Lighting Co
Electro Sound Systems
Venue
Lincoln Theatre
Washington, DC
One of the highlights of this past summer’s New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) was Deep Love, a “ghostly rock opera” that chronicled a romantic quartet between a young woman named Constance, the ghost of her deceased lover (identified as Old Bones), and a young man named Friedrich, who has a dangerously possessive ex-lover named Florence.
This band started as collaboration between lead singer Florence Welch and keyboardist/singer Isabella “Machine” Summers when they were teens. The actual band came together in London in 2007, when they started playing their first gigs. 2015 brought around the release of their third album entitled How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful in June, and the band has been playing handfuls of dates all over the globe since. They recently embarked on some shows here in the U.S. We caught up with lighting designer Rob Sinclair and video director Mark Haney as they headed out to their first show in Nashville.
Madonna kicked off her Rebel Heart tour in Montreal Sept. 9 to huge accolades as, once again, she presented her fans with an over-the-top concert production. Starting off her tenth world tour with a video montage and a stage full of sword-wielding dancers reminiscent of the Game of Thrones cast, the artist descended from the heavens in a pointed cage while the song “Iconic,” from her latest album, got the show started with a solid beat.
When 24-year-old Alex Kay was called on to go out for two months with up-and-comer ZZ Ward, it was a test of how much he could do with how little.
Based in Nashville, TN, Elite Multimedia is a privately owned supplier of the most up-to-date audio, video and lighting technologies. Starting as an AV Systems Integrator in Memphis, today they have a team of dedicated professionals working in the concert touring, live event production and AV Systems installation markets. While they may be best known for their relationship with country music superstar Luke Bryan, Elite Multimedia prides itself on being able to pair the right technology with their clients’ vision through an unconditional desire to make each production or project a complete success.
Eric Marchwinski is the uber-talented programmer behind many of the biggest tours, musicals, and live television events happening today. From Katy Perry to the Rolling Stones, this young man has risen quickly to become one of this industry’s elite programmers, working with some of the biggest LDs in our business, including Baz Halpin, Patrick Woodroffe, Roy Bennett and Eric Wade.
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The late summer heat didn’t prevent festivalgoers from traveling in packs and arriving in droves to attend Electric Zoo: Transformed, an electronic music festival held on Randall’s Island, New York City, September 4 through 6. The crowd arrived dressed in animal masks, superhero garb, or “barely there” outfits we’re sure are illegal in at least three states. Clearly, the zookeeper had left the building, the cage doors were open, and young people of all stripes shed their inhibitions and, presumably, their everyday clothes for a walk on the wild side.
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While Robe might have been an unfamiliar (or distant) name a few years ago to many of us in the lighting industry, the company has seen strong success the past few years with its innovative and high-quality products. The company’s ROBIN LEDWash range and BMFL Spot have been highly successful, and now Robe ventures into the territory of LED strobes with the Strobe and Color Strobe. (Pronounced “strobe-ee”, like Robe.) An important caveat about this particular Road Test: all my tests were performed on a prototype fixture. “The paint is still drying,” as one Robe rep told me, so keep in mind that neither the hardware nor the software has been finalized, and it’s likely that the final shipping version will have some changes.
The steps rising up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art are familiar to generations of movie fans as the “Rocky Steps,” due to their inclusion in what might be the most feel-good scene in the ultimate underdog flick, 1976’s Rocky, starring Sylvester Stallone.
Smyrna, TN based video production and projection mapping company DWP Live had a busy September, applying its talent and technology to projects both secular and spiritual, both earthly and heavenly. The company played a pivotal role in the United Nations’ weeklong celebration and humanitarian awareness campaign called Global Goals for Sustainable Development in New York City. In Philadelphia, the company also provided the video crew and gear to transform the look of the Philadelphia Museum of Art with a large-format projection backdrop for the visit and Mass by Pope Francis.
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