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USA - Brant Underwood has joined Theatre Projects’ New York office as associate principal. “Viewing industry consultants from the outside, I always knew TP was at the top of my list if I ever made the leap,” shares Brant.
Brant joins Theatre Projects from the world of fabrication, automation, technical direction, visual arts, scenic construction, and experiential design, where he held a broad resume, moving from union stagehand at various New York venues to lead project manager at Hudson Scenic Studios in a relatively short period of time (and with ample detours along the wa

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UK - HireTrack NX has announced the release of its Enhanced Crewing feature. The feature provides a streamlined, integrated approach to managing crew across multiple jobs, eliminating the need for multiple systems and increasing efficiency and control.
The Enhanced Crewing feature offers a spreadsheet-like editor for managing shifts, detailed breakdowns of crew pay, charges, expenses, and accommodation options. A global editor allows for booking across multiple jobs, and a calendar-style display is also included.
Customers, including TSL and Pearce Hire, have already praised
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Business Boost - Liverpool businesses have described "footfall like Christmas" thanks to an estimated influx of 500,000 visitors during Eurovision events in the city. Hotels, restaurants and shops enjoyed a huge boost as Liverpool hosted what city region mayor said was the "most successful Eurovision Song Contest".
Sweden's Loreen won the honours in the grand final on Saturday. But Liverpool is also a winner with up to £250m in economic benefits over the next two years, Steve Rotheram said. Up to 500,000 extra visitors flocked to the city during the EuroFestival bet

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Armed Presence - Drones will be restricted from flying above Liverpool during Eurovision, as police in Merseyside prepare for their biggest ever operation. Merseyside Police said restrictions affecting drones would be in place from 23:00 BST until 14 May, the day after the competition final. A "visible armed presence" was also expected as about 100,000 extra visitors are set to travel to the city.
Liverpool is preparing to host the UK's first Eurovision Song Contest for more than 20 years. Two semi-finals and a final will take place at the M&S Bank Arena between 9 and 13 May.

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Training Network - Guildhall School of Music and Drama is to roll-out a national training network in performance and production for children and young people, as it looks to "broaden the country’s talent pipeline". The Guildhall Young Artists network incorporates five existing centres across England, plus an online centre for remote study, and offers a range of one-to-one training, group lessons and holiday courses in both music and drama.
The network includes the Centre for Young Musicians in Waterloo, Junior Guildhall at the Barbican, plus centres in King’s Cross, Nor

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Royal Visit - King Charles III will officially turn the lights on to reveal what the Eurovision Song Contest stage will look like, Buckingham Palace has announced. The King - along with Camilla, the Queen Consort - will tour Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena on Wednesday ahead of it hosting the event next month. As well as revealing the stage set-up they will meet show presenters and Mae Muller, who is representing the UK.
The stage design is intended to give the impression of the contest "opening its arms to Ukraine", organisers have previously said. The Royal couple will meet the

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UK - The Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT) has announced the latest addition to its annual ABTT Awards, the ABTT Award for Environmental Sustainability.
The award will be presented to someone who over the past 12 months has made a significant contribution to furthering environmental sustainability within the theatre industry.
The award will sit alongside the established ABTT Technician of the Year Award and Award for Emerging Excellence which recognise the achievements of individuals both starting out and well-established in their backstage careers.
Th

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Final Curtain - Andrew Lloyd Webber has warned that the days of original shows opening on Broadway "ended long ago", with the composer calling on the industry to work together to secure a future for new work in New York’s theatre district. The composer, writing in the New York Times as his musical The Phantom of the Opera played its final performance on Broadway after 35 years, warned that the costs of running musicals in New York were so high that it was forcing producers to find shows with "small casts and minimal sets" and leading to an increase in jukebox musicals.

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UK - Kartfest 2023 is all set to be the biggest and the best Backup has ever held. Taking place on 6 July, the event will see 34 teams of expert industry racers, as well as a few novices thrown in for good measure and laughs, all driving towards becoming winners of the coveted championship title. There will be tweed and flowery dresses galore, and a host of stalls to keep non-racers amused throughout the day at the first ever Kart-Fest Village Fete.
None of this would be possible without the generosity of the Kartfest sponsors. For this year’s event, Chauvet Professional once a

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Musical Theatre - BEAM 2023, a two-day event this May dedicated to new musical theatre, is to showcase 29 musicals-in-development. Running across 25-26 May at the Oxford Playhouse, BEAM will showcase new musicals and host workshops and panel discussions on musical theatre. Musical Theatre Network, Mercury Musical Developments and Oxford Playhouse are producing the event.
Shows to be featured at BEAM 2023 include Song of the Far Isles, an actor-musician musical by Matt Borgatti; Ratburger, a musical adaptation of the David Walliams book of the same title by Rob

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Taken Over - One of Scotland's oldest and best-loved theatres has been taken over by new owners. The Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow has been bought by London-based Trafalgar Entertainment for an undisclosed sum. The 1,449-capacity Renfield Street venue was one of the last privately run theatres in Scotland. Opening in 1904 as a music hall, the venue has played host to stars including Harry Lauder, Charlie Chaplin, Billy Connolly and Lulu.
Chris McGuigan, from Trafalgar Entertainment said: "You can feel the history, but you can feel the love which has gone into maintaining it.

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UAE - EFM Global Logistics chartered 155ft yacht Desert Rose to celebrate 15 years operating out of Dubai – taking guests, DJs, food and drink up the coast from the city’s marina.
Clients past and present joined EFM’s directors on board to recognise the run of events the company has delivered for and to ‘kick around what comes next’.
EFM’s history in the region goes back to transporting equipment for a 2005 spectacular celebrating the official Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) launch.
The dearth of available vehicles in the city at that stage, ca

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UK - Four young industry pros have joined the team at Crosstown Concerts to ‘bring fresh vision and extend the independent promoters’ network of artists and live shows’.
Crosstown director Conal Dodds has 32 years of experience promoting live music, forming Crosstown Concerts in 2016 with fellow Director Paul Hutton. He comments, “Promoting live music has never been more vibrant, as we rise from the turmoil of the pandemic to shape a new landscape. I was keen to introduce new voices into Crosstown that face the future.
“This new breed of promoters each bring their

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Stream On - The success of artists like Taylor Swift and BTS helped global music revenues rise to $26.6bn (£21.7bn) last year, the highest level since records began in the 1990s. The growth was largely driven by streaming, which now accounts for 67% of the industry's earnings. Last year, 589m people paid for a subscription, said trade body the IFPI, up from 523m in 2021.
But labels say income could be higher, and are pushing for prices to rise. "It would help if music subscription pricing could reflect the realities of inflation," said Simon Robson, president of international mar

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UK - Event crewing specialist Showforce has announced that Becky Meers has been promoted to the role of head of operations UK & Europe. Becky will oversee the account management, crew management and operations functions for Showforce’s UK and European business.
Having joined Showforce’s Liverpool office in 2010 as an account handler, over the last few years, she has ran point on some of Showforce’s largest accounts and projects including Creamfields North and South, Cannes Lions, Glastonbury, Platinum Jubilee and The 150th Open.
The announcement follows the news t

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USA - In June of 2009 ETC launched a new app that turns Apple handhelds into miniature lighting controllers. From the very beginning, ETC decided that all profits from sales of the iRFR (Radio Focus Remote) and later the aRFR for Android apps would be donated to charity. On Friday at the 2023 USITT Show, ETC presented Behind the Scenes with a check for $39,599 bringing the total donated to the charity to over half a million dollars.
The iRFR and aRFR mobile apps enable convenient, touchscreen-based remote control for Eos family consoles and controllers. You can learn more about t

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UK - Event, catering and brand logistics specialist Global Infusion Group has appointed Tim Young as its new managing director. Young brings of experience at both PLC and SME level to the role.
Prior to joining Global Infusion Group, Young was managing director of AMP Air Conditioning, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Panasonic Corporation, leading business operations and financial management. This followed a five-year stint as finance and commercial director with event supplier Thorns Group.
Commenting on his appointment, Young says: “I’m honoured to join the Global In

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Europe - The Inside Story has taken steps to reduce its impact on the planet by becoming CoolPartner number 054 with Cloudforests.ie, a social enterprise creating new forests along Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way. The move will give the full-service marketing agency a verifiable nature-based solution to offset the carbon emissions created by the business.
“As a company, we have been talking for a while about the impact that our actions are having on the environment and we wanted to take positive action to reduce this,” explains Barney Jameson, founder and managing director at Th

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UK - Following on from the international industry-wide survey conducted in November 2022, PLASA and #WeMakeEvents have now published the full report, which is now available to download for free.
Completed by over 1,300 people in over 40 countries, the data offers clear insights into how the events, entertainment and installation industries are recovering from the pandemic, and highlights the rebound, along with what challenges remain.
The data will be presented to government departments and financial institutions to help raise the profile of the live sector, and it’s hope

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Student Funding - Higher education regulator the Office for Students has awarded a £9.6m annual funding boost to 15 establishments across England that provide training in performing arts. The organisations include Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, Leeds Conservatoire, Chickenshed Theatre Company and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. All will receive a portion of the funding to help improve teaching and access to training.
A total of £9.6m a year will be awarded over five financial years from 2022-23 to 2026-27. Six organisations will receive the maximum

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UK - Backup has officially declared Kartfest -The Village Fete, open! Tickets are now on sale to the live events industry’s big day out.
Now in its eighth year, Backup is delighted that Kartfest will be returning to Sandown Park for its biggest event yet. “With our fantastic headline sponsor, Chauvet, we are building a big old fashioned Village Fete to give everyone a great day out,” says Backup vice chair and the event’s organiser, Lee Dennison. “Our judges will be out in force scoring the best dressed stalls, our cake bake competition and the best fete game. We are all

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UK - Midwich UK&I has launched Mi Finance – a financial services offering that supports customers’ business growth through help in acquiring new technologies or upgrading assets while protecting their working capital.
Available to customers of Midwich Ltd, Nimans Ltd and Sound Technology Ltd, and with plans to roll out to the wider UK&I group of companies soon, Mi Finance offers ‘competitive rates for lease and hire purchase’. Three product options are currently available including finance lease, hire purchase, and operating lease, with a fourth product in developm

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Financial Moves - The National Theatre has revealed it will need to “reduce activity levels in order to ensure financial stability” for the next three to four years, as it warns of the ongoing challenges it faces in its annual accounts for the year ending March 2022. The accounts show that its total income for the year until March 2022 was £80.8m, up from £56.3m the year before, but warn that high rates of inflation and increased energy costs are having a "significant impact" on its cost base. In the year before theatres were closed in March 2020, the theatre’s income was more t

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USA - Dates for virtual Mental Health First Aid training are now posted through May 2023 at btshelp.org/mhfa. You can take an active role in helping to care for those you work with and expand your skill sets by learning how to identify, understand and respond to signs of distress in your colleagues and help make our workplaces healthier and safer spaces for all.
A previous attendee recently told BTS, “A dear friend disclosed an awful mental health crisis. Thanks to your class, I was able to put my mental health first aid training into critical practice and send them some resour
  1. Behind the Scenes welcomes board members
  2. Save the date for Kartfest 2023
  3. The Week in Light & Sound
  4. The Week in Light & Sound
  5. The Week in Light & Sound
  6. ESTA appoints Katie Jang Protocol editor
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