China - With over 10 years of experience in advertising, photography, film and television production, the Shanghai MuShang Advertising Co is familiar with the use of technologies to enhance customer experiences. Its latest brainchild, MuShang XR stage, uses cutting-edge technology including Brompton Technology LED processing, ROE Visual screens, Mark Roberts Motion Control cinebots, Unreal Engine and disguise media server hardware, to deliver visual creativity and high-quality productions.
“We’ve been working in the creative industries for over a decade and know all too well the complexities associated with large-scale, outdoor production settings,” explains Henry Sha, the founder of Shanghai MuShang Ad CO. “From manpower to lighting equipment, to tons of things in between, we wanted to bring a more efficient and cost-effective way of doing productions to our clients

UK - For the 16th edition of the annual Performance Marketing Awards ceremony at London’s Grosvenor Hotel, Bristol-based production specialists Pytch were tasked with creating an impressive array of visuals for the awards ceremony, hosted by television personality Joel Dommett, as well as for the club-like, high energy afterparty.
Responding with a lighting concept anchored by an assortment of carefully curated Chauvet Professional fixtures, the company’s design team was able to create a colourful, immersive, and multi-level visual production that endowed the stately hotel’s ballroom with a stylish air of contemporary elegance and festiveness.
With little to no scenic elements upon the actual stage to carry the visual communication and branding of the awards ceremony, Pytch was ultimately given something of a blank canvas to work with, as the design team relied o

USA - The Dollar Loan Centre in Henderson, Nevada is home to the Henderson Silver Knights of the American Hockey League and the Vegas Knight Hawks of the Indoor Football League, seating over 5,500 fans for those sports. In addition, the Big West Conference announced last year that the NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball championships would be held there starting with the West Coast teams of the March Madness series.
The $80m-plus arena officially opened on 8 March this year as Covid began slowly releasing its grip on live events. AV systems designer and consultancy Anthony James Partners specified a DiGiCo S31 as the new arena’s front-of-house audio mix console, which was installed and integrated by C.V. Lloyde Audiovisual.
“I’d like to say it’s just cost, but the fact is that DiGiCo consoles deliver for both the budget and sonic quality,” says J

Estonia - The Estonian Traditional Music Centre (ETMC) is a venue which hosts international concerts, conferences, receptions, dinners, and parties.
Situated next to the historical Viljandi Castle ruins, the former 18th century granary was transformed into a contemporary concert hall and cultural hub almost 15 years ago. It incorporates two concert halls - the Grand Hall with a capacity of 400, and the Chamber Hall with seating for 80 - and boasts an extensive concert programme, including the renowned Viljandi Folk Music Festival. To celebrate the return of live events, ETMC has recently invested in a selection of new gear, including High End Systems SolaFrame Studio fixtures and an Ion Xe console from ETC.
In 2019, more than 100 concerts featured on ETMC’s roster, and it hosted an additional 250 events arranged by visiting organisations. Naturally, the pandemic led

Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem has returned to the West End 11 years after its last record-breaking, sell-out run. Mark Rylance reprises his role as the ebulliently irresponsible, anarchic Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, ably supported by the rest of the cast. The play is back at its West End home of the Apollo Theatre with a sound design from Autograph’s Ian Dickinson, this time featuring Reference Series loudspeakers from EM Acoustics.
“I did the show the first time around when it was at the Royal Court, followed by its subsequent West End iterations, so I knew exactly what was required,” explains Dickinson. “The Apollo is a beautiful theatre on four levels so, as ever, the priority was flawless coverage across all seats in the auditorium. The actors don’t wear microphones, so the PA system is there to deliver clear playback of the music and numerous effects used in t

USA - Country artist Kane Brown returned to his hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, on May 7 to play his first-ever stadium show at the Finley Stadium. Lighting and production design for the sold-out show was by Trevor Ahlstrand who used Elation lighting on the milestone event, including the company’s popular IP-rated powerhouse luminaire Proteus Maximus, all supplied by DCR Nashville.
Brown’s popularity has grown exponentially since debuting only a few years ago. Ahlstrand has collaborated with the artist since the first headlining arena tour, Live Forever in 2019, and served as lighting designer and programmer on the stadium show. Nick Chang served as lighting director.
Following the Live Forever tour, Brown managed to get in six shows with a new design from Ahlstrand before everything shut down due to COVID. The current touring design, which contin

USA - Markus Burger, coordinator of music technology at California’s Fullerton College has recently overseen the recording of a string ensemble library album by LA Philharmonic with composer/director Yuval Schrem, using a portable recording rig which included 32 channels of Audient mic pres.
Comprising two ASP880s and two ASP800 eight-channel units alongside an interface, this rig is used for a range of applications. This particular recording is currently being mixed and is due to be released at the end of the year.
“We took a mixture of Audient and Neve preamps with us this time so we had a variety of recordings to choose from,” explains Markus, confirming that the recording went without a hitch. “The Audient mic presets are bullet-proof. We’ve never had any issues with them in all the years that we have had them.”
A consistent champion of Audient,

The Netherlands - Jeroen van Geffen is a Dutch lighting designer with the multidisciplinary broadcast and event specialist company Chain. For a live TV broadcast production in a 360° degree venue, Jeroen chose to use a Follow-Me 3D SIX System. From his previous experience with the overall scalability and flexibility of the Follow-Me systems, including fixture independence, he knew that this would be the right choice for enabling his creative and challenging lighting design.
Jeroen first used the Follow-Me 3D remote follow-spot and performer tracking solutions about three years ago for the ZappAwards, the Dutch kids television series awards show broadcast from De Vorstin concert hall in Hilversum. Since then, Chain has overseen the Follow-Me 3D SIX system installation into the Studio 11 event location in Almere. It is here that Jeroen has recently been working with Follow-Me

USA - Multiplatinum selling pop group New Kids On The Block (NKOTB) continues to wow fans with their MixTape Tour 2022 featuring friends Salt-N-Pepa, Rick Astley and En Vogue as special guests. Lighting designer Cat West of Flash and Trash Works, Inc. selected 108 Ayrton Intellipix R Creative Solutions as a central part of the high-energy, party look of the show.
Boston natives, the quintet NKOTB has sold more than 80m albums worldwide. Their 2019 tour by the same name - their biggest since reuniting in 2008 – was a huge success and pioneered the concept of a super-sized show with multiple guest acts. The new arena-based MixTape Tour is scheduled to play more than 50 dates across the US from its kick-off in Cincinnati in May to its finale in Hawaii in August.
Cat West programmed the band’s MixTape Tour 2019 and their Fenway Park and Merriweather Post Pavillion even

Poland - Cavatina Hall, which opened at the beginning of the year in the city of Bielsko-Biała, is the first concert hall in the country to be built and managed entirely from private funds.
This multi-functional building, combining office and cultural spaces, is set over six storeys on more than 9,000sq.m and includes a recording studio as well as a 1,000-seat concert hall.
Its AV infrastructure is woven into a sophisticated digital/analogue network, designed around an Optocore backbone, feeding a multiplicity of signals to an L-Acoustics L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal sound system from a pair of roving DiGiCo Quantum 338 consoles, operating from four different locations.
These were specified and delivered by system integrators Audio Plus, along with the latest stage mechanics and AV technologies, including sound and light tracking, variable acoustics and visual inf

Europe - The 2Cellos duo of Luka Šulić and Stjepan Hauser is currently playing their Dedicated world tour - billed as their ‘final’ as 2Cellos, the format in which they shot to fame and prominence in 2011 with lighting designed by their long-term LD, Crt Birsa.
Crt has worked with the band since 2014 and wanted this design to be completely different to anything that had gone before. Rather than the full-on rock ‘n’ roll of the previous tour, this sees a more architectural approach with the lighting, which includes Robe MegaPointes and Spiiders at the heart of the rig.
“It’s all about defining the performance space and creating a series of shapes and different areas rather than bashing out dramatic lighting for effect! My thinking started with creating environments and rooms in which they play,” he explained. He presented a couple of different co

UK - Shure was the chosen digital wireless system for the stars at Big Night of Musicals by the National Lottery.
At the end of January, Jason Manford hosted a celebration of the best of musical theatre at the AO Arena in Manchester, Big Night of Musicals by the National Lottery. The show was packed with performances from the casts of the UK’s biggest West End and touring shows and collaborations including Beverley Knight, Keala Settle star of The Greatest Showman, and Olivier Award winner, Sam Tutty.
Joining them to perform some of the most popular songs from the theatre were the casts of Dreamgirls, Back to the Future, Dear Evan Hansen, Tina - The Tina Turner Musical, Bat Out of Hell, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock as well as Disney shows The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and

Romania - Lighting designer Andre Beekmans of TAOL, in collaboration with Andrei Predut of Apart in Bucharest, used a large complement of Claypaky fixtures to light the We Are One concert in the city’s National Arena to benefit humanitarian causes in the region.
The day-long concert on 12 March drew an estimated 50,000 people to the stadium and more watched the YouTube livestream and broadcasts on Romanian TV and radio. Organised by SAGA Festival, Pro TV, KISS FM and the City Hall of Bucharest, the event featured local and international artists, including Armin van Buuren, Tom Odell, Jamala and INNA. It raised more than €750,000 for the Red Cross.
“Quick thinking and fast problem solving are a given at any time in this line of work, but for this particular project everything needed to be on steroids given the virtual no heads up regarding what would be hap

USA - The former White Stripes frontman currently wowing fans with Jack White: The Supply Chain Issues tour has 82 Ayrton Magic Blade FX fixtures delivering effects lighting on stage. Matthieu Larivee, who serves as the tour’s creative director and lighting and production designer, obtained the Magic Blade FXs from Solotech Nashville. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America.
The world tour celebrates two new Jack White albums, Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive. The North American leg kicked off in Detroit in April and will wrap at the end of August in Kansas City. It then heads to South America with much of the same lighting rig, including the Magic Blade FXs. Each Magic Blade FX features seven RGBW high-output LEDs that can be individually controlled to create airborne virtual scenery or illuminate s

USA - Haim’s current Women in Music Pt. III tour - in support of their Grammy-nominated 2020 album of the same name - is the second international headlining jaunt by the California trio of sisters.
The tour began in Las Vegas in April and will take them to more than two-dozen scheduled stops across the US and then onto Canada and Europe.
The full rig for the tour, sourced by the Production Resource Group’s (PRG) Los Angeles office, encompasses 32 K2 enclosures, flown 16 per side, with 12 Kara per side as out-fills. Eight more Kara line the stage lip as front-fills, with four ARCS II boxes on hand as utility fills as needed. Meanwhile, 16 KS28 subs are deployed to reinforce the K2 with added low-end extension. Everything is powered by 36 LA12X amplified controllers running on an AVB network through a pair of L-Acoustics P1 AVB processors.
But not every

Turkey - Pioneering virtual production house MGX Studio recently delivered the country’s first film with car chase action scenes, enabled by a LED stage powered by Brompton Technology processing.
Owned by MGX Film and based in Istanbul, MGX Studio is Turkey’s first virtual production (VP) studio and, since its inception in 2021, has already delivered a number of high-profile productions, including projects with Netflix and award-winning Turkish production company, Autonomy.
The studio set up comprises a 9,600×1,536 pixels resolution 100sq.m curved LED wall, along with 125sq.m of LED ceiling panels, which are used for lighting and reflections. This configuration is powered using three Brompton Tessera SX40 processors and five Tessera XD 10G data distribution units to provide a 10-bit colour depth image.
Entitled Anka, the film’s plot concerns the ri

USA - FOH engineer John Buitrago and monitor engineer Robin Barrera recently chose the Waves eMotion LV1 Live Mixer and Waves plugins for Colombian artist Karol G, winner of the 2018 Latin Grammy Award for Best New Artist, who performed at the main stage of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
“We did a very successful, solid and consistent U.S. tour, using the LV1 in 2021 with Karol G,” notes FOH John Buitrago. “Everyone was very happy with the mixer’s performance, so we continued using the LV1 throughout 2022 and for the Coachella show as well. There is no other console on the market which sounds bigger, punchier and more wide open than the eMotion LV1.
“I started my career as a recording and mixing sound engineer. In the studio, we all produce and mix with Waves plugins, including the artists I work for. So, when I’m mixing on a big PA, eMotio

The Netherlands - A significant quantity of ADJ fixtures were supplied by production company Spectrum AV for two of the stages at the Rebirth Festival, a three-day hard dance event which took place in The Netherlands in April.
Six of the festival’s seven dance arenas were enclosed by large circus-style tents, while the final performance stage was outdoors and open to the elements. For this, ADJ’s IP65-rated Hydro Series moving heads and static LED-powered wash fixtures were utilised, ensuring that the lighting rig would be unaffected by any adverse weather, including the storm that hit the festival site during buildup.
With the tagline of ‘Reunite Again’, the 2022 Rebirth Festival was one of the first largescale outdoor dance events to take place in the Netherlands following two years of pandemic-induced restrictions. It also represented a reunion between the o

Ireland - Lighting designer Liam McCarthy utilised 100 Robe moving lights for a spectacular special performance of ABBA Orchestral at Dublin’s 3 Arena, featuring the Waterloo Concert Orchestra and conductor and arranger, Andy O’Callaghan.
The set was a fully live reprise of ABBA’s numerous greatest hits, which Liam notes instinctually returned to his subconscious as he ran the show, mainly improv style, utilising pre-sets and palettes programmed and set up to work in this fashion. “It’s a very exciting and satisfying way to operate,” he comments.
Liam has worked with the concert’s promoters on several other projects and was delighted to be back on this one that was postponed last year due to COVID.
Just Lites was the lighting supplier, a Dublin-based rental and technical production specialist with whom Liam works closely.
A major obje

USA - Lighting and production designer Patrick Brannon selected Claypaky Xtylos, A.leda B-EYE K20s and Sharpys for country superstar Tim McGraw’s just completed McGraw Tour 2022, which played dates in the eastern half of the US. Nashville-based Premier Global Production Company was the lighting vendor and lighting services provider for the shows.
Grammy Award-winner McGraw kicked off the 17-city amphitheatre tour on 29 April in Rogers, Arkansas and wrapped 4 June in Mansfield, Massachusetts. The show featured more than 20 of the hits that McGraw has scored in 30-plus years of music making. McGraw was joined by special guest Russell Dickerson as well as Alexandra Kay and Brandon Davis.
Brannon, of StarDust Services in Nashville, has worked with McGraw for about 10 years and designed five of his tours. He hails from a rock ’n roll background tallying 21 years with B

Italy - Located on a hillside in the Italian city of Fondi, Villa Paola is a prestigious restaurant, wedding and events venue created by owner Gianmaria Magni. Guests enjoy the food, beautiful interiors, majestic views, and a sound system installed in the restaurant and dancefloor areas by local event production services and technology specialists Remix Sound.
More recently, Sig. Magni contacted the De Simone brothers at Remix once again, this time with a brief to extend the high-quality sonic experience outside to a spectacular pool area surrounded by large gazebos with luxurious sofas. Riccardo De Simone takes up the story.
“We needed a slim and elegant speaker with the high power necessary to cover a large outside space. We’ve worked with Nexo for over two decades so were eager to try the new ID84 in this application. We know column speakers, and it was immediat

USA - Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras declared, “There is music in the spacing of the spheres,” articulating his vision with a series of formulas and geometric patterns. Today, over 25 centuries later, his insights into the interplay between visual patterns and music is being celebrated in Coldplay’s global Music of the Spheres tour, in which the band’s performance is being supported by a production design by Misty Buckley and Phil Harvey.
Inspired by Pythagoras’ writings and diagrams, the stage design evokes the great thinker’s vision with unfolding spherical patterns extending out from the stage in multiple directions. Accentuating this panorama and endowing it with even greater moving power is a Sooner Routhier lighting design that features 192 Chauvet Professional Color Strike M fixtures.
Supplied by Upstaging, the IP65-rated mo

USA - Clear-Com was a first-time sponsor of the popular annual AVIXA Women’s Council Breakfast at the InfoComm 2022 trade show. A long-time supporter of Rise, a group promoting gender diversity within the broadcast and media technology industry, Clear-Com is now adding their support to the AVIXA Women’s Council, focused on supporting women in the professional AV industry.
“We have always supported raising the profile of women in the industries we serve, and we were pleased to be part of the AVIXA Women’s Council Breakfast this year,” remarks Clear-Com CEO Mitzi Dominguez. “Attracting, supporting and retaining more women in Pro AV opens opportunities for the next generations.”
Clear-Com’s recent involvement with Rise includes corporate sponsorship as well as active, hands-on involvement in the Rise Up Academy, Rise Up Summer School and Rise Awards. The R

USA - The hot real estate market in Southern California has spawned an equally hot Netflix TV series, Selling Sunset, now in its fifth season, as well as an upcoming spin-off, Selling the OC.
Audio supervisor Marcos Contreras, CAS, captures sound for these fast and often unpredictable reality shows with the help of his arsenal of Lectrosonics wireless systems, including SMWB and SMDWB miniature wideband bodypack, SMQV belt-pack and Hma plug-on transmitters, as well as SRc portable and DSQD digital receivers.
“Selling Sunset is one of the most popular shows on Netflix,” Contreras explains. “The show demands a lot. The wireless must be reliable every time. Lectrosonics is up to the task - no dropouts or interference even over big, open spaces.”
Selling Sunset has a cast of 10, while the upcoming OC show’s cast numbers to

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