UK - As well as the major stars, Glastonbury is also known for hosting a series of other types of performance, such as dance, circus, comedy and theatre. This year renowned dance group Michael Clark Company took to the stage and performed over two days at the festival. Making their Worthy Farm debut, they called upon White Light, a company with which they have a long-standing relationship, to provide production support

Richard Godin, lighting designer for Michael Clark Company, states, "The company performed an extract from an existing piece called Come Been and Gone. There were three performances in total during the festival: one on the Pyramid Stage and two more in the Astrolabe Tent. It is extremely rare for a dance group to perform on the Pyramid Stage and I can on

UK - Triple E is celebrating winning Engineering Product of the Year at this year's ABTT Awards at Alexandra Palace for its ModTruss universal building system.

Triple E launched ModTruss in the UK at the ABTT Theatre Show at its new London home, Alexandra Palace. ModTruss was created by US-based Patrick Santini and will be manufactured and distributed by Triple E's new construction arm, EEE-Build.

It was Triple E's most ambitious launch since the company was formed in 1984.

Commenting on ModTruss, the ABTT Awards judges said, "The manufacturers liken ModTruss to Meccano, and this is an extremely accurate description. The judges saw numerous applications for building with ModTruss, and can instantly see where it could be used. With impressive load bearing characteristics the system allows great flexibility using standard stock to create all types of stage construction. T

Germany - German loudspeaker manufacturer Kling & Freitag has announced the death of its co-founder Martin Kling following long-term health problems. The company statement says:

"We are mourning the passing of Martin Kling. Last weekend, the former partner, namesake and chief developer of Kling & Freitag GmbH passed away unexpectedly at the age of 54.

"Already in the early 1980s, Martin and Jürgen [Freitag] were developing speaker systems which have also had worldwide recognition since 2000 and enjoy an excellent reputation. The two founders had the greatest successes with the CA 106 compact speaker, which became a type of industry standard in sound technology. Many other speaker systems which were developed by Martin, such as the ACCESS, CA and Line 212 series and the SEQUENZA 10, are still setting standards in industry today. Over the years, we were thus also able

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Case Study: Hans Zimmer Live

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.

USA - Bandit Lites has promoted Steve Powell to rentals manager and Mark Steinwachs to general manager.

Steve Powell, who recently celebrated more than 15 years with Bandit Lites, steps into a new role as rentals manager. Now in charge of asset allocation for tours and shows, Powell will also step up efforts to rent gear to other production houses.

"I am always excited to be part of the great team at Bandit Lites and look forward to this new opportunity," said Powell.

Bandit Chair, Michael T. Strickland says of Powell, "Steve has been the rock of Nashville production, sitting in the centre of the board for 12 years. Steve is a large part of our success. This move to rentals manager will allow Bandit to become more efficient in that area. This was a part of Steve's prior role, but it has grown into a full time job. Steve is an absolute A player and an industry

France / China - Nexo is reinforcing its sales team with the addition of industry sales heavyweight Michel Brouard.

To be based in Hong Kong in the newly-created position of Greater China business development manager, Michel will play a critical role in increasing the presence and success of Nexo in the Asia Pacific area.

A well-known name in sound reinforcement circles, Michel is an industry veteran. Beginning his career in project management in his native France, he has been most prominent in the role of international sales manager for L'Acoustics, where he worked for 16 years. Most recently, he has been part of the sales team for Italian company K-Array.

Michel says: "I am really pleased to join Nexo, one of the most innovative and respected French pro-audio companies. Although I'll be working in a territory I know very well, this will be an interesting new challenge

Germany - d&b audiotechnik is enhancing its senior management team by appointing Hans-Peter Nüdling as chief sales officer. From 20 July 2015, Nüdling will be responsible for global sales and services, bringing over 25 years of sales, business development, electronics and technology experience to the team.

As a member of the managing board, Nüdling will be responsible for global sales and global services including education, application support and services. He has direct and channel sales, and business development expertise, and will help to establish solid, best-practice processes to further expand the business. In addition, Nüdling has worked in Europe, the Americas and Asia, which means he has an in-depth understanding of the international markets in which d&b does business.

"Based on Hans-Peter Nüdling's international experience, excellent sales capabilities and

Canada - Available now, wysiwyg R35 lighting design software from CAST Software boasts a number of new features.

These include: Pulling Focus in LIVE mode via DMX is introduced to ensure footprint focus is previsualized and pre-cued so 'What You See Is truly What You Get' on stage; Increased performance from CAD to Shaded View and even in Graphic Memory Management; Sharper Laser Simulation in Shaded View mode and numerous CAD additions. Further, 205 brand-new lighting fixtures are added to wysiwyg R35 - a wysiwyg record!

"R35 delivers numerous new exciting features and enhancements in all areas of wysiwyg: new CAD tools, updates to Paperwork, and more performance and enhancements to our visualization," says Dino Mazza, product manager at CAST Software. "Additionally, workflow has been improved in many areas to speed up the design process. I believe by incorporat

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OPUS X4 PROFILE – the most powerful LED moving head from Cameo to date

The OPUS® X4 PROFILE is the new flagship model from Cameo and is among the most powerful LED moving heads on the market. Equipped with a 1,400-watt LED white light engine, this spot profile moving head produces an enormous light output of 50,000 lm, providing powerful spot and gobo projections on even the largest stages and much more.
www.cameolight.com

UK - Panasonic has launched a new series of glass-free 4K displays aimed at the rental and staging market.

The glass-free versions of the 98" and 84" LED LCD panels (TH-98LQ70L & TH-84LQ70L) sit alongside the company's existing large 4K displays. The decision to add the LQ70L models was based on requests from the rental industry for a lighter and brighter version, gained by the removal of the protection glass.

Like the existing models, the displays offer 3840 x 2160 resolution and include Panasonic's new generation of image enhancement technology, for fine, life-like images.

They have inbuilt 3D-LUT colour correction and 6-axis colour correction, a special latticed aluminium frame to resist twisting, while portrait orientation is also possible without any effect on the screen.

The displays can up-convert non-4K sources to a higher level of image quality and movin

Romania - When Cultural Centre House of Arts District 3 in Bucharest promoted a two-day summer garden party in the Romanian capital's Titan Park recently, Temple Media Romania were brought into provide sound, lighting, LED screens and staging. This included a number of premium discharge and LED fixtures from PR Lighting, for whom they handle local distribution.

The event was designed to bring together Romanian music and dance of various genres. From the traditional costumes and folkloric music of the opening day, headed by the violin orchestra Lautarii Chisinal to the pop rock line-up headlined by Connect-R on day two, Cristian Simon's inspired lighting design for the event dubbed Music & Art in Titan Park brought the setting to life for an audience of up to 10,000 people.

Simon's stage design was built around 16 PR XR 200 Beams, 10 XLED 1061 Wash and 16 XLED 2007.

The two f

UK - SKY Arts Sessions is a new TV music series which invites a host of artists to perform some of their favourite songs in an intimate setting. With no presenter or audience, the focus is solely on the music as the guests play songs fully live and reflect on their influences and inspirations.

Richard Martin Lighting (RML) has a long standing relationship with SKY and its lighting team. LD Richard Bowles returned the light the show after the success of the first series and we were also asked to return. The main lighting rig is made up of Sharpy, Sharpy Wash, 2 Lites, Jarag-L and Patten 2013. It also includes one of RML's most recent purchases the Clay Paky Mythos.

"Mythos is a highly advanced form of hybrid light: first of all, it is an excellent 470 watt-lamp spotlight, which produces an outstanding large light beam, featuring a zoom that ranges from 4° to 50&

UK - Serious Stages designed, manufactured and installed the new 'Other Stage' at this year's Glastonbury Festival. Artists have been appearing on Serious Stages for four decades at the world's most famous festival. But their focus is on the future, as Serious Stages managing director Steven Corfield states:

"The ever-increasing production expectations of bands combined with Michael and Emily's desire to give audiences the best experience led to discussions about creating a new Other Stage better suited to Glastonbury. Those conversations went through our CAD designers and engineers, on to keeping our fabrication facility this spring manufacturing the new flat roof system. Then our on-site team under project management of Simon Fursman have done a phenomenal job constructing this new stage for the first time at Glastonbury."

The new look Other Stage presented an impr

Korea - A comprehensive HK Audio Elements system has been chosen to provide sound reinforcement at the recently completed 500-capacity Siksa-dong catholic church in Korea.

The three-floor church, which was built over a five-year period and completed in early 2015, required a powerful yet inconspicuous sound system, and Daikyung Prosound Seocho - an appointed dealer of HK Audio's South Korean distributor, Sama Prosound - was called upon to perform the installation.

To match the church's size and interior stylings, Daikyung Prosound Seocho settled on an Elements system composed of two E435 A Install Kit units, six standard E435s, two E110 Sub As and two E110 Subs for the main speaker system, alongside two E435 A Install kits with two E435s for subs. In addition, two E435 A Install Kit units and two E435s were installed to act as a monitor system for the church's choir.

Jin-woo

China - Allen & Heath's iLive digital system has been installed as the FOH mixer in the central theatre at the New Yuanming Palace of Zhuhai. A reproduction of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, which was destroyed in 1860, the popular tourist attraction covers an area of 1.39 km², and includes an imperial garden, lake, pagodas and a new central outdoor theatre to stage theatrical performances.

The theatre is a multi-functional venue with a 10, 000 m² seating area that can accommodate 6,000 people, and hosts regular cultural performances and festival events. The FOH system comprises an iLive-T112 Control Surface with iDR-48 MixRack, fitted with an M-DANTE network card to support 64 channels of multi-track for live recording and playback.

"iLive provides flexible control and extensive operational capabilities, including live recording, which means our sound system can eas

Mongolia - The art delegation of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), comprising 106 members, recently held the first of three shows at the Ulaanbaatar Central Palace of Culture during a 10-day visit to Mongolia.

The delegation consisted of people from the Song and Dance Troupe of the PLA General Political Department, the PLA Academy of Arts and the Acrobatic Troupe of the PLA Guangzhou Military Area Command (MAC).

During their visit, the delegation carried out artistic exchanges with the song and dance troupe of the Mongolian military, where spectacular effects from PR Lighting were provided by the Chinese manufacturer's Mongolian partner, D-light. This involved 36 pieces of XR 200 Beam and 36 XPAR 336.

The lightweight and compact XR200 Beam is equipped with a Platinum 5R or Osram 230 HRI lamp, to provide a parallel, laser like 'pencil' moving beam with a brightness of 67,76

USA - Every dimension of Air Supply was on full display at a recent concert in the Boston area, supported by a Troy Stubby-designed lightshow that featured Legend 230SR Beam moving fixtures in a variety of stage positions. JDI Productions provided the Chauvet Professional fixtures for the sold-out performance, substituting them for "more famous name movers" that were in the tour's original rig design.

"Troy's original design called for these other fixtures to be used, but we've been using the Legends back to back on so many shows that we felt very comfortable with them," said JDI's Freddy Thompson, who, along with his colleague Pete Therrien, oversaw the lighting rig. "So with Troy's approval we made the switch. In the past, Troy had been using the SR beams on the floor to cross shoot the backdrop with a rotating prism. It created a really great effect,

Belgium - Performing all over Europe and the Middle East, Exclusive Strings is an all-female string quartet that plays a mixture of classical and contemporary music. With Yamaha's new TF series consoles already shipping from dealers, a TF1 recently aided a very exclusive performance.

Developed and managed by Jan Ceulemans, Exclusive Strings all perform with Yamaha Silent Strings instruments, whose compact designs, detachable frames and high quality electronics provide the sound and feel of an acoustic instrument, with the portability and low maintenance of an electric one.

Freelance sound engineer Kevin van Lieshout of Advanced Music has been working with Exclusive Strings for the past five years. The ladies perform in any of three live packages - with backing tracks, a contemporary band or a full orchestra - so Kevin needs a flexible console, but one that is compact as he tou

Haiti - In the aftermath of Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed the infrastructure of its major cities, new construction is renewing hope among the Haitian people, albeit slowly.

The earthquake destroyed the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, one of the struggling nation's prized architectural and cultural landmarks. Although plans are underway to rebuild the cathedral, its completion is still a decade away, in the best case.

To bridge the time between now and then, the Catholic Church recently completed a steel-frame open-air cathedral that seats 1,600 adjacent to the old church's ruins. Miami-based Revelation Sound, Inc. designed and installed the sound reinforcement and electronic clarion systems for the steel-frame cathedral, counting on Ashly Audio processing, amplifica

UK - Audient has appointed Daniel Mills as technical support agent to assist with questions from Audient owners new and old, and brings with him youth, a passion for sound synthesis, programming and in particular, an appreciation for great sounding recording.

"I love Audient after using the ASP8024 desk hooked up to a pair of Genelec monitors during a concert at the Birmingham Conservatoire. I'd never heard audio sound that good before," he says, adding: "I also love how that same sound can be squeezed into a box as small as the iD14 and ever since I've gotten my hands on one here at Audient, I've been playing as much music through it as I possibly can."

(Jim Evans)

UK - "The Ayrton MagicBlade-Rs that we have purchased from Ambersphere Solutions are undoubtedly the lighting fixture of summer 2015," says Rob Merrilees, director of Dry Hire Lighting (DHL). DHL now hasa substantial number of MagicBlades in stock although they very rarely actually see them. "The Blades are constantly in demand," continues Merrilees. "We're grateful that their quality of build and excellent reliability factor means we can pretty much guarantee they can fly in and fly out of the warehouse in perfect working order. Even so, we are having to turn away requests for Ayrton Blades at the moment."

The continuous rotation on both Pan and Tilt axes is the central characteristic of this seven RGBW LED unit. Compact, light and economical, the MagicBlade-R offers the lighting designer imaginative and creative possibilities with an almost endles

India - Dutch trance music DJ and producer Armin van Buuren's radio show A State of Trance (ASOT) has been going strong since 2001 and its 700th episode on 6 June was celebrated in style with a huge live show in Mumbai, India, lit by Elation Professional's new Platinum SBX moving head along with the popular Platinum Beam 5R and ELAR 180 PAR fixtures.

Propelling him to superstardom with trance fans around the world, ASOT attracts 33m listeners weekly through 100 FM radio-stations in more than 80 countries. A State of Trance milestone is always an occasion to party and ASOT 700, held in association with Sunburn, saw The Dome in Mumbai decked out in a large intelligent lighting package for performances by Armin van Buuren, Cosmic Gate, Orjan Nilsen, Super8 & Tab and Ruben De Ronde.

Star Dimensions India provided lighting, trussing and LED screens for the event with lightin

UK - dbn Lighting returned to Heaton Park in Manchester to supply lighting to five out of the eight stages and video to two of those - for the popular Parklife Weekender music festival with which they have been involved since its inception in 2010.

The crew - which peaked at 24 technicians, programmers and operators - was led by dbn's Pete Robinson, and they started their various get-ins across the site on the Wednesday. There were a few logistical curved balls thrown into the mix for good measure, including a Friday night concert by the Courteeners which was slotted in by promoters SJM on Stage 4. While dbn were not lighting this, the licensing restricted access to other areas which therefore had to be ready ahead of time.

The main stage this year was up-scaled to a 24m Space roof from Serious three weeks before the event to accommodate the two headliners - Disclosure and Rud

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