LONDON – LD Andrew Bridge used the Royal Albert Hall’s (RAH) stock of Philips Vari-Lite automated luminaires – specifically the VARI-LITE VL3000 and VL3500 Spot and Wash luminaires – as the workhose on the opera ‘Aida.’ Bridge, who has been a longtime user of the luminaires, has won the three Tony Awards for Best Lighting Design.
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SAN FRANCISCO – The club Mezzanine recently replaced their old interior lighting system with six Elation Design Spot 250 Pro moving heads for use in the club’s stage area. For the outside, they installed six ELAR EX TRI PAR IP65-rated par cans to light up the building’s facade.
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LOS ANGELES – Smashing Pumpkins’ LD Lawrence Upton for the first time used GLP’s Volkslicht Zoom LED heads in his design for the band’s recent tour. In this context they were used to replace the traditional discharge wash light on a scalable set — designed to enable sections to be removed, depending on venue size, without sacrificing the dynamic.
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ST. LOUIS, MO — When Elvis leaves this building an especially roomy vehicle is needed as there are four Elvises (Elvi?) in this production.
“This show has thrown some people off, because it’s not strictly a Broadway show, not strictly a rock ‘n’ roll show, but a perfect hybrid of both,” declares Elvis Lives! tour manager Stephen Gudis. Read More »
What happens when three separate tradeshows (Event Live Expo with Club + Venue Design, AEG Expo, and Pollstar Live!) are co-located in one spot? The answer is simple: a larger Event Live Expo! Billed as “The Trade Show for Live Event Production & Management,” this relatively new expo showcases all of the aspects of live events ranging from lighting, audio, video, and staging, to labor, trucking, and ticket agents. Held in downtown Los Angeles, CA, this is year number two for the show, which is supported by AEG and Pollstar Live! I wanted to see for myself what the buzz was all about.
Read More »Last month, I wrote about the bill that the Indiana State legislature was planning to pass, and how it will affect our industry. Since then, Indiana’s state OSHA has issued the report based on its investigation. The report reflects the scope of IOSHA’s inquiry, which was more focused on possible violations to worker safety than on risks to the public at large.
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It’s very rare when an off-Broadway production arouses international controversy and sets the stage for a highly anticipated Broadway run, but in the case of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, that is exactly what happened. Composing legend Stephen Sondheim wrote a letter to The New York Times that was like the musical “shot heard ‘round the world,” condemning the Boston-based production by director Diane Paulus at the ART last fall before he had even seen it. While that is negative attention, that’s still a lot of free publicity, and people’s ears perked up. Sondheim’s issue was with the fact that the show, being transferred from operatic to musical theater form, was going to include some modern revisions that were actually approved by the Gershwin estate.
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This year’s well-received Bridgestone Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show featuring Madonna was a great success, both artistically and technically. Once again the team led by executive producer Ricky Kirshner of RK Productions, director Hamish Hamilton, production designer Bruce Rodgers and lighting designer Al Gurdon presented us with a dynamic and innovative production that appeared effortless, which we all know means it took a tremendous amount of effort and hard work to bring together.
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