mondo*dr 25.1

the international publication for technology in entertainment

november / december 2014

rock ‘n’ bow l mar k r avenhill • theme p ar k s

and at tr ac tion s • theatr ic al lighting www.mondodr.com

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W ELCOME mondo*dr 25.1 November / December 2014

the international publication for technology in entertainment

november / december 2014

rock ‘n’ bow l mar k r avenhill • theme p ar k s and at tr ac tion s • theatr ic al lighting www.mondodr.com

ON THE COVER Brooklyn Bowl London Stephen Leigh, Funky Feet Photography General Manager Justin Gawne / j.gawne@mondiale.co.uk Editor Rachael Rogerson / r.rogerson@mondiale.co.uk Deputy Editor Helen Fletcher / h.fletcher@mondiale.co.uk Advertising Manager Jamie Dixon / j.dixon@mondiale.co.uk Advertising Sales Laura Iles / l.iles@mondiale.co.uk Intern Jamie Medwell / mondointern@mondiale.co.uk Accounts Amanda Giles / a.giles@mondiale.co.uk Production David Bell, Mel Robinson, Dan Seaton Group Chairman Damian Walsh Mondiale Publishing Waterloo Place, Watson Square, Stockport SK1 3AZ United Kingdom Tel: +44 161 476 8340 | Fax: +44 161 429 7214 Annual Subscription Rates (7 Issues) UK: £30.00 / Europe: £50.00 / Rest Of World: £65.00 2 year rates are available on request. Subscribe online at www.mondiale.co.uk or call +44 (0)161 476 5580 ISSN: 1476 4067 Mondo DR (ISSN 1476 4067) is published in January, March, May, July, September, November and December by Mondiale Publishing Limited, Waterloo Place, Watson Square, Stockport, SK1 3AZ, United Kingdom Subscription records are maintained at Mondiale Publishing Limited, Waterloo Place, Watson

Square, Stockport, SK1 3AZ, United Kingdom mondo@mondiale.co.uk www.mondodr.com Printed by Buxton Press, Palace Road, Buxton, UK

Since my last leader, Pioneer has issued an official statement detailing the sale of its DJ business to KKR, a leading global investment firm. The sale is due to be complete by March 2015. James Thomas Engineering has also announced it’s joining the Milos Group, one of the largest manufacturers of trussing and support structures in the world and Spanish audio manufacturer, Ecler declared its rebirth, after taking on new investment. It seems the announcements just keep coming at the moment.

Here at mondo*dr we have our own announcement.

After just over two years on the title, Helen is leaving us for pastures new. She’s not going too far, just down a flight of stairs to be exact, where she will be taking up the editorship of our sister publication mondo arc. During her time on mondo*dr, Helen has been an integral part of the team, providing support - both professionally and emotionally - has been entertaining with her straight talking, no nonsense attitude, but most importantly has become a friend to all of us. There’s no doubt Helen will be missed, but I, along with the rest of the mondo*dr team wish her all the very best for her adventure into the world of architectural lighting - or the dark side, as we like to call it!

Sticking with the announcement theme, many of you may well be aware that TPi Editor, Kelly Murray and I recently completed a whole month sober to raise money for Macmillian Cancer Support. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank each and every person who sponsored us. We set out to raise £500 but finished up with donations totalling more than double that amount. Those of you who know us, will know it was no easy task so your generosity and belief in us means a lot.

Finally, we’ve also introduced some new features for the World Trading Survey, which we’re working on right now.

For more details please get in touch.

Rachael Rogerson | Editor

GAME CHANGER LDI Booth 2559on Center ti n e v n o C s a Las Veg

BRIGHT MULTI FUNCTIONAL LIGHT

CONTENT S 014

in brief

IN DEP T H 014

024

INTERVIEW MARK RAVENHILL, GLP

036

REPORT THEME PARKS & ATTRACTIONS

IN FO CUS 036

024

058

058

A BRITISH AWAKENING, ENGLAND

078

SIN CITY REVIVAL, LAS VEGAS

086

AKIHA WARD CULTURAL CENTRE, NIIGATI CITY

092

MS COLLINS, MELBOURNE

098

INCHEON asiad main STADIUM, incheon

104

CANBERRA AIRPORT, CANBERRA

IN BUSINE S S 078

092

098

104

110

PRO, BIRMINGHAM

116

PROLIGHT & SOUND, SHANGHAI

120

PRODUCT LAUNCH: NEXO - geo M6 & stm m28

124

industry news

128

PRODUCT GUIDE THEATRICAL LIGHTING

120

144

138

PRODUCT DIRECTORY

144

LAST PAGE INTERVIEW PASQUALE QUADRI OBITUARY

012 AD INDEX

FRANÇAIS

DEUTSCH

Le mois dernier, je faisais référence au principal acteur du monde audio en ce qui concerne les ventes de matériel DJ. Depuis, celui-ci a fait une déclaration officielle que beaucoup d’entre vous connaissent déjà ; KKR, une importante firme d’investissement mondiale a fait l’acquisition de Pioneer DJ. La vente devrait être finalisée d’ici mars 2015. James Thomas Engineering a annoncé son entrée dans le Groupe Milos, le plus grand fabricant de traverses et de supports d’éclairage au monde.

De son côté, le fabricant audio espagnol Ecler, qui connait une renaissance après avoir fait de nouveaux investissements, revient en force sur le marché. Les annonces ne cessent d’affluer en ce moment ! Et en fait, ici à mondo*dr nous avons aussi une annonce à faire. Après une collaboration d’un peu plus de deux ans, Helen nous quitte pour relever de nouveaux défis. Elle ne va pas bien loin en fait ; elle descend juste quelques marches, car elle prendra la direction éditoriale de notre publication sœur mondo*arc.

Helen a toujours été un énorme atout pour l’équipe et son départ se fera grandement sentir, mais nous lui souhaitons tous « bonne chance » pour sa prochaine aventure !

Der wichtigste Audio Player in Bezug auf den Vertrieb ihres DJ-Ausrüstungsgeschäfts, auf den ich in meinem Leitartikel letzten Monat hingewiesen habe, hat seitdem eine offizielle Erklärung abgegeben. Viele von Ihnen sind deswegen bereits informiert, dass Pioneer DJ an KKR verkauft wird, einer weltweit führenden Investmentfirma. Der Verkauf soll im März 2015 abgeschlossen werden. James Thomas Engineering hat seinen Beitritt zur Milos Group bekannt gegeben, dem weltweit größten Hersteller von Traversen und Stützstrukturen und der spanische AudioHersteller Ecler übernahm den Markt und verkündete seine Wiedergeburt nach der Übernahme einer neuen Investition. Es scheint, dass diese Ankündigung genau zum richtigen Zeitpunkt kommt. Und in der Tat haben wir von mondo*dr selbst eine Ankündigung zu machen. Nach knapp zwei Jahren verlässt Helen uns für neue Ufer. Und sie geht nicht allzu weit, genauer gesagt eine Etage tiefer. Helen übernimmt die Chefredaktion unserer Schwesternzeitschrift mondo arc.

Während ihrer Zeit bei mondo*dr war Helen eine wahre Bereicherung für unser Team und wird sicherlich eine Lücke hinterlassen, doch wünschen wir ihr selbstverständlich alles Gute für dieses neue Abenteuer!

A&O Lighting ............................... 71 Adamson ..................................... 83 ADJ............................................ 105 Allen & Heath ............................... 15 Antari ......................... 27, 29, 31, 33 Audio Technica .......................... 107 Audiocenter ................... 47, 74, 111 Bose ............................................ 13 Camco......................................... 61 Chauvet Professional ................... 67 coolux ........................................ 136 d&b audiotechnik ......................... 91 D.A.S. Audio ................................ 85 Daslight ....................................... 12 Dataton ..................................... 119 DiGiCo ........................................ 55 Digital Projection ............................ 9 Duratruss ..................................... 65 Elation........................................ 129

Electrosonic ................................. 52 FBT ............................................. 19 FINE Art ........................................ 5 Full Fat Audio .............................. 75 Genelec ..................................... 123 Global Truss China .................... 137 GLP........................................... 133 Green Hippo ................................ 77 Haze Base ................................. 121 Idea Pro Audio ............................. 53 ISE .............................................. 22 K-array ....................................... 119 Kind Audio ................................... 66 Kling & Freitag ............................. 95 KV2 Audio ................................. 103 L-Acoustics .................................... 2 Le Maitre ..................................... 51 Light Converse ............................ 42 Light Sky Fly Dragon ...................... 7

ITALIANO

ESPAÑOL

Il più importante audio player (considerando le vendite del suo equipaggiamento per DJ), a cui ho fatto riferimento in Leader il mese scorso, ha fatto una dichiarazione ufficiale riguardo, come molti di voi sapranno, alla vendita di Pioneer DJ a KKR (un marchio leader nell’ investimento a livello mondiale); vendita che dovrà essere completata entro marzo 2015. James Thomas Engineering ha annunciato la sua fusione con Milos Group, il più grande produttore di americane e strutture di supporto in tutto il mondo ed il produttore audio spagnolo Ecler ha annunciato il suo rilancio sul mercato dopo aver fatto un nuovo investimento. Ma sembra che gli annunci non finiscano qui. In realtà, qui a Mondo * dr, abbiamo anche noi un annuncio da fare.

Dopo poco più di due anni, Helen ci sta lasciando per inseguire nuove strade, ma non sta andando troppo lontano visto che basta scendere una rampa di scale per l’esattezza.

Helen prenderà la direzione della nostra pubblicazione sorella Mondo arc. Durante il suo tempo a Mondo * dr, Helen è stata una grande risorsa per la squadra e ci mancherà molto, ma naturalmente le auguriamo tutto il meglio per la sua prossima avventura!

El jugador más importante en audio, teniendo en cuenta las ventas de su negocio de equipamientos para DJ, del cual hice referencia en mi Leader del mes pasado, presento un comunicado oficial dado que, muchos de ustedes, estarán al tanto de que Pioneer DJ se está vendiendo a KKR, una empresa global de inversiones líder. Se espera que la venta se complete para Marzo 2015.

James Thomas Engineering anuncio que se está uniendo al Grupo Milos, el fabricante de abrazaderas y estructuras para soporte más grande del mundo. El fabricante Español de audio, Ecler, tomó el mercado para declarar su resurgimiento, después de hacerse cargo de una nueva inversión. Parece que los anuncios siguen apareciendo hasta el momento. Y de hecho, aquí en mondo*dr tenemos nuestro propio anuncio. Luego de más de dos años de tener el derecho, Helen nos deja por otro puesto nuevo. Ella no se va muy lejos, solo un tramo de escaleras para ser exacto.

Helen se encargará de la dirección de nuestra publicación hermana, mondo arc. Durante el tiempo que estuvo en mondo*dr, Helen ha sido un gran recurso para el equipo y la extrañaremos mucho pero por supuesto, le deseamos lo mejor para su próxima aventura!

Lightwave .................................... 63 Look Solutions ............................. 99 LTM ............................................. 48 Lynx Pro Audio ............................ 39 Madrix ....................................... 121 Martin Audio ...............................BC MBN ..................................... 95, 97 Medialon ...................................... 41 Music & Lights ................... 103, 143 Nexo ............................................ 81 NEXT Pro Audio........................... 77 Osram ....................................... 115 Outline ...................................... 107 Palm India .................................... 56 Pioneer Professional Audio .......... 35 Powersoft .................................... 97 PR-Lighting .................................. 45 Pro Tapes .................................. 141 Prolyte ......................................... 43

Pulsar ........................................ 117 RCF ............................................ 49 Renkus-Heinz ............................. 121 Robe............................................ 10 SJ Lighting ................................... 81 Sparklaser ..................................... 7 Spotlight .................................... 101 Starway ..................................... 135 Steinigke.................................... 131 Studio Due................................. 147 Sunlite Nicolaudie .......................... 8 Tarm .......................................... 140 TC Group ............................... 20-21 The GET Show .............................. 6 TW Audio .................................... 17 Vello Light ...................................... 4 Verlinde ..................................... 139 Wireless Solution .......................... 3 XTA.............................................. 89

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26/08/14 10:32

014 in brief - europe/middle east/africa

IN BRIEF

K IN G DO M OF SAU D I ARAB I A CEL EBRATED WITH L AV ISH ARTISTIC CONC E P T The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, recently provided the backdrop for an impressive multimedia spectacular from A&O Technology. It was created to mark the 82nd anniversary of the formation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Creative Director, the renowned lighting designer Jerry P. Appelt, took charge of both the show concept and the lighting design for the entire 3D mapping show.

d3 TAKES OV E R THE CATWA LK AT M IL AN FASHIO N W E E K Brussels-based audiovisual company Visual Solutions used 14 d3 systems on one of the most spectacular fashion shows during Milan Fashion Week. Philipp Plein’s S/S 2015 catwalk show featured not only a fully projected backdrop of an underwater landscape for its ‘abysse’ theme, but also saw its models wearing dresses with intricate projections on them.

Jo Pauly of Visual Solutions commented: “This was a challenging project in many ways. We were working together with the creative set building team to ensure the rock-like structure that formed the backwall for the catwalk was as true to life as possible. Every little nook, crack and cranny in the surface was reworked in Maya by my team. Plus, we were to make absolutely sure no shadows were cast on the models or the back wall. That means we carefully had to position the models on the catwalk in relation to projector placement.”

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016 in brief - asia/PACIFIC/OCeania

DATATO N DA ZZLE S AT THE M IN D M USE UM The Mind Museum in Manila, the Philippines is made up of four galleries Atom, Earth, Universe and Technology, as well as a 3D theatre featuring 5.1 surround sound and a projection screen utilising six Sony VPL-FH500 projectors and Dataton’s Watchout software to create a fully immersive experience.

MA S T E R A U D I O STAN D S OU T FROM TH E CROWD AT LOV E F H OTEL BY FA SHIO N TV The prestigious FashionTV brand presents its first hotel in the world named Love Fashion Hotel. Rated as a four star, the hotel features 202 stylish rooms and suites and offers a high fashion concept that is transformed into opulence and comfortable chic living for an enjoyable vacation in Bali. The perfect sound coverage to accompany fashionable and chic events is provided by Master Audio. Loudspeaker systems from the Joker and Xcellence Series, plus the well-known MA206D line array system and processing by HD, DSP and TP2400 series of power amplifiers.

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06.11.2014 16:50:23

018 in brief - the americas

EL ATION H EL PS CRE ATE AQ UATIC ATM OSPH ERE AT IN BURSA AQ UA RIUM Elation LED lighting fixtures have been supplied to Inbursa Aquarium in Mexico City in collaboration with Lighting Designer, Cynthia Ortiz, who commented: “The flexibility to create scenes and the friendly interface of the software allowed us to conceptualise the spaces and atmosphere and get the best out of the lighting fixtures.”

The Elation lighting package includes RGBW Arena Par lights; ELED Fresnel 150W LED lights; IP-67 rated 3W ELAR 2A04B recessed fixtures; and EPAR TRI LED par cans.

R O B E B M F L SPOTS LI GHT B OSTON CITY H AL L Robe’s new BMFL Spot luminaires have been utilised by Lighting Designer, Preston Hoffman of Pulse Lighting for a stunning installation that illuminated Boston City Hall, transforming it into a bold and vibrant backdrop for the 2014 Boston Calling Music Festival. The festival’s two main stages were built in the City Hall Plaza in front of the City Hall building at 90º to one another.

“I could see from several angles that moving lights were the way to go with this one,” said Preston. The large concrete constructed City Hall, with cantilevered upper stories, was built in 1968 as part of a major urban redevelopment plan, and is famous for its imposing - and controversial - architecture. The BMFL Spot with its 1,700W lightsource and multi-functionality sounded extremely interesting.”

The 12 BMFL Spots were double hung on a truss rigged between two ground-supported towers located centrally at the FOH position between the two stages in the City Hall Plaza, throwing at least 100 metres onto the face of the building.

www.mondodr.com

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04.11.14 12:00

IN DEP TH

INTERVIEW MARK RAVENHILL, GLP

REPORT THEME PARKS & ATTRACTIONS

This issue’s Big Interview comes from the world of lighting. President of GLP’s US operation, Mark Ravenhill talked Clive WIlson through his own career milestones, as well as some of the company’s pivitol moments over the last 20 years. The Report is a wide variety of theme parks and attraction case studies, kicked off by Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, the first and only Ferrari-branded theme park in the world.

024 INTERVIEW

“THE LDI 1993 AWARD WAS THE CULMINATION OF THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING WITH ROY BENNETT, WHICH I WOULDN’T TRADE FOR THE WORLD.” MARK RAVENHILL The entertainment industry is infectious, once you’ve caught the bug, it’s difficult to shake it off. President of GLP’s US operation, Mark Ravenhill told Clive Wilson what has kept him hooked on the industry for more than 30 years.

www.mondodr.com

INTERVIEW 025

www.mondodr.com

026 INTERVIEW Mark with his wife, Pernille and their two children

Few people have evangelised entertainment lighting technology, and so fiercely protected its legacy over the years, as diligently as Mark Ravenhill.

It was perhaps inevitable, given his start as a teenage stage-hand in provincial theatre, that he would climb the lighting ladder to take on a top position of one of the entertainment industry’s pioneering LED companies. Probably more remarkable is that he has achieved this while building a near matchless reputation as a universal nice guy.

While using LinkedIn posts as a barometer often provides a gratuitous view of peer perception, in Mark’s case you can see just how genuinely the portrait of this understated individual is painted by those he has worked with. In fact the most ostentatious element of Mark’s persona is probably his signature colourful eyewear.

But if colour has been the hallmark of a career now entering its fourth decade, his abiding canon - never burn any bridges - has served him in good stead as he has twice departed leading companies only to be welcomed back at a later stage.

Forgiving the fact that when he joined German Light Products (GLP) in Spring 2009 it was to take up the dubious-sounding role of of ‘Director of Key Global Players’, today he is President of GLP’s American operation out of northern Los Angeles. And yet anyone less ‘presidential’ or arriviste would be difficult to imagine.

Mark was only in his mid-teens when he made the move that would define his career, sucked into changing scenery at the local village amateur dramatics group after responding to an advert for casting in the chorus for Grease. “When I got there I found they had already cast the show but needed help back stage. Mark volunteered, and later recalled that, “standing onstage at the final curtain call I felt I could do this as a job.” The die had been cast and Mark had just discovered the soundtrack to his life.

Fortunate to grow up close to Winchester, which housed the superb early Victorian Theatre Royal, Mark could already see a career path unfolding. “This was a professional touring theatre and was actually designed by one of Matcham’s apprentices,” he related. And it wasn’t long before he was working there. Gaining experience in all facets of theatre production, from hanging scenery, shifting lights and building sets, by the time he made the short journey to Highbury College of Technology in Portsmouth to formally enrol on a new course in Stage Management & Lighting Design he found he already knew more than he was learning. So when, during his second year in 1987, a chief electrician position became available at the Theatre Royal he decided to jump ship and join the theatre payroll for the first time.

The transition from pure theatre came two years later when he answered an advert in The Stage to become Deputy Stage Manager at Blazers in Windsor, a popular www.mondodr.com

“We were still in the era before the moving heads... Andy had brought a rock and roll influence, trusses on motors, kabuki drops and put in seating, so there were queues around the block at PLASA.” cabaret club that had previously been run by George Savva and often frequented by the neighbouring royalty.

This was a crucial period for not only did the end of the ‘80s sound the death knell for the cabaret club idiom but it also marked the birth of the rave scene as Blazers metamorphosed into the nightclub, Mirage. Mark worked as assistant to Steve Rawlins, whose wife Paulene was running the venue for owner Pat Cowan, and over the next decade their professional lives became intertwined.

After Theatre Royal, Mirage provided a more encompassing role and introduced him to sound. “[Radio station] Kiss 100 had started and with the onset of the rave scene ‘Turbosound’ was the buzz word, rented in by the Blue Box Co.” Suddenly he was presiding over all-night parties running from 9pm-8am.

The other de rigueur feature was fast moving mirror lights, and the Martin Professional Roboscan 1005 scanner, then distributed by Lamba, was the predominant feature of a rig designed by Graham Barron at Lizard Lighting. It also brought Mark into contact with Ian Kirby, the Martin Profedssional specialist at Lamba, who later went on to set up Martin Professional UK at the start of the 1990’s.

Back in the day, every lighting piece came with its own dedicated controller, including the scanners (run off a trackball-based Martin 2032 rackmount unit). But suddenly, with the imminent move to the DMX standard, products like ShowCAD emerged and a new programming role emerged. “Steve and I were the most experienced in this regard, and started to undertake freelance work on the side for Ian [Kirby].”

028 INTERVIEW

“My fiancée agreed it would be fun and at High Wycombe Registry Office in 1997 we got married in order to get the visa.”

The early ‘90s was a time when lighting designers who had cut their teeth during disco’s golden era, started to enter the international exhibition stage, men like Paul Dodd, Carl Dodds and John Lindsell (with Clay Paky). Ian invited Mark and Steve to design his PLASA lightshow in 1991. “We got to meet Peter Johansen and when he later asked if could we programme their stand at LDI in the States we said ‘yes, absolutely’.”

They used multiple 2032 stacked controllers and ran them live. As an extension of that, after they moved to Denmark and started doing larger and more complex shows, they had Martin Professional develop a PC programme that would accept timecode, and control six of these 2032 controllers (before the PC-based 3032 controller was released).

A permanent job offer at Martin Professional HQ in Denmark arrived quickly for Mark. “And so in the freezing January of ‘92 we got onboard an SAS plane bound for Aarhus. Tony Gottelier was on the same plane and Peter [Johansen] introduced us in the arrivals hall, which I can only describe as daunting,” he said.

A marketing masterstroke saw Martin Professional then introduce a policy of hiring ‘guest designers’ for its exhibition lightshows. Paul Dodd in ‘92 when it was still ‘disco’, and Andy Keightley, Gary Numan’s LD, in ‘93 by which time the concept had transformed into a concert rig. “We were still in the era before the moving heads and groundbreaking products like the High End Cyberlight and Coemar NAT were still another year away. Andy had brought a rock ‘n’ roll influence, trusses on motors, kabuki drops and put in seating, so there were queues around the block at PLASA,” Mark remembered. Ever the opportunist, Peter Johansen established a relationship with Peter Clarke at Supermick, who became supplier for the next Gary Numan tour with the result that Martin Professional Roboscans started appearing in a touring context for the first time.

But when Andy Keightley announced that he would be unavailable for LDI the scene was set for one of Mark’s finest achievements. Instead, Peter Johansen turned to the legendary Roy Bennett. “He was the designer of the day and Peter convinced him to design the LDI rig. Roy came over to Denmark for two days and for 48 hours we didn’t sleep, just programmed and time coded the whole show, incorporating disco, rock ‘n’ roll and theatrical elements.”

As a result of this febrile process, Martin Professional won the award for the best www.mondodr.com

lightshow at LDI in Orlando that year. “I can’t remember the number of motors we used, well over 100 for the main rig and smaller ones for the trusses. The structural engineers had to be brought in to give the go ahead.

“I was phenomenally proud, it was a great reward for all the hard work. If Martin Professional had turned a big corner at PLASA then it was massive at LDI.” Mark achieved an even higher accolade the following year. After Jonathan Smeeton had designed Martin Professional’s PLASA lightshow, Mark redesigned the rig for LDI in Reno - when the latter was unavailable - with Steve Rawlins, who today is director of Intelligent Lighting Design in Singapore - programming it although Smeeton and Ravenhill were co-credited with the design.

It’s little surprise then that Mark described his first period in Aarhus as “a fantastic adventure.” He and Steve were soon undertaking global projects as far afield as Malta to Florida and other burgeoning tradeshows SIB in Rimini and Siel in Paris.

Mark described their relationship as “the Yin and Yang of the industry,” their different temperaments complementing each other perfectly.

It was easy to get caught up in Peter Johansen’s whirlwind of enthusiasm, “he had massive energy and was truly inspiring,” exclaimed Mark. However, one world famous production designer, Marc Brickman, had resisted Peter’s petitions to design a purpose lightshow, to the Englishman’s great disappointment. For Marc had been one of Mark’s major influences with his big rock ‘n’ roll sets while in contrast, he also cited as an influence Luc Lafortune from Cirque du Soleil, whose artistic approach was more subtle.

At the end of 1994 Mark met his future wife Pernille at a Christmas party in Aarhus. “We’d both been frequenting the same pub for a while without realising it.”

But by the following year, just as the PAL1200 framing spot was being released, the increasingly strained relationship with Martin Professional came to an end.

Mark left and he and his wife moved back to the UK that winter - undertaking freelance work to keep the wheels turning, and even some journalistic assignments for mondo*dr before joining AC Lighting.

“I had known the guys at AC Lighting since Blazers days,” he said. “They were our suppliers for lamps and gels but they were now at a turning point. They had exclusive deals with Jands and then Cast Lighting WYSIWYG, while Flying Pig Co were launching Wholehog 2; they were looking to expand their technical

030 INTERVIEW

Mark with others from the GLP line-up - Michael Müller, Markus Salm, Udo Künzler, Oliver Schwendke

department.”

Mark fondly remembered his three years in a technical sales role. “Wholehog 2 was the first of a new generation of controllers which set a benchmark and I was providing product support. I could sit down with all kinds of LDs whom I’d never met before as the role of programmer became increasingly important. Now you could be the technical member of the team, thinking more about numbers, patches and addresses which would otherwise detract from the creative process of the LD.” But all things come to an end. High End Systems bought Flying Pig and AC were summarily axed in fairly brutal fashion. Mark accepted a job from a company out in San Francisco. “My fiancée agreed it would be fun and at High Wycombe Registry Office in 1997 we got married in order to get the visa.”

But it was to prove a misbegotten venture and they quickly turned tail. “Pernille was pregnant with our daughter, and when it didn’t work out we caught a BA flight back to London where she could be born for free, unlike in the States. Our container of furniture and possessions hadn’t even arrived at the dock by the time we left. I had nothing, no job, a heavily pregnant wife and I went cap in hand back to David Leggett at AC Lighting... Never burn bridges.”

Under his new marketing role Mark helped the company establish its new Chroma-Q range. But then Martin Professional’s North American executive, the late Troels Volver, approached Mark to help support Martin Professional UK’s newly appointed MD in the rental sector. “Initially I said no but Troels didn’t give up easily.”

This was in the summer of 2000 when Martin Professional, now a very different publically-traded entity, was flying high with the MAC 2000 and Atomic Strobe.

Just over a year later in Autumn 2001 he was offered the job of Product Manager for the moving head (stage, studio & event) range. “It took me about five seconds to agree and my wife was happy to move back to Denmark.” They moved in early 2002 where the same howling winter weather as before awaited them.

Comparing it to the autocratic ‘Wild West days’ of earlier, Mark was now subject to more processes, and zero risk taking. During the seven years spent there, first under Kristian Kolding and later Christian Engsted, he witnessed many changes. “I picked up the MAC 2000 programme mid-stream. They had finished [developing] the MAC 2000 Profile and I started on the MAC 2000 Wash and that was a great success. At the Athens Olympics in 2004 PRG provided hundreds of these and there were also hundreds at Beijing four years later.”

The Athens 2004 lighting team picked up an Emmy citation and Mark remembered clearly: “I was just a small cog in a very large machine which was led by the lighting design team at Full Flood in Los Angeles, along with Eleftheria Deko, the highly www.mondodr.com

talented Greek lighting designer.

“It was the largest lighting system ever assembled at the time, with a massive amount of product that I was responsible for. It was a project that started months in advance with fixture trials and shootouts all over the world. I distinctly remember setting up in the middle of a field in northern England for a weekend, where things could be scaled out to the size of the Olympic stadium. I doubt if that town has ever recovered from seeing so many roadies descend on them and see all these moving lights on their normally dark landscape at night, without having a clue what it was all about. To then see your product on a major event like that is a huge endorsement, and you say to yourself, ‘I must have done good’.”

Another personal highlight was the development of the TW1 tungsten wash, with its advanced dimming, which launched at the ABTT show; with it, Mark had hoped to drive the company more into the theatre sector. “We got some patents for it but Martin Professional pulled out of tungsten and decided to discontinue it - much to the frustration of theatre LDs. People were in uproar about the decision. At the time we also wanted to make a spot equivalent but management absolutely refused.”

In 2005, Mark was appointed VP Sales for the SSE segment and given an opportunity to get to know the US market better; he moved to Florida, remaining for two years in the office run by Troels. “Our son was born there in Spring 2007, so now I had a Danish wife, an English daughter and American son, and was still technically working for Denmark. No wonder we got funny looks at Immigration,” he said. “This period was every bit as stimulating as the scanner era because everyone was trying to push the envelope and get more out of a smaller footprint and do it cheaper and better,” he remembered. “The technology platform had changed and you were talking to a whole different generation of designers and programmers.”

He observed, particularly among the new generation of creatives, that while some are happy to remain as programmers others are clearly “transitioning into concept production designers.” He cites Baz Halpin and Cory FitzGerald as two in particular that have made the transition to the very top.

In speaking to Mark today, you sense someone who while keen to establish roots for the family on America’s west coast, finds the nomadic life comes effortlessly to him. “I do feel part of the international lighting community,” he admitted. “And these days with the speed of communication, the frequency of aeroplanes and everyone having a smartphone in their pocket, we are very much a connected world rather than a series of countries.

“But our daughter is now 16 and for a number of years we were moving her around a lot. Now she has the ability to stay in one place and work on friendships she

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Copenhagen Climate Change Summit

would like to keep for life. Our son is seven and only ever been in America so it’s not the same experience. It’s a vital consideration that things have to be right at home.”

The path that has led him to the natural desert surroundings of the Santa Clarita Valley was his departure from Martin Professional and arrival at GLP in Spring 2009, after being wooed by his old colleague at Martin Professional, Kasper Gissel. His parting from Martin Professional at the end of 2008 had been inevitable under the new corporate regime. “I just wasn’t being listened to anymore.

People come in from other industries with new ideas and ways of looking at things but sometimes they aren’t willing to listen to people who do have the knowledge.

I stopped enjoying it and knew it was time to leave. Why would I want to continue pouring energy into something that I knew would be an abject failure?” With his son now two years old, Mark took a three month sabbatical to spend some time at home before GLP’s Business Development Director came calling.

Mark flew down to Germany to meet the company’s MD and founder, Udo Künzler and was immediately impressed. “I spent two days there. You could tell right away that they had a solid vision of where they wanted to go, and that they wanted to master LED technology.

“I think everyone who was around back in 1996 remembers seeing GLP’s Patend Light, as it was so unusual at the time and with the impression it was clear that they still weren’t afraid to try something new. But I certainly didn’t imagine at that time how fast things would start moving from then.”

Tasked with supporting top rental companies and designers around the world - the so-called ‘key global players’ - Mark quickly found himself being asked to run the new US operation as GLP decided to end its distribution arrangement with Elation Lighting in favour of direct marketing.

Surrounded by rental companies and TV production studios in the Burbank and Sun Valley region, GLP Inc soon started adding other brands to its portfolio such as its own Scenex Lighting LED start-up to enhance set pieces within the television industry. It also distributes the brand known as Cosmic Truss (following a lengthy trademark lawsuit with the originally marketed Global Truss). “That [situation] dragged on and cost a lot of money, but it goes with the territory. This is a litigious country.” www.mondodr.com

“I had a Danish wife, an English daughter and an American son and was still technically working for Denmark. No wonder we got funny looks at immigration.”

034 INTERVIEW

Alongside him from the beginning has been the highly capable AnnaLise Laundrup, his former Martin Professional colleague, whom Mark had sought out to help him set up the new operation. Today he heads a staff of 12 personnel, “all of whom I am proud to work with.”

One early breakthrough for GLP globally had been at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit 18 on December 2009, which had marked a tectonic shift in how solid state lighting was perceived. Danish company Seelite, under the direction of lighting designer Lars Nissen, deployed more than 1000 GLP impression fixtures to light the plenum rooms, television broadcast locations and other ancillary areas for the conference, in what was the first ringing endorsement of low-energy lighting.

Remembered Mark: “This was driven entirely by Kasper. It was massive, with a lot of world focus on it. It followed the Kyoto Summit and was hugely important not only for us but the industry in general, as it would appear on every TV show.

To have impression chosen to light everything was an honour, and at a time when people were questioning LED light levels and colour levels it vindicated that GLP really knew what it was doing.”

From Mark’s perspective all personal and professional goals have been achieved, and GLP has followed the product roadmap to the letter. “There are a lot more designers I’d love to be working with of course but it’s an ongoing process. It’s about treating people with respect and constantly reaching out to help them. As for GLP, after it launched the original impression the company converted entirely to LED products in order to be at the forefront and they have absolutely done that.

“Spot One was the first fixture of its kind in the world as was impression 90.

Everyone wants to be first to market with a new level of technology - but no-one hits the target every time, it’s impossible. We will continue to concentrate on our core markets of concert touring, exhibition and corporate events. TV is strong, particularly in Germany while we are pushing more in theatre and that’s opening up on all levels. And of course in the US the HoW market is special.”

And what of his own personal strengths and weaknesses? “I am a stickler for accuracy,” he said. “I am big on ensuring that things get done properly.

‘Committed’ is another trait, once you’ve decided on something, it should be full www.mondodr.com

speed ahead to get the job done.” Of the various accolades Mark has picked up along the way, he said. “The LDI 1993 award was the culmination of the experience of working with Roy Bennett, which I wouldn’t trade for the world.

The year of 1994 was even better, when as designer, it meant so much more. My Emmy certificate is very proudly hanging in my office at home.”

Other achievements down the years that fill him with pride range from having developed the MAC 2000 Wash and TW1 to being a part of the team that helped get the Wholehog II established into the global market, which he described as “definitely a turning point in the industry.”

It is a lesson for any members of lighting’s next generation who care about the heritage, but already GLP is invested in the future, as a supporter of both Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance in the UK and California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).

Today, while his role is almost entirely managerial, Mark feels privileged to have tasted so much LDI glory back in the mid-‘90s. “I was lucky enough to get involved with so many shows through their preparation and rehearsal stages but we do a large number of exhibitions each year and have a large showroom in LA, so I still get to dabble a little. But I have no regrets about where the path has led me and it’s great fun being a partner with the creatives.

“The trick now is to meet both artist and audience expectations, when the bar is constantly being raised. But the budgets are not always there to match, and that’s when we have to start getting creative about our solutions.”

And the biggest lesson he has learnt along the way is always do the right thing. “I learnt that early on; every day we have choices, and there’s the right thing you can do, or you can go the other way. I believe in Karma and that it catches up with you eventually.”

If Mark could have his time over again, he said he would “not get so stressed about stuff.” He explained: “I think my biggest fault is that I take things too seriously sometimes; I forget to stop, look up and enjoy the moment and slow down.”

And of course he has learnt not to take things for granted. “I have two fantastic children and I’m still on my first wife, I think that’s quite an achievement for our industry!”

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THEME PARKS & ATTRACTIONS FER R ARI WO R L D Company: Medialon Location: Abu Dhabi, UAE Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, the first and only Ferrari-branded theme park in the world, provides a great example of the benefits of carefully considered technical design of the audiovisual, show control and automation systems, both at the individual ‘ride box’ level and at the ‘park-wide’ supervisory control and monitoring level.

The park comprises a winning mix of rides and attractions with each ride box having its own local audiovisual, lighting and show control system. In addition to these local ride box systems, the park also has a park-wide control system, which is used for monitoring each of the local ride boxes and for scheduling their activity during the operational day. This park-wide control system also controls the play-out of background music across the entire park along with audio messaging, zoning for live shows and events and the parkwide architectural and show lighting systems.

David Birchall, Technical Director of db Show Control & Automation (dbSCA) developed and programmed the show control and automation systems for all of the rides and attractions in the park. In addition dbSCA designed and implemented a park-wide audio, video and supervisory control systems.

Jack Rouse Associates were the executive producers and master planners for the Ferrari World, Abu Dhabi theme park project. “The original design of the park was already advanced compared to most theme parks in the world, but the tremendous addition of the park-wide supervisory control, monitoring and schedule designed and programmed by David of dbSCA is unique. The latest version of Medialon control system was designed with these functionalities in mind,” said Alex Carru, CEO of Medialon.

There are 10 Medialon V5 Pro / Lite licenses running the most technically complex rides and show control intensive rides such as the award-winning 4D dark ride, Speed of Magic or the interactive quiz-show, Fast Lane.

In addition there are 10 Medialon ShowMaster Pro / ST show controllers, which run the simpler rides and attractions requiring local audiovisual for pre-shows, lighting and simple scenic and special effects. These rides include Formula Ross’, the world’s fastest roller coaster, along with Junior GP and Junior GT, the ultimate kids racing in-park schools.

Each ride box, be it powered by a Medialon ShowMaster or Medialon Manager license, runs as its own independent show control system that can be started stopped and maintained locally through a local operator interface. The show control system’s core function is to deliver the ‘show elements’ - controlling video servers, multi-channel audio playback, lighting, special effects and other elements - all synchronous to the ride movement and / or interaction of the guest.

In addition to the show elements, the local systems automate the daily operations and maintenance tasks associated with the rides.

Start of day / end of day functions to power up and initialise all elements of the ride are provided through the operator interface along with maintenance functions for testing lighting, video, audio

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and the ride system interfaces. The local show control system reports lamp hours to the user interface screen and any errors present on projectors, video servers and other controlled devices.

Detailed event logging at the ride has been implemented in every system within the Medialon programming. These allows the team to monitor operations and troubleshoot any maintenance issues quickly and efficiently.

Whilst every ride is totally independent and can be started and monitored locally, without reliance on any other part of the park, the majority of the rides and systems receive their start of day / end of day functions remotely from a park-wide control, monitoring and scheduling system. The scheduler system developed by dbSCA is based on a further Medialon V5 Manager Pro license along with the Medialon scheduler software.

The park-wide scheduler system utilises a simple MS Outlook style drag and drop calendar interface that allows the parks maintenance and operations team to easily configure the time when rides and attractions receive their start of day and end of day commands along with automated ‘show start’ commands and ‘special event‘ settings for lighting and audio within the park.

All of the parks local ride systems are connected to the main park-wide audiovisual control network via fibre connections with access rights and network routing configured to allow access to all elements of the park from anywhere on the network. It is a combination of this network backbone infrastructure and the Medialon Manager On Network connectivity protocol that allows the simple sharing of data from the ‘ride box’ level to the park-wide supervisory control and monitoring system.

“The system designed and implemented by dbSCA at Ferrari World, Abu Dhabi sets the standard for theme park-wide supervisory control,” commented Gary Briscoe, Technical Director at Farah Leisure Parks Management. “Thanks to this system, our maintenance team can monitor, schedule and control all aspects of the audiovisual

within the park from a central location. We have access to live status information from every device within the park.

“Moreover, the modular networked design using Medialon Manager provides a framework for expansion within the park - as we expand and add new rides and attractions to the park, the system will grow with us.”

Ferrari World, Abu Dhabi recently contracted dbSCA to further expand the existing park-wide monitoring systems by installing a new system dedicated to monitoring of the ride systems themselves.

The new system builds upon the existing network infrastructure within the park and adds a new level of monitoring and control of the ride systems. RFID tags have been installed on all of the ride vehicles in the park; every vehicle is tagged allowing the new system to monitor their cycle time, hours in use, distance travelled and current location on the ride track.

In addition to the RFID tagging, the system gathers more information from all of the ride PLC control systems in the park displaying real time status on a new series of screens in the maintenance offices and workshops. As with the park-wide audiovisual monitoring system, the ride monitoring system logs all of the monitored data to a database for analysis later.

As before dbSCA based the system on the Medialon Manager platform, this time using the latest V6 release of the show control software. A key advantage of using the new V6 software is the web panel feature. Web panels user interface pages that are hosted on the Medialon server and made available through a standard web browser. This allows authorised members of the maintenance team to monitor and interact with the systems through web panels on their PCs and mobile devices when connected to the audiovisual and control network in the theme park. www.medialon.com

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038 report

GREAT GALLERY OF EVOLUTION Company: Amadeus Location: Paris, France The 20th anniversary of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris was marked with the re-opening of its updated Great Gallery of Evolution space featuring custom-designed Amadeus loudspeakers and subwoofers to offer the public a Hi-Fi audio experience throughout the vast museum. Merging, Solid State Logic and Flux also added key ingredients to control the Amadeus loudspeakers.

Amadeus’ Director of R&D, Michel Deluc, and co-founder and CEO, Bernard Byk created brand new loudspeaker and subwoofer configurations for the 186-piece sound system. The PMX 4 - a super-compact four-inch coaxial driver model - is the first of the new loudspeakers, which extends the PMX Series, plus two new compact subwoofers the ML 8, and the ML 12 SLIM, with eight-inch and 12-inch drivers respectively, were designed. Updates to the existing PMX 5 loudspeaker and ML 12 subwoofer - the new model now known as the ML 12 Slim - were also implemented and were part of the museum installation.

Bernard commented: “I have been trained as an architect, and this training definitely influences both the products we develop and the projects we work on. I think that for an architect, the starting point is to decrypt the space and to think of the way to put one’s work in a cultural, social and environmental context. That’s the way we design our sound systems. We think about their integration in different places, and we supervise this integration. Each space has its own acoustical characteristics and above all its own architectural properties. Our work is to take these phenomena into account to increase the transparency of our sound systems.”

On the amplification side, Amadeus developed and launched two prototypes, the Multiamp and the A Series - both to be released in 2015 - in order to cater to the needs of the museum install. “The National Museum of Natural History install is a high-point of the many years in loudspeaker and amplifier design by Amadeus. It is a perfect example of the outcome from the Amadeus brand philosophy that is built on the long-standing, close and productive relationships we have maintained with talented designers and scenographers, both in France and around the world, for over 35 years,” stated Gaetan Byk, Marketing Manager at Amadeus.

Marc Piera, co-founder and CEO of Comportements Sonores and scenographer for the museum install explained in detail how the install came about: “I tested many small and light loudspeakers sold by well-known brands, I then turned towards PA systems. Leaving aside the brands that didn’t meet relevant specifications - dispersion quality, frequency range, and impulse response around the loudspeaker - I

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finally got in touch with Amadeus, a company I already revered for its high-quality PA products. I didn’t know it made small loudspeakers, but I had used Amadeus products before when I gave training seminars about controlled directivity, and during many shows and concerts, not to mention an acoustical study for the auditorium at Chelles.”

Describing the audio for the exhibition areas, Marc revealed: “The audio sound tracks created by Frédéric Rocard are based on natural ambient sounds, a tribute to the rich timbres and dynamic levels of all animal species shown in the gallery; it means the dynamic margins between background noise level and reasonable listening levels is reduced. It was therefore mandatory to find the best place for the Amadeus loudspeakers to get excellent coverage in the public spaces, and to design a system with a high-quality stereo image faithful to the complex ambiences.

Another key point to accomplish was to ensure that no spectrum changes would occur off-axis. In the end, 186 Amadeus sound sources were installed, including 28 subwoofers.”

The Great Gallery of Evolution is split into several public spaces: the first is 3,500 sq metres by 2.5-metres high, the second, 2,300 sq metres by 15-metres high, plus three passageways - 1,100 sq metres each. Since the gallery is a museum, there are many children’s groups and families attending, so the background noise levels are often between 55dB and 70dB. The gallery is also a conservation area, which imposes mandatory demands on the integration of sound quality and other limitations.

Marc described how he handled many of these issues in the museum space: “The Amadeus PMX 5, then the smallest speaker of the range, was too heavy to use, so Amadeus quickly suggested it design a variant offering the same sonic qualities but with a reduced weight. It created a prototype of the PMX 4, and after we tested and measured this new model in situ, it appeared it could be used to send sound in the passageways, with very high quality. Using a very tight distribution I got an incredible sound image and the finest details along these long corridors exactly as I had wanted.”

However, in some parts of the installation the existing PMX 5 model turned out to be best. “The PMX 5’s attenuation is even and its coaxial loudspeaker shows an excellent impulse response which helps to reduce ceiling reflections,” continued Marc.

A total of 18 Amadeus ML 12 subwoofers, distributed around the passageways,

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handle bass extension. Referring to the tight space for some subwoofer positioning he said: “Amadeus was able to fulfill the integration needs with a thinner version of subwoofer, the ML 12 Slim. We set the crossover frequency between the PMX 5 loudspeakers and ML12 Slim subwoofers at 90Hz, allowing us to reduce localisation problems.”

Dominique Brulhart, Head Software Engineering at Merging Technologies described its involvement with the install: “Merging was excited by the opportunity to work on this project, it provided an unprecedented scope for our product, Ovation. We were equally pleased to note that the set-up, comprising 186 loudspeakers across seven zones, connected to two Horus converters, all handled by a single Ovation, worked without a hitch. We nevertheless learned a great deal from this installation and identified several ways in which our user interface could be enhanced. That’s the reason why these projects are so inspiring. We look forward to participating in many more alongside Amadeus in the future.

“Management of the Amadeus loudspeakers through Merging devices features specially designed Merging software plug-ins for the museum install, which can control dynamic EQ, expander/gate functions, as well as compressor and limiter capabilities for each of the Amadeus loudspeakers individually. The Merging loudspeaker management system that was created is 100% Amadeus compatible and can easily be used in future installs.”

Wrapping up his assessment of the National Museum of Natural History project, Marc concluded: “This kind of integration job, filled with aesthetic taboos and security issues, requires not only very high-quality products, but also deeply involved partners. Amadeus really was exemplary in that matter, and this contributed to the final success of the project. Its commitment even led the company to create specific RAL colours and wood finishes, putting the final distinguishing touches on this successful integration. And, as if all this was not enough, Amadeus even developed the amplifier system to deal with the 186 independent loudspeaker lines. Solid State Logic interfaced the system, and Merging dealt with the programming side using its Ovation system, even adapting its product for us, on the practical and ergonomic side. The system filtering issues were handled by Flux, Merging’s long-time partner.” www.amadeusaudio.fr / www.merging.com / www.solid-state-logic.com

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K NOTTS B ER R Y FA R M Company: Elation, Acclaim Location: California, USA Knott’s Berry Farm, America’s first and oldest theme park located in Buena Park, California, has renovated two of its more popular attractions and lands - Calico Mine Ride and Camp Snoopy - and used Elation and Acclaim lighting products supplied

by Pacific Coast Entertainment as part of the lighting makeover.

Owned and operated by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, Knott’s Berry Farm celebrated the grand re-opening of the two attractions with in-house designers, James Sidler and Kyle Arnold handling the lighting design for Calico Mine Ride and Camp Snoopy, respectively. Knotts technical staff completed installation of the products.

The Calico Mine Ride is a Knotts Berry Farm classic and has been a staple ride for fans since it opened in 1960. Knott’s Berry Farm’s design team, in partnership with Garner Holt Productions, has elevated the original 1960 design while preserving the original experience. The refurbishment includes dozens of new animatronic figures, state-of-the art lighting, audio, and all-new special effects.

Lighting Design Specialist James, who designs lighting for a wide variety of areas, was tasked with redesigning one of America’s first dark rides, while maintaining its original design. “Our ultimate goal in the refurbishment of the entire mountain was to mimic what one would see, hear and feel when venturing through a real, working mine in the 1800’s,” he stated. “Lighting played a huge part in this by ensuring that the animatronics, wildlife, natural and artificial lighting in each scene was historically accurate.”

James chose Elation and Acclaim lighting products for the renovation because he felt they excelled at creating the look that he envisioned for the attraction. “The quality, affordability, and versatility of the product made all the difference when choosing Elation/Acclaim,” he said.

James used a combination of Elation ELED QA Strips, Acclaim Rebel Drums and Acclaim Dyna Flood QA fixtures. The Elation ELED QA Strips are used in two separate rooms inside the ride - the bubbling pot room and the explosion tunnel.

“The ELED QA Strip lights worked perfectly for both rooms,” James commented, stating that he chose them for three main reasons: “First, the fixture breaks down into nine separate sections which gave me the ability to blend colours nicely versus only having the use of a single colour.” They also allow for smooth chase effects created by a single fixture rather than the typical use of multiple fixtures when creating the same effect.

“Second, the fixture has a four-colour mixing system with the option of either RGBW or RGBA, an option that is especially helpful in an attraction that is predominantly illuminated by the amber glow of countless artificial lanterns. The third beneficial

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aspect of the fixture is that the seamless colour mixing takes place in the lens. The final colour projects flawlessly onto very contoured and inorganic shapes, and is also void of streaks, red, green, and blue hues that are normally noticeable when using other LED fixtures.”

The Acclaim Rebel Drums are used as uplights for the various waterfalls throughout the interior and exterior of the ride while the Dyna Flood QA fixtures are used in every room throughout the ride, as well as the exterior of the attraction. “The Dyna Flood QA fixture has the same RGBA and RGBW colour mixing option coupled with a pristine colour mixing technique that is seen in the ELED’s. We also looked for a fixture that is IP66 and can therefore withstand inclement weather and those crazy sprinklers in the planters.”

The Rebel Drum Series, submersible LED fixtures in a stainless steel housing, were suited for the project because of the numerous options of size and output it offers.

Four models are available (3, 6, 12 and 18 LEDs) in single colour or RGB variants.

“The opportunity to use different sized underwater lights in various applications that are powered from the same energy source, simply made things easier,” James said.

Furthermore, as the mine ride also gets a full makeover each year for Knott’s Scary Farm, the Calico Mine Ride LED lighting system will allow the park to easily change the look and create a new ride experience.

Because Camp Snoopy an outdoor themed area full of kids rides the lights needed to be outdoor rated. “All throughout Camp Snoopy we are using the Acclaim Dyna Floods to give the area that was originally built in the ‘80s a fresh and naturally illuminated look,” said Lighting Designer, Kyle. “The slimly-designed fixtures have been placed under custom-built props inside of the themed area’s lush landscape. We have chosen to light the rockwork throughout the themed area from top to bottom.

The nearby picturesque creek and towering waterfall area has also been lit using the Dyna Flood lights, thus expanding the realistic look and feel of the camp.”

In the heart of Camp Snoopy a new character location is opening in which guests have the unique opportunity to meet and greet their favourite Peanuts character.

Five Peanuts comic strip-inspired scenes have been created as photos ops. “We used DynaGrazes to illuminate all five backdrops,” Kyle explained. “Their ultra-slim profile allowed us to install them without impacting the look of the backdrops.

“It has been a pleasure working with Elation/Acclaim and the new technology implemented throughout the fresh Camp Snoopy has brought new life to the beloved area.” www.elationprofessional.com www.acclaimlighting.com

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Company: QSC Location: California, USA On the audio side at Knott’s Berry Farm dual redundant Q-Sys Core 500i processors manage sound effect prompts and audio distribution needs in five of the park’s themed walk-through mazes for the annual Scary Farm event. The use of technology and audio has always played an important role in creating and enhancing any entertainment experience helping guest get closer to the action.

“One of our goals with our Knott’s Scary Farm haunted attractions is to transform our guests from simply being observers to becoming interactive participants in the experience,” said Lawrence McCoy, Audio Specialist, Entertainment Design, Knott’s Berry Farm. “With Q-Sys we have the precision and detail with our audio programming to trigger, process and route sound effects, music and dialog enhancing and maximising that user experience.”

In the past, Knott’s audio designers and technicians used a variety of audio gear including a variety of standalone loop tape decks, hard disc recorders and mixing consoles to route audio to the various zones in an attraction. With Q-Sys and its ability to process, route and playback within its core, attraction designers are able to create more detailed audio designs resulting in some walk-through mazes today

employing nearly as many amplifier channels as did all the walk-through mazes combined did a few years ago.

“We have 89 audio file players on the main Q-Sys Core 500i sending signal to 88 network outputs. Some of the outputs are playing distributed audio over multiple loudspeakers while other outputs are playing one off sound effects triggered by a foot switch or sensor,” added Lawrence. “Just a few years ago, this kind of detail would have been very cost prohibitive.”

Currently, five of the eight mazes are networked giving the Knotts’ crew the ability to interface with other show systems. Custom Lua scripts enable the Q-Sys cores to serve in both network, distributed audio and show control functions with UDP commands sent and received from lighting, video and animatronic controllers. Additionally, GPIO on Q-Sys and other the systems provide further interface capabilities for nearly unlimited control options.

The Black Magic Maze is a prime example of how Q-Sys can simultaneously provide both distributed audio and show control. Inside the maze, talent unknowingly triggers a switch which in turn activates a network solid state video player that sends a UDP command out to the network. Custom script decodes the packets sent by the player, and generate control within Q-Sys prompting audio cues that play directly off of the Core 500i. The core also sends UDP commands to the lighting, video, and animatronics controllers to start running their pre-programed cues. What guests experience are the magic of dimming lights, the swelling of audio and a crystal ball, key to the attraction’s story line, which comes to life and begins changing colour.

In addition to the Core 500i processors, Knott’s is using QSC CXD-Q, PowerLight and CX amplifiers to drive a variety of loudspeakers including QSC AcousticDesign AD-S52T and AD-S32T surface mount models.

“QSC solutions from the Q-Sys cores down to the loudspeakers gives us the performance and flexibility to do just about anything we want from a sound design and show control perspective,” said Lawrence. “Our previous gear was and still is fantastic for what it does and we still use some of it in a few attractions, but there were limitations. With Q-Sys we don’t worry about limitations because it can do it all; imagination and desire is really now our only limitation.” www.qsc.com

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H OUSE O F DA NCI NG WAT E R Company: Riedel Location: Macau, China Riedel’s Artist digital matrix intercom system is being used for communications throughout the House of Dancing Water, a breathtaking in-the-round water show created by the Franco Dragone Entertainment Group for Macau’s City of Dreams entertainment complex.

“The Riedel solution was originally specified by the Sound Designer, Francois Bergeron of the Thinkwell Group in the US,” said Jason Graham, Head of Sound at Dragone Macau. “We continue to work with Riedel’s Artist primarily for its reliability, stability, and seemingly limitless flexibility. All of these factors are important due to the integral role the system plays in uniting everyone who is working on the show.”

Designed by Pei Partnership Architects, the state-of-the-art Dancing Water Theatre created for the House of Dancing Water includes a stage pool that holds a record-breaking 3.7m gallons of water, equivalent to five Olympic-sized swimming pools, within an arena boasting a 40-metre-high steel-trussed space that provides the generous height required for the show’s diving and acrobatics elements. The show itself centres on an epic love story and spectacular journey through time, showcasing dazzling costumes, special effects, and performances.

One Riedel Artist 64 frame and two Artist 32 frames support 62 panels distributed across the Dancing Water Theatre. The motocross stunt riders and acrobatic per-

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formers, coupled with the technical teams, use the Artist intercom system for continual communication during the show, which features visuals, water, and atmospheric effects. Even in the aquatics area, the Artist system supports communications with performers and underwater performer handlers in the pool via underwater loudspeakers, in-mask communications systems, and buddy phones. Lighting, stage management, rigging, automation, special effects and audio technicians use the remaining bulk of the panels.

Riedel’s Director software enables intuitive management and configuration of the system while also facilitating real-time system monitoring from multiple computers.

Monitored by the sound department, the Director software gives the sound team the ability to respond to configuration requests and to perform troubleshooting at a moment’s notice.

“Our Artist intercom system delivers the exceptional versatility and performance required in the most demanding and complex live production environments,” said Hans Chia, Rental Operations Manager at Riedel. “The House of Dancing Water is no exception. The Artist provides the clear, reliable communications that are essential in orchestrating this ambitious live show.” www.riedel.net

SUPPORT THAT MATTERS

D IGGERL A ND Company: Community Location: New Jersey, USA Diggerland is a unique construction-themed adventure park with four locations in the UK and a new Diggerland park in New Jersey, USA. Visitors can ride on and operate construction machinery, play arcade games and hold birthday parties at the park.

Diggerland USA’s large 14-acre site, with varying ambient noise levels and its combination of outdoor, indoor and covered open-air areas, presented challenges to Spellcaster Productions of Hammonton, the company which designed and installed the park’s audio systems. Spellcaster met these challenges with a design based on Community R Series loudspeakers for the outdoor areas and D Series pendant and ceiling loudspeakers for the indoor and open-air areas.

Spellcaster’s Mike Shafer said: “Looking at the vast areas I had to cover outdoors, I immediately thought of Community’s R Series.” He chose R.15COAX loudspeakers for the outdoor short-throw, fill and walkway areas and R.35-3896 three-way loudspeakers for the long-throw applications.

Diggerland USA’s indoor spaces have dropped ceilings with very little space between the ceiling and the roof deck. Mike used Community’s D4LP four-inch, low-profile ceiling loudspeakers which fit in the restricted space and left room for wiring. For the covered open-area spaces such as the games arcade, he used DP6 pendant loudspeakers, which brought the sound down below the ceiling beams and vibration isolated the loudspeakers from the metal roof. The overall park loudspeaker system is a 70-volt distributed design that used over 12,000 feet of loudspeaker cable.

Spellcaster used Ashly amplifiers and an Ashly NE24.24M DSP to manage the park audio systems. They added a park-wide Wi-Fi system that allows Diggerland USA technical personnel to adjust the audio systems from any point in the park with an iPad. Spellcaster also integrated the audio system with the park’s CCTV cameras and security systems.

Diggerland USA plays music and advertising messages over their audio system with a live DJ for special events. Paging is available from any park telephone and Shure wireless mics are available for parties and other special events. Mike stated: “The park’s audio systems are everything we expected. The music sounds great and the voice paging is loud and clear.” www.communitypro.com

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WHEN SAFETY COUNTS YOU CAN RELY ON PROLYTE TO PERFORM Prolyte manufactures carefully engineered products supported by a wealth of specialist knowledge, practical experience and user feedback. The company is passionate about improving standards and actively promotes the transfer of information to increase awareness of safe working practices.

Compliance with the strictest standards and regulations, rigorous quality control, publication of technical data and the Prolyte Campus training program sets Prolyte apart from the crowd. Because safety matters.

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CIN EC I TTÀ WOR L D Company: K-array Location: Rome, Italy

Cinecittà, one of Rome’s premiere film studios, has long been seen as the home of Italian cinema. The studio has hosted many major Italian productions as well as Hollywood films, and recently the studio opened its own theme park, to celebrate the glories of Italian cinema, past and present.

Cinecittà World is not only a celebration of The Golden Age of Cinecittà, it is also a fully-functioning amusement park, complete with roller coasters, water-rides and cinema style, immersive experiences, inspired by classic Italian cinema and designed by three-time Academy Award winner Dante Ferretti, with a soundtrack by celebrated composer, Ennio Morricone.

Among many of the new and exciting rides at Cinecittà World, the Dark Sea ride brings Dante Alighieri’s Inferno to life in the form of a adrenaline-pumping rollercoaster ride for all the family. The Dark Sea ride culminates in a vertical free-fall of 20-metres and uses imaginative visuals to create a stunning interpretation of Dante’s inferno. However, audio was just as important in generating that all-important ‘fear factor’ behind the ride.

“For the sound equipment in the Dark Sea ride we chose K-array,” explained Tom-

maso Geraci from Unità C1, the company that designed and built the installation.

“We chose the K-array because it is a brand known for producing the quality directivity and compact size that would be dynamic enough for our ambitious ride design.

“Each section of the ride is designed scene by scene and it was important to direct sound with precision and power. Spectators in the cars are guided through this dark and mysterious world full, where sensors trigger new scenes throughout the ride.

The sound is used to surprise, build suspense and create a life-like atmosphere to accompany the visual aspects, to create the complete experience of Dante’s hell.”

The scene that required greatest attention was the free fall which concludes the journey. It was difficult to direct the sound towards the audience as they are hanging from the top of the ride. To accompany the giant visual in front of the audience before they plummet 20-metres below, the sound had to be powerful enough to run right throughout the audience. The loudspeakers were positioned above the audience, meaning there are no reflections below them, so the fear was created through the power of sound. www.k-array.com

S A N D CA S T L E Company: APart Audio Location: Blackpool, UK The Sandcastle, Blackpool, UK, one of the largest indoor water parks in the country, has recently received an audio upgrade by adding APart Audio MASK6T cabinet loudspeakers powered by REVAMP4240T four-channel digital power amplifiers.

The Sandcastle water park has lots of wet zones where large barrels fill with water and then cascades down the slides. The audio playback is primarily sound effects like thunderstorms, ambient sounds, jungle music. The environment is very humid, which is why the APart Audio MASK6T loudspeakers were deemed the best product for the job. www.apart-audio.com

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HATFIELD -D OW L I N CO M P L E X Company: Biamp Location: Oregon, USA As collegiate sports environments begin to reach higher competition levels, university athletic programs have started to invest in new areas affecting both athletes and the greater success of their sporting organisations. Traditional athletic practices such are now being complemented with new assets such as contemporary wellness programs and state-of-the-art medical centres designed to create closer communities where player synergy can thrive. As a result of this approach, university sports programs have been forced to rethink the programs, strategies, and the facilities where they prepare and educate players both on and off the field.

At the centre of this transformation is the availability of new technology. Athletic facilities are turning sports programs into experiences, which are better equipped to handle the extreme competition of university-level sports. Smarter building construction, larger-than-life video, and thundering audio capabilities available via integrated systems are the new backbone of these facilities.

Leading this new wave of forward-thinking facility development is the University of Oregon’s Hatfield-Dowlin Complex. The centre boasts technology and training capabilities, which rival the amenities provided to leading professional athletes. Designed specifically for the university’s Ducks football program, the new 145,000 sq ft structure includes a 170-seat theatre, 5,000 sq ft weight room, dedicated cafeteria, locker rooms, lounges, meeting rooms, and much more.

Founded in 1876, University of Oregon was seeking to cement its legacy as a premiere learning institution while turning the sports centre into a tremendous athletic force. To turn the University of Oregon’s world-class vision into reality, project staff employed a leading team of architects, designers, and integration firms. When it came to specific systems and components to support the football facility’s grand design, systems integrator CompView was selected to implement the audio and video solutions that would bring the new football complex to life.

As part of the team’s objective to keep athletes in top shape, the new weight room - an impressive two-story area of 25,000 sq ft overlooking practice fields - was equipped with the most advanced weight-training and strengthening gear available.

To motivate players and bring an extra level of intensity to their workouts, CompView implemented Biamp’s AudiaFLEX digital audio platform to provide the bass-pounding audio that inspires players during their workouts.

To help the coaching staff educate players about the game and their performance, a network of digital signage panels, video walls, and projectors span across the facility’s many meeting places. Supported by a combination of Biamp’s Nexia networking products and AudiaFLEX units, the system provides the flexible audio output capabilities and digital signal processing power required for ensuring that all audio and background music is provided with utmost clarity and strength across the complex - fully engaging players for learning or training situations. Furthermore, the Biamp audio solution allows coaches to speak to players via wireless microphones to

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accommodate impromptu meetings anytime, anyplace.

For their outside practice field, where the Oregon Ducks put their strategic sessions and training plans into play, coaching staff were looking to recreate the same raucous stadium ambiance that is experienced during tense game-time situations.

This meant replicating crowd noise in volumes of up to 115 decibels, System Specifics specifically addressing the field’s surrounding structural challenges, which caused sound reflections from buildings in the vicinity. To overcome this hurdle, CompView once again turned to Biamp’s AudiaFLEX platform to provide both the audio capabilities and flexibility to adjust sound properties until the audio quality was just right. Running on CobraNet, AudiaFLEX also allows the university’s audiovisual staff to control and adjust sound properties within the practice field and throughout the entire facility from multiple points, including the centre’s state-of-the-art main control room.

To ensure effective recruiting and allow coaches to engage with off-premise staff members, a cutting-edge video conferencing room was built. Biamp’s Nexia CS digital signal processor was implemented to allow participants to link up to 10 mic / line inputs and six mic / line outputs in addition to a variety of audio processing features that enabled the integrator to counter audio challenges related to the room’s hard, flat surfaces. As a result, the coaching staff experiences crystal-clear audio when collaborating with other universities via conference calls or interviewing potential students despite the room’s reverberant design materials.

To create a greater sense of community, players and coaches have access to common areas within the complex where they can gather during downtime. This includes a players’ lounge where teammates can rest, recuperate, and relax by enjoying a game of pool, foosball, or console gaming. Complementing the experience is full connectivity to the facility’s main Biamp-powered audio system, which allows players and guests to listen to background music and remain informed of special announcements from coaching personnel without audio compromises caused by the space’s surrounding glass walls.

“A football training facility of this scale in both size and technology requirements has never been assembled for collegiate sports,” said Eric Boyd, Systems Integration Manager for CompView Audio Visual Solutions and Support. “Designed to be the most impressive installation from day one, UO had free reign to select the best systems and equipment for the centre. When it came to specifying audio equipment to balance the facility’s structural, design, and application-based requirements, we went straight to Biamp. No other provider of commercial audio systems delivers the combination of high-level performance and flexibility that we needed to keep up with the high standards of such an extraordinary installation.” www.biamp.com

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C H I M E LO N G I N TER N ATION AL C I RC U S Company: GTD Location: Guangzhou, China The Chimelong International Circus is one of the world’s largest permanent circuses, and has mesmerised more than 10 million guests in its colourful and modern circus arena. Millions of dollars are invested in scenic design to create this spectacular, showcasing amazing performances by 300 award-winning performers from over 20 countries in Asia, Europe, America and Africa, along with 500 animals of 40 different species. The performances, stage, settings, costume design and lighting are all considered to be some of the best in the business.

Lighting has always been one of the undoubted highlights of Chimelong’s circus performance, as the way in which the stage is lit has a considerable impact on how the audience perceives the show. To live up to its international reputation as a worldclass circus stage, the company has recently undergone a substantial upgrading of its lighting equipment and design, a significant project for which they have partnered up with GTD lighting. More than a hundred sets of GTD-330II Beams were installed to accentuate the magic journey.

Fairies, clowns, wizards and magic jungles - this captivating fantasy world was brought to life by the striking effect produced by GTD-330II Beams, which were chosen for their brightness, flexibility, preciseness and stability. “The GTD-330II Beam features a 24-facet prism and two gobo wheels, and adopted a more complicated technique compared to 230II Beams to deliver a tight and punchy beam effect. It’s extremely bright and versatile, perfect for a circus stage like Chimelong’s as it requires the fixtures to generate different combinations while still ensure visual consistency based on the storyline,” said Chief Engineer, Lang Li. The overall dramatic impact of some of the most exhilarating stunts such as the flaming and spinning wheels, Romance in the Sky, and the Ball of Death in which two men chasing on a motorcycle are reinforced by Chimelong’s innovative design and programming of lights.

“Another important aspect of the upgrading project was exploring the possibilities to generate more effects appropriate to the story’s context as the staging setting is non-realistic. The luminaries lighting up the circus stage are distributed in a way that they enhance various mood, such as mysterious, dramatic, serene, nerve-racking,” said Lang. This successful upgrading has earned the company wide acclaim as worldwide audience marvelled at the amazing spectacular. www.gtd-china.com

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VOLVO MUSE UM Company: LDR Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

BUTL IN S Company: Le Maitre Location: Bognor Regis, UK The Discovery Studio at the Butlins Bognor Regis has recently received an inventory injection of pyrotechnics and special effects from Le Maitre. The venue seats up to 225 people, and is kitted out with the latest in 3D technology, LED lighting, and professional sound equipment all of which are fully automated.

Operators, Bourne Leisure approached Le Maitre to help make the interactive show experiences hosted in the studio even more appealing to their audiences and pyrotechnics. Le Maitre’s Theatrical Flashes are now featured in both the Inventive Science and Discover Magic shows.

Andrew Sugg, Technical Manager for Bourne Leisure, said: “At Butlins we are continually looking at how to enhance our productions and exceed the expectations of our guests, the use of pyrotechnics within shows helps us achieve this. The use of Le Maitre effects especially within the Discovery Studio adds another dimension to our performances and never fails to bring smiles to our guests faces after being surprised by a loud bang. The service that Le Maitre offer has been exceptional, they are always happy to demo products and give professional advice which for us is of huge value when planning productions.” www.lemaitreltd.com

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At the Volvo Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden visitors can take a trip through Volvo’s unique history and heritage, from its inception in 1920’s Gothenburg through to the present day, which has made it one of the main attractions for more than 100,000 tourists visiting the city from around the world.

With the aim of sustaining the works on display, the museum has dedicated a new 2,000 sq metre pavilion to the ‘Life at Extreme’ exhibition, focusing on the Volvo Ocean Race and the Volvo Golf. The museum paid particular attention to the lighting of the exhibition, in order to highlight the aesthetic of the pieces on display.

With a view to integrate the lighting system into the building’s existing architecture, the lighting project was commissioned to Mediatec, one of Europe’s largest corporations specialising AVL integrated solutions.

Bellalite, the exclusive distributor of the LDR’s range for Sweden, provide local support to Mediatec, supplying to the museum the right mix of floodlights, fresnels and profiles luminaires and contributing at the success of the museum. Bellalite’s Leif Lundgren said: “Our company is known for providing high quality service and great product to the Swedish market. The Volvo Museum is an important addition to the existing portfolio of architectural installations made in Sweden from Bellalite using the LDR architectural range.”

“It was a challenging architectural project since we had to provide an answer to different needs with one unique solution,” commented LDR’s Fabiano Besio. “The performances of the CDM lamp coupled with a build in ballast and compact stylish Italian design drive the choice of the architects.

“Our theatre background and passion for lighting was taken in into the architectural market with success. We are particularly proud of the results and the continued success is proving that we made the right choice. Our special thanks goes to the company Mediatec and Bellalite and to all the people involved with this project.” www.ldr.it

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V ICTOR I A & A L B E R T M U S E U M Company: ETC Location: London, UK

Image courtesy of Ed Reeve

When lighting designer Amarasri Songcharoen - aka Marci Song - of Seam Design was looking for the best lighting fixtures to light the 500 year old Raphael Cartoons - a series of large artworks by Rafael on display in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum - she knew she needed something special. As part of the Precision & Poetry in Motion exhibition, design agency Barber Osgerby developed a system of two giant mirrored aeronautical ‘wings’, which were suspended in the room and would slowly rotate on motors, altering the reflections of the Raphael Cartoons as they did.

To light the artworks, she used 16 ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr fixtures, controlled by an ETC Ion control desk. “We were asked to provide a lighting strategy and design for the room and of the sculpture to reveal the Barber Osgerby sculpture in its best light,” said Marci. “We also had to pay careful consideration to providing appropriate light sources and light levels for priceless art pieces, which are on loan from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.” The sculpture’s wings were clad with a highly polished mirror finish. Marci said that the best lit effect was to light the elements surrounding it, rather than lighting the piece itself - but since the floating objects occupied most of the view to the ceiling, the existing high level lights for the artworks would be blocked periodically, making them unsuitable for this installation.

Seam Design’s proposal therefore involved a completely new system for lighting the room, using striking illumination to the Raphael Cartoons and a dramatic wash to the floor. The cartoons are then reflected on the wings above them, so that they can be seen by the people standing underneath. “Through its slow rotations,” described Marci. “The sculpture is disorientating and mesmerising, emerging from high level in an uncanny way. The dramatic light enhances these experiences.”

There was very little clearance between the wings and the face of the artworks’

surfaces. They therefore needed a product capable of very wide beam throw that still allowed for an ability to control light spill to the walls – plus, with ultraviolet light being a danger to artwork, they needed a low or zero UV fixture, making LED the obvious choice.

“ETC’s Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr with a 90º lens tethered to an ETC Ion desk met all of our requirements,” explained Marci. “We were able to shutter and frame the light to enhance the artwork. The success of the lighting scheme is that the polished wings rely heavily on the illumination of the cartoons and the floor to be perceived. In the intimate darkness of the room with focused light taking your attention to the artwork, the sculpture becomes very mysterious - almost imperceptible until they catch the light and reflections illuminate their surfaces. This is an incredible dimension to add to the experience of the installation, which is an epic feat of engineering in its own right and exhibits attributes entirely beyond its impressiveness as a machine.”

Seam Design worked closely with ETC and Hawthorns, which installed the lighting and helped to program the colour tuning and settings. The fixtures were set to a very warm 2,600º colour temperature - the colour of candlelight - helping the Cartoons appear almost like tapestries as they may have looked in the 16th Century.

“ETC and Hawthorns were very responsive, particularly on a fast track install of two weeks with schedules changing day to day as we were getting near the opening,” concluded Marci. “They were amazing teams to work with. And we heard that the museum likes it so much that there was talk to make the fixtures part of a permanent installation for the gallery.” www.etcconnect.com

T H E F E S T I VA L OF LIGH T Company: LPS-Lasersysteme Location: Berlin, Germany The Festival of Light in Berlin, Germany used projections with laser show and video technology, as well as spotlights and fireworks to highlight landmarks and focal points in the German capital.

Among the several dozen illuminated sights, was well-known shopping mall, Das Schloss, and it was a true laser spectacular created by LPS-Lasersysteme and PMD-ART using Reals show laser system. Visitors to the department store were tracked, and taken briefly from the everyday shopping events into an interactive game with lasers in real time. Reals offers immediate possibilities for unique, interactive light and laser effects, so this sophisticated laser interaction provided a true wow factor at the department store. www.lps-laser.com

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L .A. LIV E D I STR I CT Company: Griven Location: Los Angeles, USA

The L.A. Live District is a huge amusement structure located on a 27-acre site and features an array of entertainment venues, retail, commercial and residential spaces and it recently underwent a lighting make-over.

After years of running the traditional rotating four head searchlight fixtures, AEG’s Paul Flanagan, Director of Engineering wanted to come up with something more dramatic but a lot less maintenance. He called upon industry veteran Brian Konechny (now at Solotech) to help. “Instead of just more of the same, we wanted to make sure we got a ‘wow factor’ with this install,” said Brian. The Griven unit has less moving parts than typical fixtures, so reliability is great and with being able to program synchronized patterns via DMX, make the lights even more dramatic.”

Specified and supplied by Solotech, the 40 units of the Griven narrow single beam searchlight Imperial are located either on the roofs or at the base of all the buildings that form the L.A. Live District. Their high reflectivity optics and precision focus setting ensure a superbly bright, perfect light beam visible at distances of kilometres.

Griven stepped up and made some custom modifications that made the installation and control straightforward. All of the fixtures are controlled and programmed on an Interactive Technologies Cue Server and through a selection of Pathway DMX nodes.

After the recent implementation of this lighting system, the L.A. Live District now looks as if wrapped up in a geometric pattern of glittering, powerful beams of light reflecting, in a skyward-pointing sparkling mesh of light, the inventive, forward-looking design that has always been the foundation of LA’s reputation as a centre for cutting-edge architecture and illumination. www.griven.com

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Image © Batwin + Robin Productions

NATURE R E SEA R CH C E N T E R Company: Electrosonic Location: Los Angeles, USA

Photo: batwin + robin productions

The Nature Research Center (NRC) wing of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences dazzled visitors at its recent opening with its array of unique interactive exhibits and experiences featuring audio-visual systems by Electrosonic.

Its new, 80,000 sq ft Nature Research Center offers state-of-the-art labs, research opportunities, interactive exhibits and live presentations designed to make science a tangible and fun experience that helps visitors understand the practical applications of science in their everyday lives. Small Design Firm was charged with designing the interactives; Batwin & Robin Productions was the content producer.

Electrosonic’s design consulting team was involved throughout the project from the concept to the grand opening. “We represented the client’s interests making sure that the approach, the systems’ look and feel, and the integration all came together as planned,” said Yiannis Cabolis, Electrosonic’s Design Consultant. “Over the course of five years on the job, there were many changes in the audiovisual world, and the systems themselves evolved. We interfaced with manufacturers and strategic partners to get a good picture of what we could expect to see by installation time.” Cabolis also worked closely with exhibit designer Andrew Merriell & Associates and lead designer Rebecca Shreckengast.

During the course of the extensive build, the most challenging aspect for Electrosonic proved to be the SECU Daily Planet, a globe-shaped structure cantilevered onto the building and spanning the three-story wing. The Daily Planet is an immer-

sive multimedia theatre with a 40ft by 40ft high-definition screen, which offers a massive visual canvas to visitors on all three floors. In its ambient mode, it presents spectacular scenes from nature through a variety of pre-recorded video content and random imagery. In its presentation mode, it serves as a backdrop to scientists making daily live presentations on topics as diverse as excavating dinosaur fossils, tracking baboons in Kenya or exploring beyond the solar system.

Electrosonic supplied six Christie WU12K-M series three-chip DLP digital projectors for maximum brightness and resolution on the Daily Planet’s 40ft by 40ft HD screen. Four of the projectors provide the blend for the bottom and middle of the screen and two for the upper portion. Four Barco DL3 moving digital light engines paint images on the bands of the screens located between the three floors. All of the projectors operate in ambient and presentation modes; Batwin & Robin Productions created the ambient content.

Four Delta high-resolution uncompressed media servers from 7thSense Design, which were specifically configured for the project, feed the projectors, TV / radio outputs and preview / confidence monitors. The media servers also handle all warping, blending and colour balancing. A multi-channel SoundMan server with CobraNet audio output distributed sound and shared DSP capabilities with MediaMatrix Nion-N3 processors to deliver audio to the Daily Planet and throughout the facility. www.electrosonic.com

Complete Audio Visual Solutions

OUR

• Technical Design • Systems Integration • Service & Maintenance • Global Reach

The Nature Research Center at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

+44.1322.222211 | info@electrosonic.com | electrosonic.com

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MOVIE WOR L D Company: ULA Group Location: Gold Coast, Australia Village Roadshow theme parks have recently installed several new video displays across its Movie World park on the Gold Coast, turning to distributor, ULA to provide a solution.

The first was a customised video sign for the new Green Lantern rollercoaster, designed and installed more than 20-metres above the ground, illuminating the whole car park and surrounds in the night.

The Green Lantern sign is almost seven metres high, built of specially designed LED modules of different sizes and shapes. The extra bright green LEDs were specified to be constantly working during both day and night and persist in high humidity and severe weather conditions.

Next, a VuePix L Series 10mm LED screen was installed at the end of the Main Street precinct inside the Movie World complex to replace the previous 16mm screen. The screen is utilised in various applications throughout the day, from

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broadcasting the classic looney tunes cartoon hits as patrons gather for lunch in the main square, to live camera feeds from the park as the well known Warner Brothers Characters interact with the families and friends inside the park.

The L10 LED screen installation at Movie World was configured in a 16:9 widescreen format, consisting of 50 panels making up a total screen area of 23 sq metres. The control consists of a VuePix Sender unit which is fed from various video playback and switching sources within the main street control room.

Additionally, Movie World has also added to its lighting inventory, again supplied by ULA, which distributes the products in the region. The new fixtures include 26 Robe LEDWash 300 moving heads, 12 Robe DLX LED Spots, two Robe Scan 575 XT scanners, 18 Anolis Arcpad48 lighting battens, as well as four Lumen Radio Nova Flex units and 11 Lumen Radio receivers. www.ulagroup.com

Linkin Park

Tater POOCH

McCarthy Van Druten

SD7

“

An Arresting Combination.

The next generation of digital sound engineering is here, in the form of the stunning SD7 Live Digital Console Featuring Super FPGA and Floating Point Stealth Technology, exclusive to DiGiCo, the performance results are

After seven years of using the same gear, we decided we were going to make a sound upgrade. What we didn’t realize was just how significant the upgrade would turn out to be at FOH and in ear mixes. The SD7 is an amazing tool. The sonic quality, and user interface are unmatched. Moving forward, our feet are no longer on the brakes. In terms of creativity and snapshot control, the SD7 is the formula one car of consoles.

- Ken ‘Pooch’ Van Druten

”

exceptional. And, you don’t just have to take our word for it, when coupled with the talented Ken Pooch Van Druten and Kevin Tater McCarthy, live mixing is taken to a whole new level.

DiGiCo SD7: Criminally Good.

www.digico.biz DiGiCo UK Ltd. Unit 10 Silverglade Business Park, Leatherhead Road, Chessington, Surrey KT9 2QL. Tel: +44 (0) 1372 845600

Linken Park SD7 Mondo 4-11-14.indd 1

04/11/2014 13:21

IN FOCUS EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA A BRITISH AWAKENING, ENGLAND

THE AMERICAS SIN CITY REVIVAL, LAS VEGAS

ASIA/PACIFIC/OCEANIA AKIHA WARD CULTURAL CENTRE, NIIGATI CITY MS COLLINS, MELBOURNE INCHEON ASIAD MAIN STADIUM, INCHEON CANBERRA AIRPORT, CANBERRA

We bring you not one, but two venue round-ups this issue from both sides of the pond. The first one from our motherland, where there’s been a flurry of activity in our world recently. Next, Helen reports back from her trip to the States early this summer. To finish up, the APAC region delivers four very different installs, a concert hall written by Simon Duff - a bar / club, a stadium and an airport.

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A BRITISH AWAKENING ENGLAND, UK

EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA BROOKLYN BOWL LONDON Following in the footsteps of its hipster Williamsburg big brother, Brooklyn Bowl London (BBL) is aiming to completely redefine the destination entertainment experience and turn the world of tenpin bowling on its head.

With the Brooklyn Bowl concept born through a collaboration between New York promoter / club owner, Peter Shapiro and AEG, this newest entertainment venue at the O2 Arena integrates a premier performance venue, food by famous New York restaurant Blue Ribbon, bars serving local craft beers, and 12 bowling lanes.

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All three elements - live music, food and bowling - effortlessly blend into one another, food from the restaurant is served on the lanes, audio from the gig travels through into the restaurant, and the gig and bowling areas are interconnected.

Helping the venue come to life and run as smooth as a well oiled machine, is approximately £1m worth of technology - audio, lighting, video - you name it and BBL’s got it. Due to this massive amount of technology infrastructure at BBL, it was paramount that the owners worked with a systems integrator that had a rounded knowledge of all three elements, which is where UK-based Stage Electrics comes in. Having won the contract in April 2013, work started in the July with the company’s Ian Dunne and Darren Beckley working tirelessly to an intense deadline to get the venue open by January of this year.

“We had a very tightly worked out construction period,” Darren told

VENUE 059

mondo*dr. “All the really important elements were sorted out at the beginning and we had some preconceived contingency plans in place, as we recognise that while we’re confident in our capabilities, we’re not always in charge of our own destinies when we’re on construction.”

“It was challenging,” added Ian. “But at the same time it felt like there was a different attitude towards the project - a lot of people involved bought into what was trying to be achieved.”

The idea was that the London venue would be a direct replica of the Brooklyn site. One of the key elements worth noting however is that the NYC venue finds its home in an old warehouse and has a rustic, exposed feel to it with lots of brickwork on show along with an emphasis on distressed metal work. So, when working within the O2, which is essentially a massive tent, the architects had to create this environment and essentially build a ‘set’ in order to replicate the vibe of Brooklyn.

“What is interesting about working within the O2 is that because of the way the structure is built it has these interesting metal columns that fly into the space in a weird diagonal plane and you can’t do any-

thing with them, you have to work around them,” said Darren. “This has meant that in between a couple of the bowling lanes there are these massive structural pillars but it actually works really well. I was sceptical at first but the architects have really managed to pull it off.

“The brief changed quite a bit over time but the one thing that remained was that it needed to look very much like the venue in Brooklyn,” continued Darren. “The venue was challenging because there’s lots of displayed video included and one of the key technical features is at the end of each bowling lane, in the form of some really big format projection display systems.

“Then you’ve got the main gig area, which is a proper full-scale gig venue with big trusses over the top of the dance space and stage, all featuring lots of moving heads, LEDs and a big d&b audiotechnik PA system.”

At the helm of the technology on a day-to-day basis is Production Manager, Pete Webber. With a background in sound engineering, Pete was brought on board in the November before opening after meeting with Ray Duhaney, (now departed) Operations Director for Brooklyn Bowl and then Peter Shapiro and Jon Dindas, Global

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Production boss for the group.

Pete told mondo*dr: “Having toured around the UK and seen what a lot of venues have to offer, for a venue of its size, to my mind, BBL is the best sounding PA in the country - it really is something else.”

The main PA system consists of 12 d&b audiotechnik V12i loudspeakers - six each side of the stage on a d&b audiotechnik V Flying Frame. The centre fill comes from two d&b audiotechnik Q1i loudspeakers with side and lane fill provided by four d&b audiotechnik Qi7 loudspeakers and two Q7 loudspeakers, while bass is courtesy of four d&b audiotechnik J-Sub subwoofers under the stage. Power for the system is supplied by eight d&b audiotechnik D12 amplifiers, four D12 amplifiers and eight D6 amplifiers, along with a d&b audiotechnik Remote Network control interface. On stage there are 10 d&b audiotechnik M6 loudspeakers used for monitors and a range of microphones available from AKG, beyerdynamic, Sennheiser and Shure. At FOH there is an Avid Venue Profile system and an Avid Venue SC48 remote system used for monitors.

“I’ve only ever seen processing brought in once,” said Pete, “as it sounds really good. The room has two characteristics to it - the mix position is slightly elevated off centre to the right and like any room you know there’s a dip here and a dip there and you need to compensate for that. We lose about 3dB of sub in the mix position from the floor and there’s a slight peak at 2.7K but that’s it - for a newly built room, that’s incredible.”

Vanguardia Consultants specified a comprehensive acoustic treatment for the room and as such there is extensive sound deadening materials lining most of the walls. “Even though the space is quite open and vast the sound is quite concentrated into one area,” said Ian. “You know what’s clever about it - and this is again, down to Vanguardia,” added Pete, “is the choice of V12i boxes, which have 120º dispersion angles so those lower parts of the array hang cover the bar without necessarily needing enough power to destroy the restaurant atmosphere or throwing too far out into the lobby.”

“We had quite lengthy discussions with Vanguardia and d&b with regard to where the first cabinets should be located,” continued Ian. “We found that if we raised them up so the first two cabinets were higher than the side bulkhead it didn’t cause that much reflection because of the acoustic lining and then because of where the bottom cabinets are, it allowed good dispersion across the rest of the room.”

As well as the main PA, there is a fully distributed zoned Tannoy audio system covering the whole of the venue. There are eight zones and everything volume controls and mutes independently so that lower levels are available in the restaurant and so on.

“There’s a lot of power consumed by the PA and it’s an expensive system so if we can leave the Profile and SC48, all the amplifiers and

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everything else off, then we save power, which is great as we don’t have gigs every night yet. The distributed system works really well for corporate stuff as well, which we’ve been getting a lot of recently.”

There are 33 Tannoy VX12 loudspeakers at BBL, which are powered by four Lab.gruppen c88:4 amplifiers and processed by a BSS Soundweb London BSS BLU-100 12x8 signal processor.

“When you’re working with people who want to walk around the room or stand in front of a screen showing a power point presentation, using the Tannoy loudspeakers that are directly above them is the easiest thing in the world,” said Pete. “Rather than having the person stood in front of a big PA system. It works really well and you can send it everywhere.”

For DJ monitors there are two d&b audiotechnik E12-D loudspeakers, powered by a d&b audiotechnik D6 amplifier and a d&b audiotechnik E15X-Sub subwoofer for bass. DJ equipment covers all bases at BBL and should it be required, artists can choose from a pair of reconditioned Technics SL1210 Mk2 turntables; a pair of Technics SL120 Mk5 turntables; two Pioneer CDJ-2000 multimedia players; two Pioneer DVJ-1000 CD/DVD turntables; one Pioneer DJM-2000 mixer; a Rane TTM56 mixer; a Rane SL3 Serato Live interface; and a Tracktor Audio A10 Scratch set up.

Complementary production lighting is predominantly Chauvet Professional and 30 COLORado 1 IP LED 15º washlights form the bulk of the lighting rig. There are also 10 Chauvet Professional Q-Wash 560Z LED moving heads - a combination of six to 32º; four Q-Spot 560 LED 19º profile lights; six Intimidator Barrel LED 300 effect lights; eight Intimidator Scan LED 300 effect lights; four Ovation

TECHNICAL INFORMATION sound

12 x d&b audiotechnik V12i loudspeaker; 2 x d&b audiotechnik Q1i loudspeaker; d&b audiotechnik Qi7 loudspeaker; 2 x d&b audiotechnik Q7 loudspeaker; 4 x d&b audiotechnik J-Sub subwoofer; 10 x d&b audiotechnik M6 loudspeaker; 1 x d&b audiotechnik E15X-Sub subwoofer; 2 x d&B audiotechnik E12-D loudspeaker; 8 x d&b audiotechnik D12 NL4 amplifier; 4 x d&b audiotechnik D12 EP5 amplifier; 9 x d&b audiotechnik D6 amplifier; 1 x d&B audiotechnik Remote Network control interface; 33 x Tannoy VX12 loudspeaker; 4 x Lab.gruppen c88:4 amplifier; 1 x Lab.gruppen Nomad controller; 1 x BSS Soundweb London BLU100 12x8 configurable signal processor; 3 x BSS Soundweb London BLU10-BLK programmable controller for BLU Series; 1 x Avid Venue profile mixing console; 1 x Avid Venue SC48 remote mixing system; 2 x Technics 1210 MK2 (reconditioned) turntable; 2 x Technics SL1210 MK5 s (reconditioned) turntable; 2 x Pioneer DJ CDJ2000 multimedia player; 1 x Pioneer DJ DJV-1000 multimedia player; 1 x Pioneer DJ DJM-2000 mixer; 1 x Rane TTM56 mixer; 1 x Rane SL3 Serato Live mixer; 1 x Tracktor Audio A10 Scratch scratcher

LIGHTING

30 x Chauvet Professional COLORado 1 IP LED wash light; 10 x Chauvet Professional Q-Was 560Z LED moving head; 4 x Chauvet Professional Q-Spot 560 LED moving head; 6 x Chauvet Professional IntimBarrel LED 300 effect light; 8 x Chauvet IntimScan LED 300 effect light; Chauvet Professional Ovation F165 lighting fixture; 28 x Chauvet Professional Slim PAR64 LED light; 6 x Chauvet Professional Mega Strobe FX12 strobe light; 6 x Martin Professional MAC 350 Entour moving head; 6 x ETC Source Four Profile lighting fixture; 1 x MA Lighting grandMA 2 Light console; 1 x Zero88 dimmer; 6 x Loadguard Cat A chain hoist for stage truss; 1 x six-channel chain hoist controller and rigger remote

VIDEO

6 x Panasonic PT-DW830ELK projector; 1 x Panasoinc PT-DW870ELK HD projector; 1 x Christie HD-14K-M type C projector; 1 x Roland Systems Group V-800HD multi-format video switcher; 1 x Black Magic Ultrastudio 4K video software; 3 x Sony BRCZ700 remote camera london.brooklynbowl.com

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Imags by Stephen Leigh of Funky Feet Photography

F165 lighting fixtures and 28 SlimPAR64 LED RGB cans - all of which are DMX controlled.

“There are about 90 fixtures in total on the lighting rig and many are intelligent moving heads,” said Pete. “They’re all LED as well which makes them really energy efficient - another element that had to be factored in - the venue had to be green.”

Joining the Chauvet Professional fixtures are six Martin Professional MAC 350 Entour moving heads and six ETC Source Four Profile 50º lighting fixtures, all of which are controlled by an MA Lighting grandMA2 lighting console and a Zero88 dimmer.

As mentioned previously, video content makes up an important part of the BBL experience and the venue uses a production video mixing system. There are three Sony HD cameras used for the live music area, along with a Christie HD-14K-M projector and six Panasonic PT-DW830ELK projectors used for the rear wall bowling lanes. This is all used alongside a Roland V-800 HD multi-format video switcher and Black Magic Ultrastudio Thunderbolt video editor.

“This is where it gets really complex,” said Pete. “I’ve done a lot of work with Ian in the last nine months and we’ve got to a place now where the video set-up is a really good workhorse. We can record shows, cut together live on seven of the screens - there are six along the lanes, three 65-inch LCD screens (one each for the VIP, main bar and restaurant) and you can cut a gig together, record it to the Mac Pro, and play it back through the Black Magic system.”

BBL also has four Sky+ HD boxes, numerous MacBook Pros, a Blueray player and has the capability to send each source individually to any of the screens. Pete gave mondo*dr an example of just how sophisticated the system is: “One weekend we had the football showing in the bar with audio from Sky+ box No.1 going to the bar, then we had music over the general admission and dancefloor area, while lanes one and two had the football showing on their screens along with the audio. There were birthday parties in lanes four to nine so we put chart music on and cartoons and it was all controlled by an iPad. “Today’s audiences and music fans consume their music online and

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through live streams so we have to think about incorporating these elements,” he continued. “For example, earlier this year around the time of the Brit Awards we were involved with LoveLive and pop artist Conor Maynard on a live show that was being streamed. I was able to offer LoveLive use of our gallery alongside a small audiovisual rig of theirs, ring fence a 30MB line up and down through AEG and distribute all the right sound to all the right places; showing the gig in the venue, while LoveLive streamed it live out to YouTube. I don’t know anywhere else that straight off the bat can do that with the in-house gear.”

A live feed from the arena over to BBL can also be distributed throughout the venue and across all of the screens. “We did this with The Eagles gig and it was great,” said Pete. “It’s interesting to see high flyers in the industry coming round to the permission side of things for live streaming too.”

Reflecting on BBL and how it differs to others projects Stage Electrics has been involved in, Darren said: The output at BBL is completely different to anything we’ve ever done before - we’ve never installed a venue that has been used quite like this and I’ve never been in a venue quite like this either. It is so diverse in its operation requirements - it is so unique that a venue that has so many different levels of user interface, the design is such that complex operations can be carried out by relatively novice users to great effect.

Ian added to this, telling mondo*dr: “Working with different people such as Charlie and Peter Shapiro, you kind of get sucked into what they’re trying to achieve and they have this end goal which you become involved in and everyone was so passionate about what they were doing - there was no suit angle. If it was a venue nearer to where I live I would come as a customer.”

Having opened just 10 months ago, it is now down to BBL and all involved to draw the crowds out to the O2. So far, according to Pete, the venue has been fortunate and diligent in getting some big acts through the door - a lot has been done in a very short space of time and all signs are pointing to a bright future.

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ROYAL EXCHANGE Situated in the heart of Manchester, the Royal Exchange is one of the UK’s leading producing theatres. Once a busy financial trading floor at the centre of the cotton industry, it is now a vibrant cultural centre inspiring creative exchanges between artists, audiences and communities. The Royal Exchange nurtures outstanding creative talent in Manchester and attracts some of the most original artists and theatre makers in the country to present high quality classic plays and new writing to entertain, provoke and inspire.

When the theatre’s lighting department considered upgrading its lighting system throughout the hall, theatre, studio and rehearsal spaces, it was decided that LED lighting would be the way forward.

The tungsten fixtures installed in the hall and around the theatre in particular, were not the easiest to work around from a health and safety perspective due to their high positioning in the ceiling and there were also issues surrounding the amount of time it took to change the lamps. Fixtures that could generate the same amount of light but were going to remain fixed in place for a long period of time and didn’t need regular servicing were needed.

Having worked with Stage Electrics on previous projects, the Royal Exchange’s Head of Lighting, Richard Owen turned to the installation company once more - with initial consultations taking place with Davie Bell in 2006. The project was then taken over by Account Manager, Rob Beamer and Project Manager, Karl Formstone, who both worked closely with the theatre on design and specification.

The aim of phase one of the project, which completed in 2012, was to light the seven chandeliers, colonnade area and entrance way, in order to make the building more inviting to the general public.

“We wanted to project light out into St Ann’s Square in order to

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attract more attention and get people coming in,” Richard said.

“We worked closely with Richard to procure the most appropriate lighting fixtures and control solutions to fulfil his brief,” added Karl.

“This meant we had to carry out many on-site demos of various products as we have a wide portfolio of manufacturers that we work closely with, in order to offer the right solution.”

With the project taking a number of years to complete, technology advances meant revisiting the original brief on a number of occasions and adapting it to suit. Eventually it was decided that Pulsar Lighting was the preferred lighting product for the majority of the install, with additional product from ETC and Philips Selecon. Control systems were provided by Pharos and Stage Electrics’ in-house programming and commission team worked with Richard to configure the system to his vision.

“The idea behind the programming is that we are as self sufficient as possible and able to change the mood and feel of the lighting,” said Richard. “We are very aware that the lighting has to change season by season as we’re exposed to natural light and this changes the feel of the space. It would be too problematic to have a programmer come back each time. The Pharos system works really well because we’ve set it up so that it’s lead by timed and specific events we’ve put in place.”

The second phase of the project involved highlighting the exterior of the theatre and completed in August of this year. Initially, it was thought that the lighting would be used to further highlight the columns in the hall, but as time went on Richard and his team looked to something a bit more dramatic and it was decided the theatre itself would be brought to life with lighting.

At this time, the Royal Exchange was using a combination of the

ring

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new Pulsar Lighting LED fixtures specified in phase one of the project and older tungsten fixtures. Having looked at the work carried out so far and the amount of energy and money that was being saved, the theatre management made the decision to roll the LED lighting out across the entire hall.

“The major challenge was that we only had a three week period in which to install everything because of the theatre programme,” said Richard. “We’ve used a combination of Pulsar Lighting ChromaBeam 17’s, 33’s and ChromaFlood 100’s, 200’s, warm whites and RGB around the hall. We found the 100’s and the 200’s were the best products for lighting certain areas as quite a bit of light goes up into the hall domes. The 200 floods were also able to light from the top of the theatre into the domes.”

A combination of 39 Pulsar Lighting ChromaFlood 100 lighting fixtures and 15 Pulsar ChromaFlood 200 lighting fixtures have been used, along with four ChromaFlood 50’s; and then 34 ChromaBeam 17’s and 10 ChromaBeam 33’s. Around the theatre there are also 14 Philips Selecon PLFresnel 1 LED fixtures.

“With the ChromaBeams, we were looking for something very narrow to pick up the structure and the light along it,” continued Richard. “The best product we could find that wasn’t too blinding and too wide a beam angle was the ChromaBeam 17 - it has worked really well in the space and enhanced the metal structure of the theatre nicely.

As you walk around the hall at Royal Exchange it is noticeable that none of the lighting fixtures are hidden away, all are within plain view and bring a different element to the design. Richard explained: “It is very much the ethos of the theatre not to hide equipment away. The theatre is made of glass so everything is on view and quite often the lighting fixed outside it is directed in and helps to light the space - especially around the doorways - so there was never any need to try and hide the fixtures away.”

When it came to placement of the lighting fixtures, this also brought challenges for Richard and Stage Electrics. The theatre is made up of old piping and tubing that would normally be used on an oil rig, so nothing is a standard size. Add to this that the Royal Exchange is a listed building and you aren’t allowed to permanently fix anything to the hall walls, and you’ve got to get creative with your thinking.

“Thankfully because of the way the theatre works you can pretty much rig anything on it anywhere and so, through numerous conversations with Stage Electrics and Pulsar Lighting we manufactured a series of rings that we were able to put around the tubing and tighten up - these hold the lighting fixtures in place but also allow us to change the lighting positions very easily if needed.

“The lighting adds a very dramatic element to the way the theatre works and one of my aims and the design

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066 VENUE

brief, was to light different spaces of the hall depending on what was happening during different times of the day,” said Richard. “For example, during the evening the hall isn’t used as much so we light it in a way that the bar area is quite bright with a warm feel, while the rest of the hall is more saturated in colour and darker. We wanted to make it feel more intimate while adding a dramatic edge. By lighting the theatre with the Pulsar products we’ve been able to pick it out in a new and interesting way.”

As a final thought, Rob and Karl offered: “The Royal Exchange is a unique space that lends itself very well to this style of lighting. We formed a strong working relationship with Richard who instigated the majority of the design. Stage Electrics has a strong history of this type of architectural project, where we have designed and installed bespoke LED lighting using Pulsar fixtures. We are always keen on looking at ways of being kinder to the environment using low energy solutions that conform to our high standards.”

Completing the lighting upgrade, in the studio eight Philips Selecon PLFresnel1 LED luminaires have been installed, along with 12 ETC Source Four Mini 50º LED profiles and a Zero88 Chilli Pro 410i dimmer. For the rehearsal spaces 28 ETC Source Four Mini 36º profiles have been track mounted, along with six Philips Selecon Fresco LED floods, again with a Zero 88 Chilli Pro 410i dimmer.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION LIGHTING

34 x Pulsar Lighting ChromaBeam 17 lighting fixture; 10 x ChromaBeam 33 lighting fixture; 4 x Pulsar Lighting ChromaFlood 50 lighting fixture; 39 x Pulsar Lighting ChromaFlood 100 lighting fixture; 15 x Pulsar Lighting ChromaFlood 200 lighting fixture; 22 x Philips Selecon PL Fresnel 1 LED lighting fixture; 6 x Philips Selecon Fresco LED flood track lighting fixture; 12 x ETC Source Four Mini LED Gallery Profile lighting fixture; 2 x Zero88 Chilli Pro 4 dimmer; Pharos control system www.royalexchange.co.uk

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EVERYMAN THEATRE It would be practically impossible to overstate the importance of the Everyman Theatre to the city of Liverpool. To list the names of those whose careers are synonymous with it, would be to compile a who’s who of artistic giants, their ground-breaking work deeply embedded in the national psyche, their place at the top table of British cultural history assured. In the early 1960’s a group of artists, poets, writers and musicians who met at the then Hope Hall Cinema, decided that the building would make a good theatre and in 1964, the Everyman was born. Closed in 1975 for rebuilding, it reopened in 1977 and there followed 34 years that shaped the careers of Willy Russell, Alan Bleasdale, Julie Walters, Bernard Hill and Pete Postlethwaite to name a just a few. In 2011, the Everyman closed its doors again for a £28m redevelopment, funded for the most part by Arts Council England and The European Development fund. Architects Haworth Tompkins were responsible for the design of the new Everyman.

Shortly after its reopening in March 2014 the project won a highly-prized RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) award for NorthWest Region Building of the Year and was subsequently placed on a shortlist of six for the national award. By combining thermally massive

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construction with a series of natural ventilation systems and low-energy technical infrastructures, the building has achieved a BREEAM Excellent Rating (BREEAM being the world’s foremost environmental assessment method and rating system for buildings).

The 400-seater Everyman acts as a ‘creative hub’ for the city.

It boasts a dedicated youth and community space to house the theatre’s extensive and growing work with schools and community groups as well as rehearsal space and production workshops.

Housed in an award-winning, exciting, state-of-the-art building, the future of the Everyman looks well set to match its rich heritage.

Central to the redevelopment of the theatre was the appointment of leading theatre consultants Charcoalblue whose reputation for exciting innovation perfectly complemented the vision of the architects and the wishes of the Everyman’s own creative team. It can easily be seen that the origins of the project pointed towards something exceptional, where the bar would remain high from start to finish.

The ‘low energy technical infrastructures’ were key to the overall environmental picture, none more so than the provision for lighting and it was here that GDS entered the frame.

With a portfolio of award-winning and industry-leading products, GDS

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Image courtesy of Philip Vile

was a natural fit in such illustrious company. The brief of the entire project demanded the most stringently efficient use of energy in what was to become, to coin the architect’s phrase, a “densely inhabited urban building.” A back-catalogue of installations at similarly prestigious sites such as The Bristol Old Vic, The Savoy Theatre and The Eventim Hammersmith Apollo to mention but a few in the UK, served to emphasise the strength of the GDS brand and each of the creative teams involved specified its use. House lights, emergency lights and BluesSystem back stage working lights were all to be supplied by GDS and when the Everyman team further specified the employment of a GDS SMConsole and CueLight System, the first GDS full system theatre was created.

GDS ArcSystem was used for the house lights and emergency lighting throughout. Wirelessly controlled using GDS’ ArcMesh protocol, these highly efficient LEDs produce outstanding light quality whilst being fully dimmable from 100% - 0. Surface or recess mounted, single or multi-cellular and with optics offering a range of beam angles, they are convection cooled and run silently. In the Everyman Theatre more than 170 ArcSystem fixtures were installed. GDS BluesSystem was used in all working areas. This system, mounted directly onto electrical conduit has become the worldwide industry standard for reliable dimmable working lights and in excess of 100 Blue Beam and Blue Dome fixtures were put in place.

During development, GDS focussed its energies on finding out exactly what the professionals required and then set about delivering precisely that. As a consequence of its research, GDS produced a console that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of the stage manager in a given environment. The requirements of different performance spaces and the varying nature of productions they stage, means that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is rarely ideal - the bespoke nature of the GDS SMConsole enables the stage manager to choose from a range of options that exactly suit his or her particular needs.

In the case of the Everyman Theatre, a change of plan meant that the original specifications for the console were re-thought but the bespoke nature of the product meant that the necessary changes could be made during its production to ensure it still offered an optimum facility.

Ian Stickland of Charcoalblue commented: “When the initial house lighting scheme for the new Everyman was designed, we had resigned ourselves to using tungsten fittings but as the Everyman theatre is naturally ventilated and designed to achieve ‘BREEAM Excellent’, we were keen to explore a suitable LED alternative. With the development of the ArcSystem we were able to offer the client a low energy system that met their exacting standards for flexibility, dimming and colour temperature. We arranged for Matt Lloyd to demonstrate the installation at Bristol Old Vic to the architect and Artistic Director. They were suitably convinced and so the entire house and work lighting scheme was changed for the Arc fittings.

Both Matt Lloyd and Paul Johnson from GDS were involved in the system design and helped deliver the quality of service and equip-

ment we have come to expect from the stage management consoles and BluesSystems.

The key to the success of the Everyman auditorium is its ability to maintain the familiar warmth and charm of the old theatre in a sustainable, flexible way and the use of the GDS ArcSystem is an important factor in achieving this.”

Head of Lighting at the Everyman Kay Haynes added: “We’re proud to become the first GDS full system theatre and are delighted with the results of using the GDS ArcSystem, BluesSystem, Stage Manager’s Console and CueLight System. The new Everyman has sustainability at its heart so it was important to find a lighting solution that could deliver that, whilst not compromising on the quality and GDS more than fulfilled those requirements. The lighting is very efficient and reliable and the colour temperature for LEDs is great. We have also found the BluesSystem to be excellent and it rarely needs to run at ‘full’ because of the brightness it delivers.

“The system gives us superb flexibility - it is adaptable for the full range of stage configurations that the new auditorium can accommodate and has great wireless control. There is the capacity to access the whole GDS system from a laptop. I can be at any position in the auditorium and set minimum and maximum levels, flash certain channels to identify where they are and if they are working. All the houselights and blues circuits can be controlled by the lighting console for use during shows, which allowed us to create a Mexican wave effect during the celebratory opening production.”

GDS Managing Director Matt Lloyd reflected on another GDS first: “As we celebrate our 10th anniversary I think we’re entitled to take a measure of pride and satisfaction from the progress we’ve made and this project pretty much epitomises everything we work towards at GDS. This is the first GDS full-system theatre and it’s a landmark moment for the company. The Everyman has offered a ringing endorsement of our tireless approach to sustainability, flexibility, adaptability and quality. The fact that it is a ‘BREEAM Excellent’ rated, famous theatre that has won a prestigious RIBA award naturally makes the headlines but for us at GDS, what speaks volumes is knowing that our products are now recognised in this way as ‘go-to’ systems across a huge range of venues worldwide. This is definitely a milestone for GDS that can only signal more exciting times ahead here’s to the next 10 years.”

TECHNICAL INFORMATION LIGHTING

170 x GDS ArcSystem lighting fixture; 100+ x BlueBeam / BlueDome lighting dimmer; 1 x GDS SMConsole lighting console; 1 x GDS CueSystem light control www.everymanplayhouse.com

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THE SAGE The Sage Gateshead, a £70m iconic multi-arts building in the north east of England, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year with an upgrade to its PA system.

Serving the 1,700-capacity Hall One, the upgrade followed a period of careful evaluation by Head of Technical Operations, Chris Durant and his team, and saw local contractor Nitelites, which has been involved with The Sage since its inception, in numerous capacities, specify the ideal audio solution to suit the venue’s needs.

Nitelites Co-Director, Andy Magee commented: “The team at The Sage wanted certain elements of the previous PA system to remain, so we worked to emulate the various coverage patterns possible with the previous beam system using RCF HDL loudspeakers and then split the venue into zones, meaning that energy wasn’t being directed into empty space or unsold seats.”

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Working alongside Nitelites’ Managing Director Jamie Moore, Andy decided on a dbx DriveRack system at The Sage.

The idea is, that no matter what presets are being used, no matter what area is being covered, the frequency response is very similar in each listening area, something that the previous beam system had been able to achieve.

“As well as emulating the coverage patterns available through the old system we also significantly improved the sonic quality of amplified events in the venue with the new RCF system,” said Andy. “Using dbx control, we split the PA into 20 zones and spent a few days with multiple microphones, measuring the differences that occurred depending on the settings we applied. We looked at how the settings changed the different zones throughout the room and we achieved a good, consistent response in each area.”

Chris believes that Andy and Jamie’s attention to detail in tuning the

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system has enabled The Sage to get an additional 30% from the system, he commented: “We’ve had pretty much every big system in here and our new in-house RCF rig sounds better because temporary systems have to be set up so quickly; this has been tuned to within an inch of its life.”

Nitelites specified an RCF HDL PA system, designed to cover the ground floor and two balconies with 12 HDL20-A loudspeakers for each flank, rigged on a flying frame. The rest of the complement comprises three RCF HDL 20-A loudspeakers per side as a portable ground stack on custom dollies, on top of an RCF SUB 8004 subwoofer.

“With HDL we were confident we could get even coverage around the building, whether for speech or classical,” said Andy. “The system is so easy to deploy, quick to rig and fast to wire. One man can deploy the entire system in five minutes and configure the control system in five mouse clicks. We knew this was an important factor to the venue.”

A separate stack features three RCF SUB 8006 subwoofers in a reverse cardioid pattern, with a HDL 10-A loudspeaker on top. Two HDL 10-A loudspeakers are also used for under-balcony infill and four as front lip fills. On the sides of the main hang for outfills are four RCF TT08 loudspeakers flown discreetly.

“The stage will cover anything from an unamplified symphony orchestra to hip hop acts such as Public Enemy,” said Andy, “it’s one extreme to another. The new system is capable of covering 99% of anything The Sage throws at it. The main constraints with this install surrounded the building’s infrastructure. It has been designed to be as flexible as possible in terms of cabling, so everywhere you go there is a patch panel, which feeds back to a rack room somewhere. One of the things we were concerned about was the amount of patch bays that would be in the signal chain from the controllers, which were at stage level to the PA. “When the PA is flown out, the roof opens up and the cradles fly out through the roof and then close again so it’s invisible for the classical

concerts,” continued Andy. “When the PA was deployed, the signal cable path had to go up about 40-metres, through the loft space and then back down about 25-metres, so we decided to run new multicores direct from the processors to the loudspeakers to cut down as many potential points of failure and noise ingress as possible and this proved to be problematic, mainly because of the sheer amount of existing installed infrastructure and reinforced concrete.”

One of the other challenges the team at Nitelites had to work around involved the acoustics at The Sage. “The room is primarily designed for unamplified orchestral music,” said Andy, “but there is installed treatment which can be deployed for amplified gigs. We had to take this into consideration when tuning the system so we had a nice even balance when the room was been used for an acoustic act but still sounded great when the room was treated.”

Adding a final thought on the new system, Chris commented: “The great thing about the HDL 20-A is that it goes down to 55Hz so for jazz and classical there are no subs at all. In fact the first time I heard it I thought our subs had been switched in by mistake.

“It’s also easy to groundstack and the position of the fly frame is mirrored on the subs so it’s easy to interlock; it’s convection cooled so there is no buzzing, which is vital in a critical room where a low noise floor is required. It’s also very efficient energy wise, and we don’t need to run extra power in.”

TECHNICAL INFORMATION sound

30 x RCF 12 HDL20-A loudspeaker; 3 x RCF HDL10-A loudspeaker; 2 x RCF SUB 8004 subwoofer; 4 x RCF TT08 loudspeaker; 3 x RCF SUB 8006 subwoofer www.sagegateshead.com

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SHADOW LOUNGE Commonly referred to as the centre of the gay scene in the UK’s capital, Soho is fit to burst with bars and nightclubs for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. It’s no wonder then that establishments in the area continue to reinvent themselves, as there is a constant flow of competition. One such place, to recently undergo a make-over is the 280-capacity basement venue, Shadow Lounge.

General Manager, Dani Gibbison said: “The old venue had been patched up on numerous occasions but was very invasive to all senses with a flashing disco floor and low mirrored ceiling. It was out of date and I was fiercely keen to push ahead with a completely new concept and make it future-proof.”

Run by Novus Leisure, the Shadow Lounge’s new identity takes inspiration from nightclubs in Las Vegas, in particular the contemporary leisure interiors and pulsing ceiling from Jet and the columns at the Cosmopolitan. Novus Leisure turned to long-term content consultant, Kaleidovision and installation partner Northern Light to complete the redesign, which was largely based on pushing the boundaries of converged LED lighting and HD video technology and delivering a completely immersive environment, all the while, keeping the building’s heritage intact.

Kaleidovision’s Managing Director, Andy Pitman and Creative Director, Paul Damian, worked together with Martin Tarpy of Northern Light. Andy said: “The client wanted to see imagery emerging from the shadows and appearing on HD video or LED - momentarily glimpsed through choreographed lighting and haze across the club, before disappearing back to where it came from. While this has been used extensively in TV backdrops and on concert stages it must be fairly unique to orchestrate HD video, LED and lighting in parallel within a UK club.”

The team devised a plan that included a new purpose-designed infrastructure, which saw the ceiling clad in 270 GLED Flex 10mm mappable video panels which arc down onto three columns of four panels by one panel of LCD video display panels - 12 Samsung UE-C Series video display panels in total - that feature a looping

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sequence of monochromatic images. Content creation specialist, Kaleidovision was in charge of producing the HD video content for the screens, including four teaser videos. “It was a real challenge to have everything working in sync and projected onto the columns,” said Paul. “We had thought carefully how we would deliver a concept that was artsy and on the edge of fashion - telling a story rather than just firing static images at TV screens on a wall.”

Pixel mapping capabilities are provided by a Madrix server - which combines an effects and render engine with functions of a media server - and it allows the VJ at Shadow Lounge to manipulate the programming to achieve great fluidity of motion interspersed with high energy bursts of effect. The added beauty of the Madrix system is that it allows for every frequency band of the music being played to act as a catalyst to the nightly production.

Martin commented: “We also have a custom PC running High End Resolume Arena 4 software, which allows the same image to be shown on all panels or individual images to be selected on the three independent screens.

“Kaleidovision and Madrix are both highly stable platforms that offer the certainty of operation the client demands. Additionally, Kaleidovision, with the remote access features we engineered into the scheme, can update and manipulate the content as and when the client wishes to.”

To add even further to the immersive environment, a complement of six Chauvet DJ Intimidator Scan LED 300 fixtures and four Chauvet DJ Intimidator Barrel LED 300 units instigating mid air effects, six Chauvet DJ Intimidator Spot LED 350 moving heads and a single Chauvet DJ Hurricane 1800 Flex fog machine were installed to complete the overall effect. Greg McLenahan of Worldwide Lighting Design, provided creative input for the lighting design and programming. He recommended the Chauvet DJ LED range for its reliability and build-quality, he said: “Chauvet fixtures consistently meet very high build standards. They do exactly as they say they do. I can’t rate them highly enough and would recommend them for any installation or project because I know they will work and keep working as I expect.”

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Martin added: “Chauvet DJ fixtures were selected with joint input from Northern Light and Greg McLenahan to meet not only the expected performance and longevity but budget as well. It is a product range we know well and have used extensively.”

Control of the entire system is down to ShowCAD Artist master lighting control, which ensures all elements are scripted and work in unison, all scenes are accessible via an intuitive GUI touch panel at the control booth, giving it the function of a show control engine via DMX and DVI signal transmission. ShowCAD controls not only the intelligent light fittings but the content for the ceiling displays and high definition video columns too.

“The whole idea was to ask the question where does light end and video begin and there has been input from a number of departments and a great investment to pull this off - ranging from the complexity of programming the content to the conditioning of the colour palettes,” said Martin, summing up the lighting and visual element at Shadow Lounge.

However, he was also responsible for the new audio installation too.

For this he specified four Funktion One AX88 mid / high passive loudspeakers, one in each corner of the room, supplemented by two Funktion One F118 Mk2 bass enclosures recessed into enclosures at the dancefloor edge. DSP is provided by one Funktion One X04 audio management system. “Funktion one was the logical choice for this environment. Its clarity and intelligibility were ideally suited to this room and its highly reflective finishes,” he explained.

For mixing requirements an Allen & Heath Xone:62 DJ mixer was selected. “It was chosen as it was the standard product for the clients wider estate and so familiar to their DJs,” Martin continued. In addition, DJs also have access to Pioneer multiplayers and a Rane mixer running Serato Scratch Live software.

Concluded on his outlook of the project, he said: “I think it important

to mention the vision, drive and support that the Novus Leisure team brought to the project. They laid out the requirement in clear terms and were nothing but enthusiastic throughout.

While Novus Leisure Marketing Director, Helen Cook returned the compliment: “Kaleidovision got what we were trying to achieve straight away, both with the teaser videos and video capture on the columns.

Shadow Lounge has succeeded in offering 360° immersion - from the Funktion One sound system to the pixel chases and video content - and all our objectives have been met with interest.”

CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE The long awaited re-opening of the Chichester Festival Theatre arrived after a 21-month closure, a Grade 2* listed building resurrected as a marriage of old and new. The £22m redevelopment was funded collectively by Arts Council England, which pledged £12m under the RENEW redevelopment project, £8m donated by local businesses, trusts and individuals and West Sussex County Council and Chichester District Council, which contributed £1.5m and £500,000, respectively.

Artistic Director at Chichester Festival Theatre, Jonathan Church commented: “What’s always been unusual about this theatre is that it was built by the vision of one local man Leslie Evershed-Martin, supported by hundreds if not thousands of people, all putting their hands in their pockets. Through the RENEW project it feels like it’s

recaptured that moment in a fresh and equally inspiring way. Yet again this city and region has responded and helped in so many ways, sometimes with money, sometimes with time and effort, so it’s been very, very special.”

Theatre Consultant, Charcoalblue was appointed alongside architect, Haworth Tompkins, structural engineer Price & Myers, services consultant Skelly & Couch and the building work was carried out by Osborne. Improvements included a transformation of the auditorium, additional facilities for backstage and making the entire building more energy efficient. Charcoalblue’s Project Manager Alex Wardle said: “Initial work focussed on how Powell & Moya’s 50 year old building - which was only supposed to have a two year lifespan - could be made fit for 21st Century purpose as a busy producing theatre. We wanted the auditorium to feel the same. So the project focussed

TECHNICAL INFORMATION LIGHTING & Visual

270 x GLED Flex 10mm flexible video panel; 1 x GLED DVI video screen controller; 1 x Madrix Professional system control platform; 1 x Touchscreen GUI Interface - Madrix; 1 x touchscreen GUI Interface - ShowCAD; 12 x Samsung UE-C Series video display panel; 3 x Datapath X4 video wall controller; 6 x Chauvet DJ Intimidator Scan LED 300 fixture; 4 x Chauvet DJ Intimidator Barrel LED 300 unit; 6 x Chauvet DJ Intimidator Spot LED 350 moving head; 1 x Chauvet DJ Hurricane 1800 Flex fog machine

SOUND

4 x Funktion One AX88 mid / high passive loudspeaker; 2 x Funktion One F118 Mk2 bass enclosure; 1 x Funktion One X04 audio management system; 1 x Allen & Heath Xone:62 DJ mixer; Pioneer multiplayers; 1 x Rane mixer running Serato Scratch Live software www.theshadowlounge.co.uk

Image courtesy of Philip Vile

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Image Image courtesy courtesy of of Philip Philip Vile Vile

on building a new extension with large rear-stage and circulation cores, re-raking the rear seating bank and other minor tweaks to seating layouts to optimise sightlines and seating capacity, replacing all building services and improving the thermal performance of the building. We were able to add around 100-seats on the side balconies, by adding audience circulation in the new extension.”

When it came to the technology upgrade, the house lighting was the primary focus. Charcoalblue and and Skelly & Couch turned to GDS, asking the company to custom make a fixture for the theatre, which involved designing a catenary-mounted, LED version of its ARCSystem - the MR16 LED lamp - with a suitable colour temperature to keep the design as close as possible to the existing set-up. “We worked with Skelly & Couch and GDS to develop an LED version

TECHNICAL INFORMATION LIGHTING GDS ARCSystem LEDs; 460 ways of ETC Sensor 3 dimming; ETC Paradigm control system www.cft.org.uk

of Chichester’s ‘starry night’ houselights, which use less power and don’t require the crew to spend hours changing lamps,” continued Alex. New stage lighting systems included 460 ways of ETC Sensor 3 dimming and an ETC Paradigm control system.

Updates to the audiovisual system included a new cable infrastructure for audio, video and data tielines, backstage and foyer paging.

“The Chichester Festival Theatre building presented some serious challenges due to its shape, structure, and infrastructure, which required a lot of head-scratching and detailed analysis,” said Alex.

“However, we managed to create a much more streamlined and usable space, especially back stage, where accessibility and practicality has been transformed from the original design.”

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Image courtesy of Philip Vile

DONMAR WAREHOUSE Located in the fashionable Covent Garden, The Donmar Warehouse - a 251-seat venue - has built a reputation for artistic excellence as one of the UK’s leading producing theatres. It has been standing for 22 years under the leadership of Sam Mendes, and later Michael Grandage as Artistic Director, both of whom have now been succeeded by the current Artistic Director, Josie Rourke.

Josie, along with Executive Producer, Kate Pakenham invited theatre consultant, Charcoalblue to specify technical systems for a new rehearsal building designed by Haworth Tompkins Architects. “This meant providing facilities to light rehearsals - potentially for broadcast - to set up a video relay from rehearsals downstairs to a group in the upstairs studio; or to set up audio recordings with recording engineers in a separate room to the performers,” explained Charcoalblue’s Project Manager, Alex Wardle.

“This brief meant designing an infrastructure of tielines linking three rooms together and finding spaces in cupboards and halfway up risers for patch racks and processing equipment. For the rehearsal room, we were keen to find an LED fixture that produced excellent white light, remembering that directors and actors could be working in the room for up to 12 hours a day. We arranged a demonstration for Josie and settled on 24 ETC Selador Lustr+ fixtures, which gave us the advantage of colour mixing as well as producing white light with excellent colour rendering.” For control an ETC Ion lighting console was specified, plus eight ways of ETC SmartModule portable dimmers to run tungsten luminaires.

The installation of the lighting and audiovisual equipment was carried out by Northern Light. Two EM Acoustics EMS121X compact, powerful full range loudspeakers - which offer a 80° by 60° dispersion pattern to provide a consistent output across the whole coverage pattern of its band width - were chosen, powered by Crown XTi amplifiers and control via an Allen & Heath MixWizard rack mountable mixer.

The timeframe made this project challenging, but thanks to the professionalism shown by all parties, the installation was completed on time and has proved to be beneficial to all the companies that have used the new facilities.

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TECHNICAL INFORMATION LIGHTING 1 x ETC Ion lighting console; 24 x ETC Selador Lustr+ LED luminaires; eight ways of ETC SmartModule portable dimmer sound 2 x EM Acoustics EMS121X loudspeakers; Crown XTi amplifiers; Allen & Heath MixWizard rack mountable mixer www.donmarwarehouse.com

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SIN CITY REVIVAL LAS VEGAS, USA THE AMERICAS

DRAI’S Challenging the idea of a conventional nightclub, Drai’s is built on the fundamental principles of sophistication, innovation, and authenticity.

The 11th storey capstone of the stylish Las Vegas Cromwell hotel, Drai’s provides an unrivalled view encompassing the neon drenched strip and beyond. At every corner meticulous attention to detail, massive LED lighting systems, and modern technology fuse to create

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a sensual, multi-sensory experience.

Created by nightlife impresario and nightclub ‘Hall of Fame’ inductee Victor Drai, responsible for nightclubs including XS, Tryst and Drai’s After Hours, this 65,000 sq ft venue offers a multi-sensory environment taking entertainment and service to new heights.

With a capacity of 4,500-guests, the main room features 14 dancefloor tables; eight upper dancefloor tables; two VIP balconies; 12 mezzanine level booths; eight elevated tables behind the DJ booth with two VIP restrooms; and 16 elevated VIP booths.

Technology wise, the main room features over 4,000 sq ft of some of the most state-of-the-art high definition LEDs in production, including

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a towering 80-sided LED disco ball - the only one of its kind, and the opportunity to detonate custom rooftop firework shows.

Steve Lieberman of SJ Lighting, the name behind countless high profile nightclubs on both the east and west coast of America, was once again called on for this enormous project. Speaking with mondo*dr during the summer, Steve explained the brief: “In Victor’s previous big nightclubs, technology was really a second, or third-tier requirement and things were kept pretty minimal. This is the first time he’s looked at a club and gone big on the technology and created a really amazing environment. Because he knew I was experienced in this sector he let me get on with what I needed to do right from the

beginning - but the main brief was to ‘devastate the club community’ - that’s a pretty good directive for someone who does what I do. I was able to design a dream system for him - it was fantastic.”

Entering Drai’s, clubbers are immediately immersed into an over-sensory experience. A custom-made chandelier centrepiece fabricated from LED video, lighting and metal framing is the focal point of the dancefloor and utilises a motorised winch installed overhead to raise and lower the feature. There are 120 Color Kinetics iCove LED strips used along the edges of the chandelier, along with 42 LED pinspots and 80 10mm video tiles.

High resolution video in the form of 328 7mm video tiles covers the

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face of the soffit walls around the nightclub and the video treatment is framed by a custom LED lighting detail, which uses 72 LED pinspots and 1,144 Color Kinetics iCoe LED strips. Additionally, four high-powered full colour 12W laser systems are built into the soffit as strobe lights and audience blinders.

The ceiling over the main room also features high resolution video, LED lighting, a full complement of theatrical lighting from Elation and special effects. Commenting on his decision to work predominantly with Elation lighting fixtures for this project, Steve said: “Obviously I have great relationships with a lot of manufacturers but on this occasion the Elation products had the right features for the right price, it just made sense. The warehouse is in southern California as well, so this made life easier when working in Las Vegas.”

There are 28 Elation Platinum Spot 5R Pro moving heads; 30 Elation Platinum Beam 5R Extreme moving heads; 24 Elation Rayzor Q12 LED Beam Wash moving heads; as well as 32 Proton LED strobes and 56 Elation CuePix WW LED blinders. Carefully placed LED video, lighting and effects, which come in the form of a Kryogenifex CO² system, confetti system from Artistry in Motion and a haze and smoke system, are designed around the centrepiece in a radial pattern, emanating rays of light from the luminous centrepiece. All lighting and video control comes from an MA Lighting grandMA2 console, along with a PC running Madrix software and a custom designed video server and VJ system.

“I always try and gauge the perfect balance between lighting effects, video and all the other elements to the design,” Steve told mondo*dr.

“The primary design is always going to be dictated by the shape of the room and the architecture - that’s the driving force for all the technology. Drai’s is an oval, radial-shaped room so we created the centrepiece custom video and lighting motion-controlled chandelier along with the video ceiling, which spokes out in a radial pattern and then a complement of lights that is both radial and linear at the same time. “By doing this we’re accentuating the shape of the room, along with the soffit walls that wrap around and feature video.”

The video content, all of which is organic, has been designed by V Squared Labs, and Drai’s has an in-house VJ with a huge stock of content to play back throughout the night, all formatted to the size

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of the screen. EG Production Services provided all the video screens and built the centrepiece for the club.

With the use of video growing in the clubbing world, Steve continued: “It’s becoming more prominent because it is now more accessible.

Whereas before, especially LED video, it was expensive, heavy and you had to have really in-depth knowledge of how to use it. It was difficult for designers, operators, owners, installation companies and so many just didn’t bother - now it’s everywhere. Prices have come down and the resolution has gone up.”

A club of this nature could be considered overwhelming, just in the sheer amount of technological know how needed, as well as that eye for design. For Steve, there was a very cohesive way of approaching the job at hand and there weren’t multiple consultants dealing with various elements of the job. “They way it all tied together and the features throughout the club from inside and out were all worked on in the same way. The whole place has a uniform look to it,” said Steve. “At the end of the job, when I asked Victor if he was happy and he told me I had exceeded his expectations, this was a really great compliment, especially considering the aggressive timeline and schedule.”

TECHNICAL INFORMATION LIGHTING & video

30 x Elation Platinum Beam 5R Extreme moving head; 28 x Elation Platinum Spot 5R Pro moving head; 24 x Elation Rayzor Q12 LED Beam Wash moving head; 56 x Elation CuePix WW LED blinder; 32 x Proton LED strobe; 1,264 Color Kinetics iCove LED strip; 114 x LED pinspot; 4 x 12W RGB laser; 3,244 sq ft of LED video; 1 x Artistry in Motion confetti system; 1 x haze and smoke system; 1 x Kryogenifex CO² system; 1 x MA Lighting grandMA2 console; 1 x custom video server and VJ system; 1 x PC with Madrix software draislv.com

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HARD ROCK HOTEL & CASINO Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas has a reputation as the ultimate party venue and when its Lighting Designer, Christopher Lose was presented with the task of finding a strong and stable lighting fixture that could be hung at the hotel’s poolside stage all year round, he turned to SGM - specifying 10 G-Spot LED moving heads for movement, beam versatility and patterns and four Q-7 RGBW moving heads for wash and strobing.

Chris explained: “The pool stage is a treacherous environment for lighting gear. It is an outdoor stage in Las Vegas. The temperature reaches 120ºF in the summer and below freezing in the winter. Las Vegas rarely rains but when it does it comes without notice, there is no time for crew to be dropping lighting fixtures on short notice.

“We needed 10 spare fixtures to service our 10 previous moving lights and I was looking for a fixture that we could hang all year round. I needed a fixture that was bright, versatile, would impress guest LDs and could stand up to the weather.

“The G-Spots and Q-7s were exactly what I was looking for. On top of that, ‘Rehab’, Hard Rock Hotel’s weekly pool party is famous for partygoers spraying champagne. We have lost a few fixtures in the past to stray corks or being drenched in champagne. I needed a fixture that could handle tourist abuse.”

The first time Chris was introduced to the SGM portfolio was through VP of Sales in the US, Randy Wade, who left two X-5 strobes in his rig for comparison with the hotel’s conventional strobes. According to Chris, he was instantly impressed by the benefits of the LED engine and the output of the SGM unit, which was as powerful as the conventional but with a fraction of the power consumption. Once he saw the recordings of the G-Spot immersed in a fountain, his mind was made up. “There is no other product on the market that can do what the G-Spot does - it’s that simple,” he said. “Once I discovered the G-Spot, I knew I had to show everyone how powerful it was.”

The 10 G-spot fixtures are hung on a 19ft by 30ft, 20-inch truss structure around the poolside stage where they provide the

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multi-functional advantages that they are originally designed to fulfil.

“I needed an LED fixture that could replace a fully functional arc source moving spot fixture,” continued Chris. “I needed colour mixing, zoom, colour correction, plenty of gobos, smooth movement and plenty of horse power. I’m also limited to a 100-amplifier service out at the pool. The G-Spots met every requirement.”

The fixtures are controlled via DMX on a MA Lighting grandMA Light console, using the G-Spots in normal 24-channel mode and the Q-7’s in full eight-channel mode; the G-Spot’s IP65 rating is also essential to Chris. He commented: “There are plenty of fixtures on the market that have the same feature set as the G-Spot. But none of them can do it in the rain.”

LED lighting is also becoming an increasingly important factor for the hotel, which is very energy conscious in its selection of equipment and is therefore moving as many fixtures as possible over to LED, including all of the fixtures in the entertainment venues and public areas.

And the future seems bright for SGM fixtures at Hard Rock as Chris summed up his assessment: “I can see both of these fixtures taking over a huge part of the market. There are so many outdoor installations that have been waiting for these fixtures to come along. I see several indoor applications as well. I used to be afraid to place floor lights in certain applications fearing that they would get drinks spilled on them or kicked. I wouldn’t be afraid to put a G-Spot in any of those positions.”

TECHNICAL INFORMATION LIGHTING

10 x SGM G-Spot LED moving head; 4 x SGM Q-7 RGBW moving head; 1 x MA LIghting grandMA Light console www.hardrockhotel.com

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MGM RESORTS It is no exaggeration to say that MGM Resorts is an empire. Growing from a single hotel and casino in the ‘70s to a conglomerate that now stretches from Circus Circus at the north end of the Strip to Mandalay Bay at the south end, MGM Resorts encompasses a dozen major properties in that short stretch of desert alone.

MGM Resorts audio technicians see it all. Sound system requests can be for a single lavaliere microphone setup for a business meeting in the morning, a DJ-fuelled pool party at lunch, a prize fight weighin with a mariachi band in a ballroom in the afternoon, and then a headline act in an arena in the evening. So when one of the biggest entertainment chains on the strip decided a new system was in order - that was both versatile and stellar sounding, it turned to L-Acoustics and a system based on the compact Kara of loudspeakers.

Speaking with mondo*dr this summer, during the Infocomm Las Vegas tradeshow, MGM Resorts’ Production Supervisor Shad Groverland and Sid Pike, Executive Director Production Services, explained how they came to choose an L-Acoustics system.

“We’ve had all of the MGM properties operating as independent, isolated properties for years,” said Sid, “until we decided we should go down the route of consolidation - sharing equipment and resources and becoming much more efficient - making MGM Resorts a fairly large production group within Vegas at the same time.

“We were spending a lot of money on gear rentals,” added Shad.

“For example, Bellagio might have a large corporate event for which it needed more of a rig than was available in its own stock, so they would rent something from a local provider. Meanwhile, the gear they needed might be sitting unused at The Mirage.”

Therefore the sound system needed to be useful in various sized spaces - it had to work in a full arena to a small room for intimate events and then everything in between.

“We had to find a centralised system that would work for everyone,” continued Shad. “Everyone has different tastes and manufacturer preferences and so I had to look at what kit we were renting the most and what was coming through on the riders most often. We managed to narrow it down to about three brands and then we looked at which system was going to provide us with the most versatility and what the clients were going to be happy with.”

In the end, it was decided L-Acoustics was the system to go for, as “We all like the brand, the clients like it and it’s always on the riders.

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It was the brand that was consistent in every area we were looking at. Once we had decided on L-Acoustics we then had to consider which product would be small enough to travel in between venues but also be able to grow and be built up into bigger systems for the arenas and large ballrooms. The Kara was definitely the product that seemed to fit the most venues and the most applications that we wanted to use it in,” he continued.

The resulting system - comprising 24 Kara loudspeaker cabinets and eight SB18 subwoofers, all powered by six LA8 amplified controllers housed in a pair of LA-RAK touring racks - has now been in service for a few months.

“The Kara rig sets up quickly and is easy to move from one property to another,” Shad explained. “It’s versatile and sounds great. It makes everyone happy, from crew to clients, and that is no small feat. Kara was the perfect choice for MGM Resorts.

“The fact that it sounds so natural with the different genres of music that go through it, is what makes it stand out from the crowd. We have the same system running whether it’s primarily speech or one person talking or a full rock band. It’s the same computer and so on, so you have a system that works in different environments and that’s crucial for us.”

Commenting on working with L-Acoustics, Sid added: “I was really impressed with the training - their willingness to come in and train the number of people that they did. They were really flexible and then continued with the support when we had questions. They came in and hung the system with us and set everything up - going through all the software and everything. It wasn’t just about selling a bunch of boxes, it was about making sure we all knew what we were doing with it.”

Concluding, Shad told mondo*dr: “For me, L-Acoustics has always been solid, engineering-based products.”

TECHNICAL INFORMATION SOUND

24 x L-Acoustics Kara loudspeaker; 8 x L-Acoustics SB18 subwoofer; 6 x L-Acoustics LA8 amplifier www.mgmresorts.com

086 VENUE

AKIHA WARD Niigata City, Japan ASIA/PACIFIC/OCEANIA

The Akiha Ward Cultural Centre in Niigata City, Japan - designed by Chiaki Arai Urban and Architecture Design (CAUAD), with acoustics

by Nagata Acoustics, and technology consultancy from Theatre Workshop - was short listed for the World Architecture Festival 2014 award. The public complex includes a multipurpose concert hall, recording studio, practice rooms and offices, with the concert hall unusual in that its interior walls are made of concrete, a bold and unusual acoustic choice.

Tokyo-based CAUAD - with a team comprising Ryoichi Yosshizaki, Tomonori Niimi and Akira Sogo - set out to make Akiha Ward Cultural Centre a hub that reflects the vision of the local community, taking inspiration from nearby local hills and caves. The initial project went through a long series of consultation workshops with local people before reaching it’s definitive form.

The building features spiraling twists and turns and a complex concrete skeleton containing no fewer than 46 arcs. CAUAD envisioned the sculptural public theatre, with custom designed seats for an audience of 496, as a cave beneath a hill. Punctuating the auditorium’s

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faceted concrete skin are angular cut outs, whose refined acoustical properties provide good sound absorption and prevent echoes.

Bordering the theatre are practice rooms, dressing rooms, studios, offices and technical services, all of which open onto a double height corridor.

The exposed exterior concrete structure curves gently into a rising spiral, complementing the surrounding trees and plants and allowing visitors to walk from the terraced landscape and coil around the building. The view from the top looks out over the surrounding residential area and mountainous terrain. The architectural inspiration for the building comes from the Japanese concept of ‘satoyama’, a natural environment of woodland that exists with moderate intervention from human beings - a harmonious coexistence of people and nature.

For a performance hall’s interior walls to be made of concrete is unusual, lead architect, Chiaki Arai explained the thinking behind this: “Following the concept of the whole building, the main hall is designed as a concrete cave under a hill. The structural element itself works as acoustic reflectors giving extraordinary acoustics by the force of its high specific gravity. In theory, the heavy solid wall and ceiling can reflect the lower sound ranges which drywall and timber finishes absorb. This provides us with special experiences that make the audience feel as though they are in a natural cave rather than

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CULTURAL CENTRE a building. Constructing a concert hall interior out of concrete is not easy because its shape cannot be changed after casting, in fact the other halls designed are all dry wall or timber finish. With this project, we worked closely with acoustic consultant, Nagata Acoustics on both the digital and physical model and made various simulations in order to realise the exposed concrete interior with high acoustic performance.”

To optimise the acoustic effect, the concrete structure is perforated like a net and the porous aluminium sheets are installed in the holes as acoustic absorbents. The interior finish of the concrete structure of the hall is fully-tapped for sound diffusion and all of the scaled surfaces of the concrete structure were finished by just four skilled masons in one month. Chiaki commented: “The stage can be used in various ways from play to music and a massive acoustic reflector hangs in the fly tower to change the reverberation time.”

Chiaki has collaborated with Nagata Acoustics for more than 20 years. “We communicate in many ways including 3D model for acoustic simulation,” he commented. “They are very professional and work hard to improve the acoustic quality. One thing that sets them apart is that they try and understand the concept of architecture before acoustic consulting. They know good acoustics is a part of good architecture.”

Founded in 1971 by Dr Minoru Nagata, Nagata Acoustics has become one of Japan’s leading acoustic consulting firms, continuously providing the most suitable and technologically advanced acoustical design services for a range of clients, including government agencies, private organisations and educational institutions. Based in Tokyo, with offices in Los Angeles and Paris, it has collaborated with Chiaki on numerous occasions. Four members of Nagata Acoustics worked on the Akiha Ward project, with company President Satoru Ikeda leading and practical work on the room acoustical design, sound isolation and noise control design led by Ayako Hakozaki, while Makoto Ino led the sound system design. Ayako commented on the overall nature of the project: “During the construction phase of each project with CAAUB, I invariably find myself surprised at how the design develops and it was no different with this project.”

For the team at Nagata Acoustics their early work on the project involved studying the shape of the hall with computer simulation and Chiaki’s architects provided them with the 3D model data of the hall.

A key early concern was calculating how the early sound reflections in the hall would work. Ayako explained: “Sound reflections which reach the audience within100 milliseconds after the direct sound reach are called early sound reflections. The early sound reflections are acoustically very important especially for classical music. The impressions

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088 VENUE

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Photos by Taisuke Ogawa

we feel at concerts, for example, intimacy, loudness, room response and spaciousness, are related to the early sound reflections. Since the distribution and temporal balance of the early sound reflections are determined by the room shape, study of the hall’s shape is the most important work to achieve good acoustics. We studied the shape of the hall by the computer simulation based on the ray tracing method (geometrical acoustic simulation).”

A key objective of the project’s sound isolation design was to enable simultaneous use of the concert hall, practice rooms and studio. To achieve this goal, each of these rooms required a high level of sound isolation performance. The layout planning enabled the large practice room to be used as an extension of the multipurpose concert hall by locating the large practice room behind the concert hall’s stage. This practice room is only separated from the concert hall by a corridor.

Ayako commented: “By contrast, we were able to locate the small practice room and studio at considerable physical distance from the multipurpose concert hall. These two rooms are separated from the concert hall by dressing rooms and other support spaces that provide an acoustical buffer between the small practice room and studio area and the multipurpose hall.” Nagata Acoustics adopted anti-vibration and sound-isolating structural designs for both of the practice rooms and the studio to achieve the needed sound isolation performance levels for simultaneous use of all of the rooms.

The multifaceted concrete structure of the concert hall walls and ceiling around the audience seating area was another key challenge

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SOUND 2 x Electro-Voice EVF-1152S/66 loudspeaker; 1 x ElectroVoice EVF-1122S/126 loudspeaker; 2 x Electro-Voice EVF1152S/94 loudspeaker; 2 x Electro-Voice EVF-1122S/96 loudspeaker; 2 x Electro-Voice EVF-1181S loudspeaker; 2 x Electro-Voice Sx300 monitor; 2 x Electro-Voice ZX560B loudspeaker; 5 x Tannoy CVS 8 loudspeaker; 6 x Tannoy CVS 8 loudspeaker; 2 x TOA SR-H3S line array speaker; 2 x RCF HD3216/T horn speaker, 1 x Panasonic WT-7030 loudspeaker, 2x Panasonic WS-937 loudspeaker; 3 x JBL Control47LP loudspeaker; 19 x JVC SB-C330W loudspeaker; 3 x JVC SB-W30AT loudspeaker; 2 x TOA BS32ZT TOA BS32ZT; 3 x Lab.gruppen C48:4 amplifier; 1 x Lab.gruppen C20:8 amplifier; 1 x Lab.gruppen NLB60E amplifier; 1 x Lab.gruppen C20:8 amplifier; 1 x Lab.gruppen C10:4 amplifier; 1 x Yamaha CL3 console; 1 x Yamaha CL1 console; 1 x Yamaha 01V96i digital mixing console; 1 x Yamaha Rio3224-D rack; 1 x Yamaha Rio1608-D rack; 1 x Yamaha EMX5016CF powered mixer; 1 x Mackie Onyx1640i mixer; 1 x Yamaha DME64N output management processor; 1 x Yamaha RX-V773 surround processor; 4 x Sennheiser ew300 Series microphone; 2 x AKG C414-XLS condenser microphone; 1 x Sony C38B condenser microphone; 6 x AKG C391B condenser microphone; 6 x Crown PCC-160 condenser microphone; 4 x Shure Beta58A microphone; 4 x Shure SM57-LCE microphone; 6 x Sennheiser e835 microphone; 2 x Sennheiser MD421II microphone; 1 x AKG C451B ST microphone LIGHTING Panasonic Crocco plano convex spotlights; Panasonic Crocco fresnel lens spotlights; ETC Source Four Profile spotlights; Ushio Lighting Supersol 1004SR/e followspots; 1 x Panasonic Pleasure Sigma lighting console VISUAL 1 x Panasonic DW8300S with ET-D75-LE30 DLP projector; 1 x IDK MSD-601 video switcher; 1 x JVC SR-HD1500 Blu-ray/ HDD recorder; 1 x Epson ELPDC20 camera

VENUE 089

for the acoustics. Within the many facets are cut-outs in the concrete that Arai specified for design reasons and that Nagata Acoustics used to its design advantage by installing construction materials.

Ayako explained: “With concrete surfaces being the majority of the multipurpose hall’s surface area, our room’s acoustical design necessarily focussed on controlling the lower sound ranges and preventing long-path echoes from the rear part of the walls to the stage and front portion of the audience seating area.”

From the interior of the hall, all of the wall and ceiling cut-outs are covered with 1.5mm-thick sound-absorbing aluminum fibre panels porous aluminium sheets, known as POAL and made by Japanese company Unix.

The panels above and around the front and centre portions of the hall are backed with drywall and, as a result, have approximately the same sound absorbing characteristics as drywall, except that Ayako added glass wool behind the drywall panels to increase sound absorption of lower frequency sounds. In addition, glass wool has been installed directly behind the aluminium fibre panels at the rear of the hall to create surface areas that achieve an even greater sound-absorbing characteristic.

While Nagata Acoustics used the wall cut-outs to create sound absorbing surfaces on the otherwise entirely rear concrete walls of the hall, these sound-absorbing surfaces alone would be insufficient to prevent echoes. Therefore, around each of the cut-outs visually appealing panels designed with the imagery of wing-like extensions were placed. These panels are made of a sound-absorbing alumini-

um fibre material backed by glass wool and serve as additional sound absorbing surfaces.

To soften the otherwise sometimes harsh reflections from concrete surfaces, Nagata specified that the exposed concrete have a textured finishing treatment called Kotataki that gives a pebbled texture.

The surface of the exposed concrete are tapped to make it rough to diffuse the sound and to prevent echo. On the surface of exposed concrete in spots, the porous aluminium sheets are placed for the final acoustic co-ordination. Ayako commented: “As a result of our design decisions, the hall’s lower frequency sounds have rather long, yet natural-sounding reverberations. Also, after the hall’s completion, we confirmed that it is successfully free of echoes. In general, in the parts of a building like the Akiha Ward Cultural Centre that are not specific rooms for music practice or performance, it is easy to recognise the need to control too long acoustical reverberations and prevent the undesirable transfer of noise to other spaces. However, finding sound absorbing materials that blend and complement the architect’s intentions for these spaces is often a difficult challenge.”

Nagata Acoustics adopted the use of circular modular units of perforated metal set into frames. It installed this material for the ceiling of the small practice room and studio and also for the ceilings of the entrance lobby and foyer. In locations where it wanted to add a sound absorption characteristic, it installed glass wool above the perforated metal modules. Ayako commented: “This ceiling solution is a good example of a design that answers both the visual needs of the architect and the acoustical objectives.” Extensive acous-

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090 VENUE

Senior Acoustician Ayako Hakozaki of Nagata Acoustics

FRANÇAIS

Le Centre Culturel Akiha Ward de la ville de Niigata au Japon fut imaginé par le Cabinet Chiaki Arai Urban & Architecture Design ; l’acoustique du lieu est l’œuvre de Nagata Acoustics et les conseils en technologie furent prodigués par Theatre Workshop. Le complexe public comprend une salle de concert à usages multiples, un studio d’enregistrement, des salles de répétition et des bureaux, ainsi qu’une salle de concert remarquable du fait de ses murs intérieurs en béton, un choix acoustique assez inhabituel et audacieux. Satoru Ikeda, président de Nagata Acoustics, fut nommé chef d’équipe et les travaux pratiques de conceptions acoustiques de salles, d’isolation sonore et de contrôle du bruit furent menés par Ayako Hakozaki. Makoto Ino dirigea la conception de l’ensemble sonore. Dans la salle de concert, les différents appareils audio installés par Theatre Workshop comprennent une console de régie façade Yamaha CL3, une console de surveillance Yamaha CL1 et une console postproduction Yamaha 01V96i. Les hautparleurs de la salle de concert sont munis de viseurs électroniques numériques Electro-Voice utilisés dans l’amplificateur (PA) avec des Tannoy CVS 8 pour couvrir la scène, les côtés et le fond de la salle.

Les SR-H3S de chez TOA sont installés pour les retours de scène. Les amplificateurs de façades sont des C48:4 de chez Lab.gruppen offrant un processus de gestion de sortie via un Yamaha DME64N, tandis que le Yamaha RX-V773 fait office de processeur ambiophonique. Le matériel d’éclairage du théâtre inclue des rangées de projecteurs de chez Plano et Panasonic, ainsi que des projecteurs à découpe de chez ETC et Ushio.

DEUTSCH Architect, Chiaki Arai from Chiaki Arai Urban and Architecture Design.

tic modelling was undertaken during the initial design phase of the project. The result of Nagata Acoustics work in the concert hall gives a reverberation time of 1.9 seconds unoccupied and 1.7 seconds when occupied.

Theatre technology consultant was Theatre Workshop, a leading consultancy firm based in Tokyo, which has worked with Chiaki for over 20 years. Naoto Toda, from Theatre Workshop was Project Manager for Akiha Ward. The audio inventory in the Concert Hall includes a Yamaha CL3 console for FOH mix duties, a Yamaha CL1 for monitoring and a Yamaha 01v96i for production communication. Also available is a Yamaha EMX5016CF console and Mackie ONYX1640i based in the recording studio. Loudspeakers for the concert hall include Electro-Voice EVFs used in the PA with Tannoy CVS 8 loudspeakers for stage, side and rear fills. TOA SR-H3S loudspeakers are in place for fixed stage fold back. Amplifiers at FOH are Lab.gruppen C48:4s with output management processing via a Yamaha DME64N, and the surround processor, a Yamaha RX-V773.

The wireless microphone inventory includes Sennheiser ew 300’s, with condensers including AKG C414-XLS, Sony C38Bs and Crown PCC-160’s. Dynamics microphones include Shure, Sennhesier and AKG. Lighting fixtures in the theatre include rows of spot lights in the form of Panasonic Crocco plano convex spotlights, Panasonic Crocco fresnel spotlights, as well as ETC Source Four 426’s and 436’s and Ushio Lighting Supersol 1004SR/e followspots. The lighting console is a Panasonic Pleasure Sigma. For video projection a Panasonic DW8300S with ET-D75-LE30 is the order of the day.

Since opening the venue has hosted a variety of concerts and events ranging from classical to pop, jazz and chorus ensembles, by both professional and amateur musicians. Various lectures and plays have been held in the hall and in some of the other rooms. There are organised workshops for the local people, especially for children to become familiar with music and play. Many kinds of events have been held in the building too. Since the 496 seat hall is too small to make profit, it is working as a sort of incubator for local culture.

Chiaki Arai Urban and Architecture Design is currently designing two concert halls for Odawara City, Kanagawa, southern Japan. Chiaki Arai is passionate about the ways in which architecture and music can come together more closely to create new and exciting spaces.

He concluded: “By developing digital technology, we can simulate more and more complicated sound space. It allows us to use many different materials and forms. Beyond the shoe box shape, we see more various spaces for music as the biggest instruments.”

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Das Akiha Ward Kulturzentrum in Niigata City, Japan, wurde durch den Architekten Chiaki Arai Urban and Architecture Design entworfen, wobei Nagata Acoustics die Akustik und Theatre Workshop die technologische Beratung übernommen haben. Der öffentliche Bereich umfasst eine Mehrzweck-Konzerthalle, ein Aufnahmestudio, Übungsräume und Büros. Die Konzerthalle fällt aus dem Rahmen, da die Innenwände aus Beton sind, eine gewagte und ungewöhnliche akustische Wahl. Der Teamleiter war der Vorsitzende von Nagata Acoustics, Satoru Ikeda, mit praktischer Arbeit für raumakustisches Design, Schalldämmung und Lärmschutzdesign unter Leitung von Ayako Hakozaki und Makoto Ino für das Soundsystemdesign. Die Audioeinrichtung der Konzerthalle, die durch Theatre Workshop installiert wurde, umfasst eine Yamaha CL3-Konsole für FOH Mix-Aufgaben, eine Yamaha CL1 zur Überwachung und eine Yamaha 01v96i für Fertigungskommunikation. Die Lautsprecher für die Konzerthalle umfassen Electro-Voice EVFs im PA mit Tannoy CVS 8’s für die Bühne und Seite, Fülllfunktion. TOA SR-H3S-Gehäuse wurden zum Zurückklappen der festen Bühne aufgestellt. Die Verstärker auf FOH sind Lab.gruppen C48:4’s mit einem Output-Management-Processing über eine Yamaha DME64N und Surround Prozessor, ein Yamaha RX-V773.

Die Beleuchtungskörper im Theater umfassen Scheinwerferreihen von Plano und Panasonic, sowie Profil-Scheinwerfer von ETC und Ushio.

ITALIANO

Il Centro Culturale Akiha Ward a Niigata City (Giappone) è stato progettato dall’architetto Chiaki Arai Urban, l’architettura insieme all’acustica da Nagata Acoustics e la consulenza tecnologica è stata affidata a Theatre Workshop. Il complesso pubblico comprende una sala da concerto che può fungere anche da studio di registrazione, sale prova e uffici con una sala da concerto insolita, in quanto le sue pareti interne sono fatte di cemento. Si tratta di una scelta acustica audace e sicuramente poco comune. Il capo squadra era il presidente della Nagata Acoustics, Satoru Ikeda, che è stato supportato dal lavoro pratico sulla progettazione acustica della sala, isolamento acustico e progettazione del controllo del volume di Ayako Hakozaki e Makoto Ino che sono a capo del progetto del sistema audio. L’inventario audio nella Concert Hall, installato da Theatre Workshop, include una console Yamaha CL3 per le funzioni di mixaggio FOH, una Yamaha CL1 per il monitoraggio e una Yamaha 01V96i per la produzione della comunicazione. Gli altoparlanti per la sala da concerto includono Electro-Voice EVFS utilizzati nella PA con gli altoparlanti posteriori Tannoy CVS 8 per il palco ed il laterale. Gli altoparlanti TOA SR-H3S sono impiegati come monitor da palco fissi. Gli amplificatori FOH sono Lab.gruppen C48: 4 con elaborazione output management attraverso un Yamaha DME64N ed il processore surround Yamaha RX-V773. Gli apparecchi di illuminazione nel teatro includono file di faretti della Plano e Panasonic, così come i sagomatori della ETC e Ushio.

ESPAÑOL

El Centro Cultural Akiha Ward en la Ciudad de Niigata, Japón, fue diseñado por los arquitectos Chiaki Arai Urban and Architecture Design, con acústica por parte de Nagata Acoustics y con la consultoría en tecnología a cargo de Theatre Workshop. El complejo público incluye una sala de conciertos multi-propósito, un estudio de grabaciones, salas de ensayo y oficinas con una sala de conciertos “inusual” en cuanto sus paredes están hechas de concreto, una alternativa para la acústica audaz e inusual. El líder del equipo fue el presidente de Nagata Acoustics, Satoru Ikeda; el diseño de la acústica del salón, aislación del sonido y control de ruidos liderado por Ayako Hakozaki junto con Makoto Ino, quien estuvo a cargo del diseño del sistema de sonido. El inventario en cuanto al audio en el Salón de Conciertos instalado por Theatre Workshop, comprende una consola Yamaha CL3 para mezclas FOH, un Yamaha CL1 para controlar y un Yamaha 01v96i para la comunicación de la producción. Entre los parlantes del salón de conciertos se incluyen Electro-Voice EVFs utilizados en el PA con un Tannoy CVS 8 para el escenario y los laterales, y para llenar la parte trasera. Los TOA SR-H3S se encuentran instalados para la reducción del voltaje. Los amplificadores en FOH son de Lab.gruppen C48:4 con procesamiento de salida vía un Yamaha DME64N, y un procesador envolvente, un Yamaha RX-V773. Los artefactos de iluminación en el teatro incluyen filas de focos de Plano y Panasonic, así como luces de recorte de ETC and Ushio.

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Extremely reverberant spaces

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Visual unobtrusiveness

092 VENUE

MS COLLINS melbourne, australia ASIA/PACIFIC/OCEANIA

Inspired by French socialite Ms Collins, this establishment with the same name is located on the corner of Collins Street and Market Street and is housed in a venue formerly known as Silk Road. Established hospitality group, Roar Projects has taken over the venue and with the help of Blackmilk Interiors and Audio and Lighting Services has transformed the space into a multi-level design boasting seven bars able to cater for 800 guests.

A striking feature is the suspended DJ stage - equipped with four Pioneer CDJ-2000 Nexus multiplayers, one Pioneer DJM-900 Nexus mixer and one Pioneer RMX-500 effects unit - that hovers above the central island bar. Implementing such modern features in this historic building - built in 1929 - was no easy task.

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The overall concept of the new venue blends together fashion, music and design, which has been achieved by celebrating the skills of the artists and designers involved with the project in a collaborative approach. Graffiti-based artwork has been created by street artist Juan McCarb, who takes influence from style icon, Iris Apfel and the world famous 60-year-old DJ Ruth Flowers.

Louie Constantinou of Audio and Lighting Services completed the new design and installation of the technology and is the in-house director remaining very hands on at the venue. The direction of the venue was to focus not only on the cosmetics, but also on the technology so as to be on the forefront of the nightclub and bar scene.

Louie began with the lighting design. “The tricky part about this

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venue is that it’s heritage listed, meaning that there are minimal to no changes that can be structurally made to the premises; adding to the complexity of this project. However, we managed to negotiate four rigging points that gave us our positioning of lighting in the venue,” he explained.

For the main room and the mezzanine floor, Louie selected Martin Professional’s new Rush Series, using a combination of16 Rush MH3 beam movers and six Rush MH1 profile moving heads. “The venue trades three nights per week in nightclub mode so we needed a product that would last and reliability was a big factor when choosing the fixtures,” he said. “The beams from the Rush MH3 are fantastic - bright and quick.” A further six Martin Professional MAC

Auras were also installed. “The MAC Auras are great for lighting the room when it trades as just a bar rather than a nightclub. However, when the room is in nightclub mode I have a lot of fun with the Auras going from a sharp beam out to a wider focus using different colours,” commented Adam.

For control, Louie stuck with the Martin Professional, having experience of the M1 console, as he had installed one previously at Alumbra, another bar / club owned by Roar Projects. The advantage of using the same platform across multiple venues is that it allows for the ability to rotate operators. “It’s a great console, never misses a beat and is easy to use,” said Louie. “The M1 is a complete package: intuitive, with a layout that has everything you need at your fingertips

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094 VENUE

making it very efficient. We also added a Martin Ether 2DMX8 for Artnet to DMX conversion.

“I went for Martin Professional because of the reliability. I have a good relationship with the distributor, Show Technology so for me it was a no-brainer. Given the amount of usage of the lights, I needed needed to ensure that my supplier would provide me with any support required, and I love the product, I’ve been using Martin Professional forever.”

In the near future the venue plans to install LED screens but they were not going to arrive on time to be part of the initial installation.

“When we get the screens we’ll probably have VJ club nights.

There will be a large main screen and a second one around the DJ platform.” In preparation, Louie has supplied a coolux Pandoras Box Media Server to play video content on the LED screens.

In the Ballroom area of Ms Collins, Show Technology stepped in and supplied further Rush fixtures from Martin Professional, this time six Rush MH2 compact moving heads, which offer wash beam effects.

“Unfortunately the Ballroom often runs with a separate DJ and I have to leave the MH2’s with a few programmed looks,” said Adam.

“I’m very tempted to move them into the main room so I can get my hands on them as they’re a great fixture.”

Alongside the intelligent lighting fixtures are 96 ShowPro LED Pix Strip 40 modular linear RGB pixel control LED strips that have been

roof mounted. The Pixel Bars are great for displaying imagery or can be used as a wash luminaire for floodlighting surfaces and stages.

“They really look beautiful and are one of the best looking features of the venue,” said Adam.

All the bars at Ms Collins are lit using Pro Shop RGB HD LED Tape.

“The Pro Shop RGB LED Tape is a simple way to provide a colour changing touch to a bar creating a bright and saturated glow. The

“I went for the Martin is the reliability. We have a good relationship with the distributor, Show Technology so for me it was a no-brainer.” output is even and vibrant and the colours achievable are endless,” explained Louie. Each of the bars has its own ELC DMX Scene player for control.

When it came to the audio, Louie had to get creative, he needed to cover all the spaces and areas, but nothing could touch the outer walls. “I toyed with a couple of different options, to try to fill the room but they threw up weight loading issues, so we went back to the drawing board and decided it had to be a distributed system.” A Martin Audio system has been specified for the entire venue. To provide coverage for the main room and mezzanine floor four Martin Audio LE 2100S high powered loudspeakers are installed on the dancefloor, four Martin Audio Blackline F8+ passive loudspeakers for fills and six Martin Audio XD12 bi-amplified loudspeakers, supplemented by four Martin Audio WS218X subwoofers to provide bass. While two Martin Audio XD15 two-way cabinets and a single Martin Audio Blackline S18+ subwoofer look after DJ monitoring.

“The way I look at each project is that there’s several different products that could do the job. At the end of the day it’s about providing the client with the best product within budget. Every spec is different,” commented Louie. For this job, Martin Audio was deemed the very best solution for the criteria.

The Ballroom is home to Martin Audio XD12 loudspeakers, one Martin Audio WS218X subwoofer and a Martin Audio DX12 for DJ monitoring. And finally in the Champagne Bar are a further two Martin Audio XD12 loudspeakers and two Blackline S12+ subwoofers.

Processing and amplification for Ms Collins is provided courtesy of QSC, which was supplied by its Australian distributor, TAG. A total of 10 QSC Audio PLD4.5 amplifiers provide 40 channels at 2,000W of power per channel. They also have built in DSP to allow flexibility

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096 VENUE

FRANÇAIS

À Melbourne, l’établissement Ms Collins anime désormais le grand immeuble de grès, qui dans son incarnation précédente accueillait la boutique Silk Road au coin de la rue Collins et de la rue Market. L’entreprise Audio & Lighting Services a été choisie pour concevoir, fournir et installer les équipements audiovisuels de la salle, et Louie Constantinou pour diriger l’équipe. Dans la pièce principale et sur la mezzanine, Louie s’autorisa l’utilisation d’équipements Rush de chez Martin Professional dont 16 lyres Rush MH3 et 6 lampes à découpe Rush MH1, ainsi que 6 lyres Mac Aura. Louie avait déjà une console Martin M1 dans l’établissement sœur Alumbra, alors il a décidé de garder la même plate-forme de contrôle. Dans la salle de bal sont disposés 6 projecteurs Rush MH2 de chez Martin Professional et au plafond on peut voir 96 Pixel Bar 40 modulables, qui sont des bandes de pixels LED RVB contrôlables de chez ShowPro, gérées à l’aide d’un serveur médias Pandora Box de chez coolux. En ce qui concerne l’audio de la pièce principale et de la mezzanine, une gamme complète de produits Martin ont été installés, proposant un système d’amplification et de gestion par QSC.

DEUTSCH

Ms Collins ist der neue Bewohner des großen Sandsteingebäudes an der Ecke von Collins und Market Street in Melbourne. Zuvor befand sich dort Silk Road. Audio- und Beleuchtungsdienste wurde in Auftrag gegeben, um die Beleuchtungs- und AudioAnforderungen des Treffs auszuarbeiten, bereitzustellen und zu installieren. Louie Constantinou führte das Team an. Für den Hauptraum und die Hochparterre ergriff Louie die Gelegenheit und verwendete einige Rush Einbauten von Martin Professional, einschließlich 16 Rush MH3 Lichtbündel und sechs Rush MH1 Profilleuchten, sowie sechs Martin Professional MAC Auras.

Louie hatte bereits eine Martin M1 Konsole im Schwesterntreff Alumbra, und beschloss aus diesem Grund, der gleichen Kontrollplattform treu zu bleiben. Der Tanzbereich des Treffs verfügt über sechs Martin Professional Rush MH2 Washlights und 96 ShowPro LED Pix Strip 40 modulare, lineare RGB Pixelkontrollierte LED-Streifen auf dem Dach, die so geplant sind, dass sie einen coolux Pandoras Box Medienserver verwenden.

Im Bezug auf das Audio im Hauptraum und in der Hochparterre wurde die komplette Ausstattung von Martin Audio Produkten mit Verstärkung und Processing durch QSC installiert.

to tune and control the sound system. QSC Audio Q-Sys Core 250i processors controlled via TCS-3 touchscreen controllers located in different areas around the venue, at the click of a button provide loudspeaker management control, allowing any source of input to be routed to any output in the venue.

Finishing off the audio line-up, as is standard for most nightclubs these days, Ms Collins is equipped with a full complement of the latest DJ equipment from Pioneer. “Feedback suggests everyone is really happy with Ms Collins, and it’s the place to be.” Louie concluded.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION LIGHTING & VISUAL

16 x Martin Professional Rush MH3 beam moving head; 6 x Martin Professional Rush MH1 profile moving head; 6 x Martin Professional MAC Aura moving head; 6 x Martin Professional Rush MH2 compact moving head; 96 x ShowPro LED Pix Strip 40 modular linear RGB pixel control LED strip; 1 x Martin Professional M1 console; 2 x coolux Pandoras Box media server; Pro Shop RGB HD LED tape

SOUND

4 x Martin Audio LE 2100S loudspeaker; 4 x Martin Audio Blackline F8+ loudspeaker; 14 x Martin Audio XD12 loudspeaker; 1 x Martin Audio DX12 DJ monitor; 2 x Martin Audio Blackline F10+ loudspeaker; 1 x Martin Audio Blackline S18+ subwoofer; 5 x Martin Audio WS218X subwoofer; 2 x Martin Audio Blackline S12+ subwoofer; 2 x Martin Audio Blackline S12+ subwoofer; 10 x QSC Audio PLD4.5 amplifier; QSC Audio Q-Sys Core 250i processors; QSC Audio TCS-3 touch screen controllers; 8 x Pioneer CDJ-2000 Nexus multi player; 3 x Pioneer DJM-900 Nexus mixer; 2 x Pioneer RMX-500 effects unit www.mscollins.com.au

www.mondodr.com

ITALIANO

Ms Collins è il nuovo arrivo nel grande edificio in arenaria all’angolo di Collins Street e Market Street di Melbourne, che nella precedentemente era stato sede di Silk Road. Audio and Lighting Services avevano il compito di progettare, fornire ed installare l’illuminazione e seguire le esigenze audio del locale con il caposquadra Louie Constantinou. Per la sala principale ed il piano rialzato, Louie ha colto l’occasione di utilizzare alcune delle attrezzature Rush di Martin Professional, tra cui 16 luci a fascio stretto Rush MH3 e 6 sagomatori Rush MH1, così come 6 Martin Professional MAC Aura. Louie aveva già una console Martin M1 nella filiale di Alumbra, così ha deciso di riutilizzare la stessa piattaforma di controllo. La sala da ballo del locale ha 6 teste mobili Rush MH2 di Martin Professional, 96 ShowPro LED Pix Strip 40 pixel control LED RGB modulari per le strisce sul tetto, che vengono monitorati usando un media server Pandoras Box della coolux. Per l’audio nella stanza principale e al piano rialzato sono stati installati una gamma completa di prodotti Martin Audio, con amplificazione ed elaborazione fornita da QSC.

ESPAÑOL

Ms Collins es la nueva residencia del gran edificio de piedra arenisca en la esquina de las calles Collins y Market en Melbourne, el cual supo albergar a Silk Road. A Audio and Lighting Services se les encomendó diseñar, abastecer e instalar los requerimientos de iluminación y audio para el lugar con Louie Constantinou liderando el equipo. Para el piso principal y el entrepiso, Louie aprovechó la oportunidad de utilizar algunos de los artefactos Rush de Martin Professional incluyendo 16 luces direccionales Rush MH3 y seis luces de recorte Rush MH1, así como seis MAC Auras de Martin Professional. Louie ya tenía una consola Martin M1 en el otro sitio, Alumbra, así que decidió quedarse con la misma plataforma de control. La zona de la pista de baile cuenta con seis luces con cabezas móviles de Martin Professional Rush MH2 y 96 tiras de ShowPro LED Pix Strip 40 modular linear RGB pixel control en el techo, las cuales están dispuestas mediante la utilización de un servidor media coolux Pandoras Box. Para el audio en el salón principal y en el entrepiso, se instalaron complementos completos de productos de Martin Audio con la amplificación y el procesamiento provisto por QSC.

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098 VENUE

INCHEON ASIAD MAIN INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA ASIA/PACIFIC/OCEANIA

As far as sporting events go, arguably the one that brings most people together on a global scale is the Olympics, but that’s not to say there aren’t other regional events that have a similar effect.

One in particular is the Asian Games - also known as Asiad - of which the latest edition took place from 19 September - 4 October in Incheon, South Korea with the majority of the 439 events covering 36 sports and disciplines taking place in the new state-of-the-art, purpose built Incheon Asiad Main Stadium.

The US$400m stadium was designed by Populous in association with local company Heerim Architects and Planners. Legacy and

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sustainability were the driving factors in designing the stadium, Populous Senior Principal, Andrew James said: “We wanted to take a fresh look at the way we treat adaptable stadia in Incheon.” The stadium needed to cater for up to 60,000 people for the 17th edition of the Asian Games, but to extend its use afterwards, the stadium was required to shrink down to a sided grandstand with a 30,000-capacity and be used as a People’s Park for the city of Incheon.

“Rather than considering how we could shrink a 60,000 seat stadium, we turned the idea on its head and thought let’s build a 30,000 seat stadium and add 30,000 temporary seats. This approach provided multiple advantages. Financially, it reduced the building by two thirds meaning there are substantial savings in operational and maintenance costs. Secondly, it meant the permanent seats could be sited in the optimal position for these sports, in this instance, in the

STADIUM West stand,” continued Andrew.

“But the biggest advantage in the design is the freedom it provided in terms of legacy. The plans were always based on a community park, which after the Games, will replace the Eastern stand, forming a traditional stadium hill, with plazas on the north and south ends, providing atmospheric spectator viewing during a match, and a green space for the public to enjoy at all other times.”

The stadium took three years to construct and was completed in July of this year, just ahead of the Games. The sheer size of the structure meant that a large amount of audio equipment was required to ensure that each and every spectator at the Games came away with the optimum experience.

Since EAW had been installed in a couple of major stadiums in Korea, the Sang am World Cup Stadium and Busan Asiad Main Stadium - both in 2002 - EAW products already had a good reputation in Korean athletic circles. There was also a lot of interest surrounding EAW’s QX Series, it had sparked attention in the world of stadiums around the globe. It was for these reasons - and with the knowledge that it had full support from EAW ASG (Application Support Group) - that Dasan, EAW’s distributor in Korea contacted Desco - the system integrator for the stadium - in order to win the audio technology contract.

100 VENUE

The goal for the audio design was “to produce an articulate, high output sound system with full pattern control across the entire stadium,” said Desco Manager, Jungchan Lee. After conducting research by visiting other stadiums and comparing the options of line array verses point source, the latter was chosen. Despite the worry of SPL problems using this configuration, Dasan was confident it could overcome the challenges thanks to the capabilities of EAW’s QX Series - 142dB SPL at 55Hz to 20kHz. To achieve the design goal a 28-point source system was specified. The 28 clusters of three EAW QX564i-WP loudspeakers were mounted on stands, which were then installed 70-metres off the ground in the stadium ceiling.

The QX564i-WP three-way loudspeakers are housed in a squared, symmetrical, dual-trapezoidal enclosure to provide plenty of array flexibility. They provide a coverage pattern of 60° by 45° and feature a centrally located mid frequency / high frequency horn and four 12-inch low frequency transducers, both of which contribute to the control capabilities of the horizontal and vertical coverage patterns.

These models in particular were chosen for their speech intelligibility qualities and their durability in outdoor environments. “The sound system design was reached with the help of EAW Resolution software and EASE modelling simulation software,” continued Jungchan. The biggest challenge the team had to overcome during the installation was the high winds. Trying to complete an accurate installation in

such conditions is no easy task, and once in place, the system then had to be able to withstand those winds on regular occasions.

Aside from the point source system, a further 12 EAW KF750 threeway tri-amplified loudspeakers were installed for sound reinforcement. The KF750’s feature an acoustic singularity design, which aligns the three sub-systems along a single axis, this, combined with the fact that the large / mid frequency horn contains both the high and low frequency sub-systems means these loudspeakers provide excellent clarity and produce high impact.

“It is gratifying that once again PR Lighting’s fixtures were selected for such a mega project as the Asian Games.”

Balcony fills come in the form of EAW UB12Si compact loudspeaker, 72 in total, split evenly between the three balconies. The UB12Si fill system operates in fully passive mode with an internal passive crossover / filter network both dividing the signal and providing critical equalisation functions. It acts as a secondary distributed reinforcement system to the main clusters, providing additional coverage, yet due to their ultra-compact enclosures, they remain unobtrusively and do not interfere with the sightlines of the spectators sitting in the balcony. Completing the loudspeaker line-up are 16 EAW JF80z cabinets, which are split between the main entrance area and the lobby.

To amplify and process the audio system, QSC equipment was selected. For mixing capabilities, flexibility was once again of high importance, the mixing consoles needed to be able to cater for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Asian Games, sporting events and live music concerts, many of which will takes place after the Games. An Allen & Heath iLive-144 digital mixing console has been installed as the main mixer, it has the advantage of being able to change control settings quickly and efficiently depending on the event taking place. The iLive-144 also allows a variety of audio I/O modules, network formats and redundant power supply options. It is connected to an Allen & Heath iDR-48 MixRack, which houses the DSP, most of the I/O, networking and control interfaces. It features 48 mic / line inputs and 24 XLR line outputs. An Allen & Heath GL2800 console was installed as a sub analogue mixer. It’s a compact desk that is capable of mixing small-scale events at the stadium.

Both consoles also have the ability to be controlled wireless from an iPad, a very useful tool for this large installation.

Dasan felt incredibly privileged to be involved in such a prestigious project as this, and were very proud when they witnessed of the opening and closing ceremonies in the stadium they helped to create.

Just one element of the ceremonies that stood out was the lighting

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102 VENUE

FRANÇAIS

Ce stade multi-usage de 400 M$ US fut conçu par le Cabinet d’architectes Populous en association avec l’entreprise locale d’urbanisme Heerim Architects & Planners. Érigé pour la dernière édition des Jeux asiatiques se déroulant du 19 septembre au 4 octobre, le stade a accueilli 439 événements présentant 36 disciplines sportives. La société Dasan est le distributeur de EAW en Corée et possède une grande expérience dans le domaine des applications pour stades. C’est pour cette raison, et sachant qu’elle avait le soutien intégral de EAW ASG, que les responsables de Dasan se sentaient prêts à répondre aux spécifications de conception et de production exigées. Un système audio centralisé fut jugé la meilleure solution possible en y rajoutant quelques éléments supplémentaires servant également de système de distribution renforcée secondaire. Afin de brancher et mettre le système audio en réseau, Dasan et Desco se sont tournés vers le constructeur américain QSC. Une console de mixage numérique Allen & Heath iLive144 sert de table de mixage principale reliée à une baie de mixage Allen & Heath iDR-48. Lors des cérémonies d’ouverture et de clôture des Jeux asiatiques, l’éclairage au complet brilla de tout feu avec près de 200 spots mobiles de chez PR Lighting. Le Directeur adjoint des ventes internationales de PR Lighting, Sasha Xiong, a déclaré : « Une fois de plus, c’est un honneur de voir l’équipement de PR Lighting sélectionné pour un projet d’une envergure telle les Jeux asiatiques. »

DEUTSCH

Das 400 M. US$ teure zweckbestimmte Incheon Asiad Main Stadium wurde durch Populous in Zusammenarbeit mit dem lokalen Unternehmen Heerim Architects and Planners entworfen. Es wurde für die jüngste Ausgabe der Asienspiele erbaut, die vom 19. September bis zum 4.

Oktober stattgefunden haben und 439 Veranstaltungen in 36 Sportarten und Disziplinen umfassten. Dasan ist der Vertreiber von EAW in Korea und verfügt über eine weitreichende Erfahrung im Bereich Stadienanlagen. Aus diesem Grund - und zusammen mit dem Wissen, dass sie von EAW ASG komplett unterstützt werden - wurde Dasan als kompetent für das Design und die Produktspezifikation empfunden. Ein Punktschallquellen-System wurde neben einigen zusätzlichen Füllern, die ebenfalls als sekundäres, dezentrales Verstärkungssystem zu den Hauptgruppen dienen, als beste Lösung ausgewählt. Für die Versorgung und Vernetzung des Audiosystems haben sich Dasan und Desco an den US-amerikanischen Hersteller QSC gewandt. Ein digitales Allen & Heath iLive-144 Mischpult wurde als Hauptmischpult installiert, das an ein Allen & Heath iDR48 MixRack angeschlossen ist. Während der Eröffnungs- und Abschlussfeiern wurden für die Beleuchtung rund 200 bewegliche Köpfe von PR Lighting für die Performances eingesetzt. Der stellvertretende internationale Verkaufsdirektor von PR Lighting, Sasha Xiong, erklärte: ““Erfreulicherweise wurden wieder Beleuchtungskörper von PR Lighting für solch ein Megaprojekt wie die Asienspiele ausgewählt.”

ITALIANO

inventory from PR Lighting.

With diversity being the theme for the ceremonies, rental house, Canlite specified nearly 200 PR Lighting moving heads for the performances. The inventory included more than 100 powerful PR 5000 Spot, Wash and Framing variants - many of them positioned, along with XR 330 Beams, on the top of the roof to deliver strident lighting effects directly to the centre of the stage during the music sequences. All the fixtures were purchased new and were customised specifically for the Asian Games. Canlite’s Sang Shin Lee said: “We chose these fixtures because they are both powerful and fully featured, with advanced functions, reliability and excellent all round performance.”

Concluding, PR Lighting’s International Assistant Sales Director, Sasha Xiong said: “It is gratifying that once again PR Lighting’s fixtures were selected for such a mega project as the Asian Games and we thank both our customer and lighting designer for investing so much confidence in the brand with this deployment.”

TECHNICAL INFORMATION SOUND

84 x EAW QX564i-WP loudspeaker; 12 x EAW KF750 threeway tri-amplified loudspeaker; 72 x EAW UB12Si compact loudspeaker; 16 x EAW JF80z cabinets; 1 x Allen & Heath iLive144 digital mixing console; 1 x Allen & Heath iDR-48 MixRack; 1 x Allen & Heath GL2800 console; QSC Audio amplification and processing www.desco.kr / www.dasansr.com

www.mondodr.com

Lo stadio da $ 400 milioni, Incheon Asiad Main, è stato progettato da Populous in collaborazione con la società locale Heerim Architects and Planners ed è stato appositamente costruito in occasione dell’ultima edizione dei Giochi asiatici che si sono svolti dal 19 settembre al 4 ottobre, ospitando 439 eventi in 36 sport e discipline. Dasan è il distributore della EAW in Corea e, avendo già molta esperienza nelle richieste di collaborazione per gli stadi, oltre alla consapevolezza che avrebbe avuto il pieno sostegno della EAW ASG, si è sentito ben equipaggiato per effettuare la progettazione e le specifiche del prodotto. Un sistema a sorgente acustica è stato scelto come la migliore soluzione, insieme ad alcuni riempimenti aggiuntivi che fungono anche da sistema di rinforzo secondario distribuito ai principali cluster. Per potenziare e trasmettere il sistema audio, Dasan e Desco si sono rivolti ad un produttore americano, QSC. Un mixer digitale Allen & Heath iLive-144 è stato installato come mixer principale che è collegato ad un mixer con modulatore a rack iDR-48 di Allen & Heath. Durante le cerimonie di apertura e di chiusura, l’inventario di illuminazione è stato esibito per gli spettacoli, attraverso l’utilizzo di quasi 200 teste mobili PR. L’assistente internazionale del direttore commerciale della PR Lighting, Sasha Xiong ha detto: “E’ gratificante il fatto che, ancora una volta, siano stati scelti gli impianti della PR Lighting per un progetto così grande come quello dei Giochi Asiatici”.

ESPAÑOL

El Estadio Mayor Incheon Asiad construido con US$400 Millones fue diseñado por Populous en asociación con la empresa local Heerim Architects and Planners. Fue levantado para la última edición de los Juegos Asiáticos, que tuvo lugar del 19 de Septiembre al 4 de Octubre, albergando 439 eventos con 36 países y disciplinas. Dasan es el distribuidor de EAW en Corea y cuenta con muchísima experiencia en la puesta de estadios y por esta razón - y con el conocimiento de que cuenta con el soporte completo de EAW ASG - fue que Dasan sintió estar bien equipado para llevar a cabo el diseño y las especificaciones del producto. Como mejor alternativa se eligió un sistema de fuente puntual junto con algunos detalles adicionales que también actúan como un sistema de refuerzo secundario distribuido en los grupos principales. Para potenciar y diagramar el sistema de audio, Dasan y Desco se inclinaron por el fabricante Estadounidense, QSC. Como mezcladora principal se instaló una consola de mezcla digital Allen & Heath iLive-144 la cual está conectada a un MixRackiDR-48 de Allen & Heath. Durante las ceremonias de apertura y cierre el inventario de iluminación cobró vida al utilizarse casi 200 cabezales móviles de PR Lighting para las presentaciones. Sasha Xiong, Directora Internacional de Ventas de PR Lighting, dijo: “Es gratificante que se hayan seleccionado una vez más los artefactos de PR Lighting para un mega proyecto de la envergadura de los Juegos Asiáticos.”

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104 VENUE

CANBERRA AIRPORT CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA ASIA/PACIFIC/OCEANIA

Canberra Airport has recently invested a total of $480m on a complete redevelopment of its terminal precinct. This redevelopment, termed ‘AirVolution’, is the largest private sector investment in Canberra’s history and has delivered a world-class terminal in Australia’s capital that covers 55,000 sq metres. The environmentally friendly building has been recently honoured by a number of industry awards, including twice being named Australia’s Airport of the Year.

Rutledge AV - a renowned integrator for world class public venues and facilities - was commissioned to design, install and deliver the Western Concourse Public Address and Emergency Warning and Intercommunication System (EWIS) for Stage 2 of Canberra Airport.

This system also needed to integrate seamlessly into the existing airport’s systems to ensure airport wide communication from a centralised control point.

Being such a modern structure meant Canberra Airport presented some complex audiovisual challenges given the expansive spaces.

For example, the airport’s stunning atrium is a particularly complex space given the volume of glass used. The large glass atrium which overlooks aircraft as they dock, active runways and the region

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beyond is a three storey (16-metres high) structure that uses 279 glazed panels and covers an area of 1,500 sq metres. This area required detailed EASE modelling to ensure optimal placement of loudspeakers.

Rutledge AV is recognised for its expertise in the use of computer modelling to achieve optimal sound quality in challenging environments. Rutledge AV sought the aid of complex simulations to recreate the spaces to assess loudspeakers, positions and angles and ultimately come up with the ideal design.

To achieve sufficient coverage for the atrium Rutledge AV underwent EASE modelling and worked in collaboration with Tannoy’s regional distributor APG to model varying scenarios for the airport to ensure the best speech intelligibility and compliance with regulations, as well as being considerate to architectural challenges.

As a result of the initial assessment of the project requirements and, based on the assumption of an ambient noise level of 85dB, Rutledge AV understood the Atrium would be a difficult acoustic space, a highly reverberant area that would present challenges for any loudspeaker. The combination of the physical space and surfaces,

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ambient noise levels, speaker selection, quantity and placement would all affect the overall SPL and STI (speech transmission index) performance relevant to the Australian Standard AS1670.4.

In such a challenging space, the perfect solution to ensure intelligibility was Tannoy’s digital beam steering column array, QFlex. Using the highly intuitive Qflex BeamEngine, system designers are able to quickly model a given environment and create customised ‘steering files’ for each Qflex array, ensuring that audio is distributed in a highly controlled and coordinated manner between Qflex units, minimising acoustic reflections and targeting the audio exactly on the areas required.

Rutledge AV was able to provide even coverage to every area, using just two QFlex 32 devices mounted either-side of the entrance hall and two QFlex 32s airside, along with another QFlex 40.

The aesthetics of the loudspeakers was a major consideration in the equipment selection to ensure they would work in harmony with the built environment. Several iterations of the design and model were required to conform with the architectural requirements. In some cases these steered array loudspeakers were concealed behind ‘dummy’ mechanical grilles to appease the building design.

Elsewhere, 300 of Tannoy’s CMS 601BM have been deployed on the concourse, restaurant and departure gates to provide even coverage throughout the terminal. The CMS 601 is a full bandwidth; high power and high sensitivity ceiling monitor system; a mid-sized unit that is specifically designed for applications requiring the combination of higher quality sonic performance for music and speech reinforcement and exceptional reliability, a perfect addition for a venue like Canberra Airport.

Airports are the world’s busiest activity centres with communications being fundamental to their operational success. To maintain a safe environment at the airport, Rutledge AV not only installed an effective audio digital signal processing system that is unobtrusive and meets all relevant Australian standards but one that assists to provide an efficient and safe airport environment. One of the biggest challenges was the cutover of the system in a public facility that operates for the most of the day.

The Rutledge AV commissioning team worked overnight to have the new Biamp VOCIA headend system operational by morning, cut-over to the existing Klotz cabling system. “A project of this size that operates for most of the day in a public environment meant that the Rutledge AV commissioning team worked overnight to have the new system operational by morning. The night work was also necessary to undertake the required EVAC testing of the system and the cutover required precise coordination with the

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106 VENUE

client to ensure that all stakeholders were on line at the same time.” said Andrew Morrice, CEO of Rutledge AV. The fire services needed to be onsite to program the fire panel that integrates with the Rutledge AV paging system to trigger the EWIS at times of emergency. Rutledge AV treat EWIS systems very seriously as they assist to maintain safe environments for the public. The company had to ensure the EWIS system adhered to the applicable standards and the integration of the system would evacuate different set zones in a systematic and controlled evacuation to minimise any disruptions.

New advancements in QFlex technology have only made it even better for these PA/VA environments, including Sentinel for fault monitoring and reporting, and an Ethernet bridge to allow for distributed rack systems.

Stuart Archibald, Product Manager for Tannoy, commented: “Tannoy have firmly established QFlex as the solution of choice in major transportation hubs in the UK and abroad, and forthcoming innovations will only add to an already extensive feature set and underline Tannoy’s ongoing commitment to be at the forefront of the steerable and architectural audio market. This superior innovation, unbeatable sonic

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clarity and overall user experience make QFlex the most compelling choice for any application where intelligibility in a reverberant space is a paramount concern.”

Audiovisual is art and science. Rutledge AV was working in harmony with a variety of environments and challenges - existing structures, infrastructure, lighting and acoustics - to ensure that the existing built environments are enhanced with world class audiovisual, which is of the most part - concealed, and manages to effortlessly meet all relevant standards and maintain STI and SPL.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION SOUND

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product launch NEXO - GEO M6 & STM M28

INDUSTRY NEWS DIGICO, ALLEN & HEATH, CALREC / OSRAM, CLAY PAKY

PRODUCT GUIDE

THEATRICAL LIGHTING

PRODUCT DIRECTORY Once again our In Business section brings you a wealth of variety this issue with the launch of PRO in Birmingham kicking off the show report section. We’ve adopted a new approach to our show reviews and included more quotes than ever before, from both visitors and exhibitors, which we think you’ll find interesting. Our second show report comes from Shanghai, where Rachael found a show that seems to be morphing into a domestic event.

There have been a lot of interesting developments in the industry of late with numerous buyouts and mergers, you can read all the details of some of the most prominent stories in our Industry News feature this issue.

Find details of Nexo’s GEO M6 and STM M28 loudspeaker systems, after they received their official UK launch at a dedicated event and in the Product Guide you’ll see we’ve focussed on the various lighting fixtures out there suited to the world of theatre. As always we have a product directory for all latest releases and our Last Page is in memory of the late Pasquale Quadri.

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The BPM show has always been a good show for ADJ. By adding the PRO element this year we were able to build our stand and demo our product range to its full potential. Lighting professionals and trade customers appreciated our focus on real-world entertainment lighting solutions. Bottom line, PRO just made BPM a great entertainment technology show!

- Brian Dowdle, ADJ

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“PRO feels like it’s on the ‘up’ curve, in its first year I suppose it has to! As a ‘less consumer’ addition to the BPM show, it was well organised, and with a buzz that comes with the association of BPM, there was a great atmosphere, with the auditorium events being well attended and planned. Footfall for us was a little low over the weekend, but then again they’re the DJ days and the BPM side of things was very busy.

Monday was much better and overall, with the astonishingly fast load in and load out, I think we will definitely be here again next year.”

- Waring Hayes, XTA

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1. Marc Librecht and Eric Loader of Elation with the new Sniper. 2. David Morbey and Simon Bull of Martin Audio. 3. Kris Dawber and Dirk Kast of ADJ. 4. SFAT’s Pierre De Lora and Christophe De Lora. 5. The Pioneer Professional Audio stand.

PRO

BIRMINGHAM Launched alongside renowned DJ show, BPM, PRO is the perfect partner aimed to attract the trade professionals from the audio, lighting, video and effects markets. The co-located shows took place on 13-15 September at Birmingham’s NEC and welcomed more than 9,000 visitors across the three days, with an approximate 60/40 split between consumers and professionals, respectively.

Organised by Marked Events - with media partner Mondiale Publishing - PRO got off to a good start by welcoming a number of key exhibitors from the UK market, as well as implementing features such as the Audio Demo Space, Learning Space,

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the Product Demo Stage, the Chauvet Arena and the Central Bar for meetings and networking.

During the event Elation announced the world premiere of what it describes as a truly innovative game-changing product. Sniper is a revolutionary hybrid beam, scanner and laser simulator in one. Emitting a powerful, precise and ultra-narrow 3° beam, a high-speed X/Y scan and Z rotation mirror system allows the Sniper to spread laser-like effects including liquid sky, laser wave, and laser cone effects, all moving at rapid speeds. What’s more, Sniper allows these effects to be projected

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“I’m hugely optimistic about this show; it promises to be exactly what the UK needs in terms of an annual audio technology showcase.

The NEC environment is a pleasure for the exhibitors and access is easy for visitors. The mix of demos, performances, lectures and panel sessions is lively and educational, and is a genuine attraction for visitors.

As more elite brands join in the exhibition, the footfall will increase accordingly and the UK market will have a dynamic business event once more.”

- Ginny Goudy, Nexo

6. Phil Price and Dean Davoile of RCF . 7. The Chauvet Professional team, including Albert Chauvet and Michael Brooksbank (front). 8. KV2 Audio’s Tom Weldon.

and ‘scanned’ into the crowd and without the hassle of laser regulations.

As headline sponsor of PRO, Martin Audio presented a real tour de force at the booth and at the Audio Demo Space. The company displayed its award-winning MLA platform ‘as it’s never been seen before’ in club stack formation.

Chauvet Professional displayed an array of luminaires including the Nexus range, ÉPIX Bar 2.0 and ÉPIX Strip 2.0 pixel-mapping fixtures, the Legend 330SR Spot powerful moving yoke and the feature-packed Rogue Spot and Beam fixtures in the Arena. While Chauvet DJ and Trusst were represented in BPM. Nexo had a soft demo of the new STM M28 system in the Chauvet Arena and on the booth the new GEO

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We love BPM and PRO because it’s our one opportunity to be able to talk to users as well as to the trade. We love the fact that we have the arena, which is a great showcase for us and gives us our best opportunity in the tradeshow calendar to actually show our lights to their best advantage.

- Michael Brooksbank, Chauvet Professional

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“The Audio-Technica team had a great night at the PRO launch party. Aside from the excellent venue and atmosphere, as a manufacturer and distributor it was a brilliant opportunity to network with industry peers from all fields.

Civilised and sensible as always, the Mondiale team hosted what turned out to be a fun and ultimately very productive evening!”

- Tom Harrold, Audio-Technica

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Void exhibited at BPM and PRO because it wishes to engage with the DJ and install markets. We felt that we got a lot of attention from the show in terms of passing trade, as well as people who have specific projects, who came to us for clubs and installs. The fact that we had the demo room proved immeasurably beneficial to us too. Also, it was great to meet all the industry people and go and see what the competition is doing. The fact that it’s been a successful show this year and that it’s getting bigger and bigger means that it is providing a bigger buzz for our industry.

- Dominic Jacobson, Void Acoustics 6 1. The SGM and Madrix team line up. 2. The Flare Audio team. 3. Denis Phoenix and Norbert Stangl of Laserworld. 4. Clive Kinton (right) and colleague from Ohm. 5. Audiologic’s Simon Stoll.

6. The FBT team - Mark Parkhouse, Kevin McNally, Lisa Boer and Remo Orsoni.

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EXPO 113

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“Elation was happy to be a part of the first PRO show. The layout and format of the show was ideal for the pro market and energy of the show was great. While the quantity of customers interested in our products was not high the quality was very high and we look forward to this show building up its ‘pro market’ attendance next year.”

- Eric Loader, Elation

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The BPM exhibition has been very positive for us, particularly with our portable performance boxes, the Art Series. We have been very supportive of the PRO show ever since its conception because we feel there is a need for a show that has more of a focus on audio, and the ability to be able to demonstrate audio in fairly relaxed and costeffective surroundings, that’s really worked well for us.

Saturday was quiet but we expected that. The amount of visitors into the PRO side of the exhibition was slower compared to BPM but we saw some good contacts. We’re very much on the ground and we will be supporting the event going forward.

-Phil Price, RCF

“Great show with a great potential. It’s nice to see a fresh approach for the pro audio industry.”

- Alex Barrand, Pioneer Professional Audio

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7. The Nexo team strike an ‘alternative’ pose. 8. Aziz Adilkhodjaev of Avolites. 9. The Bose team. 10. Ian Davis and Waring Hayes of XTA.

M6 system attracted a lot of attention, as did the classic PS Series, a DJ staple.

Having previewed the new TTP5-A active point source array at this year’s Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt, RCF put it on live demo at PRO to mark its UK debut.

Sennheiser UK had a stand in the BPM section of the show, the company displayed its range of DJ headphones, as well as Rane’s acclaimed DJ interfaces and mixers. The Audio-Technica stand showcased brand new Allen & Heath DJ products including the Xone 23:C DJ mixer and the Xone:K1 DJ MIDI controller.

FBT Audio UK used PRO for the first showing of its latest X Series active loudspeakers consisting of three ranges - X-PRO, X-LITE and X-SUB. Also new at

PRO was the latest modular line array range - Muse.

Audiologic marked its 10th anniversary, celebrating with cake and champagne.

While Marked Events and Mondiale Publishing took the opportunity to celebrate too, with a launch party for PRO held on Sunday evening.

“Launching PRO has really helped increase the focus and vigour of BPM, making for a more wholesome visitor experience; we had more visitors than last year and the reaction, from both visitors and exhibitors, has been phenomenal,” said Mark Walsh, Sales Director at Marked Events. “We’ve carved out separate identities for both BPM and PRO, which is vital, but we’ve also placed them in one central

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114 EXPO

1 1. The Norton Audio team.

location for the convenience of the industry as a whole.

“Plans for 2015 are already well underway and having just released the floorplan it is looking like almost all companies will be returning in 2015. Listening to our exhibitors is the key and we have taken some feedback on board already. We have added a second hall to PRO, which will give us room for new exhibitors and will allow the sound-scape in PRO to have no-sound areas, and areas where on-stand demonstrations are possible. In 2015, we will also be using the additional space to

STUDIO DESIGNER, JAN MOREL ATTENDED BPM & PRO THIS YEAR, HE CHATTED WITH MONDO*DR TO DELIVERED HIS THOUGHTS...

What brings you to BPM and PRO? I was invited by Vicoustic. Audio Technica is the distributor in the UK for Vicoustic acoustic products and it is closely connected to Iemke Roos - the Dutch distributor for Vicoustic and Audio Technica. The guys in Portugal - all Vicoustic products are made in Portugal - invited me because I do a lot of work with them, so I’m here for all three days and have been giving presentations, showing the work I have done using Vicoustic’s acoustic treatments.

What do you think of the show?

It’s a cool show. Lots happening and there’s plenty of energy. I’ve spent most of my time on the Audio Technica stand and I’m hoping to have a good look around today and tomorrow.

What have you been working on recently?

I’ve been very busy with various studio projects. In the last couple of years I’ve designed studios, or producer rooms as I call them, for people like Nicky Romero, Bingo Players and Hardwell. I’m currently doing the next studio for Hardwell. The first one was in his parents’ house, now he has moved to his own place, so we’re creating a new space for him there.

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We’ve come into the show with our eyes wide open in terms of our expectations and what we’re going to achieve. We feel there is room for a new exhibition and the only way it’s going to be successful is if people support it, so we’re going to support it and give it as much as we can to help the PRO exhibition grow to what we need it to be.

We think it’s got potential and while we can see things that we would do slightly differently next year, on the whole it’s been very good.

- Simon Bull, Martin Audio launch the first ever Special Effects Theatre. This purpose built feature will allow for demonstration slots for each manufacturer to show off the latest in effects technology. This combined with a growing PRO Audio Demo Space and additional seminar content will mean 2015 will have so much more to offer.”

PRO & BPM will return to the NEC Birmingham on 12-14 September 2015.

For more info go to: www.visitpro.co.uk / www.visitbpm.co.uk

How did you end up working with an artist like Hardwell?

I was sitting on the terrace on a Saturday afternoon. Most of the time I don’t know the people before they call me. So, I was sitting with my friend having a glass of wine. A guy phoned me, he said: ‘My name’s Robbert. I saw a picture of your work from the Bingo Players and I’d like to ask you, will you do something with me the same?’ I said, ‘yes, it’s nice Robbert but I’m currently sitting on the terrace enjoying the wine and sun, so can I call you back later on?’ ‘Okay, okay, my name’s Robbert Hardwell’. I said, ‘okay, I’ll call you later’.

I came home in the evening and was sitting in my living room and I remembered I had to call somebody. ‘Let’s see, what’s his name? It’s Robbert… Robbert Hardwell’. And the reaction of my kids was like, that’s Hardwell – he’s sixth in the world!’ I said, ‘I think I should call him now’.

What is your approach?

I design everything - the look, the feel, the acoustics and the sound. The idea is to create an environment that is totally removed from the outside, so that the producer feels comfortable and able to create.

Exhibitions like this can be good for little ideas but a lot of my inspiration comes from things I see, like the colours of the sunset that can be replicated using lighting in the studio. It’s all about setting the right environment. The acoustics and the sound are, of course, extremely important.

You often specify Genelec monitors; why is that?

I prefer Genelec. I’m not tied to any one company, but I prefer Genelec. It depends on the situation, of course but, in general, it’s the one that works. It has a brilliant sound that detail in the mid-frequencies, which really lets you hear what you’ve produced.

I’ve been a fan of the monitors for a while. The Genelec 8260A, which came out a couple of years ago, is amazing. It’s the best near-field there is. And now we’ve started to offer the big systems. We didn’t sell these before because they were too expensive but now there is a range (1237 Series ) that people can buy for 4,400 Euros each.

Now we install these big sets, they are getting more popular and I think we will sell more of these as well.

In Hardwell’s first studio, he worked on a different speaker system, Focals and DynAudios. For his new studio, he wanted a main system and we end up with the Genelec 1034’s completed with the huge 7073 subs, this will create the best sound you can imagine. I showed him and he started to understand where I was coming from. When people start to describe things in the same way you do, you know they like what you are talking about.

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116 EXPO

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1. The DesPro team including Zoe Lee (left) 2. Shirley Pan (right) and the rest of the Omarte team. 3. The Lite- Lees team with new recruit, Cui Lin (thrid from right). 4. Scott Davies of Arriba Cases. 5. Paul Li of NPower with Gianluca Dalessandro of dBTechnologies. 6. The SAE team. 7. The Weifa stand. 8. The Vello team. 9. KV2 Audio, Clair Brothers, Proel and TW Audio took part in the audio shoot out.

PROLIGHT + SOUND SHANGHAI

mondo*dr is known for attending many of the industry tradeshows and people often ask our opinion of certain exhibitions. An event with the Prolight+Sound name, organised by Messe Frankfurt - and Intex Shanghai - depicts a certain expectation, however, I personally feel that this year’s Prolight+Sound in Shanghai didn’t meet that criteria.

Prolight+Sound Shanghai (PL+S Shanghai) took place from 8-11 October at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC). As far as Chinese exhibition centres go - or the ones that I have been to anyway - it is well equipped. It’s of modern design, provides an acceptable level of facilities and is easy to access for

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load in and load out.

The exhibition grounds are large, so numerous shows can run concurrently. PL+S Shanghai - in conjunction with its counterpart, Music China - took over the West and East sides of the complex, 12 halls in total, three for PL+S Shanghai and nine for Music China. The PL+S Shanghai show claims to welcome over 500 brands from 17 countries, what the figures do not demonstrate though is how many of these brands are local and how many are international.

This is my sixth consecutive year at the show, and over that time I feel there has been a significant decrease in international brands on display. Possibly one of the

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118 EXPO

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1. Phoenix took on the distribution of Funktion One in September. 2. The Bose stand. 3. Will Chen of Ruisheng. 4. The team on the LAX stand. 5. The DJ Power team line up. 6. The Audiocenter team headed up by Markus Augenstein (left). 7. Marco Stuve and Jack Lee of Global Truss. 8. The ladies on the Tech Team stand. 9. Wu Da Wei (centre) heading up the MRT team.

most note worthy was the loss of Sennheiser China, which happened last year, and the company didn’t return this year either. In turn, a reduced number of international exhibitors resulted in a smaller percentage of international visitors, both in terms of manufacturers supporting their distributor partners and those just choosing to walk the floor. I would say I saw just a handful of each.

This is something that was noticed not only by me, but by many of the exhibitors I spoke to as well. A large number of exhibitors also reported that they felt the show was quieter overall in terms of visitor numbers. There were fewer brands taking part in the outdoor audio demo area this year too, for both the local and international shoot outs.

Essentially, I think the PL+S Shanghai element of the show is becoming more of a domestic exhibition, as it is just not attracting enough attention from further afield.

There are a number of reasons why this may have happened. Firstly, the global saturation of the tradeshow market has taken away something from every single exhibition. Companies are simply unable to afford to exhibit and / or visit every single event in the calendar and therefore choices and compromises have to be made. Secondly, the Shanghai show faces stiff competition from its sibling show,

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Prolight+Sound Guangzhou. This is the show that the majority of the Chinese companies are backing, and although the Guangzhou edition still needs some improvements, I think it has a very strong chance of becoming the leading industry tradeshow in Asia once it reaches its full potential.

Of course, I’d like to point out, there is nothing wrong with being a domestic tradeshow, so long as it is marketed as such, then both visitors and exhibitors alike are fully aware of what they are signing up for. On the show floor, I heard whispers that Messe Frankfurt has - to a degree - come to the same conclusion. If this is in fact true, then I admire the organiser for showing such courage and maturity. Too often these days, we see organisers burying their heads in the sand, not addressing issues that arise and on many occasions it leads to the demise of the show. It will be refreshing to witness the sequence of events, if this experienced organiser takes steps to change the perception of this show and make it a successful exhibition for the local market.

Prolight+Sound Shanghai will return to the SNIEC on 14-17 October 2015.

For more information, go to: www.prolight-sound-shanghai.hk.messefrankfurt.com

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120 PRODUCT LAUNCH

1 1. The main stage at Dallas Burston Polo Club kitted out with the Nexo GEO M6’s and STM M28’s. 2. Concert Sound Technical Support, Val Gilbert explaining the M6 in further detail.

NEXO LAUNCH M6 & M28 As the global dilemma over the standard tradeshow model continues, and whether each and every one is holding its value, we’re seeing more and more companies organising their own events to launch or showcase their latest product offerings.

French audio manufacturer, Nexo, did just that recently at Dallas Burston Polo Club in Warwickshire, UK, inviting rental houses, dealers, installers and members of the press to get up close and personal with its new GEO M6 and STM M28 line array systems.

The day began with Nexo R&D Engineer, Mathieu Pobeda - who played an integral part in the development of the M6 - introducing the technical features and capabilities of the system. One M6 - measuring just 191mm x 373mm x 260mm and weighing under 10kg - can be used as a standalone loudspeaker or as an element within a super-compact line-source system. The cabinet’s built-in NEXOSkeleton internal steel rigging system makes mounting for each of the configuration options an easy and straightforward task.

For the demonstration at the Polo Club, Mathieu deployed two arrays of six modules flown from a truss above the front of the stage, with low-frequency reinforcement provided by four LS18 subwoofers. This

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tiny system easily delivered intelligible speech, ample low-end and extremely musical playback to even the furthest corners. In addition to the main system, two arrays of three M6 modules were mounted on poles on top of LS18 subwoofers. The third configuration, was simply the 12 pole mounted M6’s - without the subwoofers - which delivered natural speech reproduction seamlessly across the room with ease.

Power and processing for the systems was provided by just three Nexo NXAMP powered controllers, one for the flown set of 12 M6 enclosures, a second for the LS18 subwoofers a third for the pole mounted set-up. This means that whatever the configuration, it is extremely space-effective and also very cost-effective in terms of purchasing, transport and storage. This was all explained on the day by UK Sales Manager, Gareth Collyer.

The M6 system is well suited to a variety of applications. For example, production companies working with corporate audiovisual clients whose natural habitat is venues such as the Polo Club, and for permanent installations because of the well thought-out range of mounting accessories and because it is available in the full range of RAL colours, which allows the

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122 PRODUCT LAUNCH

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1. The STM M28 outdoor demonstration. 2. Concert Sound Representative, Stuart Kerrison addressing the crowds. 3. Guests were encouraged to listen to the STM M28 system from a variety of different distances and angles.

already-discreet audio reinforcement system to blend near-invisibly into the décor of any room.

Concert Sound Representative and FOH veteran, Stuart Kerrison was next to take to the stage - both indoors and outdoors - to present the new STM M28 line array. Nexo’s STM (Scale Through Modularity) system is well-established and Stuart’s presentation reinforced the fundamental concept behind it.

The new M28 module is a more compact cabinet two-thirds the height of the M46 and 22kg lighter - but it is only 4dB down from its larger sibling in terms of maximum SPL. Like the M46, it can be deployed in numerous ways, flown, groundstacked, placed on top of S118 subwoofers and / or B112 bass modules or used as an individual loudspeaker for delays or lip-fills.

The same as the M6, the M28 was treated to two different demonstrations. Firstly, indoors where the system comprised two small groundstacks each comprising a single S118 subwoofer, a B112 bass module and three M28’s on top. Once again the large space was covered seamlessly by very little equipment, but this time the power and headroom available was instantly apparent as was the common voicing with the M6 system - really first-class intelligibility and a very balanced, musical and natural reproduction of playback material.

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Outside, the M28 was used as a main PA. Here, the system comprised 12 M28’s per side - flown from portable towers with a lower trim height of approximately four metres - supplemented by 12 S118’s arranged in pairs. Using track Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Fistful Of Steel’, with its brutal dynamics and vocal performance, really showcased the M28’s ability to deliver serious levels at distance with finesse and accuracy.

Both of Nexo’s new loudspeakers use advanced injection-moulding technology. Stuart explained further: “We’ve been using an injection-moulding specialist in the south of France for some years with great results, but with products like the new M28 the real benefits started to become apparent. Using polyurethane composite gives any cabinet some instant advantages right out of the box - weather proofing as standard for a start, as this material is virtually impervious to moisture and big changes in temperature. It’s also very light compared with a wooden enclosure, and is so tough that it will handle road use far better than any comparable product made out of traditional materials.

“With the STM M46 and M28 however, we’ve pushed the design envelope to create products that punch far above their weight in terms of size-to-output ratio. This has partly been achieved by our own transducers and how they are arranged within the cabinet but a huge

part of the achievement is in the internal architecture of the box, which is simply too complex to be made in wood. Further, the B112 bass module produces so much output that a wooden cabinet could not withstand the stresses placed upon it - we know because we tried and blew it to pieces! Only our composite material can provide the structural integrity needed to handle that design.

“Being freed from the design constraints of wood, and having access to the kind of moulding techniques that we do, also makes big differences to the external architecture of the cabinets,” continued Stuart. “In particular it allows us to build sophisticated, flexible rigging systems that are entirely integral to the enclosure but that are still simple and quick to use - including unique features like PistonRig and REDLock that contribute to the core efficiency of these products, which is totally facilitated by using modern composite material production techniques.”

The M6 and the M28 are two exciting new additions not only to the Nexo range, but to the loudspeaker industry in general. mondo*dr will be keeping a watchful eye on where the products land for their first iconic installation. www.nexo.fr

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124 industry news

Glenn Rogers

James Gordon

Henry Goodman

A UNITED CONSOLE KINGDOM Working in a niche market means that headline news, which has the potential to change the shape of the industry, doesn’t crop up all that often. However, we’ve recently witnessed a flurry of such announcements. mondo*dr spoke to companies involved in two of the major deals, one from the audio world and one from the lighting world, to find out just what these developments mean for the future of the industry.

Sneaking in somewhat under the radar - as it was announced during the summer months - came the news of the formation of a new pro audio group. The preparation to bring the deal to fruition took the best part of two years, so it was a proud moment for all involved when the secret was finally delivered to the industry.

DiGiCo, Allen & Heath and Calrec came together to form a mixing console super group which they believe will offer a mixing solution for any application and budget, from entry level mixers to the latest in digital technology for live events, installations and through to high-end broadcast.

Just over a year ago, Allen & Heath was acquired by private equity firm, Electra Partners for the sum of £43m. This deal was followed by the buyout of Calrec for £14m in March of this year, making the two ‘sister brands’ once again, having both previously been under the D&M umbrella. “When we made our initial investment in the professional audio sector by supporting the buyout of Allen & Heath, Electra provided all of the new financing to ensure flexibility

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in respect of further acquisitions in the sector,” said Alex Fortescue, Chief Investment Partner of Electra Partners.

During this same period Electra Partners also entered into conversations with DiGiCo, as Managing Director and newly appointed group CEO, James Gordon explained: “When we started talking, DiGiCo thought Allen & Heath and Calrec would be great companies to join forces with, but what I didn’t know, was that they also felt the same way and saw the technological advantages that a group of three professional manufacturers could bring to the market.”

Though a fixed value cannot be put on the entire deal, James joked: “If you want to put £500m as the investment value that’s fine by us!” Although to give some perspective, the last recorded turnover for the three companies combined is in the region of £74m.

One question that did arise following the announcement was how are three competitors going to work together? “We don’t actually clash with each other but there is some cross over, so we all understand what each other are about, and we all speak console

language,” James explained. “It’s good that there’s an overlap between the brands because if there wasn’t you leave an opportunity for someone else to drive a wedge in the range,” added Glenn Rogers, Managing Director of Allen & Heath.

“There are also opportunities to complement each other in the broadcast sector, where DiGiCo or Allen & Heath products could be used to support the Calrec systems in some applications”, chipped in Henry Goodman of Calrec.

With their combined resources, the three UK companies plan to makes waves in the console market.

Although no physical consolidation will take place for now in terms of manufacturing, R&D, sales or accounts - as none of the companies feel it is the right way forward - there will be some elements of the business that are shared. “In terms of manufacturing processes, they are all geared to the individual brands, but where we can score is procurement, sharing knowledge and putting the buying power of the three companies together. We’re already on our way down this road quite successfully,” commented

industry news 125

Glenn. “The skills required to sell an Allen & Heath console are very different to the skills required to sell a DiGiCo or a Calrec console. If the sales people had to know all of that, it would be a constant learning curve rather than becoming masters of anything, so I think we’ll have masters for each brand. It’s much smarter,” added James.

The trio of companies aim to expand their product ranges and diversify into other market sectors in order to grow the group. This is where shared R&D resources take centre stage, as James explained further: “All three companies have designed or are currently designing a Madi, a Dante, an AES 67 interface or whatever the next standard may or may not be, we’ve had to develop three of those, but now we’ll just develop one interface, which will then be adapted to fit each of the product lines so it hits the right price point or feature set depending on whether it’s a Calrec, DiGiCo or Allen & Heath. This means two-thirds of R&D will be freed up to do something other than new interfaces and that’s where I think we’ll really start to get additional value across the group.”

James also made it clear that distribution partnerships will remain individual for each brand: “I was worried that the distributors would be the most concerned about the news because normally when companies are formed like this, distributors often get consolidated. But we’ve been quite open from the beginning that the best distributor for each brand will continue to represent that brand.” Take America for example, a market that is strong for all three brands. The three distributors, Group One, American Music & Sound and Calrec USA are already talking together working out how they can strengthen their sales efforts as a combined team of three distribution styles.

Working together is definitely key. Some of the sales personnel have already started talking to one another and James and Glenn have also spent a lot of time with each other. “I got quite excited about working with Glenn,” enthused James, while Glenn returned the compliment by adding: “It was our considered view that James was the right frontman going forward because he’s got all the attributes I believe are important. Being with customers, being out in the field, being able to

sell, to engage your PE investor with the company business plan and more importantly to motivate and excite your staff on the path to the future. It’s a communication job and James has that skill, he’s demonstrated it over the years making his way up from when he joined Soundtracs.”

It seems James has stepped into his leading role with ease, commenting: “The thing is, the companies we work for and their products are like our babies. The people at Calrec are just as passionate about Calrec as we are about DiGiCo and Allen & Heath, so we’re quite protective of our children. Now they’re shared children, it’s interesting how quickly that mutual protection has kicked in.”

As we look ahead to the future, all eyes are going to be on what the combined R&D teams come up with.

“It’s more a case of not what’s possible, but limiting what the possibilities are right now,” said James. www.digico.biz www.allen-heath.com www.calrec.com

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126 industry news

A BRIGHT FUTURE Just a couple of weeks later, news of a similar calibre hit the lighting world. Italian manufacturer Clay Paky was sold to lamp giant, Osram, signaling the start of a new chapter for the entertainment lighting company.

Osram acquired 100% of Clay Paky in an all-cash transaction and although an official sum has not been disclosed the transaction and integration costs were appropriate for the type and size of the business. With the deal finalised on 13 October, Clay Paky is now part of Osram’s Specialty Lighting segment, which comprises automotive lighting as well as the display / optic activities.

“Integration with Osram, which has a great wealth of technological competence and an in-depth knowledge of the lighting market, is an ideal opportunity for the further development of Clay Paky,” said the late Pasquale Quadri in a press release in August when the deal was announced. “After 40 years crowned by success, I am delighted to be able to offer my company, my staff and our customers a reliable solution for a

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secure future.”

“Clay Paky has shown strong growth and economic success over the past years,” said an Osram spokesperson. “Continued strong growth, however, demands a stable foundation in terms of mature cooperate processes. Osram will provide this foundation where needed and simultaneously secure the sustainable development of the company.”

The day-to-day running of Clay Paky will continue as normal and there are no current plans for an institutionalised collaboration, in the sense of integrating the various departments. The main targets of the buyout are to exchange experience and provide mutual and selective support beneficial for both companies.

Though Osram supplies lamps to competitors of Clay Paky, the company has outlined that the recent acquisition will not impact on the established partnerships with other manufacturers. In fact, the Osram spokesperson furthered: “With this move, Osram is set to further strengthen its position in entertainment lighting. The

acquisition marks an important milestone for strengthening Osram’s specialty lighting business in a highly attractive market. The smooth integration will further improve the company’s competitiveness in the future.”

Asked what the deal means in relation to the future of the lighting industry, the response was: “Osram will get the chance to strengthen relationships with lighting designers around the world through the structures of Clay Paky. Designers are mainly thinking about the spotlights and not about the technology in it. We have now the chance to raise awareness of this.”

“The successful closing of this transaction is a further step towards strengthening Osram’s specialty lighting segment in a highly attractive market,” said Wolfgang Dehen, CEO of Osram. Pio Nahum, who has been appointed CEO of the Clay Paky business concluded: “As part of Osram, we have good prospects for further growth.” www.osram.com www.claypaky.it

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Theatrical lighting has many guises; the more traditional options - which primarily use tungsten light - include ellipsoidal spotlights, a luminaire that uses an ellipsoidal reflector and a reasonable quality optical system to project shapes and patterns with a hard edge. Or a cyclorama, a set of open faced luminaires used to light a cyclorama, supplied as single, twin or four-way units. Through to more modern fixtures such as moving heads - a fixture in which the light beam is modulated by a moving mirror with the luminaire stationary, or the luminaire moves to create motion - particularly suited to theatrical environments.

PRODUCT GUIDE

THEATRICAL LIGHTING EMEA | RICHARD OWEN | ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE With LED lanterns now comparable to tungsten units in terms of light output, one of the biggest challenges for theatrical lighting designers and production electricians, in subsidised theatres, is incorporating all kinds of light sources into a rig to deliver seamless lighting, whilst being mindful of a requirement for sustainable energy plans. As we move away from tungsten to other light sources will we see a change in what our perception of what white light is? Will ‘white’ be a brighter colour temperature in the future in theatres as we use higher colour temperatures in our homes and offices?

APAC | DANIEL LOH | THE STAR PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE Currently lighting is in a state of transition, both with the conventional and intelligent aspects of lighting. In venues like mine, we have to look into products that will work in this transition such as the ETC True Power dimmers that will allow us to switch between powering conventional and intelligent fixtures efficiently. On the other hand we are exploring products that are for the future - LED fixtures and visual effect lights - not just to follow the trend, but because these products are becoming better in terms of the quality of light and they also help with the bottom line.

THE AMERICAS | DUANE SCHULER | SCHULER SHOOK Theatrical lighting is experiencing the same radical changes as the architectural lighting world.

With new technologies, there is an ever-evolving selection of light sources, fixture types and control options. In the LED arena, manufacturers claim that infinite colour choices abound. But trying to replicate the desired qualities and intensity of incandescent lights with pastel gels is daunting.

Because colour consistency and smooth low-end dimming in a performance venue is essential, one of the truest tests for new lighting technologies is on the stage.

128 GUIDE - THEATRICAL LIGHTING

ACME | E-300 www.acme.com.cn

The E-300 LED ellipsoidal light from Acme combines the latest LED technology with outstanding and unique optics for greater functions. It features two operating modes: DMX and master / slave and produces excellent white light with a beautiful flat field. Features of the fixture include standard beam shaping shutters and a gobo slot, 0-100% linear dimming, various speed strobe effects, flicker-free high power factor, a lightweight, and an excellent thermal design for a long LED life span. With the environment in mind the fixture contains no mercury or IR and there is no UV light radiation.

ADJ | DOTZ FLOOD www. adj.com

Utilising chip-on-board (COB) technology the ADJ Dotz Flood light fixture creates smooth and rich RGB colour mixing and is amazingly versatile with three different types of effects: an RGB colour wash, an audience blinder, or as a pixel mapping effect for stunning visual effects.

The Dotz Flood is powered by six 30W COB TRI LEDs in a two by three configuration with a 60º beam angle. Barn doors are included to regulate the beam angle. There are six DMX channel modes allowing a lot of programming freedom. The fixture has 36 built-in colour macros and 12 programmed shows. The Dotz Flood has smooth 0-100% electronic dimming, pulse and strobe effects and a four-button LCD function display to easily navigate thought the fixtures on-board controls. There is a built-in RF antenna on the rear of the unit that is compatible with a the ADJ DF FC wireless foot controller.

CHAUVET PROFESSIONAL | OVATION C-640FC www.chauvetlighting.com

Ovation C-640FC is a great replacement for halogen cyc lights. It can create practically any colour in the gel books while consuming less power than traditional fixtures. The addition of white and amber to RGB colour mixing affords superb colour rendering and a vast palette from soft pastels to saturated hues. The Ovation C-640FC features the virtual colour wheel that gives instant access to the industry’s most popular cyc and strip colours and is accessible in standalone or via DMX. Power linking is fast and convenient using industry standard Neutrik powerCON connectors. Ovation C-640FC is theatre-ready with 16-bit dimming control, master dimmer and individual colour.

CHROMA Q | COLOR ONE 100 www.chroma-q.com

The new Chroma-Q Color One 100 LED par features a fully homogenised beam, virtually eliminating the colour separation and shadows synonymous with LED lighting. The Color One 100’s optical design provides a smooth, uniform and defined 20° beam. The extensive RGBA ColorSure colour-mixing palette delivers deep-cold blues, red-hot lava looks and super-soft pastels, all from one source. With theatrical grade dimming, convection cooling for near-silent operation, a versatile mounting yoke and a choice of IP20 / IP65 models, the Color One 100 is ideal for a wide range of applications. Key features include:n fully homogenised beam; RGBA ColorSure colour-mixing palette; extremely uniform wash; defined 20° beam; bold saturates and subtle pastels from one fixture; high CRI of 93; floor, truss or wall mountable; convection cooled for near-silent running; theatrical grade dimming; and a choice of IP20 and IP65 versions.

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CLAY PAKY | A.LEDA B-EYE CC www.claypaky.it

A.leda B-Eye CC is directed at professionals wishing to use the superior optical characteristics of B-Eye technology exclusively in the wash mode but don’t need the mid-air and graphic effects. The A.leda B-Eye CC is a bright LED wash, with a uniform light field, a really wide zoom (from four to 60º), and complete colour and white light management. B-Eye CC fixtures are perfect for theatres, TV studios, tours, corporate events, showrooms and theme parks.

T

IMPAC BEAM FX

Y C A R U ACC SCANNER FX COEMAR | REFLECTION LEDKO P DIM www.coemar.it

The Reflection LEDko P Dim is an LED profile developed and designed to represent a perfect re-fitting solution ready to replace analogic fixtures powered with existing traditional dimming systems. The LEDko P Dim is available in both white 3,200K or 56,00K colour temperature and it is phase dimmable through standard analogic dimmer racks, enabling the end customer to achieve not only the significant energy savings typically linked with the usage of LED technology without giving up on lighting brightness, but also to avoid material investments in new power and dmx lines. Reflection LEDko offers a smart and dynamic optical concept: in fact, it allows soft edge profiling with either fresnel or PC lenses with a shutter system as well as a hard-edge profile using Coemar’s HD zoom lenses, providing superior quality of the projected image with a smooth and incredibly uniform beam of light. Additional savings are achieved thanks to LEDko’s compatibility with third parties’ lens tubes and accessories, as well as thanks to the innovative possibility to create your own gobos just using a standard office printer.

SPEED LASER FX

130 GUIDE - THEATRICAL LIGHTING

ELATION | DW SERIES www.elationlighting.com The DW Fresnel and DW Profile from Elation are excellent choices when variable white light is required in broadcast or theatre environments. Their soft, flicker-free output is easily adjustable from warm white tungsten to cool white daylight, and beam control via zoom and beam framing / shaping make them highly effective directional white light luminaires. Powered by a 250W, 100,000 hour white LED engine, these pro-level products feature low-noise cooling for operation in noise sensitive environments and are optimised to give the finest in variable white light. The DW Fresnel features a 19° to 72° manual zoom and is capable of varying colour temperature from 3,200K - 7,000K with a CRI of over 90. Rotating barn doors allow for customised shaping of the beam. Output is up to 8,700 lumens yet a thermo-optical cooling system keeps the luminaire cool and virtually silent. The DW Profile features a 17° to 27° manual zoom and is capable of varying colour temperature from 3,000K - 6,200K. It includes a four-blade manual framing system that allows for full control of the beam shape and supports B-size glass, metal, or HT transparency glass gobos. Output is up to 8,400 lumens.

ETC | SOURCE FOUR LED SERIES 2 www.etcconnect.com

ETC’s Source Four LED Series 2 fixture line improves on the previous generation of ETC LED fixtures, doubling the output and adding lime emitters, filling in gaps in the colour spectrum previously impossible to generate by LED fixtures. In addition to lime green, the developers also added more red to the seven colour mix, helping the fixture achieve better ambers, straws and pinks. The Tungsten HD and Daylight HD models produce higher CRI adjustable white light and pastel colours than before, perfect for on-camera use in studios. The Source Four LED Series 2 is capable for even long-throw positions front of house, perfect for lighting talent on stage or screen, highlighting set pieces or making people appear more natural, despite differences in skin tone.

FINE ART | FINE II-1500 WASH SL www.en.fineart-light.com

A moving head that can produce multiple effects under the function of soft light and electronic strobe. The Fine II-1500 Wash SL is not only has all the features of soft lighting fixtures but also the strong stroboscopic effect of arc discharge light fixtures. The product will provide a strong light-operated visual effect for the large-scale performance, and produce very impressive blind-eyes effect on the spot.

GLP | X4 www.glp.de

With its even beam and colour distribution, the impression X4 from GLP has fast been gaining a reputation as the LED washlight to use on productions around the world. Included is the wide zoom range from 7º to 50º, which offers great flexibility, it’s deep colour pallete which ranges from gentle saturates through to strong saturates and it’s high output, derived from quad colour high wattage sources. But what sets the X4 apart from many fixtures is its level of dimming quality, which allows for long and slow fades to occur with smoothness and without any colour shift, allowing your scene to stay true through the longest fades. Coupled with its ergonomic baseless design, 16-bit resolution movement control and the ability to create pattern effects through individual pixel control, the impression X4 offers a comprehensive package for today’s theatrical production requirements.

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Color temptation The new HCL spots with 6 color LEDs Six colors in one LED: red, green, blue, amber, white and UV. The Greek number Hexa (six) stands for the most brilliant color rendering LED technology can achieve.

HIGH END SYSTEMS | SOLASPOT www.highend.com Outputting over 13,000 lumens from a 320W LED source, the Solaspot from High End Systems is not only one of the brightest but also one of the most efficient LED spots available. With SolaSpot Pro CMY LED, the industry has an LED tool to replace existing 700W and some 800W arc fixtures. All this coupled with the long life of the LED source. Other features when it comes to LED and CMY, are linear CTO, two gobo wheels, a fixed colour wheel, incredibly quick zoom and focus, a prism, iris and frost, making this fixture a true work horse.

The spots’ operation is silent as a whisper and the LEDs are consistently flicker free: Perfectly tailored for theaters, film studios or environments that could do with a little more than the usual standard.

JB LIGHTING | SPARX 10 www.jblighting.com

The Sparx 10 is equipped with leading-edge 25W LEDs, which enable considerably greater brightness with the same installation size of the LED. It has a round light aperture, minimal struts between the lenses and a fully illuminated lighting field. Due to the size, the light-emitting surface is extremely impressive and ideal for the display of the countless patterns. The light beam is naturally clearly defined - perfect for effect and illumination applications. The Sparx 10 is equipped with 37 RGBW multi-chip LEDs combined with the unique LED cooling system from JB Lighting to optimally benefit from the further development of the LED technology with low weight and low noise levels, and utilise the enhanced performance of the LEDs. The zoom range is 4°- 40°. The powerful three-phase stepper motors ensure a high pan / tilt speed, whilst the volume still remains very low. The Sparx 10 comes with the integrated radio DMX from JB Lighting as standard. The elegant design with slender head and base integrates superbly into every stage set and the package dimensions are very compact for this type of powerful washlight.

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www.futurelight.com

132 GUIDE - THEATRICAL LIGHTING

MARTIN PROFESSIONAL | MAC QUANTUM SERIES www.martin.com

Martin Professional’s MAC Quantum Wash and MAC Quantum Profile are the latest solutions to provide brighter and more compact LED lights. The MAC Quantum Wash features tight beams, beautiful wash fields, a market-leading colour palette and uniform mixing that combines to accommodate the most demanding applications with brightness and perfection. Combining an impressive 750W of RGBW LED power with Martin Professional’s optical system ensures Quantum’s 1:5 zoom operates with maximum output and superior performance. The MAC Quantum Profile is a fully featured LED profile that sets new standards for combined performance, weight and size, and represents the latest in LED technology which in combination with Martin Professional’s proprietary optical design delivers a crisp and bright output.

MUSIC & LIGHTS | EVO190EFC www.musiclights.it

EVO190EFC is a re-design concept of the profile, adding to the properties of the classic profiler also an unlimited colour generation, employing the latest invention in the field of high-power LED technology. The light source on board is composed of a RGBW multi-chip with full colour 150W LEDs, which allows an advanced colour calibration system, with temperature and saturation control and a precise reproduction of the white spectrum from 3,200K to 9,000K. The output of EVO190EFC is comparable to that of traditional profile with HPL575 lamp, with greater brilliance and vibrancy in colour reproduction, while maintaining perfect property for framing and homogeneity of the projection. Design of EVO190EFC makes it fit properly in studio applications, theatres, events, architectural and in environments having limited power supplies.

PR LIGHTING | XLED 1061 www.pr-lighting.com

The XLED 1061 (PR-8121) is a powerful LED moving head. Equipped with 61 LEDs of 10W each RGBW four in one - with a lamp life of 50,000 hours - its colour mixing is highlighted by animation effects, rainbow effect and a pulse strobe. Fully featured, in addition to the above functions, the XLED 1061 also offers 0 - 100% linearly adjustable dimmer, linear zoom (13°-52°), adjustable speed pan (540°) and tilt (270°) with auto position correction, and linear colour temperature correction from 2,700K to 10,000K. Controllable via DMX, other features include: brightness and contrast adjustable display; lamp use time display; DMX512 channel value display and menu invert function.

PULSAR | CHROMAFLOOD 100R www.pulsarlight.com

Pulsar’s ChromaFlood 100R is a high performance LED luminaire offering incredible levels of performance in a compact and durable housing. ChromaFlood 100R is built with a range of high power single colour LEDs, a variable white configuration, or fitted with Pulsar’s flagship TriColour devices. Only the most consistent LEDs go into each unit and the manufacturer colour-calibrate each fixture to make sure the output is identical fixture to fixture, year to year. The LED fixture also features Pulsar’s signature inter-bit smoothing to create ultra-smooth fades and seamless transitions, especially at low intensities where LED stepping would otherwise be seen. Each unit can also be accessed from the front to change fixture lens plates for flexibility on any production and this accessibility also ensures simple and quick servicing.

Fully compatible with DMX512 systems and remotely configurable over the DMX line via Pulsar Fixture Management, the ChromaFlood 100R is a powerful addition to any production, event, or stage lighting rig.

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ROBE | BMFL SPOT www.robe.cz Robe’s new BMFL Spot delivers amazing power with many features that are ideal for theatre applications. The lamp produces a 6,000K light at a CRI of 92. This, combined with a refined optical system and five to 55º zoom, results in a crisp, high quality fat beam that is truly homogenised and without a hotspot. The fixture produces 250,000 lux at five-metres - yet it weighs just 36kgs in a very compact ergonomically designed body. Silent operation is possible via the BMFLs’ cooling management system, which ensures that Fan Silent Mode maintains the maximum brightness with very low noise emissions. Many BMFL components combine to produce a beautiful uniform colour mixing including the optical path and the lightsource itself. The high CRI and the native chromatic white output create the even beam field which, when combined with precision designed colour blades and the powerful but refined output, results in the creation of pastel ranges right through to deep saturates. Smooth dimming is another feature at the essence of theatrical use. By splitting the dimming and strobing flags, the movement levels are divided into several independent layers resulting in perfectly smooth dimming with no stripes, ‘fingers’ or other aberrations.

There is the choice of two dimming curves, and the lamp properties ensure a stable colour temperature throughout the dimming process or when selecting the different power modes. The smooth output and optical system also make the BMFL ideal for use as an automated spot or a hand-operated followspot, complete with convenient side handles and optimised followspot mode.

 CTO

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LED

ROBERT JULIAT | TIBO www.robertjuliat.com

Robert Juliat’s award-winning Tibo is an extremely versatile range of fixtures which offers a unique ‘mix and match’ choice of light source (LED, tungsten and discharge), lens type (fresnel and profile) and body colours. The Tibo profile spot is able to deliver two zoom ranges (15°/35° and 30°/45°) within one single unit. Tibo fresnel is a compact complement to Tibo profile offering a choice of LED, tungsten or discharge source. All Tibo LED lanterns are available in four colour temperatures and have a flicker-free ballast which makes them suitable for film, television and studio environments as well as in conventional theatre.

The VOLKS|LICHT Spot is ideal for permanent installations, even for small venues, as it requires extremely low maintenance due to its sealed optical unit. The 300 Watt LED light engine with 20,000 hours lifetime generates little heat and comes with a 5 year warranty.

134 GUIDE - THEATRICAL LIGHTING

SELECON | RAMA www.seleconlight.com

The Rama LED Fresnel provides an adjustable cone of light, has a soft edge and is easily blended with adjacent beams to provide even illumination. The minimal power consumption and full fixed warm white output results in significant reductions in power consumption over traditional 1.0 / 1.2kW tungsten halogen luminaires. A key benefit of the Rama LED Fresnel is that it is no longer necessary to change lamps or colour filter. Combining the superior control and light quality of a Selecon Fresnel with an integrated LED optical design delivering useable output allows designers a new level of creativity.

SGM | G-SPOT www.sgmlight.com

Delivering superior brightness and colour saturation the addition of a framing system gives the G-Spot significant advantages in the theatre sector. Now available with an option of one framing and one gobo wheel, the framing module allows the G-Spot to perform beam-shaping images or projections via four individually controllable blades, each adjustable +/- 30º while the module is rotatable through+/- 45º. This versatile framing still provides the option of combining framing techniques with five (of the original 10) rotating gobos + open, for gobo animation and interaction when framing is used as an add-on. Further to this, the set of SGM designed gobos allows for the creation of user-controllable soft framing and the two effect wheels adds as an extension to one another for achieving continuous dynamic animation effect in a stepless manner. The quiet operation of the product, with its four fan settings, has seen it specified in theatre productions around the world, while theatre specifiers also like the fact that in addition to no noise, there is no stray light and no hotspotting.

SHOWLINE | SL BAR 640 www.lighting.philips.com

The SL BAR 640 is a powerful LED linear luminaire offering unprecedented output and exceptional colour clarity. Ideal for any entertainment application, the four foot luminaire provides stunning output whether used for illumination or direct view purposes. Whether used in place of R40 strips, border-lights, foot-lights, cyc-lights or for exciting animations, the luminaires provide incredible coverage and colour washing abilities.

SPOTLIGHT | GREENLINE RANGE www.spotlight.it

The new, all LED GreenLine range from Spotlight includes fresnel, PC, profiles, followspots, and cycloramas ranging from 50W up to 600W COBs; in warm, natural, cool or tunable white and RGBW. All the fixtures can be supplied in manual focusing version, in pole operated or DMX remote controlled motorised versions.

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136 GUIDE - THEATRICAL LIGHTING

STEINGKE | FUTURELIGHT PRO SLIM PAR eshop.steinigke.de

The Futurelight PRO Slim PAR features 12 six-colour, 10W LEDs. Six colours in one LED - red, green, blue, amber, white and UV. Thanks to improved amber and UV LEDs, the colours are rich - especially when the UV light is mixed in, one-of-a-kind compositions can be produced. In addition, the UV light brings out surface structures and three-dimensionality, and an amazing glitter effect is even a possibility with some colours. This fixture is also silent, as the spot is equipped with cooling rips instead of a fan. The LEDs are flicker free and power connection is realised via Neutrik PowerCOn jacks. The Futurelight PRO Slim PAR is perfectly tailored for theatres or film studios. Its wide, round design allows the housing to be very flat and creates more scope.

TAMED LIGHT SOLUTIONS | DIONYLUX www.tamedlights.de

An LED RGB-AW floor ramp for demanding theatre applications, the Dionylux is a high performance LED lighting system especially developed for theatre and stage requirements. The RGBW LED floor ramp offers homogenous emitting characteristics with a powerful and brilliant colour reproduction. Using additional amber LEDs colour shades can be adjusted in the finest nuances. Thanks to separate control unit and passive cooling, an absolutely soundless operation close to the audience is realisable. Various module sizes allow an individual adjustment of the system to every stage size. The SMUDO controller developed by TLS achieves a consistently high resolution, flicker-free dimming from 0-100%.

VARI-LITE | VLX WASH www.vari-lite.com The VLX Wash gives all the benefits of LED technology and the best visual performance characteristics of traditional automated luminaires.

VLX offers stunning colours and intensity, multi-year source life and high reliability. Combined with low energy consumption and maintenance costs, the Vari-Lite VLX Wash resets the bar for all other LED fixtures. Seven, replaceable custom 120W RGBW LED chipsets provide output that offers three times the efficacy of comparable tungsten sources. The total system provides approximately 14,000 lumens of output, and the 10,000 hour source life of the chip ensures that lamp replacement costs are a thing of the past. The VLX Wash also allows for operation of all seven light engines as one, or for completely independent control of each. When operated separately, multi-coloured effects and unique output capabilities can be easily programmed from any lighting controller. Because of the internal beam homogenisation system, colour mixing is smooth, natural, and free of ‘colour shadowing’ effects associated with other LED fixtures. Additionally, the VLX Wash offers a dynamic CRI adjustment, a continuously adjustable colour temperature white range between approximately 3,000 and 9,000 Kelvin, and seamless colour mixing that all combine to create a single source that behaves like familiar arc or tungsten luminaires without the associated costs and inefficiencies inherent in those systems.

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138 DIRECTORY

IN DETAIL K-ARRAY | KH8 & KS8 www.k-array.com The KH8 is one of the world’s first flexible digital ‘slim array technology’ (S.A.T) line array loudspeakers; slim and compact in design, self-powered and weather resistant, it provides an exceptional peak output of 145dB SPL offering a rather different solution to the touring audio market. It is fully controlled by the on-board DSPs for hyper detailed beam steering and maximum operational flexibility. Its counterpart, the KS8, is a compact, self-powered, weather resistant subwoofer element providing an exceptional peak output of 148dB SPL. This too has dynamic set up options for optimum delay calibration.

A system of 24 KH8 units can be flown in just 10 minutes. This is possible because it is not necessary to dismount the entire cluster, the loudspeakers are anchored in groups of three within rigid frames that can be connected quickly to create longer clusters. Compared to traditional systems that require wiring and a mechanical connection for each loudspeaker, the KH8 saves time. Every unit can be independently tilted to focus the sound mechanically and then digitally steered.

The portability and ease of assembly are just some of the advantages of configuring a ‘straight array’. For example, suppose a change the inclination angle of a loudspeaker is required when the cluster has already been hoisted, with the KH8 it is not necessary to pull the cluster down, it is possible to change the tilt of the single loudspeaker, and it takes no more than a few minutes. In addition, the ‘straight array technology’ minimises the cluster’s volume and allows maximum freedom on where they are hoisted. For instance, little depth space is needed behind the cluster and it can be flown attached to almost any wall or any layer tower. The result is a wavefront that has the desired curvature from a perfectly vertical cluster.

The KH8 has been built to deliver a significant balance of throw through its intelligent software and FIRmaker optimisation technology. The digital steering optimisation allows the sound engineer to smooth and lower the SPL reducing the amount of dB loss significantly, and in addition, the optimisation allows more room to refine the EQ balance to perfect a balanced tonal range and consistent SPL. It is an incredible step forward for professional audio.

“The array has an incredibly true 120º dispersion pattern with little to no diminishment in the high or mid-range frequencies. It also throws very far. I don’t know how far exactly, but it hit the back of our venue with barely any colouring at all, ” commented Blake Smith, Bootsy Collins’ FOH Engineer.

“The subwoofers are real tight, I like what I heard overall, we flew 12-boxes a side over a total of 18 subwoofers, the headroom was crazy,” added Rick Camp, Sound Engineer for The Red Groove Project, Coco Zhao and previously Beyoncé and Stevie Wonder.

ADJ | VF SERIES www.adj.com The most compact of ADJ’s new VF fog and snow units is the VF400: a 400W mobile fog machine that is ideal for mobile entertainers, small nightclubs, and bars that want to add atmosphere to their lightshows. ADJ’s VF1000 model is more powerful than the VF400 - with a heater rated at 1,000W - and its one litre tank holds more fluid, offering an output of 8,000 cubic ft per minute following a heat-up time of six minutes. The VF1300 model includes many of the same features as the VF1000, with the main differences being in fluid capacity and output. The largest machine is the VF Series is the VF1600, which packs 1,500W of power, heats up in eight minutes and has a fog output covering 20,000 cubic ft per minute. The VF Flurry is a 600W snow machine with a simulated snow spray distance of two-metres to five-metres. The VF Flurry is an easy-to-use machine to be used in indoor and outdoor stage productions.

ALCONS AUDIO | CRS12GT www.alconsaudio.com Featuring Alcons’ proprietary multiple-patented pro-ribbon driver technology, the CRS12GT combines clarity and intelligibility with a high dynamic range and up to 90% less distortion than traditional cinema surround systems. By utilising identical MHF pro-ribbon transducers for screen and surround systems, an wide and uniform sound stage throughout the entire listening area is realised. The CRS12GT system consists of one RBN601 six-inch pro-ribbon driver for high frequency and a vented 12-inch mid-bass for low frequency reproduction. The CRS12GT HF section has a 1,000W peak power input, enabling a 1:15 RMS-to-peak dynamic range with lowest distortion from 1,000Hz to beyond 20,000Hz. The patented horizontal dispersion of the Alcons RBN601 pro-ribbon transducer guarantees stable sound projection throughout the operating bandwidth, both on and off-axis. The all-NeoDymium speaker configuration lowers the total mounted system weight and facilitates easier installation. For full system performance, the CRS12GT is to be driven by an Alcons ALC amplified loudspeaker controller, delivering maximum high-end Hi-Fi sound quality with increased headroom and utmost operation reliability. The CRS12GT is available in eight ohms and four ohms version, for maximum amplifier efficiency in individually-amplified immersive surround systems.

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APART AUDIO | AUDIOSYSTEM 8.8 www.apart-audio.com The AudioSystem 8.8 audio matrix has eight loudspeaker outputs with each a built-in 30W digital amplifier and also has four additional line outputs. The unit has four FM radios built-in and four / eight stereo / mono line inputs. Out of the box the AudioSystem 8.8 is configured with four stereo inputs and four stereo output zones. The installer can easily access the integrated web server based GUI to configure and control the audio system. AudioSystem 8.8 can be remote controlled via the DIWAC wall panels, but thanks to the web server based GUI also via any mobile device or computer that has a web browser installed. Browse to the correct URL and when the GUI opens, it’s easy to select your source and control the volume of your zone. As AudioSystem 8.8 is an ideal solution for many retail applications, the unit has been equipped with an emergency mute contact. When connected via this emergency mute contact, the emergency messages coming from the central audio system will overrule the music in the shops when needed. Furthermore AudioSystem 8.8 has an all call paging functionality and a party mode function.

ARTISTIC LICENCE | NANOSCOPE www.artisticlicence.com Artistic Licence has launched nanoScope, its pocket-sized tester for DMX512 and RDM. Lightweight and battery powered with a translucent plastic casing, nanoScope features a built-in five-pin XLR connector that enables it to be attached directly to the DMX512 cable. The device lights up in different colours to indicate its findings - providing rapid feedback. Two modes of operation are selected by a recessed slide switch that also controls power on / off. In pixel mode, nanoScope displays the first three DMX512 channels as an RGB mix, to provide confidence that the expected data is on the cable.

A flick of the switch selects analysis mode, which can be used to check for more subtle problems or to gain detailed informational feedback. nanoScope displays one long blip, then a train of short coloured blips representing different attributes of the DMX512 signal. The device can distinguish between six different types of good / informational signals and five different types of bad / unusual signals.

CPL | PROJECTOR RIGGING SOLUTIONS www.cplav.com CPL has launched a new range of specialist projector rigging solutions. Four innovative products are currently available - Rental Frames, Truss Mounts, Flying Mounts and a Portrait Adaptor. These products have been developed for riggers and technicians and combine numerous features. The T&S mechanism underpinning the Truss Mounts’ design is based on a ball joint and enables quick and easy adjustment of the projector, which is ideal for crew aligning machines whilst up ladders or climbing trusses. The Flying Mount Plate is a flat steel mounting-plate that can be laser cut to fit any type of projector. It bolts onto the bottom of the machine and easily attaches to the CPL Truss Mount bracket.

Using the CPL Portrait Adaptor, projectors can be rigged ‘vertically’ in portrait format.

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DIGILED | LIGHTSLICE www.digiled.com The LightSlice from digiLED offers a full video pixel slice, designed in the UK using Japanese components and assembled in Korea. In its native form the slice’s 10mm pixel pitch allows a true 10mm display surface. The product creates variable pitch displays with video effects and organic shapes to complement stage and set designs. The digiLED Navigator-NV processor makes sure the content is mapped on the display and resolutions can be scaled to any custom requirement based on array alignment. With multiple mounting methods, the LightSlice can be attached to truss, decking, catenary, scaffolding or custom structures. The product is particularly suited to outdoor and indoor events where set designs require creative video solutions that don’t conform to the traditional panel structure of standard LED screens. Placed end to end, many kilometres of LightSlice can create a display that can be as large as required, with synchronised Navigator-NVs keeping everything under control. The design eliminates the need for external control boxes, repeater units or bulky power supplies. Instead, the detachable ‘staple gun’ houses 100% of the Japanese engineered power and data system required for one LightSlice, all contained within the body of the slice.

ELATION | SNIPER www.elationlighting.com The Sniper is a hybrid multi-effect lighting fixture and laser simulator, a hybrid beam, scanner and laser simulator in one. Emitting a powerful, precise and ultra-narrow 3° beam, a high-speed X / Y scan and Z rotation mirror system allows the Sniper to spread laser-like effects including liquid sky, laser wave, and laser cone effects. Built around recent advancements in lamp, electronics, optics and motor technology, the Sniper is powered by the new 132W Philips MSD Platinum lamp, delivering an intensity of 45,010 lux. Designers have 14 dichroic colours and 17 static gobos at their disposal to create a variety of dynamic effects, which can be delivered at lightning speed thanks to the ultra-fast mirror system. The Sniper is DMX controllable offering 14, 16 and 18 channel DMX modes and includes multiple built-in pattern macros via DMX. A four-button touch control panel and LCD display provide for easy hands-on addressing with easy-to-read fixture menus and messages. Professional grade Neutrik five-pin DMX in / out and Powercon in / out connections are included and multiple units can easily be linked together for customisable setups. An auto-sensing power supply covers worldwide voltages and frequencies allowing the fixture to operate anywhere in the world.

JBL | 7 SERIES www.jblpro.com JBL has introduced the first two models in its new 7 Series of master reference monitors, the 708i and the 705i. JBL developed a new miniature high-frequency transducer - the 2409H - featuring JBL’s low-mass, annular diaphragm design that allows very high output with low distortion and high frequency response to 35kHz. JBL also engineered two new high-excursion 5-inch and 8-inch woofers, the 725G and 728G that allow the speakers to deliver robust low-frequency output into the 30Hz range. JBL’s Image Control Waveguide and a sophisticated dividing network work in concert to produce a crossover transition, spatial imaging and neutral response. Front-ported birch plywood install-ready enclosures include bottom and rear-panel mounting points. The loudspeakers’ placement can be optimised to maintain sight lines to video displays.

LE MAITRE | COLOURED ICE GERBS www.lemaitreltd.com Le Maitre’s newly launched range of Coloured Ice Gerbs includes a unique colour changing effect. A deeply coloured flame enveloping the base of the gerb and a column of silver sparks shoot up to heights of 6-8ft. The effect which lasts for up to 20 seconds is available in aqua, blue, green, orange, purple, red, yellow and pink or as a colour change version. The Ice Gerbs are the latest in a number of effects from Le Maitre and produced using its completely new production process, which is greatly increasing factory production capabilities.

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Laser - Sales - Service - Rental - Showdesign - Worldwide

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Laserray Pure Diode

Lindenallee 27 44625 Herne Germany Fon: +49 2325 - 56 99 32 0 info@tarm.com www.tarm.com

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LIGHT CONVERSE LTD | LIGHTCONVERSE EDUCATIONAL SERVER www.lightconverse.net Light Converse Ltd has recently added the new model, LIGHTCONVERSE EDUCATIONAL SERVER, to its powerful server range of hardware products. The latest server has been developed especially for educational institutions in order to provide students with a highly realistic learning environment for their studies.

By incorporating Light Converse Ltd products in their curriculum, schools are able to cover a wide range of disciplines at a fraction of the cost of purchasing equipment as the real-time visualisation platform offers the ability to study lighting and video (including 3D projection mapping) in multiple fields, including theatre, TV, film, dance and music. Objects can be programmed for motion during or between scenes and followed by automated lighting and projectors as they are in motion. 3D visualisation of shows or events can be viewed stereoscopically or in a 360° interactive environment providing a truly realistic experience as part of the learning process.

MASTER AUDIO | JK46A www.master-audio.com Master Audio has announced the launch of the JK46A, the company’s first self-powered column array loudspeaker. A professional high-performance, lightweight four inch by six inch active column array loudspeaker system, the JK46A is a fully optimised electronic and acoustic design, featuring custom-matched system components, including carbon-fibre coned neodymium drivers, audiophile specified Class-D power amplification and 48-bit programmable DSP control. The original Master Audio asymmetric horn, with PETP membrane compression driver, is custom configured with the four six-inch carbon-fibre coned neodymium magnet drivers, to provide a tightly controlled directivity, with uniform front-to-back audience coverage. The very latest 700W Class-D power amplifier circuit design provides the cabinet with a program level of 125dB SPL (128dB peak). The integral DSP control - accessed from the rear mounted control panel with LCD screen - makes system set up simple, with up to 40-metre delay-line management and rapid selection of pre-set corrective EQs, while performing sophisticated speaker management with a series of unique compression algorithms. The LCD screen provides comprehensive information about input and output levels, system status and amplifier temperature.

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NEXT PRO AUDIO | PFA SERIES www.next-proaudio.com The PFA Series is composed of passive and self-powered loudspeakers, designed to deliver high output and dynamics, extreme linearity and fidelity at a competitive price. Recommended for use in either fixed installations or mobile applications the PFA12 and the PFA15 can be used as either as a stage monitor or as a compact FOH system. The PFA Series uses custom made components, mounted on birch plywood enclosures, coated by scratch resistant paint to assure outstanding sonic performance. Powered by a 1650Wrms Class D power amplifier module with switch mode power supply, which delivers an impressive sonic punch.The integrated networkable DSP incorporates low noise A/D-D/A converters and provides eight presets that can be manually accessed by means of a preset selector, using the supplied Soundware software, which allows users to easily customise the sound program, for various applications or different venues. The Soundware software makes it possible to edit each one the six pre-loaded presets saving it subsequently in one of the two free memories. Editable parameters are: input equalisation, input delay, input high-pass / low-pass filters and the ‘bass enhancer’ function. A total of 255 units can be controlled simultaneously by the software through the dedicated network.

PANASONIC | ET-D75LE90 www.panasonic.com

The new ET-D75LE90 ultra-short throw lens allows projection distance to be shortened by approximately 60% compared to traditional short throw lenses, saving space and opening up new areas for projection. When the lens is installed on a three-chip DLP projector, a 200-inch screen can be created from just 1.5 metres; compared to a distance of four metres with a traditional lens. The new lens complements Panasonic’s existing ultra-short throw lens designed for one-chip DLP projectors (ET-DLE030).

PIXELFLEX | FLEXGRID www.pixelflexled.com LED screen manufacturer PixelFLEX released the FLEXGrid, a customisable LED tile available in 6mm-16mm resolutions that is ideal for permanent installations due to its efficient front-serviceable design. FLEXGrid’s aluminium frames are fabricated specifically for each installation creating a perfect fit. This frame customisation allows the capability to curve + / - 10 degrees at each panel yielding unlimited design capabilities. Additionally FLEXGrid is front-accessible and can be quickly removed with two hex screws allowing quick service or replacement of panels without disassembling the entire wall. As with all PixelFLEX products, FLEXGrid is designed for maximum flexibility of use. With a PixelFLEX touring frame, this product can also be utilised to face risers and set pieces for event production. With a brightness of 5000+ Nit and a combined frame and tile weight between 15lbs - 18lbs, the FLEXGrid keeps in line with the high quality and lightweight characteristics PixelFLEX LED products have become known for. In addition, a refresh rate of more than 1,220Hz, helps provide a static and flicker-free display, making it user friendly for both photo and video applications.

POWERSOFT | ARMONIA PRO AUDIO SUITE 2.5.0 www.powersoft-audio.com The Armonía Pro Audio Suite 2.5.0 is the most relevant update to the digital signage monitoring and processing software, which now maximises interaction between loudspeakers and the whole range of Powersoft products. The update includes a new interface to control the advanced features of the new Powersoft X Series and is designed to offer greatly improved functionality for the new DigiMod DSP-D amp modules, such as parameter setting control, preset bank management, group information and partial preset locking. Armonía can easily control and monitor a complex system in a smarter way - thanks to the LivingWorkspace, a component that allows a quick overview of the whole system status on the workspace. Users can obtain information about signal presence, muting, gain reduction and clipping instantaneously. Link state and alarms state are also visible by referencing the amplifiers’ icons. Through the Armonía ProManager, the software specifically designed to configure any combination of IK Series amp modules, loudspeaker manufacturers can make their products accessible in Armonía as a custom brand, and reap benefits in terms of customisation and visibility.

PRESONUS | STUDIOLIVE 328I www.presonus.com Following the popularity of its StudioLive 328AI active integration loudspeakers, PreSonus has announced two new versions and companion accessories designed specifically for installation. StudioLive 328i cabinets are built for flown installations without handles and pole mounts. Internal grille cloth masks the drivers, blending them seamlessly into their environment. A companion yoke mount is now available, as is an update to PreSonus’ SL Room Control loudspeaker management software that allows the user to turn off the front-panel blue power-status LED. The compact, powered, three-way loudspeakers rely on a custom-designed, eight-inch coaxial loudspeaker with a 1.75-inch titanium compression driver to reproduce the mid and high frequencies and dual eight-inch ferrite speakers for low-frequency reproduction. Each StudioLive 328i speaker has a combo XLR / TRS line input and an XLR microphone input with an XMAX Class A mic preamplifier and 12V phantom power, as well as an XLR audio throughput. All enclosures are of lightweight plywood construction and include M10 fly points.

SSL | LIVE.L300 www.solid-state-logic.com SSL has announced a expansion to its console range with the release of the SSL Live.L300 console and a new V2.5 software release. There are now two models available in the SSL console range, the larger L500 and the new more compact L300. Both consoles are equipped for installation and touring applications. L300 ships with new V2.5 software, which brings advanced effects optimisation and 27 new features and updates to the SSL Live console platform, which includes the L500. The new effects optimisation increases the number of effects instances which can be deployed simultaneously for many of the on board effect types. New feature highlights include: the new follow mode feature, which allows the select, solo and unique query function buttons found on the live console fader tiles to be linked together in any configuration. The tempo link feature adds the ability to link and control the tap tempo of any delay effects loaded into the L500 and L300’s effects racks. The master tile user buttons have now been activated and offer access to the 6 tap tempo functions that are part of the new effects rack tempo link feature. Finally, the mix bus copy allows the contributions of entire mix buses to be copied across the live console’s flexible bus structure.

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STUDER | VISTA V www.studer.ch The new 52-fader Vista V is based on the same Quad Star technology as its predecessor the Vista X, but in a more compact footprint. The Vista V features a built-in metre bridge, high quality motorised faders, and a built-in dynamic automation system with DAW remote control. The console is surround-sound capable, with versatile panning and monitoring functionality. At the heart of the Vista V is the Infinity Core, which uses CPU-based processors to deliver an unprecedented 800+ audio channels with superb sonic quality. Infinity Core provides 12 high-capacity A-Link ports for D23m I/O integration or direct connection into routing systems from Artel, Evertz, Riedel and more. The Vista V also offers easy integration into most AoIP networks used in broadcast like Dante and Livewire, and AES67. The Vista V comes replete with VistaMix, Studer’s proprietary automated microphone mixing algorithm, based on gain sharing ideal for simplifying the mixing task at multi-contributor events. Studer’s Vistonics interface builds Vista V’s rotary controls and buttons directly into the flat-screen displays, providing visual feedback exactly where you operate.

WORX AUDIO | V5 www.worxaudio.com The V5 is a two-way, high efficiency, line array loudspeaker. It is designed as an ultra compact high performance system to deliver high quality reinforcement of music and speech in a variety of applications including concert audio and corporate audiovisual presentations of all types for both portable users and fixed venue installations. The V5 incorporates a medium format one inch exit compression driver coupled to a stabilised proprietary FlatWave Former (wave shaping device) that delivers clear but penetrating high frequencies over a predictable and controlled coverage area. Dual five inch neo magnet cone transducers coupled to the A.I.M. (Acoustic Integrating Module) minimises comb filtering throughout the entire operating range. A sturdy multi-ply plywood enclosure, with a multi-layered catalysed polyurea finish, will withstand the most demanding applications.

ZERO 88 | CHILLI PRO BYPASS www.zero88.com Power management company Eaton has announced it’s theatrical and performance lighting control brand, Zero 88 now offers the new Chilli Pro Bypass lighting cabinet. These professional 24-channel, slim-line cabinets feature 24 Eaton bypass switches for use when direct mains power is needed in place of theatrical dimming. Available 10A and 16A variants, individual channels can be set for dimming or to deliver mains power for intelligent lights, LED light fittings and other stage specials. Chilli Pro Bypass cabinets make it easier to connect lights exactly where they are needed. For peace of mind, the bypass switches, user interface and breakers are also protected by a lockable, hinged cover with viewing window to check bypass status. Quick to install and set up, the 18-button user interface and backlit LCD screen on each cabinet ensure simple convenient set up for DMX patching, preheat, top set and dimmer curves. A choice of responses to DMX failure, backup memories, built-in chases and an alarm input trigger complete this versatile package.

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...Paky and his drive for perfection in all areas of his products kept the entire industry on their toes. He was a competitor that drove us all and along with that he was a gentleman. He has rightly attained legendary status within the industry and his contribution will never be forgotten.

GLP

PASQU ALE QUADRI THE CREATI V E SO UL O F C L AY PA K Y 1 9 4 7 - 2 0 1 4 Born in Seriate, Bergamo, a province of Lombardy, Italy, Pasquale ‘Paky’ Quadri was a highly successful entrepreneur and pioneer in the professional lighting industry - rarely seen, but highly respected by peers, lighting designers and competing manufacturers the world over.

Lighting Designer Nick Whitehouse, commented: “Paky was one of the major founders of the lighting industry we know today. Throughout my career the products he created have always been at the forefront of technology and forever changed the landscape of the lighting industry not just once but over and over again.

“He inspired me and many other designers with his imagination and dedication to perfection, never failing to provide amazing new fixtures and features that have contributed heavily to many of my designs.

Above all Paky was a gentleman both in the way he did business and during the times I have been lucky enough to meet with him.”

Truly passionate about technology and the culture

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of innovation, the story of Pasquale is closely intertwined with the history of the entertainment business and is studded with great international success. He understood the great development that the technological evolution of lighting would have in the world of show business and entertainment, a world he already knew well as a youngster when, very musically inclined, he headed several groups, playing the organ, the bass and the drums.

Making the most of his inclination for design in the field of optics and his passion for precision mechanics, Pasquale lay at the heart of most Clay Paky products. From the very first lighting effects, such as the Astrodisco - an icon of the disco era in the ‘70s and ‘80s, to legendary automated lights Golden Scan and Sharpy, and then more recently the B-Eye. Pasquale was there every step of the way, growing the company from its humble beginnings in 1976, up until very recently, overseeing the transfer of Clay Paky ownership to Osram, with the objective of securing further expansion for the company.

SGM Lighting’s CEO Peter Johansen commented: “I always regarded Pasquale as one of the original inventors of modern entertainment lighting - a great engineer and a true gentleman who deserved all the awards he received in life.”

Never giving into the temptation of moving the company to a country with lower costs and taxation, Clay Paky was one of the most brilliant examples of ‘Made in Italy’ in the world. The designs made under Pasquale Quadri are the subject of over 80 patents in the world and have obtained around 50 awards from the most prestigious international associations.

Thanks to a strong development in demand and the subsequent growth of the company, in 1982 Clay Paky moved to a new site in Pedrengo, also in the province of Bergamo. Here, it was possible to work on an industrial scale and handle an incessant increase in sales volumes, due to the success of the market of innovative products, characterised by a higher content of technology and a high index of quality and reliability.

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The factory was expanded a first time in 1986, followed the next year by a new legal status, becoming a limited company, Clay Paky srl. The further expansion of the factory in 1990 increased it to 4,500sq metres on two floors, and the subsequent creation of an additional complex for the largest mechanical work.

The company took on its current legal status as a joint stock company, Clay Paky S.p.A., in 1993, when Pasquale gave rise to the project of a new site in Seriate, based on an industrial complex of a total of 10,000sq metres, which became fully operative in 2002.

Toby Velazquez, President, ADJ Group of Companies, commented: “All of us at the ADJ Group were deeply saddened by the passing of Pasquale Quadri and send our sincere condolences to the

family. Pasquale was a man of integrity and great talent and he will be missed in our industry.

“Although I only met him once, I’ve always respected his company and the creativity he brought to our industry. The very first time I went to Rimini in my early 20’s, seeing Clay Paky was a true inspiration for me. The creativity coming from the Italian companies was an amazing sight to see and truly gave me a deep love for our industry. Paky was a true icon of our industry.”

Eric Loader, Sales Director at Elation added: “We always enjoyed a friendly relationship with Pasquale and have always had the highest admiration for him and his company. Clay Paky inspired us all to make better lighting products and he built an amazing company as a true pioneer in our industry.”

It was thanks to Pasquale’s intuition in anticipating

the market and his ability to create revolutionary products, that over the years Clay Paky conquered exceptional success and the Sharpy is, without question, the most famous moving head in the world of entertainment. Launched in September 2010, observers immediately understood that it was a unique and unrepeatable product. With only 189W, the moving head expresses a level of brightness comparable to that of projectors nine times as powerful.

Around the time of its launch, in an interview with mondo*dr (issue 21.3), Pasquale was quoted as saying: “Everything today is about the beam strength.

The beam technology has revolutionised the whole approach to lighting design. Any stage set today is covered by light and LED screens and it is difficult to fight against, projecting gobos is no longer

It was with great sadness that on 6 September Pasquale ‘Paky’ Quadri passed away at the age of 67. The Clay Paky founder had a strong business relationship with Pulsar for many years and was a close personal friend of Pulsar’s Paul Mardon since the 1980’s. Pasquale was a well-known figure to the Pulsar family and it was with great sorrow we received the news of his passing. His legacy and Clay Paky will have a continuing and lasting impact and he will be greatly missed by all, not just the team at Pulsar with whom he shared many years. We at Pulsar are grateful to have worked with such a devoted member of the lighting industry and pass on our sincere condolences to his family and Clay Paky.

Pulsar

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FRANÇAIS

Pasquale « Paky » Quadri est né à Seriate, en Bergame, une province de la Lombardie, en Italie. Il était un brillant entrepreneur et un pionnier du secteur de l’éclairage professionnel rarement rencontré, mais très respecté de ses pairs, les concepteurs d’éclairage et les fabricants concurrents du monde entier.

Pasquale était un homme passionné par la technologie et la culture de l’innovation ; son histoire est étroitement liée à celle de l’industrie du divertissement et est parsemée de grands succès internationaux. Il comprit tôt l’influence extraordinaire qu’allait avoir l’évolution technologique de l’éclairage sur le monde du show-business et du divertissement, un monde qu’il connaissait déjà depuis sa jeunesse puisqu’il avait un intérêt marqué pour la musique et dirigea plusieurs groupes, jouant lui-même de l’orgue, de la basse et de la batterie. Pasquale Quadri, 67 ans, laisse dans le deuil sa femme Antonella, ses filles Alessandra et Francesca et ses petites-filles Melissa et Martina. Sa contribution au monde du divertissement continue de vivre au travers les innombrables spectacles et les lieux utilisant ses inventions.

the point, the main issue is to have a solid beam projector and create powerful mid-air effects and laser-type flat scans. Optically, Sharpy, with its extremely short arc burner, is completely different.”

On a more personal level, Pasquale held several positions in professional associations.

He was a member of the Board of Directors for Small Industry and the Board of Directors of the Metal and Mechanical Industry of the Industrial Union Bergamo; the Board of Directors of ArtigianFidi Bergamo and he was also Auditor of the Accounts of APIAS (Association of Italian Manufacturers of Show Equipment).

Pasquale was also particularly attentive in his support for charity initiatives, for education and the world of associations and was one of the founders of Bergamo Ama, which organises sports events to raise funds for the treatment of seriously ill children, to purchase equipment for the handicapped, and to contribute to the activity of charity associations. He gave constant support to the Nazionale Orchestre Italiane football team, which Clay Paky sponsored and which organises football matches throughout Italy, each with a specific charity objective.

In 2006 Pasquale received the title of ‘Commendatore’ from the President of Italy and then in March 2014, received the

prestigious ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ at the MIPA Awards - the first representative of the lighting sector to receive this prestigious award.

Pasquale Quadri, 67, is survived by his wife Antonella, his daughters Alessandra and Francesca and his granddaughters Melissa and Martina. His contribution to the world of entertainment lives on through the countless shows and venues using his inventions as noted by Robe’s Josef Valchar: “Pasquale was an inspiration to a whole generation of people now involved in the world of moving lights and stage and entertainment lighting. His energy, originality and creativity as a businessman in the 1970’s, during the very embryonic world of intelligent and moving effects lighting and the success of the company and brand that he helped build and gain worldwide recognition, was something we, as a company, have always admired.

“We respected his role in masterminding a competitive brand. Healthy competition keeps driving the market forward and stops everyone from becoming complacent. A very private individual, his contribution to the industry, taking it forward and pioneering new concepts and ideas has been invaluable, it’s helped make the world a richer and more colourful place and his legacy will continue long into the future.”

DEUTSCH

Pasquale ‘Paky’ Quadri wurde in Seriate, Bergamo, einer Provinz in der Lombardie, Italien, geboren und war ein sehr erfolgreicher Unternehmer und Pionier in der professionellen Beleuchtungsindustrie - selten zu sehen aber hochgeachtet durch seine Fachkollegen, Beleuchtungsdesigner und Mitbewerber aus der ganzen Welt. Er war von Technologie und der Innovationskultur richtig begeistert, die Geschichte von Pasquale war eng verknüpft mit der des Entertainmentgeschäfts und wurde gekrönt von einem bedeutenden internationalen Erfolg. Er hat die große technologische Weiterentwicklung für Beleuchtung im Showbusiness und im Entertainmentbereich begriffen, eine Welt, die er schon seit seinen jungen Jahren sehr gut kannte, als er musikalisch begabt mehrere Gruppen geleitet und Orgel, Bass und Schlagzeug gespielt hat. Pasquale Quadri, 67, hinterlässt seine Frau Antonella, seine Töchter Alessandra und Francesca und seine Enkelinnen Melissa und Martina. Sein Beitrag zu der Entertainmentwelt lebt durch zahllose Shows und Treffs, die seine Erfindungen benutzen, fort.

ITALIANO

Nato a Seriate (Bergamo), Pasquale “Paky” Quadri era un imprenditore di grande successo e pioniere nel settore dell’illuminazione professionale (si vedeva in giro di rado, ma molto rispettato dai coetanei, progettisti dell’ illuminazione e produttori concorrenti di tutto il mondo). Veramente appassionato di tecnologia e cultura dell’innovazione, la storia di Pasquale è strettamente intrecciata con la storia del mondo dello spettacolo ed è costellata da un grande successo internazionale. Ha capito il grande sviluppo che l’evoluzione tecnologica dell’illuminazione avrebbe avuto nel mondo dello spettacolo e del divertimento, un mondo che già conosceva bene da giovane quando, molto incline alla musica, ha diretto diversi gruppi, suonando l’organo, il basso e la batteria.

Pasquale Quadri, 67 anni, lascia la moglie Antonella, le figlie Alessandra e Francesca, le sue nipoti Melissa e Martina e il suo contributo al mondo dello spettacolo che vive attraverso gli innumerevoli spettacoli e locali che usano le sue invenzioni.

ESPAÑOL

We’re saddened by the news that Clay Paky’s founder Pasquale ‘Paky’ Quadri has passed away after a long period of illness.

He was one of the grand old men in the lighting industry and his contribution to the business of dynamic lighting deserves recognition. Our deepest condolences to Mr Quadri’s family.

Lars Dige Knudsen, VP & General Manager, Martin Professional

www.mondodr.com

Nacido en Seriate, Bérgamo, una provincia de Lombardía, Italia, Pasquale ‘Paky’ Quadri fue un emprendedor altamente exitoso y un pionero en la industria de iluminación profesional - visto en muy pocas oportunidades, pero altamente respetado por sus colegas, por los diseñadores de iluminación y por los fabricantes que eran competencia en todo el mundo. Con verdadera pasión por la tecnología y la cultura de la innovación, la historia de Pasquale se entrelaza muy de cerca con la historia del negocio del entretenimiento, adornado con un gran éxito internacional. El entendió el gran desarrollo que tendría la evolución tecnológica en términos de iluminación en el ambiente artístico y de entretenimiento, un mundo que él ya conocía bien, dado que de joven, cuando tenía una clara inclinación musical, lideró varios grupos tocando el órgano, el bajo y la batería. Pasquale Quadri, a los 67 años de edad, fue sucedido por su esposa Antonella, sus hijas Alessandra y Francesca y sus nietas Melissa y Martina, así como su contribución con las vidas del ambiente del entretenimiento a través de los incontables shows y lugares que utilizaron sus invenciones.

graphics: Vilfredo Maria Ricci - © 2014 Studio Due

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