ETC Prodigy Stage Machinery upgrades Musikhuset Aarhus in Denmark

19 Jul, 2019 | ETC

The Rytmisk Sal of Musikhuset Aarhus, the largest music house in the Nordic region, has upgraded its stage machinery system with ETC’s Prodigy P2 hoist and QuickTouch+ 12 controller.

The popular culture and events house in Denmark draws over a million visitors each year for concerts, musicals, theatre shows, opera and much more. The building’s lighting and technical teams had been looking to renovate the rigging system in the Rytmisk Sal (or rhythmic hall), also known as the ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll hall’ in the music house.

Head of lighting at Musikhuset Aarhus, Ole Nielsen, came across ETC’s range of upper stage machinery products during a visit to the renowned ETC factory in Middleton, USA and was keen to find out more. He recommended the equipment to Head of production, Jonas Knive which lead to Atendi, the Danish distributor of ETC, being contacted to supply the equipment.

8 Prodigy P2 hoist systems were selected to upgrade the current system. “With the quantity of shows and productions held at the Musikhuset Aarhus, the challenge was fitting the installation into the busy schedule of the event house,” comments Jonas. There was just one time slot available, and the project was installed just three weeks after the quote request. The short turnaround was so fast it required delivering and converting the Prodigy P2 hoists held in European stock from their compression tube mounting arrangement into the variant that can be mounted vertically and suspended on the main beams.

“This is a perfect example of how Prodigy hoists adapt to suit any venue,” says ETC European Rigging Sales Manager, Enrico Nobile, “the P2 motorized winch unit can be used with compression tube to remove lateral loads on a building structure, to provide easy and free drop pulleys placement or without compression tube installed vertically or horizontally (above or below the grid) however the installation requires it.” The load feedback and the position control are supplied as a standard, together with all the safety features including: slack line detection, overload and underload, overcurrent protection, hard limits (2+2), load profiling and error log file to have a constant and complete hoist report.  

QuickTouch+ 12 control station offers users complete system control in an affordable and user-friendly package; the LCD screen offers a simple and quick view of all main parameters coming from the hoist system.

Jonas Knive comments: ‘Here at Musikhuset Aarhus we host over 1500 events a year across our 10 stages and 6 halls, which means time is always short. The simplicity of the ETC Prodigy system makes it much easier for us to accommodate the wishes of the visiting productions and dedicate more time to their needs.”

ETC Lights Sue the T. Rex: A Different Kind of Diva

16 Jul, 2019 | ETC

Sue the T. Rex is the Lady Gaga of the dinosaur community. The magnificent murderbird (a favorite term to describe the T. Rex) has an often-hilarious Twitter feed, legions of adoring fans, and a brand new home in the Chicago Field Museum’s Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet. Lighting and AV presentation for Sue’s new home were designed by Lightswitch Chicago, using ETC and Xicato luminaires, and ETC controls.

Although the fossil is named after Sue Hendrickson, who discovered the skeleton in South Dakota in 1990, Sue the T.Rex may not even be female. (They use the pronouns they/them/their.) This is just one of the facts learned about Sue since their discovery and exhibition at the Field Museum in 2000.

Sue’s move to their own 5,000-square-foot area, The Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet, was completed months ahead of schedule to satisfy a clamoring public. Following a three-month prototyping phase to show the curators how Sue would be lit in their new quarters, the design team at Lightswitch Chicago produced a meticulously cued AV presentation worthy of the world’s most expensive ($8.7 million) fossil.

“Conservation of the delicate stones and resins is very important – Sue will receive about a quarter of the light, and none of the direct sunlight, they did before,” says Thatcher Waller, Senior Lighting Designer for Lightswitch Chicago.

The project called for the complex integration of control protocols and diverse fixture types including ETC Source Four LED Series 2 and ColorSource fixtures, as well as fixtures from another vendor, Xicato, that are wirelessly controlled using DMX over Bluetooth. System Integrator Ivan Jones expected a “sandstorm” but was pleasantly surprised. “ETC did special programming for the job. Chris Price wrote an entire new control module inside Mosaic to speak to Xicato. They handed me a product that worked – I never had to patch it.”

In fact, this is the world’s first execution of the interoperability between ETC Mosaic and Xicato Controls. “We believe interoperability between control systems is essential as we move into the IoT age of lighting,” says Ron Steen, VP of NA Specification Sales for Xicato. “Our open API has allowed ETC to harness the benefits of our system in concert with Paradigm and Mosaic.”

The Control Stream

The heart of the AV system is an ETC Mosaic controller playing an unusual role. “For Sue, Mosaic is acting as the switchboard instead of the commander.  It does not make a single decision on its own. It is being commanded by both Watchout and AMX. It provides feedback to AMX while acting as the integration point to Xicato wireless lighting and Paradigm,” explains Jones.

A Mosaic MSC1 controller handles all inbound commands, controls DMX lights related to Sue’s scenic lighting, and recalls presets in the Xicato Wireless Bluetooth lights. Mosaic accesses the Xicato Control network to recall scenes and fade the house lights up or down based on cues starting or ending the theatrical presentation.

The Xicato Control solution features a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) wireless protocol. Names, groups and scenes were set in the Xicato individually addressable modules. When asked about using DMX over Bluetooth, Waller merely replies “Why run a bunch control wires to all the fixtures if I don’t have to?”

ETC Paradigm handles all the white house lights that operate on standard relays or dimmers and also provides control stations for temporary override.

A Day in the Life

No longer free to roam the Badlands, Sue’s daily schedule is carefully regulated.

Their day begins in an overnight look. Most of the lighting in the space is off except for strategically-placed security lighting to allow safe path finding and camera illumination.

AMX starts the day with a TCP command telling Mosaic to go to the normal gallery look. Mosaic passes a message to Paradigm to go to the normal show presets. Then Mosaic’s instructions come from Watchout as TCP messages as it starts the multimedia show. Watchout will cycle through a series of commands that pull up various triggers as the show repeats every fifteen minutes.

At the end of the day, AMX instructs Mosaic to enter the gallery security look and tells Watchout to stop sending messages to Mosaic. The monotony of Sue’s life is broken by the occasional special event where they become the center of attention. This calls for a look with lots of party lighting, all under the watchful eye of Mosaic.

“The museum was concerned about allowing a color picker because it seemed likely that we would exceed the maximum light threshold for preservation,” explains Jones. “To ease their concerns, Mosaic automatically reduces the output to a safe level limit whenever a color picker command is received. When a normal preset is recalled, Mosaic automatically removes the intensity setback and resumes everyday functions.” 

Sue’s new home has been a huge hit with their legion of fans. Waller attributes the success of the exhibit to the way in which technology was used. “The use of theatrical fixtures control the focus on different parts of Sue, making them appear more life-like,” Waller shares. “We created drama through fixtures that excite the audience, encourage them to use their imaginations, and share the amazing story of Sue.”

ETC upgrades networking with Response Mk2 DMX Gateways

5 Jul, 2019 | ETC

Modern luminaires and networked controls allow users to take lighting to more places than ever before. ETC’s new Response Mk2 DMX Gateways ensure DMX and RDM get there, too. The Response Mk2 DMX Gateways flawlessly translate DMX/RDM to and from sACN, allowing users to put control exactly where they need it – saving money and time.

Available in 1-, 2-, and 4-port models, Response Mk2 DMX Gateways provide DMX and RDM data distribution, taking advantage of the reliability and interoperability of industry-standard protocols such as ANSI E1.31 (sACN) and ANSI E1.20 (RDM). With wall-mount, portable, and DIN rail form factors, users can always find the perfect fit for your application. And every model – even the 1-port! – now features a crisp OLED screen and four-button interface to clearly display (and modify) configuration and status.

Response Mk2 DMX Gateways make it easy to deal with the headaches of networks, too. With increased processing, each Gateway can support 256 RDM devices. Plus, all Gateways can be monitored and configured from a central location with ETC’s powerful Concert software, letting users change network status and DMX/RDM settings. And when you want to be more hands-on, the easy user interface on each Gateway ensures you can configure it exactly as you want it – right at the Gateway itself. 

Response Mk2 DMX Gateways offer powerful integration into ETC’s Paradigm, Echo, or Mosaic architectural lighting control systems and of course they pair perfectly with ETC’s entertainment controls.

Something’s Brewing in Randburg

2 Jul, 2019 | ETC

Take one of South Africa’s most dynamic television studios, mix it with a healthy expansion project, and throw in the need for cutting edge lighting infrastructure technology and what do you get? The answer is Urban Brew’s new Studio premises at Ferndale on Republic, formally known as Brightwater Commons.

When Urban Brew made the decision to move from their old home to their bright and shiny new one, they made the commitment to upgrade their Television Studio infrastructure and technology as well, with the explicit intention that it would put them ahead of any other Television studio complex of their kind in the country. Not only this, but the solution needed to be robust enough to serve them properly for at least the next 10 to 15 years.

When it came to the lighting portion of the project the logical solution was a control and networking infrastructure by ETC. Based on similar system architectures that have been employed at the BBC and Sky in the United Kingdom, the ETC system was designed to be able to control any studio from any control room. The initial phase of the installation incorporated Studios 1, 3, 6 and 9 which all came online during last year. Further expansion with new studios is planned throughout this year as well.

But having the right solution is only half of the equation. It still needs to be installed, commissioned and handed over and the tight deadlines on this project made that an even more pressing task. Taking on the challenge was Protea Technology who were awarded the tender for the entire project. To assist Protea with the lighting portion, Prosound was commissioned, the Prosound Projects and Installation Team was headed by David Butcher, David’s task was to oversee the lighting portion of the project which included no less than four studios’ worth of lighting control, networking infrastructure and power distribution.

A particularly interesting feature of the project was the idea that any Studio could be controlled from any Control room at any given time. This meant there was always going to be a heavy reliance on networked IP based systems running through a central switch. Hard-line DMX was not an option for the project and neither was placing bulky external processing units all around the complex. Fortunately, because ETC’s Eos family of consoles do all their processing on board, all that is then required is the distribution of that signal around the facility. For that there are the ETC Gateway Nodes which can be clamped to the overhead grid where they convert sACN signal to DMX before sending the signal along its way to the fixtures. That makes the rig versatile as you can have any port be any universe you choose, at any point in the rig you would like.

But the challenges didn’t stop there. Urban Brew’s fixture inventory represented a mix of LED, Tungsten and Halogen Moving Lights meaning simple dimmers were not going to cut it. The answer, once again, came from ETC in the form of their ColorSource ThruPower units which can switch between dimming, relay and constant current circuits, all via RDM or at the rack itself. Each studio was installed with 4 x ColorSource 24 circuit Wall units except for studio 9 which received 8 x ColorSource 24 circuit Wall units.

That’s a total of 480 circuits, across four studios and control rooms, each with their own console and over fifty gateway nodes to distribute DMX. It’s no wonder that David Butcher’s eyes tear up a little when you say the phrase ‘Urban Brew’ near him.

The Urban Brew Studios project represents a massive leap forward in the South African broadcasting space. It is the biggest installation of its kind outside of the SABC which was built in the 1970s. It is easily the most modern facility of its kind in the country and plays host to productions which range from the National Lottery Draw to YoTV and The Voice South Africa.

Clearly a facility of this calibre deserves nothing but the best. With their new ETC infrastructure, backed up by the potent partnership between Prosound and Protea Technology, they can rest assured that they’ve got exactly that.