CSM Production of Charlotte, North Carolina, was again called on to provide pre- and post-race production for NASCAR’s Daytona 500 and for this year’s race was grateful that they turned to an IP-rated package of Elation lighting gear. Delayed for six hours due to storms, the 2021 edition of The Great American Race was a rain-soaked affair that, despite a bit of waiting and the characteristic racing drama, came off without a hitch.  
 

De Vooravond is a hot new talk-show broadcast on the Netherlands first national TV channel NPO 1, presented by Renze Klamer & Fidan Ekiz covering an invigorating mix of politics, sport, music, and culture ... often with some live performance spots. The current and second series is being lit by LD Jeroen van Geffen using Robe moving lights including T1 Profiles, ESPRITES and Spikies. LD Jeroen works for production company Chain which is part of the Rentall group’s operations specializing in broadcast lighting and audio.

At the end of 2020, Spanish singer Mónica Naranjo – a powerful voice on the Spanish and Latin music scenes – launched a special re-issue of her third studio album Minage originally released in 2000, which paid tribute to Italian artist Mina. Fast forward 20 years and Puro Minage features a full complement of the exact content that Naranjo had wanted to include in the project from the start. Marking the occasion, she played a special concert in front of a live audience – with Covid rules in place – at the Palau de Les Arts, Valencia, Spain.

Am 5. Februar 2021 stellte die Berliner Band Milliarden ihr aktuelles Album „Schuldig“ bei einem exklusiven Live-Konzert im Bremer CLUB100 vor. Der Auftritt fand pandemiebedingt ohne Zuschauer statt – und fand dennoch großen Zuspruch: Mehr als tausend Musikfans feierten den Auftritt mit einem Online-Ticket im Live-Stream. Wireless-Systeme und kabelgebundene Mikrofone von Sennheiser trugen dabei zu einem hervorragenden Klangbild bei.

whittled down from over 160 initial entrants – to battle it out in person at Les Studios de la Montjoie in the La Plaine St Denis area near Paris … where they utilised a full Robe lighting rig. It all started just ahead of the pandemic and lockdowns, when a succession of conversations took place – first ones were in fact over a year ago and between Sebastien Dendele, president of rental company MursDeLeds (MDL), and well-known TV lighting operator Yannick Duc who have been friends and colleagues for over a decade, both sharing a huge passion for lighting!

HARMAN Professional Solutions recently partnered with LiteNordic and Lighting Designer Mikkel Stoklund Moltzen to deliver an engaging visual experience at Demark’s first annual Aairport Festival.

On New Year’s Eve there was no doubt that everyone was ready to bid farewell to a very bad year.  But one legendary rock band was prepared to KISS 2020 Goodbye in spectacular fashion – with a live Pay-Per-View concert from Atlantis the Palm in Dubai.  In what’s been called the biggest production in KISS’s history, the 22-song set from the band’s End of the Road show was performed on a 250-foot stage with the live audience at the Atlantis resort watching from their balconies and fans worldwide live streaming the concert on FITE.  A large complement of Claypaky Mythos 2 and Scenius Unico fixtures from technical supplier PRG helped to illuminate the expansive venue.

It’s a comfort to know that somewhere in the world, 2020 ended with a music festival. That’s what happened in the shadow of New Zealand’s Southern Alps, where the Rhythm & Alps Festival saw off the year with a celebratory vibe enhanced by TomTom Productions, whose Hippotizer™ Media Servers from Green Hippo delivered the visuals for three separate stages.
 

The theatre production of INSPIRE Onmyoji, starring famous Japanese actor Takao Osawa, ran at the 1300-capacity Nissei Theatre in Tokyo from December 31st 2020 to January 6th 2021. This number was reduced slightly to conform to the Government’s COVID regulations at that time.
 

Global design studio Buchan Group designed and produced an extraordinary immersive storytelling experience at the Qantas Founders Museum in the Queensland Outback of Australia and uses Elation Professional IP-rated Proteus Maximus™ LED moving heads to help visualize the narrative. The 20-minute multimedia experience, Luminescent Longreach, uses the museum’s classic aircraft as projection surfaces to recount Qantas’ rich history and reflect on the spirit of aviation through projection mapping, custom gobos, animation, lighting effects and 3D sound.

Gathering a mix of celebrities, social media influencers and more than 500 guests in an event space the size of a soccer field presents a range of unique communications challenges. Douyin – the Chinese video-sharing and social media app – handled them all smoothly for its annual Blooming Night ceremony, with the help of Clear-Com®’s HelixNet® digital network partyline and FreeSpeak II® digital wireless intercom systems.

The online concert reunited members of the band who had not appeared together since the death of KINO’s lead singer, Victor Tsoi, in 1990.  The performance featured two bass players who had played at different times with the original band, KINO’s original guitarist, a synthesizer player and a rhythm guitarist.  Victor Tsoi’s presence was felt in the show when his multitrack recordings were digitized, enhanced and incorporated into the concert.  Tsoi’s son Alexander was one of the show producers. Claypaky’s Tambora, a high-power, feature-rich batten that meets the needs for inline or matrix lighting applications, made its debut on the concert.

Since appearing on the much loved show in 2018, and prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Dan was delivering baking masterclasses in person to groups of around 10, in conjunction with the company Bake with a Legend. “Then Covid forced us to think differently,” begins Dan. “So, we took the classes online via Zoom. At the start, we were essentially shooting on a propped up iPhone, which was okay, but when you have people paying to attend a class, we felt the quality wasn’t good enough.”

Marc Janowitz, of e26 design, chose 30 Mistral-S - Ayrton’s highly compact, lightweight and powerful LED spot fixtures - as key features of his lighting design for Trey Anastasio’s The Beacon Jams. The 8-week ‘virtual residency’ was live-streamed weekly from New York’s historic Beacon Theatre throughout October and November 2020.
 

Today, #WeMakeEvents launches a hard-hitting campaign, rallying the UK Government to provide urgent relief to a struggling live events sector. The Government Can’t See Us, Can You? shows the devastation the pandemic has wrought on the live event supply chain – told through the stories of the highly-skilled professionals whose livelihoods have been seriously damaged. #WeMakeEvents is calling on the Government – in an open letter to Rishi Sunak – to halt the destruction of the sector by recognising the impact of the pandemic on the live event supply chain, to support individuals and businesses to survive while they cannot work, and to engage with the sector to develop a plan for reopening, including Government-backed COVID-19 cancellation insurance.