“Good sound is one of the most essential elements in today’s churches, and achieving consistent, engaging audio throughout an entire worship space is mission-critical so that the congregation has a shared community experience,” says Tim Corder, Strategic Accounts Director House of Worship for Diversified, the technology solutions provider that delivered the project.
“The previous loudspeaker system in Mount Paran’s main auditorium had been in place for many years, and as it aged, it began to have component failures that created erratic coverage sonically ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ spots throughout the room which was hampering the worship experience for many of their congregants.”

Mount Paran Church, during a service, now immersive.

Although Diversified initially considered specifying a left/right array-based design for Mount Paran’s loudspeaker retrofit, the presence of large LED screens on either side of the stage meant that the array lengths necessary for providing optimal coverage would create sightline issues, particularly for those seated in the balcony. Furthermore, the church wanted to minimize the amount of modifications made to the worship space’s striking architecture, both for aesthetic and budgetary reasons.

“With so little space to work with above the screens, we chose to explore an L-ISA design, which offered us the ability to spread the system’s power out horizontally versus vertically,” says Nick Geiger, Account Executive and Audio Lead for Diversified. “This enabled us to achieve the SPL and coverage that we needed while keeping the speaker hangs compact enough to not cause visibility issues with the lighting and video facilities.”

In a case of near-perfect timing, L-Acoustics had recently rolled out its medium-throw, constant curvature A Series, and the new product line was quickly deemed ideal for the project. “The A15, in particular, is really what made L-ISA a viable, practical, and budget-friendly option for Mount Paran,” Corder shares. “We designed a frontal system featuring seven A Series arrays, and the overall price point was very comparable to a traditional left-right PA design while also allowing us to meet our fidelity and sightline goals.”

Impressive technical booth shared by audio with a DiGiCo SD12 and the L-ISA Controller, and on the left the video and lights desks

Installed late last year, Mount Paran’s new loudspeaker complement is now comprised of five arrays of four L-Acoustics A Series enclosures two A15 Focus over two A15 Wide evenly spread out and flown over the front of the stage as the Scene system and flanked by two arrays of one A15 Focus over two A15 Wide as the Extension system.

Dual hangs of two A15 Wide deliver outfill coverage to the far left and right front seating areas, while two rear-firing A15 Wide positioned above the stage provide monitoring for the approximately 150 choir seats. Four KS28 subs, concealed by a scrim and centrally flown behind the Scene system, deliver ample low-end reinforcement throughout the entire auditorium.
Frontfill is achieved by six short-throw X8 enclosures deployed across the stage lip, with four compact 5XT systems located at center stage for sermon monitoring. Farther out in the house, two A15 and eight ARCS Focus systems serve as the delay ring around the catwalk covering the upper reaches of the balcony, while four locations of Kiva II provide underbalcony outfill.
A combination of one LA12X and 13 LA4X amplified controllers power and process the entire loudspeaker system, while an L-ISA Controller and Processor combo facilitate the church’s new panoramic, object-based mixing approach.

The L-ISA system with far left and right the Extension system. The four KS28 are hidden behind the central array.

Diversified also furnished Mount Paran’s FOH mix position with a new DiGiCo SD12 console, which is connected to L-ISA via Desk Link, natively bringing all source controls onto the desk surface and allowing engineers to access L ISA as an integrated element of their existing workflow.
“L-ISA is an incredible tool for Houses of Worship,” enthuses Geiger. “As an audience member, you don’t just want to feel as though you’re sitting in the room spectating something that’s happening onstage. Mount Paran has a large choir, orchestra and praise team, and L-ISA enables you to feel enveloped by their sound like you’re a part of it—in every seat in the house.”

Corder agrees, adding that the audio imaging capabilities of the new system produce a very natural-sounding binaural listening experience. “When the left side of the choir has a solo, you feel it come from the left side,” he says. “I’ve heard them stagger vocal intros between the left, right and center sections, and you really feel that localization and it’s stunning! You totally forget that you’re listening to a PA because it just feels like you’re listening to the choir. I’ve never had that experience before.”

Mount Paran’s system design in Soundvision. A lovely distribution of the SPL thanks to the fills and delays precisely chosen and set.

Mount Paran Church Technical Director David Mendoza says that intelligibility was one of the key points his church was striving to improve with a new system, and L-Acoustics delivered on that, and more.
“We wanted our entire congregation to be able to understand every single lyric being sung by the music team and every single word being spoken by the pastor,” he says.

“When I heard L-ISA, I was blown away; it was a completely euphoric feeling. Not only is the sound pristinely clear everywhere, but the amount of control that it gives our tech team over the placement and presence of each object is amazing.
Being able to creatively control so many parameters like distance, width, and elevation minimizes the distractions within the worship experience here at Mount Paran, helping our congregation feel more connected to what’s happening onstage.”

“We at Diversified pride ourselves on being at the forefront of emerging technologies that are making an impact in our industry,” Corder adds. “You really must experience L-ISA as one of the several thousand people gathered in the room during a service to understand the full impact that this technology and loudspeaker system makes on the engagement of the congregation. Words do not do it justice. It is inspiring on a level that is quite literally paradigm-changing.”

Mount Paran Church’s home on the Mount Paran website

Diversified can likewise be found online at Diversifiedus website

Denmark’s annual music competition to find its Eurovision entry reached its big finale in March at Copenhagen’s 16,000-capacity Royal Arena. Known as the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, hopefuls battled it out against a striking stage design made up of 450sq.m of LED screen, shaped into ever-expanding triangular shapes. These were fed perfectly mapped visuals by a chorus of Green Hippo Hippotizer Karst+ Media Servers.

Hot shot Hippotizer aficionado 4K Projects, which is based in Copenhagen, was commissioned by Danish national broadcaster Danmarks Radio to project manage the video and lighting aspects of the show. The company’s Mikkel Samuelsen and Balder Thorrud have been involved with Dansk Melodi Grand Prix for a decade, and are well-versed in creating memorable visual feasts.
The 2020 heats were held without an audience, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, TV viewers at home were treated to a full production, which went ahead to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. All performances were backed by The Antonelli Orchestra, heightening the vibe and spectacle.

“We used four Hippotizer Karst+ Media Servers with a wall controller for the show using two as main and two for full backup,” explains Thorrud, who served as Hippotizer operator for the show. “All outputs were connected to DVI matrix for easy switching between main and backup system.

“We love using Hippotizer, especially because the VideoMapper, easy content sync and simple way to connect to a grandMA for control, makes our lives much easier and the visuals more effective.” Visual control was handled by Michael Havdrup in collaboration with Thorrud.

The 4K Projects team worked with Danmarks Radio to source the Hippotizer and screens from Danish stage lighting supplier, Litecom Group. The staging, lighting and video was designed by Kasper Lange, with visual content by Katja Forup.
“There was a lot of LED screen on this production,” Thorrud continues, “and one of our biggest challenges was hanging them as scene pieces, in the right position!”

The Eurovision Song Contest was, of course, cancelled in light of the pandemic. However, Danish Duo Ben & Tan won the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2020 with their song, ‘Yes’, which has now been released as a single in their home country.

More information on the Green Hippo website and on the 4Kprojects website

Mother’s Day in Australia means spending time with Mum, but the strict government restrictions in place as a result of COVID-19 meant the closest families could get this year was a FaceTime call.
The team at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne wanted to make this year’s Mother’s Day special and called on Australia’s rental company Resolution X for help.

The brief was to illuminate the façade of the hospital with colour and messages of love and support for all mothers. As part of the display, images of new and expecting mothers were projected onto the building in a rotating 10-minute light show.

However, projecting the images onto the building turned out to be no small feat. The best vantage point for the setup was on the rooftop of a building diagonally opposite the Royal Women’s façade; a horizontal throw from the projection location approached 90m with an angle of more than 50 degrees. Further challenging the team, wireless DMX was being beamed across the road and seven stories down to control all of the LED wash fixtures that were up-lighting the façade.

With such an extreme throw distance, and with a desired image width of only 10 metres, the Claypaky Scenius Unico was the ideal fixture for the job.
Resolution X’s Senior Manager of Production, Jamie Russell, remarks, “We had to balance the need for reliability, power consumption, significant output and very narrow beam angle. The Claypaky Scenius Unico ticked all the boxes and was the clear choice in the end.”

Resolution X used three Scenius Unicos, each loaded with multiple custom gobos, to project images onto the building. Gobotech, Resolution X’s preferred gobo manufacturer, supplied the glass gobos for the fixtures with full keystone correction to each gobo based on where the image would finally sit on the building.
“When projecting images of people, there really isn’t much room for error with keystoning, especially at the angles we were approaching the building from,” comments Jamie Russell. “Putting the new mums out of proportion would not have been an ideal start to their Mother’s Day, but the gobos were perfect. We couldn’t be happier with the service from our partners at Gobotech.”

The Scenius Unicos continued to out-perform all expectations once the sun went down. Jamie Russell observes, “We were under significant pressure as the local media outlets were to be there to take pictures for the nightly news right at dusk.
Because we didn’t have an opportunity to focus with the sun down before the deadline, we were amazed to see that even at 90 meters the sheer output of the fixtures made the projections still legible on the building in full sunlight. The performance of the Unicos was really remarkable.”

For a Mother’s Day like no other, Resolution X were proud to help make the day something special despite the restrictions in place. “In these times, all businesses need to consider alternative ways to communicate their message, and gobo projection is a cost effective and high-profile way to do just that. Our client was blown away with the result, as well as the subsequent response they got through traditional and social media.”

More on the Claypaky website

The organisers of the 2020 Knight of Illumination (KOI) Awards in both the UK and the USA have announced the cancellation of both events due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the entertainment industry.

The difficult decision has been reached following extensive discussions between the committees of both the UK and US versions of the KOI Awards: The Fifth Estate and KOI co-founders Durham and Jennie Marenghi, along with the ALD and STLD in the UK and Live Design/LDI in the USA. All parties explored various possible options to secure the events, including virtual, live streamed/webcast ceremonies and postponed or scaled-back ceremonies. However, these ideas were ultimately deemed not to be viable for 2020.

KOI-UK and KOI-USA Executive Committee member Sarah Rushton-Read of The Fifth Estate comments: “This has been a challenging decision, given the unpredictable nature of this global crisis, which has hit the KOI community very hard. Many have lost their businesses, their employ-ment, their sources of income. Skilled creatives are taking jobs in other sectors and others are retraining. Many have no idea when, or in what capacity, they might return. While we have every faith that the industry will bounce back, it will be a different landscape for some time to come.”
She adds, “We believe the KOI Awards mission is to bring a meaningful value to the lighting and video design community by providing independent design awards, judged by respected critics and experts. Just as importantly, it provides a valuable opportunity for the whole lighting and video community, across theatre, events, live music and television, to acknowledge and celebrate their creative achievements, and this is something we feel is important to uphold and protect.”

Durham and Jennie Marenghi comment, “Having spoken to many sponsors who struggle to see the benefit of an online Awards, and to many designers who fail to see how they could connect online with hundreds of their peers, the KOI Executive Committee has decided that it would be inappropriate to consider any form of KOI Awards this year. We feel that this is the only sensible decision available to us. KOI is, in essence, a social event and we feel it would be difficult to con-nect our community in any meaningful way until we can all be together again in the same room.”

Marian Sandberg, market leader at Live Design, says, “This was a tough decision for everyone who works on the USA version of KOI through LDI and Live Design. Ultimately, trying to produce an al-ternate version of the KOI Awards ceremony during these difficult times didn’t seem appropriate. We will look for other ways to honour the discipline of design this year directly through LDI and Live Design, and we all look forward to re-joining The Fifth Estate, the KOI committee, our lighting and video designers and our sponsors next year to come back in full force.”

The KOI-UK and KOI-USA committees are promising that this year’s nominations will be amalga-mated into the 2021 Awards. “We would like to thank our judges who had committed to support the KOI Awards in whatever guise we felt appropriate this year,” Durham Marenghi continues. “Stay safe and we will all meet once more on the other side of this pandemic.”

Rushton-Read concludes: “I for one will certainly miss the thrill of seeing many of the top crea-tives in these fields come together in one magnificent room for one fabulously glamorous night to celebrate each other’s work, and always with such generous curiosity.
“We would like to thank all our wonderful suppliers, whose businesses are also entirely focused on the live event industry, for their empathy and support, which has been generous and heart-warming. Thank you to the teams at Hammersmith Apollo, Hawthorn, Party Ingredients, FIX8 and Transition Video, all of whom have lost valuable income not just from our event but from multiple events globally.”

The organising teams had pursued the possibilities of virtual events in partnership with a number of companies, and wish to thank Creative Technology, Hawthorn, SXS and White Light for taking the time to discuss technical solutions. KOI-UK was due to take place in London in September 2020, and KOI-USA in Las Vegas in October. Both events will announce plans for 2021 ceremonies in due course.

More information on Knight of Illumination website

Ayrton is delighted to announce the appointment of LiteNordic as its new exclusive distributor for Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The new arrangement takes place with immediate effect in Sweden and Denmark, and from 1 July in Norway.

Ayrton and LiteNordic teams.

Formed in January 2018, LiteNordic is a ‘young’ lighting distribution company with many years of industry experience due to its team of skilled and knowledgeable individuals. LiteNordic identifies as a proudly Scandinavian operation with offices and sales teams in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and a comprehensive network of partners in all three countries.

“We work closely with influencers such as lighting designers for live and corporate events and installation projects,” says Espen Bechmann, LiteNordic’s sales manager for Norway. “And as Norway, Sweden and Denmark are small countries, we work alongside partners in many fields in each country to ensure the end user gets the right solution for each project.” Two years after its formation, LiteNordic had been looking to expand its product portfolio and found Ayrton matched all its criteria for LED moving lights.

“Ayrton has been on our radar for a while,” says LiteNordic CEO, Magnus Lönden. “They are innovative company with an original and extremely versatile product line, and we like the team – it was a perfect match for us.”

Ayrton’s Jonas Stenvinkel agrees: “A company is made up of the people who work and manage it and, with that in mind, LiteNordic really stands out on the Nordic market with their professional, pure-distribution approach. They have, in a very short time, established themselves as the only true Nordic distribution partner in our industry.”
“We are very excited about this new arrangement and are looking forward to a dynamic partnership with LiteNordic for many years to come,” says Ayrton’s Linnea Ljungmark. “In difficult times like these, it is a source of confidence to have them on board.”

LiteNordic can be contacted at:

For more information on the full range of Ayrton LED lighting fixtures, visit the Ayrton website

Having enjoyed a friendly business relationship for years, Artistic Licence and Controllux are delighted to announce a formal distribution agreement for The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Founded in 1968, Controllux is a leading name in the distribution of professional lighting equipment. With many experienced staff, the company provides comprehensive supply and support for respected brands in the theatrical, broadcast & film, entertainment and architectural markets.

Artistic Licence CEO Wayne Howell comments, “Our broad range of lighting contol and infrastructure products will nicely reinforce the Controllux emphasis on solutions. Both companies have been trading for many decades and bring customers the reassurance of experience, quality and reliability. Artistic Licence designs and manufactures all its own products in the UK – something that we are very proud of – and I think many people will be surprised at just how competitive our pricing is across our latest DMX512/RDM, Art-Net/sACN and DALI ranges.”

Lex Oudshoorn of Controllux adds: “Our broad network encompasses many different fields of specialism, and we are always looking for brands that will add extra value for our customers. We are delighted to be the official distributor of the Artistic Licence range in The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

‘Lux Partum’ – ‘emission of light’ in Latin – was a beautifully sculpted interactive lighting installation and live stream staged at the Motorwerk event space in Berlin, created by lighting and show designer Chris Moylan and his team.
This comprised Lars Murasch, Andreas Schindler, and Matthias Schöffmann together with acclaimed DJ and music producer Paul van Dyk who composed a special soundtrack and played a three-hour live concert during the first weekend.

The work utilised 54 x Robe moving lights including MegaPointes, Pointes plus TETRA2 moving LED battens which were installed in the venue with LED screen elements, and all rigged, programmed and set up to be accessed by the public via the https://lighting.stream website and ‘played’ in real-time.

Photo courtesy lighting.stream

By the end of the 10-day run, over 43,000 visitors from 94 countries had engaged with the work in 6.355 registered sessions utilising lighting.stream’s bespoke user interface technology. They chose over 200.000 different combinations of lighting / video which were viewed over 528,404 minutes of activity. Visitors could select the colour and patterns of the lighting and video effects as they played out to the music track, changing at pre-determined points to keep the groove flowing harmoniously.

Running over two weekends and the intervening week, Paul van Dyk played a 3-hour live set at the Motorwerk on the first Sunday night, enabling his massive fanbase to tune into the stream and be part of making the concert visuals look spectacular – each visitor to the site having a three-minute slot.
Chris – like so many others in the industry – was regularly chatting to friends and colleagues, all of whom were getting itchy feet in lockdown, trying to think of some meaningful way of generating positive energy and doing what they love most – designing shows!

Photo courtesy lighting.stream

He hit on the idea of creating an art piece with light that could be shared and enjoyed remotely and safely by as many people as possible. He gathered his team – who also happen to be great friends – and they started talking. Matthias is based in Austria and works with Chris extensively on programming light shows.
And he developed and energised all the web streaming geekery; Lars helped source the venue via his extensive network of connections and called on rental company TLT Event to provide the kit as well as supplying some himself, including the LED screens and the console. Video expert Andreas Schindler designed and produced all the generative visuals.
The physical starting point was getting the venue. From there, Chris took the Motorwerk’s striking interior and evolved his visual brainchild! The former engineering factory and industrial space built in 1921 is now a heritage-listed building, renovated to retain all the original character and raw elegance to become a charismatic event space.

The main hall stretches over 90 metres long, has a good height and is full of iron columns and RSJ beam-work, so Chris wanted to accentuate the scale and architecture of the space and integrate it into the design.
“It immediately lent itself to a distinctive geometric lighting design,” explained Chris, “and to having beams and LED battens as the lighting instruments”. He adds that it was also relatively easy to rig the lighting in the space utilising the house rigging facilities plus structural elements like the balcony rails and RSJs.

Photo courtesy lighting.stream

He measured out the room meticulously, and lights and LED video panels were positioned precisely. In the case of the lights it was so their beams could create a series of closed hexagons running all the way down the hall, optimising the sense of perspective for the webcam position from which remote viewers would see and experience the work. Using hexagonal geometry as a base also enabled multiple other shapes and patterns in different combinations, all of which looked good together.

Lighting equipment – including some of the 20 x Pointes, 20 x MegaPointes and 14 x Tetra2 bars – were supplied and rigged by TLT Event. Additional Robes were supplied directly from Robe, and the final two MegaPointes needed came from Berlin’s Friedrichstadt Palast Theatre (closed right now but Chris has designed their current show, and the fixtures were from the house rig).
Two rows of MegaPointes deployed on the floor were mirrored by two rows in the ceiling all at exactly the same distance away from each other. Rigged along the middle section – just beneath the balcony that traverses the entire length of the hall – were two rows of Pointes immediately above / below one another … with exactly 4 metres between the top and the bottom MegaPointes and the Pointes.
This set up created the perfect geometric patterns that Chris envisioned. He has used both fixtures extensively in his work, and likes them for their speed, brightness, and versatility. “For a relatively small amount of lights in a large space, we could make a massive impact.”
A series of LED PARs were installed between each of the columns.

Robe Pointe

Robe Mega Pointe

Robe Tetra2

It was his first-time using Robe’s new TETRA2 LED battens, and he was blown away with their brightness and intensity! “They are like monsters!!” he exclaimed, “We could not use them at full intensity as it was too much, so they were tweaked down!”

Seven TETRA2s were positioned vertically each side at the back of the room, with one column of 10mm LED screen in the middle to produce a blisteringly bright and dynamic end feature that helped create an illusion elongating the physical space which was especially effective onscreen.
Chris enjoyed the “impressive” walls of light that could be created with the TETRA2s and he also included its flower effect in the stream’s viewer options. “It’s a very cool innovation to have this sort of feature on a linear bar.” The other LED sections were attached to the pillars all the way down the room.

Lighting was all programmed on a grandMA2 console and the generative visuals were created by Andreas using Notch running via a disguise media server which mapped it to the screens … playing out via Resolume. When prepping, they visualised all the video and lighting effects on the screens in Depence2 so they knew exactly how they would look when combined.
Considerable time was spent on ensuring that the lighting and video elements would look great together in every different possible combination. What might sound like a simple task was in fact very complex, and required a balance of calculation, experience, and the team’s mutual understanding of each other’s specific disciplines.

Robe-Lux-Partum

Those logging on to the website to ‘play’ the visuals were able to change the colour and shape / angle combinations of cues which were executed at the next musical change – which they could also see coming up.
Getting Paul van Dyk involved was the icing on the cake in many ways. Chris has worked as his lighting designer for many years. He suggested the proposal and like all artists unable to perform live right now, van Dyk was super keen to be involved in something imaginative and fun.
“We had some stipulations about the music track,” explained Chris. “The main one was that there needed to be a lot of shifts and multiple lifts and falls to trigger the (visuals) change commands in the software … and he got it immediately.”

For Paul van Dyk’s pumping live set, Chris was himself onsite activating the lighting changes, with guests to the website choosing the colours and positions. He admits to a few sharp intakes of breath when it came to colour combinations … “but that randomness was all part of the fun!”
All the team and the crew from TLT Event loved being on site again and being involved in a show. “You cannot believe how excited we all were to be there and be working together – all socially distanced of course – but there in the venue for real! We are all so passionate about this industry and what we do, so really appreciated the opportunity like never before!”
Apart from Lux Partum being a massive success, the work is most definitely an inspired and brilliant product of the coronavirus pandemic, lighting.stream is a technology with a huge future potential, which Chris and his team fully intend to explore.

Chris concludes, “This has been a great project, however, it’s by no means a replacement for experiencing art and shows in real spaces and in relation to other people. Culture must continue, and people most definitely need haptic experiences in three-dimensional environments.”

For more information check Robe website

The Adam Hall Group is continuing to expand its international sales network. By partnering with the Mumbai-based company StageMix Technologies, the event technology provider based in Neu-Anspach, Hesse, Germany, is gaining an experienced sales team for India.
The exclusive partnership includes the LD Systems, Cameo, Gravity, Palmer, and Adam Hall 19 ’’ Parts brands.

“We’re happy to have found StageMix Technologies as our new sales partner in India,” explains Markus Jahnel, COO of the Adam Hall Group. “The event technology market is growing steadily in India and plays a key role in our international endeavors.
As an experienced distributor, StageMix Technologies has a wide network of regional dealers and will enable us to react swiftly to the many different challenges that come with such a large country. As such we will be able to work together to continue expanding our local presence – both in the event and installation market.”

StageMix’s designated partner Karan Balkishin Nagpal adds: “We’re very pleased to be associated with the Adam Hall Group. It fits perfectly with our company roadmap to enter with a complete solution for all install avenues, as well as middle scale production companies to use LD, Gravity and Cameo products. We see the basket of brands positioned very aggressively against its competition and we’re looking to exciting times ahead.”

More information on:

Adam hall website
LD Sysyems
Cameo
Gravity Stands
Palmer Germany

Join Elation National Sales Manager John Dunn and Global Product Manager Matthias Hinrichs on the May 27th Elation Hour as they discuss trade show, corporate and special event design with John Featherstone, Chris Medvitz and Ignacio Rosenberg of lighting design group LightSwitch.

Lightswitch is a consortium of internationally recognized lighting, media and visual designers that has been creating unforgettable experiences for over 25 years.
They design award-winning environments for a diverse network of clients across concert, event, experiential environment, and architectural, operating from studios across the globe.

Join us live on Wednesday, May 27th at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time in the U.S. for this special Tools & Techniques discussion.

RSVP here

The Elation Hour is a weekly virtual presentation that delves into the more personal side of product development and includes discussions with top industry designers who share their experience across the broad scope of entertainment lighting.
Tune in over the next several weeks as we cover topics such as Festivals/Outdoor Events, Broadway/Theatre, Trade Shows/Corporate/Special Events and Concerts/Live Events. The Elation Hour series will also include virtual product launches.

And more on the Elation website

Describing the project, DP’s David Price explains: “The church was built in the early 90s and they’ve been slowly upgrading for the first time since then. Now they’ve added a new PA, console and wireless, which is a big first step for them.”

The main hangs comprising of eight WPM boxes with one Martin Audio XD15 per side for outfills flown outside of the arrays. In the very centre, partially hidden by a VP, a CDD15 is placed for the main speeches of the pastor. Lastly four SX118 subs are built into the stage along with four CDD6 for front fills.

According to David, “Celebration is a very contemporary church with a large area including a stage built to be more of a theatrical performance venue that holds about 850 people. The basic shape is square that eventually curves out into a fan-shaped auditorium space.

“They wanted concert-level sound so we installed Martin Audio WPM based on its minimal impact on sightlines and its exceptional audio performance for mid-sized concerts, something they often do there. There are eight WPM boxes a side powered by Martin Audio iK81 amps with one-box resolution for maximum coverage throughout the audience area along with four SX118 subs built into the stage.

“Celebration has contemporary worship music with electric bands and several vocalists for its services,” David continues, “but they also wanted the system to be authentic for speech so we ended up installing one Martin Audio XD15 per side for outfills flown outside of the arrays because of the room’s width and fan shape.

And we added a CDD15 flown in the centre for the pastor’s mic during the message so they can bring down the arrays a bit and make the sermon feel more intimate and authentic. There are also four CDD6 set into the stage for front fills to ensure optimum coverage for congregants seated in front of the stage.”
The church’s two main entrances include CDD5TX-WR’s on the exterior perimeter and Martin Audio C8.1T ceiling speakers in the tall lobby atrium based on the speakers’ narrow pattern and ability to throw more effectively below, and C6.8T in the restrooms. An Allen & Heath D-Live console is used for FOH and wireless in-ears are driven by IP mixers that control the mix busses and the rest of the band is on the ME1 system.

Commenting on the upgrade, David adds: “The old PA was a large point-source rig with a lot of phase coherence problems, dead spots and other issues. The original subs were massive double 18’s ground-stacked on the extreme left and right and there was just no smooth bass response.
“The church was blown away with the new WPM system, especially compared to what they had before. The way we were able to array the subs and integrate the WPM’s into the room and blend the outfills and centre speakers, every seat in the space feels the same, even those right in front sound great because the CDD6’s keep up so impressively with the main PA. There just isn’t a bad seat in the house anymore which is something they’d never experienced.

The WPM, 2 x 6.5” LF drivers and a vertical column of 3 x 1.4” aluminium dome HF drivers and 131 dB peak

“According to the staff, even the feel of the worship experience is different. They’ve never seen their people engage with the service so easily, coming up to the booth and saying they could finally hear what was happening.
“They are also impressed with the speech reproduction,” David sums up. “This was the first time the pastor’s voice was in the centre as opposed to coming from the far left and right of the room. They still use the arrays and outfills for coverage but now they can bring up that centre speaker to provide a more authentic image for his voice. It makes the room feel very warm and intimate when he’s speaking. They also love the clarity and the warmth of the system’s musical reproduction.

“Bottom line, it’s one of the best rigs we installed last year. It was a very rewarding experience for us as the integrator because the church was so happy with the end result.”

For more information visit Martin Audio website

Philippe Sadoughi.

Schoeps GmbH has appointed Philippe Sadoughi to the role of Director of Sales for France. He brings to this position his 38 years of distribution experience of marketing and sales in the professional audio industry.
With 15 years as Director of Sales and Marketing for Shure in France, and 20 years as sole distributor for Sound Devices (from day one), as well as the distribution of other high-end pro audio brands such as Aphex, Symetrix, Microtech-Gefell, Audix and Lectrosonics, he is not a new player.

Schoeps Microphones is a family business that, since its inception in 1948, has earned itself a reputation as one of world’s finest manufacturers of microphones. Our entire product range is designed and created in Durlach, an old district in the German city of Karlsruhe. Schoeps is a team of 50 co-workers who develop our own original products, and manufacture all important parts including the capsules.

“Having been chosen for this task by one of the most respectable manufacturers of our industry and fabulous people is a great pleasure and honor. Working towards taking even further a premium brand like Schoeps is quite a responsibility, and I am very excited; I could not ask for better.

Lots of plans ahead to acknowledge, educate, increase and reinforce our presence in the various markets by better customer and user awareness and support. As always, I shall rely on the best partners and players to accomplish this duty.” said Sadoughi.

Mr. Sadoughi will be in charge of establishing and supervising the sales network as well as support for Schoeps microphones in all relevant markets segments, through dealers, contractors and broadcasters’ networks, as well as being the interface between the factory and users when necessary.

More on the Schoeps website

One of the highlights of the music industry’s calendar, the annual NME Awards, took place last month in London with its most ambitious AV design to date, centred around a 158 panel ROE Black Onyx staggered LED display lining the perimeter of the stage, and employing four Tessera SX40 high capacity processors combined with eight Tessera XD data distribution units from Brompton Technology.

After a year off, the NME Awards returned to London’s O2 Brixton Academy to celebrate the best of 2019’s musical talent. It was attended by Taylor Swift, who picked up the award for Best Solo Act In The World, and featured live performances from AJ Tracey, FKA Twigs, rising stars Yungblud and Beadadoobee, a collaboration between rapper Slowthai and Mura Masa, and a five-song closing set by The 1975. UK LED screen and video production company, IMAG Displays, was tasked with delivering the screen requirements, which included coordination of content for 35 awards and the multiple live performances.

“We were given a brief to provide a very unique and innovative deconstructed LED screen, and deliver the entire AV package from rigging right through to content delivery,” explains Charli Harding, co-founder and director of IMAG Displays. “The large-scale design involved LED panels, staggered stage left and right in step fashion, which was a big challenge requiring carefully balanced weight load and rigging from the roof due to the size.”

The design was created by Mark Connolly and Stuart Nunn of Black Book Production, a freelance production director contracted to the award-winning Broadwick Studio, which was the production company for the awards. “We’ve worked with Mark a lot over the years, including projects with Samsung and Nike,” explains Alex Strachan, Founder & Technical Director of IMAG. “We specified our 2mm ROE Black Onyx matched with the Tessera SX40 processors, plus backups, and eight Tessera XD data distribution units because both brands are industry leaders in LED technology and delivery.”

Work on the project began in November, with design drawings, weight calculations and content maps. The concept phase took approximately a month of planning, followed by multiple site visits and production meetings. On build up, it took two days to construct the LED wall. “There was a lot of cabling involved – around 800m of fibre multicores in total – which would have been 4000m if we hadn’t used the XDs. Brompton made build up much faster and more efficient as it seamlessly allowed us to plot the LED panels, and allowed us to continuously test as we were building,” continues Strachan.

Brompton’s Tessera SX40 processor offers support for full 4K screens at 60Hz with 12 bits per colour output, a zero-latency up/down scaler that matches the source to the screen, plus all of Tessera’s industry-leading processing features such as ChromaTune colour correction and On Screen Colour Adjustment (OSCA). In the field, the processor is often combined with the Tessera XD distribution unit, a sophisticated single box solution designed to manage the complications of mass cabling that can arise with large LED display systems.

“We knew the Awards production team would be under immense pressure on the night, managing the logistics and number of artists performing,” comments Brompton’s Senior Business Development Manager, Rob Fowler. “We had great confidence that the Tessera range would help them navigate the evening, from the screen resolution and the colouring quality, processing power and reliability, through to the easy drag ‘n drop and live editing workflows.”
“Brompton processing was key to the success of the show. It made the content creators’ journey straightforward and the job easier for the technicians on site,” concludes Harding. “Brixton is a challenging venue, and we had to work with specialised rigging companies to achieve the design. A lot of people said what we were attempting wasn’t possible but, with the help of Brompton processing, we did it!”

More on the Brompton Technology website

The charismatic singer/song writer Mika’s Revelation tour in support of his fifth studio album, My Name is Michael Holbrook, may have been postponed midway through due to the current coronavirus crisis, but it wowed audiences from autumn through to this spring.
Lighting designer for the tour was Vince Foster who, with an impressive CV which spans well over thirty years, requires little introduction.

©Sarah Womack

Foster’s design for Mika’s ‘Revelation’ was clean and uncomplicated: plenty of floor lighting, significant numbers of side fixtures and trusses in the most effective of locations. His choice of fixtures was similarly unambiguous: just four different fixtures and overwhelmingly from Ayrton. Alongside around thirty Ayrton Magic Blade-FX fixtures were approximately one hundred and twenty of one of Ayrton’s newest moving heads, Khamsin-S.

“Every moving light is a Khamsin,” opened Foster when we spoke to him about his design. “I have always been a big fan of Ayrton, using a variety of their fixtures over the years and their move into developing moving heads that have that Ayrton combination of feature-rich technology and quality engineering is really exciting.

©Sarah Womack

The Khamsin-S are everywhere on the rig: the floor, the side hangs, the ‘B’ thrust stage and on both the stage trusses and the one downstage of the B stage. The rig was designed with input from both Mika and his sister Yasmine.

We wanted an unfussy but solid music hall look to allow the audience to focus on Mika himself. The brief was essentially to create something of a ‘Baron Munchausen’ feel, a slightly tongue-in-cheek, comedic atmosphere. He is the consummate performer, a true showman with a very theatrical approach, and a gift to an LD; he is like a peacock – you shine a light on him and he shows off.”

This was the first time that Foster had used an LED light as his primary workhorse as he explained, “I’ve always felt that LEDs are not bright enough for a big, arena sized show but Ayrton’s Khamsin proves that LED has now come of age.

©Sarah Womack

Khamsin is a great fixture, it seems to have everything. It is a big beast but very quiet, and, as for its features: gobo wheels; animation wheel; two prisms; frosts – I have used them all – and of course the excellent beam range which allows me to use it equally as both a wash and a profile.”
With no video on this show (the stage uses raked rainbow coloured stripes to allude to the new album cover) the lighting was very much central to establishing the visual ambience of the set. Foster used the Khamsin-S colour palette to full effect with the set list based on rainbow colours.

©Sarah Womack

“With some colour mixing you can lose intensity, particularly when adding greens, but not with Khamsin. Having that facility in the same fixture that you can use effectively as a key light shows the light’s flexibility.
Mika spends a lot of time out on the B stage so we light him essentially in 360o and can use the Khamsins as back key lighting with support from followspots.

In situations like that, and for lighting the B stage, the shutters are very useful, sited as they are on stage, for framing set pieces like the drum risers. I also use a single Khamsin as a big back light with a rotating gobo at the upstage vanishing point for his first entrance, and another under a grill at the top of the ramp to light him from beneath.”

Alongside the Khamsin-S fixtures on the rig were nearly thirty of Ayrton’s Magic Blades-FX. “The MagicBlade-FX’s are great,” enthused Foster, “The zoom is fantastic, it can create a really wide back light that is completely beamless – like a wall of light. I have ten up on the mid truss, eight on the floor and nine out on the B stage.
On the thrust, they work really well as uplighters and you get great footlight with a nice even fill which added to the theatricality out there. I’m also a fan of the individual cell control; with seven cells you can have the outside one colour, then graduate the palette inwards and then flip it around.

©Sarah Womack

“I am really pleased that I took the option of using the Khamsin-S and the Magic Blade-FX fixtures as the foundation for this design,” concluded Foster. “The Khamsins have proved to me that they are a perfect choice if you are looking for a light that does everything in an arena environment. They have more than met that challenge.”

– Full story available here

– Ayrton is distributed exclusively in the UK by Ambersphere Solutions.

– For more information on Khamsin-S and MagicBlade-FX and the full range of Ayrton LED fixtures, visit the Ayrton website

During a fully digital presentation, with the unprecedented presentation of his new Aura PXL, Martin unveils a hyper current, fully pixelated lighting fixture.

Martin Mac Aura PXL

Mac Aura PXL.

The Aura rush

Cast not a clout till may is out, except online. While much of Western Europe and North America are in a lockdown, many solutions are blossoming within our cocoons, defining the beginning of an industrial revolution.
Many companies have been able to adapt to telecommuting, by integrating solutions which were still reserved for a few connected start-ups. Video conferencing, online Drive, connected messaging, online training and virtualization demonstrate for some of the office workers telecommuting is ultimately possible.

Another of these techniques is called Webinar, a web distributed conference in front of a large panel of digital surfers. It is through this unexpected channel that Martin unveiled his Mac Aura PXL, within two sessions in-line with its partners’ time zones. With the lack of an exhibition stand matured with clusters of lighting fixtures, instead Markus Klüsener, offered us a virtual walkthrough between slides and illustrations to discover this new spearhead.

XL Capabilities

Halfway between a Mac Aura XB and a Mac Quantum, the Mac Aura PXL remixes its success of the 2010s into a more powerful, more versatile, even more detailed version.
Sitting on the base of the Mac Allure, with which it shares the same menu, the same yoke and the same connectivity, the Aura PXL is distinguished by the update of its famous front lens, wider, featuring 19 optics behind which are housed 19 RGBW 40W LEDs.

The overall light output suddenly jumped to a value of 13,000 lumens, which is more than the double of a Mac Aura XB’s output, hitting the 15,700 lumens of the Mac Quantum. If the new generation of LED chipsets is part of this move upmarket, the biggest effort was brought to the development of very high-quality optics, the best ever produced by Martin, transmitting maximum light to achieve a record efficiency of 28 lumens per watt.

This output power comes with a greater precision in the focus management, with a very defined tight beam and a more homogeneous wide beam. Martin reached a new milestone with a bean intensity of a million of Candela, 4 times the output of the already salient XB’s output power. With a 1: 8 zoom ratio that extends from 7 to 55 °, the Mac Aura PXL navigates between Beam and Wash without any difficulty.

The RGBW colorimetry is calibrated by default on the Aura XB and Quantum’s references for a no brainer add-on to an existing fleet of equipment. Of course, as on its ancestor, an extended mode is possible to fetch the most saturated colors.

The Mac Aura PXL completes the Martin range, between Mac Aura XB and Mac Quantum. The evolution of LED sources and optics shows record flows for the Mac Aura PXL.

With a CRI greater than 74 and a TM-30 Rf of 79, the color rendering does not compete with the output power exploit, but remains of a suitable level for live applications. The variable color temperature from 2,000 to 10,000 K, as the tungsten emulation and the virtual color wheel enhance the range of possibilities.

The other features of the Mac Aura PXL are no surprise for the brand’s aficionados. They will find the dimmer, the strobe, the movements and of course, the famous Aura effect to make the whole lens shine and create precious backgrounds in video production or in a diffuse atmosphere.
With a more significant weight and size, this almost 16Kg Mac Aura PXL will surely be less swift than its little brother, with a consumption of 570 W., As the centerpiece of a new cooling system, a large fan takes place at the back of the unit. Despite this forced air flow, intelligent management reduces operating noise to a minimum, providing several ventilation modes, from the quietest to the most efficient.

The base offers an In/Out PowerConTrue1 connector, DMX XLR5 connectivity and two EtherCON Neutrik ports for RJ45 wiring. The Aura PXL plays with protocols, with the native implementation of DMX/RDM, ArtNet, sACN, but also with the proprietary P3 Martin protocol which plays a key role in its management.

The Mac Aura PXL completes the Martin range, between Mac Aura XB and Mac Quantum.

Pixel Art

Digital all the way, the integration of the P3 protocol, commonly used to quickly manage LED canvas into which video will be injected, is associated with an unprecedented control of the Mac Aura PXL’s LEDs. As a matter of fact, not only can the 19 LED chips be managed independently, like as many pixels, but the 141 RGB LEDs that provide 60 watts of illumination for the Aura effect can all be controlled separately as well!
Located in groups of 6 behind each optic, the Aura effect’s LEDs provide a matrix enabling the creation of a frenzy of colors in each lighting fixture, alternately diffused or marked by playing with the focus thanks to the main zoom.

To make operators’ life easier, Martin offers 4 DMX modes and 3 control systems.

– The first DMX mode is the most basic, enabled for the most common usage without separate control of the pixels nor the aura effect. The few additional channels compared to the Mac Aura’s library do not allow you to use the libraries of the latter but remain the fundamental base. This mode is the foundation of the other modes, which are built on the top of this one, to easily clone the lighting fixtures in festival applications, whatever the starting mode is.
– The standard mode uses 32 channels, to access the Aura illumination and internal effect libraries, under the most optimal conditions, detailed enough for most of the cases. This effect engine is remarkably similar to the one used in other Martin fixtures.
– In extended mode, each of the 19 LEDs chip can be controlled independently, bringing the DMX invoice to 89 channels.
– Eventually, the ultimate mode named Ludicrous (sic), and close to video, uses all the matrix possibilities of the Mac Aura PXL with 512 channels!

All management combinations are possible between the beam and Aura effect’s part, including transitions between DMX and P3.

DMX management is obviously not recommended in the latter case, even if it is still possible. This is where the control systems come in, since it is possible to control each Mac Aura PXL either with DMX, P3 protocol, or with a mix of both.

The P3 system offers numerous advantages. In addition to the automatic recognition of the lighting fixtures and their self-addressing, the P3 system makes it possible to harmonize all sources and to perfectly synchronize light and video. Despite we cannot separate the channels assigned to P3 and DMX in 2 separate universes, the flexibility offered by a shared network is impressive, as is the real-time feedback and the on-the-fly transitions between the 2 modes.

Synoptique DMX-P3

The free P3-System’s PC software enables you to create and test all possible configurations. 50 Aura PXLs can be daisy-chained with Art-Net, which is another advantage of using the Ethernet based system.

At the same time powerful ambient fixture, graphic beam generator, pixel matrix and eye-candy covering for the video production, the Aura PXL represents a skillful synthesis of all LED Wash light available.
Driven by a team of motivated developers and a manufacturer still heading to innovation, the Aura PXL is a big bet for Martin, both in the form and with this launch operated during this endless crisis. While it is still too early to plan an official “physical” release, marketing is scheduled for July, once the production and distribution chains are out of lockdown.

More info at Algam Entreprises website

The first South Africa and Ghana editions of the hit TV game show Family Feud brought to SA and produced by Rapid Blue were recorded in December & January at the Urban Brew Studios in Johannesburg, with lighting designed by Joshua Cutts and supplied by Blond Productions … including 12 x Robe ESPRITE LED profiles newly purchased by Blond … making their African TV production debut!

The hugely popular American Family Feud show has been syndicated worldwide to over 50 different countries and is one of the longest-running and most popular TV games shows, having started in 1976. Since 2010, it’s been hosted very successfully by Steve Harvey.
Blond Productions, based in Midrand, is a busy South African rental company specialising in supplying lighting, video and audio production to the television, film and commercial sectors.
They asked Josh to come onboard working with Mauritz Neethling as his associate LD and collaborated on a joint pitch with scenic specialist Dream Sets and set designer Michael Gill to present a full technical / creative package to Rapid Blue.
Once their bid was selected, a collective decision was made to use the ESPRITES which arrived just in time from Robe’s SA distributor DWR to make the show for which lighting was programmed and operated by Ryan Lombard, who also designed the lighting system.

Some basic style guidelines from the American show were applied to the lighting and Josh also drew inspiration from previous iterations as a formula that had worked well over the years, which included keeping a similar colour scheme. To this, they added some original and innovative aesthetic flourishes making the presentation appropriate for these two African editions.

The two series were shot over a four-week period with up to three episodes recorded per day … so the pace was hectic!
A Prolyte trussing structure was set up in the studio to ground support the set elements which were very geometric and ordered, with a network of trusses flown in the roof to provide lighting positions.

The ESPRITES were used for all the front light – their high CRI and accurate shuttering was exactly what was needed from those positions.
Josh enjoyed working with the ESPRITES. “It’s a very high-quality LED profile, with a fantastic light output that makes it extremely easy to get great-looking skin tones on camera.”
It wasn’t a beamy show at all. The set architecture defined the space, set a slick tone and included multiple inbuilt LED elements – 6 mm and 2.9 LED and plasma screen surfaces – plus some snazzy LED pixel fixtures integrated onto the set together with multiple LED battens. The high gloss black floor was very effective and reflective, and placement of light sources was crucial to make this work perfectly on camera.

For Josh, the biggest challenge for lighting was covering the wide area needed to catch all Steve Harvey’s movements – he’s known for energetically using the whole set space – and ensuring that all the different camera angles were covered. Whist doing that, he had to take care not to over-light and distract from the streamlined and super-cool appearance of the set!
In addition to the ESPRITES, there were 72 other Robe luminaires on the rig.
Forty-eight LEDBeam 100s were utilised for rear up-lighting of columns and other set pieces and for back-lighting the audience; 24 x LEDWash 300s provided general front and back light; 24 x CycFX 4s were positioned for back light onto the contestants.
Blond’s owner and founder Christiaan Ballot is delighted with his latest Robe investment in the ESPRITES. They are an ideal luminaire for Blond with the intensity, high CRI, shuttering, the uniformity of the beam with full hot-spot control and amazing colour mixing.

Apart from all these assets, once he did the maths, the ESPRITE’s transferable LED engine was a financial no-brainer for Christiaan. “Lamp life rapidly gets consumed in the studio by long operating hours and the heat, and 700 hours gets clocked up extremely easily.” He points out that the ESPRITES’ cooling system helps reduces maintenance and increases the longevity of the light source.

Blond already has several hundred Robe moving lights in its inventory, and Christiaan and the team had been keeping eyes on the LED profile market for some time waiting for something good to materialise. “The ROI on these is really excellent, it’s a light I can use all the time,” he commented, hinting at the fact that more ESPRITES will be on order soon!
Ryan Lombard is equally as impressed with the fixtures, commenting that much of the time, he ran them at ESPRITES at between 15 and 40% intensity, enabling the cameras to stop right down and enhance the depth of field and detail of the set. This was one of the looks that Josh specifically sought to achieve with lighting.

The recording was shot with a colour temperature of 48K and with no tungsten sources at all on the rig. Ryan operated all the lighting using a grandMA2 light console which also fed the set video and graphics via a VPU into a disguise P3 media server.
The technical director was Rudi Boetha and the Executive Producer was Kee-Leen Irvine.
Rapid Blue producers Kee-Leen Irvine, Ed Worster and Ryan Deacon plus the series’ international consultants all commented that the lighting was ”absolutely standout.”

Blond also supplied an L-Acoustics sound system to the series which is currently airing on E.TV on Sunday Evenings in South Africa. Christiaan really enjoyed the teamwork and modus operandi of the three companies joining forces to create and working in unison to present a total environment. They have worked with Dream sets and Michael Gill similarly on a couple of previous projects, and it’s a modus operandi he certainly intends to peruse in the future.

For more product and general info, check the Robe website