USA - Seacoast Church is recognised as a pioneer in the field of church propagation, with a dozen physical locations in South Carolina and one in North Carolina, as well as its online presence reflecting its status as one of the largest churches in the Eastern United States. Over 10,000 worshipers attend weekly, where Greg Surratt continues to serve as founding and teaching pastor while his son Josh Surratt serves as lead pastor. Seacoast Church recently installed a DiGiCo Quantum338 console at front of house for the church’s main and broadcast location in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina that seats 2,500. In addition, a new DiGiCo Quantum225 console is on order for the campus’ 1,300-seat Student Centre auditorium, with a third future Quantum225 planned for the church’s 800-seat Warehouse space. The new FOH Quantum338 is complemented with a pair of SD-Racks for a
USA - Eric Church set out on The Gather Again Tour this fall with the intention to unite fans and celebrate the return of live music, promoting his most recent Heart & Soul albums. Church is fuelled by the energy he receives from the audience and his interactions with them. Now, he doesn’t have to worry about being at certain mic positions for certain moments. With the format of The Gather Again Tour, special moments can be created anywhere on stage at any time during the show, thanks to BlackTrax. While The Gather Again tour shows take place in arena-sized venues, the stage is set up in an intimate, in-the-round style where the audience surrounds the performer from all sides. It’s a setup that needed a brand-new stage from the ones that Eric’s used to performing on for prior tours. The design brief mandated that 64 automated follow spots
Germany - Riedel Communications has welcomed Craig Thompson as executive director of the company's new customer success department. In his new role, Thompson will oversee operations for the department, which was created to deliver a frictionless experience for customers - from the initial demo and system design to training, delivery, and post-sales support - while expanding the company's services portfolio and associated revenue streams. “With the creation of our customer success department, we're realising our vision of customer-centric operations, while preparing a solid foundation to support a product portfolio of hardware and software products,” comments Rik Hoerée, CEO product division at Riedel Communications. “With an impressive record of improving customer satisfaction, exceeding sales targets, and managing world-class services teams, Craig is a natural fit to
UK - Saracens rugby club has announced a new partnership with Version 2 as its official lighting partner. Version 2 will be supporting all three teams in the Saracens Group - the men, women and mavericks. Their strap-line ‘Shining a light on Women’s Sport’ shows how in tune the two organisations are with the passion to develop the game. Their logo will be prominently featured on the Mavericks’ dress as their lead partner, and also visible on the women’s rugby kits as their principle partner. Saracens CEO Lucy Wray comments, “We have got to know Nick and the team at Version 2 and it has been great to see how passionate and proactive they have been in their approach to getting behind our women’s teams. “As an organisation, we are really energised and excited about both our women’s teams and how we can give them the best possible environment to be the b
South Africa - Global restaurant chain Nando’s is keen to celebrate its Southern African origins. To this end, Nando’s has commissioned local art from the outset to decorate its restaurants; consequently, the chain now possesses the largest privately owned collection of contemporary Southern African art in the world. Recently, Nando’s inaugurated one of its latest restaurants, located in the Mall of Africa, Johannesburg. Much like the collection of art, the cultural resonance of audio is also an important touchpoint for the brand. In fact, Nando’s run an entire radio station across all their restaurants that delivers a carefully curated Afro-Luso playlist. Heatwave Radio combines the ‘beats of Africa along with the fiery rhythms of Latin America’, an ode to the Afro-Portuguese heritage of the company. Retail solutions specialists Lumalytic secured the t
USA - A bold and imaginative example of how to repurpose a neglected building and breathe life back into it could not be more vividly demonstrated than turning a 125-year-old church into a modern restaurant and nightclub. Few would be so tenacious, but US based hospitality and venue operator David Cardaci not only had the vision, but also the ambition coupled with over 20-years’ experience in the hospitality and leisure sector. And so, in early December 2021, after a project taking well over two and a half years, and in the midst of a global pandemic, The Angeles nightclub and Holly Blue restaurant in Fort Lauderdale Florida USA opened their doors to a capacity audience and high praise from club and restaurant goers, and critics alike. This is a high-end, high-profile 11,000sq.ft multi-purpose transformation for David and his team at Knallhart Management Group, as
Italy - Optimal Audio, part of the Focusrite Group, has named Sisme as its exclusive distributor for Italy. Sisme has operated in the Italian market as an importer and distributor of leading audio and video brands since 1967. Raf Willems, head of sales and channel marketing EMEA at Optimal Audio, comments: “From day one, Sisme has been an excellent fit for Optimal Audio. They are a very reputable distributor, and only work with a select number of brands that fit their criteria. Their experience and professionalism combined with a thorough knowledge of the Italian market convinced us that Optimal Audio will be a great success in Italy.” Claudio Bugari CEO of Sisme, adds: “We strongly believe that the range of easy to install, well-integrated and user friendly products designed by Optimal Audio exactly meets the requirements of our system integration partners op
UK - LED video processing products manufacturer, Brompton Technology, has announced its latest Tessera v3.3 software features, bringing new possibilities that optimise the performance of LED panels to further streamline professional workflows. New features include Operating Modes, and Per-Batch PureTone. Additionally, the Tessera SX40 and S8 now have a preset to support the ACES AP1 colour space, as used by ACEScg. Finally, in collaboration with Mo-Sys, Brompton has added support for the company’s StarTracker camera tracking system when using panels fitted with the Tessera R2 or Brompton’s new Tessera R2+ and an SX40 or S8 processor with Frame Remapping. The new Tessera R2+ receiver card has the same SO-DIMM form-factor as the R2, which has set the standard for receiver cards for many years. R2+ is backwards-compatible with all existing R2-based panel designs, but
UK - The National Trust team at Anglesey Abbey in the Cambridgeshire village of Lode recently opened its gates for its Winter Lights - a night-time trail through the heritage gardens of the listed Jacobean Abbey. Pearce Hire were the clear choice for the Abbey’s events team as they designed and activated the brief for an enchanting 2km lighting and audio nature trail through the grounds and taking in the House, Mill and the aptly named Winter Garden. “We may be better known in the industry for providing technical production support for festivals and tours, but this garden brief really got our creative side going”, says Jim Brown, general manager, Pearce Hire. “This year’s production took on another dimension and we were very happy to embrace this, and work in close collaboration with the team at Anglesey Abbey to help achieve their vision. “
Greece - Opened in October 2021 and located in downtown Athens next to the Old Parliament, the hotel Xenodocheio Milos boasts 43 luxury guest rooms and suites. Athens’ newest boutique hotel is also home to estiatorio Milos, a restaurant that joins a select group of Milos restaurants already established in New York, Las Vegas, Miami and London, delivering executive chef and founder Costas Spiliadis’ world celebrated take on Mediterranean cuisine. With the concept of ‘philoxenia’ - the sacred art of making a stranger feel at home - at the heart of the Milos customer offering, the quality and discreetness of the restaurant’s sound system are of particular importance. Accordingly, the Milos group contacted local AV and hospitality technology specialists Stereopark who turned to their colleagues IMA Audio Lighting, Nexo’s distributor in Greece, to design a system that
Europe - Shure has partnered with Crestron to support the upcoming Crestron Next Road Trip Europe, a tour with a mobile experience centre that will visit 38 stops in 19 countries. The truck will provide every attendee with a safe environment in which they will be able to get hands-on, one-on-one demos of the most recent audio technology from Shure and Crestron. The mobile experience will cover Shure and Crestron’s collaborative conferencing technology as well as the whole Crestron ecosystem of solutions for hybrid workplaces, classrooms, government organisations and more. Crestron Next Road Trip Europe will tour Europe from March, to offer dealers, partners, and customers all over Europe an opportunity to experience the latest innovations in audio technology from Crestron and Shure.
France The Domaine de Mas de Pierre is a newly refurbished, five-star hotel and resort located in Saint-Paul de Vence, on the Mediterranean coast. Set within the heart of a 20-acre garden, the resort comprises nine authentic, Provencal country houses with 76 suites and a selection of restaurants, bars, a spa, and several indoor and outdoor meeting spaces. As part of the resort’s recent renovations, hotel management wanted to upgrade their AV system to a networked, multi-zone installation with local and centralised control to best manage sound for its many different spaces. And because some distance separates the resort's guesthouses and main buildings, a sound system built upon a blended analogue and digital audio network with standard and Dante-enabled amplifiers from LEA Professional was needed. The hotel brought in local systems integration firm Inovasystem to des
Belgium - Studio Zuid in Antwerp has transformed its entertainment offering with the purchase of a TiMax SoundHub-S64 spatial processor with MADI I/O. The venue’s semi-circular amphitheatre-like auditorium plays host to a wide and popular variety of immersive musical dining experiences, the first of which was an immersive production of The Bodyguard, originally made famous by the Whitney Houston film and award-winning soundtrack. Sound designer and venue audio director, Erik Loots, had a big vision for the type of production the venue needed and the level of audio flexibility he wanted for shows like The Bodyguard. For him, “TiMax was essential”. He explains: “I needed TiMax because of its capability of dealing with both channel-based and object-based audio. I have always been a fan of TiMax and its flexibility when it comes to immersive applications an
USA - Meyer Sound has announced Panther, billed as “a new flagship linear line array loudspeaker engineered to meet rapidly evolving demands for large-scale touring and installed systems”. Panther’s acoustic output is closer to the significantly larger and heavier Leo line array loudspeaker and occupies the slender form factor of the existing Lyon line array loudspeaker. Panther weighs just 150 lb (68 kg) and offers substantial savings on current draw from the previous generation flagship line array loudspeaker, says Meyer. A dual analogue/Milan AVB network input module means Panther offers flexible signal distribution options and each cabinet comes standard with an IP55 weather protection rating - all at a substantially lower initial cost compared to Leo and Lyon. “This is our most significant loudspeaker introduction in more than a decade,” says John Meyer,
UK - Although American production manager Jon Bumgarner has wide experience working arenas in the UK’s major cities, for the recent Christmas With Il Divo tour - earlier postponed because of COVID - he relied on the help of Entec Live’s techs. Representing Los Angeles-based production company Eighteentwentysix, he says that one of the reasons he partnered with Entec for the UK shows was for their intimate knowledge of smaller 2000-3000-cap venues in secondary locations that the multi-national quartet were playing. The other reason was that they could single source all the technical infrastructure required. “I have done a lot of shows in the UK over the last 15 years but mostly arenas in big cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester. But a lot of places on this tour were new to me,” he admits. Il Divo is a new account for Eighteentwentysix. Explaining
UK - Creative Technology received the Best Screen Supplier award at Festival Supplier Awards 2022. The company won the award for the delivery of the I-mags at Reading and Leeds Festivals 2021. “We’re extremely proud to have been recognised as Best Screen Supplier for the delivery of Reading and Leeds Festivals 2021. The hard work and long hours these events required from the ground up should not be overlooked and this award is for every person who pulled together to make them happen,” says Nick Knowles, project manager at Creative Technology. “Coming out of a dormant period for the music industry this summer had many challenges, one of which was the screen requirement for Reading and Leeds main stages. Having added a second main stage to each site, we doubled the amount of screen required across the same weekend. “In previous years, we had worked meticu
France The Domaine de Mas de Pierre is a newly refurbished, five-star hotel and resort located in Saint-Paul de Vence, on the Mediterranean coast. Set within the heart of a 20-acre garden, the resort comprises nine authentic, Provencal country houses with 76 suites and a selection of restaurants, bars, a spa, and several indoor and outdoor meeting spaces. As part of the resort’s recent renovations, hotel management wanted to upgrade their AV system to a networked, multi-zone installation with local and centralised control to best manage sound for its many different spaces. And because some distance separates the resort's guesthouses and main buildings, a sound system built upon a blended analogue and digital audio network with standard and Dante-enabled amplifiers from LEA Professional was needed. The hotel brought in local systems integration firm Inovasystem to des
Albania - The Lift Steak & Rooftop Bar is a new 500-capacity venue in the Albanian capital of Tirana - owned and operated by the Revo Hospitality Group and situated in the ABA Business Centre. Specialising in providing a mix of lounge, dance and pop music, the venue brought in Prosound, Martin Audio’s Albanian distributor, to provide the sound reinforcement, having earlier provided the sound system for another well-known pub restaurant in Tirana, operated by the same owners. Prosound technical director, Endrit Veleshnja, designed the system based around Martin Audio’s cost-efficient BlacklineX and CDD (Coaxial Differential Dispersion) series, explaining, “BlacklineX series has continuously proven to be the ideal speaker in situations where quality sound with moderately high SPL levels needs to be combined with affordability.” Inside, they have install
Thailand - Established in 1955, the Chonprathan Wittaya School is a private institution with over 6,000 students attending elementary, primary, and secondary level programmes in both Thai and English. Located just outside Bangkok, the school has recently built a planetarium to screen earth and space documentaries as part of the educational curriculum. System integrators Be Balance, along with local L-Acoustics certified provider Vision One, used L-Acoustics Soundvision software to develop 5.1 and 7.1 surround systems, considering the architectural specifications of the space, which was still under construction. The school’s technical team was confident with the pedigree of L-Acoustics solutions, recognising the brand from projects such as the high-profile Royal Cremation Ceremony of the late Thai King Bhumibol, where Vision One provided audio across the 66-day event. Rely
World - tvONE and Green Hippo have announced they will bring their new technologies directly to partners and end-users in their own countries, focusing on a series of local tradeshow events around the world. After making the move to not exhibit at ISE 2022 in Barcelona, the company will focus its efforts on a number of face-to-face activities, including Prolight & Sound in Frankfurt with Green Hippo distributor Cast Germany; Technology Exposed by Midwich; NAB with partners FX Design Group, DigiLED and DVG; PLASA Focus Leeds with AC Entertainment UK; Infocomm 2022, Las Vegas; Medialog by Kern & Stelly Germany; S14 Day by Comm-tec GmbH (Exteris ProAV) Germany; as well as a series of the popular Super User Events for Green Hippo. For clients in the Middle East, Spitfire will create a roadshow in Dubai and Qatar. “With the postponement of ISE 2022 and changing e
Europe - Powersoft has confirmed that it will be attending the rescheduled ISE show in Barcelona to showcase Dynamic Music Distribution and Mover as a solution for haptic applications. “It must have been a difficult decision to make but we are in agreement that the show postponement was in the best interests for everybody’s safety and wellbeing,” says Francesco Fanicchi, Powersoft’s corporate and marketing communication manager. “We now have more time to contribute towards our two booths, showcasing the latest in Powersoft technologies - and the whole team is looking forward to meeting with the industry again at a more favourable time.” Taking centre stage on its main stand will be Powersoft’s Dynamic Music Distribution, where experts will be on hand to guide visitors through the functionalities that DMD has to offer system integrators. Dynamic Mus
China - Harman Professional Solutions has introduced dbx CX Series loudspeaker control systems for the China market. Designed for rental companies, hospitality venues, houses of worship, touring artists and corporate A/V and education markets, the CX Series provides ‘all of the processing necessary to get the most out of sound systems while ensuring safe, stable operation’. Full-featured, multichannel systems offer a comprehensive suite of digital tools: Each input and output channel features dedicated six-band parametric EQ; limiter; compressor; delays; and Butterworth, Bessel, Linkwitz-Riley and 12/18/24/36 dB/octave filters. Internal 96kHz/24-bit resolution with 32-bit floating-point processing ensures pristine audio quality. Front-panel features include a bright, backlit LCD screen with intuitive editing controls for fast, easy deployment. Input and outp
China - Clear-Com will be attending Prolight + Sound Guangzhou (PLSG) this year, from 22-25 February. Clear-Com will show its latest innovations - Arcadia Central Station and FreeSpeak Edge Base Station - as well its market-proven solutions. “We are especially excited to attend this show as live events have begun to come back online,” comments Jeffrey Wu, Clear-Com’s regional sales manager and chief representative for China. “Clear-Com products have been critical to the live market for over 50 years, but we are still developing new and innovative products that we know will be welcomed by the attendees of this show.” Featured on the stand will be the new Arcadia Central Station, a scalable IP intercom platform that integrates wired and digital wireless partyline systems along with third-party Dante devices in a single rack unit. The system scales to meet var
The Netherlands - DAP has added a new battery-powered portable sound system loudspeaker to their portfolio, the PSS-106. With its 6.5” woofer and 1” neodymium tweeter, it is intended as a compact, multi-orientation monitor or PA loudspeaker for personal entertainment, teaching systems and DJ use. It has a Bluetooth receiver, a USB/SD card media player, and inputs for mic, instrument, and line. The PSS-106 is available with or without a built-in wireless receiver and matching wireless handheld microphone. The battery-powered DAP PSS-106 is designed to be a compact and versatile loudspeaker. It comes in two versions: with or without a built-in wireless microphone module. The version without wireless module can, however, easily be upgraded afterwards with the DAP WR-10 wireless receiver for PSS-106 and the DAP WM-10 handheld microphone for PSS-106. The PSS-106 accepts
