UK - Pharos Architectural Controls has further strengthened its senior team with the appointment of Simon Hicks to director of product & marketing, and the promotion of Tim Edwards to director of operations.
As director of product & marketing, Simon Hicks will have responsibility for the Pharos product development strategy, while leading the product management team.
Hicks has worked for Pharos both directly and indirectly - with Pharos’ partner brands - since 2006. Having originally been employed in software development for Carallon, he moved to Pharos as the technical director in 2012 - a position he held for a number of years. Most recently, he led the team developing Pharos Cloud under the SixEye brand, before once again becoming part of the senior Pharos

Australia - Theatre Safe Australia (TSA) created the set for the University of Adelaide’s production of Mamma Mia!. It was the major production for the graduating 2021 music theatre students, performed in the university’s own Scott Theatre.
Head of music theatre at the university, George Torbay, was pleased to have the TSA Workshop on board to help create this performance. With other productions throughout the year, Torbay wanted this one to showcase the graduating students and provide them with a stage brimming with scenery to recreate the theatrical experience of the romantic comedy.
Torbay says: “The TSA Workshop undoubtedly helped create a complete theatre experience for the 2021 graduate students. The buildings, painted platforms and flooring bought the musical to life, allowing the students to immerse themselves in professional theatre surroundings.

USA - When faced with shelter-in-place regulations amid the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, DE, like many churches around the world, decided to shift from in-person gatherings on Sundays to recorded services so churchgoers could watch from home.
The initial offerings relied on existing audio and video equipment, which was more than 20 years old. The church’s streaming feed lacked detail, balance and consistent room ambiance, and the lack of intelligibility of the spoken word made it difficult for remote churchgoers to hear the service well.
To help solve this problem last fall, Tony Thurman, Westminster’s director of music, and members of the church’s property committee, initiated talks with Robert Bullington of Front Row Seat Productions, a local AV contractor, to come up with a new sound system. Together, the tea

USA - The team at Cour Design is celebrating the emotional pull of Lord Huron’s music on the band’s current USA tour with a powerful, image-rich stage design. Adorned with illuminated representations of mountain ranges as well as cactus plants of different sizes and a large semi-circular backdrop suggestive of a setting sun or moon, the set is clearly representative of the kind of environment that runs through the band’s music.
Designer Erik Anderson chose to illuminate this visual panorama with a collection of Chauvet Professional Maverick MK3 Wash fixtures. “I specced the Mavericks,” he said. “They are our workhorses, and we love their brightness, especially with the outdoor shows on this tour.”
Depending on the venue, between eight and 11 Maverick MK3 Wash fixtures are flown on downstage truss, while eight other units are divided evenly between stage

Vietnam - Dotted throughout Vietnam, the government has built private theatres to host regional and national cultural performances for the country’s military. These 700-seat venues serve government officials and military leaders with regular programmes of choir performances that convey messages of patriotism and national pride by promoting the unique history and culture of the Vietnamese republic.
One such theatre in the capital of Hanoi recently received an upgrade to its sound system, installing the new K3 line source array, integrated by local L-Acoustics Certified Provider Distributor, ProAVL Vietnam.
ProAVL managing director Thang Le has been an L-Acoustics user for over a decade, turning to the manufacturer’s sound systems for their quality and flexibility for projects that spanned installations in civic venues and high-end residential markets, as well as for

Denmark - Freedom Day was celebrated with several prominent shows and events including a landmark performance at Parken Stadium in Copenhagen by The Minds of 99 who became only the second ever Danish act to play there, in front of 50,000 fans, complete with a high impact show design from Jannik Kenneth Skov Jensen.
Lighting included over 300 Robe fixtures - a mix of Tarrantulas, BMFL WashBeams, MegaPointes, Spiiders, BMFL FollowSpot LTs and RoboSpots.
Jannik Kenneth has worked with the band since 2017 and he curates all the visual elements of their stage performances - including staging / scenic and video - in close collaboration with their manager, Ole Nørup Peteresen.
Parken was the biggest show that Jannik Kenneth has designed and operated to date. The LD studied to be an actor and director before turning his talents to the more technical disciplines of ligh

USA - From Halloween through Christmas and Hannukah, you can add holiday decorations to your home and support your colleagues who are seriously ill or injured as well as the BTS Mental Health and Suicide Prevention initiative. These ornaments have been generously made and donated to Behind the Scenes by Mike and Sue Wood, so every penny goes directly to helping your colleagues in need.
Individual acrylic inserts are now available for the portable mini LED ghostlight so you can celebrate the holidays in style. Choose from the ighostlight, the pumpkin ghostlight for Halloween, the autumnal Cornucopia ghostlight for Thanksgiving, the Hanukkah menorah ghostlight, or the Christmas tree ghostlight. Purchase your first unit with the base and remote control and then stock up on inserts so you can complement the season.
There is also have an array of ghostlight and industry-t

UK - London’s The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama staged a production of the musical Spring Awakening recently, which saw lighting and video design students create, programme and operate the visual aspects using Hippotizer Amba Media Servers.
Central student Jack Fone took the helm in the pre-production process, alongside fellow Central students Adler Williams on animation and Simon Moss, who’s studying production lighting. The team created a striking set dominated by a huge crucifix stage back, flanked by projected images designed to augment the narrative.
The two Hippotizer Amba Media Servers were fed three live camera inputs, comprising two operated cameras backstage, and a locked off camera overhead. These fed four projectors, two for the header display and two for the back wall adjacent to the crucifix centre stage.
“I’ve been blendin
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UK - Amon Tobin’s life and work in production and sound design spans over 25 years. His different approach to intricate, cinematic electronica continues with the recent release of the album How Do You Liveon Nomark Records. To give listeners in London a preview of the work, the label partnered with Pitchback Playback and L-Acoustics Creations to offer an immersive experience in a 24.1 immersive sound space designed by L-Acoustics.
Pitchback Playback hosts listening sessions for music lovers staged in total darkness to eliminate distractions and ensure that everyone present enjoys an opportunity to fully engage with remarkable albums from start to finish. With the lights out and optionally blindfolded, the sense of hearing is heightened in the absence of visual stimuli. This allows guests to fully surrender to sound and the physical sensations and detailed nuances of

Germany - Founded in 2012, Ruhrtriennale is a three-yearly cycle of music and arts events, which take place from August to October in Germany’s industrial Ruhr region.
The prestige of staging this year’s opening production fell to Ensemble Modern, a global collective of soloists, whose sound designer Norbert Ommer chose a Yamaha Rivage PM10 digital mixing system for the surrealist, unconventional opera Bählamms Fest.
Ruhrtriennale is a festival which embraces a wide range of performances, all taking place in venues created within the region’s industrial architecture. A new artistic director is appointed for each cycle. For 2021-2023 it is renowned German theatre producer and director Barbara Frey. To open the 2021 programme, Barbara chose the premiere of Bählamms Fest, a production which blurs the lines between reality and virtuality, based on the

UK - South London’s Clapham Common hosted three successive festivals organised by event promoter Festival Republic that covered a range of genres beginning with the YAM Carnival, which celebrated the music and culture of the Afro diaspora; RTRN II Dance, a day of bass heavy raving featuring electronic music stars like Chase & Status; and ALT+LDN, a first-ever rock and rap mash up with international headliners Smokepurpp and The Kid LAROI.
Although very different music emanated from the festival stage on each of the all-day festivals, the visuals supporting the sound remained consistently bright, bold and dynamic, thanks to a powerful and flexible lighting kit design and installed by Bigabox Production.
Featuring Chauvet Professional fixtures, the lighting system had the versatility needed to support all the varied artists, yet it was also powerful enough to cover

UK - Wigwam Acoustics, part of the Solotech UK Group, supported multiple stages for both Parklife and Isle of Wight festivals, with just 24-hours to repurpose the Parklife systems into the package for the Main and Big Top stages on the Isle of Wight.
With so many festivals happening over such a short period of time, Wigwam's hire department and its UK partners SSE Audio, Capital Sound and BCS Audio have been at full capacity during the 2021 summer season. The team has had to get used to quick turnaround of gear to support back-to-back festivals. It is a testament to their experience and expertise that these events were handled successfully.
Located on the grounds of Heaton Park, Manchester, Parklife is the UK’s third-largest festival. Working with system technician Paul Stevart, Wigwam supplied the Main, Valley and Palm House stages while UK partner BCS Audio was b

Australia - Audio Visual Events (AVE) is a live, hybrid and virtual event production services specialist based in Sydney, Australia, working across all industry sectors including corporate, commercial and entertainment.
Since 2019, and throughout the pandemic period, the company has invested steadily in Astera’s range of battery powered wireless controlled LED lighting products.
In the last three months alone, this has included the purchase of 80 x Astera AX5 TriplePARs and 16 x Hyperion Tubes, which – together with the 100+ Astera AX1 Pixel Tubes and AX3 LiteDrops already in stock – have been delivered by Astera’s Australian distributor, ULA Group.
In 2020, work gradually started picking up after the initial few months of the pandemic when the event industry worldwide came to a halt. AVE also used this time to focus on being innovative and expanding it

Germany - A HOF moving light truss has won the Innovation Award for Crafts of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia. The prize was awarded on the 4 October in a ceremony at the K21 Ständehaus in Düsseldorf by NRW Minister of Economic Affairs Prof. Dr. Andreas Pinkwart.
The MLT² Pre Rig Truss from HOF was awarded the prize because it enables shorter set-up and dismantling times and, thanks to the dolly with its telescopic legs, requires less manpower than its predecessor, the MLT. Likewise, the rotatable steel fork connectors allow vertical and horizontal circles to be created, offering new possibilities for stage design and light shows.
The dolly is foldable and can be stacked, which in turn saves an enormous amount of space at the event storage location. In addition to this, compared to its predecessor, the MLT² has received further features such as a forkl

USA - Harman Professional Solutions has introduced the JBL Eon One MK2 battery-powered column PA.
The JBL Eon One MK2 features a five-channel digital mixer, comprehensive Lexicon and dbx DSP, Bluetooth 5.0 functions and full app control into a lightweight, rechargeable battery system that weighs just 42.5 pounds.
“We designed the Eon Oone MK2 to meet the needs of a huge range of users,” says Brandon Knudsen, loudspeaker product manager, Harman Professional Solutions. “It’s ideal for anyone from buskers seeking pro-grade sound without AC power, to educators and hospitality providers who want fast setup and ease of use, to houses of worship and rental companies who need portable solutions for indoor and outdoor applications. You get all of this fidelity and functionality in a system that won’t break the bank - or your back.”
The C-shaped array of eight

Finland - Genelec has unveiled the first model in its new Signature Series with the introduction of the two-way 6040R Smart Active Loudspeaker, created in conjunction with Finnish industrial designer Harri Koskinen.
Koskinen’s long association with Genelec began 20 years ago with the introduction of the timeless 6040A model, the first Genelec loudspeaker to feature the distinctive minimalist curves of the Minimum Diffraction Enclosure (MDE) - a cabinet design by Koskinen that now forms the core of much of Genelec’s current loudspeaker range.
The 20th anniversary of the 6040 launch has given Genelec the opportunity to re-imagine the technology within the 6040 as part of a new Signature Series.
The re-engineered 6040R now features the same LF driver design and proprietary bi-amplified Class D power amplifier technology as Genelec’s professional loudspeaker

USA - Following the success of its ADAPTive Line, Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) has announced its latest addition, the AC6 2-Way Full Range ADAPTive Column. Capable of generating a max SPL of 143db and 120° of horizontal nominal beamwidth, it’s targeted at installations, houses of worship and small performing arts centers.
Although slightly smaller than its predecessors, the AC6 includes just as many features. Managed via EAW’s Resolution 2 software, the AC6 can compensate for coverage and directivity with its Adaptive Performance technology. By integrating all factors and aspects of the loudspeaker, the AC6 can produce three-dimensional coverage in any venue, says EAW.
“With the ongoing success of our ADAPTive line arrays, we are excited to introduce a loudspeaker equipped with the same powerful DSP toolkit that EAW is known for, but inside a small-format colum

UK - Specialist architectural lighting and dynamic control solutions provider Studiotech is participating in this year’s Design Crawl Manchester. Created as a collaboration between a group of interior experts, Design Crawl is a showroom-led design event, specially developed to ‘inspire and excite the design community’.
Taking place over three days, between 19 and 21 October, Design Crawl brings together a number of brands, who will welcome guests to their showrooms to see their latest products, host learning sessions and networking events, and run workshops. Design Crawl also features a Basecamp; a central location where several events will take place over the course of the three days.
Studiotech will be primarily showcasing the controls systems it offers through its product portfolio. As well as demonstrating the capabilities of the solutions, Studiotech will

UK - Independent record label Defected Records has occupied a significant space in the UK music industry for more than 20 years.
Defected’s vision sees the brand set its sights on becoming an influential broadcasting and media hub.
Integral to this ambition has been the full renovation of Defected’s East London HQ, which is set on two levels, and houses offices for the majority of its workforce. Fully renovated in 2020 by design agency Brinkworth, the centre also has a basement floor with events facilities, as well as a recording studio.
Defected’s basement hub will host a weekly programme that brings together artists, fans, creatives and entrepreneurs. The hub has been equipped throughout with a comprehensive, zoned sound system from audio partner Pioneer Pro Audio.
Integrator Cosmic Electronics was chosen to carry out the audio system installation,

USA - When The Muny, America’s oldest and largest outdoor musical theatre, was given the green light to commence its 103rd season, Masque Sound once again returned to the historic venue with a custom audio equipment package. Working directly with sound designers John Shivers and David Patridge, Masque Sound helped the team reboot its outdoor season after presenting an online season in 2020 due to COVID-19.
With the support of the City of St. Louis Health Department, The Muny’s 2021 season operated at full capacity, including the 1,500 free seats available for each performance on a first-come, first-served basis. The five-show season began with Smokey Joe’s Café and was followed by The Sound of Music, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, On Your Feet!, and Chicago.
“Masque Sound graciously added equipment that we asked for from p

USA - There is nothing ‘routine’ about the design Alexander Lehman chose when lighting the annual I Am Woman conference for Faith Church.
Every year, Lehman strives to give the two-day event, which takes place in both St. Louis and West Palm Beach, a visual flourish, not just through the use of brightness and colour, but also with a commanding geometrical centrepiece.
“It’s something that we do working for Pastor Nicole Crank, the visionary behind this conference,” he said. “We want to wow people. So, three years ago we used scaffolding to create towers and bridges on stage. Two years ago, we had three large LED diamonds. It’s our way of strengthening the connection to the audience.
This year, Lehman and his team technical director Marcos Machado, Jonathan Becker, Andre Quirino, Garrett Callahan, and Tim Parfitt created a giant inverted V-structure

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