USA - When the city of Trussville, Alabama unveiled its new downtown entertainment district, the results were nothing short of spectacular. Complete with an amphitheatre-style concert stage and pavilion. The new PA system consists of 15 EAW ADAPTive Anna loudspeakers (arranged six left, three centre, six right), four EAW SB828 Dual Drive Subwoofers (two per side, stacked on stage) and six MW12 MicroWedges.
The central elements of Trussville’s downtown entertainment district are its new stage and pavilion. The stage will host large concert performances and national touring acts for up to 2,500 spectators. A 27ft-wide LED video wall will allow the stage to be used year-round for family movie nights, concert simulcasts and screening sports events, including football games.

Australia - The weather in Australia can be unpredictable, from searing temperatures to dust storms and intense rain. With so many outdoor events held every year in the country, production suppliers require sturdy, IP65-rated lighting fixtures that will perform no matter what weather event is thrown at them.
Lighting production company Chameleon Touring Systems has it figured out, relying on Prolights IP-rated gear. That strategy led them to purchase another 24 PanoramaIP AirBeam fixtures to add to the considerable stock they already have in their inventory.
As well as being weatherproof, the PanoramaIP AirBeam is a powerful beam and searchlight, featuring CMY colour mixing and multiple prisms.
“Our PanoramaIP AirBeams have been popular and this year they have been on several key events already,” comments Tony Davies, managing director of Chameleon. “Their

UK - Industry collective #WeMakeEvents, joined by over 150 industry players, has called for crucial government support for the specialist transport vehicles - carrying artists, crew, and equipment involved in touring productions - which have been rendered inoperable post-Brexit.
An essential component to music, film, and TV tours, passenger transportation relies on operating freely in the EU. Under the current post-Brexit EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) hauliers are restricted, stopping the 30 companies in the sector from returning and UK artists from being able to tour. This is instead opening up opportunities for trucking companies to be set up in the EU and sacrificing specialist jobs. The industry is now writing to the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, urging the government to negotiate exemptions or waivers to the TCA and/or provide short-term workarounds.<

Europe - Ayrton has announced the appointment of Matt Hallard as the latest member of its expanding international sales team. Hallard takes up the position of regional sales manager for the UK, Ireland, Benelux, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Croatia, Malta, Greece, Slovenia and Turkey, with effect from 1 April 2021.
Hallard brings extensive experience of the lighting industry and the European market from a career that spans over 20 years. He first cut his industry teeth with an eight-year period as a production manager on cruise ships, after which Hallard returned to dry land in 2005 to launch a career as a specialist in European sales with some well-known moving light brands.
“This was an exciting time in the development of moving lights and I worked with, and learned from, some incredibly talented, hard-working individuals,” says Hallard. “That diversity of experien

Cultural Recovery - Music festivals, West End theatres, comedy clubs and Canterbury Cathedral will get a share of £400m emergency government culture funding. A total of 2,700 English culture and heritage venues will share the latest round of the Culture Recovery Fund.
Canterbury Cathedral has the biggest grant with £2m, while the Serpentine Galleries in London has been awarded £1.9m and Camden Roundhouse has £1.5m. West End chain Nimax Theatres and Glastonbury will receive £900,000 each.
Glastonbury Festival organisers Emily and Michael Eavis said the money would "make a huge difference in helping to secure our future". Emily told told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the event had "suffered huge losses" in the past year. This is the last major tranche of money to be awarded from the £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund that was announced last July. In his Budg

USA - For a large venue, the 115,000sq.ft Sonoran Lawn at the Rawhide Event Centre in Chandler, AZ often feels intimate to concert goers. Perhaps that’s because of the crowds that, prior to the pandemic, packed the site for the national acts that performed there.
When Sullivan King, Ghastly and Shiba San appeared at the venue over three nights, headlining a series of EDM shows produced by Relentless Beats, COVID-19 safety protocols restricted the number of fans that could be present. Those lucky enough to score a ticket had to stay within widely-separated 8ft x 8ft pods.
Everyone was able to enjoy the sense of connectivity that this venue is known for, despite the limited crowd size, thanks to an engaging lighting design by Luis Torres that featured a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue and Maverick fixtures.
“There was a lot of social distancing at the

USA - The Naval Academy Athletic Association in Annapolis, Maryland recently opened the Ron Terwilliger ’63 Centre for Student-Athletes, a 25,000sq.ft facility that highlights the Academy’s tradition and history of physical education and intercollegiate athletics.
The centre includes the new Akerson Theatre, a 180° immersive theatre that uses a suite of Christie products, including HS Series projectors, Spyder X20, Mystique and Pandoras Box, and is designed to help inform visitors, prospective midshipmen and their families about opportunities at the school.
The Naval Academy Athletic Association (NAAA) engaged Dimensional Innovations to design, integrate and provide content for the centre and the Akerson Theatre. The project began in 2017 and was originally conceived as a visitors’ centre, but says Drew Berst, executive director, Dimensional Innovations, “The

USA - ClearOne has announced the addition of Voice Lift technology to its BMA 360 microphone.
According to ClearOne chair and CEO Zee Hakimoglu, the upgraded BMA 360 is now shipping to customers worldwide. “Voice Lift provides a powerful and simple way to drive multiple mix-minus speaker zones allowing everyone in the room to hear every word. ClearOne’s breakthrough technologies, FiBeam and DsBeam, allow greater Voice Lift gains to be realised than have been previously possible.”
The combination of ClearOne’s beamforming plus feedback cancellation technologies provide up to a 20 dB boost in gain before feedback compared to an omni mic.
Local amplification of a presenter’s voice easily enables local listeners at every corner of a large space to experience the same comfortable and intelligible audio level as someone sitting right next to the presenter. Vo
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- USA - Specialist mobile business fabricator Cruising Kitchens has created a custom food truck for the Raising Cane’s chicken finger restaurant chain, which was designed ‘not only to deliver delicious food but also to get the party started’. The fully functioning mobile kitchen also features a custom-designed pop-up DJ booth on the roof, which is surrounded on three sides by ADJ weatherproof LED video panels.
Already operating from over 500 restaurants in 29 states and territories, they are moving into more areas, thanks to a pair of custom food trucks. The trucks were delivered at the end of 2020, as a surprise for the company’s founder, Todd Graves, from his co-CEO, AJ Kumaran, to celebrate the brand’s 25th anniversary. They are now making their way across the US, as part of the Cane’s Across America campaign, visiting areas not yet served by a Raising Cane

Zimbabwe - The rhythmic Afro-pop dance floor sound of Ammara Brown flows through a musical path that is distinctly different from the jazz infused offerings of Tamy Moyo. Yet both of these multi-instrumentalists and All Africa Music Award winners exude a captivating aura every time they step on to the stage.
This was plain to see on 12 February when they joined forces for Girls on the Move, a two-hour pay-for-view livestream on Gateway Stream Music intended to celebrate and raise awareness of Zimbabwean women in music.
Providing a lively and brightly coloured setting in support of their performances was a Blessing Bero designed lightshow that featured Chauvet Professional Maverick and Rogue fixtures, including eight MK2 Spot units, four R2 Spots and four R2 Washes, all of which were supplied by Events Evolution.
Working in coordination with video designer

Estonia - Robe moving lights and two RoboSpot systems provided a neat solution for the 2021 Eesti Laul competition to select Estonia’s entry to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
Lighting and set designer for the finale show and the two semi-finals that preceded it in Tallinn’s Saku Suurhall arena was Rene Jõhve, who was approached to work on the project by Estonian national broadcaster, ERR. This was his tenth year of lighting the finale and semi-final events which were aired live, and - for obvious reasons - this year were staged without an audience.
The lighting rig included a selection of Robe fixtures including two BMFL WashBeams, 13 x DL7 Profiles, 12 x 300E Spot, 42 x Pointes, 25 x Spiider LED wash beams, 18 x LEDBeam150s and eight MMX WashBeams, plus other lights, all of which were supplied to the production by rental company Cuuclub.
The streaml

Hungary - ChamSys has appointed Chromasound as the exclusive Hungarian distributor of the QuickQ series of consoles and QuickQ software. Wannabe Studios, the current ChamSys distributor in Hungary, will focus on the company’s flagship MagicQ range of products. Both companies will distribute the ChamSys SnakeSys line.
“We are focusing our distribution to better serve all levels of the market in Hungary,” comments Aziz Adilkhodjaev, international sales and business development manager for ChamSys. “Wannabe Studios is a strong partner, and now having Chromasound on board expands our capabilities even further.”
Based on Chromasound’s extensive 20-year experience in the market, ChamSys is confident that the company will be able develop the QuickQ customer base even further, according to Adilkhodjaev. “Chromasound’s understanding of this market makes them id

USA - Nimbus, the latest line of luminaires from Altman Lighting, is a personal virtual lighting studio featuring the Halo ring light and the Sidekick fill light.
“We saw a need in the market for more than a ring light, so we created a lighting kit that anyone can use, anywhere,” says Nicolas Champion, vice-president of sales and marketing.
The Nimbus Series LED battery and USB powered fill and ring lights were designed for video conferencing in home or office studios. The 6” Halo is a tunable ring light that can be powered from either the Sidekick (sold separately) or any USB device. The Sidekick is a high output 180 LED tunable white (3000K to 6000K) non-glare soft light that is fully dimmable and battery/USB powered. The compact design of this luminaire (no larger than a cell phone) allows for easy mounting, transportability, and discrete placement in your vid

UK - Panasonic has announced a solution for realtime tracking projection mapping that ‘expands the creative possibilities for the entertainment and production industries to merge digital and physical realities with stunning results’.
Different visual effects can be achieved by projecting images in real-time, with accuracy, onto fast moving objects using the Real-Time Tracking Software Development Kit (ET-SWR10) for the Panasonic PT-RQ35K projector. The projector, in combination with an infrared emitter, camera, marker and a content server, creates a Real-Time Tracking Projection Mapping System that is designed for use by production companies and at live entertainment events, theme parks, museums and Esports.
The kit enables the 30,500lm, 3-chip DLP laser projector to accept and output 240Hz HD signals delivering enhanced images with a latency of just 5ms[1] and the

Finland - Tomi Björck is one of Finland’s best-known chefs and restaurateurs. With 10 restaurants and two bakeries already to his name across Finland, Sweden and Australia, Björck with his wife Minka and three other associates embarked on their latest project in Spring 2020.
Lily Lee, in the heart of the Finnish capital of Helsinki, offers a range of dishes inspired by Taiwanese cuisine, Hong Kong’s street kitchens and classical Cantonese cooking.
Finnish AV integrator, 4Business Oy, installed a Genelec loudspeaker system in the environmentally friendly RAW aluminium finish to enhance the dark, sultry interior with an audio experience that blends into the lush surroundings. In fact, Björck contacted Genelec directly for his latest project. 4Business’s Janne Lankinen was unsurprised by Björck’s choice. “Music and atmosphere are crucial elements for Tomi at

USA - The Events United team and production manager Kevin Hart returned to live work in March at the Space Coast City Fest in Melbourne, Florida.
For Events United, the two-day evangelical conference represented its first large-scale live event (with the exception of a few smaller outdoor projects) since the pandemic started. As if putting together a stage for Dove Award winners Casting Crowns, Zach Williams, Social Club Misfits, Andy Mineo and other praise music stars while dealing with COVID-19 safety protocols wasn’t enough, they also had to contend with problematic weather throughout the two-day event.
“The winds got pretty intense at some points. The gusts ended up peaking around 35 mph.” said Jon Martell, who made up the Events United team along with Donald Van Slyke, Chase Clark, Ryan Lane, and Joel Pelletier.
As a result of the wind, the festival ha

USA - With up to 50,000 people in and out of the Georgia World Congress Centre each day over a two-day period in February, the Cheersport National Cheerleading Championship in Atlanta may be the largest event to have taken place in the world under the COVID pandemic.
Rental and production company Lite Tek Entertainment supplied and designed lighting for the event and turned to an Elation lighting package of Cuepix and DTW blinders, Protron strobes, SixPars and more to highlight team routines across five different stages.
The National Cheerleading Championship is one of the biggest of its kind in the world. A typical year would see 1,400 teams competing but due to a 50%, reduction in allowed participants due to the pandemic, some 700 teams competed at this year’s event. Nevertheless, the event was huge with stages spread across two buildings and 90 acres.
“Th

Europe - Prolights will run a series of online webinars on 13 and 14 April, during which the manufacturer will unveil three new moving-heads, one moving-beam and two moving-washes. Prolights will also showcase its latest products from this and last year.
There will also be keynote presentations on film and TV lighting products, architectural fixtures, virtual production solutions and the entertainment lighting fixtures range.
“We are excited to use what would have been a week of tradeshows to host an online event and communicate directly with customers all over the world,” comments David Ferraz, marketing manager at Prolights. “We are eager to shake hands again with all our customers, but while the world makes an effort to open back up again, we will use all tools available to us to keep contact with everyone.”
Since spaces available are limited, interest

UK - Guildhall School’s Graduation Day ceremony took place virtually on 26 March for the Class of 2020. Every year, as part of Graduation Day, the Board of Guildhall School elects a small number of people to the Fellowship, the School’s highest accolade. Fellowships recognise outstanding achievement or service to the School by past and present members of staff, members of the Board and former students. This year’s fellows are Prema Mehta, Ben Sumner and Natasha Gordon.
Prema Mehta (Stage Management and Technical Theatre 2004) studied at Guildhall School and is a highly successful lighting designer who has lit over 200 productions in her 16-year career. Her recent productions include Hymn at the Almeida Theatre, The Comeback at the Noël Coward Theatre, and she is soon to open the RSC’s production of The Winter’s Tale. She is also the founder o

USA - As with many things over the past year, the world of sports saw significant disruption to its regular routine. From halted or delayed seasons to little or no live audiences at the arenas, sporting events around the world had to operate differently.
With no ambient sounds to enhance the broadcasts, television networks also had to find alternative ways to replicate the at-home viewers’ experience. In response, Fred Vogler launched Sonofans, an immersive sports crowd performance system. The sound library was created using recordings captured with DPA Microphones’ 4091 Omni Condenser Mic, 4560 Binaural Mic and MMA-A Digital Audio Interface.
Touted as a performance-based enhancement tool for empty stadiums or those with limited attendance restrictions, Sonofans provides live, dynamic crowd response with a library of reactions that have been mined and curated over

Argentina - Estadio Unico Madre de Ciudades is the largest stadium in the province of Santiago del Estero with a capacity of 29,000. Completed in October 2020, the stadium will host matches for upcoming editions of the Copa America and the Supercopa Argentina.
To meet the project’s deadline, the AV integration firm working on the stadium, Equaphon Sistemas de Sonido SRL, found a way to integrate the stadium’s audio system while still adhering to all health and safety restrictions in place due to COVID-19 - all thanks to the trust they put in Audinate’s Dante audio network platform.
“Dante saves on costs and ensures the stadium can expand and scale the system as needed,” explains Francisco Maiocchi, member of the Equaphon Engineering Department. “Dante also offers many great audio control and management benefits. Dante was always part of our integration plan

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