UK - Out Board reported a busy PLASA Show (Olympia – 4-6 September 2022), with interest echoing that which its innovative and award-winning spatial audio and stage tracking products have been receiving throughout the year. The company unveiled several significant developments to existing products at PLASA this year, including the new TiMax 600-Series Mac and PC software, with significant augmentation to TimeLine and PanSpace object-based spatialisation functionality, as well as workflow UX enhancements.
With stagetracking now such a vital addition to the spatial audio process, visitors to the stand showed significant interest in the enhancements to TiMax TrackerD4, which has steadfastly become the leading live control system for real-time immersive audio spatialisa

UK/USA - The deadline is approaching for UK companies to receive funding to exhibit at LDI in Las Vegas for the first time. As part of a ‘Meet the Brits’ initiative, PLASA is working in conjunction with the Department for International Trade (DIT) to help UK-based businesses exhibit at LDI in Las Vegas for the first time this year.
LDI will return to the Las Vegas Convention Centre from 17-20 November and will feature a ‘Meet the Brits’ pavilion. The aim of the pavilion is to connect UK-based companies with new customers in the USA. Thanks to financial help from the DIT, UK companies who have never exhibited at LDI can take advantage of a reduced and subsidised rate.
The price for a branded kiosk in the Meet the Brits pavilion has been reduced to $2,775. However, PLASA is offering six companies $1,000 each to contribute towards the exhibiting costs, bringing t

UK - PLASA Show 2022 took centre stage in Olympia London’s Grand Hall from 4-6 September, and a sense of celebration was in the air. Following a gruelling couple of years for the industry, live events and entertainment are more popular and more ambitious than ever. And this positive trajectory was reflected in the impressive 41% increase in visitors.
PLASA MD Peter Heath comments: “The excitement for PLASA Show this year was undeniable. Not only did we accommodate several more brands than anticipated, the number of visitors through the door exceeded all expectations. As I walked around the show, there was a real sense of community and appreciation for our fantastic industry. Thank you to everyone who made this year’s show one to remember – live events and entertainment are back on the map!”
Becky Stanton of exhibitor Prolight Concepts agrees: “What an event!
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When award winning film composer Hans Zimmer brought his smash-hit tour Hans Zimmer Live to North America fall 2024, the show's audio team sought out to bring infrafrequency bass to the show to add new depth to the show's audio experience. The team chose Danley Sound Labs.

Tribute - Theatre shows across the UK, including Hamilton and Mary Poppins in the West End, have begun taking performances on the day of the Queen’s funeral off sale. There has not yet been an official statement regarding the protocol for theatre performances on 19 September, when the funeral will take place, from the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre.
Official guidance from the government previously stated that theatres would not be under any obligation to close on the day of the ceremony. However, a number of shows across London have taken themselves off sale for that date. The Twitter account for Mary Poppins said the show would be paying tribute to the Queen’s "extraordinary reign". Tickets for Mamma Mia! are also no longer available on 19 September and the Royal Albert Hall has announced that it will close on that day and has postp

UK - Renovated just over 10 years ago, Ashington Church in West Susex hosts an array of events, from prayer evenings to live band concerts and has been doing everything they can to keep the congregation’s spirits high during the uncertain lockdown period.
As the needs of the church have grown of the years, for both live and online services, a new audio installation was needed as the original speakers in the ceiling beams and down the aisle often resulted in ‘dead zones’ and delay issues during performances.
“While it did mean we had a better signal to noise ratio, those speakers just couldn’t reproduce the sound we wanted,” explains Simon Barrett, sound engineer and consultant for Ashington Church. “I even had to bring in a sub from time to time just to balance everything out, which wasn’t ideal.”
After having several systems installed on a temp

UK - In preparation for the arrival of off-Broadway hit, Oklahoma!, and the world-premiere of Mandela this autumn to the boards of London’s The Young Vic, the theatre’s head of sound Kyle McPherson invested in the award-winning TiMax TrackerD4 stagetracking system from TiMax developers, Out Board.
Requests for a TiMax TrackerD4 system to control new Soundscape upgrade for the theatre’s d&b sound system were made by both the Oklahoma! design team comprised of sound designer Drew Levy and Associate Sam Lerner, as well as the forthcoming Mandela sound designer, Paul Gatehouse.
The requests sparked a thorough investigation into stagetracking systems by MacPherson and the Young Vic sound team, which subsequently led to the purchase of a TiMax TrackerD4 system with eight sensors and 16 tags for the actors.
MacPherson confirmed, “

USA - Claypaky Mini-B fixtures, the smallest LED moving light ever made by Claypaky for the professional market, are in constant demand at Burbank-based Volt Lites, Inc. where American Song Contest was among its latest users. Volt Lites was the first company in the US to acquire Mini-B and now boasts more than 200 of the fixtures – the largest inventory of Mini-Bs owned by a single vendor in the US.
Weighing a little over 15 pounds, Mini-B features a wide zoom, ranging from 4° to 55° for extremely versatile performance. At the narrow angle, the beam is very solid and concentrated, superb for aerial effects. At full aperture, the Mini-B becomes an excellent wash light replacing much heavier and bulkier equipment. The Mini-B's central LED may be controlled separately from the external ring of LEDs, making it ideal for graphic lighting effects, too.
“Mini-B
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Germany - Production company OTD Global called on the imagination and flair of new Israeli-based creative visual design practice, LEAD, headed by Omer Israeli and Dor Aichner, to engineer lighting and atmospherics for a Hack the Galaxy special event that was staged in Berlin’s Kraftwerk venue for Israeli FinTech enterprise Rapyd.
Omer and Dor put Robe moving lights – MegaPointes, BMFL Blades & Spots, Spiiders and LEDBeam 100s – at the centre of the lighting design in the main performance space, once the towering turbine hall and core of the former power station. Another DJ line-up headlined by Tiesto entertained over 2000 guests for the evening.
This was the first of three Hack the Galaxy parties in Europe delivered by Rapyd’s experience brand The Moment and part of a recruiting drive creating a buzz to attract developers and programmers to t

UK - Active for over four decades, Duran Duran continue to be a major draw on the live sound circuit.
For their latest UK and European festival run, the band picked up where they left off with long-time audio vendor Britannia Row Productions, which supplied the crew with a DiGiCo-centric control package, as well as an assortment of microphones and Sennheiser IEMs.
“Brit Row have been great in providing the gear we needed, at a time when so much equipment is unavailable,” says production manager Wob Roberts, who first worked with the band in 2008 and returned to the role last year. “Part of this was because we booked well in advance, but the following US tour was a late addition and our account handler, Dave Compton, has managed to source the gear we need without having to ship anything, which is great as we try to reduce the carbon footprint of touring.”

UK - Sauca Live Light enjoyed a successful debut at the recent PLASA Show, officially launching as a company and taking home a prestigious PLASA Award for Innovation during the show.
The company’s first product, Live Light, comprises a licensable software management package and a Hardware Data Uploader (HDU) unit which connects to any lighting console or media server. The HDU takes an ArtNet input and transfers lighting data to the Cloud, allowing lighting and visual designers to directly control the screen colours of audience smart phones, watches and wearables.
“All that the audience need to do is point their phone cameras at the QR Code on the IMAG screens on stage and they immediately create huge mappable visual canvases with less than 100 millisecond latency between flash button and phone colour change,” the company says. “The optional and additional phone

Scandinavia - Elation Professional has announced that LiteNordic will take over distribution of Elation Professional and Obsidian Control Systems products in Sweden, Norway and Denmark effective 15 September 2022.
“This is another big step forward for Elation and we are extremely excited that LiteNordic will be representing Elation and Obsidian in this important growth region,” stated Frederik Afif, international sales manager at Elation and company representative for Scandinavia.
“LiteNordic has the qualified personnel to cover Elation’s wide product range and the capacity and ability to handle the growth in demand for our products on both the lighting and control side. This is about expanding the possibilities for the customer and fulfilling their needs and LiteNordic’s customer reach and service is second to none. We are thrilled to be teaming up with the

USA - The Behind the Scenes Mental Health Initiative will present a free webinar Bystander Intervention in the Entertainment Workplace once a quarter over the next year.
These webinars follow on the success of last spring’s trainings, with previous attendees commenting, “This is the type of training that will help us transform both our working and personal lives for the better,” “This workshop was so helpful in concisely identifying issues and strategies to deal with them. I feel empowered to address awkward situations in my future,” “This training is engaging, good for participation and interaction, and is full of great examples and a variety of methods to use to help others who may need help,” and “The best part of the Bystander Intervention training for me was the many different ways of approaching a situation which I'd never thought of. We all have

USA - Fulcrum Acoustic has announced that pre-sets for Apex CloudPower amplifiers are now available for download on the Fulcrum Acoustic website. The processor settings work with all Apex CloudPower amplifiers running firmware version 1.2.1 or later. These pre-sets add to an already extensive list of processor configurations available for download on the Fulcrum Acoustic website.
"Fulcrum Acoustic is committed to supporting a broad range of processing platforms at a high level to ensure that our loudspeakers are easy to work with and so our customers can achieve the best results possible," says Rich Frembes, senior technologist, Fulcrum Acoustic. "We’re excited to add Apex to the ever-growing list of third-party DSP amplifiers we support."
The Apex pre-sets are available as a free download from the support page on the Fulcrum Acoustic website.

USA - Nashville Life is a 10-year-old ministry founded by gospel artist and 15-time Grammy Award-winner CeCe Winans and her husband, Alvin Love II, and their son, Alvin Love III, is now lead pastor. While the church has been in existence for a decade, it has only this year found its own home, a newly renovated former church building in Nashville’s Nolensville Road neighbourhood.
Nashville Life has a flexible set of audio solutions to meet its particular needs: a DiGiCo Quantum225 console, buttressed with four Dante-enabled A168D stage boxes along with a DQ-Rack in the amp room, for switching and patching, all on a Dante network, as is the church’s new EAW KF810 sound system. In addition, an even one-dozen KLANG:kontrollers - six connected to Shure PSM 1000 IEMs and six hard-wired IEMs for the band members - provide the church’s musicians and vocalists on stage with a h

UK - Elliot Banes lit the Outlook Festival main stage at Cholmondeley Castle last month. Tasked with lighting dozens of different acts across the jungle, drum & bass, dubstep, and grime genres (none of whom brought visiting LDs), Baines devoted considerable time and energy into developing an advanced strategy. When the Manchester-based designer arrived at the festival site, however, he was in for a surprise.
“We were supposed to be working on a domed semi-circular stage, but when we got to the site, we encountered a square one,” said Baines, the owner of Spiral Stage Lighting. “This complicated things, especially since we had to change all of our rigging points in the original design by Wingnut. But the amazing team, as well as the people from Fineline Lighting, Wingnut Production Lighting and AF Live helped pull everything together.”
Faced with this unexpe

UK - London’s Four Seasons Hotel Park Lane was the setting for a pre-fight press conference by British boxer Anthony Joshua and his Ukrainian opponent, Oleksandr Usyk, with a stunning LED screen backdrop driven by a Hippotizer Nevis+ Media Server.
The heavyweight champions were giving interviews to the global sports press, prior to their match in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the end of August. The questioning centred on the importance of winning; the real attraction of the press meet-up was purely visual, focusing on the plush surroundings, the famous photo-op face-off, and the video content that ramped up the spectacle.
Reading-based video production company Digital Insanity was commissioned to operate the visuals for the high-profile occasion by events company VME.
“We were hired for the playback job as we have a reputation for delivering shows as per the clien

USA - Blue Planet AVL and Lightscape Lighting & Equipment have announced a strategic partnership which ‘bridges the gap between the live entertainment and motion picture markets. This collaboration creates an operation in which both companies will now simultaneously offer their specialised services to all clients.
Blue Planet and Lightscape have also started ‘an aggressive expansion’ across the US, beginning with their joint operation in Atlanta, Georgia, opening early October 2022.
In this partnership, Blue Planet will now begin offering a variety of rental gear in all locations, beginning with lighting consoles and DMX control gear, all backed by Lightscape’s equipment management services model. Additionally, Lightscape is now able to offer sales and service directly to their film and television client base, all powered by Blue Planet.
Commenting o

USA - AtlasIED has announced three additions to the company, including Graham Hendry, VP of loudspeaker strategy; Mike Ulrich, VP of specialty acoustic projects and Riccardo Balistreri, director of acoustical engineering. The new hires are part of a strategic initiative that will focus on product development, strategy, design, and positioning of new products for the premium loudspeaker marketplace across a variety of industries including hospitality, specialty commercial, corporate, and entertainment.
“AtlasIED has significantly invested in talented people, infrastructure, and machinery over the past five years,” said John Ivey, CEO at AtlasIED. “We’ve created a foundation for innovation, and Graham, Riccardo, and Mike are joining us to help propel that innovative culture forward and translate it into solutions and platforms that benefit our industry, clients, and e

UK - Polar has announced the expansion of its team with the appointment of Nick Bellis to the post of business development manager, professional audio.
An experienced pro audio sales manager and successful freelance FOH/monitor engineer, with more than 30 years’ experience in the live and installation markets, Nick joins Polar with specific responsibility for its Music Tribe brands. Polar recently entered a partnership to re-introduce direct supply of Music Tribe’s leading brands to the UK market.
Polar managing director John Midgley comments, “Nick is a highly respected figure in the industry and knows these brands inside out, having earlier in his career spent seven years working for Music Tribe in European sales. Add to this a hands-on appreciation of the products from his freelance role as a highly regarded pro audio engineer, and it’s easy to see why he is

UK - Following their recent inauguration of a European Experience Centre, Wharfedale Pro continues to uphold a mission of transparency. With the addition of enhanced website navigation and ‘finder’ tools, they are optimising their processes ‘to enable their customers to make more informed, intelligent decisions’.
The newly added ‘bracket and rigging finder’ effectively acts as a filterable table or ‘cheat sheet’, that clearly displays which brackets, rigging and poles (X axis) are most suitable for each model of loudspeaker (Y axis), as well as what quantity is required. The entire loudspeaker range is displayed by default, but the selection can be narrowed to a specific model via a search function. It will serve as an invaluable, at-a-glance tool for integrators who are planning installs of any size.
Similarly, earlier in August, Wharfedale Pro unveile

USA - Vari-Lite has announced support for the General Device Type Format (GDTF) in all currently shipping fixtures and consoles, including production luminaires such as the recently launched VL3600 Profile IP, theatrical fixtures like the Acclaim LED Series, and consoles running Neo or ZerOS software.
GDTF, jointly developed by the GDTF Group, is an industry standard for entertainment fixture profiles, intended as a unified definition for the exchange of data for the operation of intelligent luminaires. GDTF profiles are available for all current luminaires. GDTF support is included in the recently announced ZerOS 7.13 and will also be included in the Neo 4.0 software update, bringing support for the standard to existing FLX, FLX S, and Neo controllers, along with future Vari-Lite consoles.
Customers can use the GDTF builder online tool to build profiles for any third-

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