Sweden - The home stadium of Sweden’s most highly decorated professional football team, Malmö FF, has been renowned for its modern, world-class design since it was built in 2009 at the cost of €79.7m. Staying firmly on the technology curve, the venue decided it was time to upgrade the stadium’s audio system, specifying a bespoke design from, L-Acoustics, based around its A Series product line.
“The refit came about when the stadium started to have problems with its fire alarm system, which is integral to the sound system,” explains Ola Bigélius, project manager at Creative Technology Sweden, who was appointed to lead the installation. “The technical team had been considering upgrading the current audio system, which was the impetus they needed to proceed with the project.”
With an audience capacity of 22,500, Eleda Stadium is the third largest used by a

USA - Rising artist Riley Clemmons launched her first headlining tour with a lighting system provided by Bandit Lites. With over 210m global streams and 50m YouTube video views since the beginning of her almost decade long career, Clemmons’s ocals and touching lyrics have endeared her to millions of fans around the world. The First Christmas Tour is named for her hit Christmas song.
“Bandit had the opportunity to work with production manager Chris Newman and lighting director Dominic Hickman on a tour earlier in the fall, and on completion of that tour we were asked if we could continue on with Ms. Riley Clemmons on her Christmas tour,” said Bandit Lites vice president Mike Golden. “Chris and Dom have been outstanding to work with and they are very hands on in terms of production value, logistics and practicality.”
Lighting designer Dominic Hickman assemble

USA - The organisers of LDI have changed the dates of the 2023 event to avoid clashing with the Las Vegas Formula 1 Grand Prix.
Says the LDI, “Following a very successful LDI 2022 show in Las Vegas, we have listened to the feedback from our customers, attendees, vendors, and the Las Vegas Convention Centre and decided to move the dates for our 2023 event.
“Despite being a week earlier than the Formula 1 event that will be held in Las Vegas, we heard from our community on-site that the LDI 2023 original dates (mid-November) still raised concerns about the availability of hotels, cost of travel, and potential labour shortages. 
As a result, we are moving the dates further away from the Formula 1 event to ensure everybody has the best possible experience and we can hold another successful LDI event.”
The original show dates were 12-14 November 2023

USA - Phoenix, Arizona, the second driest city in the USA (only Las Vegas gets less precipitation) has gone as long as 160 days without rain; that happened back in 1972. The organisers of the inaugural Zona Music festival had no such luck. On 3 December, the day the festival opened, Mother Nature dropped .76 inches of rain down on the city, breaking a record that had stood for 115 years.
Yet, despite the unexpected downpour, a large crowd poured in to Margert T. Hance Park in the downtown district for the two-day festival, eager to take in performances by 50 different acts, headlined by Portugal The Man, Beach House, Bleachers, and Japanese Breakfast. Brightening the cloudy skies and reflecting the music of each artist in vivid colours were dynamic lightshows created on rigs designed by John Garberson and the team at Creative BackStage that featured over 100 Chauvet Professi

UK - Hillsong Church UK has chosen Shure’s Axient Digital wireless microphone system to power the sound of the singers in both theatre and arena sized venues.
Hillsong Church UK had a requirement for a reliable wireless microphone system that was versatile enough to be used at multiple locations, from theatres to arenas, whilst delivering professional and consistent sound.
Founded in 1983 in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia, Hillsong Church UK is a contemporary Christian church. It has churches in city centres in 28 countries around the world and an average global attendance of 150,000 weekly.
The church has been a customer of Solotech for almost 20 years. Phil Aitken, sales executive, Solotech comments: “When Ofcom implemented their licence change, Hillsong had to look at re-specifying all of their RF. It was at that point they chose Shure Axient D

Junior Eurovision - France has won this year's Junior Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Yerevan, Armenia. Thirteen-year-old Lissandro won with 203 points for his song Oh Maman! beating hosts Armenia in second place, Georgia third, and Ireland fourth. The United Kingdom came fifth overall with 146 points - although it did win the public vote. The UK's entrant, Freya Skye, performed live after suffering with vocal issues during rehearsals.
Rising Stars - R&B vocal harmony group Flo have won the Brits rising star award. The London-based trio only released their debut single, Cardboard Box, in March, but won instant praise for their retro-styled girl band sound. Formed in 2021, they comprise singers Stella Quaresma and Renée Downer, who met at the Sylvia Young Stage School, and Jorja Douglas, who they discovered on Instagram. The prize, formerly known

USA - Janes Addiction were out supporting the Smashing Pumpkins beneath a lighting rig of Elation Artiste Monet and DARTZ 360 LED moving heads designed, programmed and operated by Alex Picard. Lighting supply and support was from Legacy Production Group.
The Spirits on Fire tour, which started 2 October in Dallas, played arenas as the Smashing Pumpkins’ special guest openers. Alex got the call to start working on a design in early September, his first ever gig with Janes Addiction, which gave him little time until tour launch. Still, he dialed in the design “pretty quickly” and with great support from the Legacy crew, it all came together.
“When I got the call there was already a stage design and setup in play,” reports Alex, who says he was given a comprehensive rig from the Smashing Pumpkins to use - eight overhead trusses plus wash and hybrid fixtures on

USA - ‘Hard Rock Live is NOW OPEN!’ The all-caps exclamation on the website for the 2,500-seat venue at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sacramento at Fire Mountain is understandable. The resort opened in 2019, but work on the entertainment facility was stumped for nearly three years by the pandemic and constant supply-chain problems.
In the wake of a debut performance by Maroon 5 this summer, Hard Rock Live is now poised to be the region's premier concert destination, with Live Nation serving as its exclusive talent booking agency. And the space is also positioned to host a multitude of other events - meetings, trade shows, boxing, MMA, and charity events - all with a new L-Acoustics K2 sound system.
The new Hard Rock Live was designed with patrons in mind. However, with world-class design and integration vendors creating it - Montréal-based Scéno Plus did the audio

UK - Production Futures is an initiative created to provide opportunities for young people to learn, train, network, and develop real careers in production across every area of the live event, music, touring, theatre, TV, broadcast and film industries.
Having run a series of successful live events from its inception in 2016 to 2019, the organisation produced several equally popular online events during the pandemic, before returning in 2022 to forge new partnerships and deliver its nationwide On Tour programme.
Working with 47 brand partners and bringing to the table the wisdom of a number of acknowledged industry experts, Production Futures this year opened many more doors of opportunity for young people at its events. With a mission to inspire, teach and make real connections, the On Tour programme saw more than 1,800 young people visit venues across five UK cities a

USA - Based in Des Moines, Iowa, Conference Technologies Inc (CTI) recently completed a sound system integration at the nearby Grace Church -replacing the former PA, which had serviced their requirements for two decades, with the constant curvature technology of Martin Audio’s Torus array.
This is the latest of a progressive series of AVL upgrades at the church undertaken by CTI over the past 10 years and meets the high demands of a Southern Baptist church, whose lively worship ministry is based around bands, choirs and orchestras.
Led and overseen by worship pastor, Michael Hoskinson, the old PA, which had been in situ since the church opened, was providing inconsistent coverage across the 1200-seat fan-shaped auditorium and was clearly ready to be retired. “What we were looking for instead was a line array that would provide even coverage everywhere,” said the

Saudi Arabia - Christopher Bauder, founder and creative director of WHITEvoid, Berlin collaborated with musician and composer, Strahil Velchev, of KINK to produce a spectacular and original art installation of light and sound at the Noor Riyadh Festival 2022 in November.
Named Axion, the temporary large-scale light art piece is inspired by a hypothetical elementary particle which, if it exists, might be a component of dark matter which cosmologists believe makes up 95% of the universe. The dark matter theory describes how the universe went from a smooth initial state to the uneven distribution of galaxies and their clusters we see today.
Such an ambitious work called for a light with a big personality to achieve the necessary impact the design required, and Bauder chose 80 Ayrton Cobra fixtures, supplied by Kaiser Showtechnik of Augsberg, Germany, to define the paramet

UK - PSCo has announced a substantial expansion to its trade rental fleet with the addition of Barco Event Master image processing solutions for the live events market.
The move sees PSCo immediately offer range of image processing and screen control systems including the flagship E2 Gen 2 and S3 Tri-Combo 4K presentation systems, EC-50 event controller, and PDS-4K presentation switchers to enhance PSCo’s rental offering in the UK.
Trade partners will benefit from rental-ready trade hire packages across all Barco products, as well as access to Barco image processing demonstration facilities at Innovation House, PSCo’s experience centre in Bracknell. PSCo will also be stocking select items from the Event Master range for sales to support rental partners with time sensitive project opportunities.
Additionally, PSCo has added ImagePro-4K switcher scalers to bol

UAE - Creative Technology (CT) Middle East has made a major investment in Robe moving lights with the purchase of Fortes and LEDBeam 350s which join the company’s busy and expanding rental fleet at their Dubai HQ, servicing projects across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
Sam Connolly, head of lighting for CTME, explained that it was important to invest in Robe’s innovative technology for several reasons. While the company is well known for its full-service, they have recently expanded further into their lighting department, making huge investments in lighting fixtures to ensure they can be the number one service provider in the region. When Sam came onboard, he started looking for flexible and multifunctional luminaires that would offer immense value for CT’s diverse cross section of projects.
Sam highlights the concept similarities - maximum power and multiple

Germany - To celebrate 700 years since the 1322 consecration of the initial eastern part of Cologne’s impressive Gothic cathedral, German piano/electronic music duo Grandbrothers played a spectacular gig within its hallowed walls. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Cathedral’s 157m twin-spires are the tallest such styled church in the world, and it is Germany’s most popular visitor attraction.
Lighting designer Oskar Felix Funke chose a full MA Lighting grandMA3 control system to run lighting for this show that was recorded, both for a new album for later broadcast over the ARTE Concert network. The musical numbers were all specifically created by the artists - Lukas Vogel and Erol Sarp- to work optimally in the Cathedral setting, considering its vast size and acoustic nuisances like the very long reverb.
The performance was instigated by and the brainchild of the

USA - Dean Mattson mixes FOH for progressive rock pioneers Yes and is currently out with them as they celebrate the 50th anniversary of their seminal Close to the Edge album with an extensive tour.
The production recently visited the historic Warner Theatre, just a couple of blocks from the White House in Washington DC, where the house system is an Outline Butterfly rig.
Dean comments: “I've used the Butterfly system in the Warner a few times now and it always sounds great. Ishai [Ratz, the house sound engineer] has that rig singing like a classic Sinatra song. He was a big help in making sure I utilised the system in a most efficient way and those new subs they installed are nice. Gives the system a little more thump without becoming boomy.”
Mixing such a well-known album and especially for audiences that know the music intimately can be a real challeng

USA - Mesa Community College Arizona’s 462-seater Performing Arts Centre held its first full production in November 2022 using an upgraded rig of Vari-Lite LED luminaires from Signify. Dominating the new array of lighting fixtures were the VL2600 Profile, VL800 EventWash and VL800 ProPar, which have dramatically reduced power consumption at the centre and provided smooth, rich colours for a premiere run of The Addams Family musical.

The college’s modern, architecturally striking Performing Arts Centre, located just east of Phoenix, opened in 2014. It was initially rigged with a range of traditional Fresnels, pars and tungsten wash and profile fixtures, which were ageing and power hungry. Kyle Rivieccio joined Mesa Community College in 2019 as PAC technology coordinator/master electrician, and he was later tasked with delivering a lighting rig

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Germany - Started in 2002 as a football tournament involving medical schools and facilities at a group of German universities, the MediMeisterschaften, on the airstrip of Obermehler-Schlotheim Airport, has grown into a major music and sports festival, attracting up to 30,000 visitors from throughout Europe. University football is still played at the four-day festival (Cologne Pes Piller and Tuebingen were the mens and womens champions respectively this year), and there are many other activities too, but much of the time at this event is devoted to enjoying electronic music in a variety of forms, with plenty of dancing.

Capturing the spirit of the music on the main stages and adding more energy to its performance was a production and lighting design by Materie Event Production, which has been the main contractor for the festival’s entire technical planning and implem

USA - Meyer Sound has announced an aggressive rebooting of its education programme, with a full agenda of workshops and training sessions scheduled at the Berkeley headquarters as well as at other locations in the US and overseas, and the formation of partnerships with leading educational institutions.

Many of the sessions will be led by two long-time fixtures in the company’s education programme, director of system optimisation Bob McCarthy, and senior technical seminar instructor Mauricio ‘Magu’ Ramirez, with this duo now joined by another of the pro sound industry’s leading educators, senior technical support and education specialist Merlijn Van Veen.

Meyer Sound also has announced new and extended renewal partnerships, most notably with Full Sail University in Florida, The University of California, Irvine (UCI) in California, and the Universit

Europe - The ESD range of two-way and three-way passive loudspeakers from KV2 offers a wide variety of loudspeaker solutions ranging from the ultra-compact ESD Cube, suitable for peripheral reinforcement in bars, theatres, clubs, houses of worship, museums etc., right through to the powerful ESD15 and ESD36.
ESD15 is capable of acting as a standalone PA/monitor system due to its excellent bass response, whilst the ESD36 has found favour with AV rental and production companies as well as for the theatre and worship market as a powerful, full-range solution with excellent vocal intelligibility in a compact format. KV2 has now extended the range with the addition of the ESD8, which slots neatly between the existing ESD6 and ESD10.
As its name suggests, the ESD8 is a compact passive 2-way, high output full-range loudspeaker incorporating an 8" trans-coil woofer and a 1" co

USA - River Oak Church started as an offshoot from another church around 20 years ago in a school auditorium. They were soon able to start a multi part building project, first building a gymnatorium, and later offices and classrooms. In 2020, the growing church broke ground on a new, purpose-built facility in Chesapeake, Virginia, to house their burgeoning ministry.
When Justin Fugett was tapped to help bring River Oak Church’s new facility to life in 2021, he understood the importance of the intercom system from his experience as a freelancer working with local broadcast organisations and universities. River Oak was looking into getting wireless beltpacks to add to their system and Justin decided that Clear-Com’s Arcadia was the right fit for the church.
“Honestly, I feel like every church needs to know about Arcadia – it’s the absolute perfect fit for so ma

USA - One of the highlights of New York’s holiday season is the unveiling of the seasonal windows at the City’s Bloomingdale’s department store.
Providing the sound for the opening show which marks the occasion and sees crowds thronging the streets on the corner of 59th Street and Lexington Avenue in midtown Manhattan, is Frost Productions. The service company’s association with Bloomingdale’s extends back to 2016, but this year the store upped the ante, featuring Billy Porter and a full five-piece band, spread across a 40ft stage set in front of four of the feature windows.
Bloomingdale’s theme for its flagship store this year was Best Holiday Ever and Frost Productions’ team leader, Mike Alvarez, had no hesitation in specifying a Martin Audio MLA Mini in four hangs for the 20-minute show, knowing they could get the sound exactly where they wanted for th

USA - Production company Platinum XP has staked its success on the ICLive X from Renkus-Heinz. ICLive X, the intelligent evolution of the small-format line array, is fast becoming a sound solution of choice for production professionals.
ICLive X (ICLX) is a complete system consisting of three combinable, steerable array modules and one matching subwoofer. Recently, Platinum XP deployed a system featuring 2 ICLXL digitally steerable loudspeakers and two ICLX-118S subwoofers for the Women’s Intersport Network (WIN) for KC Awards in Kansas City, Missouri, successfully covering more than one thousand guests in the 2,700sq.ft auditorium with clear, intelligible audio - all without having to fly speakers or adhere to strict sight lines.
“We’re not like other rental production companies, and ICLive X is unlike any loudspeaker system you would typically look at for this

Vietnam - 1 Sound, a recently launched loudspeaker manufacturer, has announced the hiring of two sales representative Leonardo Dani and Leonardo D’Andrea dedicated to setting up a distribution network in EMEA for the United States-based brand.
The company has appointed Sonos Libra Vietnam, Hanoi, to be the 1 Sound distributor in Vietnam. The showroom is fully equipped, showcasing 1 Sound’s Cannon Coaxial Series with installation subwoofers, like the MiniSUB5 and the discreet Floor Subwoofer, along with a Tower System.
Mr. Cuong and the Sonos Libra team started organising demonstrations for their area's companies immediately and have expressed their excitement about the future of audio with 1 Sound’s loudspeaker technology. “The audio market in Vietnam is growing fast, leading to consumer demand for high quality and good origin products. Personally, I feel that

France - The former 2,500-year-old fortress of Ensérune reopened its doors to the public in early July 2022 after two years of major renovation work. This historical site transformed into a museum once again to present a rich archaeological collection to the public in a completely redesigned scenography and lighting.
Scenographer Marion Lyonnais (Fakestorybird) imagined an immersive journey as one would stage a show.
Lighting designer Jean-Noël Cordonnier from Lights and Design chose the Prolights EclMiniProfile LED spotlights with 19, 26, 36 and 50° lenses to light up the exhibits. “The lighting is an active part of the scenography: the combination of several colour temperatures, or the choice not to illuminate the whole object,” said Cordonnier. “The EclMiniProfile was the perfect fit for us thanks to its 28W Cree LED, the choice of two-colour temperatures

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