Czech Republic - Optimal Audio has announced the appointment of well-established audio and lighting specialists Rock Centrum as its exclusive distribution partner for the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Optimal Audio, part of the Focusrite Group, manufactures a one-stop solution of control, amplification and loudspeakers for small to medium sized commercial installations, with a focus on supporting multi-zoned venues.
Established in 1992, with bases in Martin, Slovakia and Prague in the Czech Republic, Rock Centrum has evolved to become a highly-respected company working in the sale and distribution of professional and commercial audio and lighting, as well as in the field of system design and installation. Rock Centrum exclusively represents a number of global brands.

Serbia - Sixty82 has continued the expansion of its global distribution network with the appointment of PSP Elektronik as its exclusive distributor for the Republic of Serbia, with immediate effect.
PSP Elektronik started its company in 1990 with its main activity being the service of pro audio and video equipment, before expanding into the sales and hire of this equipment to meet the increasing demand in the entertainment industry market for professional products.
On becoming Sixty82’s distributor for the Republic of Serbia, PSP’s Miodrag Tarailo says: “I have known many people from Sixty82 for many years and I have always had a very positive experience with them. With such great, professional and positive people behind the brand, the products are sure to be top level, which is why we choose to be a distributor for them.”
PSP Elektronik will sell the wh

Gremany - Prolight + Sound 2022 will offer ‘a new, interactive experience zone for companies and visitors from the fields of audio production, DJing and digital live performance’.
From 26-29 April 2022, the Performance + Production Hub will feature product presentations, demos, live performances and workshops with artists and experts from well-known brands. There will also be live visual showcases. The area is being created in cooperation with the makers of the Sample Music Festival.
“With extensive new offerings, we are strengthening the audio section as a mainstay of Prolight + Sound,” says Mira Wölfel, director Prolight + Sound. “We are thus underlining our commitment to making the event a hotspot for sound professionals from all fields of application: from live sound reinforcement to recording, mixing, mastering and DJing.
“The premiere of the Pe
featured content

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 - Martin Audio has announced that its Wavefront Precision optimised line array system, WPS, is now available in white, as a made-to-order option, and is also accompanied by its cardioid subwoofer partner, SXC118.
Martin Audio originally announced WPS in 2019 - the fourth model in the Wavefront Precision series - and it has since gone on to be a firm favourite by owners and users alike.
Dom Harter, Martin Audio MD, explains: “With WPS it was a ground up product development. We wanted to overcome the deficiencies and compromises of other 8” line arrays available on the market. That’s why we believe we have more drivers in WPS than anything else in its class, with spacing, waveguide and crossover point engineered to deliver in particular optimum HF performance with exemplary mid and high frequency pattern control, even at higher SPL. And our rental partners, FOH

USA - DTS, the Italian Professional Lighting company has won the prestigious Best Debuting Product Award for the entertainment industry. The Award, hosted during the LDI exhibition in Las Vegas was given to DTS's Alchemy 7, the latest Wash moving head announced by the company in 2021.
Alchemy 7 was designed in order to widen its range and offer a high-power, high-efficiency product.
With a 250mm lens, a two-blade framing system and a 6-LED colour chip, capable of delivering quality light and a wide range of pastel shades, this product was placed on the market with the goal to accommodate to the most demanding requests from lighting designers and directors of photography.
The Best Debuting Product Award was proudly accepted by Carmen Savarese, international sales manager at DTS and Ola Melzig, one of the four founders of Apex Technologies, DTS’s exclusive dist

World - To support first-time and indie filmmakers through the height of the pandemic, DPA Microphones partnered with Rycote on a Pay-it-Forward giveaway in late 2020 from which three lucky winners acquired a full cinema mics kit from the brands.
The contest’s prizes included DPA’s 4097 Micro Shotgun, 4017 Shotgun and 6060 Core Subminiature microphones - along with virtual mentoring sessions, an array of Rycote accessories and other equipment loaners. The recipients, Lijie Cheng of Singapore, Jacob Deming of the United States and Sergey Martynyuk of Austria, have been hard at work putting their new gear, and skills, to the test.
Singapore-based production sound mixer Lijie Cheng was excited to upgrade his microphone arsenal upon winning the competition and has already utilised them for an upcoming web mini-series, Maybe Marriage, and a short film, A Man

UK - The Wilberforce Monument, a statue dedicated to 18th / 19th century politician, philanthropist and anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce, which stands on a 31m high Doric column in the grounds of Hull College in the UK, has recently been re-lit using Anolis ArcPar 150 Zoom LED fixtures.
Graham Roberts of event technical production company HPSS designed the new lighting scheme which is part of a city-wide urban regeneration initiative driven by Hull Council that includes illuminating key city centre buildings and historical landmarks.
The Monument – which is Grade II Listed and near to Wilberforce’s birthplace – was previously lit, but a more robust and weatherised colour-changing LED solution that would offer sustainable, cost-effective, and flexible options was needed.
It was important that the new lighting could be integrated and co-ordinated
featured content

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 - To provide Barrington Stage Company’s (BSC) production of A Crossing: A Dance Musical with versatile lighting that elevated the show’s lively music and energetic choreography, lighting designer Jason Lyons selected a range of Martin Professional lighting solutions, provided in part by Christie Lites.
Founded in 1995, BSC is a non-profit theatre company that is dedicated to developing original and compelling works by diverse voices, such as the Tony Award-winning The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee among many other productions. A Crossing: A Dance Musical, created in association with Calpulli Mexican Dance Company follows a group of migrants on their journey across the US-Mexican border.
As the play covers raw and relevant topics like immigration, sanctuary, fear and hope using little to no spoken dialogue, the production required

Austria - Platinum recording stars Christopher Seiler and Bernhard Speer tell stories of everyday life, offering philosophical observations of situations that everyone has experienced at one time or another.
Helping to turn the pages of these musical tales with supportive visuals is the duo’s lighting designer Niklas Fuchs who began lighting Seiler und Speer, using a ChamSys MagicQ MQ100 Pro, in 2015 when they released their inaugural album. His first show with them was at a small (750-capacity) club in the Alpine resort region of Tyrol, a far cry from their more recent appearances, where fans are counted in the tens of thousands, and TV audiences in the millions.
Through all the growth and changes, however, Fuchs has maintained a sense of spontaneity in running lights for his clients, which is in keeping with their own approach to music. “I don’t use timecodes

USA - Richmond, Virginia-based Lite-Tek Entertainment, a lighting rental and production company, supplied Claypaky Sharpy Plus fixtures to the recently wrapped fall tour of Gary Clark Jr., best-known for his fusion of blues, rock and soul music with elements of hip hop.
Clark kicked off the tour in late August in Austin and played dates across the west, southeast and northeast before a final stop in New Orleans on 17 November. Lite-Tek provided the floor lighting package for the entire tour and added a flown package in select cities. John Adamo is the lighting director for Clark; he has worked with the artist since Clark’s fall 2018 tour.
“We bought the first Sharpy Plus fixtures in North America almost three years ago,” says Lite-Tek owner, Darren Lewis. “Since then, we’ve tripled our inventory and are still running out - every one we own was out last week.

UK - White Light (WL) has joined d&b solutions, a service-focused business offering end-to-end expertise in the areas of project development, manufacturing, system planning, installation and maintenance.
The move has been described as a “natural next step” for WL, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary (see more on this story in LSi December, out now), and will strengthen the development of the company’s production and venues solutions. One particular area of focus for d&b solutions is WL’s SmartStage technology, which, in combination with d&b’s Soundscape immersive audio platform, is set to “open new market potential for immersive audiovisual, lighting and media solutions”.

USA - Responding to requests from riggers across the globe for additional time, the comment period on the International Code of Practice for Entertainment Rigging has been extended to 31 December 2021.
Copies of the current version of ICOPER and the Excel form for submitting comments can be downloaded from www.esta.org/icoper. You can also email icoper@esta.org to request a form be emailed to you. Completed comment forms should be emailed to icoper@esta.org.
ICOPER has been downloaded by over 1,100 people located in 59 different countries. It has been translated into Traditional Chinese and Polish, with additional translations underway in Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Romanian, and Russian. Comments on translated versions should be sent to the organization responsible for the

Poland - LightsOn, a lighting design and rental company based in Warsaw, relies on an FLX S24 lighting console from Zero 88 to run a full schedule of spectacular event lighting.
LightsOn owner, Lukasz Brylski, and his team supply creative lightshows for bands, DJs, smaller concerts, cultural and corporate events, weddings, and parties, with a constantly busy schedule of three or four events per week. They are fully booked with shows and events for the rest of the year, as the industry recovers from the pandemic shut down. A typical lighting set up will feature around 20 fixtures, including moving lights and LED sources, all run on the Zero 88 FLX S24.
Lukasz likes many FLX S24 features, starting with its ease of use and logicality. “I can design and plan the show, then set up the console exactly as I like,” he stated. One of the many FLX S24 features he finds mos

USA - Chris Stapleton’s All-American Road Show is back with a stage design featuring 400 VL800 Eventpar luminaires from Vari-Lite, supplied by concert touring specialists Premier Global Production.
Taking conceptual direction from Stapleton himself, creative director Becky Fluke and lighting designer Calvin ‘Mac’ Mosier created film-like lighting, centred around a wall of light, which comprises 388 VL800 Eventpar RGBA and 12 VL800 Eventpar WW.
Mac, who has previously worked with Prince, Tina Turner, Madonna, Lady Gaga and James Taylor, explains: “When I first saw the VL800 back in 2019, I thought it was great, so I got one and showed it to Chris and Becky and they both loved it, particularly the colours it produces. Soon after that, Chris came up with the wall of light idea.”
The show design, which uses lighting and video in the most integrated way Mac

Israel - Named after Frank Zappa and founded in 2004, Israel’s Zappa Group is a live show chain of clubs with an ethos of respect for music, musicians and listeners. From its first venue in Tel Aviv, it has grown to include clubs and outdoor venues in Herzliya, Jerusalem, Haifa ,Beer Sheba, Zappa Amphi Shuni and Zappa live Park, and hosts top Israeli and international music acts.
Following a change of ownership, a new technical manager was appointed to supervise the venues and raise their technical standards. Having worked as technical producer on large-scale concerts, he recognised their ubiquitous use of DiGiCo consoles. This prompted the start of a major move for all Zappa venues to install DiGiCo.
Supplied by Israeli distribution company, Gidron Levitan, the main Tel Aviv venue now boasts a DiGiCo Quantum 338, with Herzliya and Haifa upgrading to Quantum 225s, an

Switzerland - In creating his evocative looks for the nine-hour presentation of Goethe’s Faust at the Goetheanum School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, Klaus Suppan drew on the colour rendering and performance features of seven Chauvet Professional Maverick Silens 2 Profile fixtures that were recently added to the theatre’s lighting system.
With the new staging of Faust characterized by a simple stage design with clear, minimal lines; light was consciously selected as the main tool with which to draw emphasis upon various scenic elements. Because the stage design only suggests the respective situations and locations, Suppan deftly used light to outline entities of shape and form - a technique that was greatly aided by the framing-shutter mode of his profile fixtures.
"My professional colleagues and the directors of this Faust production were t

Belarus - For over a decade, Minsk Arena has been the epicentre for all things sports and culture in the Belarus capital. The venue’s main space is an ice arena dedicated to hockey and skating which can also be converted to host other sports events, as well as concerts, conferences, and forums
Minsk Arena hosts some of the most notable sports tournaments, including IIHF World Championship and SU World Junior Figure Skating Championships, as well as musicians like Elton John, Sting, and Shakira. In September this year, the facility completed a large-scale renovation which included a tour-grade audio system from L-Acoustics, installed by BelCultProject.
Known for its contemporary design, Minsk Arena also prides itself on implementing the latest technology, including being the first arena to install a cable roof system capable of withstanding loads of up to 120 tonnes,

UK - Between April and August, Foals played a number of festival shows, which saw live engineer Nigel Pepper using a Yamaha Rivage PM7 digital mixing system for the first time. Supplied by Adlib, the experience was so positive that he has already specified it for the band’s 2022 UK and European shows.
“I had reached the point where I was ready to change from the system I was using,” he says. “On paper the Rivage PM series seemed attractive and the specifications would fit my workflow. I tried different systems, which included using Rivage PM7 in rehearsals, and quickly found it was the one for me. It really fitted the way my brain works.”
Nigel was introduced to Yamaha’s Tom Rundle, who visited Foals production rehearsals and talked Nigel through the system.
“I wanted to really see what I could get from it and make sure I wasn’t missing anything,

USA - UK-based Audiologic has announced its collaboration with Technically Creative, to deliver an immersive experience at the Harry Potter Flagship Store, New York.
Technically Creative, specialists in creating immersive audio-visual solutions, worked together with Audiologic to deliver an exciting brief to bring to life the magic of Harry Potter, in an immersive in-store experience. The experience store is billed as 21,000sq.ft of magic, housing the world’s largest collection of Harry Potter merchandise.
The main aim of the project was to deliver a store-wide sound system with visuals and special effects. Due to differing styles of room and ceiling spaces, Technically Creative and Audiologic needed to be mindful of the carefully curated aesthetics adopted for visually discrete speakers.
The entire site is run on the Q-SYS ecosystem, namely the Core 110f pro

USA - SoundSwitch, the provider of DJ lighting control solutions, has announced the SoundSwitch Control One - a professional lighting controller and dual-universe DMX interface with extensive connectivity with DJ and DAW applications.
Control One is compatible with professional DJ platforms from Engine DJ, Serato DJ and Virtual DJ, making it easy to integrate the tool into existing set-ups. In addition, performers can automate synchronised light shows and add live lighting effects via Ableton Link or by manually tapping in the BPM on Control One.
Control One provides tactile control over all SoundSwitch performance features, including triggering colour and position overrides, cycling between banks of automated light shows (Autoloops) or triggering the strobe. There are customizable RGB performance pads, parameter knobs, and a touch strip to create the perfect ambience f

Freelancers in the Dark - The coronavirus lockdowns have had a major impact on theatre freelancers, leaving them pessimistic for the future, says the leader of a study. Dr Holly Maples, of the University of Essex. said the "stops and starts" of the lockdown prevented freelancers from being able to plan ahead. She said many did not know whether they would be able to carry on in their profession.
The first part of the report, called Freelancers in the Dark, found 72.4% of respondents felt more pessimistic about their future as a theatre freelancers. Dr Maples, a senior lecturer at the East 15 Acting School at the Colchester university, said: "The closures of theatres greatly affected people's ability to plan and to carry on with the work they had been doing. A lot of people were kind of left high and dry, both by the organizations they were working with [that] couldn't

Latest Issue. . .

Save
Cookies user preferences
We use cookies to ensure you to get the best experience on our website. If you decline the use of cookies, this website may not function as expected.
Accept all
Decline all
Analytics
Tools used to analyze the data to measure the effectiveness of a website and to understand how it works.
Google Analytics
Accept
Decline
Advertisement
If you accept, the ads on the page will be adapted to your preferences.
Google Ad
Accept
Decline