JPS Australia

History

Dope Lemon

Dope Lemon 6

Dope Lemon returned to the stage for their first headline tour in three years and audiences were invited to step into the real world of Angus Stone – a dream zone layered with melty moments, mischief and romance.

At FOH, behind an Avid S6L console, was Adam Rhodes who has worked with Angus for the past 11 years. He describes mixing for Dope Lemon as quite a challenge with all of the vocals going through a TC Helicon Voice live distorted compression effect with slap delay at all times.

It makes the gain before feedback issue much harder than usual,” added Adam. “It’s a balancing act between keeping the energy level of the band up whilst trying to ensure the vocals are intelligible and on top of the mix – particularly when it’s a distorted vocal and both Angus and Louis are playing distorted guitars, Brad has his big muff pedal on the bass and its one big wall of distortion. The traditional sound guy in me struggles with that!

Adam doesn’t use any Waves with the Avid S6L preferring to use solely what comes in the console package. He uses the Bomb Factory 1176, Classic Bundle and Digirack compressors and the standard Revibe and Reverb One reverbs that come with the console.

I’m enjoying the Pro Multiband compressor too,” he added. “The main reason I don’t use anything external or use any third party products is that when you’re touring around, there’s very little support for it. If I’m going into a festival situation and they don’t have that equipment, I don’t want to be having to load and install things to make my show work in the 20 minutes I have to get everything running.

When it comes to reverbs, delays and effects, Adam says that he has always sculpted and created his own sounds rather than use presets from the pull-down lists.

I’ll always create my own patches and all this is easily done on the consoles proprietary system,” he said. “I don’t use any feedback on the plugins, I do it all on the console. I do it old school where I feed the delay back on itself and if I want it to be a little crunchy, I’ll put a Sansamp in front of it or whatever I need to do to make the sounds I want to create.

Adam admits he sees other engineers use plugins and achieve the same results but he suspects a lot of people just flick through presets until they find one they like. Adam will have a sound in mind and then work out how to make it.

I’m never really happy with presets anyway so if I’m going to change them, I might as well do it from scratch,” he continued. “Plus Angus is quite particular about those sounds.

 

JPJ Audio supplied the touring control package and inhouse PA systems were utilized with Adam commenting that he loves the Nexo Alpha at The Tivoli as well as the d&b J Series at The Palais.

The Nexo GEO-D at The Enmore is a challenge to deal with particularly with my gain issues,” Adam elaborated. “It was one of the early attempts at cardioid PAs and without a proscenium arch I get a lot of mid-range honk out of the side of the boxes, heading straight towards Angus’ microphone and I struggle to get Angus’ vocals up against that.

Everyone was on Shure PSM1000 IEMs and there were wedges on the back of the keyboard riser to provide stage vibe for Angus who doesn’t like the fact that the keyboards are DI’ed and there’s no sound coming out of them on stage. When he pulls an IEM out, he wants to be able to hear it acoustically on stage and whilst all the guitars and bass have output through their amplifiers, the keyboard is silent which leaves Angus feeling disconnected. The drummer doesn’t use a drum sub so Angus has a d&b V Sub right behind him as he likes that drum sub feel onstage.

Most microphones are fairly standard Shure models; 57s on guitar amps and snares, Beta 98s on toms and congas, KSM32s as overheads, however it’s the KSM8 that excites Adam. All vocals use a KMS8 microphone with Angus recently acquiring two new nickel versions for this tour. Adam says that the KSM8 has changed his life with both Angus as a solo artist and Angus & Julia Stone.

I could wax lyrical about that microphone for hours if you want!” he laughed. “The amount of gain before feedback I can get out of it is incredible plus the lack of proximately effect is fabulous. It’s the microphone I’ve always wanted.

Eric Coelho mixed monitors on an Avid Profile monitor console.

This article first appeared in the print edition of CX Magazine September 2019. CX Magazine is Australia and New Zealand’s only publication dedicated to entertainment technology news and issues. Read all editions for free or search their archive www.cxnetwork.com.au

 

Michael McIntyre’s Big World Tour

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A couple of months ago, Britain’s biggest comedian, Michael McIntyre, returned to Australia with his highly anticipated Michael McIntyre’s Big World Tour.

FOH engineer James ‘Oysters’ Kilpatrick was given a short and to the point brief by the artist’s team: perfect high quality audio delivered to every single seat and with that they sent him a Dropbox link to pre-show music, announcements and a pre-programmed cue list!

Basically it was a case of when in doubt, point a cabinet at it,” said Oysters. “I think it’s really a hangover from people not taking a minimal input show seriously. We play houses to nearly 15,000 people, ticket prices aren’t cheap and people expect to be entertained. So I’m with them – do it well, do it right the first time.

Oysters has a bit of a formula going when it comes to mixing for comedy shows saying he aims for the highest sample rate he can get and staying digital AES for as much of the signal chain as possible.

To my ears it has greater intelligibility for speech and stays smoother, soft and clear,” he added. “I use a DiGiCo SD10 as it has heaps of outputs plus it holds an iPad and a MacBook. It also runs Waves 10 which has a few plugins I rely on for comedy.

Along with the SD10 with redundant Waves server and Waves computer running live vocal rider, Oysters also had a C6 and the X Feedback plugin saying it is great for mic rejection.

Oysters also ensures there are heaps of speakers saying it’s all about coverage and that takes boxes pointing at people. It may sound simplistic but when you get into Qudos Bank Arena, it’s a great big daunting space to cover with low level speech.

 

JPJ Audio supplied the Australian tour including Oysters’ favourite PA setup of L-Acoustics K1 and d&b GSL.

They both throw a soft spoken word a really long way and it lands coherently and legible, no mean feat in a large cavernous space,” he explained. “We typically fly high with a large amount of boxes (12-18 depending on venue) and try to bend the bottom part so it hits just past the front fill but not onto the stage – something the GSL was made to do.

Oysters concluded that most of his comedy shows have been designed and conceived at JPJ Audio, with rigging plots and cabinet numbers all done well in advance. He notes that the expertise they bring to the table is invaluable and an essential factor in a show’s success.

 

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Harry Potter 3

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage, and is one play presented in two parts, which are intended to be seen in order on the same day (matinee and evening) or on two consecutive evenings.

After its success in London and New York, the play opened at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre with JPJ Audio the nominated audio supplier.

Sound designer Gareth Fry, who has scooped numerous awards for his work on the play including winning an Olivier Award, a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, and an Outer Critics Circle Award, flew in to ensure a smooth transition. Gareth has worked with director (and co-author) John Tiffany since 2006 saying they have a shared vocabulary for talking about things, shared reference points, and an understanding of each other’s tastes for things.

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As the play is set in a fantasy wizard world where nothing is naturalistic, generating the sound effects was a major undertaking for Gareth who strived to ensure the magic appeared very real.
With a normal play you can use a sound effects library or go out into the world to record it,” he explained. “As so much of this is spells and mystical creatures, all of that has to be created from scratch from the imagination. It’s a massively ambitious show in scale and storytelling, and we’ve had to create hundreds of sounds as well as developing a language to do that.

Rather than prepare most sound effects beforehand, Gareth and his associate Pete Malkin were in rehearsals full-time from day one, creating the effects in Logic and Ableton Live in response to what was being generated.

A lot of it was made in situ with the performers and creative team to make it really gel together,” added Gareth. “Quite often if you make something in the studio and then bring it to the rehearsal room, it doesn’t match.

The PA at The Princess Theatre is all d&b audiotechnik, almost exclusively the Y-Series which Gareth says is a lovely sounding box, well suited to this scale of theatre.

It’s a very large speaker system, particularly for a play, there are hundreds of speakers all over the place,” he said.

A TiMax Tracker is deployed to make vocal mics precisely follow the movement of actors. “Each performer wears a tag that the computer tracks so the TiMax system can pan their voice around the sound system so it sounds more like their amplified voice is coming from where the actual performer is,” Gareth elaborated.

Harry Potter 1
The show is so complex that two sound operators are required at FOH. One operator is kept busy mixing the mics and vocal effects on a DiGiCo SD10T, whilst the other person triggers the sound effects and music on QLab and Ableton Live , through a Yamaha CL5.

There are a lot of sound effects, and a lot of Imogen Heap’s pre-recorded music that moves between underscoring and the foreground,” remarked Gareth. “We’re using Apple MainStage software for all the different vocal effects, as well as a Lexicon PCM96.

A few of the radio mics had to be mounted in unusual places in strange costumes and so the aptly named DPA d:screet microphones were chosen as Gareth says they sound great, are very tough and are small enough to hide on cast members. As the show has progressed around the world, the microphones have kept pace with newer models being implemented so that by the time it opened in Melbourne, the new DPA d:screet 6000 Series was utilised.

They are effectively invisible,” stated Gareth. “The actors prefer wearing them too, because they are less obtrusive. They sound great and they are incredibly water resistant.

Gareth describes the transfer to The Princess Theatre as incredibly smooth saying the JPJ team were amazing. “I couldn’t have asked for it to go any smoother!” he declared.

All Photos: ©Matt Murphy

 

The Presets

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Legendary Australian electronic duo The Presets have been back on the road promoting their Hi Viz album and JPJ Audio were with them all the way.

Having used an Avid Profile console for many years, FOH engineer Craig Gordon was keen to take an Avid Venue S6L console, with Waves card, on this tour and now he doesn’t want anything else!

I love the Venue S6L and will find it hard to go back to a Profile,” he admitted. “I did a show last night with The Presets using a Profile and it was definitely not as good! The S6L certainly sounds better and there are way more options to customise the surface to how you want to use it. You can move all the groups and channels to wherever you want and set layouts, which you couldn’t do on the old console. You have outputs and auxes all on the same page, wherever you want to put them – and I really missed that last night on the Profile.

Craig says that mixing for The Presets is fairly straightforward, as they have good backing tracks and decent sound coming to him.

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We had to do a few little things with Kim’s toms because he has really dead sounding disco toms but we figured it out with a few plugins,” added Craig.

Julian had his own effects for his vocal onstage to which Craig sometimes added some distortion or reverb just to beef up what he is already being sent. The majority of the effects were Midi timecoded so through the songs they change to different presets which is all done onstage.

I mainly use the dynamic stuff in the rack and a few plugins onboard like a C6 but not too many,” said Craig. The outboard rack is pretty good with Alan Smart Research C2 stereo comps and Puigchild compressors. I still like to have the knobs and visual more than the plugins.”

The tour utilised inhouse PA systems but carried extra d&b B22 subs to reinforce the low end which worked well and was particularly useful in the smaller venues. The exception was Melbourne’s Forum Theatre where JPJ provided an L-Acoustics V-DOSC system.

Microphones were a Shure package as the band have been Shure endorsees for a long time. Vocals were Shure BETA 58s on UR radios, a standard Shure drum package of BETA 52s, KSM overheads and KSM 32s.

Cam Elias ran monitors on an Avid Profile using Shure PSM1000 IEMs.

JPJ Crew: Stacey Handley, Tim Lonergan

AFL 2017 Grand Final

AFL Grand Final 2017

JPJ Audio took over designing and operating the audio system for the AFL Grand Final entertainment six years ago and it’s been smooth sailing ever since. This year The Killers absolutely nailed it with an incredible performance that won them universal praise.

For sound designer James ‘Oysters’ Kilpatrick the biggest hurdle is the sheer size of the playing field, which is around 500 metres in circumference, and the fact that everything has to be set up in matter of minutes. Of course, it also has to be taken down in an equally short amount of time.

We do a rehearsal during the week where it all has to be wheeled out and struck down afterwards, and then we do a soundcheck and out it all goes again,” said Oysters. “We also have a large amount of outputs as we’re driving the TV OB for the music, sending a mix with ambient mics to Triple M plus feeding the ground and the media. It takes us about a week to wire and thoroughly check all of the outputs as there are so many including various mix minus feeds.

Oysters ran an Avid Profile mainly because he wanted stability and the Waves Plugins to run without the complication of a server but also because of its’ small footprint as space is premium. He also required a console that was capable of running ProTools whilst at the same time, could add markers for memories via snapshots, as the rehearsals are recorded on the Thursday and on the Friday there are more rehearsals running everything off the ProTools to the broadcast truck. The reliability of the Avid Profile was also a major factor in its choice especially as the weather and temperature can be quite erratic in Melbourne at that time of year.

At FOH control with Oysters this year were Tim Millikan and Ryan Fallis, with Oysters sending his outputs to Tim to distribute via matrix mixers, line drivers and active splitters. Everything that Oysters had on his console was mirrored onto Tim’s DiGiCo SD11 in case Oysters console was to fail. Ryan looked after the fully redundant ProTools replay and would also send everything he was doing to Channel 7. All control gear was on a UPS and were all timed, with JPJ doing extensive power failure tests in the factory leading up to the event.

It was all fibre with Channel 7 directly to me so that was a bit easier than years previously,” added Oysters. “Tim and Bowden Birkett (JPJ Audio’s head system engineer) could actually change any part of the PA or any part of the zoning, or even the levels to Channel 7 without asking me.

 

It’s important to remember that this is a TV show, not a concert, which can be a hard thing for people to get their head around. It’s not only live in the ground, its going live to millions people, there is no waiting till somebody is ready, it just rolls ready or not.

You have to use wind socks as it’s our windiest month in Melbourne and it really swirls around the ground,” said Oysters. “RF can also be a problem and in the past, it has failed. This year Frontier production bought in Peter Cochrane from ARTICULATE Communications to manage all of the RF and communications. He lowered the power on all of the radios, allotted all of the frequencies and it worked incredibly well. Everyone is on in-ears because without them the amount of slap back in the playing field is disorientating.

Sixteen carts of d&b audiotechnik cabinets were wheeled out, each cart holding three d&b J Series cabinets.

The ground runs in mono with redundant loops of signal and power so the most you could lose would be two or three carts,” said Oysters. “We can even broadcast for about 15 to 20 minutes without power although the speakers would fail. We could have run it with fibre but that would have got quite complex and I try to keep it as simple as possible, especially as so many complex things have failed at this event in the past. Eventually it will be entirely networked but when we do that, we’ll probably run it in the shop for a month before.

Oysters remarked that this years’ show by The Killers was the best yet, even though the band was so complex he didn’t take a full split of all of their gear.

As they have so many electronics such as sequencers, synthesizers and keyboards, we had that all bussed down a series of stems by Marty Beath,” he explained. “We took the vocals, guitars and drums all separate but it was condensed across sixteen lines instead of say fifty-six.

Once the footy had finished, The Killers performed a free show for anyone who wished to attend reverting back to a normal concert set up with FOH and monitors and with Oysters looking after OB to television only.

The Wombats

Pete Bartlett

The Wombats are currently celebrating the ten year anniversary of their first album, touring Australia with Groovin’ the Moo and performing a few side shows. For the past five years FOH engineer Pete Bartlett has worked with the band as well as his other main act The Pretenders.

The band members and crew were delighted to play a couple of shows at the Sydney Opera House, performing memorable and joyous shows. Let’s face it, it’s not often you witness six full-grown humans dancing around in wombat suits on stage whilst confetti guns spray over the crowd.

JPJ Audio supplied a control package that included an Avid Profile for FOH and another for monitors. Pete was pleased to get everything he wanted!
I always use an Avid Profile as I have loads of plugins and I’m not a big fan of anything newer,” he remarked. “I’m not a big fan of the new DiGiCo and Midas desks, and the Profile is just more reliable. In fact I’ve stood still for ten years with the Profile but it’s just so easy for me to use, plus you can get them anywhere.

The Wombats 1

Click to enlarge.

Pete explained that he tries to turn his Profile console as much as possible into an SSL console. The reason why is that he admits to being an eighties kid who learnt all of his tricks from being in bands and sitting in studios behind eighties producers.
I stole all my tricks from eighties producers but hey, a lot of it is all cool again!” he laughed. “Effects-wise, I use a complete mix – TC reverbs, Eventide etc, because the reverbs that come with the Profile are pretty poor.

Pete commented that when he first started mixing for The Wombats, they had ten channels of playback so if they lost the tambourine channel, they’ve lost that instrument. He didn’t like that so he went into their studio for a couple of days to mix everything to left / right.
We mixed the tracks really well, just in stereo, so if you lost the left you’ve still got the right,” he added. “It makes life so much easier. They run quite a complicated keyboard set up so it’s all run from Ableton and their keyboards just Midi into the whole thing, so I keep the keyboards separate. Essentially the band are a simple three piece of guitar, bass and drums … but they all sing and all play keyboards too.

During his time in Australia Pete had a variety of PA systems, including L-Acoustics and d&B audiotechnik, but that didn’t faze him.
Whenever I get a new PA to work with, I’ll first ask the system guys what they have done to it,” he explained. “Maybe they’ll show me a Lake EQ, and I’ll ask them to turn it off, as I like to do it myself. The last gig in Australia at Bunbury was fantastic because they had done very little to the system. Often I go into a venue to find the audio guys have hacked the PA to death. I’d rather they leave it flat so I can pull out whatever I don’t like. I don’t need anyone to EQ it, as long as it’s all time aligned and it’s correct, I’ll EQ it.

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Click to enlarge.

Pete has had a deal with Sennheiser for the past eleven years after he used them with Bloc Party, in fact he is still using many of those original microphones as they’re still going strong.
Basically we don’t have many microphones onstage that cost more than $300, they’re all cheap mics,” he said. “A lot of people listen with their eyes and use something funky and expensive. People wander around backstage saying how clever the mic setup looks, but you go out front and they sound terrible.

Pete commented that the JPJ Audio crew were fantastic and gave a brilliant service, saying that they made his job very easy.

Istoria – The Trance Project

Istoria 1

With the express purpose of uniting the Trance scene, creating memorable experiences and spreading the love of Trance, Istoria made its’ debut at Melbourne’s Margaret Court Arena followed by a night at the Sydney Showground Halls.

JPJ Audio supplied the equipment for both events with a d&b audiotechnik PA used in Melbourne and an L-Acoustics PA in Sydney.

Operating both shows was Josh Barker who stated that nice even coverage, with a little bit more bottom end, is always a good starting point.

Dealing with a dance party, it’s obviously about creating a good level on the dance floor without blowing the windows out when you open the doors!” he added. “Also, you don’t want it too fatiguing for those listening to it for eight hours at a time …… and that includes me!

Istoria 2Josh commented that he prefers the older L-Acoustic boxes for dance parties adding that the V-DOSC works very well having two 15’s in the mid high cabinets.

It helps keep the kick drum very punchy and all the bottom end detail doesn’t get blurred out,” he said. “I’ve worked with this PA for years so I know it very well. It is always very important to get your subs right otherwise you will be hearing from the noise police on the hour, every hour. Andrew Rogers looked after the EPA consulting in Melbourne and the Sydney show was handled remotely, via SMS. Maintaining that LEQ average and leaving yourself some breathing space for the main act is vital! Otherwise the later it gets, the quieter it gets. These events sometimes run until 6am.

As for mixing a dance party, Josh describes it as almost like remastering the content coming from stage for a big PA in a room or an outdoor setting.

We are well and truly in the digital era as far as the modern DJ/Producer is concerned. Most of the content has been produced and mastered ‘in the box,’ and sometimes it need some warming up on a large system, especially in the large warehouse style venues. I am making adjustments tailored to each track being mixed in by the DJ. I’m really just taming frequencies and making sure there’s a nice healthy level without hurting anybody’s ears. Being dance music, it can get quite nasty at high volume, most of the synth sounds are based heavily around the square and sawtooth VCO’s and they can really poke out when the PA is at battle-speed.

Josh mixed on an Avid Profile console with a Waves Maxx BCL as a left and right insert, a Puigchild and some Midas XL42’s for some analogue pre amps on the front end. On board, he used a Waves C6 multiband dynamic which keeps everything in check when his hands are busy doing something else.

I use the Maxx BCL as the last point in the chain on the output and that’s got a compressor, bass expander and a limiter all in one,” he added. “It’s really good for keeping the level where I need it, especially if the DB limit is undesirable. It allows me to make it sound big at lower levels and maintain the vibe on the dance floor regardless of the restrictions in place. I use the PuigChild over a group to soften things up when I need to without having to bring the level down. I used this mostly during breakdowns/build-ups when things can get very busy and you generally don’t have a lot of bottom end to round it all off.

Istoria 3All Photos: Jimmy James Denouden

Coldplay 2016 Australian tour

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JPJ Audio supplied Coldplay with a massive d&b system for their four stadium shows in Australia and for their Mount Smart Stadium show in New Zealand.

JPJ has a great relationship with the Coldplay production team and it was a pleasure to be asked again to supply audio for their tour. Dan Green pulled an amazing sounding show out front with the system in full array mode. A big thanks to, Tony Smith and Nick Mooney the chiefs of CP audio and the entire Wigwam crew for making it a seamless show for us. Looking forward to the next one.

The local JPJ crew worked around the clock to get the system ready in 4 days and a big thank you for the effort. A great result for JPJ and the Coldplay tour.

The System

It was the largest D&B “J” system yet to be seen on our shores. With 176 x J8/12 boxes and 60 subs, a mix of J-sub and Infra. We also used some Q’s for some front lip fill.

The system design also incorporated array processing to cover entire stadium, which required over 120 x D80 amplifiers! Wigwam supplied the touring consoles and infrastructure and we supplied the entire speaker system with all the opening act kits required. There were also some ring delay systems for the Etihad and Alliance shows. A mad amount of speakers.

Crew list

  • Josh De Jong
  • Craig Gordon
  • Murray Lewis
  • Conor Dunne
  • Adrian Roach
  • Bonar Darmawan Abraham

Read more

Coldplay’s A Head Full of Dreams tour. CX Magazine article by Cat Strom

Gallery

 

A Day On The Green

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Promoters Michael and Anthea Newton of Roundhouse Entertainment began A Day On The Green in Victoria with the first show on Australia Day 2001. Since then it has grown to become firmly established as one of Australia’s most successful and respected outdoor concert events.

A glittering array of International and Australian stars have performed during the past fifteen years providing unforgettable musical memories. A Day On The Green runs in the summer months from October – March with around thirty concerts per season in the all major wine-growing regions around Australia.

This year kicked off at Bimbadgen Estate with the Monster National Tour featuring an all Australian line up including You Am I, Something For Kate and Spiderbait. As in previous years, JPJ Audio supplied crew and gear for the tour.

FOH Systems Tech Ryan Fallis has done ADOTG for the past eight years and has experienced everything that nature can throw at an outdoor show. The Bimbadgen show was no exception with high winds at midday causing the stage to be shut down for over an hour, just when acts were about to sound check. Added to that was a large bushfire nearby that threatened to have the show cancelled.

There’s been some terrible weather at ADOTG shows over the years,” remarked Ryan. “One year at Sirromet Wines in Queensland we had a lightning storm and we had to evacuate the stage – that was pretty dicey! There’s always some sort of weather event around ADOTG, one year the stage was actually under water but they still managed to get the gig going.

As the ADOTG gigs travel the country the PA system is provided through the three JPJ offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne whilst the FOH package is toured. At Bimbadgen an L-Acoustic K1 rig out of Sydney was used comprising of twenty-four K1 boxes in the air for the mains, eight K1-SB in the air, twelve Kara underneath the mains, twenty four SB-28s on the ground, four Kara infills and for the sides ground stacked V-Dosc.

It’s quite a few boxes but that’s needed to cover a field of that size,” added Ryan. “In Queensland we’ll have their V-Dosc system which sounds really good too. It’s a similar system box wise but we add a couple of rings of delays as well to get some extra coverage. In Melbourne we’ll pick up the d&b audiotechnik rig.

At each ADOTG show engineers request the mixing console they require, in this case there were two Avid Profile consoles with JPJ’s Adrian Roche mixing monitors on a Yamaha PM5d.

Gallery – click images to enlarge.


 

JPJ adds to d&b inventory

d and b speakers

JPJ Audio has purchased a new d&b audiotechnik speaker system including the new B22 high performance subs and powered by over 20 D80 high power density amplifiers.

The system will be used for Aladdin the Musical, opening at the Capitol theatre Sydney in early August.