UK - Aurora Lighting provides all the ingredients for lighting director Oli Richards at The Great British Bake Off - An Extra Slice.

Following the success of the BBC phenomenon that is The Great British Bake Off, Jo Brand has been welcoming a panel of guests each week to enjoy cake related discussion.

Filmed with Love Productions in front of a live audience at The London Studios, An Extra Slice reflects on the week's baking, with guest interviews with departing contestants, behind the scenes clips and a selection of audience based cake related triumphs and disasters.

To help lighten up the serving, Aurora has provided LD Oli Richards with an array of Martin Auras and Viper Performances which are kept fresh by moving light operator David Francis and tech Si

UK - On its initial release in 1994, The Shawkshank Redemption achieved critical acclaim and is still considered by many to be a movie great. Now, on the film's 21st anniversary, production company Bill Kenwright Ltd is touring a theatrical version of the show across the UK. White Light was called upon to supply the lighting support for the production.

The play has opened in Windsor and will begin its UK tour next week, visiting venues in Leeds, Brighton, Richmond, Birmingham, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Norwich, Cheltenham, Woking, Milton Keynes and Cardiff.

Starring television's Ian Kelsey and Patrick Robinson, The Shawshank Redemption tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a man serving a life sentence in the notorious Shawshank prison. Realising he cannot survive life behind bars, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with prison fixer Red and soon begins to hatch a plan

Italy - The 58,000 capacity Stadio San Nicola in Bari recently played host to a much anticipated Vasco Rossi rock concert, organised by Live Nation Italy.

To ensure everything possible was done to guarantee the safety of the structure, Colin Luke,senior project manager at Oswestry-based Load Cell Rental, was asked to supply a way of monitoring the stage weights during the build.

Following conversations with the event organisers, Load Cell Rental supplied a 20 cell BroadWeigh system. Colin said, "Following a spate of high profile events where temporary stages have collapsed, it was vital to leave no stone unturned in order to ensure the concert made the headlines for only the right reasons. No respectable concert organiser can afford to ignore the loadings on temporary structures and the BroadWeigh system is the perfect tool for the job."

The BroadWeigh load monitor

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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.

Australia - Sydney's famous Tank Stream provided quite a challenge when two companies joined forces to create a staging solution for one of the city's major hotels. The fresh water supply for the colony of Sydney in its earliest days is contained in a bulkhead, which runs directly over the ballroom of the Westin Hotel in the centre of the city.

It was one of the issues that had to be considered when Jands Venue Engineering (JVE) and event AV services provider, Staging Connections, put their skills together to engineer a faster, safer and more efficient staging management system for the hotel. One of the biggest challenges faced by JVE and Staging Connections was the installation - it had to fit in with existing hotel commitments, to make sure all the rooms involved were empty, and it couldn't be done at night, with the risk guests could be woken by the drilling.

Working in fav

UK - Following the successful launch of the Festival Supplier Awards in October 2014, organiser AMP Events has confirmed that they will return for a second outing on 28 January 2016. The celebration dinner and awards ceremony will be held at London's The Hurlingham Club.

Paul Allott, commercial director of AMP Events commented, "We're delighted to confirm that the Festival Supplier Awards will return in January 2016 and that they will be held in London. The feedback from the inaugural awards was tremendous, everyone had a great evening and really enjoyed being part of the event. We want to build on that success and we firmly believe that bringing the industry together at the beginning of the year is a great way to achieve this.

"The festival industry in the UK continues to develop and has a much broader remit than music alone - food, sport, hobbies and culture all pl

World - Everything about the AC/DC Rock or Bust Tour 2015 is big with a capital B, from the mega arenas across Europe and North America where the band played, to the fan interest (the group set a world record selling more than 300,000 tickets in 77 minutes at one German venue), to the beefy lighting design.

The Woodroffe Bassett Design rig called on a plethora of high-output discharge lamp moving fixtures, as well as a wide assortment of blinders, video panels and other fixtures to create an explosive lighting display that flooded even the largest venue with visual delights.

A batten fixture that measures 39.3" (998 M) can easily be swallowed by this lighting Goliath. However, that clearly - and colourfully -- wasn't the case with the COLORado Batten 144 Tour from Chauvet Professional. A dozen of the RGBWA LED linear fixtures were used in the rig for the iconic metal band

Estonia - Founded in 2007 as a sound and lighting rental, sales and installation company, Heliart's guiding principle as a full service provider was to deliver best quality service to every client.

The experience gained from daily rental work enabled them to undertake installations, while as a distributor "we have an input from the great technical support engineers of the manufacturers", according to owner Priit Kivimägi.

Among their suppliers is Powersoft, with whom they started working a little over a year ago, after placing an order for K Series amplifiers. They have gone further and invested in the Italian company's new X Series platform.

Kivimagi explains out how the relationship developed. "We had used another premier amplifier brand for a long time but had a chance to do a side-by-side comparison. Powersoft's wide model range covered our needs better a

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BikeFest Spain 2025 - Join the ride!

BikeFest Spain is set to return for its fourth consecutive year, inviting cyclists from across the industry to join the 360km ride towards ISE in Barcelona. From 31 January to 2 February 2025, riders will again rally in Valencia, cycling along the Mediterranean coast in support of industry causes.
For more information and to sign up, visit: www.joinbikefest.com

Korea Move - Slovenian band Laibach claim to be the first western rock group to play inside North Korea. Photographs seem to show that the audience at the Ponghwa Theatre was appreciative, if not completely sure of what to make of their concert last week. Laibach describe themselves as "a music and cross-media group" and are known for playing eclectic cover versions of famous songs. The songs were accompanied by images styled from North Korean propaganda posters projected on to a screen, with translations in Korean. The programme included a number of songs from The Sound of Music, including Edelweiss, Do-Re-Mi and The Hills Are Alive. The 1965 musical is one of the few western films people are allowed to watch in the secretive state.

Posthumous Hit - Cilla Black landed her first ever number one album, with her Very Best Of comp

Italy - Sound designer Mike Bedford from consulting engineers Hoare Lea called upon Out Board's Robin Whittaker and TiMax SoundHub for immersive live 3D audio spatialisation and playback for the UK Pavilion at this year's Milan World Expo. Running until October 31st, Milan's Expo is focussed on sustainability, technology and food, with its theme entitled "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life". The UK pavilion is designed to resemble a giant beehive at the centre of a wildflower meadow created by Nottingham-based artist Wolfgang Buttress with engineer Tristan Simmonds.

Visitors traverse the meadow via sunken pathways so that they experience the bees' natural environment at head-height, and end up in the 14 metre high abstract beehive structure which hosts a multi-sensory immersive experience. TiMax propels a constantly changing composition of music and bee sounds around

Poland - On 9 August 2015, the noted Polish rock band Skaldowie gave a major concert in the city of Gdów to celebrate their 50th anniversary. The national broadcasting corporation, TVP, organized the event and a live crowd of 15,000 attended the outdoor venue.

For the impressive stage setup, no less than 100 x SixPacks blinders and 50 x P-5 wash lights from SGM were integrated into the light design. Lighting designer, Sebastian Pachciarek, explains that he chose the P-5s due to their many advantages such as powerfulness and viewing angle. He used the SixPacks as wall LEDs, and for this purpose, he particularly emphasizes the ease of combining a large amount of fixtures. He then adds, "The fact that both types of fixtures are IP65-rated was quite important - especially for concerts under the cloud." He adds that both the P-5s and SixPacks performed flawlessly.

Pachci

Italy - Hoare Lea carried out the design of AV systems for the UK Pavilion at the World Expo 2015, which takes place in Milan from 1 May to 31 October 2015. With more than 140 countries represented and the theme of: 'Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life', Milan Expo 2015 is a platform for the exchange of ideas about food, stimulating creativity and promoting innovation for a sustainable future.

Under the title 'Grown in Britain & Northern Ireland', the UK's response is a stand-out Pavilion, designed by award-winning British artist Wolfgang Buttress. Inspired by pollination and by scientific research developed to monitor the health of beehives by physicist and bee expert Dr. Martin Bencsik, the UK Pavilion highlights the crucial role of pollination in our food supply, drawing attention to issues such as food security and biodiversity.

The UK Pavilion has been developed around th

USA - The legendary Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas recently upgraded several of its lounges and bars including what is now the new Vista Lounge, a unique immersive experience featuring the latest in video technology along with a sophisticated Martin Audio sound system.

SenovvA, an American-based design and management group specialising in the entertainment, special event, architectural-construction and media services industries, was tasked with the design and integration of this one-of-a-kind multimedia project.

Bill Sage, SenovvA Account Executive for the project, explains: "We worked with the Rockwell Architectural Group in New York and Bergman Walls and Associates in Las Vegas. They came up with this immersion concept for the Vista Lounge that makes you feel like you're at the top of a skyscraper looking out of the windows down at panoramic skylines of cities like Dubai,

Sri Lanka - When TV Derana, Sri Lanka's premier entertainment website channel, presented the seventh season of the talent programme, Little Star, in front of an invited audience at the giant Sugathadasha Indoor Stadium in Colombo, PR Lighting partner, The Lighthouse (Pvt) dressed the stage with a wide choice of the Chinese manufacturer's fixtures.

This included 24 x XS1200 Spot; 6 x XL1200 Spot; 40 x XR 200 Beam; 16 x XR 230; 4 x XR 330 and 40 pieces from the XLED Series. All were suspended from the lighting grid to create a dynamic visual right around the stadium.

According to lighting designer Dinusha (Chanaka) Perera these were ideal for TV with their fast response and quiet operation. Having successfully undergone camera tests for colour temperature etc they met all technical requirements.

While the powerful XS and XL Spot have become established fixtures in inven

USA - Constructed in 1964, UW-Stout's Johnson Fieldhouse has undergone numerous updates over time the most recent, a new audio system that depends almost exclusively on self-powered Tannoy VQNET loudspeakers for reinforcement of speech and music.

As the home of UW-Stout's men's and women's basketball, gymnastics and volleyball teams, the arena is primarily used for athletics, but it's also the site of the campus' annual commencement ceremonies and required an audio system to provide high intelligibility and even coverage regardless of whether the venue is set up for games, competitions, practice sessions, or commencement.

"The old system was installed roughly 25-years ago," says Lori Anda, Director, Recreation and Sports Complexes at UW-Stout, "but it wasn't efficient for events that weren't athletics. The speaker cluster was above the centre of the court so dur

Belgium - Back in the glam rock-ness of the 1970s, a small village in the middle of Belgium called Werchter decided to put on a one-day music festival. Over four decades on, Rock Wercher has become one of the largest events in the country's musical calendar. This year, it took a new direction, in terms of mixing console choice, with head of sound Patrick Demoustier making the decision for the house system to go completely digital with DiGiCo.

This was a milestone for the festival and Patrick Demoustier explains the reasoning behind making such a fundamental change. "We had talked a lot about moving Rock Werchter's house system from analogue to digital consoles and how we were going to do it," he says. "We didn't want to take any risks; if it went wrong and the experience was bad, our reputation would be bad too.

"We decided we could only do it using DiGiCo

UK - Launched in 2004 as an alternative to the established mainstream music festivals, Secret Garden Party is about music, people, places and stories coming together in the most hedonistic, magical, and out-of-this world experience one could ever hope for.

Originally created by Freddie Fellowes on his family's 6000-acre farm in Huntingdon, the festival has grown from a single stage, with a few thousand people, to around 32,000 spread over at least 15 stages.

This eclectic music and arts event surrounds a river and a lake (bearing a different eye popping sculpture each year) - and this year featured for the first time a Martin Audio MLA system on its premier stage (The Great Stage) - courtesy of Capital Sound.

Capital were introduced to the event five years ago to mitigate the site's historic sound problems and worked again alongside environmental sound specialists, CBA. The

China - Audinate has announced the opening of a new Asia-Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. The office will provide business development, technical sales and customer support in the greater Asia Pacific region.

The decision to open an Asia-Pacific headquarters was fuelled by the overall growth of the AV industry in Asia and the widespread adoption of Audinate's Dante media networking technology in the region. According to InfoComm, Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing market in the professional AV industry, and that holds true for Audinate as well. Audinate now has 44 Dante licensees in Asia, and 47% of those manufacturers have signed in just the last 12 months.

"This expansion reflects Audinate's success in this important market," states David Myers, COO of Audinate. "The new office will focus on business development and support activities for customers in China

Denmark - Rock band Volbeat's recent homecoming show broke records as the largest concert ever played in Denmark by a local act. With a Meyer Sound Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system, the show was heard by more than 37,000 in the Tusindarsskoven forest of Odense.

"I was blown away by the coverage," reports Mads Mikkelsen, long-time FOH engineer for Volbeat. "It's great to know that fans in the back hear the same thing as I do when mixing the show. That's really what I'm aiming for. The band should translate perfectly to every corner of the audience, and the last seat in the house should enjoy the same feeling that I get when I hear the guitars kick in."

Providing pristine coverage across the 160m deep audience area, the main system arrays comprised 14 Leo-M, two LyonN-M main, and two Lyon-W wide-coverage line array loudspeakers each. Two arra

USA - On seeing the Robe BMFL in action, Bandit placed a large fixture order. The results have spoken for themselves ever since as designer Seth Jackson took the first batch out on the Barry Manilow Farewell Tour. Alabama Shakes designer Rich Stembridge then jumped in and took a load with him, and soon legendary designer Candace Brightman and Paul Hoffman demanded 50 BMFLs be on the Grateful Dead's Fare Thee Well final concerts in Chicago.

Designer Chris Lisle ordered up a big batch for the new Miranda Lambert tour, and as popular as they are, several dozen were specified for the Firefly Festival in Dover, Delaware. Now, designer Dave Butzler has inserted 50 BMFL's on the current Garth Brooks world tour, a show that was already on the road. Dave saw them and had to have them, but he had to wait as demand outstripped supply.

The BMFL joins the current Bandit stock of other Robe

UK - In an effort to support the future growth and success of the live events industry, Production Resource Group (PRG) in the UK has announced its participation in the UK Government's Apprenticeship Trailblazer scheme.

The UK Government has committed to delivering three million apprenticeships by 2020, and is giving employers a greater say in designing high quality apprenticeships which meet the needs of their respective industries.

Trailblazer groups create the Standards which become the blueprints for apprenticeships.

PRG has taken the lead on the Standard for the new Live Event Technician apprenticeship, and has been supported by AdLib Solutions, Britannia Row Productions, Entec Sound & Light, Fineline Lighting, Hawthorn, HSL Group, LS Live, Neg Earth Lighting, Nitelites, Skan PA, SSE Audio, XL Video, Wigwam Acoustics, and White Light in creating the Standards for this n

UK - Since launching in 2010 Rigging Team has gone from strength to strength. To continue to build on this, its new Stevenage office will be fully operational from September 2015.

"Rigging Team has outgrown our current locations and it's now time to gather together under one roof," says operations manager Claire Gilligan, who has the task of coordinating the move. "It's not often companies get the luxury of a blank slate when it comes to organising warehouse space, the Stevenage office and warehouse has come at just the right time for us."

Director Adam Searle comments, "Our new premises will allow us to better serve our clients with increased storage and prep areas as well as dedicated test & inspection facilities. The location has excellent road and rail links giving easy access into London and around the UK."

The new address is: Unit 16 Gunne

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