Skip to content

Features

NAMM Evolves with Large Lighting and Theatrical Presence

NAMM is certainly not a new show for the entertainment business. It’s an annual event held in Anaheim every January and is one of the two largest music product trade shows in the world. Its European counterpart is the Musikmesse in Frankfurt. NAMM stands for the National Association of Music Merchants. The group has evolved into an international association whose members now include commercial companies, distributors, affiliates and manufacturers.

Mike Ledesma and the Art of Lighting Latin Music

The term Latin Music gives the average listener a fairly straightforward idea of what they are about to hear. It would seem to be an easy genre to pigeonhole, as is the wont of most music journalists. But, pay a bit closer attention to the ensemble of percussionists that actually lead the band, more than just providing a backbeat, and the rich diversity of its myriad roots soon comes out. Michael Ledesma has been listening to those polyphonic rhythms all his life.

17th Annual Parnelli Awards

The 17th annual Parnelli Awards gala, held Friday, Jan. 26 at the Anaheim Hilton during NAMM 2018, honored Bobby “Boomer” Thrasher, Jonathan Smeeton and John Stadius with the Lifetime Achievement Award, Visionary Award and Audio Innovator Award, respectively.

Parnelli Profile: Bobby “Boomer” Thrasher to Accept Lifetime Achievement Honor

“Bobby ‘Boomer’ Thrasher runs his backstage with humor and authority,” says Parnelli Awards chairman Marshall Bissett. “Putting together huge outdoor events with Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and other high profile clients takes a lot of talent, patience and a huge network of worldwide contacts.” Thrasher won the Parnelli Award for Production Manager of the Year in 2009, and this year, he is receiving the live event industry’s highest honor, the Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award.

PLSN's 2017 LDI Show Report

PLSN’s 2017 LDI Show Report

The LDI exhibition returned to the Las Vegas Convention Center Nov. 17-19, and with more than 350 exhibitors using the event for some of their most significant product launches of the year, there was plenty of innovation for the 16,000-plus attendees to check out.

2017 PLSN Gold Star Product Awards

2017 PLSN Gold Star Product Awards

Over the course of 2017, the staff at PLSN checks out every new product that has to do with the live event industry and beyond. Besides the wide variety of lighting categories we have these days for fixtures, there are great innovations in everything from touring video systems to clamps and gadgets that aid us in our pursuit of the perfect tools for our shows.

Smeeton has been a pioneer since the Psychedelic Sixties.

Parnelli Profile: Jonathan Smeeton, Visionary Award Winner

It’s not just that 2018’s Parnelli Visionary honoree has worked with a lot of acts — it’s the artistic diversity of those acts that underscores the artistic diversity of a designer who is always reinventing himself. Jonathan Smeeton pioneered the concept of visually enhancing a concert beyond throwing some lights with gel on them, and he is quite likely the first LD to take a lighting show on the road. He went on to build by hand key lighting components, and was also an early designer of one of the first big festivals in England, the Bath Festival.

Robe BMFL fixtures backlit Sheryl Crow’s portal drop.

The Scenic Wizardry Behind Jeremy Roth’s Designs

We sat down to chat with Jeremy Roth as one of his acts, Wilco, just flew in to town to perform three sold out shows at the local theater, finishing up a run that lasted over a year. Along the way, Roth picked up a couple more clients, Ray LaMontagne and Sheryl Crow, whom he designed touring set and light designs for.

Wiess Energy Hall within the Houston Museum of Natural Science has become a showcase for advanced projection-mapping techniques. RabCup used Green Hippo technologies met the complex projection needs. Photos courtesy Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Bringing Energy City to Life

The most comprehensive energy exhibit in the world, the Wiess Energy Hall, opened Nov. 20 in the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS). More than two years in the making, the highlight of the exhibit is Energy City, a 2,500-square-foot 3D landscape designed and fabricated by Paul Bernhard Exhibit Design and Consulting (PBE), the design company selected to create the
Wiess Energy Hall.

Ultra-high-res projection-mapping extends from four to eight of the venue’s proscenium arches, and all native 14,000-by-14,000 pixels were mapped for the FOH projection. Photos courtesy Radio City/MSG.

NYC’s Radio City Christmas Show Gets Even More Spectacular

Since it premiered in 1933, the annual Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes has always wowed the New York City crowds taking a break from gawking at the big tree and window-shopping the holiday offerings lining the streets near New York’s Rockefeller Center. But the 2017 show can make a credible claim to being the most spectacular show to date, with an assist from a complete technical overhaul that includes a new 8K LED video wall and 14K digital projection-mapping extending to all eight of Radio City Music Hall’s iconic prosceniumarches.

Hometown Hero logo

Hometown Hero Finalists

Diverse Group Voted Best in Their Region by PLSN Readers

Thousands of readers across the continent weighed in on which lighting company deserved the certificate, the bragging rights and the chance to take home the “Parnelli Hometown Hero Award of the Year” at the Parnelli Gala in January.

Band members and friends celebrate life in honor of Chester Bennington at the Hollywood Bowl on Oct. 27. Photos by Steve Jennings

Linkin Park at the Hollywood Bowl

For one special night on Oct. 27 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Linkin Park band members, guest artists and 18,000 fans paid tribute to vocalist Chester Bennington after his untimely death July 20 with a concert that raised awareness and honored his life and talent.