Australia - South Australia’s Summer Sounds Festival was a four-week outdoor concert series offering the joy of live sound to a 2,100-capacity audience. Eighteen shows ran the whole month of January, with festival-goers safely and comfortably spaced in ‘party pods’ that accommodated four to six people each.
The festival celebrated Australian artistes such as Bernard Fanning, Spiderbait, and Hayden James. Through the collaboration of Five Four Entertainment, Groove Events, and Secret Sounds, the festival promoters looked to Adelaide-based L-Acoustics rental network partner Novatech to provide that dynamic live sound festival-goers have been craving.
Festival-goers could choose from VIP, gold, silver, or bronze seating packages. VIP pods occupied the first five rows

UK - ITV’s This Morning is one of the longest running daytime programmes on British television. The show is broadcast from Television Centre in White City, West London, and is hosted by some of the UK’s leading presenters. Airing live, This Morning features a wide spectrum of topical material, from current affairs to showbiz, health, style and beauty, food, gardening and more. The show attracts around one million viewers per day, and this year reached its highest ever audience share of just under 30% of viewing.
During the first few weeks of December, the show featured a number of segments broadcast from outside locations at Television Centre. Head of Lighting for ITV Daytime, Matt Carter and his team used ETC fos/4 Panel lights (launched early in 2020) for the first time and were very impressed. He comments:
“We had two 24 x 24 size with the Daylig

UK - FIX8Group is responding to the surge in demand for virtual events by partnering with the spatial visualisation and collaboration tool Cavrnus to enhance its event design and delivery solutions.
The move reflects the unprecedented challenges faced presently by the event industry, as more global events transfer to the digital domain and require true collaborative, online planning. Cavrnus enables event designers to build and share immersive and interactive 3D virtual environments, such as conference rooms, exhibitions and stores.
FIX8Group says that adding Cavrnus to its stable will facilitate enhanced options for anyone needing innovative technical delivery of online or hybrid events as the industry re-emerges.
“We're always looking at how we can use best-of-breed technology to help us produce world-class events,” comments Neil Trenell, creative director

China - Hundreds of GLP’s JDC1 hybrid strobes were deployed by lighting designers Mat Stovall and Trevor Stirlin Burk at the new Pudong Football Stadium in Shanghai for the League of Legends World Championship 2020 Finals - the pinnacle of the eSports community and the concluding event of the season.
Organised by Riot Games and ConCom Inc, the event took place on a massive scale. ‘The Worlds’ was broadcast in 16 languages and across 21 platforms setting a new record; an indicator of eSports’ increasing appeal.
The live event saw 888 active JDC1 heads in use - corresponding to a lucky number in Chinese numerology. All pieces were sourced from Christie Lites, and were supplied via main contractors, CT Asia Pacific. Christie Lites’ account executive was Robert Roth, and senior project manager was Bobby Braccia; both worked closely with CT Shanghai’s Aaron Ross

UK - The city of Liverpool has a long-standing history for its vibrant nightlife and club scene. And so the opening of the refurbished Mansion nightclub was met with eager anticipation and much hype by locals and tourists alike in early Autumn 2020.
Owners Dean Jones, along with DJ’s David Whelan and Mike Di Scala (better known and DJ duo Camelphat) are familiar with making sure they match, or, more often exceed the expectations of their audiences, and so their discerning choice of sound system for the refurb was made with an enormous amount of input and plenty of consideration. “As DJs one of the favourite sound systems we perform with are Void systems and so we wouldn’t have chosen any other brand for our own club,” confirms Mike.
Mansion is a house and tech house nightclub, with a capacity (in usual times) of 1,000. It has been designed as a multi-purpose v

UK - The popular children’s Christmas show at Salisbury’s Salberg Theatre went ahead thanks to the efforts of the Wiltshire Creative team.
Moving the holiday production from its usual 149-seat studio to the 517-seat Salisbury Playhouse Main Theatre, and cleverly rearranging the audience area, the creatives at Wiltshire were able to offer local youngsters the chance to enjoy this yuletide tradition in comfort and safety as they staged a production of Little Robin Redbreast.
“Because of the devastating effect of COVID-19, we were unable to put on our usual pantomime,” said Matt Bird, senior lighting technician at Wiltshire Creative. “However, we were determined to provide families with entertainment this year in a socially distant and safe fashion, so we moved to the larger space and limited seating to 148.”
The move to the Salisbury Playhouse Ma

UK - Neutrik has announced that with the recent version 5.6 firmware update for its CL/QL digital mixing console series, Yamaha has added preamp remote control options for Neutrik’s new NA2-IO-DPRO Dante audio network device.
“There’s no doubt that the future within the Pro AV market is based on interoperability between different devices within an application. We have found the perfect partner with Yamaha to enable this feature for better ease of use and enhanced customer experience,” says Florian Frick, product manager for Neutrik.
With the CL/QL firmware update Yamaha added this specific support for Neutrik’s small but powerful I/O solution, adding more flexibility in a network setup for Line, MIC and AES signals.
“Yamaha is delighted to have been able to integrate control of the NA2-IO-DPRO into the CL/QL series with the release of our V5.6 firmwar

USA - Nautilus Entertainment Design, Inc. (NED) has announced that after 30 years in business, the company founders Laura and Jim Tetlow, are selling their stock to the company ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan.) With this sale, the company will become 100% employee-owned. Jim Tetlow will continue in a consultancy role as principal consultant and lighting designer for select shows and projects in an effort to provide NED’s clients with a multi-year seamless transition.
Jim Tetlow comments, “When we started the business 30 years ago, our focus was on lighting design for TV and live events. At that time, it never occurred to us that we would expand into so many more disciplines including architectural lighting design, A/V system design, and theatre consulting. One of our proudest achievements is the fact that we have built a team of professionals that excel in their wor
featured content

ETC Halcyon Silent

High End Systems Halcyon Silent builds on ETC’s legacy of fanless automated fixtures by incorporating features from the highly sought-after Halcyon family. Halcyon Silent perfectly balances silent operation with brilliant output of 18,400 lumens and high-impact features. 

For more information visit us at www.etcconnect.com

France - Based in Ris-Orangis and owned by Communauté d’Agglomeration Grand Paris Sud, Le Plan opened in 1984, with a new venue built in 2014, and was recently awarded the prestigious contemporary music scenes label (SMAC) by the French Ministry of Culture.
A hub for Parisian music lovers and a reference venue for first-class sound quality, Le Plan’s audio system has recently been upgraded with L-Acoustics K and X Series delivered by Audiolive, replacing its previous 17-year-old system.
Le Plan hosts a varied national and international programme covering the entire spectrum of contemporary music genres from hip hop to pop, rock, and more. Le Plan’s audio team also has a mission of raising awareness of key developments within the contemporary music scene, and hosts specialist courses in live sound recording and mixing for students from EMC University. The venue

Ireland - When the Irish National Opera first started production of Least Like the Other, they had plans to tour the show around Ireland in August 2020. While the pandemic threatened to halt the production and performances, innovation through d&b Soundscape means that the show will go on - in a different form.
Least Like the Other, Searching for Rosemary Kennedy is a thought-provoking work of experimental music theatre created by Brian Irvine and Netia Jones. The show traces events in the life of Rosemary, eldest daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy, sister of JFK, using redacted archive materials only recently pieced together. The show’s original operatic production featured 15 live musicians including, a string quartet, keyboards, wind, brass and an improvisational ensemble.
In March of 2020, with growing concerns about COVID-19, the show’s product

USA/Denmark - DPA Microphones co-founder Jens-Jørn Stokholm and R&D manager Ole Moesmann will soon be bestowed with an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Technical Achievement Award for the innovative development of the brand’s high-performance, miniature lavalier microphone technology.
The pair’s accomplishment is among 17 scientific and technical achievements to be honoured by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in a virtual Scientific and Technical Awards presentation on Saturday, 13 February. The ceremony will be available on the Oscars website starting at 1pm PT.
The Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards honour those whose discoveries and innovations have contributed in significant and lasting ways to motion pictures. First developed by Stokholm in 1996, DPA’s 4060 Omnidirectional Miniature Microphone continues to be a popu

UK - If you’ve ever fancied owning an industry-relevant personalised number plate, now’s your chance! The plate, which reads A1 DMX is currently owned by a prominent lighting director, who would prefer to remain anonymous. It has been kindly donated to LSi to be auctioned in order to raise funds for the #WeMakeEvents campaign.
The LD says: “Some of us working in TV and film studios are fortunate enough to have kept some of our work since the COVID pandemic closed the majority of our industry last March. So many of our friends and colleagues, particularly in music, events and theatre, haven’t had any work at all during that time and have had little or no support from the government.”
“I would like to try to help out in a small way. I know many reading this in LSi will have homes and offices cluttered with old equipment and industry memorabilia. Some


No Coachella - Another major music festival, Coachella, has been cancelled due to the pandemic. The annual event in the southern Californian desert was scheduled over two weekends in April but the region's public health officer Dr Cameron Kaiser says it will not go ahead.
The Stagecoach country music festival, on the same site as Coachella but later in April, has also been cancelled, Dr Kaiser said, blaming the dire COVID-19 situation in the state. He said in a public health order: "If COVID-19 were detected at these festivals, the scope and number of attendees and the nature of the venue would make it infeasible, if not impossible, to track those who may be placed at risk."
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival takes place in the Indio desert near Palm Springs and attracted about 250,000 attendees in 2019, while Stagecoach draws more than 70,000 country

USA/China - The World Championship (Worlds) is the crowning event of Riot Games’ League of Legends. Last year, like many other productions, the world’s most watched esports event migrated to the virtual realm and was broadcast live for over 240 hours using the most advanced and pioneering XR (Extended Reality) and MR (Mixed Reality) technologies, relying heavily on Brompton’s Tessera 4K SX40 LED processors to ensure quality image reproduction on its LED video set.
League of Legends tournaments have traditionally featured a host country, with teams touring different cities for each round of the games. However, with the challenges posed for both travel and live audiences, Possible Productions, a creative developer agency that has been working with Riot Games since 2016, looked for a solution that would give a sense of evolution to the tournament while broadcasting the e

Belgium - Countries worldwide welcomed 2021 in many different, creative and Covid-safe ways, recognising the highly symbolic temporal roll-over from a year where everyone everywhere has been impacted dramatically by the pandemic.
Brussels’ Laser Lights – which featured Robe moving lights among others and 12 custom lasers – was designed to be enjoyed from the comfort and safety of people’s homes, uniting everyone in spirit, feeling and determination during these extraordinary and restricted times. Fundamental to the project was that, while being a streamed event, Laser Lights should contain some core human elements relating to real life and not just be in a virtual digital environment.
This special light art event at the Heysel Plateau in Brussels was instigated by the Mayor of Brussels, Brussels Major Events (the city’s public events organisati

Finland - Sirkus Finlandia, Finland’s biggest touring circus, completed a successful tour of the country late last year with a lighting rig composed almost entirely of Ayrton fixtures. The Ayrton products were supplied and supported by Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for Finland, Oy Lafoy Ltd of Helsinki.
Established in 1976, Sirkus Finlandia is a family run business with an international reputation. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Sirkus Finlandia had planned a 250-date tour across 115 cities from April to November, with audience capacities of 1600.
The pandemic may have delayed its plans but it certainly didn’t stop them. Determined to keep the show on the road, the company still managed to bring its colourful, uplifting show to the Finnish people over the summer, performing 108 shows in 23 cities to reduced audiences from the beginning of June until the st

South Korea - Arthur, Robert Juliat’s new 800W LED followspot, made its global debut at Big Eoul Madang (Yongin Cultural Foundation) in Seoul, which became the world’s first venue to receive the new followspot.
Arthur is an 800W LED followspot with a 5.5° - 15° zoom that has been designed for long throw applications in larger venues. Complete with all the ergonomic, optical and maintenance benefits expected from Robert Juliat products, Arthur is already becoming a firm favourite with opera houses and theatres around the world.
The first two Arthur followspots were shipped to Big Eoul Madang in late summer 2020, having been supplied by Robert Juliat’s exclusive Korean distributor, C&C Lightway. The pair were specified by the venue’s lighting designer, Mrs So-Jin Kang, who chose them as the perfect match for Big Eoul Madang after seeing them at LDI 2019 in

UK - Sound Control Technologies (SCT), the Connecticut, USA based manufacturer best known for their camera extension solutions has appointed CUK Group to distribute their products in the UK where distribution was previously handled by ScanSource.
The addition of SCT to the CUK Group portfolio significantly strengthens the company’s video products offering which has grown through the recent addition of several brands and the purchase of York based distributor, Tukans.
“SCT products are renowned in our industry not only for the problems that they solve for AV integrators but their rock-solid reliability.” states Stuart Thomson, managing director at CUK Group. “Our focus is to make sure that these products are backed with great customer service, technical support and of course fast delivery from our East Kilbride distribution centre.”
Peter Nice, SCT’s b

Ecuador - Martin Audio has appointed Quito-based Mejor Sonido as its new distributor for Ecuador - the first time the British brand has had direct representation in this South American country.
The move was confirmed by Berenice Gutierrez, director of Pro Active Latin America and Latam Sales for Martin Audio, who handle all Martin Audio’s sales activity on the continent. “This is the first official distribution partner in the country and I’m proud to get them on board, and into the LATAM Distributor Partnership,” she said.
She said the groundswell of interest had been building in the country for some time. “Martin Audio had been approached by several system integrators, rental companies and major distributors due to the wider product catalogue and solutions that the brand has developed in recent years, covering markets such as installation, rental / touring,

UAE - Sennheiser has introduced a free firmware update for its Team Connect Ceiling 2 microphone solution for conferencing audio in business and distance learning applications
“We have many happy TeamConnect Ceiling 2 users across the globe, and we asked ourselves: What if they could use their existing tech for even more?” says Jens Werner, portfolio manager in Sennheiser’s Business Communication division. “This was the starting point for designing the latest software update which adds the TruVoicelift functionality to TeamConnect Ceiling 2. It endows the mic array with many innovative features for perfect audio all the way to the back row.”
For existing TeamConnect Ceiling 2 (TCC2) implementations, users can now add the TruVoicelift functionality simply by installing the free firmware update (1.6.4) via the new version of the Sennheiser Control Cockpit app (

USA - Chauvet Professional has introduced the Maverick Force 2 Profile and Maverick Force 1 Spot.
“We developed the new Maverick Force series to address the demand for compact, but powerful fixtures that our touring and broadcast customers have been asking for,” said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet. “Smaller framed, easier-to-handle fixtures are especially well-suited to today’s social distancing environment where limited set-up crews are expected to do the jobs that were once performed by more people.”
The units are not only designed to be lightweight and compact, their output also has force from power-packed advanced LED engines. Weighing in under 60lbs (27.2kg), the Maverick Force 2 Profile is powered by a 580-watt LED engine that produces an intensely bright 21,000 lumen output. Tipping the scales even less than its stable mate, the under 50-lb (22.7 kg) M

Latest Issue. . .