Belgium - When Jozef De Kesel, the Bishop of Bruges, declared that he could see no future for The Holy Family Church in the Langestraat Quarter of the city, the building ceased to be a centre for worship. Enter young entrepreneurs Mon and Zowie Hayen, owners of Brasserie Uilenspiegel, who envisioned the transformation of the 1904-constructed red-brick landmark into a multi-purpose events venue.
That vision became a reality with the creation of Owla Bruges, a 270sqm space suitable for concerts, performances, weddings, parties, corporate events, conferences, seminars, fashion shows, product launches and more.
High quality, flexible audio would naturally be essential to the venue’s success, although the team at Owla suffered something of a false start when its original installed system was deemed less than optimal during the first concerts staged in the space. Moving q

UK - The multi award-winning Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I musical is touring the UK, following its sold-out season at The London Palladium. The musical which has been captivating audiences for over six decades, is playing at a different venue every week until July 2023 and is, according to production manager Jason Culverwell “Probably the biggest musical with a weekly turnaround, touring the country right now.”
Knowing how demanding the schedule was going to be, Jason immediately brought Unusual Rigging on board to handle the rigging requirements for the tour. “My relationship with Unusual goes way back, having worked with them on shows such as War Horse, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and Ocean at the End of the Lane. I knew that they would have all the knowledge and skills required to pro

USA - Lighting designer Bobby Grey of Notan Creative was brought in by 24/7 Productions to design a series of late-night talk show appearances for singer-songwriter Stephen Sanchez and chose to incorporate Elation Professional’s KL Fresnel 8 FC soft light as a retro look fixture in his design for a February performance on The Late Late Show With James Corden.
For the Late Late Show performance, Sanchez teamed with Em Beihold to deliver a duet of his hit Until I Found You.
For the performance, LD Grey placed 10 KL Fresnel 8 FC fixtures on C stands for a vintage Fresnel backdrop look. “I just love a Fresnel and feel it really personifies light as art. A big Fresnel has this great vintage Hollywood feel,” Grey stated, explaining that he originally tried to retrofit a classic 10" Fresnel with LEDs inside to get a colour-changing glow but gave u

USA/Europe - The latest leg of Lizzo’s The Special Tour is currently taking the pop singer who recently added a fourth Grammy Award to her collection, winning Record of the Year for her About Damn Time single - across Europe, the UK and North America through summer 2023.
Since the start of the tour in 2022, front-of-house engineer Nick ‘Gauge’ Todd and monitor mixer Rico Gonzales have both been behind SSL Live L550+ consoles supplied by global production provider Solotech. Gonzales additionally uses an SSL Fusion processor and an THE BUS+ compressor and dynamic EQ, and Todd has also recently added a Fusion at FOH.
The two engineers switched to SSL Live desks for the three-month-long first leg of The Special Tour, which got underway in September 2022. The pair made the move to SSL at the suggestion of Gonzales, who has been with Stevie Wonder since 2014, mi

USA - The annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas has been celebrating the convergence of tech, film, music, education, and culture since 1987. For the past several years, Allen & Heath has had a significant presence at SXSW, with the company’s mixing consoles being featured at multiple performance stages.
This year will be no different, as Allen & Heath consoles will be in use throughout the festival - including the British Music Embassy stage, a venue for breakout UK music stars, where two flagship dLive S5000 surfaces will handle front of house and monitor mixing. Each surface will be paired with its own DM64 MixRack, featuring 128 channels of input processing and 64 configurable buses. Inputs from the stage will be fed into a DX32 modular stagebox, equipped with next-generation low-noise PRIME input modules.
Allen & Heath’s propr

USA - The Venue at Thunder Valley Casino Resort is a new 4,500-seat entertainment space officially christened on Valentine’s Day this year. Under the aegis of the United Auburn Indian Community Tribal Council, the $100m, 150,000sq.ft entertainment complex in Lincoln, California, approximately 30 miles north of Sacramento, is already proving the value of its approach to venue technology with the first run of shows.
That started with the Eagles’ Hotel California 2023 tour, followed by Bruno Mars, and then Santana with Bryan Adams, plus The Black Crowes, Frankie Valli, Ringo Starr, and many more in the wings, all using The Venue’s newly installed L-Acoustics K2 sound system.
Touring artists like these are attracted to the venue for its controlled acoustics and leading-edge technologies, with the L-Acoustics K2 system as its audio flagship. “With a system like K2 i

Europe - The Cure played 46 concerts in 22 countries across the continent with audio reinforcement from long-time rental partner, Britannia Row Productions.
“Exciting, powerful and dynamic” is how The Cure’s FOH engineer Paul Corkett describes the band’s latest sonic offering. “Robert [Smith, frontman] has a huge amount of input in the shows; how they sound and how they look.”
Continuing a relationship that has lasted decades, Brit Row, part of the Clair Global group of brands, provided equipment, crew, and international support for the recent tour, which was led by production
“To achieve the desired sound, I use one delay for vocals, but no other FXs from my console,” Corkett explains. “I hardly use any compression – when the band play hard, Robert wants the audience to really feel the dynamics of the songs and the performance of each indivi

UK - The vibrant Guildford Baptist Church is in the heart of the Surrey town. Established in 1824, the church has expanded its facility many times as its congregation grew. It recently took another big step forward by completing a £7m renovation of its Millmead Centre, including a new, facility-wide AV system based on a Dante network.
Graham Bennewith, installation director at DM Music, was the engineer and manager for this project. DM Music focuses almost exclusively on providing technology solutions for churches and protected historical buildings.
Opened in 1972, the Millmead Centre at Guildford Baptist Church has a 650-seat auditorium, multiple meeting rooms, classrooms, offices, a recreation hall, a lounge area, and coffee bars. March 2022 marked the 50th anniversary of the Millmead Centre's opening and the end of these renovation and upgrade projects.
“Fr

USA - Central City Productions recently premiered a new television series entitled Black History Honours. The four-part docuseries honoured heroes of the Underground Railroad and featured musical tributes from gospel music artists with a lighting system provided by Bandit Lites.
Don Jackson, founder of Central City Productions, shared: “The unique perspective of our Black History Honours series honours the lives and legacies of the Underground Railroad freedom activists. As well, in this post-covid season, where African American museums are struggling to maintain and increase attendance, our series underserves the fact that black history and black museums matter”.
Lighting designer Andre’ Petrus sought to create a lighting system that would complement the performances without becoming the focus points.
“The direction of this show was to ho

USA - Located in the heart of Mobile, Alabama, St. Ignatius Catholic Church has been a cornerstone of the community since its founding in 1947. In 2016, the church undertook a new parish master plan that called for the existing church to be repurposed as a parish hall and a new church to be constructed next door.
Designed by Quina Grundhoefer Architects in neo-Gothic style with a brick façade, buttresses, limestone trim and a slate roof, the new church features historic stained glass windows repurposed from an old parish church in downtown Mobile.
Five years in the making, the new church opened its doors to great delight in April 2021. Knowing the traditional sanctuary layout would be prone to acoustic challenges, church leadership commissioned steerable arrays from Renkus-Heinz to ensure crystal-clear intelligibility for the spoken and musical liturgy.
Quina Gr

Vietnam - To support the music and arts programmes at the Bilingual Canadian International School (BCIS) in Ho Chi Minh City, AV integrator PGI and Harman Professional Solutions equipped the campus with versatile JBL Professional Eon One Mk2 battery-powered column speakers.
Founded in 2009, BCIS was the first international school in Vietnam to use a Canadian-based curriculum and has since built a reputation of strong academic excellence. Learning in both English and Vietnamese, the school’s 1,500 students enjoy a conducive environment for learning, critical thinking and collaboration supported by the latest classroom technology.
To reinforce strong communication and creativity for the music and arts programme, the school required a dynamic and easy-to-use sound solution that accommodated students and teacher’s various needs. PGI met these requests with a solution

Mexico - “We have broken paradigms,” Sergio Lizárraga, leader of Banda MS once told an interviewer, referring to his band’s popularity, which has transcended all expectations to prove that banda music has unlimited appeal in today’s market beyond Mexico.
Sold out shows before wildly appreciative crowds from Nashville to Las Vegas have provided convincing proof of Lizárraga’s claim.
The ability of Banda MS to touch audiences was on full display when the chart-topping band appeared at Arena Monterrey, supported by a dynamic lighting design created by Mario More Flores.
Helping Flores work his magic was a lighting rig featuring over 200 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Víctor ‘Chacho’ Gutiérrez and his team at Proaudio del Norte. Included in this power-packed collection of fixtures were 32 Maverick Storm 4 Profile units. With an output o

Poland - The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (WOŚP) is the biggest, non-governmental, non-profit, charity organisation in Poland raising money for paediatric and elderly care. Every year, the charity organises a televised fundraiser on TVN with several personalities who help with the cause.
This year's event in the studio featured 45 x Prolights EclPanel TWC fixtures, with the production lighting conceived by Polish supplier ATM and designed and programmed by Green Beam Design. Jacek Chojczak, MD of the GBD and lighting designer, said: “We know we can always trust the EclPanel TWC to deliver a great quality of soft lighting.” Jacek added: “They are our go-to panel for these types of productions.”
The EclPanel TWC is a 2x1 LED soft light with tuneable white and colours, pixel control and high CRI and TLCI. This fixture has been a flagship product for Proli

USA - Although home to Stanford University and tech giants, the region south of San Francisco had been curiously lacking a first-rate music club for many years. That void has been recently filled, with the opening of Menlo Park’s intimate Guild Theatre, now attracting top-level artists with support from AV technologies that include a formidable Meyer Sound system.
The original Guild Theatre had served as a neighbourhood movie theatre for more than 90 years before closing in 2019. Purchased by the non-profit Peninsula Arts Guild, the structure was totally gutted and transformed into a state-of-the-art venue offering extraordinary technical flexibility for hosting music concerts, film showings, and other special events. The principal focus is on national touring artists, with shows spanning musical genres from acapella Black gospel and neo-bluegrass to punk and EDM.
Th

Denmark - Copenhagen’s Det Ny Teater (The New Theatre) has recently invested substantially in new Robe moving lights with the purchase of 16 x Robe T1 Profiles that have joined the house rig together with an additional 20 Spiiders (bringing the total to 30). Also new are two RoboSpot systems with two T1 Profile FollowSpots, plus 11 x Tetra2 moving LED battens and 18 x LEDBeam 350s.
This was possible thanks to financing via the AP Møller Foundation which was started in 1953 by ship owner AP Møller and his wife Chastine McKinney Møller to support areas of importance to them, including buildings of historical and cultural value and a number of other cultural criteria.
The fixtures were delivered by Robe’s Danish distributor Light Partner. All these fixtures are in daily use to facilitate Ny Theatre’s busy repertory schedule.
Located centrally in the vibrant

Greece - First opening its doors to paying guests in 1930, Athens Capital Hotel is an icon of central Athens that has played host to everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. Now a Marriott property, the former annex of the Royal Palace and Prime Minister’s residence is a five-star boutique hotel.
While first-class service is promised, guest safety also needs to be paramount. This aspect of the hotel experience has been ensured as part of a larger plan that has seen the three members of Marriott’s Luxury Collection hotel group in Athens all opt to renovate with modern Bosch public address and voice alarm systems. As the first member of the group to undergo this refurbishment, there was a lot of emphasis placed on finding the right technology for Athens Capital.
The requirement was for an efficient solution that would meet the necessary EN 54 standards of this type of

USA - NFL legend Joe Thomas stepped out to lead the Greater Cleveland Sport Awards recently, staged to honour athletic achievement in Ohio. The ceremony took place at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse arena in front of a live audience and was filmed for streaming. Lighting director Derek Hons, from NPiAV, specified Vari-Lite VL5LED, and VL2600 Series luminaires from Signify for the event.
NPiAV has a longstanding relationship with The Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, delivering regular events across Northeast Ohio. The Sports Commission approached Hons to design a lighting solution that would add bright washes and audience overhead effects for both those in attendance and for the live stream.
“I have been a part of this event for 15 years, so I knew the flow of the show very well,” says Hons. “In terms of design, timing, familiarity and execution were important

Finland - The Sámi Museum and Nature Centre – Siida – is one of Northern Lapland’s most popular destinations. Dedicated to the culture of Lapland’s indigenous Sámi people, Siida has recently undergone significant renovation and expansion to accommodate increased visitor numbers and to bring the establishment into line with modern standards.
As part of the process, Oulu-based technical systems specialists Caverion Suomi Oy, supplied and installed a comprehensive Genelec Smart IP loudspeaker solution on a Dante AoIP backbone. Sound designer Aki Päivärinne from Oioi Collective – experts in interactive experience design – was responsible for the sound design for the new exhibits.
The Sámi people live in harmony with the lands they inhabit. Their traditional livelihoods include coastal fishing, fur trapping, sheep herding, and semi-nomadic reindeer herding.

France - Marking the 45th anniversary of the opening of France’s famous Puy du Fou theme park, the spectacular La Nuit des Feux Follets firework festival was recently revived after a 15-year hiatus. Bringing together three world-renowned pyrotechnic design teams from China, Australia, and Portugal, the major international event selected the industry-standard K Series system from L-Acoustics to deliver excellent coverage and sonic quality.
The sound needed to prevail over the noise from the fireworks themselves to the 14,000 spectators seated over the 23 hectares of La Cinéscénie stage, the most famous Puy du Fou show, and the biggest night show in the world.
Ranked the second most popular theme park in Europe, Puy du Fou was opened in the late 1970s by entrepreneur Philippe de Villiers and his son Nicolas. The history-based park is spread over 500 hectares i

Singapore - The City Light-Up event was a celebration of light held alongside the Singapore Airlines' Singapore Grand Prix, which culminated in the F1 night race around The Marina Bay Street Circuit in front of a capacity crowd of 300,000 spectators.
As part of this prestigious event, the Internal System and Technical Team at Hexogon Solution Pte was asked to provide lighting solutions for one of the City Light-Up locations, the beautiful – and huge - Conservatory buildings located at the Gardens by the Bay. They chose to use 20 Ayrton Domino LT fixtures which were supplied by Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for Singapore, Total Solution Marketing.
Mr Adrian Goh, group managing director of Hexogon, commented: “We had decided to light the Conservatories with lighting fixtures rigged on floor-standing truss to illuminate the architectural structure and fram

UK - Universal Live, an award-winning audio-visual integration specialist in the UK has chosen Shure Axient Digital Wireless System as the best solution to upgrade their equipment.
The ability for the Spectrum Manager to liaise with the transmitters and seamlessly change to an alternative frequency, along with Shure’s reputation and our experience of using their products, made Shure Axient Digital the right choice. “On the biggest stages in the world, when thousands, even millions are watching, the wireless microphone has an enormous job to do. The audio must be clear. It must be true. No other system is up to the challenge quite like Axient Digital,” comments Stuart Thornton, hire manager, Universal Live.
The upgrade of equipment brings with it significant advantages in a variety of areas, both to Universal Live and their clients. This includes technological a

UK – The 16th century stately home of Wollaton Hall was given a spectacular lighting treatment for Christmas, when production company dbnAudile provided visitors with a beautiful light trail through the grounds, completed by a stunning finale against the backdrop of the house itself. For all of this, dbnAudile used a Vista by Chroma-Q control system, sourced from A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET), to provide stability behind the scenes.
Manchester-based rental and production house dbnAudile, a long-standing user of Vista by Chroma-Q, was contracted by Kilimanjaro Live for the Christmas at Wollaton project, which ran from December into January. Their team delivered the 1.2km light trail made up of 12 individual lighting installations, plus the grand finale at the house, which featured a lighting rig including IP65-rated Panorama IP Airbeams from PROLIGHTS, also suppl

USA - To ensure an emotionally captivating and visually immersive stage experience for the debut of The Notebook musical, lighting designer Ben Stanton utilised Martin MAC Ultra Performance and MAC Ultra Wash fixtures supplied by Christie Lites.
Based on the New York Times bestselling novel of the same title by Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook is a new musical that brings the romance to the stage. The musical - which recently opened at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre - was scored by singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson, scripted by Bekah Brunstetter, choreographed by Katie Spelman and directed by Michael Greif and Schele Williams.
In order to enhance the story’s flashback-based plot that spans multiple timelines, the production required a flexible and powerful lighting design that could contain multiple looks on stage at once. Lighting designer Ben Stanton

UK - Built in 1865, The City Varieties is a Grade II* Music Hall located in the heart of Leeds, West Yorkshire. Part of Leeds Heritage Theatres, it holds the Guinness World Record for Britain’s longest-running music hall and has established a reputation for presenting live music, variety and comedy, as well as annual pantomimes which have entertained families for generations. The venue recently decided to upgrade its in-house lighting rig and approached White Light (WL) to supply the fixtures
Dave Greaves, technical manager, alongside senior technician Sean Webster, oversaw the lighting upgrade. Dave comments: “Previously, the set-up was quite outdated, consisting of older par cans, fresnels, Source Fours and a control desk. With technology evolving so quickly over the past few years, and with it the scale and ambition of the shows we host, we soon realised that our prev

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