Robe at the CoFoE in the European Parliament

Posted on 1 July 2021 by admin

The inaugural Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) event – a European Union initiative to reform its policies and institutions – took place in May at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, at the very heart of EU politics and legislation!
The elegant hemicycle debating chamber sits inside the striking Louise Weiss Building designed by Parisian-based Architecture-Studio and opened in 1999. It includes a 60-metre-high tower which is left looking deliberately unfinished and was inspired by Roman amphitheatres and the mythical Tower of Babel.

European Union 2021 © Michel Christen

The event included a welcome speech by French President Emmanuel Macron and contributions by other high-ranking politicians and EU officials. As CoFoE was aimed primarily at a younger audience of under 40s’, production company Nimblerr asked lighting designer Dimi Theuwissen of Belgium-based creative practice ID2Q to energise the distinctive hemicycle ensuring it looked dynamic and different on camera for this special broadcast.
Dimi decided to change up the look and mood completely with a fresh approach, lighting the room architecture in the background, and in doing so, bringing its presence right into the foreground and camera shots. Helping him to achieve this unique aesthetic were over 200 Robe moving lights – Spiiders, Tetra2s and LEDBeam 150s.

CoFoE was livestreamed and joined by 300 gen-public via zoom together with various ministers, dignitaries, and VIPs, all of whom appeared on seven large LED screens strategically deployed in a circular around 300 degrees of the hemicycle. Erasmus students from all EU member states were present in a socially distanced live audience, sitting in pre-designated states.

European Union 2021 © Christian Creutz

Two musical interludes intersected the 90-minute broadcast with short performances by French violinist Renaud Capuçon and the Brussels-based Karski Quartet … so all these elements informed Dimi’s proposed lighting design to take the hemicycle into a new visual dimension!
He had previously worked with Nimblerr – a subsidiary of DB Video – and currently the European Parliament’s AV co-ordinator on other similar parliamentary events and presidential debates, for which he also took a radical and more theatrical departure with lighting which everyone loved.
Reinforcing where the event was being staged by default meant the space itself was fundamental to the whole production design of the event. Normally lit by functional but stark fluorescent working light, Dimi proposed that the wall and ceiling areas were illuminated with lighting that could be controlled and changed.

Robe Spiider

“First and foremost, this was a broadcast / livestream, so it had to be lively and ‘pop’ on TV and as well as needing all the basics like great key lighting and skin tones for the speakers and performers, for me it was important to bring the building into play and involve it as a player integral to the whole vibe of the event,” he explained, rather than letting it fade sadly into the background.
One hundred and thirty-six Robe Spiider LED wash beams were placed around the two elliptical planes of the hemicycle’s perimeter wall, each fixture indirectly highlighting the individual glass panels of the wall.
He chose Spiiders for their narrow beam optics so he could play with and highlight the different texturing of the brighter and darker segments of the wall, and for their great colour mixing and rendering as well as the fact that they could also mimic the standard florescent tones and look when needed.

European Union 2021 © Christian Creutz

He used subtle pan and tilt cues to shift the lighting treatment on the walls … which looked fantastic on camera, adding a huge amount of depth and dimensionality to the picture.
An arc of LED PARs was mounted on microphone stands to get them in exact positions along the top of the wall panels.

Robe LEDBeam 150

The seven LED screens masked off the back area of the hemicycle seating – but the lit perimeter wall was clearly visible in the back of shots, so for some audience back lighting Dimi selected 40 x Robe LEDBeam 150s which looked atmospheric, intimate, and helped fill the gaps left by the socially detached seating plan.

The LEDBeam 150s effectively became part of the live audience! These fixtures were chosen because Dimi wanted a small, powerful fixture with a good zoom and great colour mixing, so the LEDBeam 150 ticked all the boxes.
The 42 x Tetra2 moving LED bars were rigged to the vertical ends of the LED screens – each of the screens was positioned to coincide with the paths of the hemicycle aisles which had to be kept clear for fire regulations.

Robe Tetra2

“I particularly wanted the tilt option on these lights in these positions,” commented Dimi, as they enabled him to create cool and dramatic lens flare effects especially for the long shot swoops coming in from the crane camera.

The major challenges of getting this event looking vibrant and contemporary were not so much aesthetic and creative, but more logistical in terms of the often-complex operational structures, systems, and protocols in place for working in the European parliament. Dimi has been using Robe products in his work for some time and loves the brand for its substantial product range, reliability and because Robe is widely available throughout Benelux and France and therefore easy to source large quantities through cross rental networking.

European Union 2021 © Christian Creutz

CoFoE’s lighting was programmed by Stijn Vanholzaets from The Creative Factory (TCF) using a grandMA2 console, which left Dimi free to concentrate on all the focussing and getting all the general looks wanted by director Yannick Gies from Nimblerr, who worked closely with Xavier Nijssen, project director for the European Parliament.

David Smeets and Christophe Hellinckx from TCF took care of the technical production management, and the video design and operation was under the control of TCF’s Patrick Bellens, Anthony Depré and Jan Lermineaux.
Lighting equipment was supplied by leading Belgian rental specialist Splendid and video by Dimitri Beyaert for DB Video, with the production also utilising elements of the European Parliament’s ‘house’ AV equipment.

European Union 2021 © Michel Christen

Dimi admitted that some aspects of the results were the complete opposite of what he had initially been told they wanted in the first lighting briefings, but everyone trusted his expertise to produce some magic even using unorthodox methodology for the European Parliament! They were all delighted with the results!

For more info about Robe and their products line, you can visit www.robe.cz

Proteus Maximus versatility shines through at Tuacahn

Posted on 30 June 2021 by admin

Set against a magnificent red rock canyon backdrop in the Utah desert, Tuacahn Amphitheater in the state’s southwest corner is one of the most picturesque settings you’ll find anywhere for outdoor theatre.
Lighting designer Cory Pattak has lit a production of Beauty and the Beast amid the spectacular surroundings and used the venue’s new IP65-rated Proteus Maximus moving heads as workhorse front light fixtures.

Photo Cory Pattak

FOH position

Pattak, in his fourth year lighting large-scale musicals at the amphitheater, was instrumental in the venue purchasing the 50,000-lumen LED luminaires, which were supplied by Felix Lighting. “Ever since the Proteus Maximus was announced, we had been interested in whether it might be a good fit for Tuacahn,” the designer states. The outdoor amphitheater seats 2000, with an uncovered stage that is 80’ wide by nearly 50’ deep, all backed by the red rocks of Snow Canyon.

Photo Cory Pattak

“We are often battling rain, high winds, 100+ temperatures and all other kinds of environmental challenges for shows that run from May to October. We have a FOH position that is covered, but it gets very hot in there and still can be affected by dust, wind and rain.
We’ve had some movers in there that are great lights, but not IP rated, and we were constantly dealing with lamps overheating and internal mechanics issues. This year we had the opportunity to replace them with eight Proteus Maximus and I jumped at the opportunity to get some into the rig.”

Elation Proteus Maximus

Beauty and the Beast, the first show at Tuacahn to use the new Maximus luminaires, opened on May 7th and runs through October 23rd. Pattak typically uses the fixtures to light the set with color and texture, or as front-light on performers, but he also uses them on the backdrop rock wall to project various patterns like bubbles, clouds and stars.

“The lights are extremely versatile and really do everything,” he stated, before describing their various uses in the show. “During the Act 1 Finale, I use all eight of them to create a moon and clouds skyscape high up about the Beast’s Lair.”
In the classic ballroom dance during the number Beauty and the Beast, the team chose to have the characters dance out onto a “balcony” allowing them to place the bulk of the dance inside a star field.

Pattak combines stars from other fixtures on the set and floor with the Maximus doing a star pattern on the mountain in conjunction with additional front projection, video screens, and laser stars. “We are able to create a seemingly endless star-field that usually is greeted with an audible gasp from the audience. It’s great that I can use the same light to do a 40’ saturated wide scenic wash, or a single person pale front light special, or a field of stars hundreds of feet away, and they work excellent in all instances.”

Expands the look

Photo Cory Pattak

Pattak says he rarely uses the Proteus’s without some kind of gobo in it. “Even if it’s very soft, because I prefer the more amorphous edge and the fall off is more desirable when it’s a bit textured.” In one of his favorite looks, at the end of Be Our Guest on the final verse, he uses half of the Proteus fixtures to create a champagne bubble pattern on the red rock backdrop. “It’s the first time in the show we project a pattern onto the rocks and it really knocks you back the first time they turn on,” he says.

“Suddenly the playing space, which only was as high as the overhead trusses, now expands hundreds of feet higher up the mountain and it brings the added punch needed to support the end of a show stopper like Be Our Guest. On the last note, all the bubbles are rotating covering an area of the mountain that must be thousands of feet wide, with pyro firing on stage, and fireworks launching into the air – it’s a pretty spectacular ending to the number.”

Photo Cory Pattak

Exceeding expectations

The designer remarks that the majority of the moving heads in the rig use an additive color mixing system. He knew having the white LED source of the Maximus and a subtractive mixing system would be a great balance and could produce the colors he felt were missing. “My expectations were high before actually turning them on,” he says, “but the fixtures even exceeded what we were all expecting. They are extraordinarily bright as well, handling the over 100’ throw to the stage with no problem.”

Even more exciting, he says, was the ability to achieve a level of brightness on the backdrop rock they had never seen before. “Everyone at Tuacahn, all the way up to the Artistic Director was gobsmacked at the light output we were getting, even after shooting hundreds and hundreds of feet. Also, since the first 30 minutes of the shows happen while the sun is still setting, the bright output was great to combat that ambient light.”
Pattak sums up by stating, “I’ve researched a lot of outdoor-rated moving lights and the Proteus Maximus is the brightest and best light I’ve encountered so far.”

Photo Cory Pattak

Repertory plot – shows all summer long

The Tuacahn Amphitheater lighting rig, as a repertory plot, needed to be as versatile as possible and will be in use all summer long. Other shows planned for this summer include Annie, School of Rock, and The Count of Monte Christo.
Pattak thanks Production Electrician Logan Gerring for spearheading the project to acquire the Maximus fixtures and Roger Pullis at Felix Lighting for “getting us the lights in a very short time period and providing excellent support.”

Direction: Michel Heitzman
Choreography: Robbie Roby
Scenic Design: Adam Koch
Costume Design: Ryan Moller
Lighting Design: Cory Pattak
Assistant Lighting Design: Rob Siler
Video & Projection Design: Steven Royal
Sound Design: Craig Beyrooti

For more information about Elation Lighting and their products line, you can visit www.elationlighting.com

Gaetan Byk Acquires Amadeus and talks about the future

Posted on 29 June 2021 by admin

Amadeus was created in 1992 from the collaboration between Bernard Byk and Michel Deluc. As a unique and creative company, UFO among the large, even the very large French speaker manufacturers and beyond, Amadeus has found its way in France, as well as in the rest of the world.
The company provides professional solutions and products combining acoustical transparency with stylish design — often bespoke.

Always pushing limits, Amadeus is both able to equip a stage with a very nice small-format line array system, to provide great stage monitors, or to design stone-covered speakers for an immersive art creation.

The brand has an impressive catalog of passive, self-amped, and Dante-enabled speakers capable of covering all integration markets, ranging from ‘invisible’ to very powerful models, and offers some gems that delight recording studios and sophisticated music lovers.

PMX 4 and PMX 5 speakers designed for Microsoft by STUDIOS Architecture and made by Amadeus in natural oak with a 60° wood grain.

Finally, Amadeus has chosen to work with Paris-based IRCAM Institute to design HOLOPHONIX, a powerful spatial sound processor, constantly updated with new features, offering many formats for sound immersion and optimization. Furthermore, this processor can be used with any speaker brand, including of course Amadeus speakers.

Both the organization chart and capital structure are changing at Amadeus. In the light of these evolutions, we questioned Gaëtan Byk, who still manages marketing at Amadeus, but who is now also President and owner. He agreed to answer questions that were sometimes rather harsh without doublespeak. Kudos to him. 17 questions to know everything about the present and especially the future of Amadeus

Gaëtan Byk

SLU : What’s the turnover of Amadeus today, France vs. export? And how many employees?

Gaetan Byk : In 2019, the company’s turnover (ex VAT) was 2,699,000 € among which 700,000 € for export ($3,280,000 and $850,000 respectively).
We have 19 full-time employees and hire several ‘exclusive’ freelance workers. In comparison, 2012’s turnover was 1,500,000 € with 18 employees, and 2015’s was 1,800,000 € with the same number of workers…

SLU : What’s your business plan for the five upcoming years?

Gaetan Byk : From 2015 to 2019, our average annual growth was 9.4%, and our operating profitability has more than tripled during this period. A ‘realist’ business plan would be to consider that this trend will continue. In the present circumstances, however, I won’t give any objective.

The manual assembly of Philharmonia loudspeakers, designed using 547 layers of wood glued and then assembled by indexing

SLU : How will Amadeus evolve industrially? ‘Ready-to-wear’? ‘Haute couture’? Mass production?

Gaetan Byk : For many years, my mission has been to find a space for Amadeus, a unique place where technological innovations with arts and crafts, combine and complement each other.

Our industry is flooded with an abundant supply of products and solutions, often similar. Some of them, made by certain of our colleagues, may nevertheless be of high quality. I think we need to go where our main confreres can’t, don’t know how to or don’t want to go.

Philharmonia monitors created for the Philharmonie de Paris with Jean Nouvel.

Designing tailor-made solutions, responding to existing architectural, acoustic or technical constraints has been our space of expression for a long time. Over the past few years, some rather out-of-the-norm products were born this way.

One of the C series speakers covered with natural stone powder, installed in the Pantheon, as part of the work imagined by Pascal Dusapin and Anselm Kiefer for the entrance to the Pantheon of Maurice Genevoix.

For example, the Philharmonia, a reference monitor created with Jean Nouvel for the Philharmonie de Paris; the 70 stone-clad speakers made for the Panthéon; the unique speakers designed for iconic Krug Champagne House, made of COR-TEN steel, cut and then laser welded; the nearly 40-metre-long sound ramp we are currently designing for the Festival d’Avignon; the first immersive setups we imagined with and for the Théâtre National de Chaillot, La Scala, La Comédie Française, etc.

Several development projects in spatialized sound (a domain we’ve been believing in for a long time and which, at last, drives passion) are also underway. The success of the HOLOPHONIX project, a sound processor that already equips some of the most prestigious musical, theatrical or international museum institutions, confirms our views in this direction. We would like to extend these works into research projects in the domain of active acoustics.

SLU : How will the current range of products evolve?

Gaetan Byk : Our ranges of ‘standard’ products were always born from specific demands or special developments, for particular places or projects. Our new controlled-directivity C Series was born from developments initiated in the Théâtre National de Chaillot. Our new ultra-low depth subwoofers were born from limitations we had in the Théâtre de la Ville Les Abbesses.

The Diva M² line-array and the Diva M² Sub at Gaité Lyrique in Paris.

The sound ramps we are currently developing were born as we realized that since the Renaissance, spectators placed closest to the stage are paradoxically among the least privileged. At the time, the spotlight was made with oil lamps and generated a dense ‘fog’ between the spectators’ view and the stage. A few centuries later, there is now a ‘sound obscurity’ for the same audience.

Tailor-made sound ramp, made up of twenty four 5-inch coaxial speakers, designed by Amadeus for the Centre Dramatique National de Normandie.

A second constraint persists, as users and directors don’t want to see a ‘swarm’ of speakers placed, if not thrown, on the stage, with all the implied aesthetic constraints, etc.

I can’t count specific development requests we are currently working on, but they lead our catalogue evolution for the years to come.

SLU : Generalist, specialist, speaker and solutions manufacturer, acoustician, luthier… What are the products and services Amadeus is dealing with, and for which markets?

Gaetan Byk : Our approach is rather transversal and our know-hows very complementary. We mainly work in the electro-acoustic industry, namely the production of loudspeakers for live entertainment applications and high-end hi-fi through the Philharmonia brand.
We also deal with on purely acoustic issues, mainly in the world of the recording studio, for many artists, producers, arrangers, or commercial studios. These departments are managed by Michel Deluc.

The Question De Son recording studio in Paris, two control rooms equipped with Amadeus’ active tri-amplified flagship, the 355, carrying two 15” TAD TL-1601B, the 3” ATC 150S midrange and a Dynaudio Esotar T 330D soft-dome tweeter.

Lastly, the development of the HOLOPHONIX brand, based around spatial and immersive sound, led us to new areas or markets. We were thus confronted with new issues. As a matter of fact, we are currently working in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich on a problem of acoustic simulation, to allow them to simulate urban acoustics and their associated noise pollution.
We are also working for a French startup on a medical station that allows the treatment (by sound) of neurodegenerative diseases, etc. More and more innovative projects like these abound since the HOLOPHONIX genesis, beyond purely cultural projects.

SLU : What’s left of craftsmanship and wood chips? Is this approach still viable?

Gaetan Byk : As I said, I think there will always be a place for innovative and different products, used in solutions designed, developed, and manufactured on demand.
‘High-flying’ products like Philharmonia, a genuine UFO in our contemporary electro-acoustic landscape–the only speaker in the world that was codeveloped for a prestigious place (the Philharmonie de Paris) with one of the most famous and awarded architects in the world (Jean Nouvel). The key is: never stop thinking, searching, innovating…

SLU : Does the financial arrangement you initiated give you the majority in the company and leave you resources to undertake and work on new product ranges?

Gaetan Byk : My personal financing capacity was obviously strongly harnessed by this share purchase. However, the company’s financing capacity is important, as is our own capital. Funding for future projects is expected to be seamless.
I am also thinking about finalizing our HOLOPHONIX project in a dedicated eponymous structure, in order to accelerate its growth and development with partners, without therefore opening the capital of the parent company, Amadeus.

HOLOPHONIX spatialization processor designed by Amadeus, in coordination with IRCAM institute.

SLU : Tell us about upcoming ranges or products, tendencies, customer requests…

Gaetan Byk : We are running several projects in parallel, some of them are still confidential. We are developing large-format ‘sound ramps’, between 12 and 40 m-long, 40- and 140-feet, for several cultural places, among which a ‘long-range’ ramp for the Cour d’Honneur of the Avignon Festival. Every development is specific, but it feeds the developments to come. More and more cultural places trust us to develop such very large-format front fills, totally integrated in the scenic infrastructures.

Michel Deluc, tuning a Philharmonia monitoring system, at the Philharmonie de Paris.

We are also developing a kind of column-type speaker, building on the form factor, the internal structure and the acoustic load of our Philharmonia monitor, but dedicated to live applications, in mid/long-throw setups, with a very elongated format, very curvy… I let you imagine the rest! 🙂

We are also working on a series of ‘high-bass’ complementary modules for our new C-Series, based on a ‘active transducer/passive radiator’ couple. This concept is inherited from our hi-fi work, and gives an absolutely perfect impulse response, a total absence of turbulence and vent compression as the vents are actually removed. Finally, we offer our C-Series as a variable directionality stage monitor variant, with a very ‘low profile’ shape… Two models will be unveiled before the summer, the C12R and the C15R.

SLU : Was your rise to capital necessary to have the free rein or to avoid losing the company? To prepare a succession or to revive Amadeus?

Gaetan Byk : There are mainly two reasons. One is very rational and financial; the other is more philosophical and personal. I needed to have a genuine control on the capital, to be able to initiate structural investments, development projects, to hire people, etc. Former shareholders didn’t necessarily want to launch these costly projects, particularly at this time.
During the six or seven previous years, I was able to create several new products, without ever jeopardizing the structure or investing unreasonable amounts or money. But this task of permanent balancing became too complex to deal with.

More made-to-measure with speakers made of COR-TEN steel by Amadeus for the world-famous Krug Champagne House.

Last but not least, there are moments in life where choices impose themselves or you know that this direction is the one you want to take, no matter what. I know this brand, a large part of its team, of its customers, of its users or prescribers since my childhood.
I built myself with them, I thank them for that. So, extending my investment and my involvement for this brand and its ecosystem was obvious for me.

SLU : How did you deal with the Covid pandemic? Are orders for 2022 and 2023 about to keep their promises?

Gaetan Byk : Not too bad, I’d say. Nevertheless, we experienced a decline of almost 30% in business in 2020 compared to 2019, the best year for the brand since its inception. Projects are starting up again, faster in Asia, where we are getting more and more involved.
We mainly work on very long-term projects as there are one to five years from the phases of research, design, prescription to completion. We are currently working on projects to build or renovate rooms that will come into being in several years.

La Scala, the first privately-owned Parisian theater equipped with the HOLOPHONIX processor and nearly 190 Amadeus speakers; each one having received a bespoke ‘Scala Blue’ finish, for perfect integration into the environment.

SLU : What will be the new organization chart? Who will be in charge of Marketing and Sales?

Gaetan Byk : I am officially President of the Amadeus (Simplified Joined Stock Company) since March 16th, 2021. I’ll keep my functions as Marketing and Sales Director for several months, and I hope we’ll be able to quickly find someone sharing our philosophy and able to take over this extremely strategic position.

SLU : Your design office is handled by a single man. Is this defendable?

Gaetan Byk : Michel Deluc is the co-founder of the Amadeus brand, and he has been Head of R&D in the electro-acoustic department since its inception. He has been helped by three engineers for several years. Completing our team with a new purely electro-acoustic profile is currently under study.
The HOLOPHONIX project R&D is completely separated from our electro-acoustical department. It is co-lead by Olivier Warusfel and Thibaut Carpentier at IRCAM and by Johan Lescure at Amadeus.

SLU : Will the current economic model be changed in order to rely in the future on donors in order to accelerate the development of Amadeus?

Gaetan Byk : My goal is to remain, as far as possible, the majority shareholder of the Amadeus structure, in order to preserve our DNA and above all not enter into a logic of unbridled growth. My wish is to do better, not more. However, HOLOPHONIX, which already has a lot of autonomy and whose youth, growth and ultra-technological profile would make it a great start-up, is open for thought. Finalizing this activity and backing us with financial and/or technological partners is currently under study.

Bernard Byk

SLU : What about current executives, who earned money as you got debts? What will your father do now?

Gaetan Byk : Bernard is 73 years old, and I think he really deserves to take some rest. He began to gradually take some distance from the brand, as soon as I arrived, a little more than seven years ago. He left the reins a few years ago. He stayed to formalize the capital transfer, not the function or responsibility transfer.

We therefore launched together a company valuation process, which took nearly a year and was handled by the Parisian firm BM&A, a leading name in the audit and consulting market.
We completed the ‘deal’ in the first quarter of 2021. Bernard was trained as an architect. He will return to his first love with an ambitious project of rehabilitation of an historical monument, hence far away from the Sound planet…

SLU : Will you give up this heavy familial aspect, replacing it with a mix of skills and origins?

Gaetan Byk : There is a very ‘familial’ atmosphere in our company, perhaps because many persons have been there for a very long time, or because our structure kept a human size. In all, we have fewer than 25 employees, including alternants and doctoral students.
The same goes for newcomers, who integrate themselves perfectly in this mood. I believe this atmosphere is part of our DNA, and I certainly contribute, if unconsciously, to this. I think we’re more of a family than a team.

Silverio, senior cabinetmaker sanding Amadeus subwoofers.

SLU : Who’s Amadeus biggest enemy?

Gaetan Byk : I don’t have any enemies. I only have colleagues, and some of them are more competent, ingenious and thus potentially more ‘dangerous’ than others… 🙂

SLU : What’s the 2021 main/reference project?

Gaetan Byk : There are many. I don’t like to categorize or rank projects, as most of them are very rewarding from a human, technical, or technological point of view. On the other hand, I am extremely pleased and honored that our brand and our group have been selected as part of the competition for the complete renewal of the scenic infrastructures of the Cour d’Honneur of the Festival d’Avignon, which is probably the most important contemporary live show in the world.
Being present in Avignon, with an extremely innovative device built around the HOLOPHONIX processor, is a form of consecration, in any case a major recognition of our work and the ideas we defend!

More information on the Amadeus website

Hippotizer Media Servers Drive Eurovision LED Set Strips

Posted on 26 June 2021 by admin

A newly formed group of Hippotizer Media Servers worked in total harmony for this year’s spectacular Eurovision final, feeding lighting and visual data into LED strips and LED tape on the main stage, set pieces and in the ‘green room’ artist area.

Almost 200 million people watched as a Hippotizer Boreal+ drove LED tape and strip colours on and around the main stage at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena. A Hippotizer Karst+ controlled all of the LED strips in the artist booths. © Nathan Reinds

An estimated 183 million people around the world watched as a Hippotizer Boreal+ served as lead in the band, driving all of the LED tape and strip colours on and around the main stage at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena. Contestants from 39 countries took part in this year’s event.
Second in command was a Hippotizer Karst+, which controlled all of the LED strips in the artist booths – where the all-important live interviews took place – as well as the specials for selected performers on the night. No band is complete without support, so the set up was complemented by a Karst and Karst+ Media Server as backup for the live finals.

Lighting designer for Eurovision 2021 was Henk-Jan van Beek from Light-H-Art. Managing the Hippotizer line up was André Beekmans from The Art of Light, who worked alongside show lighting programmers Micky Dordregter, Robbert-Jan Vernooij and Erik-Jan Berendesen to achieve the range of looks.

“Henk-Jan van Beek asked me to join in his team as one of the four show lighting programmers, and I was of course thrilled to be part of one of the world’s biggest events,” says Beekmans.
“Right from the start, we knew we needed some seriously powerful kit to feed around 800 universes of LED pixels, so we began searching for the right solution a powerful media server that could both handle the demands of the show, be user-friendly for all programmers working on the finals, and have a track record of reliability.

“I have always had a really good experience with Hippotizer servers, and have previously controlled LED strips using them. I also own some Hippotizer servers as part of my company, The Art of Light. But Micky and I still needed to decide which servers would be the right solution so we did some tests and the short version is that Hippotizer was the choice we made.”

The Art of Light purchased the Boreal+ especially for Eurovision 2021. The other servers were supplied by Beekmans’ company. “The main element of the Eurovision set was a massive LED screen which could open with two giant doors that could rotate, and at the back side of the doors was a light grip with mini panels,” Beekmans continues. “The stage was supported with ribs on the sides, filled with LED strips.

“When it came to the Hippotizers, PixelMapper was the main tool we used and we created some live masks to filter parts to control. For playback, we had a good library of content, comprised of a mix of standard content and custom-made content, which works well with the pixelmapping of LED strips. The features of Hippotizer made executing programming and control of the strips much easier, considering the enormity of the Eurovision requirements.”
The whole light setup was controlled using grandMA3 consoles running in MA2 mode, and all of the Hippotizer Media Servers were also controlled via this desk.
“This proved to be a very useful way to control everything from one place, so that the Hippotizers and the LED strips were in complete sync with all the lighting cues,” adds Beekmans.

Key light programmer was Joost Wijgers, with Bas Geersema serving as night shift programmer. Eurovision 2021 was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO), Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) and AVROTROS.

More information on the Green Hippo website

Powersoft launchs two new powerful T Series amps

Posted on 25 June 2021 by admin

Since it was introduced 18 years ago, the K Series has proven itself to be one of the most reliable and widely used amplifiers on the market, receiving high praise for its lasting audio quality, power density, efficiency, and stable and long-term power.

Les nouveaux Powersoft T902 et T904.

Building on this legacy, Powersoft introduced the T Series in 2019, and in doing so defined the ‘next generation specs’ for amplifiers in live sound applications, as well as setting new long-term benchmarks such as daisy-chained Ethernet connectivity; Dante audio networking; Power sharing; Improved DSP with powerful Advanced EQ groups, and FIR filtering for great sounding presets.

Now, in 2021, the new T902 and T904 have been introduced to extend the applications of the T Series even further, allowing it to cover the requirements for any system deployment, including larger scale live sound applications.
The T902 is a 2-channel amplifier specified to deliver 4000W at 2 Ohms, 3200W at 4 Ohms, or 1800W at 8 Ohms, and its high rail voltage and peak current on the outputs make it ideal for driving large 4-Ohm subwoofers (like dual 18’’) or 2- and 3-way line sources.

Le T902, 175 V crête, 8 kW, DSP et Dante.

Thanks to the T902’s onboard DSP featuring Raised Cosine, IRR and FIR filters; and precision delay, the T902 is the perfect product for powering and controlling complex cardioid sub-woofer arrangements and complex 3-way line sources.

The other new addition to the T Series family is the 4-channel T904, which can deliver 1800W at 2 Ohms, 2000W at 4 Ohms, or 1600W at 8 Ohms. This new amplifier platform is designed to power bi-amped systems like stage monitors, 2-way point source speakers, and 2-way line sources, as well as smaller sub woofers.

La face arrière du T904. 4 canaux et 4 entrées, 8 kW au total, DSP et Dante.

Much like the rest of the T Series family, the new T902 and T904 feature onboard DSP, in-built Dante inputs, and live impedance monitoring, as well as Powersoft’s Active DampingControl™ for cable resistance compensation.

Marc Kocks, Powersoft Application Engineering team Manager.

“Most live sound amplifier families will feature lower voltages for smaller and lower cost products,” said Marc Kocks, manager of Powersoft’s Application Engineering team.

“In smaller systems, however, it is quite common to have a single 8 Ohm loudspeaker per channel. This presented an opportunity for our development team to make a very homogenous amplifier range in which all models can deliver the same high output voltage, so that smaller models can also play ‘full SPL’ on 8-Ohm speakers.

“This makes the smaller models more affordable by saving in the power supply and output current capacity, while providing a solid feature set for the entire product family. With the addition of the T902 and T904 to the T-series it will be able to serve as a flexible and reliable workhorse for any live sound system.”

Robert Juliat SpotMe for Czech Republic’s Brno City Theatre

Posted on 24 June 2021 by admin

The largest performance space of Brno City Theatre (Městské divadlo Brno), The Music Theatre, is a 680-seat venue that hosts a programme of current musicals and large-scale drama. It was built in 2004 as the best technically equipped theatre in Europe.

To maintain these modern standards, technical manager, David Kachlíř, recently added a Robert Juliat SpotMe tracking device to the venue’s lighting inventory, thereby increasing its existing complement of Robert Juliat products of 3 RJ Ginger followspots, Dalis 864 coloured footlights and a number of RJ 600 and 700 series profiles.

Jane Eyre – Soft edge wash and beam lights characterise the atmospheric mood of this historical musical drama. © Tino Kratochvil

The RJ SpotMe device was supplied by Prague-based Prolight s.r.o., Robert Juliat’s exclusive distributor for the Czech Republic, as part of an improvement initiative to future-proof the Theatre. SpotMe is Robert Juliat’s award-winning server that produces real-time tracking information with no emitters or cameras on stage or performers.
It uses feedback from sensors mounted on a tripod and followspot to coordinate moving lights with the movement initiated by a followspot and its operator – a perfect combination of high technology and human control in lighting design and operation.

Pretty Woman – hard-edge beams and strong backlight are the order of the day for this upbeat production. ©Tino Kratochvil

Kachlíř chose SpotMe after a request from artistic director, Stanislav Moša, who wished to be able to follow actors with backlight from upstage lighting positions.

“Such positions are impossible to access with a human operator due to the number of moving flybars, lights and scenery,” explains Kachlíř, “so we decided to bring in SpotMe which can be controlled remotely by a console operator in conjunction with a followspot operator.”
The newly-acquired SpotMe is used with one of the Theatre’s RJ Ginger followspots, and rigged on the front-of-house balcony close to the proscenium arch using a specially customised pan head (now a standard RJ installation product).

From this position, Kachlíř, who is also lighting designer and show operator for most of The Music Theatre shows, can control every parameter within the followspot, and all other moving head fixtures calibrated with SpotMe, directly from the MA2 console.
“It is very easy and quick with the MA console – just tap the moving heads I want to use to follow, activate the preset, update the cue and that’s it!” he says.

SpotMe installed on an RJ Ginger chase on the balcony facing the stage of the Municipal Theater in Brno.

Kachlír first used SpotMe in December 2020 on the musical version of Pretty Woman, directed by Stanislav Moša, which sees its Czech premiere and official opening on 11 September 2021. “For this production we use strong colours like concert purples and sharp-edged followspot/moving head looks to follow the main characters,” explains Kachlíř.

“The show is fast paced, and I have a generic lighting set up with 70-80 moving lights calibrated to SpotMe at my disposal. We were able to work with SpotMe’s tracking speed function to handle the rapid changes of pace, using the Fast Standard mode as the optimum setting for smooth movement between normal and faster speeds.”

Kachlíř’s second design with SpotMe shows a very different application – this time for the Czech premiere of the Tony Award-winning musical Jane Eyre, directed and translated by Petr Gazdík, which had its non-public opening in April 2021 before the official premiere takes place this October.

“For this historical drama we wanted a dark, atmospheric look in which no sharp-edge spots were used, just softer edged wash and beam lights,” says Kachlíř. “We increased the drama of the solo numbers by using a single moving light, but we had around 50 lights calibrated to SpotMe in readiness so we could dial in whatever we want, whenever we want it.

Robert Juliat SpotMe installed with an RJ Ginger followspot on the balcony of Brno City Theatre’s The Music Theatre. ©Tino Kratochvil

“We’ve had great remote support from Ludwig Lepage, Robert Juliat’s product manager, which took place entirely online due to the travel restrictions caused by the Covid pandemic. He used Facetime communication to see the stage, and remotely operated the console and SpotMe control directly from his computer in France.
He was able to check the whole system and its parameters via remote control, and even turn on the followspot remotely to save me the journey to my own console! We were able to learn and familiarise ourselves with the SpotMe system under his guidance.”

Having become confident in the operation of SpotMe, Kachlíř is keen to explore more of its capabilities going forward: “We have generally been using SpotMe in Standard Mode but there will be a time soon when we want to calibrate it with our Dalis 864 footlights and discover the full potential of the Extended Mode. We’ve used the Dalis in every show since we have purchased them and they have become fundamental to all our designs.
The dimming is very smooth and the colour presets created by Ludwig for the MA2 console are extremely useful. We are looking forward to incorporating these features into the SpotMe control and creating even more ambitious designs.

Jane Eyre – © Tino Kratochvil

“SpotMe has given us a level of creativity that was just not possible before. We can follow anyone, anywhere, at any time, with any fixture we have linked to it, and utilise all the parameters any of the fixtures have to offer. We are very happy with the level of support we received which brought us up to speed with a new product concept.
What initially seemed a dauntingly sophisticated system is now so easy to use. It is working perfectly and I am very glad we made the investment. Our long-term plan is to invest in two more SpotMe units for our remaining Ginger followspots.”

For more information about SpotMe and all Robert Juliat products you can visit www.robertjuliat.fr

And also on the Brno City Theatre website and on the Prolight s.r.o website

Elation KL Panel flexible fit for Creative Technology’s LED studios

Posted on 23 June 2021 by admin

Specialist solutions supplier, Creative Technology Group, has increasingly turned to Elation Professional’s KL Panel LED soft light for use in their US-based LED studios and has added a number of the full-color-spectrum fixtures to their rental inventory.

In the United States, Creative Technology (CT) operates virtual event LED studios in Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and Nashville. Each is equipped with xR and camera tracking technology that works with powerful graphics engines to create dynamic scenes that put a presenter or product virtually into any environment.
The results are truly spectacular. In late spring of 2020, Creative Technology contacted Elation about a high-quality LED soft light for the studios and eventually purchased 75 of the units with snap grids and snap bags.

Flexibility allows for increased use

CT has used the KL Panels on many of their studio projects, including in their Las Vegas and Los Angeles locations. In their newest virtual event studio in Las Vegas, KL Panels and other lighting work with a large curved LED wall, LED floor and LED ceiling to create an ideal virtual event suite for television, film, corporate and automotive work.

“A lot of what we’re hanging these days tends to be a KL Panel and that is because of its flexibility,” stated CT’s Vice President of Digital Production, Reed Erickson. As lead on CT’s studio systems, he has been hands on with the KL Panels since their acquisition.
“The fact that the fixtures are smaller and lighter [than comparable units] gives us a lot more flexibility to put them where we need them and to use more of the fixture.

When we put other fixtures in these spaces we’re using them at a lower capacity but with the Kl Panels we’ve found that they are really easy-to-use in these TV studio environments.” That flexibility, he says, has allowed them to incorporate the units in a multitude of areas, sometimes without a console and just using the encoders on the back of the fixture.

Color and color temp to match

Another key characteristic of the KL Panels, according to Erickson, is the fact that they are full color-mixing fixtures. “They’ve been great for these LED volume environments where we want to create a seamless integration between foreground actors and virtual backgrounds.

We create scenes that we have to fill in with appropriate light for the environment being reflected on the LED wall. The fact that the KL Panels are full color means we can tune the whole scene to match using lighting instruments instead of having to stretch it out on video canvasses.”

The KL Panel houses a 295W RGBWLC (Red, Green, Blue, White, Lime, Cyan) LED array and is color temperature-adjustable from 2,000 to 10,000K. CRI is 95 and, importantly for the camera, the KL Panel has a high TLCI value.
The units can match the white balance for the camera through a green shift adjustment or virtual gel library with no flickering when used with high-speed cameras.

Working in the CT studio rigs together with LED moving head wash lights, the KL Panels provide all of the front light, backlight and stage space lighting. “In certain cases we’re able to match the KL Panels to the walls so that the entire environment has a matching color temperature,” says Erickson.
He adds that they work well with the cinema cameras but also with their 4K or 1080 broadcast cameras. “The walls tend to start colored out rather blue so we can match that with the fixtures. We can use them at a low light output to frontlight people at an appropriate temperature for the actual scene behind them.”

The virtual events that Creative Technology can create using their suite of virtual event solutions, from branded and interactive meetings and conferences to large-scale productions, are truly remarkable, and high-quality, adjustable light from Elation KL Panels is an important part of the package.

For more information about Elation Lighting and their range of products, you can visit www.elationlighting.com

Meyer goes on Residential Cinema Through HTA Support

Posted on 22 June 2021 by admin

As part of a broad initiative to boost its presence in the high-end residential cinema market, Meyer Sound has signed on as a Platinum Supporter of the Home Technology Association (HTA).

This new commitment to the HTA underscores an accelerating acceptance of Meyer Sound’s leading-edge professional audio products and technologies in upscale residential settings.

“We are excited to support HTA and its mission of providing a no-compromise private cinema experience,” says Miles Rogers, Meyer Sound’s business development manager for cinema and content creation markets.

Miles Rogers

“The quality of a private cinema sound is not defined solely by the loudspeakers, but by the sum of all the components coming together — from the room build through final calibration.
When all these pieces fit together perfectly, you have a VIP ticket to sit shotgun with the director in Hollywood and experience the film exactly as it was intended. Today, HTA is a key to making that happen.”

In a largely unregulated marketplace, the Home Technology Association’s rigorous certification program is the first and only industry standard of excellence for home technology design and installation. Each company must meet more than 60 points of evaluation for certification in one of three tiers: Estate, Luxury and Foundation.

Daniel Riviera

Certification gives full assurance to all parties involved — architects, interior designers, builders and homeowners — that the project will be completed on budget and to complete satisfaction.

“The HTA certification program does an outstanding job of vetting and qualifying integrators,” says Daniel Rivera, Meyer Sound US sales manager for the West.

“And they took it one step further by creating a budget calculator that matches the project to a qualified integrator who is up to the task.”

The Bluehorn, the flattest frequency response and phase ever ;0)

In recent years, Meyer Sound monitoring systems have been widely adopted in premier film sound post-production facilities around the world. As more and more film industry creative professionals wished to “take the sound home,” Meyer Sound emerged as a leading provider of systems to many film industry luminaries, and this success has migrated into the wider upscale private cinema market.

The company offers a full line of cinema products and solutions for applications of all scales, from the Bluehorn® System full bandwidth studio monitor, Amie Systems, and Acheron® screen channel loudspeakers to the new Spacemap® Go spatial sound design and live mixing tool and Constellation® acoustic system.

Amie Precision Studio Monitors.

In 2021, Meyer Sound announced a breakthrough for both the post-production and private cinema markets with the introduction of the Ultra Reflex sound solution for direct view displays. For the first time, Ultra Reflex allows viewers to experience the superior image of direct view displays while still enjoying precise localization and full fidelity from the screen channels.

The Ultra Reflex Sound Solution for Direct View Displays. In green the direct radiating low frequency audio.

Following on the Platinum level of support for HTA, Meyer Sound plans additional initiatives, partnerships and associations later in 2021 to further strengthen its position in the private cinema market.

More information on the Meyer Sound website

Ayrton Eurus «S» The new generation

Posted on 21 June 2021 by admin

Ayrton presents Eurus, a new generation of profile spotlight that benefits from the technological advances the manufacturer has implemented in its latest luminaires, as well as from a new LED engine and from further research aimed at making it more compact, lighter, brighter and quieter.

Eurus features 650 W of LEDs, which is claimed to be 30% higher than most fixtures in its class. Rather than being a replacement for the Ghibli, it is designed for users who want to benefit from the latest innovations in LED sharp-beam fixtures.
SLU conducted a thorough test of the S version. Let’s take a look…

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The Eurus boasts the stylish design of the brand, which is instantly recognizable. Its streamlined and sleek head is marked only by a few lateral air intakes and a few others towards the rear. It is terminated by a posterior heat sink and, at the front, features a large 170 mm lens.

Eurus uses a 650 W white LED engine. Its 170 mm front lens delivers a very crisp and moldable beam. Like Ayrton’s other profile/spot fixtures, the Eurus is available in a powerful “S” (Stage) version (6700 K) with a native CRI of 70, and a “TC” (True Colors) model (6000 K) with a native CRI of 90, at the expense of a small reduction in flux.

Photometric measurements

Derating curve

We bring the unit up to full power and measure the center illuminance every five minutes, in order to plot the derating curve.

The intensity stabilizes in five minutes, with an attenuation of 10%. Eurus is equipped with a new, efficient cooling system.

Tightest sharply-focused beam

20° beam

Widest sharply-focused beam

Our luminous flux measurements confirm what our eyes told us. This baby is powerful, and the light is beautiful! With a 20° beam, the 650 W of LEDs produce a flux of more than 29,500 lumens when cold (26,500 lm after derating), which corresponds to an efficiency of 45 lm/W (41 lumens/W after derating).
This is a very good performance, better than the Ghibli (27 lm/W cold and 25 lm/W after derating) and, to date, better than the competitors we’ve seen in this category. The luminous intensity plot shows us an extremely uniform beam. You might say: “like most high-end LED fixtures!”. And this is true.

Now that the days of lamps are over, which involved a lot of work trying to distribute the light from a very small arc while attenuating a hot spot that no one wanted (or didn’t want… Now some people are starting to miss it…), LED technology has allowed manufacturers to focus on other technical challenges, with beam uniformity being a very different issue. In any case, the evenness of the beam from Eurus is remarkable. Voilà!

Dimmer and strobe

The dimmer is remarkably linear, and the “Square Law” mode produces a very nice curve, very similar to that of a dimmer system on a classic tungsten lamp. The strobe is efficient, its highest speed is close to the flicker of an electric arc, and its control channel offers a nice variety of random and pulse effects. There’s not much to say, really… it works, and very well!

Zoom

At the tightest sharply-focused zoom setting, the beam divergence is around 4.7°, a little less when you “tweak” the absolute sharpness a little. Basically, it closes very tightly on the beam. On the other hand, at our distance of 5 m, projecting a crisp gobo is only possible at around 8°/9°. The beam at its widest divergence opens to more than 50°, and here, we can focus even at very short distances. Let’s take a look at it…

Colors

The color mixing or, more precisely, the optics (which have an impact on the color mixing) have been greatly improved in comparison with the Ghibli, because we no longer notice (or only slightly) the insertion of the dichroic flags into the beam for a certain distance beyond the output.
The positioning of certain optical elements relative to the position of the color system in the fixture probably has a lot to do with this. The mixtures, even complicated ones (pastels using several hues, like amber, salmon, etc.) are really very beautiful and clear.

The CMY system is effective, delivering deep, rich, saturated colors, subtle pastels, and smooth transitions. No hue is poorly rendered. Even the greens are bright and the red is red. At high velocity the transitions are instantaneous.

White, plus the primaries of the CMY + CTO system.

The CMY system is supplemented by a progressive CTO that produces a very soft amber color, the density of which can become quite substantial. It lowers the color temperature to 2960 K. A color wheel provides a series of six saturated colors that can be positioned either in full color or in half-color for very nice dual-color effects with some gobos. This color wheel can be focused.

Thus, in the dual-color effect, you can choose a sharp beam, with just a small metal bar (also in focus, in fact…) separating the two colors, or a smooth fade between the two colors in the beam. In the seventh position of this wheel, there is a ¼-CTB filter for use with gobos, which we will talk about later. Surpriiiise!

The color wheel with half-colors. Soft and sharp.

A dedicated channel allows you to apply two minus-green filters, each with a different density – thus tending towards pink – to eliminate the green dominance in a video image. These filters can also be used to raise the CRI. The most subtle one of them increases the CRI to 76 and the more intense one increases it to 84, while lowering the color temperature to 6100 K. These two filters, mounted on a sliding plate, can be operated independently of the color systems.

Gobos

Eurus has a wheel with seven indexable rotating gobos, a wheel with 11 fixed gobos, and an animation wheel, the effect of which can be summarized as that of a striped gobo with continuous scrolling.

The rotating gobos.

The static gobos.

The gobo kit includes most of the standards from the existing Ayrton range (Ghibli, Mistral, Diablo, Khamsin, etc.), including the yellow and white cone, the criss-crossing triangles, and the psychedelic multicolor mix reminiscent of the old moving oil effects, without forgetting the essentials: a really nice smooth cone, a dot bar, a starry sky type colander, etc.

The animation wheel.

The striated animation wheel moves vertically through the beam, which is unfortunately the least impressive effect in an aerial beam, whereas in the horizontal direction, you could see the chiseling of the beam of light go by continuously…
The focal planes of the gobos are far enough apart to offer nice “morphing” effects from one gobo to another. The same goes for the animation wheel. When superimposed, one of the two is really blurred, but this doesn’t detract from their interplay.

Let’s pause for a moment to consider an important point. LED spot fixtures all have more or less the same problem known as “yellow shift” when a gobo is inserted.
This is a slightly yellowish tinge that develops more or less noticeably in the beam when a gobo is inserted. This phenomenon is due to an internal reflection between the optical design of the LED engine and the glass surface of the gobo.

To remedy this, starting with the introduction of the Ghibli, Ayrton has chosen to automatically engage a ¼-CTB filter, located on the color wheel as soon as a gobo is introduced into the beam. And the slight blueness of the corrector neutralizes this pesky yellowish hue. Obviously, this soaks up a little light in the process (though, it’s not really that noticeable), but it guarantees the gobo’s original pretty white color. This feature can be disabled if you don’t want to use it, either via DMX using the “control” channel, or via RDM, or in the “options” menu of the fixture. And it works.

Some gobo effects.

Some gobo effects with prisms.

Prisms

The Eurus has two prisms that can be rotated and inserted simultaneously in the beam. The first is linear four-facet, the second is radial five-facet. When the two prisms are superimposed, we obtain roughly a “20-facet” prism in a big jumble of multiple images that is somewhat confusing. The insertion of the prisms isn’t possible over the entire zoom range (especially the combination of the two) but it can be done over a sufficiently wide range.
The prisms allow you to significantly expand the beam, thus avoiding that the images are heavily “crumpled” into one another, and their quality provides excellent projection on all the duplicated images. With a wide beam, it is possible to produce at least 70° of projections! This is a very impressive result and it is one of the areas where this fixture flirts with excellence.

The prisms.

Frosts

Both frosts are progressive. The first light one allows you to blur a gobo or a framing shutter rather heavily. The second, heavy frost is very intense. The linearity of the application of the filters is smooth but the “fade” of the frost is only really progressive on the first one. With the second frost, a halo gradually intensifies in front of the image, which maintains a distinct outline until about 90% of the range, then it disappears. Mixing it is delicate and very nice.

The frosts.

iris

The iris is quite satisfactory and, combined with the zoom, allows you to obtain an extremely tight beam at the narrowest in-focus position, and also provides some nice pulsing and opening/closing effects.

The iris, from closed to open.

Framing

This system of four blades – each of which is fully closing and therefore they are positioned on four different focal planes – does not allow for an absolute sharpness of the whole. Typical, you might say. And it is really in line with most of the high-end fixtures. The compromise that Ayrton has adopted allows the blades to be positioned with as few mechanical limits as possible.

Some framing effects.

The issue of absolute sharpness, sought like the Holy Grail, is actually a fairly insignificant factor when you know that, in most cases, we are going to try to soften the edges of a frame either by slightly defocusing or, more academically, by adding a little frost…
The orientation of the framing module is possible over a wide range of ± 60°.

Video presentation

Construction and mechanics

With Eurus, Ayrton introduces certain construction techniques that are intended to reduce the weight and external volume. Everything is optimized in order to avoid reducing the optical elements. In this sense it’s truly a success. Millimeter by millimeter, and gram by gram, the Eurus gains in compactness and lightness while maintaining the strength of its frame and its excellent optical qualities.

The connection panel. Note the battery compartment.

The yoke arms have pan and tilt locks. The base itself is quite slim, with its handles, display and connection panel: DMX input/output in XLR5, dual RJ45 network ports, a USB port for software updates, and PowerCon True 1 for the power supply.

A compartment for the display’s battery allows the machine to be configured off-line. As is the case with most of the Ayrton units, you navigate through the menu of Eurus by means of a jog wheel. Therefore, it confuses me every time, but it works well.

Underneath the base of Eurus.

On the bottom of the base, the tapped mounting holes offer two possibilities of spacing between the omega brackets over the width, to allow for different combinations of positioning and avoid problems with spacers or truss junctions that could interfere with the rigging. Even if it is not as flexible as offset omegas, this can be enough in many cases.
You can also fix the omega bracket perpendicularly, along the narrow axis of the base, but on a single plane. Two anchoring lugs for safety cables are provided between the omega attachments.

Eurus with the covers removed.

The cowls of the head can be removed by loosening two ¼-turn captive screws. They are retained by a small safety cable. The covers of the yoke arms are secured by four BTR screws, which are also captive.

To access the inner, central part of the moving head, you will have to remove two more covers (via eight screws), in order to completely expose the mechanics and the access to the cable conduit for the pan axis. In 20 minutes, you can strip it down and replace a pan drive belt.
One construction detail: on the yoke arm covers, there are small rubber dampers that prevent vibration or rattling noises when the yoke is in motion. Very clever.

The base plates are fixed with two sets of four BTR screws and provide access above the power supply section of the unit. As a rare, happy surprise, we find excellent visibility of the contents of the base. If any adjustments have to be made, it’s quite easy to access.

A rear view of the fixture showing the cooling vents and the heat sink.

Inside the head, there are no fewer than 17 fans! They are positioned to cover critical areas and their operation is optimized by an electronic system that analyzes data from sensors located in strategic positions throughout the unit.
The Eurus offers various ventilation options, even an ultra-silent mode (at the cost of reduced light output, of course!) with almost no ventilation.

In automatic mode, we measure 45 dB at 1 meter during the fixture’s noisiest operations (in motion, with all the internal mechanical functions moving, etc.), compared to the 30 dB of ambient noise in the Studio at Impact Evénement, where we are doing our tests. Well done.

So, let’s start taking it apart: Two modules can be removed. Everything inside that can be removed for routine maintenance requires just a simple Phillips-head screwdriver.

Framing module

The framing module is secured by four screws and a classic DB9 connector. It’s quite similar to the framing modules we know from the rest of the range, except that the rotation of the frame is increased from the usual ±45° to ±60° for more flexibility. This module also contains the iris.

The front of the framing module.

The effects/color module includes the CMY system, the CTO, the color wheel, the gobo wheels, and the animation wheel. It can be removed in the same manner as the framing module, except that loosening four screws unlocks small plates that hold the module in place. The construction is full of clever tricks.

One nice detail is that the fixed gobo wheel (which can be replaced by simply clipping it on) has a small indexing lug that allows the static gobos to always be positioned in the same orientation. So, these will always be indexed in the same way in the event of replacement. Although this may not be very important for a cone, but for a bar or a square grid it is very useful!

The module is very compact and – even if the module can be separated into two parts to access the heart of the CMY system – simply cleaning the color filters will obviously be a delicate operation. Between the color wheel and the three-color section, you can see the small sliding plate with the two minus-green/CRI filters that can be moved into the beam, with the full opening in the center.

The effects module: on the left in the center, you can see one side of the small sliding plate with the minus-green/CRI filters.

The effects module on the CMY side.

The advantage of these latest-generation LED fixtures is that cleaning operations are becoming less and less frequent. We rarely see units where the interior of the head is very dirty, as was the case with lamp-based fixtures whose powerful fans generated air currents in all directions throughout the head. The designs of these very compact units are therefore quite practical in their use.

Finally, the LED module

The removable LED module with its lens.

This one stands out from the systems that are usually found on rival models. First of all, the whole back of the Eurus is not occupied by a big “light box” made of huge heat sinks with heat pipes.

Here, six small fans remove the heat from the top and bottom of a plate on which the LED circuit is mounted. Obviously, there is still a heat sink, but here it is very small: just a few centimeters thick.

A nice thing is that, even though it should be considered a rare necessity, the LED module can be easily removed for replacement in less than ten minutes, including the optics. It can be removed from the front, on the effects side.
The source is in the center of the plate, and takes the form of a small square of less than 10 cm on each side, topped by its optical system for collimating the beams (these small “cells” that cover each LED), which is in turn covered by a large condenser lens. Everything is accessible and can be disassembled with a small “tom-thumb” type Phillips-head screwdriver… and presto!

The frosts and prisms are located between the zoom and focus lenses.

In the front section of the head, the two carriages holding the 13 lenses (focus and zoom) run on linear guide rails, such as those found in high-precision industrial electromechanical equipment.
Each of the two carriages also includes one of the prisms and one of the frosts, along with the servo systems that insert them into the beam and drive their rotation (in the case of the prisms).

Conclusion

Eurus strikes us as an outstanding fixture, and once again Ayrton has shown its mettle and ability to design very nice moving lights. This one pushes some technical details to the limit to offer an optically and mechanically remarkable luminaire.
Its design makes it perfectly compatible with the whole Ayrton range, which despite the evolutions has been able to guarantee to users and customers a certain consistency and continuity when it comes to contemplating an investment. There’s not much to say, really, we just offer our compliments.

You can find further information on the Axente website and on the Ayrton website

What we like:

The quality of the light
The price
The compact, all-purpose aspect.

What we dislike:

Not having it every day in my kit!

Technical specifications

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Powersoft completes French distribution with SIDEV

Posted on 19 June 2021 by admin

Founded in 1991 and based near Lyon, Sidev has been a key player in providing audio-visual solutions in France for over 30 years. In that time, the company has grown to offer the largest sales and pre-sales team in the French market, as well as two showrooms in Paris and Lyon, and a yearly turnover of over €60 million in 2020.

Sidev is, since 2010, part of the Midwich Group a world leader in the audio-visual sector with a presence across Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America. More recently, the company developed its market footprint and audio-visual offer on the French market with the purchase in 2019 of Perfect Sound, an audio specialist distributor.

Left to right Lionel Roudil, general manager of Sidev and Fabrizio Bolzoni, Powersoft sales distribution manager.

“Powersoft is a recognised and renowned brand on the AV Market, with a strong line-up to address both the staging and corporate markets,” said Lionel Roudil, general manager of Sidev. “When we looked for a new amplifier brand to develop and expand our audio portfolio, Powersoft was the obvious choice.”

According to Lionel Roudil, Powersoft’s product line-up perfectly complements Sidev’s audio product catalogue, offering innovative, high quality solutions for all the different verticals they address.
“The Powersoft amplifiers ranges, and the Mezzo series in particular, perfectly answer the current demand for meeting & conference room solutions, which has seen a real increase with the need for hybrid working spaces,” confirmed Roudil. “In light of our unified communications strategy on the market, along with our historical AV positioning, Powersoft will be a strong proposal to our network of system integrator partners.”

Fabrizio Bolzoni, Powersoft sales distribution manager, commented: “We are very pleased with this new partnership; Sidev has a strong presence in the commercial install side of the business, so it will give us an advantage with verticals such as corporate, retail & education, which are in line with Powersoft’s strategic developments.

The company will act in the French market in synergy with our partner DV2, who is heavily focused on the leisure live & entertainment install side of the market. We believe this perfect mix will offer immense support to the French audio market.”

More information on the Sidev website and on the Powersoft website

Colour control by Brompton Technology at Rock Lititz’ Suite 47

Posted on 18 June 2021 by admin

Rock Lititz is truly a one-stop-shop for all live production needs. The state-of-the-art production campus is located in beautiful Lititz, PA and is renowned for its rehearsal facilities used by some of the world’s biggest acts.

Pod 2 is the collaborative hub of the Rock Lititz Campus, with its recently opened Suite 47 featuring cutting-edge equipment provided by 4Wall Entertainment and created in partnership with Clair Global, Tait, Atomic, and Aurora Films. The high-spec studio space includes a full xR Stage, driven by Brompton 4K Tessera SX40 processors.

“4Wall has been collaborating with the vendors at Rock Lititz Campus since its inception,” says 4Wall’s VP of Live Events, Bob Suchocki. “By creating Suite 47, we aimed to build a space that could showcase all Rock Lititz has to offer in one place.”
Apart from its 465m2 xR Stage, Suite 47 boasts a whole range of services and capabilities including a Pre-Viz Suite, Client Lounge, Demo/Presentation space, Audio Mix/Directors Suite, as well as live streaming capabilities to bring extended reality productions to life.

Four Brompton Tessera SX40 LED processors and 12 Tessera XD 10G data distribution units are driving 360 ROE BP2 2.8mm LED panels used as the walls; 164 ROE BM4 LED panels that make up 5.5m deep floor; and the rest of the LED volume which is 5m wide upstage and 15.5m wide downstage.
According to Suchocki, Tessera’s On Screen Colour Adjustment (OSCA) is ideal for quickly and easily matching panels regardless of their model or batch difference, with system-wide Genlock and Ultra Low Latency also helping to contribute to the success of the build.

Brompton SX40

Tessera XD 10G

“The reliability of the Brompton platform and the quality of its hardware is head and shoulders above the rest,” explains Suchocki. “The use of XD boxes over fibre significantly reduces the number of home runs back to the engineering suite.
Tessera’s GUI makes navigating the software and troubleshooting effortless. The Tessera video engine and professional colour controls, both on the input and the outputs, allow us to fine tune the screens for a perfectly calibrated image.”

Another advantage of using Brompton processing is the company’s 24/7 technical support. “Though we didn’t need it for the xR Stage, Brompton’s technical support is among the finest in the industry, and their technicians’ knowledge on all aspects of the product is reliable and extensive,” Suchocki adds.

The next development at the xR Stage will be calibrating the ROE Visual panels with Brompton’s Hydra advanced measurement system to enable features such as Brompton High Dynamic Range (HDR) and ThermaCal.
“We are very much looking forward to the advanced features that Dynamic Calibration will unlock for us as it will bring us significant benefits when it comes to enhanced brightness and colour saturation as well as helping us address thermal patterning right at the start,” continues Suchocki.
The recently announced Tessera software v3.2 will also bring the 4Wall team a host of new features that can be used at the cutting-edge studio space.

“The ShutterSync feature is something we are really excited about and cannot wait to test in situ as we believe this will make a big difference to our day-to-day XR production workflow,” Suchocki concludes.
“The same goes for the 3D LUT import function, which together with our dynamically calibrated panels and Brompton HDR will once again reinforce our commitment to our clients of providing them with an unparalleled customer service experience.”

More information on the Brompton website

Henk-Jan van Beek choses 500 Claypaky Xtylos for ESC 2021 lighting design

Posted on 17 June 2021 by admin

Photo Ralph Larmann

After being cancelled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Eurovision Song Contest returned for 2021 (ESC 2021) with a limited live audience of 3,500 at the Rotterdam Ahoy venue in The Netherlands where Lighting Designer Henk-Jan van Beek deployed almost 500 Claypaky Xtylos fixtures.

Photo Ralph Larmann

The 65th edition of the popular competition was held May 18, 20 and 22 with 39 countries participating and Italy’s Maneskin winning for the song, “Zitti e buoni.” The ESC 2021 was produced by The Netherlands’ host broadcasters NPO, NOS and AVROTROS on behalf of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the world’s leading alliance of public service media. OSRAM, the parent company of Claypaky, was the official lighting partner of the ESC 2021 and, as in past years, contributed to the event by illuminating a key building in the host city of Rotterdam.
Ampco Flashlight in Utrecht, the official technical supplier for the ESC 2021, provided the Claypaky Xtylos, a compact beam moving light with unique optical and chromatic characteristics, making use of a tailor-made RGB laser source.

Photo Ralph Larmann

This laser source, lasting for 20,000 hours, is the powerful engine of an incredible array of colors: In contrast to the subtractive mixing used with discharge lamps, colored light beams are extremely bright. The beam aperture can be steered in the range of 1°-7°.

Lighting Designer van Beek of Light-H-Art in Ermelo, built on Production Designer Florian Wieder’s set design inspired by the flat Dutch landscape and its low horizons, with long, low parallel lines, a perfect match for Xtylos and the very long parallel lines it can project with its laser engine.

“The first draft of the set design was very open with no visible fixtures,” recalls van Beek. “This was also a design with fewer types of fixtures than in the past. So, a combination of the lines and strong fixtures was the idea for the show’s semi-finals and final.”

Photo Ralph Larmann

Van Beek took the line concept 360° with extra lines on the stage side. The Xtylos were placed on three levels – ground, second bleachers and top – to deliver three layers of creative beams and the horizon in the skies.

“The advantage of using 481 Xtylos was that we could do a lot of different looks,” he says. “There were 39 different set ups, and a range of looks was required depending on the song.
Xtylos could be very big and grand and also intimate. The main advantage was the punch of the fixture. And we still had the narrow beam with powerful color loops – perfect for outdoors and big venues.”

“Set design for Eurovision has always been big and bold and perhaps too elaborate and busy at times,” notes Eurovision Head of Production Erwin Rintjema, who is Managing Director of Sightline Productions in Utrecht.

“Florian really understood the open and clean look we were talking about: a stage that appears very simple but when you look closely there is so much more,” including an LED videoscreen with revolving doors and 160 axles of motion.

Van Beek had the night crew do all the fixture positioning, which was crucial to showcasing the beams. “Positioning, positioning, positioning,” he emphasizes. “The Xtylos looked perfect when this was done right. I was impressed with how well they performed. They were very accurate and reliable.”

Photo Ralph Larmann

Rintjema points out that the team was “lucky to get so many Xtylos, which gave us the lines we needed and could be used for so many looks. The lights worked amazingly – such a sharp beam, very strong: a Sharpy on steroids! And the speed of the movements really impressed us. Xtylos really pushed the boundaries.”

“It was very rewarding to do the show after having to wait a year,” reports Dennis van der Haagen, Director of Ampco Flashlight, which has enjoyed a three-decade relationship with Claypaky products. “The Xtylos were key for the show; they really stood out and grabbed everyone’s attention. Xtylos are a brilliant unit, and Claypaky made them happen for us. We were very pleased with Claypaky’s proactive attitude toward this project.”

Photo Ralph Larmann

“I’m extremely proud that one of the most important events in the world used our Xtylos in such a significant way. The Xtylos is one of our latest and most innovative fixtures on the market: it is the first moving head light powered by a laser light source” says Marcus Graser, CEO of Claypaky “and this opens new, surprising prospects for the development of the entire entertainment lighting world.”

For more information about Claypaky and their products line, you can visit : www.claypaky.com

740 x Robe moving lights to shimmer Henk-Jan van Beek’s ESC Lighting

Posted on 16 June 2021 by admin

Glamour, glitz, and disco dancing – plus a bit of kick-ass rock ‘n’ roll – ensured that the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) extravaganza was back with a massive bang this year, making up for its absence in 2020 – thwarted by the pandemic like so many other shows!
The Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam, The Netherlands was the venue for a fantastic production bursting with creative visuality, technical excellence and musical talent – both on and off the stage!

Heading the production lighting department was LD Henk-Jan van Beek from Light-H-Art working closely with associate designers Bas de Vries and Martin Beekhuizen. In addition to creating an overall lighting style for the show, they liaised with all the delegations – many had their own consulting LDs and artists directors – creating 39 individual performances within the overall show design.
Henk-Jan specified 740 x Robe moving lights for the event, which made up over a third of the total lighting rig which came in at a count of 1,782 active fixtures.

Ampco Flashlight’s operational & commercial director Dennis van der Haagen explained that the company was chosen following an official European tender process to supply – uniquely – three areas of the production. “To realise everyone’s expectations, we combined our experience as the lighting and rigging supplier in Portugal 2018, with our extensive audio track record for live music and broadcast crossover events.”

The Robe fixture break-down was 396 x Spiiders, 220 x LEDBeam 150s, 92 x BMFL WashBeams, 25 x Tetra2 moving LED bars, with 12x BMFL Spots operated via 12 x Robe’s RoboSpot remote controlled follow spotting systems.
Florien Wieder’s impressive modernist set design, with its striking main upstage blow-through LED screen and mercurial looking video floor, was an overall ‘bigger picture’ starting point for Henk-Jan in developing the lighting.

The two men (Henk-Jan and Florian) agreed at the outset of the design and planning process, that the ‘structural integrity’ of the stage should be mirrored and reinforced by the lighting at every juncture, with powerful, definite, clean lines and big dramatic canvases, providing Henk-Jan with a clear aesthetic starting point.
The set contained a serious square meterage of LED screen which was a big consideration, together with AR (augmented reality) video content for some interval acts that was complete with its own baked-in lighting effects, all of which needed matching and synchronising with the real lights.

Automation elements like the revolving doors, wash light pods, drop arms and several other moving pieces helped create a plethora of different architectural looks above and around the large, clean stage, ranging from the cosy and intimate to the enormous and epic.

On top of that, Henk-Jan had requests from the assorted consulting delegation creative directors and lighting designers – so when it came to choosing fixtures, he needed to know that he had enough options to create distinctive looks for each of the 39 competing countries (across the three televised shows, two semi-finals and one grand finale).
Robe Spiider (photo à récupérer d’un ancien article)

Spiider LED wash beams

The 396 Robe Spiider LED wash beams were divided over 44 pods in the roof, with 9 x Spiiders per ‘flower pod’ flown throughout the venue and used as “big wash lights” – almost like a giant Svoboda effect. Fourteen of these pods were on the automation system and directly above the Main stage.

The 220 x LEDBeam 150s were used around the Main and B-stage screens, and as outward fanning floor lights for both stages.

LEDBeam 15O

Twenty Five Robe Tetra2s were inbuilt into the set floor, just in front of the Main stage video screen and used for whizzy effects that looked great on the sweeping wide shots.

Robe Tetra2

After much deliberation, a covid-tested, socially distanced, limited capacity and hugely enthusiastic audience of 3,500 people were allowed into the three televised events, where they made enough noise for a stadium of 100,000, ramping up the excitement, anticipation, and atmosphere for everyone involved!

The public were located seats in the first tier of side bleacher seating, while the Green Room – which is often in another room or part of the venue completely – was moved to the arena floor, with all artists and delegations also effectively becoming audience. a layout which worked well both visually and practically.

To light this vast area, the initial plans (from 2020) were re-worked and the 92 x BMFL WashBeams plus the BMFL FollowSpots (Long Throws) were added to the overhead trusses to be utilised for front, audience and green room lights for the entire space.
This ensured that all the green room close up shots, action and emotional moments as the scores came in … were captured and cleanly lit for camera.

Fourteen Robe RoboSpot remote follow spot controllers were part of the overall remote follow spot system design. Twelve – a mixture of BMFL WashBeams and BMFL FollowSpots were running in multi-device mode with MotionCams and two BMFL FollowSpots, used as front stage key lights.
RoboSpot systems were picked for their accuracy, and the BMFL WashBeam and BMFL FollowSpot fixtures for their intensity.

Ampco Flashlight’s Lead Systems tech for remote follow spots (a Follow Me system was also used on the event) was Dennis Berkhout. All these different Robe moving lights were selected by Henk-Jan as “the right fixtures for the job!”

All the show lighting was controlled by 10 x grandMA3 consoles at FOH running in three sessions through Art-Net, connected via a fully redundant network also serving the 26 cameras and the DMX-RDM data.
In addition to the 39 competing countries, in total with interval acts, presenter locations and openers / closers for the three live shows, 55 unique vibrant and appropriate environments were created by all the visual departments working together, all helping to keep viewers and ESC fans on the edge of their seats throughout the broadcast.
While the ESC production does have a reasonable amount of time on-site at the venue each year to get all of this sorted, the challenges – creative, technical, and diplomatic – and the time needed to make it all happen smoothly cannot be underestimated.

“We had a wonderful time and enjoyed amazing synergy between the different departments like set, video, technical and production crew,” stated Henk-Jan. “It was intense working with all the different delegations, but a great feat of communication due to the lighting liaison we had put in place! It took A LOT of organisation! Our own (lighting) team was also fantastic of course, and we enjoyed a great working atmosphere together!”

Having an audience was a thrill for everyone, as so many artists and live entertainment crews have become accustomed to no-audience events over the last year!
Henk-Jan’s highly talented hand-picked team of lighting programmers and operators included Joost Wijgers, key light programmer and assistant lighting designer and main show lighting programmer Micky Dordregter, both from Light-H-Art.
Also, on the lighting detail were show lighting programmers Andre Beekmans, Robbert-Jan Vernooij and Erik-Jan Berendsen; nightshift programmer Bas Geersema and previz and DMX camera programmer Emillio Galluzo. Bart van Stiphout was the lighting gaffer.

The intensive pre-vis period for lighting had started at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam five weeks ahead of everyone arriving on-site at the Ahoy a month ahead of the broadcast.
Henk-Jan and the lighting department collaborated closely with Falk Rosenthal and Thomas Neese from Gravity for video content both on screen and AR inserts for the broadcast.
Ampco Flashlight’s team led by Dennis van der Haagen also included project director Marco de Koff and deputy account director Marc van der Wel. Their lighting project manager was Ruud Werkhoven, the lighting crew chiefs were Tijs Winters and Martin Hoop and the lead lighting systems tech was Roy Aarninkhof.

The Eurovision Song Contest is organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and is one of the highest-profile music television shows in the world. This year’s host broadcasters were Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO), Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) and AVROTROS.
The 2021 event was directed for the broadcast by Marnix Kaart and Daniel Jelinek. The ESC head of production was Erwin Rintjema, about whom Henk-Jan commented, “Erwin’s passion and commitment to ensuring everyone across all departments had the tools and opportunities they needed to facilitate such a world-class production was truly inspirational. This positive energy from the very top was fantastic!”

Erwin revealed that they have received “a huge amount of compliments and praise” from a broad cross-section of the Eurovision community including veterans and superfans, the EBU themselves, the participating delegations, and last but not least, from viewers … “all relating to the high level of imagination that Henk-Jan and the others creatives achieved”. He concludes, “hearing all this come in REALLY means something!”
And let’s not forget the 2021 winners … rockers Måneskin from Italy, who brought the house down and captured the hearts, minds and ears of the judges and voting public with their stonking rendition of “Zitti e Buoni”.

For more info about Robe lighting and their product line, you can check www.robe.cz

The full Soundlightup test of Robe Tetra2

CLF Odin and Ares fixtures bring color to the Tree of Hope

Posted on 15 June 2021 by admin

The Tree of Hope is an eye-catching temporary icon, which brings life and color to a former grey area of Amsterdam. At a time, when normally the festival season would be in full swing it functions as a symbol of hope. Initiated and created by the unsung heroes of the Dutch festival industry.

Photos: Ben Houdijk & Bart Heemskerk

The Tree of Hope is made up of two intertwined hands of 30 meters high. When opening up, a swarm of birds-of-paradise become visible. Each bird-of-paradise in the tree represents a different organisation or maker, flying around the festival industry. Together they represent the event industry in which the Netherlands plays Champions League on a global level.

Photos: Ben Houdijk & Bart Heemskerk

Lighting designer Robbert-Jan Vernooij chose CLF Odin outdoor zoom fixtures to illuminate the birds-of-paradise. CLF Ares LEDwashes were included to lighten up the Tree itself.
Both packed in a reliable IP65 housing, they challenge various weather conditions during the 3 months period of the project. In addition, the RGB + Lime LED engine of the CLF Odin offers a wide variety of colors which was decisive. All fixtures are supplied by Focus Amsterdam.

Photos: Ben Houdijk & Bart Heemskerk

Credits:
Design – Dennis van Harten (Q-Dance) & Marc Adema
Spoken word – Typhoon
Soundtrack Tree of Hope – Nootweer
Graphic Identity – Machine
Technical production – Backbone
Decor production – Brok Decor
Material & shape search hands of hope – ATM
Scaffolding – Coreworks
Lighting design – Robbert-Jan Vernooij
Light & technology – Focus Amsterdam
Concept, overall project management & content – WINK

More information on the CLF Lighting website

SF Opera The Barber of Seville outdoors with Ayrton Perseo-S

Posted on 14 June 2021 by admin

Photo Stefan Cohen

The San Francisco Opera utilised a complement of Ayrton Perseo-S fixtures when it brought opera back to town in a COVID-safe outdoor production of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at Marin Center in San Rafael, California. Ayrton Perseo is the first compact, multi-function luminaire with an IP65 enclosure rating developed for intensive outdoor use.

Photo Stefan Cohen

The Barber of Seville, directed by Matthew Ozawa, ran from April 23 – May 15 at Marin Center, 15 minutes from San Francisco, where the audience pulled up their cars alongside the lagoon with the beautiful hills of Marin in the background.
They watched the production, on a custom-built stage with soaring LED videowalls, from their vehicles.

“We have staged concerts before in Golden Gate Park, but nothing to this extent has been produced outside in the three years I have been with the company,” notes Justin Partier, lighting director for the San Francisco Opera.
“We considered several venues and found Marin Center to be the best location. So we constructed a stage and used the set from a yet-to-be-produced production of Fidelio in a new configuration.”

Photo Stefan Cohen

Partier says the lighting team was looking for a fixture that offered shuttering, gobos, colour and diffusion, which was small enough to place inside the set. The lights also had to be able to withstand any inclement weather during the opera’s three-week run. Perseo-S ticked all those boxes.

Photo Stefan Cohen

“The fixtures had to be small and bright, they were the only way to get light underneath the set from side light and footlight positions,” he explains. “They also needed to be rated for outdoor use. As it turned out, we had only one really wet day with the rest California sunshine and rainbows.”

Photo Stefan Cohen

Partier says that Aaron Hubbard with ACT Lighting helped steer him to Perseo. “Early on I looked at a bunch of lights with them, and when I said something smaller was required for the production, they led me to Perseo and were very helpful in giving me all the information I needed.” Felix Lighting of Burlingame, California supplied the fixtures.

He notes that Perseo’s gobos were especially in demand for the production. “Any time the four video panel back walls were in the open position we painted gobos onto them with the prism,” he explains. The gobos were particularly effective in the storm and shave sequences.

“The Perseos looked great and were actually much brighter for their size than I thought they would be,” Partier reports.

Photo Stefan Cohen

ACT Lighting, Inc. is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton fixtures in North America. www.actlighting.com

For more information about Ayrton and their LED fixtures you can visit www.ayrton.eu