USA - After a storied career in the entertainment industry, ESTA’s membership manager, Frances Thompson, will be retiring at the end of 2021. For over two decades, she has been a vital force in the growth of the association and a galvanizing presence at trade shows and events.
In 1996, Frances was appointed to the ESTA Board of Directors, after being a part of the Business Resource Group for several years. She then served as manufacturer director until early 2000, when she was appointed as an affiliate director. Around 2001, Frances joined the ESTA staff and has since held several titles.
On her retirement, Frances remarked, “I will miss engaging with members and staff. We are irreverent, creative, resourceful, opinionated, and uproarious. But most of my family and f

USA - Electro-Voice is expanding its portfolio of sound solutions for stadiums and sports venues with the global introduction of the MTS series of full-range, high-output, long-throw, point-source loudspeaker systems. Each MTS model is equipped with four 15" woofers and dual coaxial mid/high frequency compression drivers.
The system is capable of generating more than 151 dB peak SPL with exact directivity for very-long-throw applications.
The MTS series includes 16 different models. These are based on two standard three-way configurations (MTS-4153) with 60° x 40° or 40° x 30° coverage, and two cardioid configurations (MTS-6154) that provide the same coverage patterns with enhanced low-frequency directional control. The 60° x 40° models can deliver extremely high SPLs: 151dB peak (music) and 154dB peak (speech) down to 55Hz at -10 dB; the 40 x 30 models are capab

USA - When Orlando’s Discovery Church set out to build a new main broadcast campus, the overriding goal was to create a space that was comfortable and inspiring for in-person worship but also technically optimized for streaming of Sunday services and other special events.
Audio was a critical component in achieving the technical goals, and a keystone element of the solution is a reinforcement system based around Meyer Sound Leopard line array loudspeakers.
“We were looking for a major step up from the aging point source system at our old broadcast campus,” says Zack Howes, technical director at the new Sand Lake campus. “We wanted a system with higher output and greater intelligibility, and also rider-friendly. We wanted to up our own game at weekend services but also be ready for high-profile special events.”
Long before “groundbreaking” on the new
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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 - Quay Light now owns several hundred Astera LED fixtures with the largest stock in Scotland, and Paul Bates, who has built a very successful career as a best boy in the film and television lighting sector, is now focusing full time on this business. He has been constantly busy throughout 2020 and 2021 as the pandemic has prompted a surge in demand for film, TV and video material.
Paul has enjoyed a successful career looking after the lighting needs and wishes of a host of leading DOPs and gaffers on set and on location, and for the last 10 years has owned an amount of innovative specialist lighting kit, carefully selected to help offer clients and their productions the best and most effective solutions.
The first Astera products that Paul purchased back in 2019 were a set of Titan tubes when he was best boy on TV drama The Nest with DOP Matt Gray. He saw Mat

Australia - When the family-owned Millett Group hospitality and tourism group opened Salty’s restaurant and bar, owner and operator Christian Millett wanted to create a venue that paid tribute to the history of surfing culture in Australia and Bondi Beach in particular.
Millett’s vision called for a more relaxed and fun environment with a serious PA system capable of handling it’s various audio needs. Millett turned to Pro Audio Video Technology (PAVT) who designed a custom audio system from Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) for the venue.
The Millett Group and PAVT have a long-standing history with EAW having installed EAW PA systems in the company’s various venues around the region for the past 10 years. “I have always been impressed with the quality and durability of EAW’s equipment,” says Millett. “Our venues operate seven days a week, year-round and our

USA - Laudio Technology recently outfitted the newly-opened Voodoo Bayou restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, with JBL Professional, Crown and BSS audio solutions.
Presented by True Grit Hospitality Group, the organisation behind the successful Calaveras Cantina, Voodoo Bayou serves southern Cajun cuisine and cocktails in a vibrant atmosphere reminiscent of classic Louisiana architecture. The restaurant consists of a main first-floor dining room with a bar and stage for live performances, as well as a mezzanine level with a second bar overlooking the main dining area. Voodoo Bayou required a sophisticated audio system with a simple, portable control interface.
To achieve this, Laudio Technology equipped the restaurant with an assortment of JBL loudspeakers powered by Crown amplifiers and a BSS signal processor with the HiQnet Motion Control app for convenient iP

Iceland - British rental house TSL Lighting is now offering a range of VL2600 Profile and VL2600 WASH luminaires from Vari-Lite to provide customers with a powerful LED workhorse.
The Basingstoke-based company brought in the VL2600s for global video game developer Riot Games’ League of Legends esports tournament in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Lighting designer for the event, Mat Stovall, collaborated with TSL Lighting’s Dom Sheerman to source an LED lighting package that would suit his needs – a reliable, powerful workhorse fixture that would give him powerful wash and profile capabilities with consistency in discharge for both the in-house crowd and the live-stream cameras.
“The VL2600s were fantastic - bright, lovely color rendition, great color temperature control. It's nice to have a new workhorse,” says Stovall.
“This is the first time TSL Lighting
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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.

Germany - Waldbühne Rügen enchants visitors before a performance even begins on its stage. Nestled in the thickly wooded rolling hills on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, it creates a magical setting for fans to enjoy a diverse range of acts, from electronic music’s Thomas Lizzara and Pretty Pink, and rockers like Torfrock, to an array of other shows that even includes musicals.
The venue itself also presents an impressive sight, with its semi-circle of ascending seats cupped around a rectangular covered stage, an arrangement that helps create a cozy feeling for artists and fans alike. This sense of intimacy is strengthened even more by the open area in front of the stage, where fans can gather to dance or simply get a better look at their favourite performers.
Contributing to the atmosphere at Waldbühne Rügen is a truss-mounted LED video wall that runs a

Austria - Austrian Audio has announced two new microphones that bring their studio-quality microphone experience and technology to new handheld vocal mics that are designed for live performance.
The OC707 is a rugged vocal microphone with a die-cast body and true condenser technology for superior sound on stage. Developed and built in Vienna, the OC707 contains a small-diaphragm condenser capsule with a frequency response optimized for the human voice. The capsule is handmade in Austrian Audio’s facilities in Vienna. Its combination of low self-noise (19 dB SPL) and high sound pressure level (150 dB SPL) results in an impressive dynamic range, creating a vocal microphone that has all the important characteristics of a studio mic but can withstand the rigors of everyday stage use.
The OD505 is an active dynamic microphone that combines the advantages of a dynamic st

UK - ‘Sorry, was trying to find the mute button’ is a phrase heard all too often in meetings when users are unsure if the mute button is on the screen or microphone. To help resolve this persistent frustration, Shure is introducing its Microflex A400MB, a touch-sensitive Mute Button accessory that adds convenient audio mute functionality to the Microflex MX395-LED low-profile boundary microphones and MX405, MX410, and MX415 modular gooseneck microphones.
The A400MB installs like a washer between the microphone body and the table or lectern surface, hiding the circuitry underneath the surface. The mute function is easily programmed with onboard switches to provide complete flexibility and can be configured as momentary (push-to-talk or push-to-mute) or toggled (push-on, push-off). The A400MB Mute Button includes local mode as well as remote mode, making it easier for use

Japan - Berry Goodman’s Wedding Tour 2021 saw the one-man show visit wedding halls across Japan; these were seen as the appropriate settings for the release of his latest love song, There Can Be No Other Life. The plan was to move around 13 prefectures in a one-box van, loaded with musical instruments and PA equipment.
Therefore, the artist’s production management office, Arigato Music, set out to purchase a small PA, both for this purpose and for use as their own equipment.
The criteria, was that the PA rig needed to be easy to carry and fast to set up in any venue, so that Goodman could go live immediately. Since it also had to take into account the space constraints of each venue, a self-powered loudspeaker system, which displayed great sound quality, was the obvious solution. After reviewing their options, Martin Audio's Blackline XP12 was chosen.

USA - To accommodate the MTV Movie and TV Awards’ stage layout and the inherent acoustical challenges of the venue, ATK Audiotek creatively implemented JBL Professional loudspeakers to provide clear audio and even coverage.
After having no show in 2020, the MTV Movie and TV Awards welcomed a small audience back to the Hollywood Palladium for its 29th edition this past May. Hosted by comedian Leslie Jones, this year’s show featured an intimate, lounge-style layout, with the stage branching out to a centre platform surrounded by the 50-person audience.
With Snoop Dogg as the DJ and sole musical act, the show primarily consisted of speeches and film clips, which required a versatile sound system with high dynamic range. However, the venue’s shape, low ceiling height and unusual stage layout created the potential for acoustical issues and left minimal room for speak

USA - An outdoor event in New York City in July has to be prepared for all weather contingencies. When lighting designer, Bob Barnhart of 22 Degrees, was hired by BTW Productions to light the 2021 ESPY Awards show on the The Rooftop at Pier 17 at the Seaport, he chose Ayrton Perseo fixtures to comprise the bulk of the lighting rig.
Perseo is an LED moving head profile whose IP65 enclosure rating makes it a suitable choice for outdoor use. Ayrton lighting fixtures are distributed exclusively in North America by ACT Entertainment.
The 2021 ESPYs presented by Capitol One celebrated the best players, moments, coaches and games in sports. Actor Anthony Mackie hosted the 29th annual ceremony, which was broadcast live on ABC and aired later on ESPN and ESPN2. The in-person show followed last year’s virtual taped event during one of the peaks of the coronavirus pandemic.

USA - In 2018, the historic Rialto Theatre in Loveland, Colorado chose an Alcons Audio LR7 pro-ribbon micro line array system to deliver audio, while preserving the ambience of its protected 1920s decor. At the time its existing subwoofers had to be used, but the theatre has now been upgraded with Alcons subwoofers, bringing the audio system to its full potential.
Since 1996 the restored Rialto has thrived as a combined movie house, live arts venue, and community centre. When the city-owned venue’s sound reinforcement system was updated three years ago, it was a challenge to find a system which could deliver powerful, high-quality sound in a space with a lot of hard, flat surfaces. Not only that, but it now hosted a much broader range of events than the venue was designed for.
The solution was an Alcons system comprising eight 6.5” LR7/90 micro line array modules p

USA - After a long period of hiatus and cancellations, concerts, productions and performances are starting to ramp back up as both artists and patrons slowly venture back into the world.
As Sound Image was preparing to stage the weekend-long WE Fest country music festival, at the Soo Pass Ranch in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, they turned to Optocore to simplify the show’s signal distribution and implemented a pair of Optocore Festival Boxes to create a format agnostic fibre tunnel for all the guest acts.
When he began to put the show together, Sound Image system engineer, Timothy ‘Ziggy’ Ziegler, elected to deploy one of Sound Image’s fibre PA drive systems that’s based on a set of Optocore X6R-FX units, used to distribute both AES and LAN.
The X6R at FOH, configured to accept 16 AES inputs, sends digital audio over redundant fiber optic cables to the dr

UK - The Doctor Who canon has recently become the basis for one of London’s most talked-about new immersive experiences, Doctor Who: Time Fracture (see LSi July 2021 for a full production report).
Chief creative officer for the project (and producer at Immersive Everywhere), Brian Hook, has been on board since the first meetings with the BBC nearly two years ago, and continues with the production to this day.
“My team generated the brief for the show, which was to create a Doctor Who experience unlike any other,” he said. “Eventually, that took the form of immersive theatre that placed the audience in the beating heart of the story.”
As well as finding the right creative teams to

USA - L-Acoustics Creations has appointed Mike Sumner to the position of business manager, based in L-Acoustics Americas headquarters in Westlake Village, California.
In this newly created role, Sumner spearheads the growth of the L-Acoustics Creations brand throughout the United States and Canada, reporting to L-Acoustics Creations global business manager Nick Fichte, based in London, UK. Sumner’s remit includes exploring new business opportunities, developing sales targets and strategies, gathering and sharing market intelligence, building and supporting the brand’s Certified Integrator network, and collaborating with the manufacturer’s application and communications teams, among other duties.
Sumner brings over a decade of experience in residential audio to L-Acoustics Creations. He spent nearly eight years with Harman International’s Luxury Audio/Lifestyle

USA - Strand has announced the Acclaim LED Series, a complete range of theatrical luminaires designed for use in education theatre spaces, community stages, and small houses of worship.
“For over 25 years, the name Acclaim set the standard worldwide for 500W/650W theatrical luminaires,” states Martin Palmer, senior product manager, Vari-Lite and Strand Luminaires at Signify. “This new family of luminaires carries on that tradition, drawing on over a hundred years of theatrical lighting expertise to give maximum performance for small to mid-sized theatrical stages and studio spaces.”
The Strand Acclaim LED Series includes both a zoomspot and a profile light engine, as well as a true theatrical Fresnel and a cyclorama luminaire. Thanks to a custom LED multi-spectral light source, the Acclaim LED Series offers a consistent, high-quality experience throughout the r

USA - When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, television and radio stations across the country scrambled to find ways to keep delivering the news while maintaining the health and safety of its employees.
For Philadelphia’s NBC10 WCAU, that meant having their staff work from home. With this change in location, the station’s legendary meteorologist, Bill Henley, had to find an audio solution capable of delivering studio quality sound for his much-needed weather reports. Henley found the solution he needed for live weather broadcasts in the 6060 CORE Subminiature Lavalier and MMA-A Digital Audio Interface from DPA Microphones.
As vaccinations became readily available and the country began to return to some semblance of normalcy, Henley was eager to find out how his DPA gear would perform back in the studio setting. “I was excited to get back into the studio and see my cowor

Indonesia - To provide premium sound for the performing arts, PT Inti Megah Swara recently equipped British School Jakarta’s theatre with a comprehensive array of Harman Professional audio solutions.
Established by the British Embassy in 1973, the British School Jakarta (BSJ) is an international school in Greater Jakarta that educates children from around the world. Because the performing arts are an important part of the school’s culture, BSJ required a dedicated audio system for its theatre. BSJ hired PT Inti Megah Swara (IMS) to install a complete Harman Professional Solutions sound reinforcement system.
For sound reinforcement in the school’s main theatre, IMS outfitted the left and right sides of the stage with JBL JRX215 loudspeakers. IMS equipped the stage with JBL IRX112BT powered speakers to provide clear and accurate monitoring for performers. Additiona

The Netherlands - A technical upgrade at the Chassé Theater in Breda sees the installation of 12 x Zero 88 Chilli Pro 24x16A Bypass dimmers and five Zero 88 Chilli Pro 6x25A dimmers in Jupilerzaal, the venue’s main auditorium where they will be controlling approximately 309 channels of lighting and LED fixtures, including some moving lights as needed / specified by the production.
The venue is one of the Netherlands’ largest venues, with a total of three auditoriums and three cinema spaces, mostly a receiving house – anything from music and bands to drama and dance plus amateur and semi-pro performances as well as corporate and private events and conferences, so a truly ‘multi-purpose’ space that is also a diverse cultural melting pot.
The Chassé Theater also stages some of its own productions, and a typical (pre-pandemic) year would see around 350 live p

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