Lithuania - At the end of September, Pope Francis kicked off his four-day Baltic tour, which included Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, with a holy mass in Sàntakos Park in Kaunas, Lithuania. The event attracted over 100,000 faithful to the park where local rental company, NGR Service, provided an extensive sound system, deploying two SD12s for the live mix, as well as the broadcast and press feeds.
“NGR was chosen for this important event because of the quality of its equipment, of which DiGiCo is an important part, and its exemplary service,” says Ramūnas Alenskas from DiGiCo’s Lithuanian distributor Sonus, which supported NGR with additional stage boxes and cabling. “They used the two DiGiCo SD12s along with two SD-Racks, a D2-Rack and an SD-Mini Rack, which were deployed for their sound quality and their ability to connect to all six racks in fully redundant mode

UK - For the last 93 years, the Blackpool Dance Festival competition - probably the most globally acclaimed international bastion of ballroom dancing - has ensured that the genre continues to have a relevant role in popular culture in the UK and beyond.
This year, 3,000 couples from 60 nations competed in the event. Providing them with a stylish and sophisticated visual background was a lighting design by Oliver Wilkinson of Arranpaul that featured 10 Chauvet Professional Rogue R2 Spot and16 Rogue R2 Wash fixtures, and 32 Q-Wash 560Z-LED washes.
Wilkinson has been part of the Blackpool Dance Festival for six years, but in 2018 it was his chance to design the event. He strove to bring a new level of smoothness to his efforts. “We have provided equipment to this event since 2012, and each year we set the bar higher for ourselves,” he said. “This year, I wanted to

USA - Known locally as The Rock, M.M. Roberts Stadium is home to the University of Southern Mississippi’s Golden Eagles football team. It originally opened in 1932 with 4,000 seats and has since expanded to hold 36,000-plus Southern Miss fans. Its most recent expansion happened a decade ago, and although the expanded infrastructure and seating is in great shape, the sound reinforcement system that went in didn’t fare as well. After an overhaul installed by AV integration firm Sound & Communications, of Flowood, Mississippi, M.M. Roberts Stadium now commands a full Danley Sound Labs loudspeaker, subwoofer, and amplifier/DSP system.
“The old system didn’t stand up to the elements, and pieces of the speaker cabinets and components were failing,” explained Jeff Crowe, director of operations with Sound & Communications. “The coverage was going, the high end wa

Norway - Celebrating its 25th anniversary next year, Skudefestivalen is one of Norway’s largest coastal culture festivals. This year marked the first European outing for EM Acoustics’ new HALO-A large-format line array system, where it made a big impression on visiting sound engineers for the festival’s main stage performances from many of Norway’s top acts, including Jan Ove Ottesen, Heine Totland, Plumbo, Just 4 You, Keipstein and Slogmåkane.
The HALO-A line array was supplied by Haugesund-based AV rental specialists, Livepro, with support from EM Acoustics’ Norwegian distributor, Norstage. Livepro’s system engineer, Geir Larsen, has become the first adopter of HALO-A in Europe. “This is a huge improvement over the sound systems we’ve used in previous years,” he said. “I’m really impressed with the way it sounds, even in a tent which is not the frien

The Netherlands - Christie Digital’s latest HS Series projectors are currently in use at the GLOW Eindhoven international light art festival in Eindhoven.
A total of 12 Christie D20WU-HS projectors, provided by Christie partner Sahara Benelux, are utilised in a video mapping installation on the face of the 19th century Catharinakerk, a neo-gothic Roman Catholic church located in the centre of Eindhoven.
“We’re delighted that Sahara Benelux has chosen to invest in our latest HS Series models, and it’s rewarding to see them already being used in high profile global events like GLOW Eindhoven,” says Miles Donovan, senior channel development manager, enterprise, EMEA, Christie. “The HS Series is an excellent choice for a wide range of applications, delivering high brightness and vibrant colours in a lightweight and compact form factor. It’s our pleasure to p

USA - Morris Integration has expanded audio capabilities at Missouri’s First Baptist Church of Arnold using Allen & Heath’s dLive consoles.
The systems upgrade is based around an Allen & Heath dLive S7000 control surface at FOH and a dLive S3000 for monitors. Services at the church range from traditional to contemporary, using an average of 80 inputs on any given Sunday. With an Allen & Heath dLive DM48 MixRack serving the house and a DM32 MixRack standing-in at monitor world, both MixRack processors utilise gigaACE networking cards to provide 96kHz audio and control transport via Ethernet over standard Cat 5e cabling.
“Not all that long ago, it would have been crazy to think you could transmit that much audio over Cat5,” says Morris Integration design engineer, Collin Adams. “But here we are today, and it’s reality. Being able to draw upon th

USA - Elation once again had a presence on the Kaaboo festival as lighting designers Chris Lisle and Erik Parker turned to the LED-based Platinum 1200 Wash moving head to light headlining acts Foo Fighters, Imagine Dragons and Katy Perry on the main Sunset Cliffs stage.
Lisle and Parker used 12 Platinum 1200 Wash fixtures - each housing 19 x 65W LEDs with wide zoom - spread out across the mid-stage and upstage trusses primarily for general stage wash. “It’s hard to compete with the sun of course, but even during daylight they were able to lay some base colour and show up on the camera/IMAG shots for some eye candy,” explains Lisle. “We loved their overall intensity. In a rig full of a lot of horsepower, they held their own and were great at driving down some base colour.”
Meanwhile, on the Trestles Stage, bands like The Zombies, Tower of Power, Blondie, and

UK - Adlib was the audio supplier for the Giant Spectacular show staged in Liverpool, produced by the street and outdoor theatre company Royal de Luxe.
The extravaganza attracted an estimated 1.3m people to the city centre over the weekend of 4-7 October to see this tale of epic proportions, and the fate of the much-loved oversized marionette puppets unfold. Characters comprised The Explorer, the Little Boy Giant, his dog Xolo, and a surprise appearance by the Little Girl, who re-entered the story on the Sunday for the finale.
It was the third Liverpool Giant Spectacular, and having delivered the previous events in 2012 and 2014 so successfully, Adlib was commissioned by production manager Stu Stalker of Event Design Co (EDC) and Royal De Luxe’s production manager Jeff Havart to provide audio.
Adlib provided on-board sound systems mounted to the s

Europe - Lights Control Rigging (LCR) has provided 20 Chroma-Q Color Force II fixtures for Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm Tour, to create a spectacular back wall wash.
The set design for the show features five individual cyc panels spaced apart, which together display the Silent Alarm album artwork. Color Force II LED battens at the top and bottom of each panel flooded the back of the stage in vibrant colour, with the units' strobe effects used during some of the faster paced songs.
LD Ryan Hopkins, who's also a director of LCR, comments: “It was great to have our Color Force II’s at my disposal for the tour. They provided incredibly bright colour across the stage. I was very impressed by their seamless blending across the entire artwork and I am really happy with the results.”
(Jim Evans)

South Africa - Encounter Christian Church is a 600-seat church based on the second floor of a shopping centre in Centurion, South Africa. While looking for solutions to expand on their current audio system, the church met up with DWR Distribution, who recommended Quest and DiGiCo to accommodate the growing ministry and worship team.
Positioned on the second floor of a shopping centre in a residential area, the sound levels had to be considered. “We replaced the entire sound system with the Quest range of loudspeakers and amplifiers,” explains Kyle Robson from DWR. “The existing audio console was upgraded to a DiGiCo S21 and the full install was complete within a day. The system was designed to focus audio coverage on the audience so that the spill out of the building was minimised. Since the new system has been installed there hasn’t been a complaint from the neighb

USA - The Dave Matthews Band (DMB) is on the road again in the USA promoting their latest album Come Tomorrow  with another visually provocative production design by Fenton Williams.
Fenton combined creative energies with Aaron Stinebrink from lighting rental specialist TMS - also the tour’s lighting vendor - on the lighting design, and the pair specified over 100 Robe fixtures to be at the heart of the show.
Forty MegaPointes, 48 x Spikies, 16 x BMFL WashBeams and 10 x BMFL Spots are helping to create the vibes for this highly successful tour.
Fenton has worked for DMB since 1991 taking on various job roles and has been the video and lighting designer / director for over 20 years. Aaron joined the team in 2003 and the two have worked together on lighting DMB’s dynamic and intricate live shows ever since.
(Jim Evans)

Iceland - AV equipment supplier HljóðX recently deployed Harman Professional Solutions audio systems and lighting solutions at Iceland's Secret Solstice music festival, including a JBL VTX line array system, Crown amplifiers, Soundcraft digital mixing consoles and Martin lighting fixtures.
Held in Reykjavík during a period of 24-hour sunlight in the Arctic Circle, the annual music festival features non-stop performances across four outdoor stages and an indoor club venue. Festival organisers hired HljóðX to provide sound and lighting systems for all five venues that could accommodate the festival‘s diverse line-up of high profile artists, including Slayer, Gucci Mane, Bonnie Tyler and Steve Aoki. HljóðX outfitted each stage with JBL VTX V-Series line array loudspeakers, Crown I-tech amplifiers, Soundcraft mixers and Martin lighting fixtures.
“The event envir

Poland - Bazyliszek, a new interactive dark ride situated in the Magical Forest zone of Poland’s largest theme park, Legendia, was recently opened to the public as part of a comprehensive rebranding and overhaul. Having collaborated once before on the Antwerp Comics Station theme park, the ride’s designers, Alterface, brought in Belgian design studio Painting with Light to help create a thrilling visual backdrop for Bazyliszek.
Drawing on their wealth of experience in the field of theatrical lighting, Painting with Light specified 80 Chauvet Professional mini ERS-style Ovation Min-E-10CWZ fixtures and COLORdash Par-Hex 7 units to create a multifaceted and exciting visual accompaniment to the ride, which went on to win the European Star Award for Best New Ride in 2018.
Bazyliszek is a legendary folklore figure in Poland - a complex and highly venomous reptile that

UK/USA - Stereophonics released their 10th album last year, Scream Above the Sounds, which comes almost 20 years after the Welsh rockers first stormed the BRITs back in 1998 and won the award for British Breakthrough Act. The band's longevity speaks for itself: eight million albums sold in the UK alone, six number one records, a BRIT Award, three Kerrang! Awards, a pair of Q Awards, and 40 singles to their name.
On the road, Harm Schopman is looking after frontman Kelly Jones and co. from side-stage using his trusted DiGiCo console, supplied by rental company Capital Sound.
Although in charge of monitors for this tour, Harm has been responsible for various roles on numerous touring productions.
“On Stereophonics, I originally looked after [FOH engineer] Dave Roden as the systems tech, mostly on the arena tours,” Harm explains. “It's only in the last

Germany - Under the catch-line All you need to be, Nature One called its dance-loving audience to the Pydna former rocket base in Hunsrück between 3-5 August. As in previous years, over 50,000 people joined the pilgrimage, engaging in four days and three nights of pure EDM fever, with 350 acts participating on a total of 23 floors.
For the largest floor - the Open Air Floor - lighting designer Thomas Gerdon of Gerdon design produced the entire visual concept. Gerdon, who has been working on various floors of Nature One since 2003, faced a fundamental change this year: for the first time, a conventional stage was used on the Open Air Floor, and for this the designer immediately had the idea of GLP’s new modular KNV LED system of GLP in his mind.
However, since the KNV system was not yet on the market at the beginning of August, GLP was able to meet the design

USA - As part of the LA-based Legends Football League, the Nashville Knights are a 7-on-7, tackle football team that incorporated into the league in 2018. Playing their inaugural season in the Nashville Municipal Auditorium, the Knights wanted to offer an in-game experience that would create a lasting connection with their fans.
Needing to supplement the production gear inside the multi-purpose event venue, the Knights worked with Elite Multimedia Productions who oversaw a complete game-day audio, video and lighting design.
“We try to design our in-game experience to be similar to what they do in the NFL to heighten the experience for our fans and provide a deeper connection to the action on the field,” says Candice Leisengang, operations manager. “When we started looking for production companies, we really needed someone who had the ability to do live audio, ca

UK - Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall recently saw an Allen & Heath SQ-6 digital mixer installed to deliver the audio content of a significant work by Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera.
The piece (the title of which is an ever-increasing figure reflecting the number of people who migrated from one country to another last year, added to by the number of migrant deaths recorded so far this year) involves both a large heat-sensitive floor and sound design by electronic artist Steve Goodman (Kode9).
By using body heat and working with other visitors, a hidden portrait of Yousef - a young Syrian who left his home country to travel to London - is revealed beneath the floor while low-frequency sounds fill the space with an unsettling energy. In a small room nearby an organic compound in the air induces tears and provokes what Bruguera describes as “forced empathy”

Poland - Design and installation company ARAM has outfitted a new e-sports studio in Poland with a flexible Elation lighting system. The studio, at Polsat television in Warsaw, is equipped with the latest in studio-optimised LED luminaires designed to provide players and viewers with the best e-sports experience, whether watching the event on TV, online or in person.
The custom Elation lighting solution includes everything from dynamic white-light LED array panels and high-quality white light ellipsoidal spots to full-colour batten, par and LED moving head luminaires that deliver a wider spectrum of chromatic and effect options. Incorporated in the rig are some of Elation's newest luminaires, including Artiste series LED moving heads.
As one of the few technical production companies specialised in e-sports, ARAM has stood behind the design and technical production of

UK - Lighting designer Derek Jones utilised Chroma-Q’s Vista 3 lighting and media control system to deliver his lighting design for Sir Cliff Richard's recent tour celebrating 60 years in music.
With a career spanning 103 album releases, 123 single hits and the equivalent of 20 years spent in the UK charts, the 58-18=60th The Tour saw Sir Cliff play his greatest hits across six decades in some of the UK and Ireland's leading concert halls, including two nights at the Royal Albert Hall.
As a Vista user for nearly a decade, Jones was keen to utilise the next generation capabilities of the Vista 3 software for his show design.
He comments: "I've been using Vista for nearly a decade now and have seen its evolution. As an LD I've always found it very intuitive and simple to use, so I was really excited to switch to Vista 3 and, after trying it out with succe

South Africa - Johannesburg’s Joburg Theatre has taken delivery of 10 Robe Robin 800 LEDWash units, supplied through DWR. The new lighting fixtures will complement vibrant productions being staged over the festive season including Snow White the fairest Panto in All the Land!, Helen O’Grady, Sati - Shivas Beloved and Mukokoli Live DVD recording.
“There has been no looking back since the theatre first started investing in Robin 800 LEDWash a few years ago," says Enos Ramoroko, technical manager at the theatre. "They have really worked well for us and we are pleased to now have 34 units in total." 
"The Robins really are the work horses of the industry and for the theatre to have added more 800s to their stock is a game changer," says Kevin Stannett from DWR. "I would like to thank Enos and the Joburg Theatre for your valued support, and to all South African

UK - Film and TV crewing specialist Studioforce was appointed by Shiver, an arm of ITV Studios, to support the delivery of this year’s Pride of Britain Awards.
The event was held at the Grosvenor House Hotel on 29 October and Studioforce provided stage hands, lighting technicians, carpenters, scenic supervisors, scenic artists and followspot operators.
The company worked closely with Shiver’s freelance production designer Paul Houston, supplying a team of experienced freelancers to work alongside the lighting and set design teams to create the Pride of Britain Awards’ set and backdrop.
The tight timeframe presented the Studioforce crew with its largest challenge. With just 48 hours to complete the entire project, from unloading the first piece of equipment from the truck and building the set, to running the show, completing the de-rig and the last truck le

USA - Honouring the intentions of composer Leonard Bernstein, the artistic director of the Brevard Music Centre Summer Music Festival, Keith Lockhart, set himself a task: to capture the pioneering spirit of a classic performance in a contemporary environment. Composed for the 1971 inauguration of the Kennedy Centre, Bernstein’s Mass created an entirely new kind of liturgy in both its content and technology - using quadraphonic sound.
“Keith is a renowned conductor, not least as principal conductor of the Boston Pops. He had performed the Bernstein Mass once before and wanted the audience to have that quad sound experience as Bernstein had originally intended,” explains sound engineer Brady Hislop of Iris Design.
“That’s all very well but the Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium is a semi-outdoor space not designed for amplified music. Roofed to provide

USA - The Franklin Theatre first opened as a cinema in the summer of 1937, when moviegoers could see a double feature and cap the evening with an ice cream sundae on a Norman Rockwell-esque Main Street. 70 years later, the theatre underwent an $8m renovation and reopened in 2011 as the premier music and event venue in Franklin, a suburb of Nashville that is home to nearly as many musicians as Music City itself is.
Seven years later, the venue has installed a DiGiCo SD12 digital console at front of house. Paired with a D2-Rack, the desk was supplied and installed in mid-August by Dan Heins of Clair Solutions, completing the Franklin Theatre’s renaissance as the entertainment centre of the city, drawing headline artists from Nashville, nationally and globally.
“Although our previous digital console has served us well since the theatre reopened, it had definitely reac

Belgium - Once every two years, Brussels’ Grand Place becomes even more breath-taking as its cobblestone surface is transformed into a magnificent carpet of colour by over a half million flowers. Artfully arranged in an intricate design, the floral panorama flows gracefully, softening the gilded baroque buildings that surround it to create a vista of almost mythical beauty.
Like most enchanting creations that seem to spring forth naturally, the Biannual Flower Carpet at the Grand Place is in reality the result of intensive planning and hard work. In 2018, a team of 200 volunteers laboured for six hours to install the carpet the day of the event. Illuminating their efforts and tying the floral display into the square’s historic buildings was a carefully developed lighting design by Geoffrey Oelbrandt of Studio Artfex that included Chauvet Professional Rogue R3 Wash fixtu

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