Projects

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05 August 2024

UK - Two years ago, PCL Live opened its doors cater for Northeast Scotland’s production needs. Investing in the latest technology and using the team’s extensive experience, the company quickly established itself.

From the start, it had a large focus on Leyard Europe LED screens. Significant expansion continues that focus, as does a recent investment in Leyard’s LN Series, which is helping the company go from strength to strength.

“We now have over 200m2 of Leyard video wall including CFO, NEV and MGP, plus the recent addition of the new LN Series, all of which has been very good and extremely versatile,” says Alex Sherman, business development and technical manager at PCL Live.

“Because the LN Series is both indoor and outdoor rated and the panels are so easily connected together, we can quickly create amazing structures. This has

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02 August 2024

USA - Cory FitzGerald, the lighting designer for Justin Timberlake’s ongoing The Forget Tomorrow World Tour and senior partner at Burbank-based creative studio, Silent House, is using 30 Robert Juliat 864 LED asymmetric footlights featuring a four-colour mixing system to line the stage at the singer-songwriter’s shows.  ACT Entertainment is the exclusive North American distributor of Robert Juliat lighting.

The tour, which commenced in April and will continue until spring of next year, is Timberlake’s seventh headlining concert tour and his first in five years.  It is in support of his sixth studio album, Everything I Thought It Was, and has scheduled dates in North America through the rest of 2024.

FitzGerald had used RJ Dalis footlights on other productions, including shows for Kendrick Lamar. “I had the Dalis 862 all-white footl

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02 August 2024

UK - It has taken Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express 22 years to return to the stage since it pulled out of the West End in 2002. This time, the production’s new home is at the Troubadour Wembley Park which has been specially adapted to create an immersive performance experience, with Unusual Rigging on board to handle the venue and production’s rigging requirements.

Working for production manager Mark Carey from Shedworks Studio, the Unusual team were asked to install a number of items for the show requirements. Alex Taylor, production rigger at Unusual explained: “As part of our brief, we were asked to provide all of the LX, Sound and Video trusses, the trusses for the sound baffle, three technical working platforms for all the LX racks and to devise a method of lifting up a halo into position, being careful to get the height and angle just ri

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02 August 2024

USA - Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart performed a series of US shows from 20 April to 23 May 23 on their Royal Flush tour, with lighting design by Carl Burnett. Burnett turned to Elation’s Proteus Brutus LED Wash FX and Proteus Maximus LED Profile moving heads as the foundation of the lighting rig, valuing their power while appreciating their refined design qualities.

Royal Flush marked the first live show the sisters have shared since 2019. Burnett, who designed lighting for Heart’s 2019 tour and is known for his work with Robert Plant, amongst others, is the lighting and show designer for the tour. He enlisted his good friend Max Conwell to assist with the design process for the first time in his career. Lighting for the U.S. leg of the tour was supplied by 4Wall.

Before kicking off the tour in Greenville, South Carolina, in April, Burnett design

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02 August 2024

USA - Providing sound design services and equipment delivery since 2018, as overseen by Eighth Day Sound’s Sean Sturge, UniverSoul Circus is one of North America’s most-loved family friendly, non-stop action productions. This year, the show has 10 acts from multiple continents, reinforcing its position as a truly cultural live entertainment offering.

Production manager Kabelo Mashobane begins: “The idea here is to bring everyone from different cultures together. Soul doesn't have a colour. It doesn't matter where you are from, when it comes to seeking entertainment, we all speak the same language.”

To convey the messaging behind the circus’ new show, Kabelo explains why Eighth Day Sound is the right fit: “Our audio delivery is unique; we have a lot of dynamic sounds due to our different acts bringing their own regional take. From classica

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02 August 2024

USA - Valtteri Salomaki and Ethan Castro, founders of EDGE Sound Research are making waves in the pro AV and pro sports worlds with their audio technology called Embodied Sound.

Salomaki and Castro aim to bring sound not only to the ears of their listeners but to their entire bodies. They recently performed a high-profile audio installation at the VIP experience for a multipurpose Las Vegas arena and turned to LEA Professional, to deliver completely immersive sound to the guests.

“We take the audio from the game that gets picked up by the broadcast, and we provide it in our sections of a venue,” Salomaki said. “That way, a fan can hear and feel everything from the dribbles to the shots, the swooshes, everything that makes them feel like an actual player in the game versus a spectator. Our ultimate goal is to redefine how personalised and curate

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02 August 2024

The Netherlands - Gigant is an arts and performance complex in Apeldoorn, comprising two theatre spaces, a movie house, recording studios, music venue (popzaal) and a café.

The 550-capacity popzaal is a well-known hang out for music fans and a showcase for catching rising stars artists and ones-to-watch as they build their fanbases, and the venue also has a history with Robe moving lights.

The latest Robe products to be installed are Paintes, Cuetes and LEDBeam 150s which arrived at the end of 2023.

Technical manager Simon Kemme has been working at Gigant for three and a half years and explains that it is one of a genre of multifunctional cultural buildings built throughout the Netherlands – in this case in 1994 – which has encouraged the arts to flourish.

Before taking up the post here, he was a freelance sound & lighting te

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01 August 2024

France - Having featured Sarah Bernhardt on its stages for almost two decades, and staging the very first play by Sartre, Théâtre de la Ville has an impressive pedigree. Throughout its 150-year history, the venue has staged all manner of productions and today is known for its offering of modern dance, theatre and world music. 

Following a major seven-year refurbishment designed to equip the 19th century building with 21st century innovation, Théâtre de la Ville has again placed itself on the edge of technology, able to offer L-ISA immersive experiences to audiences via its BLive-installed sound system.

For almost a decade, Théâtre de la Ville had been in search of the perfect system to realise its immersive audio ambitions. As part of a wider refurbishment, the venue, in collaboration with L-Acoustics certified partner BLive – a long-time te

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01 August 2024

India - Christie DWU23-HS laser projectors play a pivotal role in a new light and sound show at Osmania University, transforming the façade of its Arts College building into a canvas for breathtaking visual displays. 

Located in Hyderabad, Osmania University is one of India’s oldest and most prestigious institutions of higher education. The university undertook this large-scale nighttime spectacle to celebrate and preserve its rich history and foster pride and appreciation for its heritage among students, faculty, and visitors.

The project is designed to enhance the educational experience by offering an innovative and engaging way to explore Osmania University’s journey since its founding in 1917.  

Aura Bright Light India Pvt Ltd integrated the project and was instrumental in bringing this display to reality. Its expertise in integra

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01 August 2024

Italy - On 5-6 July, Venice landmark Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square) saw Italian pop group Pooh perform the first two shows of their 22-date Amici x Sempre Estate 2024 tour.

Pooh’s longtime lighting designer, Francesco De Cave specified 100 Chauvet Professional Maverick Storm 3 BeamWashes for these shows. Supplied by ZAlight and installed by Agorà, the fully-featured IP65 hybrid fixtures supported the artists on stage, in addition to accenting the beauty of the Doge Palace, Campanile di San Marco, Basilica and other structures that contributed to the scenography at the concert site.

De Cave valued the “power and 'colourimetric' versatility” of the Maverick Storm 3 BeamWash. Using soft shades of richly rendered colours, he was able to endow the piazza’s historic setting with a dramatic element without distracting from the archi

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01 August 2024

USA - Michigan’s multi-genre Electric Forest music festival ramped up its AV offering this year, with the monumental Sherwood Court stage’s proscenium arch LED screen displaying content powered by tvONE’s Green Hippo brand of Hippotizer Media Servers, which are distributed by ACT Entertainment in North America.

Visual solutions company Observatory, which has provided scenic visual content and delivery/VJ services for Electric Forest’s Sherwood Court Stage since 2022, were brought on by Leisure Expert Group - the creative directors of Insomniac, who part own the festival. Observatory’s Simon Harris and his team worked closely with Leisure Expert Group to transform their visual brief into animated visual content.

To realise the visual delivery, they specified two Green Hippo Hippotizer V4 Tierra+ MK2 Media Servers, provided by Screenworks NEP

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01 August 2024

UK - The Let’s Go Round Again (One Last Time) tour was the final, farewell trip around the highways of Average White Band’s (AWB) UK roots. From Manchester to Scotland via the Royal Albert Hall, the tour was a celebration of the power of AWB.

Charlie Dale, at the front of house position, chose to tour with a DiGiCo SD10, thanks to the accessibility of the console’s surface and Mark Gazaille at the monitor position opted for the SD12. The tour covered the UK over April and May, with the band saying their final goodbyes in the USA from July.

Charlie Dale has been with the band since meeting them at his day job, mixing sound at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. The band had arrived without an engineer, so he jumped in, sparking a relationship that would stand the test of time and continue for over 15 years. The choice to tour a DiGiCo SD10 was

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01 August 2024

USA - Milkshake Concepts, the Dallas-based hospitality group, has unveiled Saaya, their latest dynamic dining and nightlife destination. Bespoke Technology Group was contracted to understand the goal for Saaya and come up with an optimal audio design and installation.

Bespoke Technology Group is a Dallas-based audiovisual integration company specializing in customised audio solutions for a variety of venues. Central to this design is the integration of high-performance 1 Sound loudspeakers.

Saaya needed an audio system that could provide both high quality background music and impactful sound for DJ sets and night-time events. "The trick was to have a system that could set the atmosphere and play elegant background music during the week but still crank up to DJ levels on the weekend," explained Phil Ayache, president of Bespoke Technology.

Bes

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31 July 2024

UK - An innovative event power solution was deployed by Energy Management Solutions to run the whole site from a large battery for the first time in the UK, reducing carbon emissions at Brighton’s series of On The Beach shows this month.

Sixty thousand people attended the concert series, featuring artists ranging from Bicep, Underworld, The Kooks, Sub-Focus, Carl Cox and The Libertines.

NW Live delivered the site planning and management and production, their project lead Joe Nichols, comments: “Having worked with Gerhard and James at Energy MS to introduce the solar panels for the production village last year, we were delighted to work with them again and be the first large event to run all of our site off a giant battery and be able to extend our carbon reduction protocols.”

Energy MS invested in a 275kVA battery with 500 kWh

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31 July 2024

UK - Opened in May 2024, Woodland Village is a new accommodation site at Legoland Windsor Resort. Offering a family stay in a woodland retreat, Woodland Village also encompasses an entertainment and hospitality space, The Clubhouse Restaurant and Bar, which required the integration of an immersive, zoned audio system to enhance the guest experience.

David Shepherd of DS Audio led the sound design on the project, having worked with Legoland Windsor Resort on previous areas within the park. Shepherd collaborated closely with the internal technical team and integrators, JPSL, to design and install a full EM Acoustics system that would provide immersive background audio and sound reinforcement for onstage performances. 

“The Clubhouse required highly intelligible, zoned audio and an entertainment system to support a small stage area that sits alongsid

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31 July 2024

UK - The stunning backdrop of the historic Ragley Hall in Warwickshire once again played host to the Adventure Bike Rider (ABR) Festival 2024, the UK’s biggest motorcycle festival returning to the estate for its fifth year.

Henley Theatre Services was commissioned by the festival organisers to provide all the stages, technical production support and onsite technical crew to operate the main Bikerhead Stage and five further stages located at various positions across the ABR Festival site. 

Adventure motorcycling enthusiasts from around the globe geared up for a celebration of freedom, exploration and community from 27-30 June 2024. Fifteen thousand bikers descended on the beautiful Ragley Hall estate over a sun-packed weekend, which provided the perfect location for guided test ride events with 29 leading motorcycle manufacturers.

The Milos

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31 July 2024

UK - This year, Stage Sound Services integrated Clear-Com advanced communication systems supplied by Amber Sound into two of the West End’s most high-profile shows. The technical capabilities of Clear-Com’s Arcadia system have been integral to the seamless execution of complex audio and communication requirements for Stranger Things at the Phoenix Theatre and MJ The Musical at the Prince Edward Theatre..

The critically acclaimed Stranger Things adaptation at the Phoenix Theatre has greatly benefited from Clear-Com’s communication solutions. Spearheaded by sound designer Paul Arditti, with associates Chris Reid and Rob Bettle, the production’s sound team deployed Arcadia.

Rob Bettle, leveraging his extensive experience with Clear-Com’s HelixNet Digital Network Partyline System and FreeSpeak II wireless systems, was

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31 July 2024

Saudi Arabia - On Saturday, 22 June, fans descended on the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh for the UFC Fight Night: Whittaker vs. Aliskerov. While Clair Global has previously provided audio services for UFC globally, this was the first partnership for live audiences in the Middle East.

The occasion was led by Phil Campbell and mixed by FOH Engineer Andy Banks, who opted for a Yamaha Rivage PM7 from Clair's ever-growing Middle East inventory.

To fully service UFC's live audio requirements, Clair Global regional manager, Stu Wright, oversaw the deployment of an in-the-round Cohesion PA. The system, which has been chosen for music tours by major artists including Bad Bunny, Blackpink, The Weeknd, U2 and many more, also delivers quality audio clarity for high end live sports performances.

Clair Global UAE COO, Al Woods, says: "The event is televised for

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31 July 2024

Spain - To celebrate their 25 years of musical success, the Spanish duo Estopa is embarking on a tour that is setting new benchmarks in every city they visit. Beyond their distinctive musical style and engaging stage presence, the tour's standout feature is its impressive stage design, which showcases an extraordinary lighting experience crafted by Juanjo Beloqui and supported by equipment from Fluge Audiovisuales and Stonex, the Spanish distributors of Claypaky.  Claypaky fixtures are playing a pivotal role in delivering this visual spectacle.

After a successful tour across the United States and Latin America, Estopa is now bringing their anniversary celebration to Spanish cities including Valencia, Sevilla, Madrid, and Bilbao. From the grandeur of Civitas Metropolitano to the Ciudad de las artes y las ciencias in Valencia, the tour is offering audiences a

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31 July 2024

Switzerland - Schwingen, known colloquially as trouser wrestling, is a martial art practised almost exclusively in Switzerland. An unofficial national sport, the annual NWS Championship is a celebration of this cultural tradition. Hosted in an open-air venue designed to accommodate thousands of enthusiasts, alongside plenty of wrestling, this year’s event also showcased an audio system installation from Wharfedale Pro.

In a collaboration between technical event specialists, Powerlight and Pixava, distributors Sacher Music and Wharfedale Pro's own application and solution manager, Alex Lane, the event was an action-packed day of Swiss traditions accompanied by clear, high-quality audio.

The venue, featuring four grandstands, can host up to 4,500 visitors with two grandstands seating approximately 1,050 visitors each, and the other two accommodating

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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