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The band performed July 21-23, 2017

The String Cheese Incident

[caption id="attachment_279800" align="alignnone" width="800"]The band performed July 21-23, 2017 photo by Dylan Langille[/caption]

Lighting Cos
Brown Note Productions, Morpheus Lights

Venue
Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Morrison, CO

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The dazzling drop and staircase combo from the Follies section. Images courtesy Beowulf Boritt.

The Tetris of Broadway

Beowulf Boritt is known for his bold, ambitious scenery in shows like Act One (a musical with a three-story revolving turntable) and Thérèse Raquin (a play with a river upstage). But for Prince of Broadway, the musical revue of the work of Broadway legendary Harold Prince, the Tony Award-winning scenic designer got a chance to create numerous old-school set pieces. The challenge was not to make everything fit onstage; it was storing it all in the wings of the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, which has not had a musical production mounted there since the Prince-directed Lovemusik, which Boritt also designed sets for, back in 2007.

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Kid Rock on the thrust provided by Gallagher Staging

Kid Rock Opens Little Caesars Arena in Detroit

LD Makes Use of State-of-the-Art House System for Six Sold-Out Shows

In retrospect, there was no question: Who else could have opened a new stadium in Detroit but Kid Rock? The hometown favorite sold out the new 20,000-seat sports complex’s six dates in mere hours. And, while all the shows went well, a few of the early ones didn’t go perfectly, as longtime Kid Rock LD Nook Schoenfeld was the guinea pig taking a brand new technologically-advanced stadium out for its first ride.

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An even wash is tough with the chimneys and overhanging structures.

Gourmet Lighting

The F Word, on Fox, Lit by Darran Webb

Although it appears to take place in a trendy, real-world restaurant, Fox’s hit food competition show, The F Word, starring celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, is actually shot live and in real-time on a Hollywood soundstage. Its massive, four-wall set rises 28 feet above the floor and includes multiple dining alcoves, a large balcony, a semicircular bar and an open, fully functioning kitchen.

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The choreography was conceived simultaneously with the projections.

Particle Dance

Daniil Simkin’s Falls the Shadow at the Guggenheim Museum Fuses Projection and Dance

For Falls The Shadow, a dance piece created for the Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process series and staged in the famed art repository itself, choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo and principal dancer/director Daniil Simkin teamed up with projection designer Dmitrij Simkin and costume designer Dior for an unusual convergence of fashion, technology and art. Four dancers had their movements captured by motion sensors, which generated 3D mapped visuals that were then projected back onto the floors and the ramp of the famed building.

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Hurricane Harvey/NOAA Satellite Image

Hurricane Relief: How Our Industry Helps Others Weather the Storm

The worst of times can bring out the best in the human spirit. The world witnessed this with people helping people during Hurricane Harvey’s flooding in Texas and Louisiana. Before the waters subsided, Hurricane Irma pounded islands in the Caribbean, Cuba and Florida, and not long after that, Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Meanwhile, major earthquakes crumbled buildings and lives in Mexico.

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Illustration by Andy Au

Thank You for Using Restraint

Sometimes, it’s the things that you don’t do that make all the difference.

I recently attended a show that was painful to watch and more difficult to experience. I couldn’t see the artists for half the show because the upstage wall was built with a tractor-trailer’s worth of LED strobes that were aimed at my face. No matter where I went in the audience, they seemed to track my eyeballs and flash open white on every downbeat.

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Nook Schoenfeld, Editor, PLSN

Ode to the Color Wheel

There used to be a time when you designed your show around two types of moving lights — hard edge and wash fixtures. I grew up in a time where the hard beams were from Vari-Lites or lekos and the wash came from pars. The only color changing we saw was from color wheels and color scrollers on conventional fixtures.

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Hand in Hand 2017 logo

Televised Benefit Concerts for Hurricane Relief

“Hand in Hand” and “Harvey Can’t Mess with Texas” Concert Benefits Raise Millions for Hurricane Relief

“Hand In Hand: A Benefit for Hurricane Relief” was a one-hour star-studded telethon on Sept. 12 with more than 130 artists and celebrities urging donations to aid the victims of hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

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Marcia Kapustin at videoworld in Brazil

Marcia Kapustin

Video Content Producer, Video Director and Lawyer-in-Training

Marcia Kapustin, principal of Kosher Pixels, is a video content producer and a video director, working extensively in concert touring. She has currently taken a hiatus from touring to get a law degree. She has worked with a variety of bands, most notably Paul McCartney and Metallica, since her first major tour as assistant video director for U2’s 1997-1998 PopMart tour.

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The 20,000-capacity arena is the new home for the NHL Red Wings and NBA Pistons hockey and basketball teams, while also hosting major concerts and other eveents. Photo by Todd Kaplan

Little Caesars Arena in Detroit: Built to Rock

New Arena Immerses Attendees with State-of-the-Art House Systems

“I believe we just opened the nicest, coolest arena I’ve ever had the pleasure of gigging in,” says Kid Rock LD Nook Schoenfeld after six sold-out shows at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. “It is an amazing structure; the likes of which do not exist anywhere in the world.”

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