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30 July 2024

France - Robe’s new iBOLT made its French debut in grand style at a recent Monumental event at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Laon Aisne in the Hauts-de-France.

Monumental is an interactive music and visual live experience concept imagined and presented by DJ, music producer and live experience innovator Michael Canitrot.

He has styled a series of these bespoke performances which are staged in and around some of France’s most striking landmarks. Built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Laon Cathedral heritage site is one of the most important and stylistically unified examples of early French Gothic architecture.

The event’s lighting was designed by Mikael (Mika) Trochu who specified the six iBOLTS, rented from Dushow, which were positioned in an arc around the DJ booth, so they were right at the epicentre of th

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30 July 2024

UK - Celestial, the Somerset-based drone show artists, lit up the skies above The Secret Garden Party in Abbots Ripton, Cambridgeshire, on Saturday night as part of the That’s Show Business spectacle with its drone show, Creativity Unchained.

The show was ‘a collaborative effort with Secret Designs and was a powerful ode to the freedom of creative expression, urging a break from the impact of consumerism on artistic expression and calling for a return to the roots of pure, untainted creativity’.

The drone show used vivid imagery, such as skulls, dollar signs and a phoenix rising from the ashes to underscore its message that creativity should have no bounds, winning over the attention of the festival goers. The show, spanning 130m wide and 70m high, featured an impressive 504 choreographed drones.

Celestial were invited

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30 July 2024

UK - DiGiCo is known throughout the industry for its high levels of support and customer care. The ethos of understanding is not just reserved for customers, as James Thompson found out when he landed the role as mechanical designer at DiGiCo.

Thompson is autistic and for him that means being hyper focused and having acute attention to detail. Thompson had not often used DiGiCo consoles and, as a designer, on the job experience is essential. As a freelancer for T&B Events, Thompson has mixed on a variety of consoles, so when they suggested joining them over the summer and mixing on a DiGiCo Quantum 225, he jumped at the chance.

T&B Events are a production company on the UK’s South Coast specialising in live events and during the summer they are kept very busy with festivals. Owned by Ben Wood and Thomas Hands, the company has been facilitat

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30 July 2024

UK - SWG Events extended their long association with the Glastonbury Festival, again deploying Martin Audio systems in a number of feature areas.

According to head of audio, Simon Purse, they made significant changes to two stages: BBC Introducing and Woodsies, while also providing Martin Audio systems for The Park Stage and Leftfield.

BBC Introducing embraced Martin Audio for the first time, having traditionally had its sound delivered by another brand.

The move from its usual enclosed tent behind the Pyramid Stage to a more open, saddlespan structure required a fresh, upscaled approach to the PA, as it was able to attract a larger audience. “We were able to swap out the previous system for a ground-stacked [Martin Audio] WPS system - so it was quite a major upgrade. Having more PA meant we were able to deliver a superior sound,” stated

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29 July 2024

USA - Hootie & the Blowfish are currently on their 43-city Summer Camp With Trucks tour, taking fans on a musical journey through 29 years of Hootie & the Blowfish hits, sprinkled with covers of classics by the likes of R.E.M. and Led Zeppelin

Dates have included Michigan’s Pine Knob, where 14,000 fans packed the amphitheatre earlier this summer.

There is even a point in the show where the set takes on an outdoorsy appearance with frontman Darius Rucker and the band singing in front of a campfire. That flourish, like so many other visuals on this tour, is part of a lighting and production design by Kevin Northrup and Will Lowdermilk of Silver Bullets Design.

Drawing on the performance features of over 100 Chauvet Professional fixtures, supplied by Special Events Services, Northrup and Lowdermilk have created a multi-layered

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29 July 2024

USA - Located in the heart of Ocean Drive in Miami’s South Beach, the Palace Bar, renowned for its status within the LGBTQ+ community, has been serving up dining experiences for more than three decades. The venue recently went through a complete overhaul of its sound system, including 14 Powersoft amplifiers.

Since its first opening in 1988, the Palace Bar has built a nationwide reputation thanks to its exuberant drag brunches and live entertainment, with more than 1,500 guests visiting each weekend. With music serving as the lifeblood of the venue, the owner of Palace Bar, Tom Donall, was keen to improve the previous audio equipment with a sound system that would be capable of conveying the energy of the Palace Bar shows.

“Being one of the most well-known gay restaurant bars in the world and putting on a famous drag show, the sound and the clari

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29 July 2024

USA - Country music singer-songwriter Alexandra Kay is out on tour with a lighting system provided by Bandit Lites. With her 2023 release All I’ve Ever Known, Kay used her lyrics and powerful vocals to weave stories fans can relate to and identify with. In addition to the album debut at #1 on the iTunes Country Charts and #1 on the iTunes All Genre Chart, Kay is featured on Jelly Roll’s Leave the Light On single from the summer’s hottest blockbuster film, Twisters.

Lighting designer Corbin Alvae drew inspiration for the lighting from All I’ve Ever Known. “When I was working on this design, I had to go into her shoes and feel the emotions she was feeling. That’s when the concept came about: something hard hitting, but visually appealing that fit her style in a way that made her fans feel even more of the emotion

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29 July 2024

USA - Free Chapel Church, a contemporary Christian congregation based in Gainesville, Georgia, is redefining the worship experience with innovative audio solutions from EAW.

The flagship main campus in Gainesville boasts a comprehensive EAW setup, including Anya ADAPTive line arrays and EAW SB828P dual drive subwoofers, meticulously engineered to cater to the venue’s unique architectural nuances. Glenn Setchfield, the global audio director at Free Chapel Church, emphasised the importance of EAW’s ADAPTive technology in tailoring sound dispersion to optimise acoustics.

According to Setchfield, “Our main campus presents challenges due to its fan-shaped layout. The decision to implement EAW’s Anya line arrays was driven by the need for superior coverage and clarity. EAW’s ADAPTive technology empowers us to precisely direct sound, expanding hor

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26 July 2024

USA - Sonic Sphere is an ever-evolving concert hall for the 21st Century. Conceived in the tradition of German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kugelauditorium, a nearly spherical concert hall built for the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, Sonic Sphere is the Brainchild of Ed Cooke, a British cognitive science expert and entrepreneur, sound architect Merijn Royaards, and engineering director Nicholas Christie.

Since 2021, Cooke and his team have built Sonic Spheres in France, UK, Mexico, and the United States, including Burning Man. Each time, the hall has grown bigger; the sphere at The Shed in New York City is the eleventh and most advanced sphere, after iterations of increasing size and technical sophistication.

The result is the first Sonic Sphere to be suspended in air, costing more than $2m. The infrastructure includes 1,178 steel struts, 3,500 yard

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26 July 2024

South Africa - Designer Chris de Lancey from Immersive Show Technology was asked to create a stunning architectural lighting scheme for the Union Buildings in Pretoria, to help celebrate the recent South African presidential inauguration.

Chris chose to work with Robe Esprite moving lights and one of the new Robe iBOLTS, which were applied with great effect together with projection mapping of the South African flag onto the building.

Cyril Ramaphosa was inaugurated as South African president and leader of a national unity government made up of representatives from four major parties – the ANC (African National Congress), the DA (Democratic Alliance), the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Patriotic Alliance (PA).

The final inauguration events are organised on a tight timescale once the actual election results are confirmed and certified

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26 July 2024

France - A ‘secret’ event on the roof of the Terminal One Building, Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport on 17 July was planned as part of Olympic Celebrations and live streamed via Amazon Music’s Twitch channel to huge audiences. The entire proceedings, from set-up to pack-down, were also recorded for a feature film to be aired later in the year. Tristan Mazire captured the whole event live, whilst mixing for the live stream and the roof-top audience of 2,000.

The specially created audience areas were filled with a mixture of invited guests and lucky Parisians who had won the chance to be there on the night via an event ticket lottery. There were live performances from Phoenix, AIR and Zaho de Sagazan, plus DJ sets from Etienne de Crecy and Inès Mélia. The event highlighted the role of the airport as a gateway to the summer’s festivities.

Mazir

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26 July 2024

USA - Close collaboration between a lighting and video team is always essential. Anyone who’s been a part of an arena show where lights and screens flow seamlessly together can appreciate that. But the fine points of this relationship take on an extra level of urgency when the sun starts setting on an outdoor broadcast production.

This point was driven home to Emmy Award winning lighting designer/director Jon Kusner on 6 June, when he lit the grand reopening of the Michigan Central Station, a 90-plus minute event that started in the early evening, and featured stars like Eminem, Diana Ross, Jack White, Big Sean and Jelly Roll, as the sky darkened.

The tallest railway station in the world when it opened in 1914, the 230ft-high Beaux-Arts building was abandoned in the 1980s; its decaying façade quickly becoming emblematic of urban decay. Today, its

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26 July 2024

Germany - Bremen-based Folk band Versengold have recently enjoyed their biggest tour ever. With a string of sold-out performances ahead of them, they knew their current sound set up would need upgrading. A more transparent monitor mix solution was required to allow them to re-engage with their larger audiences, plus a mix that would offer space to hear the bigger crowds, but not allow them to over-power the acoustic instruments which are key to their six-piece ensemble.

KLANG was their solution and the man behind implementing it successfully was Tjado de Vries. Choosing KLANG:konductor meant the band could enjoy effectively spaced monitor mixes while still maintaining the clarity they need to communicate with each other as they perform.

Since 2018, Versengold have been on a steep trajectory, both in terms of venue size and recognition. Going from a s

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26 July 2024

UK - Plymouth Argyle FC recently hosted its first two-day concert weekend at its Home Park stadium. Run in conjunction with the local Depo nightclub, who also hosted the after parties, day one was EDM-oriented, and dubbed ALIVE at Argyle, followed by the more family-focused RELIVE at Argyle on the Sunday.

The two days were quite distinct in that while house music and drum and bass dominated the first day, with a Becky Hill DJ set, Bru-C, Ben Nicky and others, the following day saw heritage acts and radio DJ’s (including Gareth Gates, Five, Liberty X, Chris Moyles and Craig Charles).

Local production company, and Martin Audio partner, Nub Sound were brought in to provide technical infrastructure. Having worked with the promoters on various events at their nightclub, in addition to the PA, they also provided the stage structure and upstage video elem

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25 July 2024

UK - Following a near two-year break from touring, Elbow are taking their new album Audio Vertigo on the road with a Skan PA Hire audio package.

Operated by the band’s long-standing engineers, Danny Evans (FOH) and Julien Helme (monitors), the system features Avid VENUE S6L 24Cs at both ends, and a d&b audiotechnik GSL Series PA system design by Skan’s Scott Essen.

Tour and production manager, Tom Piper, comments: “We have a very long-standing relationship with Skan, who are the long term and very much preferred audio supplier for Elbow tours. They provide state-of-the-art systems and are super-efficient operationally, a pleasure to work with.”

Danny is both the band’s FOH and studio engineer. He comments: “There’s generally a lot more time pressure when working live. I don’t mix particularly loud, but I think tha

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25 July 2024

UK - Shangri-La - a festival within a festival that is entirely dedicated to creativity, arts, and underground and independent culture - has been a special area at Glastonbury for many years now. It is where the NowHere stage is located and where fans of electronic music feel like they’re in a club. For the lighting set-up, designer James R. Dickson from Elixir Lighting opted to use the Cameo OTOS H5 and ZENIT W600 SMD.

“The NowHere stage is very different from the festival’s other stages. Everything here revolves around electronic music and creativity,” acknowledges James R. Dickson, who – together with his company Elixir Lighting - is responsible for the lighting design, operation, and provision of lighting technology on the medium-sized stage. “Our job was to create a nightclub in the middle of a green field. To do this, we put the lights on t

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25 July 2024

USA - At its Spring 2024 opening, Flyover in Chicago became the newest of Flyover Attractions’ immersive indoor flying rides, joining existing installations in Las Vegas; Vancouver, Canada; and Reykjavik, Iceland.

Located within Chicago’s landmark waterfront Navy Pier, the multi-sensory experience, which incorporates leading drone technologies along with impressive aerial shots and first-person narratives, showcases the city from perspectives never seen before. Flyover’s signature Chicago journey is shown on an impressive 65ft spherical screen with flight motion seats engineered to swoop, dip and turn, giving guests the feeling of flight. The attraction transports 61 guests at a time, with complete sensory immersion using wind, mist and scents, as fliers hang suspended.

The ride employs a massive number of audio sources, which are controlled an

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25 July 2024

Germany - Prolights products illuminate the Church of the Holy Spirit in Bielefeld, a modern octagonal structure with slender columns and coloured stained-glass windows, which has undergone a significant technological renovation.

This project aimed to improve and expand the media usage possibilities within the church, with a particular focus on the lighting setup. The new lighting, designed by the Schröder & Partner design studio under the guidance of project manager Jan Wöhning, introduced a versatile and innovative lighting system that enhances the architectural beauty and liturgical symbolism of the church.

“The church mainly had obsolete lighting technology, which we replaced with more modern LED technology, promoting energy efficiency. The church also asked us to emphasise the colours of the liturgical year (green, red, purple) through c

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24 July 2024

UK - Currently running at the Ambassadors Theatre in London’s West End, Kathy & Stella Solve a Murder! is an award-winning musical comedy which follows Kathy & Stella - hosts of Hull’s least successful true crime podcast. However, when their favourite author is killed, the pair find themselves thrust into a thrilling whodunnit of their own.

The show features a lighting design by Peter Small who approached White Light (WL), a d&b solutions company, to supply his rig, having previously done so for the show’s Bristol and Manchester run. For the London production, an addition to the rig included the Macula remote follow-spot System - distributed in the UK by Sound Technology - making the show the first in West End history to use this new technology.

Kathy & Stella arrives in London following its previous sell-out r

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24 July 2024

USA - In late 2016, Intelligent Lighting Creations (ILC) of Arlington Heights, Illinois, made a pivotal investment in Elation's first-generation Proteus series of IP-rated lighting. The acquisition of the IP65 Proteus Beam marked the beginning of a transformative journey.

Scott Falbe, who founded ILC over 30 years ago, recalls the early days when outdoor lighting meant wrapping indoor fixtures in rain gear. “Initially, it was all about covering indoor fixtures in domes or plastic so we could use them outdoors,” he says. “Eventually we invested in some of the early IP-rated fixtures like the Elation Level Q7IP PAR light. Then, when Proteus hit the market, it fundamentally changed the way we do outdoor shows.”

ILC became a shop known for its outdoor accoutrement and was the first to embrace the Proteus line, debuting it on the Lightswitch proje

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24 July 2024

Indonesia - Melodia Productions deployed 1 Sound systems for the exclusive Ferrari Roma Spider launch event in Surabaya. Ferrari’s vision for an elegant, all-white venue required sound quality with aesthetic appeal, a challenge that Melodia met with precision.

Ferrari expected great sound with an elegant and aesthetic look to fit into the launch event. Melodia used 1 Sound’s Tower LCC84, cardioid column, paired on top of the CSUB610, a cardioid subwoofer. Melodia chose to go with this fully cardioid system based off the cavernous hall where the event took place. The goal was to keep the sound narrow and have minimal reflections to support background music and a chamber orchestra performance. This was accomplished using four stacks of the Tower LCC84 and CSUB610 system.

“This exclusive event for the Ferrari brand launched a new world class sport

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24 July 2024

France - A celebration of Mediterranean cuisine and culture in the heart of Nice, Mediterraneo is housed within the walls of the old Gare du Sud railway station. The space, a long hall with high, vaulted ceilings with iron arches, consists of a ground floor and a mezzanine.

The installation of an audio system at Mediterraneo has been a two-part journey due to the evolution of the space, with KGEAR loudspeakers at the centre of the story.

Local integrator, EnvySoul, was contracted to handle the design and integration of the audio system, provided by local distributor, AEITECH. In the first instance, the system would be used only for background audio. “Having deployed KGEAR products on previous projects, we knew the GH4 as a small and versatile solution,” explains Rudy Rodenas at Envy Soul. “The power and audio quality are fantastic, and the form

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24 July 2024

UK - People arrived at the Bethel Convention Centre in Birmingham early for Zimbabwe-born gospel worshipper Eleana Makombe’s Grateful Concert in June.  Coming from across the UK, they waited outside in line for over two hours. For them, patience was a virtue, something that would make the time pass easier.

Blessing Bero, production and lighting designer for the African star’s widely anticipated show, was still sourcing gear just two days before load-in due to circumstances beyond his control.

Bero, who is a Zimbabwean based lighting designer with Events Evolution, responded to this pressure-packed situation with calm. Working his industry contacts, he was hooked up with SJ Grevett of DMX Productions.

“DMX Productions did an amazing job under pressure,” said Bero. “Their people were extremely helpful, as was the crew at the conventi

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24 July 2024

UK - Audio specialist tube uk has supplied a distributed sound system comprising d&b, Outline, Tannoy and Martin Audio speakers with a Yamaha MRX7-D audio matrix router at its heart for the new Chews Yard social, creative and entertainment space in Preston.

Chews Yard has seen the reimagination of a derelict former industrial premises, transforming it into a lively community hub. It is the brainchild of Ben Casey, of Chase Developments in Manchester and Christine Cort of CC&Friends, a founder of Manchester International Festival (MIF).

This first phase of development includes a 150-capacity food hall and bar area with offerings from different traders, an entertainment space, a series of industrial workshops for independent businesses and start-ups plus a large outdoor space, all with plenty of potential for staging a diversity of events.