The Week in Light & Sound
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The pledge comes after independent British festivals like Glastonbury and Bestival vowed to cut plastic waste. Glastonbury has announced it will not sell single-use plastic water bottles this year, owing to concerns about their impact on the environment. While Bestival, Boardmasters and Kendal Calling were among 61 festivals who signed up to the Drastic on Plastic initiative last year, pledging to rid their sites of single-use plastic by 2021.
They have also called on retailers such as Argos and Tesco to stop marketing and selling tents as single-use items, saying abandoned tents account for 875 tonnes of plastic waste every summer.
Restoration Fund - Six endangered theatres across England have been awarded a share of £90,000 from a new fund created to support venues in need of restoration. They are the first recipients of the Theatres Trust’s theatres at risk capacity building programme, which has allocated money for works including survey, structural inspection, governance training and viability studies.
Among those given funding include the Burnley Empire, which will receive £10,000 to fund necessary survey works, and Morecambe Winter Gardens, which will carry out new governance training and business planning support with a £22,000 grant. All six theatres were featured on the Theatres Trust’s theatres at risk register in 2019, which highlights the country’s most endangered theatre buildings.
The Peterborough New Theatre – formerly the Broadway – will receive £7,500 to fund a ceiling void structural inspection, while Salford’s Victoria Theatre will get £21,600 to carry out a viability study to determine whether it can be restored for performance use. Others awarded funding include Spilsby Theatre in Lincolnshire, which will receive £5,500 to help support the planning phase of its restoration.
Musician and actor Gary Kemp, who is a trustee of the Theatres Trust, said: “We know how difficult it can be for theatres to raise funding for the early stage concept and viability works and for organisational support. These first stages provide the vital foundations for both project and organisation, and we hope that with this support, these theatres will be able to make real progress.”
Sound Issues - Fans have complained of sound issues for the second time on the Spice Girls' reunion tour. The group's performance on Monday evening at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff did not go down well with some attendees, who claimed they could not hear the music properly. It comes after similar problems were reported during their opening concert at Dublin's Croke Park on Friday night.
According to Sky News, after disgruntled fans who paid £96 for tickets vented their anger online, Mel B acknowledged the issues and said she hoped "the vocals and the sound will be much, much better". But attendees in Cardiff disagreed, with one writing: "Okay so @spicegirls was so much fun however the sound was atrocious and you could not hear what they actually said! So disappointing when you pay so much for a once in a lifetime opportunity."
Future dates include Manchester's Etihad Stadium, the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, Sunderland's Stadium of Light, the BT Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, Bristol's Ashton Gate Stadium and Wembley Stadium in London.
(Jim Evans)
28 May 2019
