Spain - Grammy award-winning Argentinian performer, Coti, recently completed a 20-date tour of Spain, culminating in a performance at the Gexto Sound Festival, with a compact dLive Wings system handling monitor duties.
Coti Sorokin is one of the best-known artists, songwriters and producers in the Spanish speaking world, with numerous platinum discs to his name. For Coti’s latest Spanish tour, monitor engineer, Alejandro Blanco opted for his own highly portable mixing system, comprising a dLive C1500 19” Surface fitted with a WavesV3 card for multitrack recording and a DM32 MixRack, fitted with a Dante card, a superMADI card for digital splits and AES10 card, for running wedge monitors and side-fills.
“dLive is the best sounding console on the market right now and

Réunion Island - The Indian Ocean island located east of Madagascar, recently premiered a new cultural event, Réunion Métis, a multidisciplinary art festival dedicated to living together. Held 27-29 September along the seafront in the city of Saint-Paul, and free to all, the experience encompassed music, art, dance, food and light art installations, including a light show with night-time sunrise courtesy of local company Stage OI and Elation Proteus Hybrid moving heads.
Réunion Métis was a new way of experiencing culture in Réunion with all the senses brought into play. Co-created by PORLWI and Sanjeyann Paleatchy, the festival was an opportunity for local talent to immerse islanders in inspiring art and light.
One special light art installation involved a son et lumiére at the end of the Saint-Paul landing pier, a light and sound atmosphere with lighting effec

UK - White Light has recently supplied the lighting equipment for Mamma Mia - The Party, an immersive theatrical dining extravaganza based around the music of ABBA.
Created by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, Mamma Mia! The Party transports its audience to the island of Skopelos where taverna owner Nikos and his family present their story in a night of song, dance and feasting. Running for four hours, the show is packed full of ABBA’s best-known songs which are performed by actors and musicians around the audience members. The show was first performed in Sweden and has now arrived in London, where it is running at The O2, Greenwich.
The lighting designer for the show is the award-winning Patrick Woodroffe. He comments: “We wanted our audience to truly believe they were in a Greek taverna on Skopelos. Bengt Fröderberg’s set design was so authentic and, for

Greece - With a varied programme of events, this year’s Summer Nostos Festival (SNFestival) attracted more than 200,000 people and featured an array of High End Systems and ETC gear across five stages.
Athens' most modern cultural landmark - the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre - played host to the annual, week-long festival. The centre's gardens, the canal, the National Library and the Greek National Opera were transformed into stages for music and theatrical performances, family activities, educational workshops and sports for visitors of all ages and backgrounds.
George Tellos of LightingArt oversaw all lighting design for the festival. With a team of five lighting programmers, Tellos was tasked with illuminating the vast and varied schedule of events while under tight time constraints. It involved designing, programming and operating 50 shows over eigh

South Africa - The Mosaïek Teatro, a large-capacity venue that forms part of the Mosaïek Church in Fairland, Johannesburg, can accommodate 2,800 people and has become a home to various productions such as Idols South Africa, The Voice finale and international performances scheduled for 2020. Mosaïek recently invested in two DiGiCo SD5 mixing consoles with SD Racks and Waves.
“With only three SD5s in South Africa, two of which are now based at the Mosaïek, this has been an important investment for the market they are catering for,” comments Kyle Robson of DWR Distribution, the DiGiCo distributors in Africa.
“DiGiCo is one of the top brands in the world, if not the most requested console on technical riders,” adds Estian Els, head of technical at Mosaïek Teatro. “The SD5 suites our business model very well. We chose the larger console in reg

Europe - JoeCo has signed a pair of distribution agreements that will ensure a greater number of European end users will have local access to the company’s full product range. The deals, which were signed at IBC, follow hot on the heels of the announcement that Beirut’s Boujikian Bros has taken on JoeCo distribution.
Tonspur AG has become the official JoeCo representative for both Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The company, based in Adligenswil, already has a number of important pro audio brands on its roster.
“We are delighted to be working with Tonspur in both Switzerland and Liechtenstein,” says Graham Murray, business development at JoeCo. “Their knowledge and reach into the local market is second to none and I’m sure their customers will be excited to get hands-on with the full JoeCo range.”
Tonspur is also highly active in the local audio comm

Europe - Trussing, staging and hoists manufacturer Prolyte has been acquired by Area Four Industries.
The news of the acquisition comes shortly after Prolyte filed for bankruptcy. Prolyte will retain its brand identity but will undergo a management, production and strategic reorganisation.
František Zykan, CEO of Area Four Industries, comments: “We will invest in the development of Prolyte as a brand, as well as in new ideas and products. Our current partners remain equally important for us. I trust that in two years, Prolyte will be number one in customer satisfaction.”
Founded in 1991 and headquartered in the Netherlands, Prolyte has an office and warehouse in the USA, an Asian office and factory in Guangzhou, China, and a European warehouse in Germany. Its portfolio includes ProlyteStructures, ProlyteSystems, StageDex, and ProLyft.
Area Four Industr

Property Moves - An immersive Monopoly experience is the first show to be announced under a new partnership between Selladoor Worldwide and games company Hasbro Inc. The collaboration will see the theatre company and Hasbro adapt more boardgames into live experiences in the future. While further productions have not yet been confirmed, other boardgames in Hasbro’s portfolio include Cluedo, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Twister and Operation.
Monopoly will run at a location in London which is yet to be announced in 2020. The experience will include a 75-minute segment where teams will compete to win tasks in order to move along the board, buy properties, and attempt to win the game. Features from the game including famous London landmarks, chance, community chest and jail will all be “brought to life” in a space that will also f
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UK - Audiologic has promoted David Smith to the position of senior business manager, completing a management restructure recently instigated by MD, Andy Lewis.
Smith, who previously served as business development manager, will now take responsibility for the day-to-day management of the company’s external sales team, providing “a clearly defined link to the directors, whilst retaining some hands-on sales accounts”.
Lewis comments: “In the time Dave has been with us he’s clearly demonstrated what an excellent operator he is. His knowledge of the industry is second to none and his management experience in previous roles has equipped him with all the skills necessary to run a cohesive and effective team. We’ve enjoyed significant growth in recent years and it’s vital that we establish a robust and dynamic management structure to meet the challenges ahead. D

Europe - By leveraging the advanced technology of the Route66 from its associate company BroaMan, Optocore has not only been able to develop the AutoRouter intelligent patchbay - which offers similar functionality - but has been steadily exploiting the market segments in which the Optocore brand has greatest recognition.
“The Optocore AutoRouter automatically creates a redundant star out of ring topology, offering automatic routing of DiGiCo, Yamaha and Avid loops when thus connected,” states Maciek Janiszewski, who serves as technical sales manager for both companies. “It is the extremely close relationship that exists between Optocore and BroaMan - including a sharing of technical resources and expertise - that has enabled this to happen.”
The Optocore AutoRouter is designed for audio systems, mainly in installation markets such as theatre, while BroaMan’s

USA - Chauvet Professional has expanded its popular F Series LED panels to offer solutions for a wider range of applications with the introduction of two new products: the F2 2.9 mm pixel pitch panel and F5 IP, an outdoor rated 5.9 mm pixel pitch outdoor rated panel.
The highest resolution panel ever offered by Chauvet Professional, the slim-bodied F2 is designed for applications where crystal sharp clarity is essential from any viewing angle, even at distances as close as 7.5ft. Its black bodied LEDs, reproduce video at 14-bit grayscale, operating on an A5s Novastar card, to result in very clear and realistic displays of even the most detailed content. (An 18-bit Novastar card can also be used.)
High performance digital LED drivers in the F2 deliver an impressive 3840Hz refresh rate for flicker free images, while a maximum illuminance of just under 1,500 NITS ensures

UK - disguise studio partner and workflow specialists, Bild Studios has invested in the new gx 2c hardware.
Bild is a London-based visual engineering studio with credits including the opening ceremony for the Pakistan Super League, where 50 minutes of AR graphics replaced traditional pre-rendered content that usually is mapped onto projection surfaces or LED screens inside the venue.
Founders David Bajt and Rowan Pitts have been working with disguise for over 10 years, delivering hundreds of software training sessions globally, while also using the technology on some of their most ambitious projects.
“We've always put a lot of effort and detail into the pre-production, where precise system designs and creative content workflows are developed. We see ourselves living in the great world between tech and cutting-edge visual design, advising people and companies fr

UK - Lighting designer Elliot Baines of Spiralstagelighting utilised Prolights Panorama IP Airbeam moving beam and Panorama IP WBX wash lights to raise the roof for DJ sets on the main stage in the Metropolis district of Boomtown – one of the UK’s largest independent festivals.
Held for five days at the scenic Matterley bowl estate in Hampshire, the 66,000 capacity event fuses “immersive theatre and arts with a global, genre-spanning music bill”. During the festival, its 14 fully immersive districts come together as a fictitious city with its own story narrative.
In the futuristic Metropolis district, the main Pagoda Plaza outdoor stage’s eclectic global bill included US house DJ, Kenny Dope, techno from Dr Rubenstein, retro house grooves from Sally C, electronica from Horse Meat Disco, and soulful disco from The 2 Bears.
For Elliot’s lighting design

South Africa - With limited funds available for festivals in South Africa, it takes people who are able to give of their time and resources to keep the arts alive and to support the organizers who so tirelessly give of themselves. One such individual, is Brandon Bunyan of Black Coffee, a Durban-based technical supply company. Black Coffee is the main technical sponsor of The Hilton Arts Festival.
This year, the show was hosted from 13 to 15 September at Hilton College in KwaZulu Natal. In the early days Bunyan worked on the event as a young technician and for the past 16 years, Black Coffee has sponsored gear and technicians to the Hilton Arts Festival which has grown from one to eight performance art display venues, making it the second largest festival in the country.
“I first became involved because of my passion for theatre, to keep in the theatre game as a mark

UK - Martin Audio has announced the first sale of its new Wavefront Precision WPS array into the rental community. The 8” ultra-compact system -featuring scalable resolution optimisation technology - met the requirements of its premier partner, Capital Sound, and has gone out on Eddie Izzard’s UK and Ireland tour.
Izzard has toured with Martin Audio PAs on many occasions in the past, but it was his sound engineer Alan Behr, a fan of the Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array (MLA) technology on which it is based, who had requested the brand.
However, looking at the tour itinerary, Capital realised that while some venues would require the comedian to play through existing house systems, in others the restricted rigging and loading points would preclude the hanging of heavy incoming rigs.
Capital account manager Robin Conway comments: “We had to look at lighter opt

UAE - Protec recently took delivery of the first Outline Newton in the region. Newton product specialist Middle East Luca Gianni helped to organise a demo in the field during an event in KSA and hosted a complete in-depth training course exclusively dedicated to Protec technicians, to ensure that the new processor’s possibilities were exploited to the utmost and the team was able to make the best possible use of its great processing capacity and versatility.
Tim Allison, head of Protec’s audio department, stated that the Newton processor would be put to use on large-scale events in the UAE and KSA, and continued, “I envisage the Newton as an integral part of all our FOH main processing racks.”
Luca Gianni confirms: “The Protec team is highly qualified and will definitely make the very most of the Newton, thus increasing the company’s in the field and part

Italy - Holoplot’s audio solutions are now available through partner company Leading Technologies, the immersive sound specialist has announced.
Founded in 1978, Monza-based Leading Technologies is a pro AV specialist with decades of experience in sectors including theatre, concert arenas and retail.
Leading Technologies has spent time over the last few months becoming familiar with the benefits of Holoplot systems, and a team from the company attended a three-day training event at Holoplot’s Berlin base.
Danilo Meroni, live division manager and audio technical support, and Mauro Lavazza, installation division manager, at Leading Technologies, described the training event as “wonderful” and said that their team was delighted to encounter “very knowledgeable technical and commercial staff, and to have the chance to explore the potential and technical cap

USA - Multiple EMMY Award-winning lighting designer Bob Barnhart chose 80 VL2600 Profile luminaires from Vari-Lite as his “workhorse” tool for the 16th season of Fox’s popular TV show, So You Think You Can Dance. The new LED fixtures helped Barnhart to deliver an endless variety of looks in the tightest of time-frames.
Produced by 19 Entertainment, Dick Clark Productions and Conrad Sewell Productions, the show sees around 900 dancers compete to be declared “America's favourite dancer”. During the show’s final stages Barnhart needed to light almost 80 dances, usually with just 20 minutes available to decide each different design.
“The challenge is keeping the different looks fresh, so we try to use lighting equipment that can do a wide variety of things,” says Barnhart. “A ‘workhorse’ in this situation is much more valuable to me than a ‘o

Egypt - Green Hippo reports that its Hippotizer Media Servers are driving a range of custom high-resolution displays at the newly renovated Panorama 6th October Museum in Cairo, which commemorates the 6 October War of 1973.
Using Hippotizer’s advanced mapping capabilities and flexible third-party integration options, local AV specialist Audio Technology was able to meet the many challenge of this complex installation, which includes custom HD projection mapping solutions in three interior halls, as well as on the outside of the building itself. The museum is now able to pursue its educational remit with a full-day entertainment program which brings the history of this troubled period back to vivid life for audiences of all ages.
The building’s exterior is the projection surface for 4k resolution content, mapped and fed to six high-power 30,000 lumen laser projector

Italy - One hundred Claypaky Xtylos units were used to create the Il colore del suono (the colour of sound) lighting rig, conceived by the Giò Forma studio and created in conjunction with Claypaky's lighting designer Marco Zucchinali.
The installation was put together for the Jova Beach Party on the runway of Milan Linate airport, which has been closed since July for major refurbishment works. The event was the final stage of Jovanotti's tour of the beaches of Italy. It saw over 100,000 people attend over eight hours of music with various guests, and culminated in a concert by Jovanotti himself, Italy's most loved rap singer-songwriter.
Claudio Santucci from Giò Forma reports: “It all started with Jovanotti's and the creative team's request to have a light installation which could be seen from afar. I went to the Claypaky showroom to see their new light, th

UK - New research, carried out by Bournemouth University for the Events Industry Forum, has revealed that outdoor events have been much undervalued for the contribution they make to the UK economy, both locally and nationally, with a Gross Value of over £30 billion and providing employment for some 589,000 people.
The research, funded by sales of the Purple Guide, is thought to be the first comprehensive study of the market to be undertaken. Its findings were introduced to key industry players at an event at the House of Commons on 24 October.
In 2018, the year which was the focus of the study, over 140 million people attended outdoor events according to the researchers, ranging from music festivals to fairs and steam rallies. The good news for the industry is that 84% of those attendees were satisfied with the way events are run, and the majority of interviewees fe

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