The 11th edition of PLASA Focus Leeds will open its doors from 14-15 May at the Royal Armouries Museum, unleashing the world of live entertainment technology on the north of England.
Spanning two sold-out halls, the popular show provides a platform for 175+ leading brands, all geared up to showcase the very best the industry has to offer, including a variety of products arriving on UK shores directly from international launches.
Lighting will make an impression with Robe, Chauvet, Elation and Avolites; huge audio will be delivered by Bose, d&b audiotechnik, Funktion-One and Sennheiser; and event specialists include SFL Group, UK Rigging and Hawthorn.
Beyond the show floor, the programme will see industry leaders present content that is both insightful and entertaining

Special Funding - Grassroots music venues across England will now be able to apply for special funding from a ring-fenced budget intended to support the sector and help stem their decline. Arts Council England has announced it has set aside £1.5m of National Lottery money to fund projects hosting and promoting live music in grassroots venues. It comes amid an ongoing campaign to protect small venues following a period of decline across the UK.
Opening this week, the scheme will accept applications for between £1,000 and £40,000 from music venues and promoters. The funding will sit within the Arts Council’s project grants programme, but by having a separate budget for grassroots music venues, ACE said it wanted to encourage applications by reducing the high level of competition faced when applying for the main project grants scheme.
Arts Council chief executive Dar

UK - Over a thousand delegates from the private rental sector gathered in London’s ExCel on 2 April to attend the Annual ARLA Propertymark Conference and exhibition. Protec European Events were trusted by their client Westrade Group Ltd to provide a full event technical service package.
Moderated by BBC News presenter Julian Worricker, the conference focussed on the importance of legislation, and how to keep abreast of industry issues.
Project manager Fraser McCaig reports, “Protec designed and built the 40m x 4.2m stage with six integrated 4m high x 1m wide LED video columns supported by OV40 truss 4m columns that we anchored to 100kg steel base plates with the set covered by seven colour Polycril wraps. We recessed the centre section of the set with laser line graphics for branding which was enhanced with DMX controlled LED strips on both sides and on top. We al
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LD Systems ICOA PRO series – high-performance coaxial PA speakers for professional demands

The popular ICOA PA systems have been further developed to include two active full-range coaxial speakers – ICOA PRO 12 A and ICOA PRO 15 A – as well as the active 21″ bass-reflex PA subwoofer ICOA PRO SUB 21 A. With its professional features and high output power, the ICOA PRO series is aimed at ambitious bands, musicians and DJs as well as hire companies and commercial customers looking for a compact, robust and powerful PA sound system. The ICOA PRO series is rounded off with modern connection and control options via Bluetooth 5.1 and the specially developed ICOA PRO app, for use on smartphones and tablets.

ld-systems.com/icoapro

USA - Djembe! The Show is an energy-filled, theatrical concert experience that mixes traditional West African beats with modern takes on contemporary music that has toured Europe and even been featured on Ted Talks and Oprah’s Super Soul Sessions. It made its limited US debut at the Apollo Theatre in Chicago with lighting design by Zach Blane who used an all Elation LED lighting rig to accentuate the production. Support was provided by Elation dealer ILC.
Djembe!, which opened 10 April and ran through 12 May, is a celebration of African culture with drumming and musical performances by a cast composed mostly of West African musicians. Guests of the show were handed a drum – a djembe – and invited to play along.
The Apollo Theatre features a three-quarter thrust stage with the audience on three sides, a setup that gives guests an intim
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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

USA - Convergent Technologies Design Group has completed the design of an outdoor sound system in the open quad area of the new Eastern Carolina University Student Union campus.
Founded in 1907 in Greenville, North Carolina, East Carolina University is a public doctoral/research university. With over 5,500 academic and administrative staff and around 30,000 students, it is the fourth largest university in North Carolina.
The new, 214,000sq.ft Student Union is the largest construction project on the main campus since the Science and Technology Building opened in 2001. It will house the Dowdy Student Store, five dining options, student government and trustee office spaces, meeting rooms, a theatre and a large ballroom. The facility also features a five level, 724 space parking deck and a new 6,500sq.ft regional energy plant.
At the centre of the new campus is a lar

Spain - Lighting designer Eduardo Valverde of Pixelmap Studios utilised the dynamic multi-functionality of Robe’s MegaPointe moving lights together with Robe LEDWash 800s and other fixtures to help create the atmosphere for Popland, a musical journey staged at the WiZink Centre in Madrid.
The show was a diverse electronic and symphonic fusion illustrating pop, rock and dance music ‘moments’ from the last 50 years, presented by one of Spain’s most influential mix-masters, DJ Nano, in conjunction with Catalan experimental theatre company La Fura dels Baus and the Darevitam! Orchestra conducted by Bruno Axel.
The event - three years in the making - was the brainchild of DJ Nano, who initiated with the concept together with Sharemusic! who produced this very special event with another two major Spanish promoters, Planet Events and Disorder.
Eduardo and
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Create new traditions – Cameo P6 - High Output Full-Spectrum Ellipsoidal

Cameo's P6 is a future-proof LED profiler with a powerful 600 W RGBACL engine and 16,000 lumens. It’s an energy-efficient replacement for 2.5 kW halogen profile lights in theatres and venues. With excellent light quality and natural colour rendering, it fits perfectly in theatres, musicals, TV studios, congresses, and live events.

With an LED life of 50,000 hours and low power use, the P6 cuts energy costs and supports the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ goals for climate neutrality by 2050. It also meets updated eco-design rules for lighting.

www.cameolight.com/p6profile

UK - Pop artist Billie Eilish’s sold-out global tour dates feature flyable Allen & Heath dLive rigs at both FOH and monitor positions. Drew Thornton, FOH engineer, and Salim Akram, monitor engineer, use compact, 12-fader C1500’s to mix over 50 inputs from an array of live instruments and backing tracks. Their rig is fed by a quartet of DX168 stage boxes connecting to a DM0 MixRack via EtherCon connections.
Thornton designed the dLive system to travel with the band. “Throwing down your stage box and pushing out everything patched and line-checked in 10 minutes is amazing,” he said. “We plug it in and it works like a dream. And I’m a firm believer that if you get your mix right, you can handle things with as few as eight faders. Having 12 faders on the C1500 is a luxury.”
Akram noted, “I built my dLive show file on the airplane. I’ve been on a lot o

UK - After supporting various Esports Championship Series (ECS) shows at Wembley’s SSE Arena over the last few years, Sibar Production & Design, along with Capital Sound (and their Martin Audio MLA loudspeaker array), moved to the ICC Auditorium at ExCeL for the FACEIT Global Summit: PUBG Classic. FACEIT is the leading competitive gaming platform and organisers of some of the largest esports events in Europe and North America including ECS, Universal Open and the FACEIT London CS:GO Major.
Capital has been regularly contracted to provide the audio reinforcement for such gameplay events by Sibar’s Simon Barrington, but this represented an entirely fresh challenge. According to Capital’s project manager Robin Conway, “It was based on a completely different gaming platform and different team and elimination set-up.
“The space at ExCeL is tricky as was the de

Macau - Six Robert Juliat 600W LED Oz followspots have been installed as part of the recent upgrade of the spectacular Franco Dragone show, The House of Dancing Water in Macau’s City of Dreams. The powerful, long-throw LED models were supplied with push-pull, six-way colour changers and heavy-duty adjustable yokes in anticipation of the show’s extremely busy schedule.
The House of Dancing Water has been seen by over 5m people since its premiere in 2010. It is probably the largest and most spectacular water-based show in the world and, after more than 3000 performances, the longest running show on the Cotai Strip.
The show takes place in the purpose-built, 2000-seat, 270° in-the-round, House of Dancing Water Theatre and is directed by Franco Dragone. The story is focused around a huge 50m x 7m deep pool containing 3.7m gallons of water and involves 90

UK - A new Scaff Boom Arm will be debuted by Doughty Engineering at this year's PLASA Focus. Visitors to stand N-C25 can see the new piece of kit, which joins the existing Boom Arm range and has been designed in response to customer demand.
Mark Chorley, design engineer at Doughty explained: "The new Scaff Boom Arm is very much a 'get out of jail' item that we see as being an essential part of any took-kit. It will allow the user to make their own boom arm out of materials that they have to hand, in the event that they find themselves on site and suddenly needing a boom arm of a certain length."
The Scaff Boom Arm will take 48mm aluminium barrel or scaff tube which can be cut to size depending on the requirements of the particular project. While Doughty is unable to quote a safe working load for the product, each piece of kit will come with a chart, which is also avail

USA - The Flyer - San Francisco at Fisherman’s Wharf’s Pier 39 gives both tourists and locals alike a bird’s eye view of the city using cinematic artistry and HD film footage captured with the help of drones and helicopters, and blended with computer-generated imagery.
As spectacular as the video is, though, visitors may be even more dazzled by the attraction’s audio thanks to an engaging cinematic soundtrack played back through a high-impact, high-fidelity sound system from L-Acoustics.
The soundtrack and sound effects were written, created and produced by Mathieu Vachon, audio director for Triotech, the Québec-based company behind The Flyer - San Francisco. Triotech is quickly establishing itself as a major player in the global amusement and theme park industry, and its latest creation follows a fast-paced point-of-view narrative that both documents the city

APAC - Powersoft has hired Raymond Tee as application engineer for the APAC region, effective 1 April 2019. He brings a wide range of experience in live sound and fixed install application to the role and will report to Powersoft’s global business development manager for fixed install and application engineering manager, rack amplifiers, Marc Kocks.
Tee’s primary duties will be to support Powersoft’s distribution networks and end users in the region, enabling them to get the most out of the company’s products, as well as providing training and support for control software platform, ArmoníaPlus.
Kocks commented: “Raymond has proven to be a perfect fit thanks to his work as application engineer for other manufacturers, as well as his experience with local Malaysian companies. The APAC region is a very important one for Powersoft, with many established and em

USA - ROE Visual will launch a new series of LED screens for fixed installations at on stand 2061 at InfoComm 2019, taking place 11-14 June in Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center in Florida.
Named Amber and Jasper, the new LED panels will feature two designs, one based on a 50x50cm panel, and one with a 16:9 ratio panel. Pixel pitches will range from 0.9375mm to 3.9mm.
“Both products will boast excellent visual qualities that play into the demands for permanent video installations, for example broadcast, film studios, corporate solutions, houses of worship and board rooms,” claims ROE Visual.
Glory Gao, deputy sales director at ROE, comments: “This move is mostly instigated by our own clientele. With keen understanding of project management, logistics and implementation processes, we provide clients with not only the right LED display solutions for

UK - The first week of May saw Creative Technology UK’s Festival of Technology 2019. CTFest19, as it is known, sees the company welcome innovation partners to its Sussex base to showcase the latest in event technology and creative ideas. This year, Brompton Technology took the opportunity to give attendees a close up look at its high-end processors and new HDR technology.
HDR video offers a new approach to delivering better image quality, without requiring finer and finer pixel pitches to achieve it and brings a trio of image quality improvements that are particularly well placed for LED screens.
“The response to HDR at CTFest19 was extremely positive,” says Brompton business development manager Rob Fowler. “We’re always keen to get involved with companies who prize innovation and want to showcase leading edge technology. CT understands the benefits of our sy

South Africa - Black Coffee, a Durban-based rental company, has become more creative since taking ownership of the Hippotizer Boreal+ Media Server.
John-Dee Styles, who heads the creative team at Black Coffee, put the Hippotizer Boreal+ purchased from DWR Distribution to the test for the first time at the Globe Theatre, a new multi-purpose dome structured venue which forms part of the Suncoast Casino. The event was held to celebrate the casino’s new upgrade and renovation, a project that took two years to complete.
“We used our new Hippotizer Boreal+ with a backup system,” explains John-Dee. “We used 4 DVI outputs, two of which went to a double stack of 18K Barco projectors, for the main content. This was projected on a black gauze to create the clients desired effect.” The climax of the show saw a dancer performing behind the black gauze projection surface,

UAE/Europe - AO Technology has launched AO Drones, a new division in its portfolio of visual design services.
Utilising advanced technology developed specifically for entertainment applications, AO Drones’ software facilitates flexible, fast show creation for both indoor and outdoor environments, says the company.
AO Drones currently serves the Middle East region from its UAE hub, and Europe from its German HQ. However, with partnerships in America, Asia and Africa, the business is able to deliver shows worldwide. 
“We’re thrilled to bring AO Drones to the market,” says AO producer Marco Niedermeier. “Over the last couple of years we’ve merged 25 years of experience in visual design and entertainment technology development with this innovative new drone technology, to enable live visual design to achieve a who

UK - With one of the most distinctive voices to emerge from the UK in the last few years, Freya Ridings has had a busy start to 2019. A headline tour (including a sold-out show at London’s Roundhouse) in support of her debut studio album garnered rave reviews and she’s set to follow up with a series of US dates later in the year.
Ridings’ front of house engineer Tim Morris has relied on an array of Audio-Technica microphones throughout the tour, on both vocals and band backline, including an AE5400 cardioid condenser and AE6100 and ATM610a hypercardioid dynamics for main and backing vocals and the diminutive AE2300 cardioid dynamic instrument mic for snare top.
“I love the response of the AE5400 condenser on Freya’s voice,” says Morris, “and it’s my favourite option for things like TV appearances, where it really delivers a studio-like sound. For the

Singapore - Concept System recently upgraded the ballroom and function rooms at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront hotel with Martin by Harman RUSH LED light fixtures.
Overlooking the picturesque Singapore River, the 30-story Grand Copthorne Waterfront is located in one of Asia’s most popular tourist destinations. The hotel’s management recently decided to upgrade the antiquated lighting systems in the ballroom and function rooms with efficient LED solutions, and hired Concept System to outfit the property with Martin RUSH MH 1 Profile.
"Elaborate functions like weddings and banquets require stunning visual effects," says Gerald Fong, senior sales manager at Concept System. "The Grand Copthorne selected Martin fixtures because of their quality, efficiency and Harman’s remarkable service, and specifically asked us to use Martin’s LED fixtures in their grand ballroom

Japan - It’s impossible to walk through the prefecture of Gion and not be swept up in its vibrant pace of life. The most celebrated geisha district in a city that is itself the cultural heart of Japan, the neighbourhood is renowned for its dining and entertainment attractions.
Both of these offerings are found in the Kyoto Sushi Theatre, a lively venue that serves up a culinary and artistic feast for its customers. Creating a colourful and engaging backdrop for this dual experience is an Andy Hinago-designed lightshow that features a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures, supplied by PRG Japan.
Given that the ‘theatre side’ of Kyoto Sushi Theatre features not only traditional Kabuki, but also more modern, western-style Shingeki performances, Andy (who owns GOTTA, Inc.) placed an emphasis on versatility when putting together his rig for the venue. This led

Australia - Melbourne-based lighting rental and production company MPH Australia, headed by Matt Hansen, continues to invest in Robe products, with the latest additions being over 80 MegaPointes, 50 Spiiders and 50 BMFLs.
These join a growing inventory of Robe moving lights, currently in the region of 700, including BMFL Spots and Blades, Pointes, LEDWash 600s and LEDBeam 100s. Hansen has made the commitment to Robe’s newest tech after having utilised the products on shows - including his own - for several years.
He founded MPH (Matt’s Party Hire) in 2006 initially to stock LED products like SoftLED cloth and the company has grown into a much larger ‘party’. Having the new technology onboard has been “incredible” says Hansen. “They have been out constantly, and that’s set to continue; MegaPointes and Spiiders are both products ‘of the moment’.”

France - Pioneer Professional Audio has invited the audio installation, rental and club sectors to attend a technical audio demo at the Djoon Club facilities on the 21 May (Tuesday).
Attendees will be able test Pioneer’s XY Series (comprising the XY-3B and XY-2 models) and experiment with the XPRS amplified speakers by bringing their own test tracks.
The XY-3B and XY-2 models are designed for fixed installations and touring. The XY series loudspeakers feature in top venues including Djoon, Fabric London, and Halcyon. The XY-3B has performed at festivals such as I Love Techno (Montpellier) ADE (Amsterdam) Ultra (Singapore) and Lovebox (London).
The XPRS active speaker range features Powersoft Class D amplifiers and comes with a seven-year warranty as standard and is designed for both audio rental companies and mobile DJs.
Spaces at the Djoon demonstration

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