Theatre Critic - Andrew Lloyd Webber has claimed a number of West End theatres are "not fit for today's purpose" and should be replaced. The theatre impresario said many venues have uncomfortable seats because people are now generally taller. He went on to criticise poor views in gallery seating, saying it was left over from "a class structure we don't have any more".

Speaking at the London Press Club Awards, where he was named Londoner of the year, Lloyd Webber said, "I believe that London would be a more vibrant place if we allow a more flexible use of theatres and recognise that some of the theatres may no longer really be exactly what we want in the 21st century. There are theatres from which frankly you can't see and that aren't fit for today's purpose."

Fame Academy - Ringo Starr has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame i

USA - Georgia's Savannah Music Festival has selected Meyer Sound systems to reinforce all four of its principal venues for the first time, including the largest Trustees Theatre and Lucas Theatre. The exceptional audio clarity has prompted positive reviews amongst local press, including Connect Savannah.

"With the help of Meyer Sound's new loudspeakers, [the Trustees Theatre is] the best sounding room in town. Enough kudos can't be given; when Taylor Goldsmith hit his first note, it was like the room collectively gasped in wonder at the mix," writes Anna Chandler of Connect Savannah after hearing the concert by Dawes.

The selection of Meyer Sound was driven by Chris Evans, the festival's chief audio engineer, who is responsible for system specification, tuning, and supervision of the audio crew. He also mixed Mavis Staples using a MIna line array loudsp

UK - UK alt rock band Fightstar - critically acclaimed for their distinctive sound and experimental blending of numerous metal genres with orchestral and others - celebrated their 10th anniversary by playing five high profile shows dotted around the country, culminating in a gig at London's Brixton Academy, with a Robe moving light rig designed by Will Dart.

Ahead of the shows - spread out over three months and starting at the Forum in London - Will received a list of bullet points from the band about what they did and didn't want to see in the show.

Coincidentally, this happened to be almost identical to the ideas he was already formulating in his head for the design. The basic premise was to have a dramatic beamy style of lighting that was fundamentally dark and moody, yet punchy and hugely powerful at the same time.

The design featured four upstage 45 degree angled truss

UK - Artists including Lady Antebellum, Florida Georgia Line, Lee Ann Womack and Lee Bryan took the stage at London's O2 for the 2015 Country to Country music festival (C2C) in March, making use of many channels of Shure wireless microphones and in-ear monitoring systems.

As its name suggests, C2C is an international multi-day festival of country music, the result of a collaboration between live music promoters SJM Concerts, entertainment group AEG Europe (developer and operator of London's O2) and the USA's Country Music Association (CMA). From its beginnings in 2012 as a two day-event at London's O2 only, C2C was held in London and Dublin in 2015, featuring appearances by eight artists over the weekend, with the performers swapping between the two venues on the different days. Extra dates were also played this year in Norway and Sweden.

Audio equipment supply and RF manageme

UK - Scottish rock band Simple Minds - renowned for numerous memorable and anthemic hits, particularly during the 1980s and 90s often tinted with gritty political resonance together with a hyperactive 35 year touring career - are back on the road with the first new album in five years Big Music.

Simple Minds live have also been known for their spectacular and audacious lightshows, and this tour features another impressive creation by long term lighting designer Steve Pollard, whose working relationship with Simple Minds dates back to 1981. In fact, along with founder members Jim Kerr (vocals & song writing) and Charlie Burchill (guitars, keyboards and song writing), he's the only remaining member of the original team.

Blackburn based lighting and visual rental specialist HSL has been supplying lighting kit for all Simple Minds touring work for the last three years and a

UK - Later with Jools Holland makes a welcome return to TV screens with live performances from musical legends and cutting edge new acts.

Ably lit by LD Chris Rigby, Aurora shipped a suitably rocking lighting package to the Maidstone Studios for this, the 46th series of the BBC flagship music show.

Show one alone featured a line up worthy of any festival date, including the newly reconvened Blur who were last on the show 15 years ago. Other acts featured on the bill include English singer-songwriter Laura Marling, London foursome the Vaccines and Mali punk blues outfit Songhoy Blues. Singer/songwriter Marc Almond also joined Jools for the customary chat at the piano.

All eight episodes promise an equally classically eclectic line up of leading purveyors of quality music from the past, the present and the future.

Recorded in front of a live audience, Later is

UK - Enter Shikari, have just completed extensive tours across Europe and America to promote their latest studio album, carrying a GLD system to manage monitors.

Chosen by monitor engineer, AJ Sutherland, and supplied by Patchwork London for the European leg, the system comprised a Dante-enabled GLD-112 mixer with an AR2412 and two AR84 remote IO racks to manage five pairs of wedges and four stereo IEMs plus the engineer's listen wedge and cue mix.

Promoting Enter Shikari's fourth studio album, the tour included 25 dates across Europe, including two nights at London's Roundhouse on a sold out UK run, and 30 dates in 23 States in America, which included two festival appearances.

"I bought a GLD-80 when it first came out and have used it on various projects over the past three years. I think it nails the midscale console market. The IO, functionality and audio quality are

UK - Working with their client, Reality Ltd, XL Video supplied LED screens, a multi-channel camera system and relay screens for the NME Awards 2015 with Austin, Texas.

The ceremony was held at London's O2 Brixton Academy, and featured live performances by The Vaccines, Run the Jewels, award-winners Royal Blood and Charli XCX, and the recipients of the 'Godlike Genius' award, Suede.

XL Video project manager Paul Wood worked with Reality's Paul Corrick and vision director Matt Askem to specify the multi-camera, multi screen set-up. This is the eighth consecutive year XL Video has supplied the awards.

Upstage centre, a 35sq.m 16:9 screen formed from XL's ROE MC-7T LED Screen was flown, and 25m2 of XL's ROE MC-18 Hybrid LED Screen was used for an additional square LED surface flown to the left of the stage and 6 portrait banner screens arranged around the main screen.

The LED

USA - The 50th annual Academy of Country Music Awards were held 19 April at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX. Among the many superstar performances, possibly the biggest of the night was Garth Brooks with his tribute to the men and women of the US armed forces.

Placing an exclamation point on the salute was the lighting design of Bob Dickinson, Jon Kusner and the rest of the Full Flood team, which utilized Syncrolite SXL 7K fixtures on stage and upstage to backlight Brooks and his band during this especially emotional moment of the broadcast. This year's ACM Awards set a world record for the most attended award show.

Syncrolite fixtures were also used throughout the stadium adding excitement and drama to the entire evening. Twenty-four SXL fixtures provided big beams of light making dramatic backgrounds throughout the show. Programming the dynamic stage system was Andy O'Reilly a

UK - Chairman John H. Skewes and managing director Dennis J. Drumm welcomed Prime Minister David Cameron's General Election 'Battle Bus' to the Garforth, Yorkshire premises of John Hornby Skewes & Co. Ltd - as the company celebrates its Golden Anniversary year.

Introduced by local constituency MP Alec Shelbrooke, the Prime Minister spoke on the topics of the day to local supporters, guests and JHS staff, then toured the JHS facility, showing great interest in the company's story, which was started in 1965, from humble beginnings in the home of the eponymous John Hornby Skewes and his wife Madge.

The company now offers a portfolio of over 4500 products, which are sold to over 2000 customers throughout the UK and Eire, contributes to the local economy with employment, and to the wider UK economy with its exports to over 85 overseas markets including the USA, Canada, Australasia,

UK - East Anglia-based CEG Hire & Productions has added the Robe Robin BMFL Spot to its growing hire inventory.

CEG's director Ben Bowles says: "In 2014 we took the decision to make a significant investment in the Robe Robin range, and we felt that in 2015 it was time to take this to the next level with the BMFL Spot. In line with our current growth plan, the BMFL allows us to be involved with new exciting projects, as well as supply to a growing sub-rental market within the UK and Europe.

"The BMFL is not only a complete workhorse of a fixture, but it also provides unique features not available in any competing product available on the market today. It has enabled us to provide a versatile range of fixtures that any of our LD clients and production customers would have a hard time resisting the temptation not to specify them on their next project."

The invest

USA - XS, the award-winning club at Encore at Wynn Las Vegas, has led Nightclub & Bar's Top 100 list for an unprecedented six years. Renowned nightclub lighting designer Steve Lieberman of SJ Lighting, the creative force behind many leading nightclub lighting designs, was engaged to work his magic on XS and give the club a new, more technology driven look. He met this challenge with a bold futuristic design that drew on the pixel mapping power of the Nexus Aw 7x7 warm white LED panels and ÉPIX Strip 2.0 LED strips from Chauvet Professional.

"I've enjoyed a good relationship with the team at XS," said Lieberman. "When XS managing partner Jesse Waits announced that they were ready to take the next step at the club in terms of lighting, we put our heads together to come up with a state-of-the-art concept. They wanted to incorporate newer technology into

UK - Colour Sound Experiment's Haydn Cruickshank (H) took control of the lighting console on the latest leg of an ongoing tour by electronic gurus Underworld.

Colour Sound provided both lighting and LED screen for H's lighting and visual design. His relationship with the band dates back 22 years, with this tour a continuing 20th anniversary celebration of their seminal first album, dubnobasswithmyheadman, a special expanded edition of which was released in late 2014.

H received a loose brief for the lighting, which was that it should be 'minimal', so he kept things restrained, raw and relatively monochromatic for the first half of the show, which was a powerful and complete rendition of dubnobasswithmyheadman - performed live in its entirety for the first time ever.

After this, he morphed the lightshow into a different style which became funkier and more colour

USA - For the last 30 years, members of the world of Gospel music have gathered to honour African American artists at The Stellar Awards. Bandit Lites and lighting designer Mark Carver once again joined forces to help set the stage for the event, which included both a live audience and a televised programme. Co-hosted by David and Tamela Mann and Rickey Smiley, the event bestowed special honours on President Barack Obama, Bishop Paul Morton, Andrae Crouch and Al 'The Bishop' Hobbs.

Due to the special milestone year, this year's production expanded into a much larger scope and scale in the Las Vegas Orleans Arena. With more than a decade of working with the Stellar Awards, Carver knows how to create looks that thrill the crowds in their seats, and translate well on to television.

Carver's design consisted of Martin Vipers for graphic air effects and hard edge back light, Vl3500

Norway / UK - Bright Norway AS and UK's Sonalyst have officially become the first companies to purchase the new Leopard linear sound reinforcement system from Meyer Sound. Having just made their debut at Prolight+Sound, the Leopard line array loudspeaker and its accompanying 900-LFC low-frequency control element are the smallest and most versatile members of Meyer Sound's flagship Leo family.

Following the success with its Leo Family products in high-profile projects such as the Nobel Peace Prize Concert and the FIS Cross-Country World Cup skiing competition, Bright Norway says the new Leopard and 900-LFC will help simplify its rental operations.

"In a perfect world, audio companies would love to rely on one single model to bring consistency to all its projects, but that's not possible," says Asle Nilsen, head of audio at Bright Norway. "Now with Leopard adding

Germany - Martin Audio's German rental company partners, Complete Audio Berlin, recently fielded their MLA system for The Prodigy - a band renowned for their chest-thumping bass. Mixing at front-of-house was their long-serving sound engineer, Jon Burton.

Back in 2008 Burton had called on his many years of experience to commission a custom 21in sub from Martin Audio's R&D director Jason Baird specifically to cover that summer's V Festivals.

But now he was at Berlin's 12,000-capacity Velodrom - a circular building with a low ceiling, designed for indoor track cycling - and mixing through Martin Audio's premier system with which he was already familiar, having already used MLA several times and attended training courses last year. "As an engineer I try and stay on top of all the current systems and think that the MLA concept is extremely interesting," he stated.

For t

Germany - Winners of the Lightconverse and High End Systems Lighting Challenge were announced at ProLight+Sound 2015 in Frankfurt.

Using High End Hog4 control products with Lightconverse v56 for visualization, the competition amongst entrants was extremely high due to the calibre of videos submitted. At the final count, the following creative people took the top prizes:

First Place went to George Jackson, who won Lightconverse Unlimited and a High End HedgeHog4 N console.

Second Place was captured by George Ivanenko, who won Lightconverse Trace.

Third Place was awarded to Angelina Vyushkova and Alan Hanson, with Lightconverse Media being their prize.

The Popular Choice Award went to Cycloid, who won Lightconverse Media.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Vauxhall Holiday Park in Great Yarmouth has invested over £300,000 in East Anglia's new premier music locale; the new V-Arena entertainment venue.

The new venue has the capacity to hold just over 2,000 people with a host of artists planned to perform in 2015.

The main PA system used for all the weekender events and the major events in the five star park's own calendar is a d&b audiotechnik system from Reboss Services comprising of 24 C7s and 8 B2 Subs. Dedicated solely to Vauxhall Holiday Park, the system uses exclusively Van Damme cabling from UK cable specialist VDC Trading.

Also installed by Reboss Services in the V Arena at Vauxhall Holiday Park are two independent Van Damme multicore systems. The first comprises a 48 way analogue multicore with a separate 8-way return, all on VDM multi-pin connectors at both ends with a comprehensive VDC splitter system total

USA - With 163 acts serving up an array of great music from rap to pop to EDM to classic rock and a plethora of other styles, Coachella has aptly been described as a "forest of festivals".

Dedicated techno house heads and dance music fans had no trouble finding their way through this musical forest at the 2015 version of the festival. They headed straight for the Yuma Tent, where house bumping heavyweights chugged away for hours on end in an eye-popping DJ Booth set off by a swarm of pixel-mapped Nexus Aw 7x7 LED panels from Chauvet Professional.

Lighting designer Steve Lieberman of SJ Lighting arranged 47 of the Nexus Aw 7x7 panels in front of the DJ booth to create a video surface that lent a club look to the performance area. The LD also deployed over 100 other high output fixtures throughout the tent, positioning moving beams in the upper sections of the ceiling

Mexico - Ensconced amidst the glistening glass, steel and concrete modernity of Santa Fe, a bustling commercial and business hotspot in the west of Mexico City, in their new office and warehousing facility at the Expo Bancomer is Matatena Producciones.

The company is a design and rental - sound, lighting and video - specialist fast gaining recognition for the imagination, creative flair and energy they bring to a variety of events - from product launches, corporates and industrials to weddings, parties and socials.

The company was started six years ago by Manuel Macouzet Hierro and Gerardo Boue who had initially met a couple of years earlier whilst working on assorted events - for different companies at the time. Matatena is a new and recent investor in Robe products with the purchase of 32 Pointes.

They are also a 'preferred' technical production supplier for events at the

Denmark - The eye-catching Black Diamond cultural centre in Copenhagen is a modern waterfront extension to the old Royal Danish Library building. Earning its quasi-official nickname from its polished black granite cladding and irregular angles, it houses a number of public facilities, centred round its top-lit atrium.

One of the main features of the centre is The Queen's Hall, a 600-seat auditorium used for a variety of events ranging from classical and jazz concerts to literary events and conferences. The hall's cutting-edge acoustic modelling allows for sound reinforcement that can be adjusted to the specific requirements of the type of music being played. This, in theory, made the venue ideal for the recording of classical music, but the noise generated by the existing lighting system rendered this impossible. In fact, the hall's authorities had, with little success, sought a

USA - Ultra Music Festival 2015, which took place Friday to Sunday, 27-29 March, drew thousands of music fans to Bayfront Park in downtown Miami, which has hosted the event since 2012.

"We've been doing the Ultra festival for a long time and have become very familiar with what a system needs to be able to do this kind of show right," observes Andre Serafini, founder and president of Beach Sound, the Miami Gardens-based sound reinforcement provider for Ultra over the past decade. "Bayfront Park can be a challenging venue for this kind of music, but the L-Acoustics systems handled it without a problem, and even overcame some of the venue's special challenges."

Those challenges included keeping the sound for each stage contained within its area and avoiding overspill into nearby stages. For the Live Stage, Beach Sound assembled an L-Acoustics K2 sound system w

Europe - Entec's lighting department is enjoying another busy season with The Australian Pink Floyd Show (TAPFS), currently touring Europe with a lighting design by Phil White which is being operated by Tom Mumby.

Entec's project manager Noreen O'Riordan comments, "It's great to see the popularity of this tour grow together with the investment in production values. It really proves that there is a huge demand for live shows and that a diverse selection of people want to appreciate legendary and influential music first hand. Apart from that, we're very proud to be part of an absolute top production team and crew."

Entec's working relationship with TAPFS dates back to 2004, when they decided to seriously up the ante in terms of production.

That same year, current TAPFS Production Manager Chris Gadd - universally known as Gaddie - also undertook his first gig for Ente

South Africa - For the live telecast of Miss South Africa 2015, designer Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier picked up producer / director Gavin Wratten's gauntlet to help bring a fresh look to the high profile beauty pageant staged at Sun City Superbowl.

Central to his lighting and set design was the specification of 24 x Robe BMFL Spots moving lights. Gavin's re- imagining of the show in a new and contemporary context involved a 30m long black high-gloss central runway emanating from the stage, traversing to the centre of the venue.

Sic Productions produced the event for Sun International. The traditional gala dinner set up was ditched in favour of tiered VIP seating - fashion show style - flanking the catwalk.

Broadcast live on TV channels MNET and Mzanzi, this redefinition of traditional beauty pageant presentation was hailed as a major success by the media and received with

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