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LD Ed Warren Adds More Robe Fixtures for Metronomy Show in London

Metronomy at Alexandra Palace, London (c) Carolina Faruolo

LD Ed Warren Adds More Robe Fixtures for Metronomy Show in London

LONDON – Metronomy completed a year of touring in support of their Love Letters album with a show at London’s Alexandra Palace. Ed Warren designed the lighting and set. The lighting setup included the floor package of Robe fixtures that the band had been using on tour, plus additional Robe fixtures for the big final show. In all, Warren’s rig included  14 Pointes, six LEDWash 300s, 39 LEDBeam 100s, 17 LEDWash 600s and 26 ROBIN 600E Spots, all supplied by Southampton based rental company GLS.

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Color Sound First Aid Kit (c) Louise Stickland

LD Matt Waterfield Lights Swedish Rock Duo with Gear from Colour Sound Experiment

LONDON – For First Aid Kit, a folk rock duo from Sweden, LD Matt Waterfield used lighting supplied by west London based Colour Sound Experiment. The moving lights included 12 Robe MMX Spots, 22 Robe LEDWash 600s and 14 Robe Pointes, with eight Clay Paky A.Leda 20s LED washes on the floor fitted with B-Eye lenses. The set also featured 26 vertical LED battens from Chauvet Professional.

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Cirque du Soleil Varekai: Riggers Fly Performers, Not Just Motors

Cirque du Soleil Varekai: Riggers Fly Performers, Not Just Motors

I recently visited behind the scenes at Cirque du Soleil’s traveling arena show, Varekai. As with all of this company’s performances, safety is the key factor. Performers fly through the air, climb 20 feet up on set pieces and do all kinds of circus style stunts, without a net. Production manager Mike Naumann walked me through the setup and how Varekai rolls.

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Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show photo by Brad Duns, courtesy ACT Lighting and Clay Paky

Super Bowl, Halftime Show Set Record for U.S. TV Viewership

GLENDALE, AZ — The viewing audience tuning in for Super Bowl XLIX on Feb. 1, where the Seattle Seahawks faced off against the New England Patriots at University of Phoenix Stadium, averaged 114.4 million, topping the record number of 112.2 million who watched Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014. Along with the closely contested game itself, the event featured an elaborate halftime show production with well-received performances by Katy Perry, Missy Elliott and Lenny Kravitz packed within a 12-minute span. (Katy Perry and Lenny Kravitz are pictured here.)

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Nook Schoenfeld

Learning to Love Video

I saw two shows last month that had absolutely no video components. It was odd, having to focus on the performers themselves with nothing other than a lovely set to distract you. Okay, one was The Grinch, a play performed quite professionally at the Children’s Theater of Minneapolis. And the other was a punk rock band I saw thrashing in a club. They were good shows… but then I saw Fleetwood Mac last night, and it was a spectacle to behold. It all came back to me — why I love my pixels. I like them small, big, spread out or even on curved surfaces. They just make me happy.

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Sydor, an animator, helped the Met make the leap to digital imagery

Ted Sydor: Projecting His Own Path at the Met

Edmund “Ted” Sydor is an old-school analog man working in a digital world. Originally a stop-motion animator, he is now the projections supervisor for the Metropolitan Opera, and he is applying his offline, old school know-how to a brave new digital realm for both himself and his employers. “It’s the new fancy tool in the toolbox,” he acknowledges. “Half of our new productions this season have a major video component in them.” Over the years, he has played a major role in shaping the Met’s video imperative, learning and growing on the job.

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PLSN in 2000 and in 2015

PLSN Celebrates 15 Years

For a 15th Anniversary, apparently it’s appropriate to give crystal. We’ll demur, but it’s crystal clear that it has been a grand and successful adventure — one that promises to continue many years to come. Of course, we got here with a lot of help and support from our advertisers, some of whom were with us from the very beginning.

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