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17 October 2024

UK - Inspired by a summer of sport, Manchester Day 2024 was a vibrant one-day, event filled with music, dance, performance, acrobatics and a host of other interactive and audience participative events, all with a warm and enthusiastic street party atmosphere, staged in and around the city centre.

Manchester-based audio specialist, tube uk, was asked to provide PA and sound systems for the four main stages, two of which were located in the Deansgate area, two at St Ann’s Square and one on Market Street, all major city centre positions.

tube uk’s Melvyn Coote commented, “It is always fantastic to be part of this event which energises the city centre in the true spirit of Manchester, and it’s amazing to see people from all communities engaging and enjoying, making it their event.”

The main challenges for the tube team of four audio eng

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17 October 2024

USA - Working with Stageworx AV at Kemba Live, LD Matt King kept pace with Kameron Marlowe’s multi-faceted, fast-moving show on the star’s recent tour, as he supported the music with a versatile, high-powered lightshow that moved through a wide range of looks.

Helping him accomplish this was a collection of 32 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by 4Wall Entertainment. Included in this mix were 18 Color STRIKE M motorized strobe-wash, 10 Maverick Storm 2 BeamWashes, and four COLORado PXL Bar 16 fixtures.

“Kameron is a very dynamic artist,” said King. “Our show can go from old school country to rock and roll really fast, so I switched between warm and cool white to guide the audience and set the tone for where we were headed. For our opener I used cool white from the tubes in my Color STRIKE Ms to drive energy though big hits and swells i

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17 October 2024

UK - RCF UK partner, JPS Sound & Light, fielded 108 RCF loudspeaker enclosures at the recent Zimfest Live 2024 festival in Hertfordshire - now celebrating its 25th year.

Involved with this event for the past five years, John Southee’s company has watched the event - a celebration of Zimbabwean music, culture and music - mature from its old Colesdale Farm site near Potters Bar to the premium Hertfordshire County Show Ground outside St. Albans where up to 10,000 people from across the UK congregate over the two days.

JPS were tasked with providing a complete technical infrastructure (sound, lighting and video as well as camera crew) - populating two stages, the enlarged main stage and a six-pole Big Top. “The SmartStage180 provided a massive 15m x 12m stage area, with a 10m high roof. This offered an impressive 20-ton weight-loading and additio

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17 October 2024

USA - Little Sister Lounge, a nightclub by Tao Group located in the Moxy Lower East Side hotel in NYC, is an underground cocktail lounge reminiscent of the LES in the 1990s. After becoming familiar with 1 Sound through its performance in neighbouring venues within the Moxy Hotel and Tao Group sister venues like Tao Downtown nightclub, this NYC staple in the nightclub scene, decided to upgrade its audio system to 1 Sound.

Inside the Moxy Hotel, 1 Sound is incorporated into Silver Lining Lounge, a piano bar, Sake No Hana, a modern Japanese restaurant, the Highlight Room, a rooftop cocktail lounge, and The Fix, a bar and all-day cafe. In the past three years of being installed these venue’s, 1 Sound systems have proved their quality and reliability, making it an exciting revamp for Little Sister Lounge to upgrade their audio system.

Installed by Anthe

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17 October 2024

UK - Avolites has announced an update to its Titan remote app, boosting performance and functionality. It is ‘a significant upgrade to the last Titan remote app’ (released several years ago) and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store.

The Titan remote app works alongside Avolites lighting consoles running Titan software, to provide moving light control from a mobile phone or tablet.

Using the Avolites Remote app on a mobile device, with the addition of an external wireless access point, any Avolites lighting console can be remote-controlled using Wi-Fi from an android or iOS mobile device like a smartphone or tablet. 

The remote app also enables running and storing palettes and running playbacks which is invaluable to lighting designers, directors and operators when rigging, testing and focusing fixtures.

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17 October 2024

Thailand - Opened in September, Figment Studio is the product of a strategic collaboration between leading industry players to create ‘Thailand’s premier virtual production facility’.

The Studio Park, StageFor Co and Supreme Studio Co have invested over £4.6m into this venture. Featuring leading technology, including Brompton Technology’s Tessera LED processing, Figment Studio integrates virtual and real worlds.

Mr. Chayanont Ulit, Figment Studio’s managing director, says: “Our studio was born from the collaboration of business partners. These include The Studio Park, home to Thailand’s largest sound stage and a 216-rai (345,600m²) filming location in Samut Prakan, renowned for hosting major Hollywood productions, alongside StageFor Co., experts in XR and virtual production, and Supreme Studio Co, pioneers in bringing cutting-edge vir

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17 October 2024

UK - Edinburgh’s W Hotel is the latest addition to the Marriott International estate.  Atop the building’s steel-spiral-clad exterior is a 12th floor rooftop terrace that boasts sweeping vistas of the city’s skyline and is the setting for a multi-speaker sound system from K-array, installed by London-based Link Media Systems.

“Sound is a big thing with the W brand,” affirmed W Edinburgh’s IT manager Kevin Edwards. “It's one of our key components of the brand makeup, and therefore getting the sound right is incredibly important.”

The Link Media technical team came up with a speaker system design that floods the whole terrace area with high level sound while remaining discreet and is also well protected from the elements, thanks to their stainless steel construction.

“We realised straight away that we couldn’t just install

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17 October 2024

Germany - Prolight + Sound has announced the reintroduction of an advisory board. The committee, consisting of representatives from well-known companies, trade associations and industry experts, will serve as ‘a source of inspiration and impetus in the future’ and will make ‘a significant contribution to the further development of the event’.

At regular meetings, the advisory board will discuss current industry topics and provide strategic advice in order to define future-oriented goals for Prolight + Sound and to align it even more closely with the needs and requirements of the global event industry.

Particular attention is being paid to the further internationalisation of Prolight + Sound. On the basis of the broad network of contacts and the different strategic orientations of the companies, the advisory board, together with Messe Frankfur

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16 October 2024

USA - Touring arenas and stadiums in support of ninth studio album Trustfall – the fourth to go straight to the top of the UK album charts – P!nk’s successful Summer Carnival tour continues for a second year.

Supplying audio for its entirety, under the expertise of Britannia Row Productions account executive Dave Compton, the tour kicked off in England June 2023, and is currently playing across North America, with a finale planned for Miami this November.

“I’ve been working with Britannia Row since 2010,” begins audio crew chief, Guillaume Burguez. “One of the best feelings is knowing that anytime - day or night - you have their support in case any issues arise. It’s a great family to be part of.”

Riding the faders at FOH is Stephen Curtin, who is no stranger to the capabilities of the Clair Global Group wh

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16 October 2024

Italy - The Vasco Live 2024 tour took place across three venues with a total of 12 shows, kicking off at the Stadio Comunale in Bibione, followed by seven dates at the San Siro Stadium in Milan and concluding with four performances at the San Nicola Stadium in Bari. As every year, the tour of Italy's leading rocker was marked by an impressive deployment of equipment and technology, including a powerful, visually striking lighting rig.

Vasco's lighting designer, Giovanni Pinna, comments, “We used the same rig and the same kinds and number of lighting fixtures as last year, and the same stage layout as in the past two years. However, we made a significant improvement in light programming and overall use. With today’s complex technology, it is not easy to use all the features the lights offer straight off. This year, though, after last years’ exp

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16 October 2024

South Korea - Genelec has added Seoul to its growing global network of Experience Centres. The Seoul location joins other existing Genelec Experience Centres across Europe, The Americas and Asia.

Located in the city’s Jongro area, the Seoul Experience Centre is a collaboration between Genelec and its local distribution partner SAMA Sound. Offering a wide selection of solutions from Genelec’s Professional Audio, Installed Sound and Home Audio ranges, the Centre is hosted by SAMA Sound’s Genelec product manager Wonjoo Lee and tech specialist Jaehyuk Han, who are on hand to offer personal demonstrations and advice to customers who pre-book appointments.

The Seoul location is divided into three distinct zones. The Immersive Room is designed to allow visitors to experience Genelec’s UNIO monitoring ecosystem, with a 9320A Reference Controller acti

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16 October 2024

France - With its striking pink façade typical of the Art Deco style of the 1930s, the Palais des Congrès d'Issy operated by Viparis is a vibrant conference and entertainment hub in the city of Issy les Moulineaux in the southwestern suburbs of Paris.

Renovated in 2018, preserving interiors adorned by stained glass, mosaics, parquet flooring and marble, this historic building now features 2,800 m² of configurable space including 11 meeting rooms, two multipurpose areas and the Berlioz Amphitheatre.

Inspired by the inside of a cello, this nearly 1000-seat venue stages a variety of productions ranging from intimate concerts to grand opera productions. Initially delayed by Covid lockdowns, a planned upgrade to the sound system has now taken place, with services partner SAV sub-contracting Chalezeule-based event and theatre sound specialists Espace Co

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16 October 2024

USA - Powersoft has announced the appointment of Mitch Rauch as its new sales director for the US market.

Mitch, formerly of Opticis, Vivitek and BenQ, among other well-known AV industry names, will be based in Powersoft’s US headquarters in Flanders, New Jersey. There, he will focus on driving growth in existing verticals while also exploring new opportunities for Powersoft’s audio technologies.

“I’ve spent over two decades managing professional AV channels, and I see huge potential for growth with Powersoft,” says Mitch. “The reputation of the brand is rock solid, and the people within the company are committed to delivering best-in-class service to both our dealer base and the venues we work with. That level of dedication is something I’m excited to be a part of.”

Tom Knesel, general manager and COO of Powersoft US, comment

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16 October 2024

Brazil - Started in 1985, Rock in Rio is a flamboyant celebration of music, held in Rio de Janeiro every two years., the festival has a worldwide reputation of excellence, not just in the artist line up, but the festival site itself. The choice to use DiGiCo consoles for the main front of house systems is down to artist preference, explains Peter Racy, Rock in Rio’s front of house (FOH) system manager and mix engineer.

“We are seeing a dominance of DiGiCo consoles being used by artists on the main stage,” he says. “The choice of consoles for the festival is usually determined by the artists’ engineering team and their preference is often a deciding factor. In front of me at the mix position, three of the four consoles are DiGiCo; it seems to be a trend. We are also using an SD-11 to control system feeds, including video mapping, p

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16 October 2024

USA - Clair Global was engaged by Latitude 38 Entertainment (L38), part of Live Nation Entertainment, for the eighth year to provide data solutions to three-day music and food festival, BottleRock Napa Valley.

Clair Global’s data services enhanced the festival experience for 45,000 attendees who came to watch a line-up of musical talent, including Clair Global touring clients Stevie Nicks, Megan Thee Stallion, The Offspring and Queens of the Stone Age.

Clair Global engineers built the network infrastructure to support production connectivity needs around the festival venue, the Napa Valley Expo, before deploying specific solutions for food and drink vendors, access control locations, and site wide attendee WiFi, using enterprise grade network equipment overseen by a crew of 14.

Clair Global relies heavily on the reliability and performance

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16 October 2024

Germany - This summer, A Chorus Line premiered at First Stage Theatre in Hamburg. The final project of the graduates of Stage School Hamburg runs until October 2024. The annual joint project receives support from the media technology students of Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW Hamburg), who are in charge of the automated control of the lighting technology and use a zactrack SMART system for this purpose.

“In this venue, it’s absolutely essential to use followspots,” explains Fabian Oving, who supervises all student projects as a research assistant in the lighting laboratory of HAW Hamburg and also uses zactrack in the university’s own showroom for training purposes. As the First Stage Theatre does not have any dedicated personnel for followspot applications, someone came up with the idea of using the tracking system for the produ

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16 October 2024

Europe - At IBC2024, Clear-Com showcased communication solutions designed to meet the needs of both live and broadcast professionals, emphasizing the flexibility required in today’s interconnected production environments.

With the EHX v14 software update and enhanced SIP integration on the E-IPA card, Clear-Com is providing seamless communication solutions that work across live events and broadcast settings. This high-density integration with VOIP systems is increasingly important for large-scale productions, where robust communication links are critical.

The Arcadia Central Station’s latest firmware upgrades offer unparalleled connectivity between live event setups and broadcast systems like the Eclipse HX Digital Matrix and LQ IP intercom devices, providing a unified communication backbone. Whether managing a concert tour or a hybrid event with

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15 October 2024

UK - EXE Technology has confirmed further investment from The National Theatre, London. The venue has increased its in-house hoist stock by investing in additional 250Kg, 350Kg, and 500Kg EXE Rise D8+ chain hoists.

The National continues to expand its EXE inventory, updating its old hoist fleet and upgrading to a full range of EXE units. Having introduced the chain hoist systems in 2023, the National Theatre was keen to align with the brand.

The National Theatre has three separate theatre spaces – The Olivier which seats 1150 people, a fan-shaped auditorium and the largest of the theatres at the venue;   The Lyttelton, a traditional-style proscenium arch theatre with excellent sightlines from every seat, which can accommodate an audience of 890, and The Dorfman which has an auditorium capacity of 450 and is completely kitted out with EXE in the r

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15 October 2024

UK - Optimal Audio opened the virtual doors to its training academy. Open 24/7, the Optimal Audio Academy has certification-based courses ‘conveniently available to the world and any time that suits’.

Simple to navigate, the Optimal Audio Academy provides modular courses to help system integrators and installers to understand how to best maximise the portfolio and most importantly, WebApp.

Comprised of a streamlined product offering that works seamlessly together, the Optimal Audio ecosystem is particularly suited to multi-zoned commercial installations, such as retail and hospitality venues. WebApp, the ‘secret sauce’ of the ecosystem, makes short work of customisable installation parameters and provides an intuitive interface for the end user that’s as straightforward as any smart home appliance. Set up is already as simple as possible bu

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15 October 2024

USA/Europe - Elation has introduced Limelight, a range of high-powered colour-mixing wash luminaires.

The Limelight PAR is a versatile workhorse fixture, designed for even stage washes, side or front lighting, backlighting, and dramatic silhouette effects. It offers precision to accent scenery, sets, or specific areas of the stage for both functional and aesthetic lighting needs.

Available in two configurations, Limelight PAR S boasts seven 60W RGBL LEDs, while Limelight PAR L raises intensity further with 12x 60W RGBL LEDs. The added Lime emitter gives a substantial boost to overall output and fills in the entire spectrum to create a more expansive colour gamut. Limelight PAR L delivers an output of 8,213 total lumens, while the PAR S version brings 5,345 lumens to the table. Both fixtures are IP65-rated LED colour changers, built to perform ‘in a