this extravagant house-warming party.

More than €20m has been invested in the construction of 2 new

building complexes, the Experience Center and the expanded Logistics Park. The new Experience Center at the equally new Adam Hall-Str. 1 has been specially designed for business customers, partners, organisations and employees and, as an architectural hallmark of the Adam Hall Group, includes a fully-equipped product showroom, a large theatre auditorium for live shows and demonstrations. There is also an educational facilities for the newly-founded Adam Hall Academy, which as of 18 June offers a full seminar programme for the industry in conjunction with DEAplus, the German Event Academy organisation. The integrated R&D and engineering 30

ADAM HALL EXPERIENCE CENTRE

Opposite: Alexander Pietschmann, David-Kirby and Markus-Jahnel cutting the ribbon at the open day; The Adam Hall house band.

Below: Daft Punk kicking off the after party.

department in the other half of the Experience Center houses an anechoic In addition to the new Experience Center, the Adam Hall Group also measuring room, various endurance and climatic test rigs, a photometric has modern showrooms in Singapore, Barcelona, Poland and the United laboratory and ample space for modelling and 3D prototyping.

States, which means the company’s sales partners receive optimum “The dynamic markets of our time require courage, mobility, innovation support; able to use the premises for product demos and customer and high customer orientation,” remarked CEO Alexander Pietschmann on training. the implementation of the new Experience Center, The Experience Center also accommodates which will serve “as open space for inspiration the newly founded Adam Hall Academy, which and creativity,” for employees, customers, and is equipped with the latest technology, making partners. “The repositioning of the company it perfect for theoretical and practical training underlines the identity of the Adam Hall Group courses. Among other things, this features and clearly defines our motivation and goals. various computer-based workstations and The focus is on the wishes and requirements an auditorium for up to 800 people, with fully of our customers. We would like to create ideal configurable sound and lighting systems as well conditions for professional users with innovative, as stage technology. In conjunction with DEAplus user-friendly and powerful event technology (German Event Academy GmbH), the Adam Hall solutions and give more people the opportunity to Academy offers a wide range of manufacturerrealise their creative ideas.” independent seminars, workshops and training in “After over 40 years in the entertainment the areas of light, sound, rigging, video and media industry, we are proud to state that the Adam technology. Between June and December 2018 “After over 40 years in the Hall name is well established amongst event alone, there are already approximately 50 training entertainment industry, professionals,” said COO Markus Jahnel. “Over the days scheduled in both German and English. They last 10 years in particular, the company has grown are available to anyone interested in gaining a we are proud to state that considerably, continually developing to become deeper insight into the industry and in developing the Adam Hall name is well a manufacturer and full-service provider for event their knowledge in the field of professional event technology, a fact which is once again emphasised technology. established amongst event by our comprehensive product portfolio for the TPi professionals...” pro audio, LED lighting, stage equipment and Photos courtesy of Adam Hall flightcase hardware sectors.” www.adamhall.com COO Markus Jahnel 31

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PRODUCTION PROFILE

ED SHEERAN ÷ TOUR Following last year’s successful arena run, Ed Sheeran moved his ÷ tour into UK stadiums throughout June. TPi’s Stew Hume catches up with the singer’s crew over his 4-day residency at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium to see what goes into the production behind Britain’s one-man looping sensation.

If there was one thing that TPi took away from spending time with the Ed Sheeran camp it’s this: loyalty is of the utmost importance within this touring family. For anyone that has been living under a rock for the last decade, Ed Sheeran, armed with his trusty loop pedal, created a buzz in the mainstream UK music scene, and, following the release of his debut album, +, continued to go from strength to strength. Despite this success, his core team remains by his side. Last year, following the release of his eagerly anticipated third album, ÷, Sheeran again hit the road with a new eye-catching arena show that has now grown for his 2018 stadium run.

Juggling the roles of Production Manager and FOH Engineer was Chris Marsh. Having first met Sheeran backstage at London’s Forum in 2011, the audio pro originally only expected to fill the role for a 2-week stint. “During that time, The A Team started getting picked up by a lot of radio stations and his popularity skyrocketed,” reminisced Marsh, while sitting down for a coffee backstage at the Etihad Stadium. “I then got signed on for more dates – that was over 7 years ago and I’m still here!” he chuckled. Even during those early tours, Marsh filled the role of both PM and FOH Engineer.

“Back then I don’t think there was the budget for 2 separate crew members.

Personally I think the 2 positions complement each other. I like to be kept busy on tour so I get to do all the advancing in the morning then by the evening I get to be part of the show. I much prefer this than being stuck in an office all day. This way you get to be part of the vibe and enjoy the adrenaline of a show, while still serving as the backbone of the production.”

Aiding Marsh in day-to-day production duties is Stage Manager, Matt Caley, who has been working with Sheeran almost as long as Marsh; initially filling the role of guitar tech during his first headline tour. “I had to jump ship for another tour and our now current Guitar Tech, Trevor Dawkins, took my place,” stated Caley.

Marsh recruited Caley - who won at this year’s TPi Awards - back into the ranks to handle Stage Managing duties. “Ed has certainly come a long way

since those early tours but years of working together have built a strong Stage Manager / Production Manager relationship. Prior to this tour, both Chris and I sat down for a very long time and worked out how we were going to split the workload for this tour,” stated Caley. “He puts a lot of trust in me to run the load-in and outs and trusts my judgement to get the job done while he is in the office advancing the next shows we will be moving into. I also make sure that when it comes to show time he gets to concentrate on his FOH duties.” Another vital crewmember that enabled Marsh to juggle both positional was Production Assistant Cally Harris who among many other things aided in chaperoning TPi through the various departments of the tour.

Along with Marsh and Caley, there were several members that had been part of Sheeran’s extended tour family including, Tour Manager Mark Friend, Video Director Phil Mead and Guitar Tech Trevor Dawkins - all familiar faces throughout the years. According to Marsh this regularity of tour attendance is all thanks to Sheeran himself. “Ed has always been fiercely loyal,” stated the PM. “He cares a great deal for his crew and understands the importance of having a happy and healthy team working for him. This creates a really comfortable environment, which people can’t wait to come back to.”

This due care and attention is also given to 50 strong touring crew who they’ve picked up over the years. “We want to make sure each one of our crew are taken care of on the road,” stated Marsh. “The ‘suck it up’, oldschool approach of dealing with peoples’ feelings and emotions is certainly not one we endorse out here! You have to be hyper aware of your crew and appreciate that each one of them has a family at home; they’re not a nameless person on a tour bus. With that in mind, we always encourage the crew to bring along wives, children and parents so they can see what we do out here and bring a little taste of home to them on the road.”

As well as familiar faces in the crew, Marsh reinstated many of Sheeran’s regular suppliers, including; audio vendor Major Tom, video supplier Colonel Tom Touring, KB Event for gear transport, Rock-It Cargo 33

ED SHEERAN

for freighting, TAIT for set building and No.3 for tour catering. New to the Sheeran team is Lights Control Rigging, which supplied lighting for the tour along with HighPost Structures for the touring roof system.

look of the stage rather than being an extra element to the show that draws the crowd’s attention away from the action.”

STAGING “TAIT really were the only staging manufacturer that had the capabilities of touring Mark’s design,” explained Marsh. “Although their services come at a premium, the product they deliver is always fantastic. We have had some elements out with us for almost 18 months and the pins still hammer in effortlessly. Not only that, the support from TAIT has also been outstanding.” The set was quite a feat of engineering, all centred around a mother grid system that hung behind the chalice set pieces. “We always knew that we wanted to include some movement within the show with fixtures dropping in at moments in the set,” stated Cunniffe. “But what we what we’ve actually done is put the whole mother grid on a Kinesys system.” In total the mother grid housed 50 points, 12 of which were used for automotive movements within the show. “The mother grid facilitates every point being about to be precisely in the right place which is essential in a set with very little tolerance for error, a slight deviation in hook position could result in set pieces crashing into each other,” stated Cunniffe.

“Despite the expense, it was the right move on Chris’ part and it has given the production peace of mind throughout the tour.”

Leading the rigging department was Seth Cook alongside fellow automation specialist Omar Franchi with all rigging supplied by Major Tom. Excluding PA, the set weighed almost 40 tonnes. “Usually for a show of this size, as a head rigger I would be very busy on build days,” stated Cook. “However, due to the meticulous planning of our production, the show is incredibly manageable. Everything has been thought out correctly.”

Aiding TAIT in the design of the show was Jeremy Lloyd from Wonderworks who helped design the grid, which was built by Litec. “During the build I’m bringing in 19 local riggers,” continued Cook. “The way we have been running the show is to have ground riggers pull all the points into place meaning less people in the roof. Effectively all the riggers have to do is move the looms and pulleys into the next place and make the connection with the shackle. This leads to a more effective show day and keeps

MOVING TO STADIUMS Show Designer, Mark Cunniffe spoke to TPi about the design and approach for the ÷ campaign. The creative has been at the forefront of helping Sheeran develop as a live performer, creating sets that have enabled him to bring his music from theatres to arenas to sell-out stadium crowds.

“To look at the history of this show you really have to go back to his Wembley performance in 2015,” began Cunniffe. “This was the real test to see if Ed could be a stadium act. As a performer, it was clear he was up to it, but the real question was the level of production that would be necessary to bring one man with an acoustic guitar out to 60,000 people.”

It’s safe to say that the event was an unquestionable success, which led to Sheeran and the rest of the team continuing to conquer stadiums including Croke Park as well as stadiums in Australia all the way to the end of the x campaign.

“When it came to this tour, I was keen to recreate that vibe of Wembley but make it tourable,” explained Cunniffe. “I knew that I would have to design a show that was scalable, so when we finished the 2017 arena run we would be ready to move into stadiums.”

The stage show consisted of a giant chalice-shaped structure that was coated in a healthy supply of LED. The overall goal of the design was to lead the eye down to the centre of the stage and Sheeran himself. “From the start I wanted a large roof piece with an LED backwall so this design catered for both,” explained Cunniffe. The show designer discussed one of his greatest issues with the design. “Personally I am not a fan of traditional IMAG. I hate going out onto a show floor and the audience’s attention is split with the left and right sides looking up at a screen rather then the artists on stage.” However, dealing with the sheer numbers of the stadium meant the Cunniffe had to come up with a solution. “We’ve using the divide logo of the album and turning in 90 degrees, using the 2 circles and the central line as 3 video surfaces. This gives us the width and yet still ties in with the overall 34

ED SHEERAN WORLD TOUR 2018 Congratulations to Major Tom on another successful LEO Family Tour We're proud to support you on bringing the highest quality audio to stages around the world.

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Photo: Ralph Larmann

ED SHEERAN

Production Manager and FOH Engineer, Chris Marsh; Lighting Director, Matt Jones; Head Rigger Seth Cook; Show Designer, Mark Cunniffe; KB Events owner & Sheeran’s Transport Manager, Stuart McPherson.

everything much safer with less people in the roof.” For motors Cook opted for GIS Loadguards. “I’ve worked with every brand in the industry and I never want to use another motor,” stated Cook.

As Sheeran is a one-man band, there was little need to factor in a very large upstage area. This resulted in a set that was heavy on the downstage.

“While we were still on the arena run we got in touch with most of the major outdoor staging companies,” explained Marsh. “However, none of them were able to deliver what we need with their available infrastructure.” This led to the PM joining forces with a new company, HighPost Structures.

Formed out of the Danish company European Staging, founder of the company, Mikkel Brogaard was approached to try and create the specific staging roof for the tour. TPi spoke to Brogaard on site to outline some of the features of this custom roofing system. “The set itself is really quite heavy. To combat this you can either just make your staging system bigger or you can go down the route of a cantilever.” HighPost opted for the latter option, creating a stage that could counter balance the heavy upstage set pieces. This staging system also had another advantage as Cunniffe pointed out: “With most staging options, how many tickets you can sell is affected by staging legs on the left and right of the structure. However, due to HighPost Structures cantilever system we are truly able to make this show a 180 degree set meaning we can play to even larger audiences with out the risk of obtrusive sight lines.”

“HighPost really went above and beyond on their design,” enthused Marsh. “The stage essentially builds itself, with each piece being pushed up by hydraulics. This meant there was no need to bring in cranes to build the set and the number of crew that had to work at height was serious diminished - a huge bonus on the advanced health and safety paperwork.”

In total, HighPost Structures produced 4 staging systems for the tour.

“We are essentially leap frogging sets across the globe,” laughed Brogaard.

“This is our third day in Manchester but our advance team are already in Glasgow setting up for the next date. The other 2 are currently on flatbeds

in America ready for the state side tour.”

It’s also worth noting that, underfoot, keeping Manchester City’s playing surface in great condition was Mojo Barriers’ Tarratrak Plus pitch protection. We are used to seeing the name Mojo Barriers as safety barriers but since being acquired by German company Evago, it has diversified, introducing stadium pitch protection to its portfolio when it also acquired Terraplas. Mojo’s crew was the first supplier on site in May to install 9,500 sqm of the Terratrak Plus pitch protection. The temporary stadium floor was in position ready for Ed Sheeran’s production team to start installing the stage and tech 24 hours later. Mojo’s UK Director Kevin Thorborn commented: “The Terratrak Plus is our heavy duty system, which gives the ultimate protection for the heavy loads and vehicles that all go on the pitch for load-in and load-out. The product is well known and trusted across the globe by production managers in a similar way to Mojo Barriers, and it’s great that the team at Kilimanjaro (the tour’s promoter) have had faith that we can install their pitch protection to the same high standard we’re known for.”

Following the sold-out Ed Sheeran shows, the Terratrak Plus pitch protection remained there until mid June for a series of concerts including tour stops from Jay-Z and Beyonce, Foo Fighters and Taylor Swift.

VIDEO AND LIGHTING Video was critial to the show design. Colonel Tom Touring once again provided all the LED screens and back end control for tour alongside Lights Control Rigging, which provided the complete the lighting package for the tour.

“Personally I don’t see lighting and video as separate departments,” commented Cunniffe. “These days with the abundance of LED technology, we’re able to seamlessly blend the content and your lighting show. It’s amusing to look back to shows I used to work on, such as Phil Collins at Knebworth, where you needed to put ballasts under the stage to deal with 36

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ED SHEERAN

Backline Technicians Trevor Dawkins and Dave White; The hard-working No.3 Catering team.

the weight of the video. Now, LED is so much lighter, it’s really opened to the doors for other show designers like myself.”

The LED product in question was a ROE Carbon 5mm product. A total of 400 full panels and 175 half tiles were deployed. The IMAG configuration consisted of 560 KTL Flyer 12mm tiles. “ROE really is a great product,” enthused Cunniffe. “It’s light and easy to handle and looks fantastic with the content creation by our two visual content makers, Montreal-based Moment Factory and Bristol’s SHOP.” The tour’s Video Director, Phil Mead, discussed various changes within the video department. “We’ve certainly upgraded our rig for this stadium run from last year’s arena tour,” he stated, clearly excited about the various new elements of this video setup. “I suppose the most obvious addition is the IMAG to the rider. Prior to this I was looking for shots that we would feed to our media servers for the LED back wall. As well as supplying those clips, I have also had a chance to polish up my directing skills for IMAG, which has been really enjoyable. The configuration that Mark created with the 2 dots and portrait screen has also been an interesting challenge to deal with and certainly gives me more options to work with.”

To deal with the greater directing demands, Mead opted to use a Ross Carbonite Black video switcher. “It’s a real joy to use and gives me a higher degree of control.” The camera package for the tour consisted of 3 Sony 1700’s, 3 Canons with a selection of 100x, 86x and 24x lenses. Also making a return were 5 Bradley Engineering CamBall 3’s, which the production have had on their rider for some time, with the addition of a GoPro Mk 2, the sole purpose of which was to capture footage of Sheeran’s feet to showcase his loop pedal skills. “We’ve also added a Sony A7RII with a Teradek Bolt 1000 radio transmitter,” added Mead. “The sole purpose of this camera is to film Ed as he makes his way to the stage. It’s a really nice moment when the crowd sees him for the first time on the screens. You can see the excitement on his face and that feeds the excitements of the crowd.”

The media servers also received an upgrade in the shape of disguise’s gx 2 media server. The tour is also the first show to use the company’s HDMI

2.0 VFC card. “I’ve been a fan of disguise since I began using the product in 2014 for the start of Ed’s x world tour,” said Cunniffe. “The seamless integration between Notch real time effects has made disguise my go-to product.” Mead noted that when the stadium leg of Sheeran’s tour kicked off, the show added side IMAG elements and the servers were working at capacity. “Upgrading to the gx 2 not only gave us greater headroom to continue using Notch for the main screens and IMAG but also had the advantage of scaling down the number of servers we needed,” he said. “We had been using 2 active 4x2pros and one understudy, and now the entire show is powered by a single gx 2 with a second in the wings, should we need a backup. The HDMI was running in 4K DCI and feeds all but one of the walls on the entire flown system. The HD-SDIs were running in 3G SDI mode and feed 2 M2 processors for 1 wall and all the floor systems. A third output feeds the side IMAG screens.”

The production relied on Notch to produce real time effects on the live video content. “The power of Notch in combination with disguise is incredible,” enthused Mead. “One of the most impressive looks we have achieved is during the songs The A-Team and Galway Girl. Essentially we are running video content that uses UV data and the Notch is able to take that information and overlay images of Ed within the content. For example in The A-Team during the chorus we have content of a city street at night with various neon signs, on which we are able to stream real-time footage of Ed. Rather than having to key frame each image, Notch is able to just take that data and do it all automatically.”

According to Cunniffe: “Everything was programmed in my studio before loading onto the touring gx 2’s. The fact that the system can be run on any high-end computer set up makes it very flexible during the pre-production period. The roll up to the system’s newer software releases was faultless.”

For LED processing the production put its faith in Brompton. “We have used them for years and the experience I have had with their products is second to none,” stated Mead. For this tour Mead opted from the company’s new Tessera SX40 Processor with 4 Brompton XD fibre

38

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ED SHEERAN

HighPost Stuctures’ Mikkel Brogaard; Stage Manager, Matt Caley; Audio Systems Engineer, Charlie Albin.

distribution and 2 M2 HD LED processors. “This is the company’s new 4k processor, which only has 2 fibres coming out of it. This has given is a much cleaner infrastructure and the foot print is now relatively small especially with the sheer about of LED we have out on this tour.”

During the design process Cunniffe brought in Alex Passmore to program the show who worked with the show designer on all Sheeran’s show. Over seeing the show design on tour was Lighting Director, Matt Jones.

The LD’s control package consisted on a full sized MA Lighting grandMA2 console with Luminex giga Core 16XT being used for data distribution. The grandMA was very much the centre of the show with both lighting cues and video content being launched from the console. “I know there are several show designers that would disagree with the decision to put all visual element onto one desk,” stated Cunniffe. “However it makes sense for this show as many of the elements are cued at the same time as the video.

Because everything that Ed does is live, timecode has and will always be out of the question. Having Matt launch everything live is the only way to have a completely sync up the design.”

“He certainly keeps me on my toes each night,” laughed Jones while discussing his nightly routine throughout the ÷ cycle. “He’s incredibly fluid and dynamic as a performer and enjoys the flexibility we offer so at any time he can change around the set list. That means I always need to be ready at the drop of a hat to bring up another set of cues for any given song.

More than that, as he builds the loops of each of the songs there is always

a chance he will play an extra bar of a song or perhaps break a string.

It means watching him and being ready for the next cue. You can never assume anything. There are times where I might get a radio call giving me a heads up for any changes but on the whole its all live. Thankfully I have a good pool of macros set up on the desk that give me some safe transitions which would go unnoticed by the audience.”

The lighting rig consisted of 140 Claypaky Mythos 2’s, 32 Scenius Unicos and 18 Solaris Flare Q Plus. On each of the Kinesys pods there were 10 Mythos fixtures that descended at certain moments in the show, creating a canopy of light above Sheeran. “It’s during that moments that allows us to really utilise the Unicos which are under the Kinesys pods,” commented Jones.

Out at FOH on 2 towers were a collection of 74 SGM G4 Wash Beams and 24 P10 washes. For spots 4 Robert Juliat Lancelot Followspot were deployed. “When we first start the set it’s still sunny so I’m having to push the intensity more than I normally would, tending to pull them back as it gets darker,” commented Jones. “I also tend to only use the house left spot while Ed performs as it produces a nice shadowed looks on his face that looks better on the screens with the content. Then we he speaks to the crowd I use both the left and right so they can all see him clearly.”

STADIUM SOUND “Ed’s live set up used to be incredibly simple,” stated Marsh disusing the evolution of the singer’s famous loop pedal that made him a household

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ED SHEERAN

name. “It was just a traveling guitar and a Boss RC20 loop station. We could effectively put on a show anywhere.” Although this setup was ideal for bars and clubs, the limits of his live setup began to show as Sheeran moved to bigger venues. “The issue with the RC20 was that, when he built his loops, it started to compress the sound. I used to have to really push both the low and high ends to keep the power of his percussive hits and melodies intact.

It began to become a bit of a mush.” What Marsh really needed was a new loop option that offered endless headroom as well as give the FOH engineer a greater level of audio control. The end result was Sheeran’s custom loop pedal, which the singer affectionately refers to as Chewie II - a system just as formidable as its fuzzball namesake. “We spoke to all the major looping manufacturers and custom pedal companies but nobody was really able to deliver what we were after, so we ended up creating our own,” commented Marsh. The system that Sheeran uses is the second version of the Chewie and, in essence, is an 8-channel looper all in a robust shell with triggers that are very similar to that of Sheeran’s RC20. “Both Ed’s guitar and looping vocals come to me at FOH first as individual stems,” outlined Marsh. “This is especially useful when its comes to Ed’s percussive work on the guitar. I can really treat the stems to make more impact with what is effectively a kick and a snare drum hit.” Post treatment and stems are sent back to stage for Sheeran to sample. Marsh also has control of each one of the loop tracks to continually monitor each section of the song. “The interface of the Chewie also gives Ed more control, so if he makes a mistake while recording a loop he can undo the last overdub rather than having to record the whole build up again.”

Aiding in the development of the pedal was long-time Backline Tech, Trevor Dawkins. “I have been with Ed since 2012 and used to handle both his guitars and pedals. However, as soon as we started developing the Chewie, I knew we would need some extra help.” Enter Dave White, who now oversees the Chewie as well as monitors all the RF elements of the show. White discussed some of the other elements of the pedal. “The original stems come from FOH via an Optocore loop and splits into 2 stems, which gives me a seamless A/B redundancy. This gives us peace of mind that the show will keep going no matter what. After all, there’s only one guy on stage making noise so if we lost our audio line people would notice.”

With this latest version of the pedal, the production has now gone fully

digital. “We are not going analogue for anything,” enthused Marsh. “This decision was only made when I discovered the Sennheiser 9000 Series.

It’s the first wireless system I’ve found that makes an acoustic guitar sound natural. Many of its counterparts really lose the integrity of the instrument - and when it’s only Ed up there on stage that is unacceptable.

His guitar goes into his belt pack then that’s us in the digital domain until its hits the speakers.” Sennheiser was also the microphone of choice for his vocals. “For main vocals we use the 9235 capsule with 945 for his loop microphone,” said Marsh. “Admittedly, as a vocal microphone, the 945 is not the ideal choice for Ed’s tone. However it has an incredibly tight pattern so the only thing it picks up is his voice - and even then he has to really be on it to pick anything up. This is a necessity as the crowds we have here are loud and the last thing we want is for the pedal to record a scream from a fan and repeat it every other bar.”

“It really is a neat set up we have here now,” commented Dawkins.

“We actually have 2 pedal setups now. The main one we have here is 30kg and made of steel making it really robust. We also have a second lighter 1 - around 17kg - meaning we are able to be as flexible to travel as we were back in the day.”

While TPi was speaking to the backline team, we couldn’t help but to ask about the singer’s impressive range of guitars. More than happy to divulge some of the 6-sting secrets, Dawkins pulled some of the highlight out of the arsenal. “Ed recently moved from Martin to Lowden guitars. George from the company has frantically been making us guitars to fulfil the rider for this tour. We now have 9 out with us. It took some experimenting with various pickups to get the tone we were looking for. Finally we have the ideal setup where we are using a Fishman bar pick up with a Baggs preamp. Finding a combination that was able to deal with the way he abuses guitars was a challenge but this has been working superbly.” With a selection of tunings, Dawkins is always ready to go with the next instrument, with another in the wings in case of Sheeran’s all-to-often string breaks. “We always joke that Ed has alien sweat as he goes through strings like no one else. It keeps me on my toes.”

At FOH, Marsh talked TPi through his set up: “I’m using the DiGiCo SD7, which controls FOH as well as Ed’s monitors,” he stated. “The SD7 is my favourite mixing console! I love the layout and the ease of operation for the 42

ED SHEERAN

engineer. I have been using DiGiCo Consoles since serial number 001 of the D5 came to the Major Tom Warehouse. With Ed we have used all of the SD consoles from SD11 all the way to now using the SD7.”

As far has Sheeran’s onstage sound, he uses a combination in Sennheiser 2000’s IEMs and stage wedges. “The only requirement that Ed has with monitors is that nothing changes,” explained Marsh. “He never wants anyone mixing it as it’s too distracting while he is building up the songs and keeping in time. We moved onto the IEMs some time ago mainly for clarity. As he’s now playing to such large audiences fatigue would have really become a factor.” However the stage wedges remained to give the singer the impact needed to keep in time as well as giving him the option of taking out his ears to hear the crowd.

The SD7 was split into 4 distinct areas - incoming audio from guitar and vocals, the loop mixes and the monitor and FOH mix. “I’ve also got an insert on the left and right mix which enables me to to enhance the sub bass of Ed’s percussive hits,” explained Marsh. “I use a Waves Maxx BCL unit and have a few presets for each songs. There are some songs where I really want the ‘drums’ to punch through, others make them more subtle and achieve this by adjusting the intensity of the low end frequencies in the entire mix.”

Meyer Sound was again the PA of choice. This time around the array consisted of a Leo system with 72 boxes alongside 42 1100 LFCs. For front fills there were 20 Lina along with 8 Leopard. For delays a total of 56 Milo with 14 on each tower. For stage monitors 2 Meyer Sound 900 LFC and 2 Meyer Sound MJF 212 were used. “Through the years during Ed’s rapid rise to fame, we were given a lot of opportunities to support various people, through which we got to try almost every flavour of PA system,” stated Marsh. “Throughout, Meyer systems have always been the most consistent.

It’s the only PA I have come across that gives us the separation we need for the loop pedal. You can hear the definition and the clarity with what is going on and it never seems to give up. It has become part of Ed’s identity as a live act. Even his family recognises the brand now!”

Speaking through some of the specifics of the array in the Etihad was

Audio Systems Engineer, Charlie Albin. “Throughout we have been using Meyer Galaxy processing, which handles all the EQ and delay times for the system,” stated Albin. “We have 10 of them distributed in the racks which we are using in conjunction with SIM 3. Here in Manchester the rear stands are particularly steep and we have had to angle the delays quite notably, but both Chris and I have walk the venue several times and we are really satisfied with the coverage we have achieved.”

To close out the audio conversation, Marsh gave special mention to the tour’s audio supplier, Major Tom. “They have been with us since day one,” began the PM. “Prior to working with Ed I was an employee of theirs. When I first took on Ed there were certainly some sceptical people that questioned my decision to take a risk on this - at the time - unknown act. But there were those who were very supportive and one such group were the Major Tom family.”

POWER & LOGISITICS The power supplier for the UK was Buffalo Power Services. Production Manager Chris Marsh stated: “I was very impressed with their on-site staff who were always available to help, and their power equipment is always clean and able to provide the correct voltage. It may sound simple but I wish every generator company could do the same!” Collectively, 2 900kVA and 2 400kVA twinsets provided the power with full loadsharing backup.

Mark Wright took the role of Head Electrician on behalf of Buffalo.

Within the Sheeran touring unit, each supplier is treated as one of the family, with KB Events owner Stuart McPherson himself going from supplier to full time crewmember. “I’ve been involved with Chris and the rest of the team from the very beginning, hiring them their first truck,” began McPherson. “They have come a long way since those days, as we now have 51 trucks out on this one.”

Along with owning the tour’s trucking vendor, McPherson has a more practical role as touring Transport Manger. “This tour is quite a beast!” he stated. “As well as 21 production trucks we also have 2 sets of 15 trucks

43

ED SHEERAN

running advanced systems for the staging.” For the UK run, the advanced staging team loaded into venues 3 days prior to production rolling in to finish off the build. “There certainly is a lot of leap frogging on this run which is why it was easy for Chris to pass of the logistics side to me so he could concentrate on production.”

McPherson explained how the key to the success came down to one thing, “efficiency”. He elaborated: “With such a large tour it’s easy for cost to get out of hand, from double drives to having to get hotels on a layover day. From the beginning of this tour, both Chris and I have worked closely together to make each move as efficient as possible. We’ve even managed to keep each move to a one driver per truck.”

McPherson continued to give credit to his team who are holding the fort at KB Event HQ. “They are the only reason that I am able to go out on tour.

They are all very good at what they do and are keeping everything ticking over while I’m out here. Also the miracle of modern technology means I am able to keep tabs on everything from the road.”

Handling all the freighting side of the tour was logistics specialist RockIt cargo who handled all the international movements of the tour. “Working with Rock-it Cargo has made dealing with international freight a hassle free experience,” stated Marsh.

where we are, we always try to use local suppliers to give a flavour of each city to the crew - especially as some time the men and women don’t always get to leave the venues during some of these show.” For example, while in Manchester, Amos brought in a local supplier for the after show meal to supply some local pies and beers. “Dublin was another highlight in terms of providing some of the local delicacies - especially when it came to the black stuff!”

As is now company policy within No.3, each part of the catering equipment had been put together with the road in mind, with a rig that was custom built to move just as easily as another flight case.

NOT DIVIDED, DEFINITELY CONQUERED With 60,000 excitable Sheeran fans eagerly waiting to hear hits from the singer’s back catalogue, the 27-year-old hit the stage for a 2-hour set that didn’t pull any punches. From his ballads to hip-hop inspired tracks, Sheeran certainly proved how he has earned his place at the forefront of 2018’s jam-packed summer of stadium shows. With the end of the UK leg drawing to a close, the production has its sights set on mainland Europe, before heading out on a North American leg for the rest of the year.

TPi Photos: Lee Allan • www.leeallenphotography.com www.edsheeran.com www.markcunniffe.com www.majortom.cc www.coloneltomtouring.com www.lcr-rental.com www.momentfactory.com www.weareshop.co.uk www.kbevent.com www.buffalopower.co.uk www.rockitcargo.com www.taittowers.com

No.3 IS NUMBER ONE Joining the Sheeran ranks again was Charlie Amos’ new company, No.3.

“I started out with Ed back in 2014, doing his personal catering, and from there, set up No.3, which has looked after his tours ever since,” stated Amos.

“It’s amazing to think I started looking after 15 people a night and now we are feeding up to 220!”

Amos supplied 2 catering teams, all of whom travelled with the advanced staging crews. “We move with them so throughout the build we can keep them all fed and then we stay on site until they load out of any given venue,” stated Amos. Each catering team consisted of a head chef, as well as Amos, to ensure the menus were varied from city to city. “No matter

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44

THE LIVE RETURN OF RITA ORA After a 5-year break from the road, Rita Ora returned to show the world what they’d been missing - delivering an academy venue tour that packed an arena-sized punch, as TPi reports.

As well as providing a platform for her debut album, Rita Ora’s 2013 Radioactive Tour marked the beginning of what would become an enduring creative relationship. It was the first tour to be helmed by Tawbox - a partnership of Bronski (as he’s known to all) and Amber Rimell, who brought a fresh, cohesive approach to the singer’s presence on stage.

Though Ora has been away from the touring circuit for the last 5 years, the Tawbox duo have continued to work with the artist, providing creative direction for a relentless schedule of TV, one-off performances and private appearances. In those 5 years, Tawbox has grown and matured creatively in tandem with the singer, developing a tight understanding of what can, could and should be achieved in a live performance. Perhaps because of this, both artist and creative team recently returned to the road with a real desire to deliver, pushing the limits of what’s normally expected - indeed what’s physically possible - in a short run of academy gigs.

The 2018 Girls Tour comprised 13 dates across the UK and Europe - 12 of which were concentrated versions of what would prove the true jewel of the run: an appearance at the 02 Academy Brixton. It was this show that formed the focus for a design process that began, as ever, with the Tawbox team thrashing out concepts in their studio before hand picking the right team to bring it to reality.

At its core, the Tawbox concept delivered a high level of theatricality; a mix of dramatic choreography, delicate artistic interludes, and intense pop-energy performance. Lighting and video interplayed cleverly with the movement of the performers on stage - a consequence of Rimell’s choreographic expertise and Bronski’s technical savvy (which extends to the creation of the video content itself). Indeed, with Bronski also taking on PM duties - reprising his 2012 role - the design of the show and its execution became one single fluid movement.

In terms of the physical aesthetic of the stage, the team wanted to 46

PRODUCTION PROFILE

The lighting dept: Sam Lisher & James Scott; Monitor Engineer, Sam Savillie; FOH Engineer, Luigi Buccarello; Production Manager, Bronski.

keep visual clutter to a minimum. To do this they came up with the idea of concealing a packed arsenal of lighting, fans and smoke machines within a huge raised ‘half box’ structure, created by All Access Staging & Productions. Essentially, this formed a raised stage, atop which Ora would perform for the majority of the show, as various lighting and effects were fired up through the grated floor.

An additional consequence of this raised position, noted Bronski, was to give the singer a heightened status in the room - a plinth on which to perform - as well as massively improving sightlines for the whole audience.

“For the entire show, she’s raised in to the air on this 2.5ft box, so there’s actually this cool, god-like look to her performance,” he said.

As part of creating the clean-cut scenic look, Ora’s band was relocated 5.5m above her. A giant 11m x 5.5m LED screen formed the backdrop to the singer’s performance, and it was above this - on a specially constructed riser from Production North - that the musicians sat. “By raising them up above the screen, not only does it have a major look, but when you’re on the first row of the balcony at Brixton Academy, they’re at the same level,” said Bronski. “We ended up speaking to a few people about it, and Ben Levitt at Production North said he was up for it - and they did a sterling job.”

programming was going to work really well - so it was a no-brainer.”

Having worked with Bronski in the past, Routledge was happy to come on board again. He in turn brought in fellow Lighting Designer and Programmer, James Scott. The pair had already been discussing potential project to work together on and the Girls Tour provided the perfect opportunity, with the pair collaborating on the design before Scott took it out on the road.

Having received Tawbox’s mood board of ideas, it was clear the show would require a lot of tech to be packed into a relatively small space. The team decided to focus on the biggest show of the tour, Brixton, while at the same time considering ways to par everything down for the smaller venues to be visited. “We essentially have 2 shows,” explained Routledge. “We have this massive show, in which we’re going to squeeze an awful lot of gear into Brixton, and then we also have to squeeze it in to these tiny little academies everywhere.”

Key to achieving this was filling the raised, grated deck with the right fixtures for the job. “We were looking for a fixture that would have a decent impact underneath the deck and give us the movement we needed, so we opted for the MagicPanels. The only thing is, it’s quite a tall fixture so we had to get Bronski to marginally increase the height of the deck to fit them underneath. But they give us a great energy and depth in the show, the continuous rotation creates a weird shift of beams as you never see the fixtures” The 36 concealed Ayrton MagicPanels sit alongside 9 Martin by Harman Jem AF-1’s and 9 MagicFX SmokeJets, the latter specified by Tawbox in preference to CO2 jets. “We’ve have always hated the sound of CO2,” Bronski explained. “It’s also quite dancey - it’s a look that’s been taken by

LIGHTING When it came to translating their concepts into lighting reality, Tawbox knew exactly the man for the job: Tim Routledge. “Amber and I both knew we wanted Tim to do this - and after we mentioned Tim’s CV to Rita and her management, it didn’t take much persuasion at all,” explained Bronski.

“We just knew that, with Tim having worked with the likes of Take That and Beyoncé, the big theatrical side and the super-heavy timecoded 47

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the EDM world - and we didn’t think it was right. Pyrojunkies gave us these MagicFX upward jets with quick dispersion fluid, which looks great.”

Two layers of video - the main, high resolution 11m x 5.5m screen with a lower resolution 19m x 12m screen behind that- formed a backdrop to the performance. The smaller screen was edged top and bottom by a line of GLP impression X4 Bar 20’s, with a further row placed along the front of the grated platform. Yet more X4 Bars were used to create 3 vertical columns on each side of the stage - columns which also carried 6 GLP JDC1 each, used for both strobe hits and dancer cross lighting.

“There’s effectively very few fixture types,” said Routledge. “What we didn’t want was 4 of one thing, 3 of another, 2 of something else... So the show has quite a GLP-orientated rig. It’s a very linear show; we have focussed our efforts on clean clever programming and accenting with some stunning linear looks.”

The floor package was completed by 5 Martin by Harman MAC Aura XBs per side, discretely placed to maintain the desired aesthetic. “We’ve kept everything really clean, bar some very simple lines of X4 Bars, so nothing impinges,” said Routledge. “You don’t see any fixture in the way of the screen whatsoever, which can be limiting, but I think the fact that we have this entire package under the deck - and these thin lines of X4 Bars - stops the show feeling 2D, which it easily could have done. We’ve given it a lot of depth just by being able to sneak in some kit here and there, and the rest of the kit is a border around the edge of the screen.”

The rig above the stage comprises a handful of JDC1’s and 2 rows of Robe Spiiders. “On a tour like this, they’re great because they give you so many options,” commented Routledge. “They’re a real Swiss army knife of a light and look really gorgeous. We’ve used them quite a lot in the last year.”

A front truss consists of 8 Martin by Harman MAC Viper Performances and 10 4-Lite moles, as well as 2 of the 3 Robe BMFL Robospots used to followspot the singer. The BMFLs provide sufficient punch to compete with the video content - although the LD does have overall master control of

PRO

video from the MA Lighting grandMA MA2 lighting desk, allowing him to inhibit and balance the master intensity to suit a particular venue. The BMFLs also provide an extra layer of options, placing the singer in strobing spots or gobo spots, or adding one of the fixtures’ many effects onto the followspot. “We loved using heavy saturated colours on the spots at the flick of a button,” Routledge commented.

With a packed rig at their disposal, the team were able to conjure up a host of looks to create a richly textured evening. Tightly constructed pop numbers, none of which would look out of place in an award show setting, sit alongside segments that verge on performance art. “The creative that Bronski and Amber put together gave us the ability to do something quite theatrical and not just a flashing pop show,” said Routledge, citing the song R.I.P. as a case in point. Ora begins the performance seated, illuminated red from below and purple from behind, as smoke vents up around her.

The song builds to a crescendo of pulsing heartbeat-red and electric blue saturating the screens behind her. “R.I.P. is a bit of a work of art, to be honest,” said Routledge. “It’s a beautifully clever piece that works with the video and light together.”

Video took a back seat during a rendition of Body On Me, with Ora playing with silk fabric as it was blown around by fans concealed under the stage and stunning peach tones of light backlighting the fabric and accenting the music. With no video screen on, the linear lighting could really take centre stage.

At other moments - particularly in the interludes between songs - the video wall became an integral part of the physical performance. The segment that led into Body On Me is a prime example. “The video and choreography work together to emphasise the body,” explained Rimell.

“We have moments where the video content becomes a ‘reaction’ to the choreography. And we also utilise silhouettes created by strong and simplistic visuals to really show off the dancers body lines, technique and shapes.” This intertwined creation of video content and choreography - a

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RITA ORA

Tour Manager, Rich Jones; Rita Ora (far right) with her core team: Amber Rimell, Bronski and Elena Sahatciu, her Manager.

symbiosis that allows one to be moulded by the other throughout the design process - is a cornerstone of the Tawbox team’s complementary expertise.

Though video content is largely pre-programmed, a few songs later on, during Girls, the live feed from a camera operator on stage was run through Notch to fill the main video wall with a fuzzy-pink, retro-VHS look. Screenlike planes of matching colour, created by the vertical X4 Bar columns at either side of the stage, cut across the space, blurring the line between 2D visuals and the 3D performance.

Throughout much of the show, the lighting took its cue from the softer colour palette of the video content. “For a pop show there’s quite a lot of unsaturated colour,” said Routledge. “We use a lot of peaches, bastard ambers and lavenders - things that aren’t typically associated with this kind of show. So, when we do hit full saturated colour, it gives us a massive impact.”

“We’ve got a great disguise programmer, Sam Lisher,” Routledge continued. “He’s not long out of drama school, but he knows everything about the disguise and he’s been a really keen and helpful person to work with on site.” For those songs and interstitial scenes that are framed to directly match the video, Lisher was on hand to help dial everything in.

Lisher was also responsible for taking the video content created/ produced by Tawbox and piecing it together in disguise. “The video system is great,” said Lisher. “Bluman Associates have provided us with a really nice disguise rack. We’re using disguise gx1 servers, one master running the show, and an understudy for tracking backup. We’re utilising the Notch optimised server to overlay some simple but effective IMAG effects to give the song Girls its edgy retro feel.” For the smaller academy venues on the tour, a single, smaller-scale main screen was used, with the content resized to fit. “disguise’s mapping tools are super flexible and easy to adapt, so scaling down from the main Brixton show, which we had programmed to, was done in seconds,” Lisher added.

Despite being designed primarily with Brixton in mind, the aesthetic of the show retained its impact even in the smaller venues on the tour, Scott said. “I actually don’t think we’ve had to compromise too much on stripping it back from the Brixton show to take it on the academy tour,” he commented. “We’ve got an element of everything: the X4 Bars, the under floor, the towers - albeit shorter and there’s less of them. I think we’ve done really well to keep the integrity of the whole design while squeezing it in everywhere.”

Helping to shift and squeeze this mountain of lighting kit was the Neg Earth team of Paul Coopes and Diego de Leon - joined on the Brixton show

by Crew Chief Nick Burlace. “The lighting techs Paul and Diego from Neg Earth Lights have been great,” remarked Bronski. “They probably had more lights than they should for just the 2 of them, but fully embraced it” Video screens were provided by Creative Technology. “It was a pleasure to support Rita Ora and her production,” Creative Technology, Project Manager, Nick Knowles. “After listening to Bronski explain the creative outline, we recommended our InfiLED ER 5.9mm due to its ease of use, speed of deployment, versatility and amazing colours. The Brixton show looked fantastic with the addition of the 19m wide ROE Vanish 25 upstage screen contrasting with the main ground supported 11m x 4.5m InfiLED wall. We were also asked to provide one of our new 4K camera packages for the Brixton show to record for prosperity.”

SOUND For audio, Bronski once again contacted his go-to man, Luther Edmunds, who in turn furnished the tour with kit from SSE Audio. Heading up the audio crew on the road was Monitor Engineer, Sam Savile, who used a DiGiCo SD10 with Bricasti external reverb. The SD rack was fully loaded with

watch video

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the new 32bit input cards. “Which we’re loving,” noted Savile. “The noise floor is incredibly low and the sound quality is great.”

For wireless mics and IEM, Sennheiser were at the fore. The 6000 Series handhelds and 2000 Series in-ears proved a hit with Savile. “We’re really enjoying the brand new 6000 Series, and the 2000 Series is a great old workhorse that I think sounds better than anything else out there.”

Notably, Ora uses a white version of the SKM9000 mic, custom painted

by Rebel Mic Stands in under 48 hours so that it could be ready in time for the singer’s performance at this year’s BRIT Awards.

The restrictive trim of many of the academy venues on the tour occasionally required the band to be tucked behind the stage’s giant video screen instead of sitting up top, which in turn created a challengingly tight RF environment. To sidestep any issues this might cause, the musicians were all given Shure P9HW wired packs. The screens also had the potential to prove problematic for Ora’s audio, but according to Savile, the Sennheiser breezed through. “I’ve been really impressed; the 2000 Series has gone straight through the video screen and we’ve had no drop out issues. The 6000’s been solid as a rock too.”

In addition to its reliability, the Sennheiser kit scored well in the environmental stakes: the 6000 series is entirely rechargeable and SSE provided a fresh set of rechargeable Fisher batteries for the 2000’s.

An eclectic mix of moulds were used on stage. Savile and Ora were on UE-11’s, while backing vocals were on Cosmics CE6Ps. JH16’s, UE-7’s, and JH Roxannes were used by the various members of the band.

Savile said the audio kit as a whole really delivered. “SSE have provided us with a really beautiful package: it goes in quick, I can see everything I need, it’s got minimal connections. We’ve been very happy with it.”

Throughout the UK run of academy venues, the in-house PA was coopted for each show. For Brixton, the biggest of the shows, this meant an L-Acoustics rig, comprising 16 K2 boxes and 8 KS28 per side - with KARA and ARCs as fills.

For FOH Engineer, Luigi Buccarello, the prevalence of L-Acoustics throughout the academy run proved a perfect fit. “It’s definitely one of

my favourite PAs, so it should be good,” he commented ahead of the Brixton show. To pull the best out of the each venue’s PA, Buccarello used an Avid Profile with Waves plugins - an old favourite that allowed him to concentrate on the task in hand. “I’ve recently joined the team on Rita Ora and, when it comes to a new mix for a new band or a new act, I just want to focus on the mix and almost forget about the desk itself!” said Buccarello.

TO BRIXTON AND BEYOND Despite the absence of a touring PA - the scale of the touring kit and crew was sizable enough to fill 3 Phoenix buses and 2 Fly By Nite trucks. It’s indicative of a desire to truly deliver something special for Rita Ora fans.

As Tour Manager, Rich Jones, noted, however, the challenges of fitting a high-impact, fully rounded show into an academy sized space was a challenge that certainly paid off. “Logistically it’s a nightmare, but visually it’s amazing,” he said. “And it’s definitely something that people will talk about when they leave - and hopefully it shows what we can do when we go onto arenas.”

Indeed, the success of the Girls tour stands as testament to the creative clout of Ora and her team - giving fans a flavour of what they can expect in the year to come - and leaving them hungry for more.

TPi Photos: Crew Shots: TPi; Live Shots: Bret D Cove & Timmsy. www.ritaora.com www.tawbox.com www.prodnorth.com www.timroutledge.co.uk www.pyrojunkies.com www.sseaudiogroup.com www.negearth.com www.allaccessinc.com www.flybynite.co.uk www.phoenix-bussing.co.uk

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S INTRODUCING ALL POINTS EAST 10 days, multiple sought-after acts and an elite production team ensured London’s newest innercity festival became the talk of the town. Promoter AEG Presents and event production company LarMac Live led the committed crew on the UK festival circuit’s latest addition, as Kel Murray reports...

All Points East is a new 10-day event that encompasses a diverse 3-day music festival which included headliners LCD Soundsystem, The xx and Björk followed by a 4-day community-focussed, mid-week programme of comedy, outdoor cinema screenings, and park yoga, plus much more to reflect the vibrancy of London’s Victoria Park as a venue. The event culminated in 3 huge APE Presents… shows. Friday’s headliners were Catfish and the Bottlemen, Saturday saw indie heroes The National take to the stage, and Australia’s best-dressed goth, Nick Cave, brought his Bad Seeds out to close the Sunday finale.

Fans were even treated to a surprise performance with Kylie Minogue for her and Cave’s creepy 1995 love hit Where The Wild Roses Grow. In short, APE is a cityscape festival offering a varied and high profile line up in a festival setting. Naturally, the quality of production had to follow suit. The 10 days of programming were underpinned by a truly enjoyable festival environment, technical excellence, state of the art facilities and hospitality areas unlike anything seen before in Victoria Park.

The vendors behind events such as British Summer Time Hyde Park (BST) and the team from the world’s number one venue, London’s O2 Arena, promoters AEG, set out to deliver the highest of standards across every aspect of the event.

PRODUCTION Production Manager, Ian Greenway, Director of LarMac Live, spoke to TPi about year one: “LarMac has had a long working relationship with Jim King, AEG’s Festival Director, and more recently, has worked with him and the bigger APE Presents team on British Summer Time in Hyde Park, where we look after all of the creative overlay around the site. LarMac has a bit of Victoria Park history too, having also worked on Field Day over the past 6 years. Familiarity with both the site and understanding AEG’s way of working was a really good start for us to be able to create something really great straight from the event’s first year.

“First year shows are definitely harder work, but there’s something about a determined and excitable team who are focussing on a new task that is quite inspiring, and that far outweighs the huge effort!”

As far as APE’s main suppliers go - Pearce Hire, PRG XL Video, Colour Sound Experiment, Capital Sound and Music Bank - the team is handpicked. Greenway continued: “There isn’t one supplier on site that wasn’t worthy of being there, and once again, we ask a lot of people throughout this kind of event, and yet our teams delivered brilliantly.

“I think it’s really important that production, just as any other department, is allowed to build their team from scratch. We have multiple 52

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vendors up our sleeve for every event under the sun, but not every supplier is suited to every job, every artist or even every schedule. I like to try and build a positive atmosphere on site as I’m a big believer that this is what gets us through even the stickiest of situations but this is only possible by getting the right blend of faces and personalities on board. I think knowing your team’s strengths and getting this initial mix right is probably the most important phase of putting a multi-stage show such as APE together.”

Did Greenway feel the pressure when all eyes are on the delivery of a brand-new event? “Keeping cool, calm and usually collected is a massive part of our job in production, and not just a nice trait to have. You have to be realistic (things do sometimes go wrong, despite all the planning you can muster!), and you must be empathetic to the crew so that you can maintain a clear perspective over the entire project.

“By far the most important thing that allows LarMac to stay calm is our amazing team, both in-house and externally. Laura Hall and Molly Iredale who worked on Artist Liaison, together with Siobhan Shaw and Tiger Brewer on the technical team helped the days fly by. Success stories such as APE 2018 are million times more enjoyable because of them.”

Indeed, not content with orchestrating a seamless production, LarMac also undertook APE’s Artist Liaison duties. Greenway continued: “It worked well in the Hyde Park event structure since AEG took on the shows there, and while to us it didn’t seem like an obvious addition, over time it became clear that there’s an efficiency to be had by conducting AL. There’s an element of double handling happening when 2 departments operate autonomously; while the conversations are quite different most of the time, there’s always a crossover and a bit of confusion from artists about who talks to whom. If we can streamline that in to one conversation then it’s actually quite easy for us to process and complete the advances quickly.

We’re purely on site representing our client, and so artists walking away happy and feeling looked after is really important to us.”

applied to give us the concentric arch affect. It looked great, and gave the park a sort of amphitheatre under the trees.

“We also made sure our house set-up was tour-friendly. A lot of festivals are limiting in terms of what can and can’t be brought in by touring acts, and even though space was tight we were able to receive everything they wanted to bring in. This allowed us to see some truly incredible shows from the likes of Justice and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds,” he concluded.

Working alongside Loudsound and LarMac Live, Star Events supplied the festival’s four principal platforms, including the main East Stage, a 20m VerTech, the North Stage, with its concentric arches, the tented West Arena and all the requisite support structures.

The X Stage, an ambitious in-the-round experience with a hovering DJ platform, highlighted AEG Presents’ creativity, putting the finest electronic talent into the heart of the audience.

Star Events’ design team joined 2 5m wide/38m span arches at the apex to bring the X Stage to life, using core rental stock enhanced by ‘specials’ built for the project. Alongside its stunning lighting capacity, each leg of the structure housed an inward facing speaker configuration, which delivered a truly immersive audio experience.

Speaking on site, Gavin Scott, Star Events’ Project Manager, commented: “With a lot of work behind the scenes, the X Stage came together brilliantly. There were significant structural challenges, everyone involved with the design played a part in bringing it to fruition, and it’s a great achievement.

“AEG Presents, Loudsound and LarMac Live have been a pleasure to work with. The vibe has been really good, a collective of people working to achieve something special, and safety levels have been noticeably high, which is great to see.”

Greenway added: “There are some quirky things here, and Star Events was the perfect fit for our staging vendor. When you experience the X Stage first-hand it’s like nothing else. It’s indoor / outdoor; it’s in the round, a really interesting DJ experience.

“All Points East isn’t a 2-day staging load-in, it’s a really complex project and Gav has been absolutely fantastic. Running a project like this takes a certain approach, a certain eye for detail, and nothing is a problem for him. He can chip off and tick a lot of boxes before we even clock there’s a problem because he knows what we are trying to achieve.”

Due to hosting In The Neighbourhood events for the local community, the All Points East site was subject to a few modest changes ahead of the APE Presents... shows. With a commitment to giving the park back to local

STAGING “Just Like BST in Hyde Park, we’re looking at 6 show days and 4 midweek Open Houses back-to-back over a 10-day period,” continued Greenway.

“Everything is in the site for so long, it made sense for us to go to the extra expense of making the shows look like they live in the park and hadn’t been thrown in ready pull out again the following day.

“So the 3 outdoor stages were all quite ‘permanent’ in appearance.

Stage 2, our North Stage, was a take on the famous Hollywood Bowl. It’s a traditional Orbit roof product from Star Events, but had a lot of scenic skins 53

ALL POINTS EAST

Björk left crowds stunned with her stage show.

residents and Londoners for the days in between the 2 huge weekends of music, APE In The Neighbourhood hosted an eclectic, free music programme including sets from 47SOUL’s fusion of traditional Palestinian street music and deep electronic beats, Dutch psych trio My Baby, Kosheen’s Sian Evans and the Hackney Colliery Band as well as DJ sets from Too Many Man ft Fay Milton (Savages), Gypsy Disco Soundsystem, DJ Chris Tofu MBE. Film screenings included Moana, Suffragette, Made In Dagenham and The Little Mermaid.

Scott continued: “We’ve worked really hard with AEG to realise its visions for this new festival, so much thought has gone into what each stage delivers. As it’s a similar format to BST, securing the deal was a great workflow for us too; we come out of Victoria Park and begin preparing British Summer Time “Talks are already taking place about how we can improve the site and planning for next year. LarMac is brilliant to work with. Ian is such a good bloke. He’s a brilliant production manager and he never seems to get flustered!” Scott laughed, unknowingly confirming Greenway’s earlier sentiments.

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supply company with that length of tenure at this site. We’ve worked here for over 7 years!”

Vernum went on to explain that it has been refreshing to work on a site which not only is the power team familiar with, but were able to change up: “We took a different approach with the power infrastructure here; one of the biggest changes was the creation of a number generator farms in set areas around the site.”

All Points East is the first festival where Pearce Hire has had the opportunity to use this a renewable diesel fuel which is chemically equivalent to fossil diesel fuel. Vernum continued: “This fuel can be used in our existing diesel engines whilst significantly reducing non-renewable C02 emissions. Working in collaboration with the AEG team, we used 40% HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil) on All Points East this year and due to the success, we’re looking to increase this to 80% in 2019. There are multiple benefits to the use of HVO and we are embracing this at Pearce Hire to meet our client expectations for reduced environmental impact and carbon footprint, as well as more sustainable practices and budget management of HVO fuel.

“With the creation of generator farms, we could use fewer generators to power the site and manage them more intelligently to reduce fuel usage,” he told TPi. In total, there were 11 generator farms across Victoria Park, including those dedicated to the stage areas. The farms were all constructed from synchronised intelligent generator sets, with full back up and load-sharing capabilities which enabled them to run at lower capacity resulting in reduced emissions with lower fuel consumption. All of the synchronised generator sets are installed with data logging equipment which recorded the power consumption, and load data throughout the event. This provided invaluable statistics post event to review and advise on more efficient and cost-effective processes in future years, to prevent over specification and to reduce costs and a continuing reduction in emissions.

Vernum continued: “There was a requirement for heavier mains distribution across the site from these farms - and we invested in a considerable amount of additional cable to address this!”

Vernum led a core team of 5 power crew working throughout the event, which increased to 14 during the build and break. “As well as the power infrastructure, we also provided low energy festoon and site-wide

POWERING THE PRODUCTION Pearce Hire also became involved with All Points East via Loudsound, with whom the company had a pre-existing business relationship. Pearce was contracted to provide all temporary power and site lighting for the event. Pearce’s Project Manager, Jake Vernum , joined the conversation: “We have worked with Loudsound for a number of years on various events including Field Day Festival and Demon Days. We’re very familiar with the Victoria Park site because we have been a regular contractor for Field Day and Lovebox which, up until last year, also took place at Victoria Park. Pearce Hire are the only temporary power 54

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Star Events’ X Stage was an attraction in itself.

Indeed, one of the main drivers for temporary power supply at festivals is the environmental impact. Sustainable practice and production values are a philosophy that runs throughout all Pearce Hire’s projects. “It was great to have such a positive collaboration with AEG and the All Points East team on this event and to work towards shared goals when it came to sustainable practice and reducing the environmental impact of the festival.

It was a great 2 weekends, it was really hard work being on site for 23 days, but so worth it! It felt like All Points East really captured the imagination of the whole community and, from a crew point of view, it was great to see all the work pay off over what in essence was a production with 3 different festivals: All Points East Festival on the first weekend, then the community festival In the Neighbourhood over the weekdays, finishing with the All Points East Presents headline shows on the second weekend. There really was something for everyone! It was a really diverse event and one Pearce Hire is proud to have been involved in. We hope the relationship continues in the future,” he smiled.

AUDIO Capital Sound was brought in by LarMac, with whom the audio experts had also worked before at this very same, challenging outdoor venue.

Capital Sound provided site coverage, and its Account Manager, Martin Connolly, underlined the benefit of having a single point of contact for all the various stages. His crew equipped the main stage with Martin Audio’s ground-breaking MLA, hanging 13 enclosures and an MLD downfill each side, with 14 MLX subwoofers in a spaced array to accommodate the various stage thrusts. Providing front-fills were a number of Martin Audio DD12’s, mounted on top of the subs - Capital’s regular ‘go-to’ solution.

3 delay positions saw further Martin Audio deployment, with 2 masts of MLA Compact enclosures (respectively 6 and 12) and a third delay of 12

lighting. We’ve made a significant investment in low energy LED lighting solutions for festoon and efficient site lighting in recent years. On a show like this, we tend to focus a lot on site lighting. It’s important to ensure the safety of the public, staff and crew working across the site. A lot of effort goes into making sure the site is efficiently and effectively lit. Which is why there is a continual investment programme in site lighting equipment at Pearce Hire. We ensure that all outdoor lighting is switched off during the day, using Light Sensing Photocell Distribution. This is another important environmental product Pearce Hire are continuing to invest in.”

PROUD TO DIRECT TECHNICAL PRODUCTION & ARTIST LIAISON ON THE INAUGURAL ALL POINTS EAST SERIES CELEBRATING 10 YEARS PRODUCING LIVE ENTERTAINMENT BESPOKE & CREATIVE | TV | LIVE MUSIC | EXHIBITIONS

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W8LM Mini Line Array elements. The second stage saw 10 MLA and an MLD downfill on each flank, with 11 MLX in a broadside sub array. 6 W8LM provided front fill and a further 6 formed the delay mast.

For the main stage, Capital Sound also provided an Avid Venue Profile for FOH mixing, and a microphone package by Shure including the Beta 57A, 58A, 52, 98 models, KSMs and the classic Shure SM57 & SM58 handhelds. In monitor world, a Yamaha CL5 work surface and a Yamaha RIO3224-D digital stagebox were provided alongside a Shure PSM 1000 in-ear option. As it’s set in a residential area, noise pollution from Victoria Park is always an issue with the nearby residents, placing pressure on Capital’s main stage Systems Tech Dan Fathers. But while the extraordinary control properties of MLA ensured that the production company were always within their offside threshold of 75dB(A), they were able to achieve extraordinary results for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, reaching levels of 101dBA Leq (to 15 minutes) at the mix position with peaks of 108dB. This was something that did not escape the band’s sound engineer Matt Crosbie, nor Production Manager Ian Greenway. “The PA was fantastic, with all the headroom required for a Nick Cave show,” exclaimed a delighted Crosbie. “I was extremely happy.”

He also praised the sound crew as being “extremely helpful and pleasant to work with”, adding: “I would highly recommend their PA system and crew, as overall this was one of the easiest and most pleasant festivals I have been to for some time.” The key personnel he was referring to also included Crew Chief Damion Dyer and FOH Engineer/Supervisor, Barney Cushman (in addition to Fathers), while Joseph Pearce was Stage 2 System Tech. Having been granted a long-term contract from the local authority, this now looks set into the festival season landscape for the foreseeable future.

Capital Sound’s Martin Connolly concluded: “Even though this was a brand-new festival, it garnered some amazing business which is

understandable when you look at the line-up! It was great to work with Ian Greenway and his team at LarMac once again; their advance work made the event seamless, from load-in to load out, APE was an absolute pleasure to work on.”

BACKLINE Music Bank was asked to be the main provider of backline & risers for the duration of APE. Director, Jimmy ‘Mac’ McNally, was pleased to be on board with the new event: “It’s brand new and already highly successful. Working closely with LarMac Live, who are great producers of live events. APE was a refreshing beginning to the start of another busy year for us.”

Music Bank supplied crew, backline, some staging elements, and DJ equipment amongst taking care of endorsed artists across all 9 stages.

“From rock to electronic pop, we catered for a vast array of requirements for a diverse weekend of music,” added Music Bank’s Julie ‘Jules’ Sparrow. “We supplied a large quantity of equipment to satisfy the varied riders including gear from Gretsch, Yamaha, Mapex, Pearl Drums, Roland Keyboards, as well as Fender and Ampeg guitar amps to name but a few. We look forward this new festival’s future.”

E

LIGHTING & VIDEO Lighting for 4 of the festival’s larger stages was split between PRG XL Video (East and North) and Colour Sound Experiment (West & South).

CSE also supplied the Despacio stage & lots a bars and architectural lighting The West stage was a busy bands stage with lots of overnight turnarounds and supplied specials including DJ Richie Hawtin who requested a tungsten-esque rig. General purpose kit included Robe BMFLs, Claypaky Sharpy LED Wash 600’s TMB Active DMX Sunset Sunstrips and Claypaky Scenius Unicos, all of which were controlled by an MA Lighting grandMA2.

The South stage was designed as an ‘in the round’ DJ stage with a central circular truss. For this, CSE supplied Robe MMX, Claypaky Sharpys, Martin by Harman Atomic 3000’s and generic molefays as the main fixtures controlled by

56

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ALL POINTS EAST

Star Events’ Gavin Scott; Pearce Hire’s Jake Vernum; Capital Sound’s Les Mommsen, East (main) Stage PA & Stage Tech; Music Bank’s Jimmy ‘Mac’ McNally; APE Production Manager, LarMac Live’s Ian Greenway.

a ChamSys control surface.

Bars and the site’s architectural lighting were lit with various outdoor fixtures, including Dragon 220, Spectra flood Q16 and Spectra flood Q40’s.

CSE Director, Hayn Cruickshank, told TPi: “It was great to be involved in this innovative new festival, & good to see the big promoters still investing in creative ideas beyond the main stage. The first year of any festival is always tougher for suppliers but I’m sure this one will be even bigger and better next year.”

PRG XL Video also has a longstanding a close relationship with Larmac Live and AEG, and provided both lighting and video services. PRG’s Project Manager, Luke Jackson, provided lighting services to both the East and North stages, and video to all 4. The East stage was the largest, with a standard festival set up, North had a design brief involving lighting curved set panels to create a very bespoke and custom stage design. PRG also provided extra lighting to complement the in- house set-up for acts including, Björk, LCD sound system, The National and Catfish and the Bottlemen.

The East Stage welcomed a heady rig of 26 PRG Best Boy HP spots, 20 PRG Best Boy Wash, 16 Icon Beam 280w, 18 Solaris Flare, 40 EXE rise hoists, a WYSIWYG system, 2 Bad Boy Ground Control systems, 2 Longthrow 4kw Ground Control systems, 6 Icon Edge, 8 Claypaky a.Leda B-EYE K10’s, 30 Martin by Harman MAC Aura XB’s and and 15 SGM Q7’s. For control, 2 MA Lighting grandMA 2 full size consoles were utilised.

The North stage comprised 16 Mac Viper Wash DX, 26 MAC Viper Performance, 8 MAC Aura XB’s, 35 EXE rise 500kg hoists, 10m Smartmast system, and a Best Boy GroundControl system. This time, grandMA Light desks were the surface of choice. Additionally, Sunday’s headliner Nick Cave used PRG’s GroundControl Followspot system and an extra 30 Martin

by Harman MAC Aura XBs and 18 MAC Viper Air FX. PRG XL Video’s Gordon Torrington stated: “It was a pleasure to be

involved in this new venture on the Victoria park site. The atmosphere was great each and every day and I look forward to next year.”

Video needs across the site were required across 4 stages, and were also provided by PRG XL Video. The largest of the video deployment, on the main stage, saw the 10-day event welcome some visually stunning shows from headliners. The man stage video specification saw portrait IMAG screens - 5.4m x 9m - made up of ROE MC-7 LED screens. Onstage, the screen was again ROE MC-7, running 12m x 6m. The crew also had 4 Sony HD camera chains and Panasonic 450 HD camera PPU. A Barco e2 screen control system and fibres from FOH to the stage was also utilised.

PRG XL Video had around 15 crew on site over the 10-day period including Dana Read, North Stage Crew Chief, Ben Hornshaw, East Stage FOH, Project Manager Luke Jackson and Smartmast Rigging Specialist, Reece Zimber.

Paul ‘Macca’ McCauley told TPi: “It was a pleasure working with LarMac Live again, but equally in being part of the first ever APE shows across both weekends. A new festival is always a challenge for the crew, but PRG XL Video was very happy to deliver video requirements across 4 of the festival’s stages.”

With a happy audience, happy team of production crew and the coucil on side, All Points East is set to be a 2019 destination must.

TPi Photos: TPi, Jordan Curtis & Santiago Felipe. www.allpointseastfestival.com www.aegpresents.co.uk www.larmaclive.com www.stareventsltd.com www.coloursound.com www.prg.com/uk/en www.capital-sound.co.uk www.pearcehire.co.uk www.musicbank.org 58

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ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN Live, with strings attached, Echo & The Bunnymen reimagine their greatest hits as they tour the UK with full production from Entec...

No doubt still smarting from Real Madrid’s defeat of his beloved Liverpool in the Champions League Final, Ian ‘Mac’ McCulloch ambled across a smoke-filled stage at the Royal Albert Hall as the Merseyside band he has fronted for the best part of the last 40 years prepared to bring their latest UK tour to an elegant close. And a rather unusual tour it was.

Backstage at the world-famous Kensington Gore venue, the word ‘renaissance’ is being uttered in hushed tones. It’s been 4 years since the last studio release from Echo & The Bunnymen but, thanks to new global deal with BMG, 5 October will witness the unveiling of The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon, an album of “transformed and reinterpreted” versions of past glories including Seven Seas, Bring On The Dancing Horses and The Cutter, recorded at Abbey Road with a full string section.

“It’s beautiful… a real laid-back affair that still has edge, only in a different way,” said Production Manager Adey Willson, who explained that the tour – featuring McCulloch’s fellow mainstay, Guitarist Will Sargeant, alongside the Cairn String Quartet from Glasgow – was part of a plan to test this orchestral concept in front of live audiences.

Although it’s only 6 UK dates [in Edinburgh, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Gateshead and London], it’s a full production tour with 2 Brian Yeardley trucks carrying sound and lighting exclusively from Entec, and I’m delighted to say it’s been incredibly successful with all gigs sold out.

Finishing at the Albert Hall is the perfect way of ending on a high.”

For Willson, whose co-conspirators included Tour Manager Ian ‘Heinz’ McCowliff, FOH Engineer Robbie McGrath, Monitor Engineer / System

Tech Bertie Hunter and Lighting Designer Ronan Conway, the tour was an opportunity to reacquaint himself with the west London rental company he got to know in the early ’80s through working with The Police and Gillan.

“Apart from TV appearances on shows such as The Tube, I don’t believe Entec had previously worked with the Bunnymen,” he said, “But Robbie and Ronan were both very supportive of my wish to go with them. Certainly with regards to the Albert Hall and the company’s annual residencies here on the Teenage Cancer Trust shows, there is no better supplier. Their crew have been absolutely fantastic all the way through and we’ve had some good laughs on the tour bus.”

In 1984, soon after Gillan’s demise, Willson was on the hunt for work as a drum/keyboard tech, specifically with the Bunnymen, and turned to McGrath. “Robbie was already installed as their FOH engineer and as they were one of my favourite bands, I was hounding him to give me a gig.

Instead of the Bunnymen, he hooked me up with Tears For Fears and that lasted for 5 years. It’s funny how Robbie’s ended up coming back to work with the Bunnymen and he finally got me into the camp as the PM this January. It’s a real privilege – this magnificent music and Mac’s familiar voice have been giving me goose bumps every night!”

FOH SOUND After basic workouts at Parr Street Studios in Liverpool, the crew loaded into Edinburgh’s Usher Hall for 2 days of production rehearsals ahead of the first show. Leading the audio mission was Robbie McGrath, a FOH engineer 60

PRODUCTION PROFILE

who requires little introduction but, if asked nicely, might reveal that his early ’70s entry into the big bad biz through Celtic rock pioneers Horslips was followed by stints with The Boomtown Rats, AC/DC, Simply Red, The Rolling Stones, Kasabian, The Stone Roses, Spandau Ballet and, in the mid’80s, the Bunnymen.

“I started with this band a couple of years after I left the Rats, and it was great fun when we were all still young and skinny, and wore combat jackets,” McGrath reminds us with a sigh before dragging himself back to the present.

“Once you bring strings on to a live stage amongst guitars and drums, you’re immediately in trouble,” said the Irishman, “but it’s only the usual problems like halls and environments that you’re dealing with – stuff that I’ve learned to cope with over many years. For the rest of the tour, we’ve had normal left and right hangs with infills [a total of 24 d&b audiotechnik J-Series cabinets and 12 J-SUBs], and that worked very well, but you have to pay a lot of attention to the Albert Hall, otherwise it’ll eat you.

“Fortunately, the J-Series has been tried, tested and perfected here

by Entec, who have been tweaking the configuration of the system on the Teenage Cancer Trust gigs for years and got it down to a fine art. The J is great for firing down on the audience at a distance – it gets sweeter the further you are from it.”

At this final show, Entec’s sound crew – Bertie Hunter, Matt Grounds and Tom Olorenshaw – replicated the permutation used so successfully for the TCT season this March, with 16 J boxes flown per side (per side), 14 V-Series side hangs (per side), 4 V8 balcony fills (per side), a pair of Y10 front fills (per side), and 8 J-SUBs flown as a central with a further 6 positioned under the stage. Powered by D80 amplifiers, the system benefitted from d&b’s ArrayProcessing software that, 3 years ago, was applied for the first time in a live situation by Entec in the same auditorium.

Jonny Clark, Entec’s Head of Sound, said: “Being a bigger affair all round than any of the preceding shows, with additional PA and increased pressure, Matt’s experience as a Project Manager and Audio Crew Chief for several TCT seasons was extremely valuable, and he ensured that we had enough local crew to assist with load-in and set-up. The attention to detail on this show and, in fact, the whole tour was quite profound. Both Robbie and Adey came to see us a couple of times, and we spent a lot of time dealing with many aspects of the production. Getting to know each other properly was a big factor in everything working so well.”

“One of the reasons I like working with Entec is that they still talk about sound, which is the thing I love,” McGrath responded. “Jonny and I appear to be kindred spirits, and he really turned me on to their way of doing things. We talked about approaches to mixing, new products, moving the game forward, what digital brought to the table and what’s missed from analogue.

“I felt a great vibe and I started looking at Entec through a fresh pair of eyes. I mean, they’ve always been there but I now appreciate them much more for being ‘ground level’, especially at a time when all you seem to read about is the latest big corporate acquisition. They’re still interested in the gear and their explanations of what’s going on and how they do things make a lot of sense to me as a sound engineer.”

McGrath specified a DiGiCo SD7 for the tour, knowing he would be using it in conjunction with a Waves Soundgrid plug-in bundle as well as Waves Tracks Live recording software. He explained: “It took me a little time to get used to how Waves is integrated and working with an Avid desk was my learning ground. That spoiled me in a lot of ways because the interaction worked so quickly, but it’s working really well with the SD7. We filmed a show in Liverpool and we’re taking a lot of care over the soundtrack for that, so we’ve been multitracking everything through the Waves platform.

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31/05/2018 17:54

ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN

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Lighting Designer Ronan Conway; FOH Engineer Robbie McGrath; Production Manager Adey Willson with Conway and McGrath; Entec’s Sound Crew Tom Olorenshaw Matt Grounds with McGrath at FOH.

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It’s so easy to do that these days and it contrasts wildly with the massive hoops you had to go through to record a gig when I was new to this business!”

Entec also supplied a standard package of Sennheiser and Shure microphones, along with a few specials including a Shure KSM9 condenser for Mac’s lead vocal, Shure VP89 shotguns for ambient miking and, for the strings, a set of DPA d:vote 4099s. “I originally specified Schertler transducer mics for the string quartet because they have superb rejection, which was essential due to the amount of onstage level I was expecting,” stated McGrath.

“I didn’t realise that the guys would accept having their amps moved offstage, so that made me rethink the mic choice because they sounded quite dry and I needed more warmth.

My alternative was the 4099, a beautiful little mic that I’ve used on saxophones and trombones with great success, and they’ve worked a treat on this.”

AT STAGE LEFT McGrath’s “wing man” during rehearsals was Bertie Hunter, the System Tech who later took over the role of Monitor Engineer. “Together, we successfully guided the band through the often-difficult transition to in-ear monitoring,” said McGrath. “I just said to Bertie, ‘You drive the board and I’ll do the politics’. The idea being that the band would tell me what they wanted – ‘there’s too much grief in the sound and not enough toothpaste’ – and I would translate that into tech-speak for Bertie.”

Not too long ago, the very idea of the Bunnymen moving to IEM would have been unthinkable, however, the evidence suggests 62

they have willingly embraced the technology – in this instance a combination of Sennheiser and Shure hardware. Hunter commented: “Mac has a foot in both camps – he’s been using one earpiece with a pair of d&b M2 wedges. The rest of the stage is wedge-free apart from another M2 that’s paired with a Y-SUB for the drum fill.

Just in case the band weren’t able to adapt to in-ears, we had 10 wedges reserved for backup, but as soon as they heard the quality of the mix, those wedges were discarded.

Delighted with the band’s acceptance, McGrath noted: “The more you work with singers that use in-ears, the more you find yourself avoiding any sub-low spillage on stage. Unless it’s a heavy band that’s naturally swamped in sub-low, the singer doesn’t want to be hearing it at all and that’s why I’ve been happy to use the J-SUBs, which have cardioid dispersion. The cleaner it is onstage, the more intelligible the in-ear mix will be – it’s always been the rule.”

Including the string quartet inputs, the monitoring channels totalled 58 with Hunter delivering eight separate stereo mixes to the stage from his DiGiCo SD12 console. “The SD12 was definitely the right desk for the job,” he said. “Not only for its compact size and its style of layout, but also the way the interface allows you to spin around the in-ear mixes so quickly.”

LIGHTING Returning to the Bunnymen camp after a 6 year absence, LD Ronan Conway, “fell in love” with the forthcoming album upon receiving an advance copy, and immediately set to work on a sensitive lighting design. “I’m a big fan of this album. Even some of the die-hard fans won’t recognise some of the songs in the way they’ve

ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN

been rearranged. The new twists that weave their way into these numbers is a thing of beauty and, consequently, the styling of this live show is more ‘An Evening with the Bunnymen’ than a regular gig,” noted Conway.

Based in Ireland, Conway is accustomed to using a range of suppliers but this was his first time with Entec, who supplied Martin by Harman MAC Viper Profiles, Aura XB compact washes, ChromaQ Color Force 72 LED battens and PixelPar 44s, as well as all necessary rigging, motors, star cloths and drapes… and a trio of chandeliers.

Said Conway: “This was always going to be leaning towards a theatrestyle design rather than rock’n’roll so it’s fairly static-looking compared to what the Bunnymen would normally do. These are seated gigs which is unusual for the band and the overall flavour of the presentation is somewhat determined by the slower tempos of the songs, the presence of the string quartet and, to a greater degree, the lead singer’s wishes. When I arrived on the scene, I met Ian for dinner to discuss the project and it became evident that he had his own vision – one of elegance and darkness.

That was all very well but the kind of venues we were playing did call out for more, so I suggested bringing in the chandeliers and mirror balls, and the design began to slowly evolve from there.

“We added a grey gauze, some star cloth and moved the whole thing forward, while remaining open to the possibility that he might accept something one day and dismiss it the next. I would like to see some more movement but that’s probably my memory of the rock’n’roll tunes getting the better of me. That said, I did get a little movement into the design against what Ian wanted and I’m getting away with it so far! Every night has been different but I haven’t had any complaints.”

Driven by the theatrical approach, Conway ran the show from a High End Road Hog 4 with a Hedge Hog 4 hired as a spare. “Although you can achieve the same with other desks, Hogs have been my long-term preference. The idea was to lay it out really simply with very little movement and ensure that the rig could be accommodated at every venue.

“Until budget realities came into force, there were going to be 40 moving

lights but the spec was pruned down to a more practical number, after all, there are only 2 of us and a few local crew putting this in. There’s nothing fancy going on here. All I’m doing is placing some kit around the stage and achieving some nice looks and scenes,” he said, modestly.

“The equipment from Entec has been phenomenal; we haven’t had an issue with a single thing,” added Conway, who was assisted by lighting technician Tom Crosbie. “Their package includes a decent amount of conventional lighting. We like silhouette effects, so there’s some floor lighting, 2-lite Moles, four bars of ACLs, and strobes make their presence felt near the beginning of the show. We make a feature of half a dozen Robe PATT 2013s in a line at the back, firing up and glowing with that retro tungsten vibe.”

Conway’s approach to building the dynamics of the show very much depended on the indomitable frontman, as he explained: “I have to keep an eye on what Ian’s doing and then react. He’s not a great fan of light being on him or coming through him – in fact, he doesn’t like seeing any fixtures outputting light at all – but it’s gratifying that he’s allowed me a little more free rein than I was expecting. I’m just poking some light in and getting some levels, and he seems to be OK with it. It’s dark and it’s very smoky, and it’s the music that’s really doing the talking.

“Obviously, the strings are influencing certain moments and those scenes have been a joy to light. They also brought in a baby grand for things like ‘The Killing Moon’, which is sounding extraordinary in its new ‘torch song’ form but, ultimately, it’s still about the Bunnymen. Am I happy with my end of the show? I’m never happy with anything but that’s just restless creativity! It’s always a work-in-progress with me.”

Forty years into their varied career, the future is once again looking bright for Echo & The Bunnymen. It’s just as well Mac still wears shades.

TPi Photos: Mark Cunningham, Bertie Hunter & John Johnson www.bunnymen.com www.entecLIVE.com

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63

TOUR TALK

ER PRODUCTIONS CONTINUE TO DELIVER GLOBAL TOURING SOLUTIONS WITH LASERS & SPECIAL EFFECTS Worldwide laser and special effects experts, ER Productions, is the chosen supplier to a wide range of innovative solutions for some of the world’s largest tours this year. Amongst other projects, ER is currently on world tours with OneRepublic, Backstreet Boys, Faith Hill & Tim McGraw, and Shania Twain, as TPi reports.

The company, which has previously toured with Kylie, Katy Perry and Metallica, says it remains a go-to choice for lasers, and now special effects, by investing in the very latest technology - most recently Galaxis, a wireless flame and pyrotechnic control platform - and by constantly striving to provide the best possible bespoke designs for its clients.

In April, ER Productions supported platinum selling band, OneRepublic, and their hugely creative production team, led by Show Director, Raj Kapoor, Lighting Designer, Mark Butts, and Production Manager, Jason Zito.

ER has a long-standing relationship with the band and their team. In 2016, ER’s Project Manager, Andrew Turner, delivered stunning laser choreographies for their shows at the HAARPA theatre in Iceland, Apple Music Festival in London, and for their Honda Civic Tour of North America, in 2017. To support the tour, ER launched a suite of special effects products, which included Magic FX’s Confetti.

This year, ER’s full laser and special effects support for OneRepublic continued, in supplying 6 Storms, 12 Kinekts, 4 Stadium Shot MK II’s, 4 Stadium Blasters, 6 Vipers and 4 Unique Hazers, for the band’s world tour, which kicked off at The Star Theatre in Singapore. Turner said: “We worked hard to keep the system as compact as possible. Having several global offices allows us focus on not only providing fantastic kit but also keep the package freight friendly.”

He continued: “It was our pleasure to provide a full laser and special effects package for the second Asia leg of OneRepublic’s world tour. Working with this band and the production team has been a pleasure and we are looking forward to putting on some big shows with them later this summer.”

May 2018 was also a busy month for ER Productions, with the delivery of its services for US pop band, Backstreet Boys, at multiple festivals across the continent. ER has been working with the band, and their team, since their return to a Las Vegas residency in 2017.

ER’s General Manager in Las Vegas, Lawrence Wright, said: “We created a wall of CO2 to mask the performers coming onstage, at the start of the show, and projected the band’s logo onto the CO2 plumes with lasers, which looked great. It’s a new look that I haven’t seen before. It’s been fantastic working with the Backstreet Boys and their team again, supplying

not only lasers but also fulfilling their SFX requirements. Thank you to Production Manager, Dan Mercer, for inviting us back in this capacity.”

ER Productions have been touring with Faith Hill & Tim McGraw on the duo’s Soul2Soul tour, which began last year and resumed in May, bringing full laser and SFX production. This impressive 2-hour show was also designed by Mark Butts and Raj Kapoor, who collaborated with ER on both the OneRepublic and Backstreet Boys tours. Turner said: “We relished the opportunity to once again be involved in such a high-profile tour in the US. It has been interesting creative opportunity from the outset.”

ER Productions delivered 8 25W RGB ops Scanning Heads, 36 BB3 units and 20 Laserblades, and 6 of our new Cryofog HP/XL’s. The Cryofog is a powerful low fog machine, which brings an incredible amount of low level atmospherics to the stage.

ER is also supporting 5-time GRAMMY Award-winner, Shania Twain, on her 2018 NOW World Tour. ER joined Shania’s team at the opening the show in Tacoma, WA. ER provided the dazzling show with a full kit of lasers and special effects, which includes 6 Phaenons, 16 BB4’s, 8 Lynx Burst Boxes, 4 Cryofogs HP/XL, 4 QuickSmokes, 6 Stadium Blasters, 6 Stadium Shots, 6 Viper deLuxe and 2 Unique Hazers.

Wright continued: “We were really excited when we got the call from Rob Sinclair, working with such a fantastic creative director means we get some incredible laser looks which enhance the visual feast of a show. Production Manager, Joel Errikson, has been fantastic in helping us achieve our goal and pulling together this stunning show. It is an absolute honour working with Shania. ER Productions is very proud to deliver a unique laser design which is complimented perfectly by our SFX department.”

It’s been over a year since ER Productions’ special effects solutions offering began, and shows no sign of slowing down. “We are now seeing the fruits of our labour,” said ER Director, Ryan Hagan. “The SFX side of our company is really growing and that’s what we want to shout about. We have a solid reputation with our lasers; and we’re now delivering good quality SFX packages too.”

TPi www.er-productions.com 64

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FESTIVAL FOCUS

FESTIVAL FOCUS 2018 As is the annual tradition, we at Team TPi have packed our tents and wellies to bring you this year’s Festival Focus. Running every issue from July to October, the editorial crew will be speaking to the wonderful men and women who make the festival season what it is - legendary.

PINKPOP FESTIVAL ROE Visual LED screens are an essential eye-catcher on the 2 main stages of this long-running Dutch institution. Using a combination of Carbon CB5 panels and an Air Frame support system, Faber Audiovisuals premiers this product on the European market.

Held for the 49th consecutive year, Pinkpop boasted a line-up including Pearl Jam, Bruno Mars, Foo Fighters and many more.

Faber Audiovisuals, commissioned by the Production Factory, is responsible for the supply of all LED screens, camera work and live streaming from the festival.

Framing both the Main (South) Stage and 3FM Stage, ROE Visual LED screens are used to capture the on-stage action and live performances. “For the 3FM stage we use 2 side screens of both 74sqm, the LED display we use there is the MC7,” explained Steven Embregts, from Faber Audiovisuals. “While for the Main Stage we use 2 huge screens of 104sqm each, consisting of the Carbon series CB5 panels.”

The CB5 panels are supported by the newly released Air Frame support system. Air Frame is a lightweight touring system that is compatible with the Carbon series (CB5, CB8) panels. It provides a convenient allin-one solution for hanging, stacking and transportation. The use of innovative technology for this carbon-fibre touring frame reduces valuable production time. The lightweight, folding frames minimise trailer space, contributing to cost savings when compared to conventional touring

frames.

“The LED screens for the main stage are really massive,” continued Embregts. “Measuring 13m high and 8m wide, we really had some considerations building these screens, building had to be both quick and safe. Structurally calculated to absorb high wind speeds, the ROE Visual Air Frame offers the ideal solution for us. We’re lucky to have them delivered just in time for this production.”

“We continuously monitor our customer’s needs,” commented Roelof Bouwman, Managing Director of ROE Visual Europe. “As soon as we knew the Air Frames were ready for production we informed Faber Audiovisual on the possibilities. A sneak-preview was given during the Prolight+Sound show, held in Frankfurt last April, this convinced Faber Audiovisuals to invest in this system. ROE Visual will officially launch the Air Frame system this week.”

“At first, we were a bit worried to damage the screens during the build; although very lightweight, with measurements 120cm x 120cm the CB5 panels are quite large, but during the build everything went smooth. The panels and the frames fit together perfectly and building a large LED wall like this is amazingly fast,” concluded Embregts. www.roevisual.com www.pinkpop.nl 66

HANGOUT MUSIC FESTIVAL

HANGOUT MUSIC FESTIVAL Nearly 40,000 people flocked to the sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico for Hangout Music Festival, featuring artists such as The Killers, Zedd, The Chainsmokers, Halsey, Logic, Kendrick Lamar, Odesza, Foster the People and SZA.

Bandit Lites provided the lighting for 3 of the festival’s stages, including the mainstage, taking careful consideration of supplying a variety of gear that would accommodate the artists traveling with their own packages.

“Hangout is the official start of festival season for us and always a blast to be involved with,” stated Client Rep and Production Director Dizzy Gosnell. “The brief for the main stage was for the system to be able to work for the 3 headliners, The Killers, The Chainsmokers and Kendrick Lamar, and of course have enough toys for bands on earlier in the day to have some punch in daylight if needed. It helped enormously that the headliners had sent out their needs weeks ahead of the design, build, and prep.”

The mainstage had over 200 fixtures including Martin by Harman Atomic 3000 Strobes, Philips Vari-Lite VL 3500 Washes, VL 3000 Spots, Chauvet Illuminarc Panel 80 LED Washes, Claypaky Sharpys, 8-Lite fixtures and 4 Lycian M2 spots with 2 MA Lighting grandMA2 full size consoles for control.

“The mainstage also featured our new truss weather protection system on the 60ft front truss, which got a full evacuation level storm workout on Thursday night and there was not one damp light the next morning,” Gosnell added.

“The Surf Stage was fundamentally a 3-truss rig, but as the stage is called The Surf Stage and is literally 10 yards away from the lapping waves of the Gulf, I thought about making those 3 trusses a bity wavy and outlining them with the IP Elation Professional 6bars and WW2 Cuepix blinders to emphasise the curves during the day or night,” said Gosnell.

“We had to keep the rig high as the rear video wall obviously couldn’t have ladders or low trusses in front of it, and this approach seemed to work well.

I was really pleased with the end results; the headliner LDs for that stage really cranked that rig hard and it looked fabulous.”

The Surf Stage featured Atomic 3000 Strobes, GLP X4S fixtures, IP65-rated Elation SixBar 1000’s, Elation CuePix WW2 Blinders, Chauvet Professional Rogue RH1 Hybrids, Chauvet Illuminarc Panels, Claypaky Sharpys, and Bandit’s exclusive GRNLite Moving Washes with 2 grandMA2 Full Size consoles for control.

Bandit Lites supplied the Beach Stage with 6, 8ft tall ladder trusses and

outfitted with Elation SixBar 1000 IP65’s, Elation SixPar 100’s and Elation Paladins, with Gosnell emphasising: “This stage had the Gulf behind it and minimal wind walls for protection on the stage so all the fixtures had to be IP rated, and they worked wonderfully.”

In addition to the 3 stages, Bandit also supplied packages for some of the artists performing, including Logic and The Chainsmokers.

Logic’s set on Saturday was outfitted with Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes, VL 6000 Beams, Claypaky B-EYE K20 and Robe CycFX8 and The Chainsmokers took the stage Saturday night with LD Josh Beard using a Bandit-supplied lighting package of VL 3000 Spots, Ayrton MagicDot-Rs and Elation Paladins.

Bandit’s crew for the weekend included Terese Fensler, Steve Strickland, Jimmy Murray, Ty Veneziano, Alex Gagnon, Elliot Martin, Vanessa Tuttoilmondo and Jason Giaffo with additional support coming from Project Manager Gene Brian who helped facilitated all the lighting logistics for the massive weekend.

“Geno in the shop and Terese and Ty’s crews on each stage worked so hard on this show and really did a fantastic job,” finished Gosnell. “When all is said and done, a lamp is just a lamp, and it is the people that hang it and make it work that make the difference.” www.banditlites.com www.hangoutmusicfest.com

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FIELD DAY FESTIVAL

FIELD DAY FESTIVAL Field Day 2018 celebrated its short move from Victoria Park, Hackney, to Brockwell Park in Brixton by spectacularly overcoming the noise pollution issues with which both these sites have traditionally been dogged.

Field Day 2018 celebrated its short move from Victoria Park, Hackney, to Brockwell Park in Brixton by spectacularly overcoming the noise pollution issues with which both these sites have traditionally been dogged. PA specialist, Capital Sound, ended up equipping all 7 stages, with Account Manager Paul Timmins able to declare an astonishing SPL of 100dB(A)15 on main stage - thanks to the deployment of Martin Audio’s award-winning MLA, with its ability to limit offsite noise thresholds while maintaining unprecedented levels in the main bowl.

Timmins was mindful of Lambeth Council’s restrictions on sound escape at the nearby Clapham Common. But with careful orientation of the stages, and strong focus on rear rejection - coupled with some inspired optimisation programming in the Martin Audio software - they were able to deliver the anticipated sonic atmospherics to nearly 30,000 fans, while maintaining offsite escape to within the maximum 75dB(A) stipulated.

Aside from Martin Audio’s ground-breaking PA, Timmins accredited this success to the amount of early planning that had taken place, involving promoter Broadwick Live, production company Ground Control, noise consultant Three Spires Acoustics and F1 Acoustics, which undertook site modelling.

Capital had been brought in by Production Manager Tommy ShealsBarrett. “We’ve done Field Day for many years and it was good to be working with a new team at a new venue,” Timmins continued. “Everyone was aware this was a notoriously difficult site. It was obvious Tommy was aware of MLA, and knew this was the way to move forward - but the levels we were able to achieve surprised everyone.”

The promoter’s confidence in MLA grew further when Martin Audio’s R&D Director attended the early planning meeting and put forward constructive suggestions, at the same time overseeing some clever optimisations in the PA. “We made sure all stages were facing inwards and worked hard on the sub arrays to keep rear rejection to a minimum,” Timmins continued. This was in the form of a castellated broadside array of 14 MLX subwoofers.

The main stage PA design comprised 13 MLA elements and one MLD Downfill enclosure per side, and a single (stage left) outfill of 8 MLA Compact enclosures. There were 2 delay points, respectively comprising 12 and 8 MLA Compact. “We set 4 MLA Compact enclosures on top of the castellated sub array, comprising 14 MLX,” said Timmins. Stage monitors for a bill headlined by Erykah Badu, comprised 16 LE1500 floor wedges and 4 of Martin Audio’s new SX218 subwoofers, 2 enclosures per side.

While some 20,000 assembled in front of the main stage (at peak), a further 8,000 crammed into The Barn (stage 2), a DJ-oriented performance area that kicked in on Day 2. Here Capital hung 10 MLA and a single MLD Downfill per side - spaced 16m apart, in from the wings on an extremely wide 24m stage. To cater for those out wide, they placed 2 clusters of 3 MLA Compact on each stage wing, with 8 W8LM Mini Line Array providing nearfield coverage. Here Capital deployed a generous 18 MLX subwoofers in broadside, with the Capital Sound man explaining, “We wanted better controllability over the horizontal dispersion.”

Supervising the system on main stage were Mark Cleator and Hungarian MLA expert, Marci Mezei, while Mark Edwards system teched The Barn. Crew Chief was Jonny Buck and Amy Newton Smith looked after the project on site. www.martin-audio.com www.fielddayfestivals.com 68

RAT SOUND

STAGECOACH & COACHELLA Rat Sound Inc provided Focusrite RedNet Technology for some innovative audio solutions for the sound on the main stages at both Coachella and Stagecoach Music Festivals in North America.

An estimated 300,000-plus came to Coachella 2018, which took place 13-22 April, to see and hear artists including Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Lion Babe, LANY and Vance Joy. Meanwhile, sister festival Stagecoach, where artists such as Florida Georgia Line, Keith Urban, Garth Brooks, Kelsea Ballerini, Kacey Musgraves and more performed, set new records with over 75,000 per day over 3 days, 27-29 April.

What both festivals had in common was the sprawling Indio, CA festival site, excellent sound provided by Rat Sound, and critical and innovative use of Focusrite’s RedNet range of Dante-networked audio converters and interfaces.

At Coachella’s main stage, all 15 delay towers used RedNet D16R 16-channel AES3 I/O’s to connect the loudspeakers with the L-Acoustics LA8 amplified controllers powering them through the sound system’s main matrix and QSC Q-SYS fibre network. On the main stage at Stagecoach, 27 RedNet D16R units performed the same task, assuring an effective and reliable connection. In addition, the FOH position for the main stage at each festival had both a RedNet D16R and a RedNet A16R 16-channel analogue I/O interface. These could accommodate both digital and analogue FOH consoles brought in by performers.

Perhaps the most innovative use of powerful RedNet technology was the application of RedNet MP8R 8-channel mic pre and A/D converters for each row of delays towers at both festivals, a total of 10 in all. These allowed Rat Sound engineers to remotely change the positions of measurement microphones that were used to gauge the SPL at each row of towers, via RedNet Control software.

“We have to keep the SPL within the guidelines established for each festival, and usually that meant physically going out into the crowd with the microphones to measure the volume at each row, which was incredibly time-consuming and exhausting,” explained Bjarne Hemmingsen, Audio Systems Engineer at Rat Sound and the Crew Chief for the main stages at both festivals.

“I had gotten pretty tired over the years of battling the crowd to

get these measurements, so I looked at the MP8R and thought, ‘Wait a minute...’” recalled Hemmingsen, who also did the initial system design work on the PAs for both festivals. “This was the first time we’d tried this, and it worked brilliantly, allowing us to adjust the mics as needed at each row of delay towers, saving us time and lot of effort. We’ve used RedNet at these and other shows and they keep finding new ways to make our lives easier.” www.coachella.com www.stagecoachfestival.com www.ratsound.com www.uk.focusrite.com

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CITY 65 FESTIVAL

CITY 65 FESTIVAL The Fort Gate at Fort Canning Hill in Singapore provided a stunning backdrop for the 2018 edition of City 65 Music Festival. The location, renowned for its lush greenery and expansive lawns has become a hub for cultural and creative activities and a venue of choice for many outdoor events.

The 3 LEDWash 600’s were on both the mid and front trusses, with 2 more each side on the downstage edges of the floor, utilised as the main band washes.

4 Robe ColorStrobes on the front truss made highly effective blinders and Burridge positioned 2 more on the ground behind the stage to illuminate the heritage tree and make it pop out.

The spectacular tree measures 7m wide at the base - with multiple trunks - and 20m high. Being able to light it with just one fixture a side meant that all the shadows and its intricate form were beautifully illuminated.

Four 2m sections of vertical truss on the deck were each populated with 3 Linees and a ColorStrobe. The flown Linees and the pixelPATTs were all hung on 2m and 3m drop bars, and used for eye-catching effects.

LEDWash 600’s are a go-to luminaire for Burridge. He covered the essential stage positions effortlessly with the 10 fixtures and the was able to zoom in or out and highlight the musicians with the floor based ones, as well as wash out and saturate the stage with colour.

Linees were selected as a non-standard fixture. Rather than use ‘traditional’ beams, Burridge instead used the Linees in full pixel mode 3 but programmed as a light source rather than video mapped.

He likes the ‘blade’ look of the Linee beams when they are all in a tight zoom, giving a “wide flat slice of light that is very different from a typical round beam”.

Burridge’s favourite Linee effects are a pan / rotate with a single pixel beam, and having the fixtures at angles where the wide swath of light is created by all the cells being in a sharp zoom. Another one is a wide zoom look for total saturation of the air on a stage or in a space. The Linees worked excellently with the pixelPATT chases.

The pixelPATTs were also placed to work as a stand-alone visual effect, rather than to light up the stage, and Burridge spent considerable time programming chases so they appeared to rotate or move left / right and up / down. They proved “great for the pastel palette looks I ran for one of the headliners”.

Burridge operated all the lighting himself using a WholeHog FullBoar3.

For third on the bill metal band Terminal Cry, who played in daylight, he chose all-white lighting with lots of beams created from this punchy selection of fixtures.

They were followed by co-headliners, neo-vintage soul band The Steve McQueens, who were lit primarily in pastel shades. By now it was getting darker so the Linees and PATTs were used to fill the space with abstract flowing shapes that morphed and moved with the groove.

Co-headliners Addy Cradle closed the show with an intensive prog rock performance, which Burridge lit with lots of saturated colours onto the tree and from the flown LEDWash 600’s, with the floor-based LEDWash 600’s contrasting in warm or cold whites, while the Linees produced big asymmetric static looks interspersed with pixel chases and layers of different shapes.

Burridge has been using Robe products in his work for some time and was keen to emphasise all the Robe products he’s seen and used in recent years.

The lighting equipment was supplied by Singapore rental company CSP Productions. “They were brilliant,” stated Burridge, “really going the extra miles to get it all up and working when time was really tight”. Burridge had just one evening of on-site programming.

“The Robe fixtures were a big part of making it look really outstanding,” concluded Burridge. www.robe.cz www.city65music.com

Craig Burridge was asked to coordinate the Main Stage production and lighting design for the 1-day event by organisers Michael Spinks and Rachel Mason from City 65 Music. The main stage line up featured 5 diverse bands, 3 playing in daylight and the final 2 in the dark, for which Burridge used 50 Robe fixtures - 24 Linees, 10 ColorStrobes, 6 PixelPATTs and 10 LEDWash 600’s - positioned prominently on the rig.

The venue is managed by the National Parks, and there are some strict rules and regulations designed to protect the environment. No production elements can be within 2m of any tree, so the 9m wide x 8m deep stage was allocated a space between 2, right in front of a ‘heritage tree’ that “made a fantastic backdrop”, explained Burridge.

He had a free creative hand with the design with a few important prerequisites, including that it was a functional and practical space for the bands and audio / backline crews to achieve quick changeovers. This meant leaving the stage floor relatively clear.

In addition to this, his aesthetic goal was to provide 3 distinct but related visual themes that would work for the diverse genres of music covered by the final 3 bands on the bill - hard rock / metal, indie jazz and progressive rock, respectively.

Power is also a consideration on the site as they have to use generators, so being able to use LED fixtures allowed the generator size to be smaller, and conserve diesel - a bonus for the environment and the show budget!

The strong natural tree setting also played a part in the look of the stage.

Burridge wanted to keep the sides of the stage uncovered and feature the intricate branches and leaf formations, pulling them into the picture. This approach also helped the stage to appear much bigger!

The 4-legged ground support was trimmed at 7m to maintain rectangular form to the stage, and 2m and 3m drop bars were used on the back ground support truss and 2m ones on the mid ground support truss, which enabled lights to be more dynamically positioned. Each drop bar was rigged with 2 Robe Linees and a pixelPATT.

70

MERLEFEST 2018

MERLEFEST 2018 Digital meets wood: SE Systems deployed numerous SD-Range consoles for 31st annual acoustic music event featuring country, bluegrass and Americana artists.

Featuring the best in country, bluegrass and Americana, this year’s MerleFest hosted performances by the Steep Canyon Rangers and Friends with special guest Steve Martin, Buddy Miller and the North Mississippi All-stars, Kris Kristofferson, Jamey Johnson and many more roots acts. And as has been the case for a number of years, DiGiCo consoles mixed and processed nearly all of the music emanating from the festival’s stages, helping to cement MerleFest’s reputation as a highly celebrated perennial American music event.

Since the festival’s beginnings in 1988, Greensboro-based SE Systems has been handling the sound for MerleFest. SE Systems CEO and Founder Cliff Miller helped put the audio production in place for the first MerleFest in the John A. Walker Auditorium that was quickly expanded to an additional location outdoors on flatbed trucks, which is now the site of the Doc Watson Theatre.

“The SD-Range consoles have been the workhorse of the festival for the last several years, to the point now where it’s nearly all we use,” said Miller, who sat in on guitar at many of founder Doc Watson’s later gigs. SE Systems has its own SD consoles on site, with DiGiCo distributor Group One bringing in multiple additional consoles, racks, and personnel to support the sprawling event. In fact, this year DiGiCo consoles were used on 9 of the event’s 10 music stages.

The Chris Austin Stage, named in honor of Reba McEntire’s late touring guitarist and home to the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest during MerleFest, had a pair of compact DiGiCo S21 consoles for FOH and monitors, both sharing a single D-Rack. The Watson Stage, namesake of the festival’s icon, is the largest of all and had an SD5 console for FOH and an SD10 for monitors, as well as 2 SD-Racks fully loaded with multi-mode optics and Waves bundle.

The Creekside Stage used 2 SD10-24 consoles and a shared SD-Rack; this stage uses fewer inputs but takes advantage of all the power of the SD10. The Dance Stage had a pair of SD12 desks and an SD-Rack equipped with the new 32-bit Ultimate Stadius Mic Pre-Amp cards. The Americana Stage used a D-Rack and Little Red Box for its 2 SD9 consoles covering

FOH and monitors. The Traditional Stage kept it simple with one S21 and a D-Rack, while the Hillside Stage used 2 SD12 consoles for FOH and monitors with one shared SD-Rack loaded with the new 32-bit input cards.

The Cabin Stage had to be different: an SD11 console for FOH linked with a single D-Rack; this stage has limited inputs and can still be run from the front-of-house mix position, so having two separate FOH consoles gave SE’s engineers the flexibility to reset the main stage while the Cabin side stage fills in between the main acts. Finally, at the Walker Center, 2 SD10 consoles shared an SD-Rack between them, also featuring the new 32-bit cards.

The Archive Recording Studio set up to record various performances at the festival used a DiGiCo S21, which fed signals to a converter that output .wav files to a Glyph drive. And as Miller noted, other artists performing there brought their own DiGiCo SD9 consoles with them, including the Steep Canyon Rangers and Friends with special guest Steve Martin, further expanding DiGiCo’s coverage of this festival. www.merlefest.org www.digico.biz www.sesystems.com

71

ON THE ROAD

LAS VEGAS TPi’s Stew Hume went ‘On The Road’ in Las Vegas to discover a vibrant community of manufacturers, designers and rental houses putting the desert on the live production map.

Last month TPi set course for none other the Sin City, Las Vegas, for InfoComm’s biennial visit to Nevada. As well as checking out the latest innovations and product launches, we took some time away from the trade show floor to visit some of the companies that call this region home. Since the boom in development of Las Vegas as a destination

for revelry, entertainment has gone hand-in-hand with the city’s make up. However, what TPi found out while battling the desert heat, the entertainment oasis also acts as a superb base for both national and international touring industry.

TPi

INFOCOMM 2018 In June, the Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association (AVIXA) once again took up residency in Las Vegas Convention Centre for its first InfoComm under the AVIXA banner. The biennial Las Vegas version of the show had its usual offering of product launches from the AV and entertainment markets. The event boasted a 10% increase in attendance from its previous Las Vegas event. TPi was on the ground to speak to the organisers and exhibitors to see what 2018 rendition had to offer.

The event kicked off with a record-setting TIDE conference and concluded with a trade show exhibition that attracted nearly 43,000 registered attendees. “It was another fantastic week for a show and an industry that never stops innovating,” said Jason McGraw, CTS, CAE, Senior Vice President of Expositions, AVIXA. “We continue to develop new offerings that celebrate and explore in depth the many facets of technology experiences. Our exhibitors took the lead with solutions that continue to push the envelope of what AV can deliver, and our many subject-matter experts and thought leaders contributed to a program that gave all attendees the opportunity to think differently about the role audio-visual

technology plays in people’s lives.”

With over 964 exhibitors spanning 550,000sq ft including stands, demo rooms and special events spaces, this marked the biggest InfoComm to date and with 94% rebooking for next years, there seems to be little signs of slowing down.

One of the highlights came from the world of audio with several companies showcasing various version of immersive sound including; d&b audiotechnik’s Soundscape, L-Acoustics L-ISA and Astro Spatial Audio collaborations with Alcons Audio and Martin Audio.

“AVIXA thanks all the exhibitors, attendees, and media who made InfoComm 2018 a success,” stated AVIXA CEO David Labuskes. “I hope that nothing that happened this week in Vegas stays in Vegas. I encourage all our attendees to take home what they learned and experienced and share it with their colleagues and customers. It’s a great and important time to be in AV, connecting people and changing the way they experience the world around them.” www.infocommshow.org 72

LAS VEGAS

2018 PRODUCT LAUNCH HIGHLIGHTS

Elation Professional’s Eric Loader; ADJ’s Brian Dowdle and Alfred Gonzales; Martin Audio and Astro Spatial Audio showcasing the benefits of immersive audio.

Adamson introduced its IS-Series, bringing the performance of its touring products to the world of integration.

Alcons Audio presented its Pro-Ribbon Immersive Experience, showcasing its remarkable possibilities of high quality, object-based immersive audio from 3D live sound specialist Astro Spatial Audio (ASA).

Chauvet Professional introduced its high performance 8-inch LED fresnel equivalents; engineered with energy-efficient optical systems in full colour, warm white, and variable white versions to satisfy the diverse needs of lighting designers.

Coda Audio celebrated its new partnerships with highly regarding rep firms at this year’s InfoComm, the company hosted its inaugural rep meeting and top sales agencies from across the US came together for an exclusive demo of the Coda Audio portfolio. d&b audiotechnik allowed visitors, for the first time, to explore the full extent of what tailor-made means at d&b, with the newly launched d&b Custom Solutions programme. In addition, the GSL System from the SL Series made its US show debut, the GSL System is a complete solution created specifically for the largest sound reinforcement applications in significantly sized arenas, stadiums and festivals, to accurately deliver any performance style or musical genre. DiGiCo announced the new V2.2 software upgrade for S-Series consoles, which incorporated a number of much-wanted features, as well as the 2 new DMI modules; the DMI-AMM and DMI ME. Digital Projection launched a total of 4 new projectors across 3 ranges at this year’s InfoComm. Alongside the projectors themselves, the coinventor of DLP technology unveiled two new innovations: IP60-rated 100% sealed optics as well as its proprietary ColorBoost + Red Laser technology.

The company also launched its E-Vision Laser 11000 4K-UHD. disguise showcased the Solo, its latest media server: the HDMI 2.0 VFC card, new OmniCal hardware kits, and the upcoming r15 software.

Elation Professional showcased its latest luminaires in the awardwinning Artiste series of creative, full-featured moving heads, the Artiste Picasso and Artiste Dali. Elation, additionally, showed off its new Smarty Hybrid, a full-featured spot/beam/wash fixture and the most compact CMY colour-mixing hybrid Elation has released to date.

GLP displayed its latest fixtures, including the S350, FR1 and the Force 120 stage effect fan, additionally its award winning fixtures such as the JDC1 hybrid strobe and impression X4 Bar. Martin Audio introduced Sound Adventures, a 3D immersive sound experience in cooperation with its partner, Astro Spatial Audio. The demonstration showcased core experiences including movable sound effects and mixes in real time, and in full 3D, electronically shaping the venue with different acoustic properties and extending the stereo image for the audience.

ROE Visual successfully launched its ground-breaking high-resolution Sapphire LED display. ROE’s ground-breaking product not only delivers best-in-class image quality and clarity but also presents a completely new approach for building and mounting large display LED screens.

Solid State Logic announced the release of its L100 live console - the newest member of the SSL Live console range. L100 provides a physically smaller premium solution for customers who prioritise outstanding sonic performance in space restricted installations, for sub-mix positions or corporate production.

Waves Audio displayed its Waves TRACT Loudspeaker Correction, a powerful corrective EQ and system time alignment tool for live PA systems or studio environments. In addition, also exhibited its acclaimed Waves eMotion LV1 mixer, a revolutionary live digital mixing console that provides real-time audio mixing for front-of-house, monitor and broadcast engineers. www.infocommshow.org 73

LAS VEGAS

The Solid State logic team at the pre-InfoComm launch of the L100.

SOLID STATE LOGIC www.solidstatelogic.com

In the famed Las Vegas Art Quarter, English console manufacturer Solid State Logic has its own place within the city, with an office facility and training area for visiting engineers to try out the latest equipment the company has to offer.

Leading SSL’s Vegas operation is Jay Easley, Vice President, Live Consoles. “We’ve had a sales and support base in Las Vegas of at least 5 years now, thought the dedicated space that is The SSL Design Studio - only officially opened last year,” commented Easley. The SSL Design Studio is purpose-built for training and to allow for one-to-one time with engineers to build files for upcoming shows. The space even offers temporary office space with desks and phones available for busy tour and production managers passing through. Easley is full time in the Vegas office with regular visits from staff at other US and international SSL offices - mostly for special events and training.

“Las Vegas is the entertainment capital of the world!” enthused the VP, while discussing the importance of having a presence in the region.

“The high-profile resident shows are part of that, and almost every tour stops in Vegas for a show and a day off. It makes sense for us to provide a comfortable facility where any engineer can get support, be hands-on with the consoles, attend training sessions, and much more.”

This year, the day before InfoComm 2018 officially opened, the team from SSL hosted an evening to launch its new offerings the live touring world - the L100. Now alongside the L200, L300 and L500, SSL has its “grand slam” of live desks. Easley continued: “It was particularly gratifying to watch InfoComm attendees make straight for the stand, then jump right onto the L100 and start mixing. This new, smaller live console brings SSL Live and the SSL Sound to a substantial new audience, and the enthusiasm of that audience was obvious from watching the crowds at the demo consoles. The new 12-fader Remote Tile was a hit too. It’s a simple, affordable way add up to 24 additional faders to an existing SSL Live console. We look forward to Orlando next year.”

Easley went on to talk about the reception the SSL live range has had in the US. “People love SSL and understandably come to us with high expectations. They anticipate sonic superiority, flexible and creative workflows, and unrivalled support - I’m pleased to say they haven’t been disappointed. The SSL Live console range was launched 5 years ago and has more than proved its metal over hundreds of international tours and many miles on the road. The feedback we’ve received is consistently positive, which is why engineers are coming back and specifying SSL for their second, third, and fourth tours already.”

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LAS VEGAS

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As North America’s largest lighting-only company, it’s really no surprise that Christie Lites has a Las Vegas operation. But what may surprise some readers is that its presence in entertainment capital is relatively recent.

“We first moved to Las Vegas in 2008,” began CEO Huntly Christie. “Any production company that has multiple offices has to find their way to Vegas sooner or later, and arguably we were late in our timing.”

Currently, the company has 40 staff that run the Christie Lites warehouse, situated in the north of the city. However as the CEO confirmed, Christie would be opening a whole new facility later in the coming year. “Our current premises are 80,000sq ft but the new on moving into a new facility that is 160,000sq ft,” enthused Christie.

One element of the Christie Lite empire that the CEO is particularly proud of is the seamless transition touring crew personnel get to experience when moving from one facility to another. “We have a defined blueprint of what each Christie Lites facility should be like,” he stated. “It’s all in the details from the organisation of the warehouse to the state of the equipment so it’s easy moving from one site to the other. Our Vegas site functions as a standard distribution centre and has the same products as other Christie Lites locations including fixtures from Martin by Harman, GLP and ETC. “Around 90% of our business is local in the Las Vegas office. It’s such a desirable location for special events because the entire city revolves around corporate shows and entertainment ranging from 1 to 25 truck shows. For example, we are currently in the midst of a large Microsoft event, taking place in the city. ” 75

LAS VEGAS

President & Chief Executive Officer of Pyrotek, Scott Dunlop.

PYROTEK SPECIAL EFFECTS www.pyrotekfx.com

Located north of the city centre, down the road from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, sits Pyrotek Special Effects. “We’ve made very large investments in expanding our facilities to keep pace with the needs of our clients over the last few years,” stated President & Chief Executive Officer, Scott Dunlop. “We’ve now grown our presence to 5 facilities, including New York, Nashville, Lititz PA, along with the larger Las Vegas facility and our Toronto head office.”

Overseeing Pyrotek’s operations, including the Las Vegas Facility, is Vice President of Operations, Brian McDavid. An operations and logistics expert by trade, McDavid joined Pyrotek a few years ago to add depth to its team as it embarked upon the service expansion programme that Dunlop described previously. One of the key needs that McDavid got involved with early on was product training. “Pyrotek has always had an extremely skilled and talented team of crew out on the road with very deep expertise in the safe and effective design, set up and use of special effects. Our goal is to formalise a programme that can harness all this knowledge and deliver it systematically and reliably across the labour pool, all with the aim of keeping everyone at the leading edge of the trade and to help train the next generation of special effects technicians.”

With over 10 full time warehouse staff and 5 office positions, the Las Vegas operation handles up to 80% of the company’s stock for the touring market. From pyrotechnics to flames, lasers to confetti, the warehouse is a treasure trove of eye-catching effects. While touring the warehouse, TPi got an up-close demonstration of the Dragon - a propane fed device that emits a controllable flame column or fireball effect with a height variable from 6ft to 40ft.

“The Las Vegas team is a very dedicated and talented group of individuals,” noted McDavid proudly. “Our warehouse lead, for example, has

over 30 years of experience on the road and brings with him a great deal of knowledge that helps the facility run efficiently and that he has been able to pass on to those on the team who are new to the industry.” To help harness this knowledge for Pyrotek’s training programme, Pyrotek has added a technical writer and program developer to the Las Vegas team, with the goal being to help further support the company’s training objectives.

Once complete, the idea is that the training programme will allow anyone new to the company to receive standardised training so they can reach their full potential in the field quicker. Coincidently, the day we visited the warehouse was the first day at the office for Pyrotek’s new intern. As McDavid noted: “We have built a relationship with University of Nevada, the purpose being to give local students the opportunity to learn the trade.

Our new intern walked in and, within her first day, she was learning how to repair a hazer.”

Dunlop described Pyrotek’s Las Vegas facility as key to the company’s service model. “Las Vegas is our warehousing and technical service hub, and we think our clients are well served by having these capabilities in that location. There is a large critical mass of events in the Las Vegas area, including many of the TV award shows we work on, and it is well suited as a transportation centre for the rest of the US west coast.”

The last word goes to McDavid, whose last name may be recognised by anyone who follows the NHL, and the prodigious exploits of his son, Connor, which leads nicely into his analogy: “In hockey, the best players skate to where the puck is going, not where it’s been. At Pyrotek, we’ve seen the live event business get increasingly sophisticated and complex and we don’t see this trend abating any time soon. We’ve made lots of changes to our business, including the investments in Las Vegas, to ensure that we stay at the forefront of being able to seamlessly cater to our clients’ needs.”

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LAS VEGAS

SOLOTECH www.solotech.com

Founded in Montreal in 1977, Solotech has evolved from providing equipment rentals and sales to becoming a premier end-to-end provider of entertainment technology services in lighting, video, audio and rigging.

On the touring side of the business, the company currently has a full roster of artists out on the road including the likes of Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, P!nk and The Rolling Stones to name but a few. In total, the company has 9 offices across North America. The Las Vegas facility was officially opened in 2003, primarily to service the Celine Dion’s residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Not only that, long-time partners Cirque du Soleil also had a big presence in the region and it only made sense for its main supplier to be close by.

Dean Roney, Solotech’s Vice President of Touring has been based out of the Vegas office for the past 10 years. He spoke to TPi about the growth of the offices. “Vegas is really one of the globe’s major hubs for entertainment!” he began. “Every single week there is somebody that is coming through town either a client or a new potential client. It’s so vital have a presence here. It’s clearly not just us that thinks that as despite being a relatively small city we have almost 20 of the major production companies from the states with one sort of presence here.”

The Vegas HQ currently houses between 25 -40 employees, which fluctuates depending on what tours are out. “There are also times where we will bring in crew in from our other bases in the US or Canada if there is a big installation happening.”

He continued to discuss some of the other logistical benefits of the city.

“It’s certainly more cost effective to have a warehouse centre here than it is in LA. Currently, our LA space is an office with Vegas being our main stock house for the west coast for now.”

To close, Roney explained that in business, there is always a need to

look towards the future. “In terms of expansion we are always looking at add an extra 20,000 - 30,000sq ft of warehouse space. At the moment we have a lot of equipment out on the road but it could always come back through the door, and we need to be prepared for that.”

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IN PROFILE

COLOUR SOUND EXPERIMENT: 30 YEARS IN BUSINESS AND STILL PROUDLY INDEPENDENT Founder & MD, Haydn ‘H’ Cruickshank, Production Coordinator Alex Ryan and video rental secret weapon, Jo Beirne, sit down with TPi’s Kel Murray to talk about the importance of remaining an independent vendor, of building friendships in the industry and of embracing the next generation of tour techs...

“It started as a hobby, lighting a mate’s band,” explained Haydn ‘H’ Cruickshank of London-based lighting and video screen rental company, Colour Sound Experiment (CSE), as he detailed the origins of his empire, now home to 25 employees and Matty the beagle, office legend and general cute distraction during this interview. The sentiment of this sentence isn’t unfamiliar should you talk to people in this industry, but what’s impressive, is that 3 decades later, Cruickshank’s ‘hobby’ has not only become one of the UK’s quirkiest entertainment lighting suppliers, but also managed to evolve into a video rental provider without being bought out, bought off or buried in the process.

“I bought slide projectors and just kept investing in more kit whenever I could,” he continued. “It was during the psychedelic rock scene in the late

‘80s, yet the rave scene and big lighting companies weren’t catching onto it, and I found a niche there. When intelligent lighting started to take off, big lighting companies viewed it as ‘disco’ still, and was something many manufacturers, apart from Philips Vari-lite, didn’t want to get involved with. This afforded us the opportunity to take moving lights to big events that had never seen them. It was amazing how long it took the bigger companies to pick up on it really!”

This business foresight meant Cruickshank had a head start on making some valuable relationships. “The rave work we were getting soon evolved from club nights, into the Megadog movement. Planetdog records was the first dance client we had that went out on tour. Other dance labels and promoters weren’t confident to send them out on their own, so they put 78

COLOUR SOUND EXPERIMENT

Opposite: CSE Founder & MD, Haydn Cruickshank, Client Liasion Manager, Jo Berine and Production Coordinator Alex Ryan with Top Dog, Matty the beagle.

Above: Tracey Leitch with husband, LD Brian Leitch; Simon Williams, Warehouse Manager; Steve Marley and Fletch, CSE Project Managers; Those unmistakable CSE flightcases.

all their backing in to these Megadog parties. This in turn gave us all the contacts we needed, and Megadog itself went on to be very successful, independently.”

Megadog started as a club night - a crossover between illegal raves and hippy, pre-festival parties - and started to come together in venues before SJM Concerts picked it up to promote. “We did 3 or 4 tours a year with 3 bands on every tour for them. For 5 / 6 years, we worked solidly like that. It was a pivotal time for touring UK dance acts, and launched bands such as Orbital, Underworld, The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers into playing live in a lot of cities.”

To this day, Underworld remains one of Cruickshank’s oldest client relationships, alongside Festival Republic (or Mean Fiddler at the time).

Underworld still require Cruickshank’s lighting design services on tour, and CSE supply the band’s lighting and LED, 25 years after first meeting.

Festival-wise, Reading launched the company into multiple-day rock events after it first supplied the festival in 1992; you know, the year Nirvana, one of the biggest bands on the planet at the time, headlined and made one of their most, if not the most, famous UK festival appearances of the ‘90s.

“I can attribute a lot of our festival success to Melvin Benn, who runs what is now Festival Republic. I don’t really remember the Nirvana set, but I do remember supplying a space rocket to Reading made out of truss that took me 2 whole days to disassemble!” he laughed.

“The people that were doing early festivals in the late ‘90s went on to get ‘proper’ jobs, like move into more corporate or experiential brand stuff so we started to pick up some of that kind of work from those relationships too.”

“We also look after a lot of bands directly,” noted CSE Production Coordinator, Alex Ryan. “Obviously bands play festivals, and we send gear out to Europe for them too, but a lot of our business is with rock bands.”

“Festivals feed the touring market, and promoters are always searching for new markets to latch on to,” added Cruickshank. “It’s almost like the more ‘out there’ it is, the better, which we really like! bluedot Festival in Cheshire for example, combines music and science education, and is aimed at families with young kids, but it also has serious music fans attending and a really eclectic line up. Underworld headlined there and we had a little rave in the rain one year - it’s incredible what works for all these kinds of people at one event.”

Ryan continued: “At Colour Sound, we spend a lot of time looking after or rock ’n’ roll touring gigs, and that’s a completely different creative to festivals. I personally work very closely with lighting designers to pull off, technically, exactly the kind of look they’re after. It doesn’t sound particularly creative on my part, but you can put your own spin on it. Like designing a rig to go in and out as quickly as possible, as well as looking how they envisage it; it’s all about finding those bits of fun to keep our clients happy.”

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COLOUR SOUND EXPERIMENT

British rock band Feeder’s live show is designed by LD Brian Leitch.

CSE’s relationships with LDs are clearly very important, and as TPi wanders around the warehouse, (legendary) LD Brian Leitch is programming for his latest project. “We try to be as reactive as possible when it comes to purchasing,” furthered Cruickshank. “But we can’t own everything. LDs want to use whatever hasn’t been used before, and the advantage of being a smaller company that really listens, is being able to buy something because someone wants it - without having to get 10 people to sign it off.”

“It’s true, being able to buy cool, quirky products as well as the high end ones is great fun. We just got some 1950s vintage shipping lights that we’re re-imagining. We’ve done them up really nice… chromed and neatly wired.

Then in contrast, we’ve also just bought some new Portman P3’s, which no one else has bought in the UK yet. That feel pretty good,” he smiled.

Lighting may be what ignited this, almost unpredictable, passion 3 decades ago, but when CSE bought its first LED screen 9 years ago, lighting companies weren’t exactly following suit. And after yet another head start in an ever evolving industry, now video too has an equal place in its warehouse…

“Having LED screens in your rental stock has become standard for a lot of lighting companies, but we did it a long time ago. We’ve recently made some big investments in both: we’ve bought ROE screens, the Carbon 5’s, which are absolutely great, and in our lighting fixture stock, we’ve focussed on Robe MegaPointes and Claypaky Scenius Unico. I have a soft spot for Claypaky because they were some of the very first lights I ever bought, and they’ve been very good to us. We’ve also got some new GLP JDC1 Hybrid Strobes, and for our rigging gear, some brand new Kinesys motors,” added Cruickshank.

With all of this equipment in demand and flying out of the door, the CSE team knew they needed a video guru / socialite to come on board for the

next chapter of independently manageable expansion. Enter Jo Bierne, from the original XL Video school of independent thinkers. Bierne, now 5 months into her new role as Client Liaison Manager, is settling in just as well as you might imagine.

Ryan elaborated: “Looking after LDs during festival season and working with my rock ‘n’ rollers, is a full time job. We’re so, so busy in the summer.

But Jo, who let’s face it, the whole industry knows, is here to look after a lot of our new clients, especially for video, and she’s already demonstarted how strong her skills are in bringing in new business.”

“It was a completely natural move for us. It’s actually a totally new role at the company, but it was organic,” added Cruickshank. “Most people will know Jo from her days - 15 years! - at XL Video, so she knows everyone you’d ever need to know in our business. Because of that, she’s much more upfront in asking people the questions we never actually have. What it’s highlighted is that there is, or was, a perception issue in terms of Colour Sound’s scale. That we’re really small, when in fact, we’ve got 800 sqm of LED screen and over 1,200 moving lights in our warehouse. Independent doesn’t mean tiny. This industry favours independence and as much as a giant machine can be efficient, the numbers say when the companies do get massive, the model doesn’t work for touring. We don’t aspire to have an office in the Middle East or the US, but over the past 10 years, the industry has changed dramatically, especially with video. And that’s what we want to keep up with, really well.”

And how does one, ‘keep up’ with that? “Well, we have a lot of young people here, and people who generally make sure that our clients and would-be clients know what we do and what we have to offer.”

Beirne is one such employee. “We’re really pushing the delivery of rock ‘n’ roll visuals, and Jo is so good at it. She’s friendly with everyone in this really impressive way,” stated Ryan. “I’ve worked here for years, and there’s 80

COLOUR SOUND EXPERIMENT

Wilkinson and The Hunna are CSE touring clients; Haydn Cruickshank with Jo Beirne.

people I talk to every day that I wouldn’t dare ask about working with. 30 seconds later, she’ll have already done the deal!”

Cruickshank laughed: “That’s best thing about employing disruptive people, and I mean disruptive in the best sense; they have their own ideas, their own really unique way of doing things, and you can’t fight that because it works.”

Bierne joined the conversation: “I think that’s true. Being on a level in a company where you can put ideas forward or bring them in, is really important. For example, I did the Manic Street Preachers account at XL Video, and now we have them at Colour Sound too.

“A brand new client for us is here is James Bay. I’d wanted to work with his crew ever since I met them years ago, and now their first video rental is from me. That’s what’s nice about joining the team here, bringing those relationships with me, even if I’d never actually worked with them before!

James Bay had only been on H’s radar for 3 weeks, but it’s taken me 3 years to actually be able to say his Show Designer, Liam Tully, is my client.

We know that crew like working with smaller, almost low-key and very approachable companies, and that’s the kind of place I’m suited to work for.”

“Money is a strange subject too,” added Ryan. “I’d say it only accounts for about only 5% of a whole project, start to finish; it’s more about the relationship with your end users and creatives, that’s what really counts.”

Berine agreed: “Meeting young LDs and seeing them start at the age of 16 in a warehouse, just like Alex did, striving to design their first gigs, that’s what is great about being part of a company like this. There’s some brilliant young talent out there and the young people need a way to come on through. There was a point when I was with XL Video that there wasn’t enough of the old techs to go around, and not enough young ones coming through the doors and everyone was deadling wiht the same problem.

Now, we’re actively encouraging a change in that, as an industry.”

“It builds a family vibe too,” elaborated Ryan, “having that generation gap. Most of our younger techs are taught by the older techs that have been doing it for years. Take me, for example, I’ve had a really good opportunity for growth in my career because I started with a smaller, independent company and learnt from the top while starting out at the bottom. I’ve been able to do some random things, test ideas and try some stuff out that I don’t imagine I ever would have got the chance to at a massive company.

It makes coming to work exciting. On the other side, the feedback we often get from touring crew is that when companies get too big, the service and delivery isn’t the same. Obviously not everyone has that opinion or experience, but at the end of the day, they’re coming to us for a reason. It’s down to choice. We’re a smaller business but we can do your show well and people who meet us know that we’ll stay as late as is needed, or take that 3am phone call.”

“Colour Sound is investing in equipment, and people want to work with us because of that, but also for lots of reasons, including the quality of our people. That’s what you’re really buying in to,” said Beirne. “There’s a friendly service from within these walls and that’s always what I’ve wanted to be a part of. I like to build relationships face to face, not over email, which is why I’m out and about so much,” she winked as if to confirm she’d already ordered a round at the local. “We’re available 24/7 to make your gig happen. Right at the start of my career in the video world, that’s what XL Video instilled in its staff, and that’s what I know I’ll bring to my job here.”

If you’ve met the CSE team, and their newly appointed Lady Luck, you’ll know they mean every word…

TPi Photos: TPi & Louise Stickland www.coloursound.com 81

SPONSORED BY

MARKET FOCUS

+44 (0) 1442 899 299 • www.languk.com

LANG is a leading global distributor of visual presentation technology.

This year it celebrates 40 years of business in the rental, sales and servicing of video equipment.

It is an exclusively B2B provider, supplying rental companies and system integrators to discreetly enhance any product inventory.

Lang continuously investigates the development of new technologies to ensure it provides the leading branded products, independent from any manufacturer, and is the sponsor for this month’s projector focus.

Lang operates in the UK, Germany and Switzerland.

PROJECTORS BARCO UDX SERIES

The models in the UDX range include the flagship UDX-4K32, the UDX-W32 and UDX-U32 in the 32,000-lumen segment and the UDX-4K22 and UDX-W22 each giving 22,000 lumens.

Delivering 4K UHD resolution and up to 32,000 lumens light output, the UDX-4K32 projector ensures flawless shows with accurate colours at all times. The most compact, high-brightness laser projectors with integrated

cooling on the market, the UDX projectors bring reliable and razor-sharp 4K images to every type of event and venue.

The compact chassis and high flexibility of the 3-chip DLP laser phosphor projectors are a strong advantage, and with its Single Step Processing, the new Barco Pulse Processing ensures an even sharper 4K viewing experience with minimal latency.

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PROJECTORS

+44 (0) 1442 899 299 • www.languk.com

Aimed at large venue fixed installs and the rental market, Barco’s UDX Series projectors were 3 years in development.

The UDX series consists of 5 3-chip DLP models - all laserphosphor based projectors - that all are identically spec’d at a 2000:1 contrast ratio but having various aspect ratios and brightness specs - but the minimum brightness is 21,000 lumens: • • • • •

UDX-W22: 1920×1200 resolution and spec’d at 22,000 lumens, UDX-4K22: 3840×2400 resolution and spec’d at 21,000 lumens.

UDX-U32: 1600×1200 resolution spec’d at 30,000 lumens.

UDX-W32: 1920×1200 resolution spec’d at 32,000 lumens.

UDX-4K32: 3840×2400 resolution spec’d at 31,000 lumens.

All 5 models also share Barco’s Constant Light Output (CLO) functionality, and have warping, blending and image mapping built-in; all making use of Barco’s TLD+ series of lenses, with throws from 1.2:1 to 11.5:1. www.barco.com

Lang has an extensive UDX stock alongside other premium Barco projectors. www.languk.com

CHRISTIE BOXER 4K30 A combination of the most lumens, the highest number of pixels, and 3DLP quality, combined with the smallest, lightest, yet most rugged design available, defines the Christie Boxer 4K30 projector.

The first offering from the Boxer Series, the Boxer 4K30, hits the target every time while setting an industry benchmark for rental staging and fixed installation applications including concerts, amusement parks, projection mapping projects, museums, planetariums and more.

The Boxer 4K30 has 6, 450W mercury lamps delivering 30,000 centre lumens. Weighing less than 68kg, the Boxer 4K30 can be carried by 2 individuals and offers 4K native resolution and awarding winning Christie TruLife image processing. The Christie Boxer delivers undisputed performance and heavyweight presentation capability in a middleweight package, and is already a global hit with 200 units sold worldwide before launch.

Housed in 2, 3-lamp cartridges, the 6 long-life mercury lamp modules are easy to handle, maintain, and change and stock, which means a better return on investment and less consumables. Users can monitor the lamp hours and serial numbers through Near Field Communication (NFC) with each lamp - simplifying the effort required to track lamp-life and the ability to make fast changeovers. Users can even monitor lamp life levels using a smartphone.

Boxer’s Christie TruLife electronics package is equally at home supporting the most demanding high bit depth, high frame rate, native 4K signals as well as seamlessly supporting HD signals with on-board upscaling, making it a simple task to fit it into existing HD workflows. And with the latest evolution of Christie Twist built-in, images can be blended and warped from multiple projectors onto curved or irregular surfaces without requiring an external solution.

The brightness-to-size and brightness-to-weight ratios of the Boxer 4K30 is second-to-none in this lumen level of projector - which translates to not only the lightest projector at 30,000 lumens, but also reduced shipping 83

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PROJECTORS

+44 (0) 1442 899 299 • www.languk.com

costs and on-site handling. With the Boxer 4K30 and the entire Boxer Series, the omnidirectional orientation capability means greater installation and placement flexibility. Whether it points up or down, or at any angle, the image maintains its integrity and uniformity throughout the performance or presentation. It’s optimised to provide an unprecedented user experience and everything from ease of use, to lumens, to durability, to shipping size to weight, has been taken into account.

Christie Boxer Series is equipped with full connectivity including 3G-SDI HDBaseT, Display Port, DVI-I, HDMI, VGA, and 5 BNC, plus a colour LCD

preview panel read out, a complete lens suite and even comes with its own also comes with own built-in toolbox www.christiedigital.com

The Boxer 4K30 is available to rent from Lang. www.languk.com

from huge auditoriums and houses of worship to staging, architectural mapping, and planetarium dome simulation.

The Titan 37000 WU and 33000 4K-UHD are compatible with the same Titan optics that have supported all of Digital Projection’s prior, lampbased Titan projectors. This means that owners of Titan lamp-based projectors upgrading to the new Titan Laser series need only invest in the new projector chassis. In addition to existing lenses, specific legacy lenses from other brands are also compatible with the new Titan Laser platform.

With dependability and low maintenance inherent in their design, all of Digital Projection’s Laser projectors provide a low cost of ownership, benefitting from the laser illumination system’s 20,000+ hour lifespan. With no lamps to replace or expensive maintenance costs to endure, end-users and stagers save significant money over time and never need to worry about the possibility of lamp aging or failure. Beyond their low cost of ownership and superb dependability, Digital Projection’s Laser projectors can be oriented in any position for unsurpassed installation flexibility. This allows customers to place rich, enormous-scale imagery in practically any venue and on any projection surface, without sacrificing projector performance, reliability or image quality.

Input capabilities include; 2 HDMI 2.0b with HDCP 2.2 and HDR processing, 2 HDMI 1.4b for both single and dual pipe 3D processing and support of frame sequential 3D formats, 3G SDI and DisplayPort 1.2 to ensure the latest connectivity for high bandwidth 4K content delivery.

Other key capabilities include: • 37,000 ISO lumens & WUXGA native resolution - TITAN 37000 WU • 33,000 ISO lumens and 4K-UHD screen resolution (8.3 megapixels) TITAN 33000 4K-UHD • 18,000:1 contrast ratio with Dynamic Black, 2,000:1 native Contrast Ratio • Constant Brightness & Multi-Projector Brightness Lock control • Geometry control with 4 side blend • Portrait & Landscape capable • DICOM simulation mode • HDMI 1.4b and HDMI 2.0b connectivity • DisplayPort 1.2 connectivity • HDBaseT, providing up to 100 meter signal connectivity of uncompressed HD video over standard Cat5e/6 LAN cable • Sealed light engine with no filters • Unbeatable cost of ownership with no lamps or filters to replace & nearly no maintenance required • A diverse selection of fixed and zoom lenses providing extensive lens shift ensures integrators installing Titan Laser projectors have complete flexibility with respect to projector placement • Prior TITAN lamp-based projection lenses are compatible with the new TITAN LASER series projectors www.digitalprojection.com

DIGITAL PROJECTION TITAN LASER SERIES

Digital Projection International has introduced 2 ultra-high lumen projectors to its high-performance 3-chip Laser series. Producing 37,000 and 33,000 lumens respectively, the Titan Laser 37000 WU and Titan Laser 33000 4K-UHD projectors serve applications that require the highest brightness, resolution, and colour performance possible.

To achieve such ultra-high brightness, Digital Projection paired its third generation laser illumination systems with Texas Instruments’ 3-chip DLP technology. With up to 37,000 lumens on tap, even the largest screens and venues can benefit from dynamically vivid and resolute imagery. Suited for both controlled environments and those where ambient light is present, the Titan Laser series is engineered to tackle a broad range of applications,

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PROJECTORS

+44 (0) 1442 899 299 • www.languk.com

EPSON EB-L25000U

At 25,000 lumens, Epson has developed its brightest ever 3LCD laser projector. Based on 3LCD technology combined with 4K enhancement and a 4K compatible lens, the EB-L25000U offers both outstanding definition and flexibility. Combined with a sealed optical unit, these features make it ideal for smoky environments such as live events.

The EB-L25000U is not only Epson’s brightest ever projector, it’s also the brightest 3LCD laser projector on the market, offering vivid colours and excellent contrast, even in well-lit environments.

4K ENHANCEMENT TECHNOLOGY The EB-L25000U offers Epson’s 4K Enhancement technology, which shifts pixels 0.5mm diagonally to double resolution, as well as a wide range of 4K capable lens options, resulting in crisp, high-definition images even when projecting at a distance.

20,000 HOURS MAINTENANCE-FREE USE A sealed optical unit and inorganic phosphor wheel mean that the EBL25000U provides 20,000 hours of reliable, maintenance-free use, even coping with environments such as concert halls and theatres. These are twinned with a pipe frame and baseplate structure to ensure a durable, knock-resistant casing. www.epson.co.uk

SMALLER AND LIGHTER The projector is also smaller and lighter than competing products in the installation marketplace, making it easier to transport and install, and able to fit into smaller spaces.

PROJECT FROM ANY ANGLE Thanks to a newly optimised cooling system, the versatile EB-L25000U can be rotated through 360 degrees and offers freely adjustable tilt, meaning it can be mounted at any angle and project images in portrait or any other orientation.

Lang holds a vast inventory of EB-L25000U within its rental stock. www.languk.com

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PROJECTORS

+44 (0) 1442 899 299 • www.languk.com

PANASONIC PT-RZ21K

Panasonic’s groundbreaking PT-RZ21K Series 3-Chip DLP SOLID SHINE Laser projector combines flagship picture quality produced by the PTDZ21K / DZ21K2 Series projector - current leader in multi-screen events staging - with the compact size and incredible durability of the mid-range PT-RZ970 Series laser projector.

The PT-RZ21K Series is the world’s first 20,000 lumen laser projector to feature a filterless cooling system and shielded optical unit, delivering unassailable reliability in dusty conditions. Handling is effortless with just 2 technicians. With 20,000-hour maintenance-free operation and software for expedited multi-screen mapping calibration, the rugged yet lightweight PT-RZ21K Series delivers class-beating colour reproduction with dramatically reduced running costs, making it the new first choice for event professionals.

• Dynamic contrast laser light-source modulation achieves high contrast • Detail clarity processor clarifies and enhances fine details with

advanced processing algorithm • Daylight View Function improves colour perception in bright

environments and in mapping applications VERSATILE INSTALLATION AND SYSTEM FLEXIBILITY • Free 360-degree installation (vertical and horizontal) • Shares optional lenses with Panasonic 3-chip DLP projector family

including ultra-short throw lens • DIGITAL LINK supports transmission of uncompressed full HD

video and control commands through single LAN cable • Multi-screen support system seamlessly connects multiple screens • Multi-unit brightness and colour control • Free Geometry Manager Pro and optional upgrade kit

www.business.panasonic.co.uk/visual-system/products-and- accessories/projectors

ORIGINAL TECHNOLOGY ASSURES ELITE PERFORMANCE • Combines 3-chip DLP with Panasonic SOLID SHINE Laser Phosphor

Technology for bright, natural, and immersive picture quality • Compatible with latest colour space standard for accurate image reproduction • Minimal maintenance required under continuous operation • Dust-resistant design featuring hermetically sealed laser modules • Efficient cooling system for stable operation and long life REFERENCE IMAGE QUALITY MAINTAINED LONGER • High 20,000 lumen brightness in a compact, lightweight and easy-

to-handle Body

Lang is renowned for holding Europe’s largest stock of Panasonic professional projectors. www.languk.com

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Thank you to all our customers, staff and crew for making this our best summer yet!

WORLD CLASS AUDIO GLOBALLY www.britanniarow.com

TPI Advert July 2018 - draft 2.indd 1

04/07/2018 11:43:56

www.digitalprojection.com

Robust & versatile projectors, delivering bright imagery for todays demanding rental & staging environments

8K, 4K and HD DLP LASER PHOSPHOR PROJECTORS 20,000 HOURS ILLUMINATION

The Visionaries Choice TPI MAGAZINE HALF PAGE.indd 1

01/05/2018 09:36

RIA SIOUX BYERS This month we check in with one of the 2016 winners of the TPi Breakthrough Talent Awards to discover what she’s been up to since...

With the 2018 TPi Breakthrough Talent Awards now open, this month we decided to speak to previous winner, Ria Sioux Byers.

At the time, Byers had just graduated with a BA in Live Events Production from Backstage Academy with an already impressive resume of experience, having worked on festival sites up and down the country.

“I remember when I first started at Backstage Academy, my original goal was to work as a set designer,” began Byers. “When I entered my final year I discovered my true calling - event management. I’ve always been super organised and thrive in stressful environments. I had already worked several festivals sites including Parklife and Festival N°6 and knew its was something I wanted to explore.”

Knowing the direction she wanted to start moving into, post-graduation Byers began to throw herself into the industry. “Last year in particular was very long, taking off a total of 20 days - including weekends! The first few jobs I got on to were festivals thanks to the contacts I had made during my studies volunteering at events,” she stated. “This included a lot of artist liaison work.

During this time I also started to do some zone management as well as pulling on my background in fashion at Leeds College of Art to do some wardrobe on a few projects - so pretty varied!”

Byers went on to explain that the last 2 years had certainly been a learning process picking up contacts and skills in equal measure. “With a busy 2017 complete, this year I’ve tried to focus on what I want to get out of my career,” explained Byers. “One side of the industry I really want to break into is touring. The other end of the spectrum is to do some work in the Middle East, specifically Dubai.

I visited the region last year to meet some of the companies and see what was going on. I also have a working relationship with Fruition Events’ Paul Barton, who was one of my tutors at Backstage Academy.”

And it’s not just her own career that Byers is keen to grow: “Last year I started lecturing to students working towards degrees in events,” she explained. “In fact I’m the youngest lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire. I’ve covered subjects from events design, along with lectures on event planning and organisation.” At the end of last year Byers even held an audience with postgraduates, an experience she admits was quite intimidating as some of those in the room were older then her. “I think my age worked in my favour in the end,” said Byers. “It meant I could give them examples of what I’ve done after only graduating a few years ago, giving them more attainable goals.”

Having a background in higher education, not to mention now a lecturer of live events, TPi asked for Bryers’ thoughts on the importance of higher education. “I think it’s always up to the individual, but in my experience it’s a mixture of both education and practical experience that’s the best solution. You need the real world experience but my university course did prepare me for the admin side of events management - from health and safety to legal requirements. One of the other advantages of a degree is that it gives you a great deal of freedom to volunteer at a selection of events. I’m not saying you spend your whole student loan on traveling up and down the country, but personally, I opted out of a few big nights to use the money to further my career and get out in the real world and meet people.”

Following her chat with TPi, Byers will head to London to help out with the production of a 5-day Adidas event before taking on the role of DNG’s Office Manager to oversee the set builds of both Little Mix and The Killers. So much for a quiet 2018…

TPi www.productionfutures.co.uk

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NOVEMBER 7TH 2018

PRODUCTION PARK, WAKEFIELD

WWW.PRODUCTIONFUTURES.CO.UK

GEAR HEADS

DTS SYNERGY 5 PROFILE TPi’s Ste Durham speaks with Marketing Specialist, Pierluigi Gasperoni, to discuss the R&D process behind the Italian lighting manufacturer’s latest offering.

Please describe the R&D process behind the Synergy 5 Profile - what preceded it, and what influenced its development?

From the outset, our R&D team’s goal was to create a unique product in the LED profile category, with a distinct personality due to its exclusive features, and able to meet the most demanding professional requirements.

Synergy represents DTS’s top technology and is the result of improvements introduced by our R&D and Production departments through many years of manufacturing experience.

• Highly sophisticated rotating framing system • Exceptionally silent operating mode (37 dBA @ 1m at full power).

Where does this system fit, both in DTS’s product offering and the wider industry?

The Synergy 5 takes its place in the DTS catalogue as its new flagship, the first in a new line of cutting-edge LED moving head fixtures. The unit has been designed to provide the lighting industry a level of performance and versatility that make it the benchmark in a vast range of top professional applications.

The company’s comprehensive know-how has been built on over 30 years of experience in manufacturing both LED-based fixtures and moving head projectors. This has been combined in a product that offers all the advantages of the application of LED technology to entertainment.

Can you explain some of the fixture’s key features?

The Synergy 5 Profile’s main feature is its unmatched light quality: the CRI is higher than 90, with the R9 (red) component higher than 80; this means truly realistic colour reproduction - a must in the most demanding TV and theatre applications.

Many other features make the fixture unique:

What kinds of applications is the Synergy 5 ideally suited to? Is its versatility an advantage to prospective users?

The Synergy 5 Profile is a moving head fixture suited to many high-end applications: from concerts to big events, theatre to television studios.

An example of its great versatility is the availability of 2 different CRI with the

• Our brightest fixture at 50,000 Lux • Widest zoom: 4.6-degree to 43-degree (over 1:9 ratio) • Revolutionary Dynamove FX engine, able to create an endless variety of dynamic effects 90

DTS SYNERGY 5 PROFILE

Below: Some of the possibilities available via the Dynamove FX engine.

same unit: a CRI >90 for realistic colours and perfectly natural skin tones, suitable for theatre and television applications, and everywhere the faithful reproduction of every nuance is essential.

A CRI >75 for exceptional brightness in large concerts and all applications where power is the key factor.

product should fulfil their expectations and needs.

We collaborate with top specifiers in the touring, broadcast and theatre worlds. Their suggestions in the design phase of Synergy and after, during operating tests, were crucial for the excellent result obtained.

Have any distributors / rental suppliers already taken delivery of any units?

We begin shipping the first batches at the end of July to cover all the European distributor orders that have already been placed.

TPi www.dts-lighting.it

How closely did DTS collaborate with lighting designers and operators to develop the product?

Very closely; the idea of a new product always starts outside our R&D department, listening to the lighting designers and other professionals working every day in the field. LDs know precisely what they want and a new 91

PSA: THE BIGGER PICTURE

OUCH! MY FREAKIN’ EARS A recent case involving a viola player and the Royal Opera House, in which the player is claiming for damage described as acoustic shock, has caused reaction ranging from general interest to great consternation amongst employers in the live events sector. We thought it’s worth taking a look....

One of the first tasks on my to do list when I first began working for the PSA was to get involved in the development of industry guidance for the then new Control of Noise at Work Regulations (CNAWR). The updating of the regulations to come into line with the EU Physical Agents Directive was the catalyst for a great deal of publicity around the need for our sector to look closely at how it was protecting workers’ hearing.

All health and safety law is designed to ensure people don’t get killed, injured or ill as a result of their work. It’s not just about the instant effects of accidents, it’s also about cumulative injuries, hearing loss included.

The basis of the noise element of the EU Physical Agents Directive is the damage that can be caused to hearing when people are exposed to levels over 87dB(A) over 8 hours, or to higher instantaneous peaks (140dB(C)).

Our CNAWR reflect that, requiring certain actions to be taken when noise reaches a certain level over an equivalent 8-hour period. Actions include hearing checks for staff, noise risk assessments and the availability of suitable hearing protection.

Of course, entertainment is a bit different to other industries in that, rather than noise being a bi-product of a process, it is a crucial part of its end product. To that end, the introduction of the CNAWR for the entertainment industry was delayed by 2 years, not a stay of execution, but time for the industry to get heads together and, with the guidance of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), develop industry specific guidance on how to comply with the regulations. The result of the work was an HSE publication entitled Sound Advice, a complement to the generic guidance to CNAWR.

The publicity that followed the release of the guidance saw a shift away from the ‘tinnitus as a badge of honour’ way of thinking to an improvement in attitude towards managing exposure to loud noise, with buy in from both employers and workers. The initial fear of some, that our industry was going to be killed off if we were forced to keep levels below 85 dB(A) was soon allayed. 13 years on from the ‘new’ CNAWR, it’s heartening to see discussion in social media groups revolving around where to get a new set of moulds for custom fitted hearing protection. Safety nerds will now be swift to point out that hearing protection is not the be-all and end-all, in fact it’s the last measure to take, once other exposure reduction measures have been taken in order to reduce levels as far as is reasonably practicable. There, I said it, thus thrusting me into nerd territory.

Moving on, things had been relatively quiet despite the proliferation of ‘no win no fee’, ‘where there’s blame there’s claim’ advertising. Nothing wrong with claiming compensation if you’ve been damaged and suffered a material loss as a result, no problem there but, in a business such as ours, where the workplace varies, it would be a challenge to spot where hearing damage had occurred, it being cumulative in nature, except when exposed to extremely high impulse peaks. That is until now.

One injury that never came into discussion during the development of legislation or guidance is acoustic shock syndrome. Quite different to hearing loss from high noise levels, acoustic shock syndrome has, up to now, been attributed to unexpected noise experienced by telephonists and call centre staff using headsets, referred to as ‘acoustic incidents‘; they are typically loud, unexpected, randomly occurring, high-pitched and startling 92

PSA: THE BIGGER PICTURE

stimuli, typically tones of 2.3-3.4 kHz, at intensities varying from 82 to 120 dB S.P.L. at the tympanic membrane, with rise times of 0-20 milliseconds and varying durations, with symptoms presenting themselves in clusters (pain, tinnitus, vestibular disturbance and hyperacusis. Headaches and sensations of numbness, burning, tingling, blocking, pressure or fullness, echo or hollow feelings in the ear were also frequently reported) rather than one, defined symptom.

The concern here is that this syndrome, about which there is no complete understanding, can be triggered at levels well below the exposure limits and action points in the CNAWR, as low as 82 dB. There are further concerns given the varying nature of symptoms, especially when it comes to treatment. That said, studies have suggested some consistency in certain symptoms, some regarded as psychological but with opinion leaning towards a neurophysiological condition directly related to exposure to unexpected, high-pitched sounds.

The specific case involving the Royal Opera House (ROH) and viola player, Chris Goldscheider, and subsequent judgement outlines a plethora of noise exposure control measures taken by ROH, that appear to have been found wanting during a rehearsal of a particularly loud piece in a particularly cramped pit. It is the first time that acoustic shock has been recognised as a condition that can attract compensation.

As you would expect, the judgment from the case lays out in great detail the regulation in question, the specifics of the performance including sound level monitoring results, the measures taken by the Royal Opera House to reduce exposure and the training received by musicians and other staff. It also refers to the programme of hearing tests that the employer undertook, a crucial element of noise exposure management, as evidence of damage informs then need to improve exposure reduction methods. Hearing tests also serve to highlight any hearing loss that may have occurred before a specific period of employment. The rehearsal noise levels quoted in the judgement were high enough to cause issues, had the employer not taken steps to reduce exposure.

Within the judgement, an expert medical witness further describes acoustic shock, stating that the threshold for potential injury varies from person to person. He goes on to state that, although the noise triggering acoustic shock would need to be loud or unexpected, there would need to be something else that got under the stapedius reflex, an involuntary muscle contraction that occurs in the middle ear in response to high-intensity sound stimuli or when the person starts to vocalize. This something else could be anxiety, psychological issues or stress.

This is a case that leaves us with a new risk to consider, a new condition with triggers that are not properly considered in current regulation or guidance, something that HSE are already looking at in terms of guidance, but we mustn’t forget that it leaves a talented player with a career ending, severely debilitating condition, whatever the cause.

The case is being appealed.

TPi www.psa.org.uk

To help our members look after their hearing, Ultimate Ears are offering 15% off their range of custom moulded plugs. Designed for all day comfort and longevity, they offer overall savings over disposable plugs as well as cutting waste.

To obtain your discount. Quote ‘PSA’ followed by your membership number.

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INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS

Sponsored by www.interfacio.com • +44 208 986 5002

INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS

NEWSUBSTANCE announces a joint venture with Singaporean company SKYMAGIC to deliver performance drone shows around the world.

Over the past 5 years, both companies have been at the vanguard of drone-based light shows. By joining forces as one company with offices in Europe and Asia, SKYMAGIC is positioned to truly push the boundaries of artistic performance, harnessing the latest cutting-edge drone technologies to deliver spectacular entertainment solutions around the globe – in both outdoor and indoor environments.

Music & Lights welcomes Johanna Freytag as PR Manager. Prior to entering the industry, Freytag was part of a leading advertising relations and strategic marketing team at international tech company Google.

Freytag explained: “I am really excited to be involved with Music & Lights, working with a dynamic young team of innovators in the international event and entertainment market that is evolving quickly to develop new experiences and associated technology - we have gone beyond providing mere sound and lights and have gone into creating a better work experience for professionals. M&L really do give people the tools and support to translate their ideas into reality. I am looking forward to communicating this excitement to the world.”

Well-known corporate and event audio professional Dave Woodman has joined forces with London-based audio rental specialists, RSH Audio.

Woodman has been active in the live audio industry for over 20 years and is responsible for the audio design and engineering on a series of high-profile events and productions. His business, DWA, has built up a base of rental equipment, specifically tailored to the corporate events market, which is now integrated with RSH’s extensive hire fleet. Woodman will be acting as a senior project manager on a wide range of live events.

WorldStage becomes the first company to provide ROE Visual Sapphire for the US rental market. The laser-sharp 1.5mm pixel pitch LED panel, which ROE Visual launched at InfoComm 2018, joins an expanding inventory of LED displays and solutions available from WorldStage.

“Our investment in the next-generation of LED technology from ROE

reinforces the reputation WorldStage has earned for being the industry’s leading provider of innovative LED solutions to our customers,” said Gary Standard, WorldStage CEO. UK-based specialist in immersive spatial audio for performance, presentation, and AV installation experiential markets, Out Board, has appointed Votec Kft. to distribute TiMax SoundHub spatial audio and showcontrol processors and TiMax Tracker performer tracking systems throughout Hungary.

The relationship was triggered by owner Sándor Elek’s passion for groundbreaking audio products and is reinforced by Votec’s in-depth technical experience of delivering high-end live sound for events and installations.

Alcons Audio has appointed Elit Light and Sound Technologies, based in Besiktas, Istanbul, as its representative for Turkey.

Turkey and the regions around it have a rich and diverse cultural history.

The modern-day entertainment industry embraces music, drama, cinema, dance and sport, while the quality sound is also needed for mosques, hotels, corporate clients and broadcast studios, making it a key market for Alcons’ pro-ribbon technology.

Arena Events Group announces the expansion of its product portfolio in the UK with the acquisition of Events Solution.

The company’s equipment range covers pedestrian, front of stage and Metropolitan Police barriers, gantries and fencing. This product offer closely complements Arena’s Mass Participation division and has synergies with its structures, seating and scaffolding capabilities.

To augment the growth of Litec around the world, Louis Teo has been appointed Sales Director for the Asia Pacific region.

Teo brings a profound understanding of the APAC market, and a deep well of practical experience with industry products, that will serve the everexpanding needs of customers within the Asia Pacific region and help push the LITEC brand forward. disguise appoints Bill Collis as its Chairman of the Board. He brings extensive experience in the film and video industry to his new post: Collis 94

www.interfacio.com • +44 208 986 5002

INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS

Opposite: Music & Lights welcomes Johanna Freytag as PR Manager; WorldStage to provide ROE Visual Sapphire for the US rental market; Alcons Audio has appointed Elit Light and Sound Technologies as its representative for Turkey; Out Board, has appointed Votec Kft. to distribute TiMax products throughout Hungary. Below: Arena Events Group aquires Events Solution; disguise appoints Bill Collis as its Chairman; TW Audio’s Mick Whelan and Thomas Vestergaard.

was formerly CEO and President of The Foundry, which he led for over a decade. Collis built The Foundry organically transforming it from a London-based niche visual effects software company into a highgrowth global force in the development and distribution of media post-production tools and product design technology.

Gallowglass, events services group, has announced the appointment of Antony Cook to a leadership role driving marketing and new business development strategy across the business.

Cook joined Gallowglass in 2011 quickly demonstrated his competence and becoming London Crew Manager during the 2012 London Olympics. In 2013, he joined Gallowglass’ Business Development team as Client Liaison Manager.

Gallowglass Group Managing Director, Nick Grecian said: “Not only does Antony understand every aspect of our business but he’s a brilliant communicator who enjoys the trust and respect of our clients. He’s ideally-placed to combine industry knowledge with a fresh perspective as we move to the next stage of our growth.”

TW AUDiO appoints Thomas Vestergaard, who will play key roles in the company’s customer product training, application and education sector.

Vestergaard brings a wealth of experience to his new position, having held high-profile positions over the course of a career of more than 2 decades. A sound engineer at heart, he has worked as technical sales manager and senior application engineer for internationally respected brands, earning a world-class reputation for both his expertise and skill as a communicator.

Mick Whelan has been appointed Business Development Director for TW AUDiO Americas where he will join Vice President Philip Van Peborgh and his team.

In this role, Whelan will be responsible for defining and creating the path to ensure long-term value between customers and the organisation. This role will also include market intelligence and identification of key opportunities, thus addressing new business opportunities effectively.

L-Acoustics has appointed Jeff Rocha, formerly Head of Market Development for North America, to the newly created position of Director of Product Management.

As a member of the L-Acoustics Board of Directors, Rocha accompanies the product development lifecycle end to end, liaising with key stakeholders across geographies and functions to recommend and implement processes and systems that allow L-Acoustics to identify and address new business opportunities effectively and deftly.

QSC Systems appoints Audiologic as its exclusive UK and Ireland distribution channel.

QSC is a globally recognised leader in the design and manufacture of audio/video and control (AV&C) system solutions. As a designated industry market partner, as well as distributing the QSC Systems portfolio, Audiologic will offer technical services such as system design and validation, commissioning support and warranty services.

The Harlow based company will also offer QSC product training at its recently opened education facility – Learning Space.

Audio-Technica welcomes the appointment of Luthman SMTTS AB as its new distributor in Sweden.

Founded in 1990, Luthman SMTTS AB is the largest distributor of MI/ consumer and professional audio products in the Nordic region with more than 60 international brands – including Gibson, Apogee, AVID, RCF, HK Audio, Focusrite and TC Electronic – in its extensive portfolio.

Martin Chouinard, President of Solotech’s Rental Division, Canada, is pleased to announce the appointment of Didier Streel as VicePresident of Business Development, for Solotech’s Rental Division, Europe.

Streel will be instrumental in implementing Solotech’s expansion strategy in the European market. He’ll oversee the setting up of service points to support Solotech’s commercial activities in Europe, as well as ensure the development of new European client bases in the Tour, Corporate and Special Events market segments. For the moment, he’ll be based in Brussels, Belgium.

TPi www.tpimagazine.com/category/industry-jobs/ 95

TPi PRODUCTION GUIDE

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TPi PRODUCTION GUIDE

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To advertise here enquiries should be made to Lauren Dyson Lauren Dyson - Tel: +44 (0) 161 476 8360 Email: l.dyson@mondiale.co.uk

JULY 2018 ADVERTISERS 10k Used Gear Limited 20 Adam Hall IFC Adamson 23 ADJ 6 Ayrton 11 Bates Box 18 BR Remote 51 Britannia Row Productions 87 Brompton Technology 38 ChainMaster 5 Chauvet Professional 27 Claypaky 37 CLF Lighting 69 Coda Audio 41 Colour Sound Experiment 67 DiGiCo 19

Digital Projection 87 disguise 39 Duratruss 93 Elation Professional 7 Entec Sound and Light 63 ER Productions 29 EVI Audio GmbH / Dynacord 49 GLS Lighting 71 Green Hippo 28 IBS Group 45 John Henry’s 40 K-array 15 LarMac Live 55 Leisuretec 4 Look Solutions 62 Martin Audio 57 Martin By Harman IBC Meyer Sound 35

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Millennium Studios 95 Mojo Barriers 44 MTFX 9 Music & Lights 50 Pearce Hire 56 Philips Vari-Lite BC Pioneer Pro Audio 59 Pro Tapes and Specialities 48 Protec 3 Sound Tools - Rat Sound Inc 14 Renkus-Heinz 75 Robe 21 ROE Visual 43 Second Warehouse 61 Sennheiser 13 Solotech 77 TW Audio 25 Video Dust 24

BACK CHAT

MICHAEL ALTHAUS Global Sales Director, Ayrton

Ayrton starting to regain strong international recognition back in 2014.

How do you feel to be part of the most commonly used brands in concert touring?

It is exciting to work with the most creative, crazy, interesting and successful people in this industry. To share the passion of light, sell on quality and to show how Ayrton can change this industry and lead the way.

How does the R&D department at Ayrton remain competitive in such a busy market? Is it a highpressure job?

Oh yes, the pressure is up. And talking about LED vs discharge lamps feels similar to talking about network vs DMX some years ago. Both do the job, but with the latest LED technology you can do so much more. We have a clear roadmap for the next couple of years at Ayrton.

The launch of the first 3 LED-based moving lights - Merak, Ghibli and Mistral-TC - was shaking the market already and the response has justified our mission. Over the next few years, I predict there will be a huge demand for cutting-edge lighting tools that also deliver a good return on investment. Having focus and experience of LEDtechnology, while still being a super flexible company with a short time to market, is important, but having reliable products is our most important asset.

How did you first become involved in the industry?

Were you immediately drawn to lighting?

While most of the industry fellows seem to have a background as musicians, mine was a passion for music shows, lights & entertainment in general. So when seeing the job offer to become a sales apprentice with one of the German lighting distribution companies, I had to go for it.

Ayrton has been involved in some very high profile shows, particularly in a record-breaking capacity at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. How does it feel to be a part of these kinds of events?

It’s amazing to be recognised for the great and hard work the entire Ayrton team puts in every single day. It proves what we are able to deliver on the biggest stage. To be a strong player on 2 sides - with the more effect-oriented products and our industry changing spot and wash lights - is a great achievement. And although I have done it a couple of times already, I’d like to thank the entire team around Ola, Jerry, Florian and the crews from Ampco Flashlight and Pixel Light for specifically choosing Ayrton.

How did this lead to Ayrton and your position at present?

After being in this industry for 20 years it was finally time for a change. Spending most of my time with the lighting control market, looking after the gear on the other side of the cable felt exciting. The opportunity to start something from scratch and to grow brands to become industryleading manufacturers was appealing to me, as was the passion and drive of the people at Ayrton around its CTO, Yvan Peard.

It meant I could focus on the domestic market with my own distribution company, VISIONSTAGE, which represents brands alongside to Ayrton such as Coemar, with their unique ReLite and LedKos, Desisti and GDS. There was also a mid-term plan to continue my successful work in an global distribution context for Ayrton.

Essentially, it was just the right moment to start, with LED-based moving lights still at the grassroots level, and

When you have time to escape the industry, what can we find you doing?

You have to make sure you take the time to do this, right?

Having a great family and especially our adorable twins helps - this is my perfect hideaway.

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