Projects

Details

19 September 2024

UK - Serious Stages wrapped up a successful summer, providing stages and site structures for BBC Radio 2’s Party in the Park concert in Moor Park, Preston, 6-8 September.

More than 60,000 fans enjoyed artists featured on the Serious TZ 25m roof main stage for two days, included Sting, The Pet Shop Boys, The Manic Street Preachers, The Sugarbabes, Sister Sledge, Travis, Paul Heaton and Snow Patrol. The stage was designed in collaboration with clients Festival Republic and the BBC, creating a striking performance area. It was flanked by goalposts carrying PA speakers and giant LED screens, with extensions for a DJ platform, stage right, for Radio 2 DJ sets between bands, with a total frontage of 55m.

Serious also installed the stage platform in the tented Radio 2 stage, which featured DJ sets on Friday night and throughout Saturday and Sunday, along

Details

19 September 2024

Europe - Icon of the Seas, Royal Caribbean International’s new ship, built at the Meyer Turku shipyard in Turku, Finland, features more than 40 different entertainment, leisure, and retail spaces, including three primary entertainment venues. The Royal Theatre presents full-scale productions, including the first rendition of The Wizard of Oz at sea; Absolute Zero is a premium ice-skating arena; and the Aqua Theatre features aqua shows put on by a cast of aerialists, high divers, robots and synchronised swimmers.

Two of Icon’s main entertainment venues – Royal Theatre and Absolute Zero – have Robe moving lights at the heart of their installed lighting rigs, while approximately 250 other Robe and Anolis LED fixtures are being used throughout the ship in 10 separate areas.

The various Robe fixtures include iForte, Forte FS and iForte FS

Details

19 September 2024

Germany - This year’s Wohlsein Open Air festival took place in the castle and meadow park in the city of Paderborn on 18-21 July.

An audience of 6,000 enjoyed headline performances from top German rock band the H-Blockx, Hanover indie-funk band Jeremias and rapper and singer Jan Delay.

Paderborn-based event production specialists Sound Linear rigged an all-Nexo main stage that drew on both line array and point-source speaker ranges from the French manufacturer’s catalogue, including left and right hangs of 15 compact STM M28 omni modules with bass extension from separate hangs of eight STM B112. A total of 32 x STM S118 subs were stacked across the front of the stage.

Left and right arrays of six Nexo Geo M10 performed out-fill duties, while five P12s from Nexo’s P+ Series were deployed as front-fills. The highly versatile P12s were als

Details

19 September 2024

Germany - The best 64 drift drivers meet in the City of Iron every year to determine the title of Iron Drift King. Amidst the impressive backdrop of the Ferropolis Industrial Museum with its giant open-cast mining excavators, the professionals raced on a customised racetrack in front of thousands of spectators.

The drift manoeuvres were dynamically staged by the technical service provider i:TECS Event Production, which used the Cameo Oron H2 IP65 Hybrid Phosphor Laser Moving Heads for the first time.

The i:TECS team placed a total of 30 Oron H2s on the roofs and booms of the four bucket wheel excavators in Ferropolis in order to effectively stage the races in the open-air arena.

“We have significantly expanded the lighting concept for Iron Drift King compared to last year, and decided to use moving lights on the excavators for the first tim

Details

19 September 2024

UK - L-Acoustics has unveiled HYRISS (Hyperreal Immersive Sound Space), a groundbreaking audio solution set to redefine how we experience spaces through sound. HYRISS represents a paradigm shift in design, elevating the role of audio to match the importance of visual aesthetics in creating truly immersive, emotionally resonant environments.

In an era where visual design often takes centre stage, HYRISS elevates the ambiance of our most cherished living and gathering spaces by making sound an integral part of the environment. This innovative system combines L-Acoustics' cutting-edge hardware, software, and services to create adaptable, high-quality sound environments suitable for a wide range of applications, from luxurious residences and yachts to high-end hospitality and corporate settings.

"For too long, the audio experience has been secondary to v

Details

19 September 2024

USA - When FOH engineer Chris Leonard took up his latest role, piloting the sound for country star Jason Aldean, he wasted no time in streamlining his FOH setup. “I took up the position in February, spent March prepping and hit the festival scene in April; so it needed to be a fast transition,” he said.

One of his concerns was lack of familiarity with the existing SSL L550 Plus FOH console. “While it is an amazing desk, I didn’t want to try and learn a new console on a gig of this size.” Instead, he turned to his trusty DiGiCo Quantum 338. His other concern was the need for a reduced footprint, noting there had been no available room in the I/O rack to put both a split and two SD racks. “All of the sub snakes hit that rack and routed straight to the SSL [ML32:32] I/O boxes,” he said.

Chris Leonard looked at various options for integrati

Details

18 September 2024

USA - Kylie Minogue may finally be ready to conquer the United States, as she recently capped her first Las Vegas residency at the Venetian Resort’s new Voltaire venue. Tension, her 16th studio album released late last year, reached the number-one slot – her ninth LP to do so – on the heels of sell-out shows in London, Rabat, and Athens this year.

Kylie has toured 19 times since 1989, selling out arenas and stadiums globally. For much of that run she’s been accompanied on the road by DiGiCo, most recently with a Quantum852 console in her monitor world. That desk, piloted by IEM engineer Kevin Glendinning, was supplied by Solotech UK for her recent run of shows in Europe.

Glendinning, whose live-mix portfolio includes work with Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, and Mumford & Sons, among others, first encountered Minogue mixing her stage

Details

18 September 2024

South Africa - One of South Africa’s leading educational institutions, North West University (NWU), has chosen power solutions from LSC Control Systems at the core of the recent technical upgrade of its largest performance space, the Sanlam Auditorium. The APS (Advanced Power Systems) units were provided and installed by LSC’s South African representative, DWR Distribution.

Sited at NWU’s campus in the city of Potchefstroom, around 120km to the southwest of Johannesburg, the 957-capacity Sanlam Auditorium is the hub of NWU’s cultural life, hosting a varied programme of theatre, conferences, film screenings, dance, musical performances, lectures and ceremonial functions.

Recently, the time had come for the venue to undertake a complete upgrade of its ageing lighting system, which included fixtures approaching 40 years of service. Glenn Cunniff

Details

18 September 2024

UK - With over 6.1m holidaymakers passing through Heathrow Airport’s terminal 2 every year, new dining destination Jones the Grocer has become a welcome addition.

Uxbridge’s Middlesex Sound & Lighting deployed an intelligent sound solution to enhance the atmosphere, comprising Wharfedale Pro’s DP-4035F amplifier.  

Located in the former Giraffe restaurant, Jones the Grocer was looking for a complete system overhaul that was reliable and low maintenance. “We chose several brands that we knew would deliver sonic quality, ease of use and reliability,” explains Toby Jones, AV designer at Middlesex Sound & Lighting. “It was our first time using products from Wharfedale Pro and we were really impressed by the brand. The amplifiers are affordable without compromising on quality.”  

Jones the Grocer was originally establishe

Details

18 September 2024

USA - Hard Rock Casino Rockford has just celebrated its grand opening, marking the second Hard Rock project to incorporate 1 Sound loudspeakers. 1 Sound was introduced to Hard Rock for the Hard Rock Times Square Hotel performance venue in New York City, where 1 Sound’s Mono + Stereo MS34 loudspeakers were distributed in the venue along with floor subwoofer, FSUB45s, in the banquettes, and SUB310s around the dance floor.

Executive principal consultant, Tom Knauss of NV5, explained how that deployment “met the ‘holy grail’ goal and then some”. After years of planning and about two years of construction, the 175,000sq.ft Hard Rock Casino in Rockford is now open, and the first thing you will hear walking to the front entrance is ‘the classics’ playing from 1 Sound Cannon C6s at the front of the building.

All 1 Sound loudspeakers are outdoor

Details

17 September 2024

UK - One of the most unlikely gigs Birmingham’s Utilita Arena (The NIA) has ever hosted – and certainly one of the loudest deployments of a Martin Audio line array in the company’s history – was the recent charity concert, dubbed ‘1000 Lights’.

Organised by local promoter and studio owner, Jack Davis, 1000 musicians came together, divided into five categories, to honour the life of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, whose final gig had been in Birmingham prior to his suicide in 2017.

By setting up the Uprawr Mental Health Foundation, Davis’ aim was to bring people together as part of a large-scale event. Thanks to the volunteers, and willing support from service providers – including Martin Audio partners 22live – he did just that, raising £135,000 for the Foundation, offering free mental health counselling (the musicians themselv

Details

17 September 2024

USA - Sphere Entertainment Co has announced a ‘one-of-a-kind cinematic experience’ to be shown exclusively at Sphere. V-U2 An Immersive Concert Film at Sphere Las Vegas, directed by Morleigh Steinberg and The Edge, showcases the history-making and future-defining U2:UV show directed by Willie Williams, which played to over 700,000 fans from 100+ countries across 40 sold-out dates from September 2023 through March 2024.

Sphere celebrated the film’s opening with an impressive drone show. Hundreds of drones displayed the V-U2 logo against the Vegas skyline, making the Exosphere ‘come to life’.

V-U2 is the first film ever to be shot entirely with Big Sky, the ultra-high-resolution camera system developed by Sphere Entertainment. V-U2 does not just capture U2’s epic run at Sphere, it allows audiences to feel

Details

17 September 2024

Poland - With a coveted Prix Versailles win under its belt, the Muzeum Historii Polski (The Polish History Museum) has succeeded in its goal to grab world attention in order to present the country’s history. The award highlights the world’s most beautiful public and commercial buildings, but the appeal of the Polish History Museum is more than skin deep.

Serious in its pursuit of visitor engagement and experience, the museum wanted the highest levels of immersive suspension and chose the submission by ESS Audio, Polish distribution partner for TiMaxSpatial, to be the implemented audio integrator. Two TiMax SoundHub spatialisation engines were deployed separately across two performance venues to create sophisticated object-based soundscapes rendered by the platform’s exclusive dynamic delay-matrix processing.

The museum is just one of several si

Details

17 September 2024

The Netherlands - Dutch pioneer of the hard techno industry, Verknipt, has been known for its wild techno music events for over a decade, hosting multiple festivals at a number of locations across the Netherlands. With a growing worldwide following, the events are a melee of wild lighting and laser shows combined with ‘freaky’ performances to the tunes of stellar line-ups of hard rave artists.

Verknipt ArenA, which took place on 20 July 2024, was the biggest yet: a record-breaking gathering of 40,000 ‘slaves to the rave’. Classed as ‘the world’s biggest hard techno rave’, the sold-out event was the first ever for Verknipt at Amsterdam’s Johan Cruijff Arena.

Netherlands-based Martin Ciesluk of Outside the Circle, the company that designed and ran the light show for Verknipt ArenA, ensured that Ayrton Cobra was one of t

Details

17 September 2024

USA - The 2024 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) celebrated its 40th anniversary on 11 September at the UBS Arena in New York. First held in 1984, the VMAs have delivered some of pop culture's most memorable moments, including Madonna’s Like a Virgin performance at the first VMAs in 1984 and Britney Spears’ snake-wielding performance of I’m A Slave 4 U in 2001.

For the VMAs 40th anniversary milestone, Matt Steinbrenner returned as the stage designer to help create a fusion of nostalgia, modernity and spectacle.

The design for the 2024 VMAs harnesses the full potential of the UBS Arena. The visual centrepiece of the design is a towering 60ft-tall Moon Person, emerging from a massive video wall and reaching 55ft into the room as if stepping out of the digital world and into the physical.

This dynamic structure served as a me

Details

17 September 2024

Namibia - Founded in 1919, Ohlthaver & List (O&L) Group is one of the largest privately owned companies in Namibia, operating across various sectors including food and beverages, fishing, retail, property development, hospitality, and leisure. The group is known for its commitment to innovation and sustainability and for contributing to Namibia's economic development.

Stage Audio Works (SAW) Namibia recently completed the integration of a modern AV system in the group’s executive boardroom at the O&L Centre in Windhoek. This upgrade aimed to update both the boardroom's aesthetics and technological capabilities, ensuring effortless virtual communication and an enhanced meeting experience for both in-person and hybrid delegates.

“We were approached by the client directly, as we have a long-standing relationship built upon past projects,

Details

16 September 2024

Spain - La Velada Del Año 4, the fourth annual Twitch-streamed, amateur boxing night took place on 13 July. Featuring some of the biggest streamers from the Spanish speaking community, the event was held in the newly refurbished Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, home of Real Madrid.

A huge DiGiCo team was fielded on the night, with a Quantum 7, seven Quantum 338s and an SD12, all provided by Twin Cam Pro and with technical support from DiGiCo’s Spanish distributor, RMS ProAudio, to ensure the event was heard live, captured, and broadcast successfully to huge numbers of fans across the world.

‘The Night of the Year’ is organised by Ibai Llanos, one of the world’s most successful Spanish streamers who has over 30m followers across his internet platforms, and a mind-bending three billion views on his YouTube channel alone. The chosen inter

Details

16 September 2024

Puerto Rico - When Marcos Efraín Masís Fernández, known professionally as Tainy, and Lex Borrero teamed up to launch their music company Neon16, “a multifaceted talent incubator” in 2019, they adopted the motto “fear nothing, impact everything”.

This attitude was on full display at Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot during Data Loading, the highly anticipated show from Tainy. The multi-Grammy winning songwriter and sound engineer mesmerized the sellout crowd with “a full throttled performance”, during which he was joined by stars like Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejandro, Jhayco, Young Miko, Arcángel and Álvaro Diaz.

Helping to rev up the energy on stage was a relentless, fast-moving lighting design by Richard Vicens and ShowVault that utilised an impressive 450-fixture rig from Musique Xpress Lights.

Most of the rig w

Details

13 September 2024

UK - Northern England music venue, Sage Gateshead, now rebranded as The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, underwent an audio refurbishment to coincide with its reopening, culminating in the introduction of an additional two SD12 all-purpose digital mixers to its inventory of consoles from DiGiCo.

Not only does the acquisition mark the venue’s transition to DiGiCo consoles in the two main halls but, following an overhaul of the cabling infrastructure to provide MADI across The Glasshouse’s performance spaces, the versatile SD12 models can deliver a variety of functions from various mix positions.

Located on the south bank of the River Tyne, the architectural award-winning building is one of the UK’s leading music venues, hosting a mix of high-profile classical and contemporary productions for the last 20 years, as well as a vast music-m

Details

13 September 2024

The Netherlands - The Schouwburg theatre in Lochem, eastern Netherlands, has selected 40 Source Four LED Series 3 luminaires, 12 High End Systems Halcyon Gold and 18 SolaPix 7 automated fixtures to upgrade its space.

ETC dealer Ampco Flashlight Sales delivered the fixtures to the theatre, which houses 400 seats for a variety of performances including cabaret and cover bands.

The venue originally housed tungsten lighting and following European legislations – which ban the use of halogen lights in the long run – decided to make the move to LED. Schouwburg’s team found that in comparison to their original tungsten lights, the addition of the Halcyon, SolaPix and Source Four LED Series 3 fixtures made a huge difference in saving power. The selected fixtures have been placed above the main stage, on the sides of the stage as well as above the audien

Details

13 September 2024

USA - The teams at the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hawaii and the Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium in Canada are doing their part to seek out discoveries every day. Recently, both planetariums went through retrofits to improve the facilities and the guest experience, and the teams turned to amplifiers from LEA Professional to provide the audio.

Both planetarium teams contacted George Barnett, co-founder and technical director of SSIA Technologies and their long-term technical provider, to help them improve their audio systems. The planetariums wanted a more reliable and robust system that could immerse their guests in the storytelling of the vastness of space.

“LEA won our hearts over with their first amplifiers,” said Barnett. “We just loved the engineering – it was fantastic. It had good power, a small chassis, lots of features, and a very

Details

13 September 2024

Portugal - Billed as a ‘destination hotel’, Immerso, Ericeira’s first five-star hotel, is a relaxed retreat away from the world’s hubbub but close to the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Since premium audio forms a crucial part of the overall visitor experience, the Immerso team turned to Genelec’s 4000 Series installation loudspeakers.

Guests at Immerso can indulge in a range of wellness activities including sunrise and sunset yoga and pilates sessions on the beautiful wooden deck overlooking the valley.

For the audio system, the hotel owners contacted local Genelec distributor, Garrett Audiovisuais, on the recommendation of well-known music producer and composer Elvis Veiguinha, who was responsible for developing the hotel’s sound identity. “Elvis has known us for more than 30 years,” explains Garrett’s Raul Fernandes. “He introduc

Details

12 September 2024

USA - Rob Koenig and his team are working with Metallica on the second North American leg of the band’s M72 World Tour.

Elevating the show on this tour “to a new, and even higher level of engagement” is an innovative production design by Dan Braun, supported by an equally original lighting design by Koenig that features 144 Chauvet Professional Color Strike M motorised strobe washes supplied by Premier Global Production.

The design’s 360-degree stage brings the band closer to the crowd and affords clear views from anywhere in the big stadium. Those views are also bold, as Koenig pours volumes of bright light on the stage, impressively without having any truss-mounted fixtures, except for a small number around the drum riser.

“This kind of stage was all part of Dan Braun’s vision for the tour from the start,” said Koenig

Details

12 September 2024

Belgium - Now in its 20th year, the festival celebrating all genres of electronic music is hosted in the aptly named town of Boom in Belgium. This year, Holoplot’s X1 system was chosen to provide the sound for The Atmosphere stage, a custom-made circus-top tent featuring DJs including Amber Broos, Dyen, Ellen Allien, Olympe, Adam Beyer and others. At close to 30m high and 30m wide, it can accommodate up to five thousand techno fans. The system utilises two main arrays consisting of six X1 modules each, with six surrounds of two X1 modules each.

The key challenges to overcome were the highly reflective surfaces causing echoes in the listening area, preventing an even sweet spot to fully benefit from the immersive content played at the stage. Pieter Doms, sound engineer at Noizboyz and co-founder of stereo up-mixing solution Areal, is responsible for the sou