USA - Since it launched in 2008, Outside Lands, one of America’s premier music and arts festivals, has annually transformed San Francisco’s vast Golden Gate Park into a cultural celebration, elevated by Meyer Sound systems provided by the Bay Area’s own UltraSound.

The 2024 festival, which took place 9-11 August, showcased the pairing of Meyer Sound’s Panther large-format linear line array loudspeaker and 2100‑LFC low-frequency control element at the Lands End main stage, which hosted performances by Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Sturgill Simpson and The Killers, plus a standout country set by Post Malone.

“Panther and 2100-LFC are an unparalleled pair, and we are so excited that they are making their debut together at the Lands End stage here at Outside Lands this year,” says Katharine ‘Katie’ Murphy Khulusi, Meyer Sound’s di

Poland - This year marking its 30th anniversary, Poland’s largest festival, Pol‘and’Rock, draws aggregate crowds of between 500,000-750,000 to the Czaplinek-Broczyno airfield, making it one of the largest in the world.

This year the three-day free festival (formerly known as Woodstock Festival Poland) drew rock act Coma, alongside Motionless in White, Flogging Molly, Less Than Jake, The Warning, Guano Apes and many others.

A veteran of the event’s successful sound since the beginning of the millennium, both as main sound engineer and crew chief, is Przemek Naguszewski (of Fotis Sound). This year he deployed an Optocore XR6 system for fibre transmission between FOH and monitors, as well as a Festival Box. “I was responsible for providing all [systems] between the sound engineer and system input,” he said. “All needed consoles, outboard,

The Netherlands - Dutch drum ‘n’ bass fans were served up a major treat when the four-day Liquicity Festival again took place at the Geestmerambacht Park in the north of the Netherlands. The programme featured a vast roster of international DJ and live dance acts.

The consolidated, multi-stage event - whose roots date back to 2013 - attracts daily attendances of up to 20,000. Returning for their second year, Martin Audio rental partner DSL equipped seven stages with premium systems over the four days.

Stated DSL director, Gert-Jan Gomes, “At Liquicity 2023, where we supplied all feature areas with Martin Audio PA, we were able to keep the audience immersed in high quality sound, while at the same time restrict off-site noise to a level within the permit. As a result of this achievement, we were asked to return for the 2024 edition.”

I

Portugal - Europalco leveraged the power of Kuka robot to create a memorable experience at the 36th Deloitte IRGAwards 2024. Held at the Carlos Lopes Pavilion in Lisbon, the event, organised by Desafio Global, welcomed 270 guests.

This year, the IRGAwards focused on technology and artificial intelligence, creating an atmosphere that showcased the harmony between humans and machines. Europalco’s Kuka robot played a prominent role in this narrative. The evening began with a performance where a Kuka robot played the piano alongside a pianist. A highlight of the event was the captivating dance performed by a Kuka robot and a professional dancer. These demonstrations showcased the impressive capabilities of modern robotics.

The IRGAwards 2024 stood out for its innovative use of visual and scenic elements. Of particular note was the 360-degree immersive

Spain - DJ David Guetta delighted audiences with his show The Monolith on 25 July at the Ciutat de València Stadium. For more than four hours, the artist offered an unforgettable musical and visual performance, combining his characteristic electronic sound with dazzling visual effects that captivated the audience. The event brought together more than 18,000 spectators, consolidating itself as one of the major events of the year in the city.

The Monolith solidified its status as David Guetta's premier show in Spain, an exclusive production crafted specifically for this event. The impressive, large-scale set design seamlessly integrated the latest technology with visual effects, creating ‘a comprehensive sensory impact’ on the audience. Every detail was synchronised, immersing the audience in a torrent of immersive, powerful sounds that

South Korea - Mixing facility KoKo Sound Studios has invested in a Prism Sound Dream ADA-128 multichannel converter as part of a major upgrade to accommodate Dolby Atmos music mixing.

Located at Haengju Fortress, this facility is owned by Mr. Ko Hyun-Jung who is widely acclaimed for his music mixes across diverse genres including K-Pop, Hip-Hop, Rock and R&B.

The decision to upgrade the facility to Dolby Atmos reflects KoKo Sound Studios’ desire to attract international artists that want to tap into the energy and vibrancy of Korean K-Pop, a genre that has becoming increasingly popular beyond the country’s borders.

In order to achieve a first-rate mixing environment, the studio required additional Dante outputs for 7.1.4 Atmos and high-quality analogue converters for its existing console and outboard gear.

“We wanted all the

UK - DirectOut is the creator of multi-function audio processor PRODIGY.MX, currently in use across a range of Gareth Owen Sound (GOS) Productions. These include the recently opened production of Starlight Express at London’s Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, and The Devil Wears Prada, which is currently showing at the Theatre Royal Plymouth, and due to open at the Dominion Theatre in October 2024.

Gareth Owen is one of the world’s most successful theatrical sound designers. Not only is he responsible for multiple award-winning shows, he is also a pioneer in immersive theatrical sound design. Owen was co-founder of Fourier Audio and still holds the title of CCO, after the sale to DiGiCo in 2023. He is also CEO of software house Show Control, creators of EnSnap and other software/hardware tools for use exclusively on Gareth Owen Sound pro

France - In partnership with Leap Creative Studio, PixMob technology lit up 70,000 fans at the Stade de France for the Paris Games closing ceremony. PixMob’s X4 LED wristbands were distributed to each person in attendance, both fans and athletes alike.

With these bright LEDs, each person represented a pixel on a massive human-resolution TV screen. On this screen, PixMob’s Moving Visual technology cast animated effects that illustrated the long and epic history of the games, from ancient chariot riders to a modern animation of the symbolic rings painted across the audience.  

PixMob’s Moving Visual Transmitter technology transforms audiences into interactive canvases. By seamlessly connecting fans to the action, the MVT allows for the projection of moving graphics onto crowds, turning the audience itself into a video screen that seamlessly ble

Mexico - Based in Mexico City, Simplemente is one of the country’s pioneering virtual production studios. The company was founded by Mónica Reina and Rune Hansen in 2000 and has always operated on the forefront of technological innovation, embracing digital film, live streaming, VR, and virtual production early.

Simplemente’s clients range from independent artists and creatives to production houses and film schools to major television networks across Mexico and Latin America. The studio also offers production services, integration, training, and rentals.

Simplemente just celebrated the one-year anniversary of its LED stage located at the historic Estudios Churubusco. The volume features 200sq.m of high-density LED panels arranged in a 270-degree immersive screen. There are 782 AOTO RM 2.3mm LED panels for a total resolution of 14252 x 2582, prov

UK - Serious Stages’ Stellar Stage featured headliners The Prodigy, Sonny Fodera and Skrillex at Leeds and Reading Festivals’ new Chevron Stage earlier this month.

Designed and manufactured in 2024 at Serious Stages Wells HQ, the new 20m wide roof, with 8m screen and PA goalposts, was flanked by 12 6m high scaff towers supporting giant chevron LEDs, supplied by Colour Sound Experiment. Completing a distinctive arena design, a striking LED net curtain roof was suspended over the audience in front of the stage, creating a spectacular light show, supplied by Special Structures Lab and Colour Sound Experiment.

Serious Stages supported Festival Republic’s desire to create a new-look Chevron stage, with the introduction of the Stellar Stage. Its angled sides not only gave the crowd a different aesthetic, but also accommodated the technical production

France - Musée de l'air et de l'Espace, a 150,000sq.m museum located next to the Paris-Le Bourget airport, sparkled during Cercle Festival 2024. Created by Cercle, an artistic movement that produces experiences, events, festivals, and immersive musical journeys that showcase artists on ‘unique stages’, the festival delivered an absorbing tapestry of sights and sounds.

At the centre of the festival was a stage set up under the fuselage of Air France’s prototype Concorde, supersonic jet airliner, with the dancefloor located in the museum space around the aircraft. Enhancing this immersive setting on a multitude of levels was an inspired lighting design by Steph Viallon that featured 55 Chauvet Professional Color Strike M motorised strobe washes provided by Magnum.

"I wanted to work on both height and depth, and to obtain reflections under the Co

USA - This summer, Wonderland Forest, a campground and concert venue by GFY Entertainment, transformed the rolling hills of Central New York's Apple Valley into a hub of musical performances. The venue hosted a series of concerts and festivals all season long, powered by a 1 Sound audio system for the outdoor festival-style stage.

Upstate Stage & Lighting, a live production and installation company with a focus on music venues, selected 1 Sound for the Saloon Stage. The versatile system accommodated various musical acts, from full rock bands to DJs, with travelling sound engineers consistently impressed by the clarity and sound of the 1 Sound system.

For this outdoor system that was set to be installed for three months, Upstate Stage and Lighting deployed two Contour CT212s a side as the main left and right. These robust, three-way horn-loaded po

UAE - Pulse Middle East has completed an audio-visual installation at the Epik Club, situated in Dubai’s Meydan Grandstand. Based in the UAE and serving clients across the MENA region and beyond, Pulse ME specialises in AVL Integration for nightlife, museums and places of worship.

Pulse’s long-standing relationship with Martin Audio dates back to the team’s touring days. The journey began with the W8L Longbow while the LE1500 wedge monitor, with its unparalleled clarity, further cemented the preference for Martin Audio products. This time, Pulse’s team chose to work with the Wavefront Precision WPS system at a venue that is set on 25,000sq.ft of space – a decision driven by several compelling factors.

The WPS system’s clarity and natural sound quality immediately impressed them. What stood out was the midrange clarity that required no add

Finland - Kuopio’s Panorama Landscape Hotel sits at the top of Mountain Tahko ski resort overlooking a landscape that could have been hand-painted by Monet. Some guests sit in the clouds absorbing the natural beauty of the forest, while others choose to relax in their suites or in the traditional Finnish design of the spa.

Built by local entrepreneurs Harri Jokela and Katja Kuulusa, Panorama Landscape Hotel is a celebration of Nordic architecture, from the detailed wood interior to the RAW Genelec Smart IP loudspeakers located across the site.

Original planning started in 2018, with construction of the hotel made possible through investment by former rally champion Tommi Mäkinen and former Formula 1 titleholder Kimi Räikkönen – both legends of Finnish motorsports. Taking inspiration from Japanese onsen spas, the idea was to build a hotel that

Europe - Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres world tour has received widespread acclaim since launching in 2022, not only for the band’s celebrated music and engaging onstage presence, but also for their efforts in ushering in a new era of sustainable touring. Award-winning lighting designer Sooner Routhier has been working with Coldplay since 2019 and, keeping with the environmental ethic, she chose to light the shows using greener, more eco-friendly fixtures. The lighting vendor for the tour is a long-time partner, Upstaging.

Routhier’s original tour design launched in 2022 in support of the Music of the Spheres album, and the band is continuing the current stadium tour with the same design. For this summer’s European leg, which launched on 8 June at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, she was looking for the most effective way to add a se

Romania - The Sibiu International Theatre Festival, which is put on by The National Theatre Radu Stanca Sibiu, has just celebrated its 31st year.

This year the June festival featured indoor and outdoor theatre, music and dance, as well as street acts, and drew more than 100,000 international visitors who enjoyed over 830 performances, involving 5,000 artists from 82 nations. Among those performers was American actor John Malkovich, César Award-winning French actress Isabelle Adjani, and Romanian theatre director Silviu Purcărete.

Adding to the magic of the 2024 edition of the festival, which was built around the theme of ‘friendship’, was a massive collection of over 250 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied and installed by Andrei Popea and his team at Backstage Production Group.

The Backstage team deployed 106 of these fixtures, as w

Germany - Open Beatz is the largest open-air festival for electronic music in southern Germany and attracts tens of thousands of visitors to the 50-hectare site in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, every year.

Performers on the five creatively designed stages in 2024 included Afrojack, Nicky Romero, Felix Jaehn, Lilly Palmer, and many more. Eventures GmbH was responsible for the lighting, sound, and video equipment on the three largest stages. Tobias Reinartz (visualprime) was responsible for the lighting design, working with the new Cameo Oron H2 Hybrid Phosphor Laser Moving Heads for the first time.

The Oron H2, which Eventures sourced entirely from NicLen’s dry hire stock, was the central element of the lighting design this year. “The Oron H2 is the brightest and most powerful beam moving head I’ve seen to date,” says Reinartz. “It offers everyth

Germany - For more than 20 years, the Airbeat One festival has entertained fans with the harder side of electronic music with an event that features cutting-edge stage design, epic light shows and leading international DJs. 

Airbeat One 2024 was recently held at Flugplatz Neustadt-Glewe, where lighting designer Christopher Rostalski, CEO of CR Lichtdesign, used 130 Claypaky Tambora Linear 100 LED pixel-mapping bars designed for versatile lighting effects and artistic set decoration. 

The annual event is one of the largest EDM festivals in Germany, drawing some 100,000 visitors. Every year has a different country theme with France being highlighted in 2024, and the stage designs and presentation of the festival reflecting that choice: the main stage was a faithful replica of the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre in Paris.

Rostalski selected 130

Europe - Neg Earth supremo Dave Ridgway came to the assistance of creative director and lighting designer Terry Cook when he was seeking the kind of raw power from a new-generation washlight that audiences at an AC/DC show might expect.

“It needed to be bright, versatile, bold and strong,” says the designer, one of three partners at Woodroffe Bassett Design (WBD). And so Ridgway recommended GLP’s impression X5 IP Maxx, promptly arranging a shoot-out. Terry Cook’s conclusion: “It brought meanness, real character and was unapologetically angry. It was definitely an AC/DC light,” he states. “We have history of embracing new technology on AC/DC tours and the Power Up tour was no different.”

At the same time, he noted a further advantage: the fixture’s IP rating. In fact, its waterproof qualities would prove vital during the tou

Singapore - The Star Theatre, the main venue at The Star Performing Arts Centre, has invested in a quantity of Ayrton Huracán Wash fixtures supplied by Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for the region, Total Solution Marketing.

The Huracán Wash units will become a fixed installation as part of the permanent lighting rig and mark the second investment in Ayrton for the venue.

The Star Theatre is a 5,000-seat capacity theatre that features a traditional horseshoe shape auditorium with plush seating that helps create an intimate ambience. It prides itself in using only high-end professional equipment in its broad programme of events and performances.

40 Huracán Wash fixtures were installed at the request of The Star Theatre's head of lighting, Mohamad Azhar Bin Mazlan, who explains why he chose them: “I specified these particular fixtures be

The Netherlands - Conservatorium Maastricht, an international conservatory, is one of nine music academies in the Netherlands. With goals to set its musicians in motion, the school enables its students to achieve their ambitions in various musical fields through theoretical and practical approaches to artistic development and performance, along with cross-departmental activities, elective courses and professional development.

At the end of each year, Conservatorium Maastricht holds a graduation showcase, where students present their final projects. This event allows graduates to demonstrate what they have learned and their capabilities as musicians, composers and/or producers. This year, the event was held at Muziekgieterij, a local concert hall that was tasked with handling the technical aspects, which included providing the best possible sound for the show

Brazil - Visual tech provider On Projeções selected Christie Griffyn 4K50-RGB pure laser projectors to play a starring role at two of São Paulo’s most prominent electronic and techno music events: Time Warp Brasil and Illusionize in Saturn.

Established in 1994, Time Warp Brasil is one of the world's largest techno and house festivals, with events in Mannheim, Madrid, New York, and São Paulo. The festival is renowned for its use of cutting-edge technology to complement the musical performances. For Time Warp Brasil’s 30th anniversary, the festival commissioned On Projeções and The Force agency to project onto the building opposite the event venue, enhancing the attendees' sense of immersion and transforming the event into a visually impactful and engaging experience.

To achieve this, On Projeções used two Christie Griffyn 4K50-RGB pure las

South Korea - Busan Film Commission (BFC) has joined forces with Basictech’s Media Solution Department to launch the VP stage, a dynamic facility designed for film, TV and commercial productions. At its core, the stage features a large, fine-pixel LED screen, driven by Brompton Technology's LED processing.

BFC is a pioneering organisation dedicated to supporting film production and has been instrumental in transforming Busan into a 'city of film'. Its VP stage measures 20.5m by 3.5m and is equipped with an AOTO RM series 2.31mm pixel pitch curved LED wall, powered by three 4K Tessera SX40 LED processors and six Tessera 10G data distribution units. The setup also includes an MRMC Bolt high-speed cinema robot and Disguise vx4 and rxII media servers, among other high-quality equipment.

Brompton LED processing ensures that the VR stage delivers colour

France - Creative design practice Concept K employed 100 Elation SŌL I blinders at the Solidays Festival in Paris at the end of June, one of the first uses in Europe of the creative blinder and effect light. Lighting supply was by Dushow, a festival provider for many years, with lighting design by Frédéric ‘Aldo’ Fayard of Concept K.

Solidays is an annual music festival held at the Longchamp Racecourse in Paris. Organised by Solidarité sida, it brings together more than 150 artists and 170,000 festival-goers for three days with proceeds going to organisations fighting HIV/AIDS.

Aldo, founder and artistic director of Concept K, used the SŌL I blinders to artfully adorn the festival’s main stage, commenting: “Lighting designers have been looking for a source capable of replacing the FL650 and the SŌL I from Elation is the answer to this r

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