USA - When singer-songwriter Cole Swindell announced plans for his 2018 headlining tour, it was easily his largest to date. Swindell has continued to grow both as an artist and as a touring phenomenon. Looking to now build a high-energy, yet intimate storytelling experience for his first arena headlining tour, Swindell’s production team once again teamed up with the Nashville-based production provider Elite Multimedia for lighting, LED video, and live IMAG video support.
“We have done headlining tours before, but nothing on this scale with our own opening acts for an extended arena tour run,” began production designer James ‘Mo’ Butts. “As an artist, Cole will give us broad stroke ideas, but then will leave a lot of the technical aspects up to us to sculpt into the final design. Going into this tour design, we really wanted to showcase Cole’s evolution as an a

Greece - CinemaNext recently deployed a complete Martin by Harman LED wall lighting solution in its first Sphera theatre installation at Village Cinemas.
CinemaNext recently debuted its new premium format Sphera theatre concept at Village Cinemas in the Mall of Athens. Combining the latest in projection, audio and lighting technologies, the Sphera theatre at Village Cinemas includes an 82ft wide wall-to-wall screen, 669 luxury seats, 4K digital video projectors and a high-quality Dolby Atmos surround sound system. To provide an innovative movie going experience, CinemaNext decided to incorporate Martin VDO Sceptron LED video fixtures to create a dynamic lighting system that complements the visuals on the screen.
“Our goal was to offer a more enthralling experience by including an immersive multi-dimensional lighting effect,” says Jérôme Michel, business developm

UK - Over 700 international television buyers from across the globe recently headed to ACC Liverpool for BBC Worldwide Showcase, the world’s largest international television market hosted by a single distributor. Taking place on 18-21 February, the event brought together producers, talent and BBC executives as well as Britain’s most successful creatives. For the 12th year running, creative technical event production expert Hawthorn supported BBC Worldwide to showcase its premium programmes, delivering two hotly-anticipated evening events.
Putting premium British content right at the centre of the global stage, the evening events showcased the best of BBC talent and creativity to an audience of TV executives and producers.
Led by the BBC Worldwide team, Hawthorn’s group creative director Peter Harding helped to produce and deliver the production design

Finland - A Genelec sound system has recently been installed at the Universal Music offices in Helsinki, delivering quality sound to the entire office space.
Universal’s two-floor office is located in the Merikortteli building in the trendy Punavuori area of Helsinki. Previously a vast 28,000m² industrial building, Merikortteli has now largely been converted to a host of sophisticated office spaces.
When Universal moved in in 2010, they called upon the services of interior designer, Eliisa Korpijärvi, to transform the dark and dingy factory area into a cosy, yet modern, office, with a light colour palette. The open plan space houses more than 20 employees, with two separate offices and meeting rooms, as well as a kitchen and living area. Whilst the renovated space retains its clean, modern feel, the same could no longer be said of the loudspeaker system which was

UK - Bristol-based lighting and video rental specialist Fineline was the LED screen supplier for the 2018 Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT) shows at the Royal Albert Hall, which has seen another series of show-stopping performances and collaborations which help raise awareness and funds for the charity.
This year’s line-up included Kasabian, The Courteeners, Def Leppard, Ali Campbell, Astro and Mickey Virtue from UB40 who appeared as a trio, Nile Rogers and Chic, comedy from Russell Howard as well as The Who’s Roger Daltry, who has been instrumental in driving the annual RAH concert week since it started in 2000. This year he curated an evening of special guests including Muse frontman Matt Bellamy leading a super group including Graham Coxon who performed some of the Beatles’ greatest hits.
Says Fineline’s Rob Sangwell, “It has been a fantastic experience all roun

Germany - Absen Europe will showcase and demonstrate its NXTGEN technologies featuring the recently unveiled Polaris and Altair ranges for the rental market.
The 105sqm stand is set to make an impact with Absen’s NXTGEN innovations taking pride of place - including its new COBALT (Chip-on-Board Advanced Light Technology) platform featuring Absen Chip-on-Board (COB) encapsulation technology and NanoShield technologies alongside its HBB (High Brightness Black) with Common Cathode LED driver technology solutions.
First to market with its NXTGEN COBALT technology with NanoShield, which has been specifically developed to meet the demands of NPP LED in live event rental applications, Absen has developed the Polaris Series with COBALT.
Another industry first, Absen’s NXTGEN HBB (High Brightness Black) technology, is a way to drive black SMD LED at ultra-high bright

Germnay - Media solutions and control specialist ArKaos highlights its newly launched MediaMaster 5.2 software, the latest edition of its signature powerful and flexible real-time video control platform, on stand C67 in Hall 3.0 at Prolight+Sound 2018.
ArKaos will use the opportunity, buzz and high profile of the exhibition to preview a new ‘architainment’ orientated control product called An-Ki. Working over the internet, An-Ki enables digital content appearing as projections or on any LED mappable surfaces / devices to be updated, synched or tweaked in just a couple of clicks.
The An-Ki enabled layer of MediaMaster now gives content managers remote access to devices and displays from anywhere in the world - quickly, efficiently and reliably.
(Jim Evans)

Abu Dhabi - Protec helped deliver the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics IX MENA Games 2018.
It opened in Abu Dhabi on Saturday 17 March. After taking a tour of the city, hitting some famous landmarks along the way, the Olympic torch finally arrived at ADNEC to the applause of the waiting 2000 spectators. Once the ‘Flame of Hope’ cauldron was lit, the show began.
A video entitled Welcome to my City was played and more than 1,000 Special Olympics athletes from 32 different countries entered the arena in a colourful parade.
Protec provided lighting, audio and video as well as some rigging for the show in ADNEC. HQ Worldwide provided their own lighting design and the video content. Project manager, Simon Travis reports, “Due to the openness of the venue, scaffold towers were erected around the grandstand area. For the three big ones on the open s

USA - Atlona has expanded its residential AV sales team with the appointment of Joshua Trujillo as regional sales manager, west residential. Reporting to Victor Baut, national sales manager, residential, Joshua will cover a vast territory across Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. He will work closely with systems integrators, rep firms, consultants and end users to expand regional visibility and market share for Altona in the residential AV market.
Joshua comes to Atlona with 15 years of AV industry experience, most of which was with Logic Integration, a commercial and residential AV dealer and integration firm based in Denver.
(Jim Evans)

Germany - At Prolight + Sound (Hall 4, Stand C71) CAST will be showcasing the latest enhancements to BlackTrax, its real-time tracking system. The company will work with an unprecedented range of partners at the show.
The latest Version 2.3 of BlackTrax real time motion tracking system is being launched at the show and includes a number of significant new features.
“The number of partners demonstrating BlackTrax at Prolight + Sound is a strong indication of how widely accepted our solution is, and how rapidly it is succeeding,” says Andrew Gordon, director of business development for BlackTrax. “BlackTrax can bring a radically new dimension to any production, live performance or broadcast and more. Even in the most complex, most demanding shows, everything is where it needs to be, on time, every time, enabling a show to move to a whole new level.”
To ill

UK - The first UK stock of the new ProLights OmegaPIX next generation LED video screen has gone straight to Lincoln-based event production company Peachy Events Services for use on a diverse range of client applications ranging from corporate events to outdoor music festivals.
Peachy Events were looking to upgrade to a higher resolution screen in the popular 3.9mm pitch specification. It was important that the chosen solution's price point and advanced feature set could provide them with a good rental return on investment.
Director Dave Broughton comments: "We are delighted to be the first UK event production company to adopt the ProLights' OmegaPIX LED screen. With the festivals season only a few months away, we expect it to be in high demand for outdoor live events as well as indoor use.
“The 3.9mm pixel pitch and fantastic screen resolution means content wi

USA - The Richard E. Berry Educational Support Centre in Houston, Texas recently completed a major update to its AV systems featuring seven Allen & Heath dLive S Class Digital Mixing Systems and an ME Personal Mixing System.
Serving the Cypress Fairbanks Integrated School District, as well as the Houston area at large, the Berry Centre hosts 4000 yearly events in its five multi-purpose venues (arena, conference centre, theatre, and two stadiums).
Ford Audio Video Systems provided the Berry Centre’s new AV systems. David Shriver, Ford AV’s Houston Division job centre manager says, “Our big goal in all of this was flexibility because the centre defines ‘multi-use facility’.”
Ford AV installed an Allen & Heath gigaACE network and a second Dante network to supplement the existing Dante network. Together, the three networks allow several of the dLi

UK - Alan Ayckbourn’s The Divide, staged at London’s Old Vic theatre features sound design by Bobby Aitken, who declares, “The sound design was defined by the use of TiMax. We could never have produced that without TiMax.”
Directed by Annabelle Bolton with the score composed by Chris Nightingale, Aitken recognised the potential for an immersive spatial sound design. The music is delivered via a 40-piece choir and five-piece music ensemble comprised of woodwind, strings, piano and electronics.
In addition to the score, the piece is supported by the extensive use of immersive sound effects. Out Board director Robin Whittaker provided design and programming support on-site to help Aitken realise his spatial vision.
Aitken was able to use TiMax to strategically create space within the music for the actors’ voices to be heard clearly. Instead of rais

UK - Blackmagic Design reports that IMAG projection for the 2018 X Factor Lve arena tour was produced with a PPU, built around an ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K with ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Panel. Live acquisition was delivered by an HD multicam set up which included the URSA Broadcast.
The tour, produced by live specialist, PRG XL Video, took the talent show’s winners to 15 cities across the UK in just three weeks. Vis a Vis Video’s Stuart Merser led on all video production for the tour and collaborated with X Factor’s studio director, Diccon Ramsey, to ensure the live set up matched the format and feel of the popular television series.
“The live set-up is similar to the Saturday night show, with a presenter and acts performing for the audience’s vote each night, so Diccon was responsible for editorial consistency between broadcast and arena content,

UK - Video Illusions won the Festival Supplier Award 2018 for Best Screen Supplier, impressing judges with the scale of the installation and the technology deployed at Boomtown.
The Festival Supplier Awards, held on 25 January at London’s Hurlingham Club, recognise the achievements, hard work and dedication of outdoor event and festival suppliers.
The award categories cover a multitude of outdoor event essentials, from staging, crowd management, temporary structures and crewing to crowd barriers, toilets, power, technology and screens. There are also specific awards for the green supplier and production teams.
Submissions for the 2019 edition of the awards run from 3 September to 31 October, with The Festival Supplier Awards 2019 set to return to London’s Hurlingham Club on Thursday 31 January 2019.
(Jim Evans)

Europe - FIX8Group worked alongside Renault Sport Racing (RSR) to conceive and integrate a seamless, interactive, multi-purpose visual display for the Formula One team's high-profile, pit lane touring garage.
Providing an important visual information highway for RSR's race team, their VIP visitors and RSR sponsors, the 40K wide, digital display canvas features enhanced interactive connectivity that enables the RSR team members, VIPs and Renault Sport Formula One Team sponsors to respond to race critical content, live, as it happens, while interacting with screen resolution native content and sponsor marketing messages in real time, via advanced touch screen technology. Crucially, the content can also be viewed from the pit lane and can be seen by the TV broadcast cameras, further maximising the all-important ROI for the Renault team and its sponsor messaging.
François

UK - The current tour by All Time Low is indicative of the frenetic pace this band sustains. Barely had they left rehearsals than the run of five gigs through the UK had ended and they’re off across the Atlantic for some North American dates that takes them through to the end of June. Once again LD Jeff Maker has designed a high impact show, the back of stage being dominated by a fractured, post-industrial looking LED screen supplied by Video Design.
“I’ve worked with Video Design on and off for the last couple of years”, says production manager Tom Clifford-Loynes. “This short UK tour - all back to backs - has been typical of the service they provide. Great equipment and first-class crew; we’ve had absolutely no issues with any of the hardware. The crew have been wonderful as usual; don’t forget the screen is quite a big piece of real-estate yet here we are tw

UK - The 2018 version of connectCAD, an AV system design plugin for Vectorworks, has been released.
The plugin provides designers assistance with concept drawings, schematics, cable lists, bill of materials and presentations, and can also be used for designing connected systems like broadcast, IT and electrical.
The latest version has a faster, more optimised engine and incorporates Connect Tool, which follows all standard Vectorworks keyboard shortcuts and offers five connection styles: polyline, rounded, chamfered, arrow connection across layers and link connection that enables a connection to a socket in another document.
connectCAD 2018 has also improved the Make Cable Report, which now offers new options for calculating cable length estimates from both the equipment layout or by selecting standard cable lengths.
The community Device Library now comes

Belgium - The popular Walibi theme park in Wavre near Brussels is renowned for its Halloween spectacular, when its rides are ghoulishly transformed. Awarded best Halloween attraction in Europe for three consecutive years - 2014, 2015 and 2016 - in the Diamond Theme Park Awards, expectations were very high for Walibi at the end of last year, and with the help of AV Stumpfl’s Wings IObox hardware module platforms, they were surpassed with the creation of Asylum.
The brief for Asylum was to transform a ride into a haunted house while making use of the latest automated AV technology to create an immersive and unforgettable experience for the public. DW Production was engaged to build from scratch all rooms and aesthetic decoration for the attraction as well as the music and effects and animatronics, with GSF Events taking the lead on the technical aspects of the ride with th

Germany - Green Hippo’s scheduled activities for Prolight + Sound 2018 include exclusive presentations, plus demos with its show partner Notch, maker of the real-time visual creation tool.
The Green Hippo stand will be fully equipped with the latest Hippotizer+ Media Servers, enabling guests to experience solutions for real-time media playback and 3D mapping.
A key feature of the Green Hippo stand is the opportunity for visitors to gain hands-on experience of Hippotizer’s seamless integration with Notch. Designed from the creative process up, and supercharged by powerful real-time rendering and visualisation, Notch helps creators rediscover the joy of problem solving, experimenting and improvising on the fly.
Further demonstrating Hippotizer’s ways with Notch, Green Hippo has commissioned a short dance piece with the London based Tavaziva dance company sh

Europe - ArKaos has released MediaMaster 5.2, the latest software version for its powerful and flexible real-time video control software platform.
The key new features that 5.2 brings to MediaMaster users are: DMX Merge: To combine parameters like Pan and Tilt from a lighting console and video sources from MediaMaster; Pixel Blending: Utilising the Blend function, the colour output of a lighting console can be blended - via DMX from the lighting console with the video output of MediaMaster; Kling-Net Draft Devices: Allow a show to be prepared remotely – disconnected from the physical devices; Extended Fixture Creation: Supports complete DMX Devices like moving heads with Pan / Tilt; 64 Bit Support: for all applications – enabling quicker and more responsive operation.
The Art-Net DMX merge facility implemented in MediaMaster 5.2 unlocks the system’s true potentia

USA - Located on a 10,000sq.ft deck overlooking the Fountains of Bellagio, Beer Park at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino provides an exciting rooftop experience.
With over 100 eclectic beer options, including 36 beers on tap, the developers of the flagship location wanted the outdoor atmosphere to be a shining example of how to best enjoy the Las Vegas life. In this environment, they now needed a high-definition video display to be a focal point in the dynamic audio/visual design, so they worked with the design specialists at Ponto Solutions who chose a FLEXUltra 1.9mm LED video solution from PixelFLEX.
“The restaurant/bar design market is a big industry for us, and we were very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with the developers of Beer Park,” comments Matt Abbrederis, Ponto Solutions. “They really wanted this location to be a premier entertainm

UK - SixEye is a new technology startup developing a flexible remote management platform which allows manufacturers and system integrators of lighting and audio-visual controls systems to provide a unified remote management solution under their own brand.
Bas Hoksbergen joins as SixEye is starting to bring on board manufacturer partners to integrate their products with its platform. His role will see him build relationships with new and potential customers and identify new markets for SixEye’s product.
SixEye CEO, Simon Hicks, describes the appointment as “The ideal combination of person, product and timing – we’re very pleased to be working with Bas as we bring SixEye’s solution to market. Having deployed large projects of exactly the kind that SixEye is designed to manage, Bas’s contribution will be invaluable as we add new features and fine tune the offe

UK - Following a management buyout in May 2017, technical production company Saville is continuing its expansion of its in-house expertise with the appointment of international live event specialist, Chris Philpott, as head of operations for the live events division.
With over 15 years’ live events’ experience, Philpott has been brought on board to join the evolving senior leadership team and help shape the new generation Saville. The company has recently consolidated its national live event network to form two main operational hubs, located in Leeds and Guildford.
Joining Saville AV from Dubai-based Digicomm, where he was director of projects, Philpott was responsible for delivering technically challenging event experiences across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, for top global brands.
Colin Nixey, managing director of Saville Live Events, comments, “The

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