Projects

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03 May 2024

Belgium - The Flanders Technology and Innovation Festival (FTI) is a six-day celebration of technology and innovation hosted across different cities in Belgium. The entertainment event takes place at the Buda Island in Kortrijk and is organised by Hangar K. Split into five distinct areas, the festival aims to bring people together to experiment, strengthen bonds, innovate and tackle the technological challenges of the future.

Leyard Europe’s LN Series LED screens delivered for the Unwrap Arena at FTI. The space celebrates new technology with an educational bias. During the festival children, educators and interested adults are invited to test out new equipment and immerse themselves in gaming to find out more about this booming Flemish industry.

Chief catalyst, Vincent Vanderbeck, is the power behind Hangar K. The company has a passionate ambition

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02 May 2024

USA - For the March world premiere of One of the Good Ones at the Pasadena Playhouse in Southern California, lighting designer Jaymi Lee Smith turned to Elation’s new Proteus Odeon LED profile fixture to fulfil a number of lighting roles.

The Odeon, a full-featured 30,000-lumen moving head that houses a variable CRI LED engine, allowed the designer to find the best blend of intensity and colour accuracy to accurately form the onstage lighting while energising the theatre with full-on effects after the final curtain. 

Founded in 1917, Pasadena Playhouse, distinguished as the official State Theatre of California and honoured with the 2023 Regional Theatre Tony Award, stands as one of the nation’s most prolific theatres, having staged thousands of original productions. One of those original plays, One of the Good Ones, which ran f

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02 May 2024

USA - Supporting Shaindy Plotzker’s performance at The New Jersey Performing Arts Centre on 6 April was a deeply immersive, multi-level set design on a substantial (18ft deep and 13.5ft trim) stage.

At times, this expansive set evoked images of an ancient courtyard, at others it inspired with majestic mountain-like imagery. Lighting designer Moshe Baskin and programmer-operator Max Blackman brought this spectacular panorama to life with help from 170 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Shaya Alder’s Eagle Production.

Baskin described how the design came together. “This concept came from an Israeli designer, Ronen Najar. Eli Gersner of EG Productions, who produced the concert, reached out to have us create something with it. I took it into Vectorworks and worked on it until I was happy. I substituted the original fixtures with Chauvet Prof

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02 May 2024

Romania - When WJB Media was looking to build the first certified Dolby Atmos Music Studio in Bucharest, together with Ines Sound, they turned to LEA Professional to amplify the space.

The team’s end goal in creating the studio was to ensure more engineers and artists could experience the immersive effects of Dolby Atmos first-hand. The studio, which runs a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos system with Lipinski speakers and four LEA Professional amplifiers, is already attracting musical talent from far and wide.

The visionary behind the studio is legendary sound engineer Joe Hellow, who has worked with some of the top artists and labels before using the pandemic experience to redefine what was next in music production. This was Hellow’s second experience working with LEA Professional amps, having already created a similar studio in Nashville, TN.

“What

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01 May 2024

Denmark - Lighting designer Niller Bjerregaard, of Happy Light Guy, who has achieved global acclaim for lighting metal arena tours, has found that his current work for singer-songwriter Jacob Dinesen’s 40-city 2024 tour of Europe has led him to reignite many ideas from his early work for King Diamond.

“I joined Jacob Dinesen Band in 2017 for a lengthy tour of Denmark as the new LD and production designer,” said Bjerregaard. “Now, I am with his current tour, and it’s been a great learning curve for me to get involved in that scene coming from metal music. This is a genre of music with a fan base that is absolutely dedicated to the genre and style, but believe it or not, there are many similarities between this and metal from a design point of view. The reason I find Jacob and his music so interesting is his openness to a theatrical approach for his

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01 May 2024

UK - Office rentals specialist Halkin recently opened new premises on King William Street, in the heart of the City of London’s financial district. Distributed across four floors, the workspace required an extensive AV system that would fit the brand’s technology standard and enable collaboration and ease of use for clients. London-based AV and IT specialists, Tateside led the integration of a complete AV system across a total of eight meeting rooms.

“We have worked with Halkin on several workspaces over the past couple of years,” reveals Jack Cornish, technical director at Tateside. “We started out collaborating on smaller jobs such as upgrades of existing meeting rooms. The complete integration of the new office spaces at King William Street is our largest project with Halkin.”

Halkin has established a technological standard across all

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01 May 2024

Italy - Prolights’ VersaPar has been included in the lighting setup for 100Minuti, the new prime-time show on the La7 network, hosted by Corrado Formigli and investigative journalist Alberto Nerazzini.

Provided and installed by AMG International, the VersaPar units will be used throughout the duration of the show, illuminating the studio's perimeter and contributing to creating a captivating setting. These LED PARs are ideal for broadcast environments, thanks to their high luminous output, extensive zoom range, and advanced colour mixing capabilities.

The versatile design of the VersaPar, combined with its colour uniformity and quiet operation, makes it a vital element for any television production that seeks to combine high visual and technological quality. Additionally, VersaPar's HD Dimming technology ensures that every detail is visibl

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30 April 2024

Qatar - The opening ceremony of the AFC Asian Cup at the Lusail Stadium in Doha, on 12 January 2024 featured an impressive lighting design by Roland Greil and his team.

Greil chose a grandMA3 system to control the lighting. This comprised four grandMA3 full-size consoles for the production and four grandMA3 light as mobile consoles in the stadium, supported by 12 grandMA3 processing units XL. In addition, a further three grandMA3 full-size consoles were used for preparatory work at the previz studio.

“The full redundancy as well as the incorporation of the remote consoles into the network were particularly important to us as it allowed us to operate from several different locations within the stadium. And for a show of this magnitude, the multi-user capability of the lighting consoles is indispensable, as we work with several programmers in these c

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30 April 2024

Australia - American singer-songwriter Noah Kahan played a vibrant, sold-out show at Perth’s Red Hill Auditorium in Western Australia in front of 5000 fans.

Lighting director, programmer and operator Alexandra Lutz-Higgins utilised a largely Robe lighting rig supplied for this show by lighting and visuals rental specialist, Showscreens, also based in Perth. The company has recently invested in Robe Fortes.

The Robe count totalled 22 x Fortes, 21 x BMFL WashBeams (four running on a two-way RoboSpot system), plus 32 x Spiider LED wash beams.

Chase Hall from US-based design studio Cour Design originated the visual design and Lutz-Higgins has been onboard and on the road with it since May 2023 when the tour kicked off once Kahan’s third album, Stick Season, dropped.

Lutz-Higgins originally programmed the show together with Wi

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30 April 2024

UK - The multi-use requirement of Cardiff Students’ Union’s Great Hall presented SWG Events with several challenges when designing and installing a frontline PA. The venue is a multipurpose space with a capacity of 1,500 and a variety of needs. First, the PA system needed to meet the approval of incoming circuit bands and productions, and at the same time be completely adaptable to a wide range of events. Since live music events are hosted in more than one space within the building, the PA needed to be demountable and reappropriated together in various locations.

SWG Events successfully met the challenges presented to them, their pitch based around Martin Audio’s Wavefront Precision WPS line array. Joe Bailey, account manager at SWG Events, adds, “With our strong ties to the Wavefront Precision product range in our busy rental inventory, we were conf

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30 April 2024

Europe - Swedish metal band Amaranthe recently performed a near-sold out, 24-date tour of Europe promoting their latest studio album, The Catalyst, which was released in February.

The band’s lighting designer, operator and project manager, Lutz Neemann, together with systems technician and LD No2, Daniel Scheuch, used 14 Ayrton Diablo S fixtures as their main source of key lighting. Ten Diablo S were rigged on lighting towers and a further four on top of a truss set on a dolly as part of the floor package.

“I chose Ayrton Diablo S for this run with Amaranthe as they are equipped with the perfect features. They have great rotating gobo wheels, impressively real colour mixing and great dimming behaviour,” said Neemann. “It's simply remarkable how quickly the lamp responds to the dimming effects. As a touring LD for metal bands, I've se

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30 April 2024

Ireland - Former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, with Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators, is on a 40-cities-in-24-countries The River Is Rising tour, travelling with Nashville-based designer and programmer Keith Hoagland.

Vendors vary from place to place, but Hoagland works hard to ensure that the Chauvet Professional Color Strike M is always in his rig.

“I put it at the top of my list,” he says of the fixture. “The Color Strike M serves a dual purpose for me. It gives me great colours and coverage as a wash unit. Then, when I want to turn things up, it’s a powerful strobe. All this without taking up a lot of space on stage.”

Colour saturation and intense strobing were both evident as soon as Slash and friends took the stage at Dublin3 Arena on 28 March. For close to two minutes, the stage was bathed in deep saturated blues

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29 April 2024

UK –Floridian ska punk outfit Less Than Jake are touring with video at the heart of their performance for the first time, with live feed footage and pre-made content displayed on three large LED screens driven by tvONE's Green Hippo brand of Hippotizer Media Servers.

Longtime Less Than Jake Lighting designer Nikki Dickinson, owner of Rig Lite Design Limited, teamed up with the band and Pete McCrea of Production AV to specify a kit list of five Marshall CV255 and CV366 cameras to capture the antics of the five band members, live feeds from which were fed into a Hippotizer Amba Media Server. A host of content taking in home-shot footage, old TV clips, song-related imagery and stock effects from various effect sources and from within Hippotizer were handled by the Amba and driven to the three 8' x 6' Desay M6 LED screens.

Ayrton Magic Blade R moving F

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29 April 2024

USA - Phoenix Lights 2024 featured EDM performances and light and video show created by Luis Torres on a massive 100ft-wide and 48ft-tall rig. Taking place on the Pheonix Raceway at the end of March, the festival featured performances by the likes of Kaskade, Deorro, b2b, Valentino Khan, Dr. Oliver Tree, Apashe, Alleycvt, Levity and Mamba. Torres channelled their musical energy into stunning visuals with help from 40 Chauvet Professional Color Strike M and 30 Maverick MK3 Wash fixtures supplied by Hardwired Productions.

Like the rest of the lighting fixtures in his rig, the Color Strike and Maverick units were spread throughout the truss structures. Torres did this to create unexpected visual moments and convey the kind of uncertain spontaneity that was in keeping with the festival’s supernova theme.

“I wanted the rig to have different moments an

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26 April 2024

Sweden - The stage design for the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest has been unveiled ahead of the grand final in Malmö, Sweden, on 11 May. Lighting and screen content designer Fredrik Stormby from Green Wall Designs and production designer Florian Wieder are the creative team helping to create, design, and deliver a large-scale and spectacular show to a global audience of over 160m. 

The stage and lighting design for the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 will focus on the audience more than ever. With the stage placed in the centre of the arena, viewers will experience a visually revolutionary concept. The 360-degree experience surrounds the audience and viewers in the Malmö Arena. The stage is placed in the middle of the audience and shaped like a cross. Movable LED cubes, LED floors, light, video, and stage technology will be able to create gre

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26 April 2024

Portugal – Europalco recently transformed Lisbon's MEO Arena into ‘a realm of sensory delight’ for the Generali Tranquilidade (one of the largest non-life insurers in the Portuguese market) annual meeting event. Europalco deployed the L-ISA system from L Acoustics for the first time in Portugal to create an immersive sound experience.

The event was organised by agency Desafio Global and marked an important milestone in the rebranding of the Tranquilidade brand under Generali Tranquilidade. Europalco implemented an impressive range of audio-visual technologies, scenography and furniture, turning the MEO Arena into an immersive sanctuary for the 3,000 attendees, including employees and business partners from across the country. In collaboration with Desafio Global, the aim was to create an event where sound played a key role in captivating the audience.<

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26 April 2024

UK - For more than 35 years, the Sensible Music Group has provided recording, rehearsal and production services to the music industry at its London studios. Mixing, mastering and streaming services also feature at this multi-space complex, whose past and present client list reads like a who’s who of international popular music. From global megastars Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd to London ‘locals’ Amy Winehouse and Madness, Sensible Music has seen a galaxy of household names pass through its doors.

A recent decision to upgrade some of its tech saw Sensible’s chief engineer/producer Jon Moon contact amplifier manufacturer MC², initially to discuss amplification for Clair monitor wedges in the studio’s rehearsal rooms.

A discussion followed between Jon and Richard Fleming of MC² who made some suggestions and subsequently visited the studio

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26 April 2024

Italy - Hip-hop duo Coez & Frah Quintale released an album, Lovebars, which they supported with a national tour, selling out arenas throughout the country. Embracing the latest in technology, the duo adopted immersive audio for their live shows via L-ISA spatial audio technology and did so by pairing for the very first time with L Series line array technology.

Compact, lightweight, and using up to 60% less material to build, the L Series is designed to occupy 30% less space than other products capable of the same output, minimising trucks on the road, and lightening the carbon footprint of the tour. Using immersive audio to create a small venue atmosphere in an arena For Coez & Frah Quintale, the opportunity to offer an immersive experience to their fans enabled them to create an intimate environment in what was a significant step up for the

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26 April 2024

Vietnam - Powersoft’s energy efficient T Series amplifiers are powering a new sound system at Hanoi’s Goethe-Institut. Nestled in the capital city, Goethe-Institut is a provider of German cultural and educational programmes worldwide, promoting the German language and fostering international relationships.

The cultural institute needed a new sound system in its multipurpose room, capable of accommodating a variety of activities including teaching sessions, presentations, art exhibitions and musical performances. Goethe-Institut tasked local integrator PROSound Vietnam with the challenge.

“The multipurpose room had to follow our client’s high standards and have a clear, lively and detailed sound for teaching, for presenting arts, and playing classical, pop and folk music,” says Mr. Nguyen Viet Trung, CEO of PROSound Vietnam.

To achie

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26 April 2024

Belgium - Dave Gahan and Martin Gore were never known for their skills on the basketball court, though their group, Depeche Mode did contribute to the soundtrack of the NBA 2K15 video game. However, the English electronic musicians did cause something of a full court press at the FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying match between Belgian and the USA.

That contest took place at a sold-out Antwerp’s Sportpaleis on 9 February, just three days after Depeche Mode rocked the arena with their music. This left little time for Bart Aelbrecht and his team at AB Sound to build their lighting system for the pre-game festivities and the courtside broadcast. Still, like any good team, they were more than up to the challenge, thanks to some hard work and careful planning.

“The Depeche Mode show was a day before our build-up, so we were given a short time,” said

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26 April 2024

Australia - Bruce Johnston mixed bands including Hoodoo Gurus, Divinyls, Boom Crash Opera, Crowded House and Midnight Oil in his native Australia, then for a 12-year stint took care of front-of-house sound for Oasis and, later, for building one of the world’s most respected sound companies.

It was in his early days with the Gallagher brothers that Bruce first came across Nexo.

“Oasis needed serious volume. At the time, line arrays had just started but they weren’t giving me what I needed” says Bruce. “We mixed on a Nexo Alpha system, and it was just – wow – right in your face. And it never said no.”

Alpha quickly became Bruce’s PA of choice for Oasis. Then, in 2002, came Nexo’s innovative Geo T line array. “We took Geo T on plenty of big stadium tours – big hangs of 24 at 100,000-people events. That PA was very good.

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26 April 2024

China - Duke Kunshan University has a team of faculty members located all over the world and has requirements for blended smart education. Duke Kunshan University has installed 116 Sennheiser TCC 2 Ceiling Array Microphones in 50 classrooms and various other spaces across its campus, providing students and faculty with an immersive blended learning experience that is easy to operate.

Located in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, Duke Kunshan University (DKU) is a 1,200-acre campus dedicated to creating a world-class educational and research university characterized by liberal arts education, offering a range of high-quality, innovative academic programs and a diverse, inclusive culture to students from around the globe in order to cultivate well-educated and enthusiastic future global leaders.

This audio-video project is part of the university's second phase

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25 April 2024

UK - The multi-award-winning musical Hamilton has selected ETC fixtures and control for its UK and Ireland tour. The hit musical – which has already been a huge success around the world – is composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and tells the story of America’s founding father Alexander Hamilton.

ETC dealer Encore supplied the equipment for the tour which included High End Systems Halcyon Titanium and Halcyon Platinum automated fixtures, Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr entertainment luminaires, and Eos Apex 10, Gio @5, Ion Xe and Ion XE RPU for lighting control.

The Hamilton productions around the world utilise lighting equipment which was released over a decade ago and the team working on the UK and Ireland tour were ready for a change. They wanted lighting solutions that would make this tour more sustainable in terms of power consum

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25 April 2024

Taiwan - The Taipei Performing Arts Centre (TPAC), which contains three performance spaces – The Grand Theatre, the Globe Playhouse, and the Blue Box, has recently invested in 40 x Robe Spiider LED wash beam luminaires, which will help light an array different of productions staged at the venue.

Production values are high on the agenda at TPAC which has around 150 full time employees, a third of whom are designated to work across assorted technical disciplines, including TPAC senior technical officer Yi-Ming Liu (AKA Birdie), who explained that Robe’s Spiider was the “most powerful and efficient solution with the best range of authentic colour temperature whites and optimal energy savings for all types of production design”. He was instrumental in picking the Spiiders, together with TPAC’s head of lighting, Pang-Yan Lin Ling, and others from the li