USA - When ESTA learned it would be losing a long-term source of revenue, the association faced the loss of almost a third of its income in 2017. The immediate impact of this is to endanger the survival of ESTA's ANSI-accredited Technical Standards Program (TSP). The ramifications of this would be enormous to the entertainment technology industry. Upon hearing of the situation, Ford Sellers, senior product manager at Chauvet Lighting, commented, "The work that is done by the TSP is indispensable. It is central to our industry...In fact, it is what makes us an industry, instead of just a bunch of individual projects."

The rallying cry went out from the volunteer leadership of ESTA and members of the Technical Standards Program, "Everyone in the industry benefits from the TSP and everyone needs to step forward and fund this critical program to keep it alive." The standards creat

Europe - Intellitix, global RFID cashless payment and access control specialist, has acquired a controlling stake in Netherlands based LOC Pay Systems.

LOC Pay Systems supplied 200 festivals and venues across Europe in 2016 with its token-based payment system and will continue to operate from its head office in Lochem, Netherlands, retaining its 13 full time employees under the management of CEO Roland Wassink.

Intellitix has grown organically to date, aiming to provide cashless RFID environment to 500 events in 2017. The acquisition of LOC Pay Systems, which until 2015 was a division of LOC 7000, marks the first time Intellitix has expanded by acquisition.

Serge Grimaux, Intellitix CEO states, "There is a great synergy between our companies in our approach to delivering the best possible, practicable Access Control and Payment Systems to events. The acquisition of LOC

Going La La - Hollywood musical La La Land has broken the record for the most Golden Globe Awards, winning seven prizes. It won every award it was nominated for - including best musical or comedy film, best director, screenplay, score and song.

The ceremony featured several references to Mr Trump - not least when Meryl Streep launched an attack on the US President-elect while accepting the Cecil B Demille award for outstanding contribution to entertainment. Streep referred to Trump's mocking of a disabled reporter and said, "Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose." The Golden Globe Awards, which are run by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, honour the best in TV and film from the past year.

With or Without You - U2 will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their seminal

UK - Award-winning technical event production company Hawthorn has recorded a 25% increase in turnover to £18m in its last financial year (July 2015-June 2016).

Since the acquisition of technical production house Anagram in 2013, the company has embarked upon an ambitious five-year growth plan to increase its turnover from £11.3m to £20m by July 2018. Hawthorn is on track to achieve this in 2017 - its 30th anniversary year - one year ahead of target.

To support this growth, the company has seen a significant investment in its people and training, with a 16% increase in employees, rising from 129 in June 2013 to 162 in June 2016; by 7 December 2016, the employee count had already risen to 187.

Key factors contributing to the company's continued expansion since 2013, says the company, include:

Investment in the in-house sales and marketing team and

USA - Point Source Audio (PSA) an audio equipment manufacturer specializing in the development of miniature microphones and headsets has completed its move into a new corporate headquarters in Petaluma, California. The new office will be just a mile away from the previous location, but is 50 percent larger and offers a more efficient layout to support the company's administrative and operational functions as well as product development, sales and marketing, and assembly staff.

The move comes as a result of the company's "phenomenal growth" attributed to the adoption of its miniature performance microphones and audio headsets. In 2016, the company celebrated its 10th year in business and also received a granted patent for design of the world's first modular in-ear audio headset known as the CM-i3.

It currently has another innovation, the customizable fitted Embrace Micropho

UK - Software provider Stardraw.com has announced 2016 to have been the company's best year ever since its incorporation in 2000. The news follows the announcement last year that 2015 had already been a record year for sales and usage stats of Stardraw.com's award-winning design and documentation software, Stardraw Design 7.2, and 2016 has been better still.

"Obviously, we're delighted," said Stardraw.com CEO, Rob Robinson. "We had already recorded close to 25% growth during 2015, and we were up nearly another 20% again over the course of 2016. Our usage stats bear out the same story with an average of 10,000 sessions per month opened during 2016 which increased to a staggering 15,000 per month in 2016. That we should be enjoying this kind of growth in what has been a precarious year in so many other ways is particularly gratifying.

"There are doubtless a number of factors

Final Curtain - The curtain is coming down on the most celebrated circus in the US, the Greatest Show on Earth, run by Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey. After 146 years in the business, the owners said declining tickets sales and high operating costs were to blame. Activists who campaigned for decades against the travelling circus's animal acts welcomed the news.

"After much evaluation and deliberation, my family and I have made the difficult business decision that Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey will hold its final performances in May," said a statement from Kenneth Feld, CEO of Feld Entertainment, the family business which has run the circus since the late 1960s.

Sep Outside Love - A life-size bronze statue of Cilla Black has been unveiled outside Liverpool's Cavern Club as the venue celebrates its 60th anniversary. The club, credited with launching

UAE - When the touring version of the musical Les Misérables arrived at the newly opened Dubai Opera in November 2016, members of Showforce's experienced team of stage crew and event staff were on-hand to assist. Running from 17 November until 2 December, there were 18 performances in total and as the first show of its kind to be held in the UAE, it was hailed a huge success.

Working directly with the team at Dubai Opera, as part of its on-going contract with the venue, and long-standing client, Sports & Entertainment Solutions, the Showforce team supported the touring production throughout the load in, the three-week run of sell-out performances and subsequent load out.

Initially, a team of 10 crew members was tasked with the unloading of no less than 17 40-foot shipping containers, that had arrived in Dubai from Singapore, the previous stop on the tour. Dur

UK - Marking the company's ongoing growth, Symphotech has welcomed four event safety and fire safety professionals as the company looks forward to a busy year.

Chartered safety and health practitioner, Eddy Grant, joins the North West office as a legal and safety consultant. With over 30 years of industry experience, Eddy has worked with the Event Industry Forum and HSE to produce the new Purple Guide and has overseen health and safety on a variety of events including The London 2012 Summer Olympics, the Tour de France 2014, and was employed by Liverpool City Council to deliver the city's 2008 Capital of Culture programme.

Also joining the North West office is Graham Picken as safety consultant. A former member of Merseyside Police, Graham was part of the major events planning team and became lead logistics officer for Aintree Grand National Planning Teams and the lead pla

Forever Young - Petula Clark will make her UK festival debut at Fairport Convention's Cropredy Festival on Friday 11 August. "We're really proud to be the first British festival that Petula has played," says Fairport bassist and Cropredy co-organiser Dave Pegg. "I saw her show in Birmingham recently and it blew me away - she is a wonderful live performer. I was surprised how many of her hits I knew and her contemporary songs are really great too. Our audience will love her, I'm sure."

Also lined up for the Oxfordshire event is The Trevor Horn Band. The producer will front a 14-piece all-star band featuring fellow producers Steve Lipson and Lol Creme. The setlist will be packed with songs the trio have produced - between them they've had over 200 hit singles - and there may be guest appearances from some of the musicians they have worked with.

Dark Times Ahead - Gori

World Beater - The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has awarded Adele its global artist of the year prize in recognition of her "simply phenomenal" success. Adele's achievement is particularly notable as her third album 25 was not released until late November. It went on to become the fastest selling album in British history. It sold more than 800,000 copies in its first week and with the album kept off streaming sites, its chart success was entirely made up of physical and download sales.

The second biggest selling artist of 2015 was Ed Sheeran - despite him not releasing a studio album during the course of the year. The IFPI says its top 10 chart is the only music industry ranking to accurately capture the worldwide popularity of artists across physical formats, downloads and streams.

Early Bath - Coldplay played to an estimated

USA - Apollo Design Technology, Inc. has announced the appointment of Aaron Creps as a production technician. In this role, Creps is responsible for the assembly and testing of mechanical and electronic subassemblies and products including precision calibration. He will also provide technical assistance to internal personnel and customers.

"Aaron brings great technical skills and a strong mechanical background to the Apollo team," said Mr. Joel Nichols, president of Apollo Design. Prior to joining Apollo Design Technology, Creps worked at Fort Wayne Nissan in the service department. He holds a Technical Certificate from Universal Technical Institute. "I'm excited to join Apollo," said Creps. "It's a great opportunity to grow my mechanical and technical skills while working with a fun group of people."

(Jim Evans)

Germany/UK - Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. has announced the retirement of Paul Whiting, president of strategic collaborations. A familiar face in the audio industry, Paul leaves Sennheiser enjoying a much higher profile in the professional audio, consumer and integrated systems industries than it did when he joined the company more than 25 years ago.

Paul began his career with Sennheiser in 1990, after 15 years with former UK partner Hayden Laboratories, which saw him establish a Sennheiser pro-audio network in the UK and head the company's professional division as sales and marketing manager.

On joining Sennheiser he helped establish Sennheiser UK as a wholly owned subsidiary and, as managing director, oversaw the company's continued UK expansion. His exceptional technical and organisational skills saw him being promoted to vice-president North West Europe. In 2007, h

USA - ESTA's Technical Standards Council has announced the recipients of the third annual Above & Beyond Awards designed to recognize outstanding Technical Standards Program volunteers. The awards celebrate those volunteers that have made a significant contribution or effort that advances the Technical Standards Program.

The TSP exists because hundreds of individuals from across the industry volunteer their expertise and significant amounts of time throughout the year to write standards that increase safety, solve problems, and make life easier. These awards are particularly meaningful to the recipients because the nominations are made by their peers within the Technical Standards Program.

The Above & Beyond Awards for 2015 were presented to:

Tyrone Mellon Jr. (Electrical Power Working Group) was cited "As a significant contributor to ANSI E1.24, Dimensional Requiremen

USA - The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), the not-for-profit organization of broadcast and media industry suppliers, formed to promote open standards and interoperability in the transition to IP, has appointed its board and the chairs and deputy chairs for its newly formed marketing and technical working groups.

The AIMS board has been appointed, comprising three directors, chairman Michael Cronk (SVP, strategic marketing, Grass Valley), vice-chairman Steve Reynolds (CTO, Imagine Communications) and Financial Officer Andreas Hilmer (director of marketing & communications, Lawo).

Following their appointment, the board in turn has appointed Kerry Wheeles (CTO - networking, Imagine Communications) as chair of the AIMS Technical Working Group, and Scott Barella (CTO, 5280 Broadcast) as deputy chair.

Commenting on the appointments, chairman Michael Cronk said, "I am

UK - J&C Joel has announced three appointments as it expands its senior management team.

Nick Worton has been appointed as the new Chief Financial Officer, overseeing the company's financial strategy, accounting and IT.

"Nick brings over 20 years of financial, commercial and administrative experience to J&C Joel" said James Wheelwright, CEO. "His impressive background complements J&C Joel's dedication to excellence and growth." Prior to joining J&C Joel, Nick served as director of finance of Camira Fabrics.

In addition J&C Joel has confirmed two other senior appointments - Scott Carter, operations manager for purchasing, logistics and warehouse and Matthew Oldfield who joins as manufacturing production manager. Both appointments are part of the company's commitment to improving service whilst growing both the UK and international business.

Scott brings more than si

Germany - Guang Jian Gao, designer-in-chief and art director at the Chinese National Centre of Performing Arts in Beijing, will present a keynote lecture at this year's Prolight+Sound exhibition (Frankfurt, Germany, 5-8 April 2016). The lecture will be held on Thursday, 7 April at 15.30.

"Products and subjects relating to theatre and stage technology have gained greatly in significance for Prolight+Sound. Therefore, I am particularly pleased that, with this lecture by Guang Jian Gao, we can also present a special highlight for trade visitors from this segment at this year's fair", says Prolight+Sound Director Michael Biwer. "Our special thanks go to Florian von Hofen, CTO of Rouge AVE, who made contact with Guang Jian Gao and went to great lengths to make this extraordinary highlight possible."

China's leading stage designer, Gao has been honoured many times for his work a

USA - The Long Reach Long Riders and Behind the Scenes will host their annual fundraising raffle at the USITT Conference in Salt Lake City 117-19 March. This year's raffle will celebrate the 13th Anniversary of the Long Reach Long Riders annual charity motorcycle ride. The Riders have raised over half a million dollars for charity in their years of touring some of the country's most beautiful areas.

The Behind the Scenes Boutique will also be open for business during the show featuring an assortment of great Behind the Scenes swag and the famous Long Reach Long Rider T-shirts and kazoos.

Tickets for the raffle are an affordable $5 each or five for $20 and can be purchased at the Behind the Scenes booth throughout the show. Winning tickets for nine regular prizes and one grand prize will be drawn at 1pm on Saturday, the final day of Stage Expo.

The prizes, provided by t

Grammy Awards - Taylor Swift's 1989 won the album of the year award at this year's Grammys in Los Angeles last night. The singer - who is the first woman to win the award twice - also won best pop vocal album and best music video for her track Bad Blood. Rapper Kendrick Lamar won the most prizes on the night with five awards.

Ed Sheeran also won his first two Grammys for song of the year and best pop solo performance for his number one hit Thinking Out Loud. Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars won two awards for their hit Uptown Funk, including record of the year, while Meghan Trainor was named best new artist. Muse won best rock album for Drones, and Tony Bennett collected his 18th Grammy for best traditional pop vocal album.

There were also a number of acts who gave tribute performances - Lady Gaga sang a medley of David Bowie songs, Jackson Bro

South Africa - Brian Madiba is a theatre crew freelancer who is passionate about running. This year will be his tenth Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon race but many are not aware of what it takes for this man to be there. A couple of friends in the industry, Alistair Kilbee from Gearhouse Splitbeam and Duncan Riley from DWR Distribution, decided to lend a hand.

Running is in Brian's family, it's what his brothers and uncles do, and the sport he has participated in for the past 27 years. He trains every day, twice a day in fact when he is not working.

Based in Johannesburg, Brian makes use of public transport to get to the Two Oceans in Cape Town. It means catching a mini bus and travelling some 1 400 kilometres.

When he arrives in Cape Town, usually on a Thursday, Brian stays in a tent in Newlands at the Runner's Village, designed to give runners who have financial const

UK - This week the Current RMS Team is celebrating hitting the 1,000-user mark with close to 700 rental businesses worldwide now relying on the system to manage their hire processes.

Launched just 15 months ago, Current has experienced rapid growth, illustrating the need for AV, lighting and production hire businesses to be able to work on the move, raise quotes on the fly, check stock availability and generate invoices from any device and location.

"Current has been so well received across the UK and we are now seeing significant growth across USA, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East - that's the beauty of the cloud, businesses can sign up within 60 seconds online and receive the same level of support from us, no matter where in the world they are," says business manager Lisa Kenward.

Since launch, Current has heavily invested resource in development, building

UK - MCS has announced that MCS-rm, its leading rental software solution, now offers a comprehensive integration to the popular cloud-based online accounting software package, Xero.

With more rental companies choosing to move their entire software solution to the 'cloud', MCS has met this demand by integrating MCS-rm with the Xero accounting software solution for those clients who wish to host all of their key business applications remotely. The technology union will help businesses to work smarter and faster, improve team collaboration and give a holistic view of their operations and finances.

With the integration of the two systems, users can automatically sync and seamlessly transfer financial transactions such as invoices, credit notes, cash payments, depreciation and client details from Xero to MCS-rm and vice-versa. In addition, they can view aged debt, any outstandi

Canada - The new BlackTrax Beta 2.0 makes tracking even easier, faster to calibrate, programme and use. Developed for over a year, 2.0 has the largest number of new features, GUI and workflow improvements in any BlackTrax release yet.

"A lot of these improvements were developed from customer suggestions, requests and general feedback," explains Marty Cochrane, BlackTrax product manager. "This includes better system reporting, real-time chapter programming and more control over fixtures during the calibration process."

Highlights include: All-new GUI designfor BlackTrax, BTWyg, Tracker, and Follower - with full-screen mode for BlackTrax and new simpler basic mode for Tracker and Follower; new Fixture Calibration mode improvements ensure faster calibration; rigid and soft frames for more flexible tracking operations and objects. Frames combine a collection of Stringers (aka

UK - Two of the most renowned companies in touring and production - Cato Music and Production Park - have confirmed that they are to join forces. Touring specialists, Cato Music, will become part of the Production Park family based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

The acquisition will pave the way for Production Park's popular Backstage Academy and Cato's specialist "Roadie School", Cato Academy, to create a Centre of Excellence for training the next generation of touring and production professionals.

The Cato Academy - based in South West London - is the only training centre in the world that educates future tour and production managers, backline techs and live sound engineers under one roof; whilst the Backstage Academy is renowned for its high quality delivery of degree programmes and courses dedicated to the live events industry. Both Academies have been pioneers in the f

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