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USA - The 2023 Behind the Scenes Holiday Cards are now on sale at the BTS Boutique. This year’s collection features a mix of six different designs created especially for the charity by Alyssa Collister, Ryan Dantuono, Scott Kinnebrew, and Robert Mendoza. BTS is also bringing back two past favourites by Alex Elmendorf and William Gerton.
Cards are available in a variety of options: card packs of 10 with a standard greeting, personalised cards with a company logo and custom message, and electronic cards in multiple file formats and an array of price points starting at $20.

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UK - For a second year, PLASA is able to support UK-based companies who wish to exhibit at LDI. Working in conjunction with the Department for Business and Trade, UK companies can make their debut at the Las Vegas trade show for a specially reduced rate.
When LDI returns this year from 3-5 December, the show will yet again feature the Meet the Brits Pavilion, which will introduce UK companies to the expansive US market and facilitate valuable in-person networking.
The Meet the Brits package includes a 5sq.ft logo-branded kiosk, complete with furniture, lighting and power, as
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Strong Performance - Turnover at Nimax Theatres rose to £31.9m in the year ending October 2022, which marks the first full year of trading figures since the pandemic and a 6.7% increase on 2019. When compared to the previous year, ending October 2021 and including disruption caused by the pandemic, the increase in turnover is 289%.
Nimax Theatres’ venues include the Palace, the Garrick, the Duchess, the Vaudeville, the Apollo and the Lyric theatres in the West End. According to its annual accounts filed this month, turnover to October 2, 2022 was £31.9m. This is up from £29.

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UK - Roger Fox and John Whitaker have retired as directors of global technical theatre consultancy Theatreplan.
Both men helped to build the consultancy whilst working alongside the late pioneering stage engineer, Richard Brett. Having been with Theatreplan as partners and subsequently directors for a combined total of over 60 years, they will be continuing their working association with Theatreplan, as founder consultants.
Fox has brought his knowledge and expertise to a wide range of important heritage theatre projects, including at the Royal Philharmonic Hall, Li

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UK - PLASA and LSi are calling for nominations for this year’s Gottelier Award. The award recognises the invaluable contributions of the people behind the products, from pioneering product developers to creative R&D teams.
Named after the late lighting designer and industry commentator Tony Gottelier, the Gottelier Award aims to recognise product developers who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of entertainment, presentation, or installation technology.
Launched in 2007, previous recipients include: JB Toby (Avolites), Christian Heil (L-Acoustics)

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USA - The Long Reach Long Riders hosted an auction to benefit Behind the Scenes at their 20th Anniversary Ride’s celebratory banquet earlier this month. The auction itself was quite special, including only one item, a detailed quilt incorporating t-shirts from every charity ride hosted by the LRLR over their 20-year history. The quilt was created and donated, “a true labour of love” by long time BTS supporters and quilters Shan and Trish Ayers.
The Ayers regularly donate many of their intricate handcrafted woodwork creations, including items to be auctioned off during the a

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Liechtenstein - The Neutrik Group has introduced a range of products, from its Contrik brand of portable power distribution systems, especially designed for deployment in harsh all-weather application environments.
The range of Xtreme Outdoor (XO) / Active designated products includes Power Container, Power Rack and Power Turtle systems. Designed and precision manufactured, using high quality electrical and electronic components, in the EU, they are intended for mobile entertainment production applications, including video walls, stage lighting and audio installations.
The

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Last Farewell - Amid much publicity, Elton John played the last UK show of his farewell tour at Glastonbury, watched by a crowd, estimated to be over 120,000 people. A record 7.3m people tuned in to watch live on BBC One, according to initial ratings. That was the biggest ever overnight audience for a Glastonbury set, the BBC said. In comparison, last year Diana Ross was the most-watched star with 3.1m and Paul McCartney's headline set was seen by 2.7m. "It's a very special and emotional night for me as it may be my last show in England, in Great Britain," said the singer.
Melt

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UK - The beginning of June marked four months since the launch of The Power of Events. The prime focus has been on the platform itself, providing a single destination dedicated to showcasing all seven core sectors of the UK events industry, as well as profiling the essential industry community, says the latest report from the not-for-profit company established in 2022.
From a standing start, over 25K unique visitors have to date visited the platform since launch, with positive feedback. It has seen consistent engagement with the podcast listings and the events calendar.
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USA - Behind the Scenes has announced the launch of its new affinity fundraising initiative, Ghostlight Groups. The programme, created in effort to raise awareness and funds to benefit the charity, seeks to honour the importance of community and volunteerism in our industry.
Ghostlight Groups are volunteer led groups that gather to raise money for Behind the Scenes through an event or activity of shared interest. Groups may choose an activity like skiing, golfing, or quilting. They might hold a regular meeting of a book club, or monthly movie nights. Ghostlight Group’s events or

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UK - The widely respected PLASA Awards for Innovation are now open for entries, for any product released since PLASA Show 2022. The awards are open to all, including PLASA Show 2023 exhibitors, PLASA members, and non-member non-exhibitors. And this year, early bird entries can save 20% off the entry fee if they submit their application by midnight on Monday 7 August.

Organised in association with LSi, PLASA’s market-leading magazine, the awards celebrate innovative products from across the live entertainment technology industry that demonstrate a new style of thinking, im

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Renewable Energy - Glastonbury Festival will be run entirely by renewable energy this year. All production areas will either be powered by electricity from "fossil fuel-free sources" or will run on solar panels and battery hybrid systems. Generators will run on fuel made from waste cooking oil and Arcadia's giant fire-breathing spider will also run entirely off recycled biofuels.
Organisers said "sustainability has always been at the heart" of the festival. In 2010, the festival's cowsheds were covered with enough solar panels to power 40 homes, making it the largest privately own

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Turkey - Show architects Black Skull Creative and Balich Wonder Studios collaborated to present Pepsi’s 2023 UEFA Champions League Final Kick Off Show on 10 June in Istanbul.
Brazilian pop sensation Anitta and Grammy award-winning Nigerian superstar Burna Boy and special guest multi-platinum DJ and producer Alesso featured in the show.
Black Skull’s Jay Revell comments: "With The 2023 UEFA Champions League Final Kick Off Show by Pepsi, we wanted to showcase the immense power of football to unite diverse fans and cultures. Istanbul, a symbol of global cultures, serves as

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UK - The Association of British Theatre Technicians’ Annual Awards took place on Wednesday evening, 7 June, after the first day of the 2023 ABTT Theatre Show at Alexandra Palace, London. This year, the awards were again generously supported by TAIT.
Ted Moore, director of rental services, said of the Awards: “TAIT is really proud to be here once again to sponsor the ABTT Awards Presentation, one of the best globally in our industry. We wish all the nominees good luck and give congratulations to whoever the winners may be.”
The five highly sought after Awards for Light

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Saudi Arabia - EFM Global has opened a 43,000sq ft warehouse in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (KSA), further highlighting its commitment to the region. Strategically located, the traditional, base level structure is designed to support growth for existing and for new customers.
In the Middle East since 2008, EFM has provided for tours, festivals, film, international sports, exhibitions and much more - Kendrick Lamar, MDLBEAST Soundstorm, Desert Warrior, the Dubai World Cup closing ceremony and the Amakin Exhibition being a handful of recent projects.
The size and scale of its Riyadh

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Artificial Intelligence - Sir Paul McCartney says he has employed artificial intelligence to help create what he calls "the final Beatles record". He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the technology had been used to "extricate" John Lennon's voice from an old demo so he could complete the song. "We just finished it up and it'll be released this year," he explained.
Sir Paul did not name the song, but it is likely to be a 1978 Lennon composition called Now And Then. It had already been considered as a possible "reunion song" for the Beatles in 1995, as they were comp

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Song Tracking - The music industry has committed to improving metadata for tracking songs on music streaming platforms, following widespread criticism from artists. The writers, performers and producers of songs will now be consistently identified. These creators say they do not receive their fair share of royalties when tracks are played on streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. It comes as the government launches a group to look into these concerns.
Sir John Whittingdale, minister for the creative industries, said the move would help the UK to "offer viable career o

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South Africa - Elation Professional's exclusive sales partner in South Africa, The Production Warehouse, took to the road in mid-May to show first-hand to customers an array of its latest lighting products including luminaires from Elation’s popular Proteus, Fuze, and KL series.
While theatre, rental house and broadcast clients took the opportunity to demo products, the tour, which visited Johannesburg 15-16 May and Cape Town 18-19 May, was a chance for the AV distribution company to renew relationships post-pandemic.
Marnus Nieuwoudt, owner of The Production Warehouse, s

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UK - The ABTT’s first Make A Difference conference took place at the Albany Theatre on Friday 21 April, 2023, and the association has now announced the release of the conference’s full report.
70 industry delegates from across the country and a range of companies, venues, organisations and institutions were in attendance to discuss the industry’s current recruitment and retention challenges. The report outlines the issues which were discussed and the actions that were suggested. It also reports on some things that have already happened as a result of the conference day.

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UK - The ABTT is inviting people to sign up and participate in its Work Life Challenge initiative. It’s a challenge designed to “encourage us to prioritise time for activities that allow us to wind down from the stresses and strains of our working life, while also providing a focus and incentive for raising money for our much-loved industry charities: Backup Tech, The Theatrical Guild and Stagehand”.
The aim of the challenge is to encourage us to consider and promote a better attitude towards achieving a healthy balance between our work and other “life” activities that h

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UK - This year, Black Skull Creative, in collaboration with its sister company Black Skull Studio and Marvin Dietmann, was entrusted with the task of creating nine distinct country performances for this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool.
From content design and choreography to production design and stage direction, Black Skull Creative covered all aspects of creative direction and production from ideation to completion.
"As the co-creative director of nine Eurovision countries, overseeing such a massive task was undeniably challenging,” says Ross Nicholson of Bl

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Broadway Bounces Back - Broadway is making "a strong rebound", according to industry body the Broadway League, as it publishes figures that reveal 12.3m people attended shows in the first full year of data since the pandemic. This is 17% down on pre-pandemic levels. The Broadway League also said grosses for the 2022/23 season were $1.6bn and indicated that the figures compare favourably with pre-pandemic levels.
According to its data, the 2022/23 season included 1,474 playing weeks - the overall number of weeks of performance logged by all shows during the season - and 40 new prod

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UK/USA - In 2008, ETC became the first official supporter of Behind the Scenes. Ever since, it has been donating all proceeds of the company’s cutting-edge iRFR and aRFR apps, which are now split between the re-named UK charity Backup Tech, and continues its support of US-based charity, Behind the Scenes.
Cat Shepherd, marketing communications coordinator at ETC, explains why they are passionate about supporting Backup Tech. “As an industry, we always tend to push ourselves to the limit to make the show work or get it to the next venue on time, constantly solving problems, oft

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Fighting Fund - Equity has sent out a warning to theatre management that members are prepared to strike in order to secure better conditions, revealing the union now has a £1m fund to support workers taking part in industrial action. Addressing members at this year’s Equity conference, general secretary Paul W Fleming said not listening to the union would have a "serious consequence".
In his speech, Fleming listed the recent successes of the union, including securing a new pantomime agreement, and claimed "pay has risen in real terms every decade on the West End for ove
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