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18 September 2024

USA - Kylie Minogue may finally be ready to conquer the United States, as she recently capped her first Las Vegas residency at the Venetian Resort’s new Voltaire venue. Tension, her 16th studio album released late last year, reached the number-one slot – her ninth LP to do so – on the heels of sell-out shows in London, Rabat, and Athens this year.

Kylie has toured 19 times since 1989, selling out arenas and stadiums globally. For much of that run she’s been accompanied on the road by DiGiCo, most recently with a Quantum852 console in her monitor world. That desk, piloted by IEM engineer Kevin Glendinning, was supplied by Solotech UK for her recent run of shows in Europe.

Glendinning, whose live-mix portfolio includes work with Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, and Mumford & Sons, among others, first encountered Minogue mixing her stage

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18 September 2024

South Africa - One of South Africa’s leading educational institutions, North West University (NWU), has chosen power solutions from LSC Control Systems at the core of the recent technical upgrade of its largest performance space, the Sanlam Auditorium. The APS (Advanced Power Systems) units were provided and installed by LSC’s South African representative, DWR Distribution.

Sited at NWU’s campus in the city of Potchefstroom, around 120km to the southwest of Johannesburg, the 957-capacity Sanlam Auditorium is the hub of NWU’s cultural life, hosting a varied programme of theatre, conferences, film screenings, dance, musical performances, lectures and ceremonial functions.

Recently, the time had come for the venue to undertake a complete upgrade of its ageing lighting system, which included fixtures approaching 40 years of service. Glenn Cunniff

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18 September 2024

UK - With over 6.1m holidaymakers passing through Heathrow Airport’s terminal 2 every year, new dining destination Jones the Grocer has become a welcome addition.

Uxbridge’s Middlesex Sound & Lighting deployed an intelligent sound solution to enhance the atmosphere, comprising Wharfedale Pro’s DP-4035F amplifier.  

Located in the former Giraffe restaurant, Jones the Grocer was looking for a complete system overhaul that was reliable and low maintenance. “We chose several brands that we knew would deliver sonic quality, ease of use and reliability,” explains Toby Jones, AV designer at Middlesex Sound & Lighting. “It was our first time using products from Wharfedale Pro and we were really impressed by the brand. The amplifiers are affordable without compromising on quality.”  

Jones the Grocer was originally establishe

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18 September 2024

USA - Hard Rock Casino Rockford has just celebrated its grand opening, marking the second Hard Rock project to incorporate 1 Sound loudspeakers. 1 Sound was introduced to Hard Rock for the Hard Rock Times Square Hotel performance venue in New York City, where 1 Sound’s Mono + Stereo MS34 loudspeakers were distributed in the venue along with floor subwoofer, FSUB45s, in the banquettes, and SUB310s around the dance floor.

Executive principal consultant, Tom Knauss of NV5, explained how that deployment “met the ‘holy grail’ goal and then some”. After years of planning and about two years of construction, the 175,000sq.ft Hard Rock Casino in Rockford is now open, and the first thing you will hear walking to the front entrance is ‘the classics’ playing from 1 Sound Cannon C6s at the front of the building.

All 1 Sound loudspeakers are outdoor

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17 September 2024

UK - One of the most unlikely gigs Birmingham’s Utilita Arena (The NIA) has ever hosted – and certainly one of the loudest deployments of a Martin Audio line array in the company’s history – was the recent charity concert, dubbed ‘1000 Lights’.

Organised by local promoter and studio owner, Jack Davis, 1000 musicians came together, divided into five categories, to honour the life of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, whose final gig had been in Birmingham prior to his suicide in 2017.

By setting up the Uprawr Mental Health Foundation, Davis’ aim was to bring people together as part of a large-scale event. Thanks to the volunteers, and willing support from service providers – including Martin Audio partners 22live – he did just that, raising £135,000 for the Foundation, offering free mental health counselling (the musicians themselv

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17 September 2024

USA - Sphere Entertainment Co has announced a ‘one-of-a-kind cinematic experience’ to be shown exclusively at Sphere. V-U2 An Immersive Concert Film at Sphere Las Vegas, directed by Morleigh Steinberg and The Edge, showcases the history-making and future-defining U2:UV show directed by Willie Williams, which played to over 700,000 fans from 100+ countries across 40 sold-out dates from September 2023 through March 2024.

Sphere celebrated the film’s opening with an impressive drone show. Hundreds of drones displayed the V-U2 logo against the Vegas skyline, making the Exosphere ‘come to life’.

V-U2 is the first film ever to be shot entirely with Big Sky, the ultra-high-resolution camera system developed by Sphere Entertainment. V-U2 does not just capture U2’s epic run at Sphere, it allows audiences to feel

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17 September 2024

Poland - With a coveted Prix Versailles win under its belt, the Muzeum Historii Polski (The Polish History Museum) has succeeded in its goal to grab world attention in order to present the country’s history. The award highlights the world’s most beautiful public and commercial buildings, but the appeal of the Polish History Museum is more than skin deep.

Serious in its pursuit of visitor engagement and experience, the museum wanted the highest levels of immersive suspension and chose the submission by ESS Audio, Polish distribution partner for TiMaxSpatial, to be the implemented audio integrator. Two TiMax SoundHub spatialisation engines were deployed separately across two performance venues to create sophisticated object-based soundscapes rendered by the platform’s exclusive dynamic delay-matrix processing.

The museum is just one of several si

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17 September 2024

The Netherlands - Dutch pioneer of the hard techno industry, Verknipt, has been known for its wild techno music events for over a decade, hosting multiple festivals at a number of locations across the Netherlands. With a growing worldwide following, the events are a melee of wild lighting and laser shows combined with ‘freaky’ performances to the tunes of stellar line-ups of hard rave artists.

Verknipt ArenA, which took place on 20 July 2024, was the biggest yet: a record-breaking gathering of 40,000 ‘slaves to the rave’. Classed as ‘the world’s biggest hard techno rave’, the sold-out event was the first ever for Verknipt at Amsterdam’s Johan Cruijff Arena.

Netherlands-based Martin Ciesluk of Outside the Circle, the company that designed and ran the light show for Verknipt ArenA, ensured that Ayrton Cobra was one of t

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17 September 2024

USA - The 2024 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) celebrated its 40th anniversary on 11 September at the UBS Arena in New York. First held in 1984, the VMAs have delivered some of pop culture's most memorable moments, including Madonna’s Like a Virgin performance at the first VMAs in 1984 and Britney Spears’ snake-wielding performance of I’m A Slave 4 U in 2001.

For the VMAs 40th anniversary milestone, Matt Steinbrenner returned as the stage designer to help create a fusion of nostalgia, modernity and spectacle.

The design for the 2024 VMAs harnesses the full potential of the UBS Arena. The visual centrepiece of the design is a towering 60ft-tall Moon Person, emerging from a massive video wall and reaching 55ft into the room as if stepping out of the digital world and into the physical.

This dynamic structure served as a me

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17 September 2024

Namibia - Founded in 1919, Ohlthaver & List (O&L) Group is one of the largest privately owned companies in Namibia, operating across various sectors including food and beverages, fishing, retail, property development, hospitality, and leisure. The group is known for its commitment to innovation and sustainability and for contributing to Namibia's economic development.

Stage Audio Works (SAW) Namibia recently completed the integration of a modern AV system in the group’s executive boardroom at the O&L Centre in Windhoek. This upgrade aimed to update both the boardroom's aesthetics and technological capabilities, ensuring effortless virtual communication and an enhanced meeting experience for both in-person and hybrid delegates.

“We were approached by the client directly, as we have a long-standing relationship built upon past projects,

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16 September 2024

Spain - La Velada Del Año 4, the fourth annual Twitch-streamed, amateur boxing night took place on 13 July. Featuring some of the biggest streamers from the Spanish speaking community, the event was held in the newly refurbished Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, home of Real Madrid.

A huge DiGiCo team was fielded on the night, with a Quantum 7, seven Quantum 338s and an SD12, all provided by Twin Cam Pro and with technical support from DiGiCo’s Spanish distributor, RMS ProAudio, to ensure the event was heard live, captured, and broadcast successfully to huge numbers of fans across the world.

‘The Night of the Year’ is organised by Ibai Llanos, one of the world’s most successful Spanish streamers who has over 30m followers across his internet platforms, and a mind-bending three billion views on his YouTube channel alone. The chosen inter

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16 September 2024

Puerto Rico - When Marcos Efraín Masís Fernández, known professionally as Tainy, and Lex Borrero teamed up to launch their music company Neon16, “a multifaceted talent incubator” in 2019, they adopted the motto “fear nothing, impact everything”.

This attitude was on full display at Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot during Data Loading, the highly anticipated show from Tainy. The multi-Grammy winning songwriter and sound engineer mesmerized the sellout crowd with “a full throttled performance”, during which he was joined by stars like Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejandro, Jhayco, Young Miko, Arcángel and Álvaro Diaz.

Helping to rev up the energy on stage was a relentless, fast-moving lighting design by Richard Vicens and ShowVault that utilised an impressive 450-fixture rig from Musique Xpress Lights.

Most of the rig w

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13 September 2024

UK - Northern England music venue, Sage Gateshead, now rebranded as The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, underwent an audio refurbishment to coincide with its reopening, culminating in the introduction of an additional two SD12 all-purpose digital mixers to its inventory of consoles from DiGiCo.

Not only does the acquisition mark the venue’s transition to DiGiCo consoles in the two main halls but, following an overhaul of the cabling infrastructure to provide MADI across The Glasshouse’s performance spaces, the versatile SD12 models can deliver a variety of functions from various mix positions.

Located on the south bank of the River Tyne, the architectural award-winning building is one of the UK’s leading music venues, hosting a mix of high-profile classical and contemporary productions for the last 20 years, as well as a vast music-m

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13 September 2024

The Netherlands - The Schouwburg theatre in Lochem, eastern Netherlands, has selected 40 Source Four LED Series 3 luminaires, 12 High End Systems Halcyon Gold and 18 SolaPix 7 automated fixtures to upgrade its space.

ETC dealer Ampco Flashlight Sales delivered the fixtures to the theatre, which houses 400 seats for a variety of performances including cabaret and cover bands.

The venue originally housed tungsten lighting and following European legislations – which ban the use of halogen lights in the long run – decided to make the move to LED. Schouwburg’s team found that in comparison to their original tungsten lights, the addition of the Halcyon, SolaPix and Source Four LED Series 3 fixtures made a huge difference in saving power. The selected fixtures have been placed above the main stage, on the sides of the stage as well as above the audien

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13 September 2024

USA - The teams at the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hawaii and the Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium in Canada are doing their part to seek out discoveries every day. Recently, both planetariums went through retrofits to improve the facilities and the guest experience, and the teams turned to amplifiers from LEA Professional to provide the audio.

Both planetarium teams contacted George Barnett, co-founder and technical director of SSIA Technologies and their long-term technical provider, to help them improve their audio systems. The planetariums wanted a more reliable and robust system that could immerse their guests in the storytelling of the vastness of space.

“LEA won our hearts over with their first amplifiers,” said Barnett. “We just loved the engineering – it was fantastic. It had good power, a small chassis, lots of features, and a very

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13 September 2024

Portugal - Billed as a ‘destination hotel’, Immerso, Ericeira’s first five-star hotel, is a relaxed retreat away from the world’s hubbub but close to the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Since premium audio forms a crucial part of the overall visitor experience, the Immerso team turned to Genelec’s 4000 Series installation loudspeakers.

Guests at Immerso can indulge in a range of wellness activities including sunrise and sunset yoga and pilates sessions on the beautiful wooden deck overlooking the valley.

For the audio system, the hotel owners contacted local Genelec distributor, Garrett Audiovisuais, on the recommendation of well-known music producer and composer Elvis Veiguinha, who was responsible for developing the hotel’s sound identity. “Elvis has known us for more than 30 years,” explains Garrett’s Raul Fernandes. “He introduc

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12 September 2024

USA - Rob Koenig and his team are working with Metallica on the second North American leg of the band’s M72 World Tour.

Elevating the show on this tour “to a new, and even higher level of engagement” is an innovative production design by Dan Braun, supported by an equally original lighting design by Koenig that features 144 Chauvet Professional Color Strike M motorised strobe washes supplied by Premier Global Production.

The design’s 360-degree stage brings the band closer to the crowd and affords clear views from anywhere in the big stadium. Those views are also bold, as Koenig pours volumes of bright light on the stage, impressively without having any truss-mounted fixtures, except for a small number around the drum riser.

“This kind of stage was all part of Dan Braun’s vision for the tour from the start,” said Koenig

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12 September 2024

Belgium - Now in its 20th year, the festival celebrating all genres of electronic music is hosted in the aptly named town of Boom in Belgium. This year, Holoplot’s X1 system was chosen to provide the sound for The Atmosphere stage, a custom-made circus-top tent featuring DJs including Amber Broos, Dyen, Ellen Allien, Olympe, Adam Beyer and others. At close to 30m high and 30m wide, it can accommodate up to five thousand techno fans. The system utilises two main arrays consisting of six X1 modules each, with six surrounds of two X1 modules each.

The key challenges to overcome were the highly reflective surfaces causing echoes in the listening area, preventing an even sweet spot to fully benefit from the immersive content played at the stage. Pieter Doms, sound engineer at Noizboyz and co-founder of stereo up-mixing solution Areal, is responsible for the sou

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12 September 2024

UK - First performed on Broadway in 1964, in a production which won 10 Tony Awards, Hello, Dolly! is the classic Jerry Herman musical about Dolly Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker who travels to New York to find a match for the miserly, unmarried Horace Vandergelder. It has been revived countless times over the years, having first arrived in the West End in 1965.

Now, almost 60 years on, a new production has recently opened at the London Palladium, directed by Dominic Cooke and starring Imelda Staunton. It also features a lighting design by the Olivier Award-winning Jon Clark who approached White Light (WL), a d&b solutions company, to supply his lighting rig.

This latest production of Hello, Dolly! has been several years in the making. Initially intended to open in July 2020, it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has

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12 September 2024

UK - Located in Cookstown, Northern Ireland and founded in 1970, and supplying Nexo for over 40 years, Rea Sound has grown to be one of the largest professional audio-visual distributors, installer and design companies in the country.

An expert team with over 200 years of combined experience helps customers across Northern Ireland and Ireland create better audio-visual experiences in a wide range of venues including churches, most recently the First Broughshane Presbyterian in the large County Antrim village of Broughshane.

“The First Broughshane Presbyterian has recently undergone a significant renovation and, as a beautiful, listed building, the traditional aesthetic in the church and halls has been meticulously preserved,” reports Rea sound director Roger McMullan.

“Building on our long-standing relationship with the church, we were

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12 September 2024

UK - The Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is making waves in the West End with its UK premiere of Fangirls, an award-winning Australian musical that has taken the theatre world by storm. This groundbreaking production features an L-Acoustics sound system that delivers exceptional audio quality to this major West End debut.

Written by Yve Blake, Fangirls explores the passionate world of teen fandom through the story of a 14-year-old girl infatuated with the lead singer of a world-famous boy band. The show, which blends hilarity with powerful messages about feminism and the often-underestimated capabilities of teenage girls, demanded an extraordinary audio system capable of recreating the electrifying atmosphere of a large-scale pop concert within the intimate setting of the Lyric.

To meet this unique challenge, award-winning sound designer

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12 September 2024

Germany - The 6K United 2024 You are Precious tour took place recently at some of Germany’s foremost arena venues, including the Munich Olympic Hall and the Hamburg Barclay Arena. This music project, which has run for a number of years, brought together the voices of six thousand children, who after months of independently rehearsing material specially created for them, came together as one to sing an entire concert repertoire for spellbound audiences.

Accompanied by a 16-piece backing band, the choir delivered a wide range of musical styles prepared under the guidance of Professor Fabian Sennholz of Frankfurt University of Music.

Audio technology is clearly an essential element of an undertaking of this size and scale, and this year saw new standards set by specialists Melodus, a company created in 2023 by the merger of expert practitione

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11 September 2024

UK - Audio specialist tube uk helped design sound, as well as specify and implement an innovative system to deliver Where to Begin, the opening event of the 2024 Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), working closely with creative agency Pinwheel under the artistic direction of Katy Fuller and composer Roma Yagnik.

Yagnik created the musical highlight for an immersive pre-show experience followed by a large projection spectacular, with video content produced by Yeast Culture, which was mapped and beamed by Graymatter Video onto the north façade of George Heriot School, founded in 1628, which is overlooked by Edinburgh Castle.

The ticketed event kicked off the 2024 EIF with great flair. It ran over three evenings and was enjoyed by 3,000 people each night, celebrating the energy, vibrance and spirit of the city and the alchemy of invention

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11 September 2024

UK - Former One Direction star Niall Horan’s The Show: Live on Tour wrapped up its European leg in front of a capacity crowd at The O2 last week.

On the road since February, the Irish singer/songwriter’s third outing as a solo artist is to a music hall design, made arena size by 11 separate screens, 150sq.m of Universal Pixels’ LED, fed by four 35k projectors.

With Universal Pixels (UP) having run tests on a custom Austrian drape to determine its real-world brightness ahead of rehearsals late last year, the theatre curtain at The O2 is splashed with projected cinematic slogans and graphics, Welcome To The Show, Starring Niall Horan. And when it lifts to reveal Horan and a six-piece band playing Nice to Meet Ya, the thrill, the whoops and the songs sung back by fans carry right through the set.

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