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14 October 2024

Europe - Australian lighting designer David Gordon – known industry-wide as Gordo – wanted to create a different lighting ambience that was transportable and transposable anywhere around the globe for the ongoing Living Room Sessions world tour by indie folk rockers Angus & Julia Stone.

He turned to 48 of Astera’s powerful and handy NYX Bulb products to help produce this smart, eye-catching, and highly individual aesthetic which packed neatly into a Pele case.

The NYX Bulbs were purchased by the band for the tour and for future use. They pack into a bespoke moulded tray for transit which is fitted into a Pele type 1607 case, weighing around 20kg when full, which is “great for freight” as well as being sustainable.

The NYX Bulb lighting concept is built around a theatre show set up. Onstage, 30 x NYX Bulbs are (typically

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14 October 2024

Poland - Produced by Euforia Festivals, Tranceformations is one of Poland’s largest EDM Festivals. It takes place annually at the Centennial Hall, a UNESCO-listed building in Wroclaw, capital of Lower Silesia. The historic venue, built in 1913 to a design by architect Max Berg, holds 10,000 people beneath its 42m high x 67m diameter dome.

This was the location for the sixth edition of Tranceformations which hosted a line-up of international Trance music artists including Aly & Fila, Brinary Finary, Jordan Suckley, Nilsix, Thrill Seekers, Solarstone, Genix, Marcus Schulz, A.D.D.A, Roger Shah and Simon Paterson.  

Lighting designer, Marcin Chrzanowski of CM Light, Poland, used over 500 moving lights and 55 high-powered lasers to bring to life the light show, transforming the mid-air into a colourful work of art, with the DJs and artist

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14 October 2024

France - The Festival d'Avignon celebrates its 78th edition in 2024. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, this major international performing arts event attracts thousands of enthusiasts each summer to various venues around the city.

At the heart of the festival, the Cour d'Honneur of the Palais des Papes is an emblematic venue, offering the setting for a variety of performances. This year, eight Claypaky Sinfonya and six Claypaky Rhapsodya fixtures were installed, combining the latest technology with high artistic requirements.

Before making their choice, the festival's technical team carried out rigorous tests at FabricA, a theatre in Avignon with dimensions similar to those of the Cour d'Honneur. These tests allowed the performance of the spotlights to be accurately assessed.

Manuella Mangalo, general lighting manager, explains, “I wa

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14 October 2024

Singapore - Arts venue, Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay, has recently invested in its first consignment of Ayrton fixtures having purchased 21 Argo 6 Wash and 12 Rivale Profile units for its Recital Studio.

The fixtures were chosen after a thorough evaluation process by Esplanade’s technical theatre managers and lighting team who judged the Ayrton fixtures to be a good balance of performance and reliability which met all their technical requirements. “Ayrton's products stood out for their versatility, innovative features, and the positive feedback we received from other industry professionals,” said Heryadi Yusof, head of lighting, technical production, The Esplanade Co Ltd.

The Ayrton Argo 6 Wash and Rivale Profiles proved well-suited to the intimate 245-seat Esplanade Recital Studio, meeting all the tender specifications and criteria set out

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14 October 2024

UK - Essex-based event production and AV installation company Spotlight Sound has announced its partnership with Hylands Estate. Spotlight Sound is now the accredited event production partner for the 574-acre estate.

Chelmsford-based Spotlight Sound was founded in 2009 by director Sam Dimond. In that time, the business has grown exponentially and now supports events with production and audio-visual equipment across Essex and throughout the UK. Spotlight Sound has worked on the BBC Make A Difference Awards, The London Football Awards, and many other high-profile events. During the Covid pandemic they spectacularly lit up Hylands House as well as other venues across the city in NHS colours to thank our emergency services for their work on behalf of Chelmsford City Council.

Sam Dimond says. “Our partnership with Hylands Estate means

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11 October 2024

Hungary - Robe fixtures were prominent on a number of lighting installations designed by Centrum Production and delivered by VEG (Visual Europe Group) for the 2024 Hungarian National Day Celebrations in capital city Budapest.

iBolts, iFortes and iForte LTXs together with MegaPointes and Tarrantulas were utilised across five key sites on the main day of celebrations which included performances, attractions and events taking place along a 5km-long stretch on both sides of the River Danube that dissects the Hungarian capital city.

The project was managed for VEG by Kristof Nagy and the five areas utilising Robe products were the 118m-wide Hungarian Parliament Building, the Hungarian National Gallery, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, Elisabeth Bridge and the Mandoki Soulmates stage.

The imposing and majestic Parliament Building on the Pest side of th

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11 October 2024

Czech Republic - Žerotín Castle in Valašské Meziříčí has a new look and style for after dark with an installation of Anolis Calumma M and L LED fixtures, which were chosen to illuminate this heritage-protected building that houses a museum and gallery centre covering the whole Zlín region.

The initiative to light the building was led by Valašské Meziříčí’s city council working with lighting design studio Archlights.cz from Usti nad Labem, who provided expertise and selected the Calummas for the job.

The architectural lighting practice has utilised Anolis – a Robe business – products on several other jobs with great success, so it again looked towards the brand for a stylish, high-quality lighting solution.

The brief included creating some very specific colours to match the brickwork and general ambience of the Baroque-sty

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11 October 2024

Norway - Just off the coast of the North Sea lies the Norwegian island municipality of Askøy. Bounded on all sides by coastal fjords, the municipality of 30,000 people is home to several boat-building companies, football clubs, and a bustling seafood industry.

The island’s population greatly expanded after the opening of the Askøy Bridge in 1992. To expand its options for local artists and theatrical performances, the local government recently commissioned the creation of a new cultural hall – the Kultursalen Kipo. Powering all the loudspeakers in the acoustic enhancement system are Connect Series amplifiers from LEA Professional.

Venue staff contacted Benum Norway A/S to design the audio system for the cultural hall. Based in Oslo, Benum is well-versed in the challenges associated with performance venues like Kultursalen Kipo.

“Norwa

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11 October 2024

Canada - Simon Fraser University (SFU), consistently ranked among Canada's top research institutions, has taken a pioneering step into immersive communication and spatial acoustics processing. Thanks to a recent grant, SFU established an acoustics lab equipped with 128 Renkus-Heinz C Series loudspeakers to support its research in the field.

Located across British Columbia’s three largest cities – Burnaby, Surrey, and Vancouver – SFU offers diverse programmes ranging from anthropology to marine science. The university's drive to leverage technology for societal benefit led to the creation of a new lab focused on 3D multimedia applications, including surround sound, video, and spatial acoustics, commonly referred to as "immersive communication."

Senior professor Rodney Vaughan spearheaded the project and partnered with TiMax, Advanced Audio, Dire

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10 October 2024

USA - Rock titans Metallica roared into North America this autumn for the latest leg of their juggernaut M72 World Tour, now elevated by the power and precision of Meyer Sound’s 2100-LFC low-frequency control elements.

The tour, which began in April 2023, stops for two nights in each city, presenting two sets on ‘no repeat weekends’. Fans experience a stereo mix in every seat, one that’s faithful to 40 years of studio recordings, explains FOH engineer Greg Price. “Our goal was to bring that intimate environment into a stadium.”

Staged in the round, the tour is supported by a staggering 522 Meyer Sound loudspeakers, including 288 Panther large-format linear line array loudspeakers, 96 2100-LFC low-frequency control elements, 48 VLFC very low‑frequency control elements, 16 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements, 22 Ultra-X40 com

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10 October 2024

USA - Jonny Tosserello, production manager and lighting designer/director for Lynyrd Skynyrd, is continuing his long-time use of Claypaky Xtylos for The Sharp Dressed Simple Man Tour with ZZ Top co-headlining. Tosserello is a principal of Rock’n’Roll Drive-in based in southeastern Missouri.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, kicked off the 22-city North American leg of the ongoing tour with ZZ Top in July in West Palm Beach and wrapped in Ridgefield, Washington in September. Premier Global Production Company, Nashville, is the lighting vendor for the tour.

“I started deploying Xtylos in 2021 when they became available through Premier,” recalls Tosserello, who has been Lynyrd Skynyrd’s lighting director since 2010. “I wanted more beam fixtures in the band’s floor package, and Steven (Creech) Anderso

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10 October 2024

UK - The National Theatre’s acclaimed production of War Horse takes audiences on an extraordinary journey from the fields of rural Devon to the trenches of World War One France. Filled with stirring music and songs, it has become renowned for its astonishing use of life-sized horses by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, who help bring this story to life on stage.

Having first been performed in 2007, the show is returning once again for an all-new UK and Ireland tour, featuring a lighting design by Rob Casey. Given the company’s long-term involvement with the show, White Light (WL), a d&b solutions company, was called upon to supply the touring lighting rig.

The original production of War Horse was lit by Paule Constable, who would also light subsequent touring productions. For these, Casey initially served as one of

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10 October 2024

Spain - Alfalite has been selected by Telefónica Tech, the technology arm of the global telecom giant Telefónica, to complete one of the standout installations at the new Espacio Movistar, the company’s latest flagship venue.

Located in the Telefónica Building on Madrid’s Gran Vía, the project is part of Telefónica's 100th-anniversary celebrations. Alfalite has designed and installed a five-sided immersive LED cube, covering three walls, the floor, and the ceiling, using its Alfalite Modularpix Pro 1.5 ORIM panels.

This LED cube creates an immersive sensory experience for visitors, leveraging state-of-the-art visual technology. The cube’s multiple high-resolution screens, combined with the durability of Alfalite’s panels draw viewers into dynamic and immersive content. The installation is part of Telefónica Tech’s strategy to infuse i

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10 October 2024

USA - The Struts recently concluded the 28-date USA leg of their Pretty Vicious tour. Lighting designer Carlos Katsurayama transformed the stage with a shifting variety of dramatic looks throughout the show that wrapped themselves tightly around the mood of the music. Helping him create this evocative canvas on stage was a rig supplied by LIT Lighting of Phoenix, which featured 14 Chauvet Professional Maverick Force S Profiles.

Positioned on the riser, behind the guitar amps, the compact moving fixture with a seven-slot colour wheel and 14,000 lumen output was used to create a dynamic backdrop for the band. Drawing on features like the profile’s 120-degree complete module rotation and wide zoom ranges, Katsurayama was able to conjure up a variety of captivating looks.

“The Force S Profile brought a good level of intensity to everything,

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10 October 2024

Europe - This past summer, K-array featured in several high-profile festivals around the globe – ranging from intimate gatherings in historic Italian towns to large-scale beachfront festivals in Sweden.

The Festival of the Sun, an exclusive two-day event held in a small town near Siena, Italy, was shrouded in secrecy until its launch on 21 June. Masterminded by record executive and producer, Rick Rubin, the festival was spread across multiple locations, including a historic church, a town square and a nearby castle. The mix of performances required an audio solution that could adapt to each setting whilst delivering a consistent audience experience.

A performance by singer-songwriter, James Blake, in a centuries-old church posed a significant acoustic challenge. A Pinnacle KR402 system, supplemented by Pinnacle KR102 as delay and Kayman KY

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10 October 2024

UK - With six gym locations across East Anglia, the New Revolution fitness chain offers members 24-hour access and a wide range of classes from spinning to Boxfit and yoga each week. The company’s newest facility in Lowestoft recently underwent a significant renovation and upgrade programme, extending to the gym’s audio system.

Responsible for the AV aspects of the project, Norwich-based Hughes Electrical was tasked with addressing specific concerns with the existing audio offering. Hughes ultimately specified an array of Optimal Audio products to significantly improve performance, as the company’s Karl Topley explains.

“We’ve been working with New Revolution for around five years and as part of our contract review, we asked for feedback on the previous audio system at the Lowestoft venue. With customer expectations growing as far as audio

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09 October 2024

USA - Plainfield Public Schools, located in Plainfield, New Jersey, recently hosted a ribbon cutting for its $4m renovation of the Plainfield High School auditorium, new eSports gaming arena, and black box theatre. PureTek Group, of nearby Boonton, New Jersey, designed and installed Electro-Voice sound reinforcement systems for each venue.   

“The auditorium was completely refurbished to serve as a hub for school performances, community events and assemblies,” explains Dan Litvin, president of PureTek Group. “We outfitted the auditorium, which seats 1,525 people, with left-right Electro-Voice EVA line arrays to cover the main seating area and EVC loudspeakers for balcony fill.”

Each EVA line array comprises three EVA-2082S/906, two EVA-2082S/1220 loudspeaker elements and two EVA-2151D subwoofers. EVA’s efficient crossover and driver desi

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08 October 2024

Denmark - Robe moving lights – Esprites, Spiiders, iSpiiders and iForte LTXs used as followspots – all had impact on the lighting and set designed by Simon Corder for Opera Hedeland’s La fanciulla del West (Girl of the Golden West) by Puccini, which is set in a Gold Rush prospecting town in 19th century western USA.

Opera Hedeland offers Denmark's largest permanent outdoor stage, and an elegant 3,000-capacity amphitheatre sculpted into the landscape, a haven for opera lovers with open minds where they can imbibe an extraordinary site-specific experience each year with a series of special performances. The beauty of the former gravel quarrying area – now returned to natural heathland and forests – permeates the venue which nestles amidst a 15sq.k recreational area, approximately 20km out of the central Copenhagen hustle.

Th

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08 October 2024

Brazil - In 2024, Rock in Rio celebrated its 40th anniversary. For nearly 15 years, Outline’s audio systems have made a notable impact on the event’s sound reinforcement, with São Paulo-based Gabisom Audio Equipment taking on the sound reinforcement role for Rock in Rio, aligning with the festival's stature and demands.

This year, Outline’s GTO, GTO C-12, Superfly, and Mantas 28 models, driven by Outline power amplifiers, were deployed across three of the festival's key stages: New Dance Order, Global Village, and Supernova. Gabisom has made significant investments in Outline audio technology in 2023 and 2024, following earlier purchases that included a substantial GTO C-12 system and Newton processors in 2020.

In 2020, Gabisom became the world’s largest owner of Newton inventory, utilising these [patented] FPGA-based proce

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08 October 2024

Turkey - Gen Z-oriented Fanta Fest returned for 2024 to visit seven of the country’s biggest cities, with five large LED screens displaying more than 43m pixels of performer-specific content, all driven by a Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 Media Server.

Video designer and programmer Gürkan Çalışkan worked with Fanta Fest’s technical director Can Besbelli to deliver strikingly different visual content for the range of artists playing each venue, including prominent Turkish singer Tarkan Tevetoğlu and Turkish rapper CEZA.

Çalışkan was given media content from each performer’s production team, designed to the dimensions of the LED screens, which he loaded onto the Boreal+ MK2 Media Server using Hippotizer’s Media Management feature to organise the show.  

The LED screens were rigged stage left and stage right and as a backdrop, with two

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08 October 2024

New Zealand - Produced by Semmel Exhibitions, Marvel: Earth’s Mightiest Exhibition, offers a fresh perspective on Marvel’s rich 80+ year history. With its world premiere having taken place in Wellington, the exhibition gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the creation of some of popular culture’s most famous stories and characters – enhanced by an immersive soundscape from Genelec.

The audio for the project was a collaboration between Sebastian M. Purfürst of Berlin-based LEM Studios and acoustic scenographer, Markus ‘Hossi’ Hossack. Commissioned to realise the artistic and technical concept of the immersive sound installation, they developed a soundscape that guides guests into the world of Marvel.

“As composers, media artists and engineers, we like to call the development of the sonic layers of the exhibition experience 'a

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08 October 2024

Canada - Salle Odyssée, the cultural performance theatre at the Maison de la Culture complex in Gatineau, Québec, has installed a wide range of Ayrton and Robert Juliat lighting fixtures and a new grandMA3 console provided by Perfecson, also in Gatineau. All three brands are exclusively distributed in North America by ACT Entertainment.

Salle Odyssée is a busy venue which daily hosts a variety of shows, including music and stand-up comedy. The new equipment is part of a CAD$5m project for a state-of-the-art upgrade of the theatre.

An AV equipment rental facility, integrator and production services company, Perfecson worked closely with Salle Odyssée to provide the right equipment for the upgrade. Perfecson also continues to supply local labour to supplement the small team of in-house technicians during performances.

“The theatre was usi

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08 October 2024

UK - Holotronica was part of Brighton Festival this year, the largest annual curated multi-arts festival in England.

“We were very happy to install Hologauze for the visionary string orchestra, 12 Ensemble. Max Ruisi, the orchestra’s artistic director worked with art director Ben Ditto to create an immersive sensory experience using audio reactive, AI-generated holographic visuals on Hologauze,” says the company.

Holotronica installed a 10m by 5m Hologauze XL at the Corn Exchange venue in Brighton Pavilion Gardens. “We provided the installation so once our production team were on site, everything worked perfectly. We used a Panasonic RZ21, which provided the optimum brightness for the venue and the holographic visual piece enveloping the orchestra looked incredible.”

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07 October 2024

UK - Production company, RG Jones Sound Engineering, needed to pull out all the stops when RG Live and Merlin Entertainment staged a mixed programme of four back-to-back concerts within the medieval setting of Warwick Castle. It was the perfect ‘picnic on the lawn’ scenario, and an occasion which challenged the Martin Audio MLA loudspeaker array to the maximum.

Opening with The Music of Hans Zimmer vs John Williams – an epic showdown between the film composers – the programme journeyed via Ministry of Sound Classical to McFly, before soaring further into the atmosphere with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds as a finale. As a bonus for the audience, joining Gallagher were Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr and The Waeve, featuring Blur’s Graham Coxon and ex-Pipette Rose Elinor Dougall.

All played out through Martin Audio’s flagship PA, whi