UK - The #WeMakeEvents campaign has progressed into the ‘Red Alert’ phase, with planned activities set to take place across London and other major cities in the UK on the evening of 11 August. The initiative will raise the alarm for the live events and entertainment sector, which has been badly-hit by the pandemic, resulting in countless event cancellations. The campaign reports that the disruption of the summer season alone has affected over 600,000+ jobs in outdoor events. Meanwhile, a campaign survey revealed that redundancies in the sector are already happening, with 15% of businesses stating that they plan to make redundancies during August and 70% reporting that they could be forced to do so by the end of 2020. The campaign warns tha
Germany - Madrix now grants five years of limited manufacturer’s warranty on hardware products. Average hardware failure and return rates of its high-quality products 'Made in Germany' had first been published on the company's website over a year ago. Standing at 0.1 %, it is extremely low across the range of devices. Such an enormous reliability and the very positive experiences of customers over the years have led to the decision to offer these new benefits, says the company. The limited warranty covers the following products: Aura, Luna, Stella, Nebula, Orion, USB One and USB SMPTE. All technical manuals have already been updated and can be downloaded from help.madrix.com
UK - The musical, The Prince of Egypt produced by Dreamworks Theatricals, Michael McCabe and Neil Laidlaw, opened on 25 February at the Dominion Theatre, London, following 20 sold out previews (see a detailed production report in LSi July 2020). Video rental specialist, Universal Pixels (UP), has supplied a 162sqm Leyard CLM10 screen for production. Configured as a single 18m x 9m screen, it provides a stunning backdrop to the dynamic scenic design. Adapted from The Book of Exodus, The Prince of Egypt - written by Philip LaZebnik - was first released as an animated musical film in 1998. Featuring songs from Grammy and Academy Award-winner Stephen Schwartz and a score from Hans Zimmer, it earned critical acclaim as a cinematic m
Europe - The coronavirus pandemic, and the associated restrictions on personal contact, have led to drive-in theatres becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. The projection screens used in drive-in theatres are typically either inflatable movie screens or LED screens suspended by a truss structure. The latest webinar from Area Four Industries features Norbert Tripp, technical director of Area Four Industries who outlines the peculiarities of temporary outdoor LED screen structures. Utilising descriptive graphics and on-site videos, the behaviour of LED screens is described including what effects they can have on the supporting structure and how these characteristics should be considered in actual practice. The webinar includes clear explanations of what to consider when hanging LED walls, information relating to relevant standards of safety, and what
Europe - Merging Technologies has supported the AES Student Recording Competition for many years, both at the European and US Conventions, by donating a prize of a Pyramix Native licence to the top student in the appropriate category. The situation was rather different this year with the Vienna Convention being virtual; no Merging employee could present the prize. Nevertheless, the competition went ahead as normal and produced an excellent result for a student from the Detmold Hochschule für Musik. Kseniya Kawko was awarded the Gold Award in the Traditional Acoustic Category for the recording of the piece by Michio Miyagi Haru no Umi and Silver Award in the Immersive Category for the recording of the Mendelssohn String Quartet No.2 in A Minor. Kseniya recorded and mixed both projects on Pyramix since Detmold and McGill University, where Kseniya did her previous
USA - The coronavirus may have put a temporary halt to rock concerts, but it hasn’t done anything to dim the passion of aspiring stars who dream of one day taking to the arena stage. This relentless spirit was on full display at Let There Be Rock, a two-day livestream featuring a dozen bands from the Frederick Rock School in Baltimore. Videoed at the improvised production studio in the Showtime Sound LLC warehouse, the event, which was streamed on Facebook and YouTube, featured a fittingly intense, hard-driving light show created by Aaron Kovelman, Showtime’s director of design & production. “This was an important moment for students, so we wanted to give them something that made them feel special,” said Kovelman. “We wanted to create looks that were not only powerful, but were also different for each band to reflect their unique personalities.” H
UK - Leading trade bodies and businesses are joining forces to issue a Red Alert and highlight the severe challenges faced by the live events industry and its entire supply chain due to the pandemic. Planned for 11 August, the action will include social media and video drives as well as legal outdoor events, with other specific activities occurring on the day. The initiative is part of the #WeMakeEvents campaign that aims to raise awareness of the sector’s struggles and to secure further support from the government. “The live events industry supply chain that contributes to every single event in the UK is set to completely collapse,” comments Peter Heath, MD of PLASA. “Social distancing prohibits mass events, and even if this stopped now, long-term plan
China - Christie is continuing its long-standing partnership with the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) for the 12th consecutive year. The 2020 festival, which runs from 25 July to 2 August, is the first major international film festival to be held in China since the COVID-19 outbreak at the beginning of this year. Christie cinema projection systems will be used for movie screenings in theatres across Shanghai’s metropolitan area throughout this nine-day event. In addition, a Christie cinema projector will also be deployed for adjudication of films nominated for the Golden Goblet Award for Best Film. A total of nine films from around the world will vie for this award this year. “We’re delighted to continue our partnership with SIFF for the 12th consecutive year to deliver visually-engaging contents from around the world to cinema audiences in China,”
Canada - Solotech has announced that it has established a partnership with Yoop eSpace, a virtual and multifunctional production environment that enables content providers to create and stream events in an immersive and interactive way. Benoît Fredette, businessman and Yoop founder, recently launched the new two-way Yoop platform, which offers a real-time visual and audio interaction between artists and spectators. The partnership ‘represents an opportunity to innovate and to go beyond the barriers of distance by bringing content providers and their audiences closer together’. Solotech supports Yoop by providing its production expertise, its equipment and technical teams to ensure the audio, video capture and the broadcasting of events. The Yoop eSpace is already planning to open locations in Los Angeles, New York, Nashville and the UK, adding to its first site in
Belgium - Starting in September, AED Studios in Lint will offer TV, film and event producers the opportunity to use a high-tech XR studio. Extended reality (XR) is the umbrella term for virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and other immersive technologies. At the XR studio, the physical and digital worlds are connected, allowing for new, expanded possibilities for audiovisual productions. The XR Studio is a partnership between a number of specialised European companies - AED Display, MalfMedia, AV Wizard, by Lex Concept Design Control and Eurogrip - which fitted the Studio 4 complex at Lint with a high-tech XR setup. By using premium LED screens (floor and side wall screens), real-time rendering by powerful media servers, camera tracking systems and streaming facilities, the installation is immediately ready to use for interactive business presen
Canada - Atlona has hired Christina Cruzeiro as regional sales manager for Canada. Based in Toronto and reporting to Jamey Swigert, director of AV sales and business development, Cruzeiro is responsible for working with Atlona’s Canadian distributors and integrators, and expanding Atlona’s business across the country. Cruzeiro’s AV industry experience took shape 10 years ago as a sales manager for New Toronto Group, where she led the company’s Adobe Connect Software product division for five years. Cruzeiro’s experience with web conferencing and collaboration software over those eight years provided a natural bridge to the AV industry as business development manager for Stampede Presentation Products. Cruzeiro says, “The industry will accelerate its transition to BYOD strategies in collaborative office environments, and businesses will invest more in
South Africa - In a live stream filmed at MGG Productions in Sandton, and hosted on SACIA's YouTube channel, the technical production and live events industry announced the launch the national campaign #LightSAred, to be held on 5 August 2020. Sharif Baker, chair of the TPSA, announced that the technical production and live events industry will be spearheading a symbolic resistance campaign that will see buildings across the country lit up in red on 05 August. "The colour red is the international colour of emergency," Baker explains. "We are following the example set by our colleagues in Germany and the UK in lighting our national monuments red to highlight the desperate plight of our industry under current lockdown policies and regulations." Baker went on to emphasise that the #LightSAred campaign is not affiliated with any political body or ideology. "We are simply a
APAC - Alwyn Wong has joined Symetrix as their new regional sales manager overseeing the Asia-Pacific region. Wong comes to Symetrix with over 20 years of experience in the professional audio industry. He was first introduced to audio DSP’s while working on a system installation for the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur in 1998. He later spent six years at Harman Professional as a technical sales engineer, and then as a senior application engineer. Most recently, Wong came from Peavey Commercial Audio where he was the technical manager overseeing the APAC territory. “It is my honour to work for one of the top Audio DSP brands where I can utilise my expertise in network audio,” says Wong. “With my ample experience in the Asia-Pacific market, I feel confident that we can navigate the audio-visual landscape and produce favourable outcomes.” Won
USA - Austrian AV technology manufacturer AV Stumpfl has appointed Conor McGill as a global business development manager with a special focus on the US media server market. McGill is the former director of strategic partnerships at Float4 in Montreal. At aV Stumpfl, he will focus on growing the customer base of the media server system Pixera. "I first used an AV Stumpfl product for a projection mapping project at a NFL football stadium in the USA four years ago. That project was a smashing success and every interaction I've had with the company since has been stellar,” says McGill. “I feel very fortunate to have found my way to the company and am looking forward to working with old and new customers alike on cutting edge media projects with Pixera," says McGill. In 2018, AV Stumpfl GmbH established AV Stumpfl Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, and has continued to gro
Rwanda - The first S12T Streamline OB van for the African continent has been successfully delivered to Rwanda Broadcasting Agency (RBA). Built and outfitted by Broadcast Solutions in Germany in just three months, the Streamline S12T is a truck/box body combination with one extension for up to 14 workplaces. Accommodating up to 12 cameras, it also features the first Lawo mc²56 MkIII console for the African continent. Arthur Asiimwe, director general at Rwanda Broadcasting Agency, comments, “We were looking for a flexible OB truck that is easy to deploy and to operate. The vehicle’s fast delivery time and perfect price-performance ratio were further decisive criteria for contracting Broadcast Solutions with the production and delivery.” At the heart of the vehicle’s audio section, Broadcast Solutions installed a Lawo mc²56 console with 32 channel strips and a L
UK - Audio manufacturer Powersoft has supported Leeds-based audio integrator, Audioserv, in creating a vast audio system for Roxy Ball Room, Roxy Leisure’s bowling alley and bar experience in Birmingham. The American style venue harbours a 10-lane bowling alley, which also includes a bar, creating a vibrant experience with the help of a modern audio system. Audioserv, who have also provided audio systems for over 15 of Roxy Ball Room’s locations, took on the task of providing and installing audio equipment for the venue, with support from Powersoft audio distributor CUK. “We’ve been working with Roxy Ball Room since the beginning of the brand in 2013,” explains Pete Rollinson, technical director of Audioserv. “For the Birmingham venue, we designed a system to give consistent coverage across the whole space, with an added impact in certain areas of the venue
USA - GearSource Holdings, operator of the GearSource.com web platform since 2002, is launching in August the G3 Marketplace, the company’s third major generational upgrade to its platform. Founder Marcel Fairbairn comments: “It’s funny, but people have become so complacent in their beliefs that all software should magically perform with perfection, while following advancements in technology you’d see from tech giants including Google, Facebook and Apple. In fact, I remember a customer saying to me, why can’t your search just work - like Google. The obvious answer is that we don’t employ thousands of world class engineers to work exclusively on our search functionality. In fact, we have three great coders, developing and maintaining our entire e-commerce platform,” says Fairbairn. Fairbairn understands the challenges of bringing a complex project to lif
UK - Earlier this month, Creative Technology (CT) worked closely alongside long-standing client, George P. Johnson (GPJ), to professionally pre-record and edit a series of videos for their client, to later be streamed as part of two online events. The initial brief evolved over the weeks leading up to the event and as the vision was developed and realised, the final brief was to provide polished, edited, and high-quality pre-recorded presentations and panel sessions. These were then uploaded and streamed to the event platforms being used for the two events they were involved in. The project was run and managed from Scotland by CT’s senior project manager, Chris Greetham-Ellis, using remote producer and project manager tools which enabled him to clearly see, hear, and direct the event without the need to be physically on-site. In addition to this, CT also provided a p
China - LED processor manufacturer Brompton Technology has expanded its operation in China, moving to larger offices and hiring three new members of staff to further support its customers in the territory. The expansion follows the development of Brompton’s HDR technology and the successful roll out of its new Hydra measurement system, which unlocks the power of Dynamic Calibration, the enabling technology for Brompton HDR. The new office is adjacent to Brompton’s previous facility in High Tech Industrial Park, Nanshan, in the modern metropolis of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. This facility is double the size, allowing space to calibrate and test prototype panels on site. New calibration support engineers, Alex Guo and John Lee, both have an extensive understanding of the LED screen industry and are well placed to assist Brompton customers in China with Dynamic Cal
Ireland - Exertis Global Operations has announced a strategic partnership with Clear Touch, provider of multi-touch, interactive flat panels and software for education and business. Exertis Global Operations will provide a supply chain solution for Clear Touch’s growing worldwide business. It will manage the vendor’s inbound product and solutions supply chain by assisting in the management of supply partners around the world, reducing time to market, and increasing purchasing scale. Padraig Henry, Exertis Global Operations commercial director, said, “We are delighted to announce this partnership with Clear Touch which is entirely consistent with our strategy to support Pro AV brands with supply chain finance and factory to market solutions. Our innovative range of services will enable them to scale and grow their business by taking advantage of all of the opportu
Argentina - Buenos Aires-based AV services company Mediapro Argentina has recently turned to IP for a comprehensive technical upgrade of their facilities, where ESPN broadcasts sports-related programming for the region in Spanish. The new IP infrastructure has been integrated by Unitetecnic, the Mediapro Group systems integrator and engineering company, and is based on solutions and knowhow from Lawo. Lawo’s video, audio, control and networking solutions were chosen to ensure interoperability and maximum use of resources across the facilities. In a first upgrade stage, Mediapro Argentina and Unitecnic have installed a V__matrix IP video system for edge conversion and signal processing as well as an mc²-based audio infrastructure featuring six mc²56 production consoles, Nova a
Austria - The new production of the award-winning musical theatre extravaganza Black Rider at the Theater Bielefeld in Wallern uses Pixera media server systems, 4K projectors and tracking technology for realising a unique stage experience. Since its original premiere in the year 1990, The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets has managed to combine classical culture, postmodernism and a music soundtrack to entertain audiences around the globe. Robert Wilson's artistic vision, coupled with the narrative skills of William S. Burroughs and the music of Tom Waits, laid the foundation for the enduring popularity of this avant-gardist work. The Theater Bielefeld's latest production by Michael Heicks uses cutting edge AV technology that helps Sascha Vredenburg's evocative video content come to life on stage. Within record time, the theatre de
Austria - A new exhibition by sound artist Bill Fontana entitled Primal Energies opened 1 July at Kunsthaus Graz. Occupying the museum’s vast ovoid dome Space 01 Gallery, Primal Energies pays homage to the future of renewable energy through a mesmerising mix of video imagery and evocative soundscapes that portray our planet’s expanding wind, solar, hydroelectric and geothermal resources. While viewing images on the eight large screens, visitors are immersed in a blend of energy-related sounds reproduced by 64 Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers. The impact of the installation is further enhanced by dynamic spatial sound movements created and automated using a beta version of Meyer Sound’s soon-to-be-released Spacemap Go technology. Sounds and images for the work were recorded on location by Fontana with assistance from Scott George of London-based
UK - SARM Music Bank in northwest London has transformed its rehearsal rooms into COVID-compliant live streaming, recording and session spaces in partnership with local rental specialists, Colour Sound Experiment. Each studio now has a fully equipped, modular and scalable lighting, video and multi camera system ready to go. FOH, monitor and broadcast mixing are taken care of in house. Dedicated leased line broadband along with Source Connect is available if needed, and a suite of breakout rooms including dressing room, artist lounge, manager's office, interview rooms and a kitchenette are part of each studio. Each step of the process has been carefully considered to ensure that artists and crew can operate safely, from a socially distanced chauffeur to contactless catering options. Haydn Cruickshank, managing director of Colour Sound Experiment, was contacted b
