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19 May 2025

USA - When the world’s biggest names in electronic music came together in Miami to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ultra Music Festival, expectations were naturally high. Fortunately, The Activity, along with trusted lighting partner TAG and cutting-edge gear from Elation, came fully prepared to deliver a Main Stage experience worthy of its celebrated legacy.

Held at Bayfront Park March 28-30, Ultra Miami’s 2025 Main Stage performers read like a who’s who of DJ names – Dom Dolla and John Summit, Alesso, Afrojack, Tiesto, Hardwell, Skrillex, Armin van Buuren, Zedd, Martin Garrix, and others. Tasked with managing the technical design of Ultra’s Main Stage, Patrick Dierson and the team at The Activity juggled artistry, technology, and logistics to deliver a flawless production.

“We knew going into it that this show had to

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19 May 2025

South Africa - Founded and headed by the charismatic Kagiso Moima Wa Masimini – KG to those who find the pronunciation a little complex – Blackmotion is a busy, innovative, and well-respected technical production and rental company based in Kew, Johannesburg.

KG’s passion for lighting has driven the company’s successful path since 2005 and there are now over 100 Robe moving lights in its inventory, which has been part of the success, and these fixtures are constantly busy servicing a range of high-end corporate, business, and social events.

Backmotion invested in Robe right from the start. In 2005, and for the next four years, KG was initially focused on lighting design work. The trajectory shifted around 2009 when he started purchasing kit, and the first moving lights – six Robe ColorSpot 250E ATs – joined the company.

KG continu

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19 May 2025

USA - Sound Image, a Clair Global brand, has been chosen to integrate audio, video and data into the new Frontwave Arena, the first of its kind in Oceanside, San Diego County.

The 7,500 capacity, 170,000sq.ft space is home to local sports organisations San Diego Clippers (basketball) and the San Diego Sockers (soccer) and features a high-end sound system that reaches every seat while steering clear of sight line interruption, ideal for sports production. The Gold Over America Tour (GOAT), led by the world's most decorated gymnast, Simone Biles, brought athletic prowess to this court for the venue's first sports tour event.

Sound Image project manager, Hans Haas, oversaw the design and implementation of the project. He comments: "This part of San Diego County has never had a venue like this, and it has already become a great activity hub for

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19 May 2025

UK - Essential Event Management (EEM) is a full-service events organiser with a growing client base of faith-based organisations and charities. Peter Purkiss is lead events production co-ordinator at EEM and trialled the UNiKA Pro Series DIs on the recommendation of UK distributors AUX Import.

Purkiss comments: “At EEM our work is varied. Anything from single smaller meetings to tours, roadshows and festivals. I am interested to try new audio solutions, especially when recommended by Mike and Callum at AUX Import, and the UNiKA DIs looked right, felt solid and were reasonably priced. A lot of our stages are acoustic guitars and keyboards oriented, and the UNiKA DIs sound great for this. We now have every Pro Series DI model with a jack input.”

Mick Brophy, business development manager at Mega Audio adds: “It’s great that EEM has adopted the U

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19 May 2025

USA - Elation invites lighting professionals to ‘break the rules and blaze their own path’ with the new Rebel Series. Elation has introduced the first in the series, the Rebel Profile, a powerful, compact LED profile fixture with IP65 rating engineered for attention-grabbing visuals in both indoor and outdoor applications.

“Rebel is all about breaking free from traditional norms and embracing bold innovation," said Matthias Hinrichs, product manager at Elation. “The Rebel Profile was created to answer the demand for a versatile, rugged fixture that offers both high intensity and adaptability. Built for rental houses and designers who need fixtures that can do it all in indoor or outdoor settings, Rebel brings top-tier results and long-lasting value without the premium price."

The Rebel profile is highly adaptable, utilising a high-output LED

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19 May 2025

USA - Harman Professional Solutions has announced the immediate availability of Martin P3 System Controller Software 6.2.0, featuring the powerful P3 Visualizer Protocol. Designed to integrate seamlessly into the Martin P3 ecosystem, this new update significantly enhances the visualisation capabilities.

The all-new P3 Visualizer Protocol enables lighting designers, programmers, and system technicians to integrate third-party 3D visualisation software with the Martin P3 System Controller, creating an end-to-end solution. By enabling real-time sharing of comprehensive fixture data – including video pixels, patch details, and more – visualisers are now able to flawlessly replicate real-world fixtures, whether driven by lighting consoles, P3 controllers, or both simultaneously.

Designed for ultimate ease-of-use, the software’s plug-and-play functio

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19 May 2025

USA - Matrox Video has announced its participation at InfoComm 2025 in Orlando next month.

At booth 2821, Matrox Video will showcase the Matrox Mura DVW appliance, a powerful IP-based 4K distributed video wall appliance that lets integrators scale out synchronised video walls by simply adding more units. Mura DVW supports a wide range of streams, including one 8K60, four 4K60, or 16 1080p60 feeds using H.265 or H.264. Additionally, Matrox Video will present its new LUMA Pro A380 Octal graphics cards and Mura C4K Quad HDMI 2.0 capture cards with HDCP 2.3 support.

Making its InfoComm debut is Matrox Avio 2, billed as the world’s first NMOS-aware, open standards-based IPMX/ST 2110 IP KVM extender. Delivering ‘superior image quality and performance’, Avio 2 supports up to 4K resolution with a choice of uncompressed or compressed video options on ei

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16 May 2025

Europe - In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), Dante developer Audinate Group has announced a collaboration with the Netherlands’ Het Nationale Theater and XRAI to implement AI-enabled smart glasses with real-time subtitles for theatre-goers. GAAD promotes digital access and inclusion for more than one billion people with disabilities or impairments.

Starting this autumn, attendees at select performances by Het Nationale Theater in The Hague and on tour, including those who speak little or no Dutch or have hearing loss, can wear smart glasses for free that display subtitles in different colours to indicate which actor is speaking. Affectionately dubbed ‘LiveText’, the official launch is scheduled to take place at the end of June during the Holland Festival, the largest international performing arts festival in the Nether

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16 May 2025

UK - The Lifting Equipment Engineers Association (LEEA) has outlined ways industry can raise awareness and find solutions to the skills gap - the primary focus of Global Lifting Awareness Day (GLAD) 2025 on 12 June.

GLAD, upheld by the theme Lifting Careers, Building Futures, is dedicated to tackling the growing skills shortages across the lifting industry and promoting practical tools to attract new talent. The day is a launchpad to inspire the next generation to explore careers in lifting.

LEEA will exclusively reveal the findings of its State of the Lifting Industry survey on GLAD. However, it has urged members and other stakeholders to create their own campaign contributions that can be submitted in advance and promoted via LEEA platforms on the day. LEEA wants to hear directly from the lifting industry about what they’re alre

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16 May 2025

Germany - Acoustics and media technology consultancy ADA Acoustics & Media Consultants GmbH (ADA-AMC) has officially been renamed WSDG Berlin GmbH, marking the next step in the company’s evolution and deeper integration into the international WSDG network. The change took effect at the end of March 2025.

Founded in 1990 by acoustician Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Ahnert as ADA – Acoustic Design Ahnert – the company has been a pioneer in the fields of electroacoustics, acoustic simulation, and AV system design. Since 2017, WSDG has held a majority stake in the Berlin-based firm and has played a key role in shaping its development. The name change underscores the continued collaboration and alignment with the global WSDG organisation, while preserving the engineering excellence and values established over more than three decades.

“This new name refle

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16 May 2025

Spain - A football final is always a moment of high emotion – but when light joins the game, the experience becomes unforgettable. That’s exactly what happened at the 2025 Copa del Rey Final, where more than 60,000 fans at the Estadio de La Cartuja in Seville and 8m viewers around the world were treated to a jaw-dropping lighting show that set the tone for a night to remember.

The creative force behind this spectacle was Juanjo Llorens, one of Spain’s most respected lighting designers, whose recent book on lighting as an evolving craft sparked wide acclaim. His approach to the opening show was clear: use light not just as illumination, but as narrative. And to achieve that, he relied on a powerful combination of 60 Ayrton Cobra and 50 Ayrton Perseo Beam fixtures.

Llorens’ design concept was rooted in movement, emotion and impact, as it built

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16 May 2025

USA - On Sunday 13 April, Chase & Status brought their musical kingdom to California, transforming Coachella’s massive Sahara Stage into a giant dance club with their signature sound and guest appearances by stars like Stormzy. Enhancing the vibe and energizing the entire stage was a production designed by High Scream, with management by NTRP, programming by Olly Walker, and onsite lighting by Elliott Mountford of Ti²² Design.

The lighting element of this dynamic stage panorama drew on the intense output of 172 Chauvet Professional fixtures. Of these units, 104 were Color Strike M motorised strobe washes, part of the Sahara’s house rig, supplied by Volt. The remaining fixtures, part of the Colour Sound Experiment supplied floor package, featured 48 Color Strike M and 20 Maverick Storm 4 Profile fixtures. The impressive collection of Color Strike M

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16 May 2025

UK - The Theatre nominations for The Profile Awards 2025 have now been published on the TPA website. The Theatre section is judged by eight of the UK’s leading theatre, dance and opera critics chaired by David Benedict (Variety). Every single new production seen is automatically eligible for consideration and, as each judge may see around two hundred shows over the year, that is a significant amount of work that gets covered. (https://profileawards.com/theatre-nominations-2025/)

The Profile Awards Theatre Sponsors are:

@chauvet_pro  - Outstanding Achievement in Theatre Award

@elationlighting - Outstanding Achievement in Dance Award

@elctronictheatrecontrols - Outstanding Achievement in Opera Award

@fix8group - Outstandi

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16 May 2025

The Netherlands - The three-night Ladies of Soul show landed at Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome in April, backed by a series of LED screens and LED strips with Green Hippo’s Hippotizer Media Servers belting out live camera feed and pre-made content.

Dutch singers and musicians Edsilia Rombley, Trijntje Oosterhuis, Berget Lewis and Candy Dulfer starred in the productions, with a host of international guests including Sister Sledge, Robin S and Rose Royce celebrating the Ladies of Soul.

“We deployed our Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 Media Servers because they were the models that could handle the multiple layers, three mixes, main screen content and masks, and much more,” explains Kevin Buysse from Tenfeet, which has delivered video for Ladies of Soul for more than a decade. “The show was built around the four main Dutch performers

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16 May 2025

Switzerland - For Stagelight, a Swiss event design company, Vectorworks Spotlight is the central tool for overcoming the increasingly complex requirements in the event industry. The firm relies on the software from the first sketch to detailed specialist planning to the final execution.

With consistent 3D planning, customer-oriented visualizations, and modern exchange formats such as MVR and GDTF, the company relies on efficiency and precision. In the shadow of the spotlight, the company ensures that despite hectic last-minute changes, everything runs smoothly, and the stars can offer their fans an unforgettable experience.

Head of light Stefan Rüttimann, who has been working at Stagelight for 17 years, described Vectorworks as the ultimate "all-in-one" tool. “From the first draft to the final execution – we do everything in Vectorworks: stage,

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16 May 2025

Iceland - Located 20 minutes from Keflavik International Airport, Icelandair’s headquarters has recently undergone a major expansion with the addition of a new flight simulator with additional facilities for pilot and cabin crew training, along with new office facilities including an impressive atrium and multi-purpose spaces for the hosting of meetings, presentations and events.

The project’s electrical contractor Verkhönnun issued a tender for the design and installation of cutting-edge audiovisual systems, with the contract ultimately awarded to local event production and AV technology specialists Exton.

“The initial brief included line arrays for the main atrium, but our modelling of a Nexo point-source system using NS-1 performance prediction software proved that a Nexo ePS system was perfectly adequate for the space, while making a much

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16 May 2025

Australia - Clearlight Shows, a long-standing name in Australia’s entertainment lighting industry, has delivered a major lighting upgrade at the Marriner Theatre Plaza Ballroom. The installation combines Infinity and Showtec fixtures from Highlite International to provide a robust, modern rig optimised for live performance, broadcast, and high-end event lighting.

The Plaza Ballroom, part of the Marriner Group, is a richly decorated venue with no natural light – making colour accuracy and flicker-free performance essential. Having worked closely with the theatre group on many occasions, Clearlight was invited to propose a system based on Highlite products, which the venue had successfully hired in the past.

John McKissock, founder of Clearlight Shows, explained: “The venue team had been trialling LED replacements for some time. When they saw the

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16 May 2025

France - Christie projection is powering screenings at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, which is running until 24 May.

RGB pure laser, laser, and Xenon illuminated projection technologies from Christie are deployed across 24 spaces at the globally renowned festival, including the flagship Grand Théâtre Lumière room and striking outdoor Cinéma de la Plage screen. More than 40,000 festivalgoers will attend the global event, with a host of A-list stars poised to grace the red carpet.

“Festival de Cannes remains among the most prestigious and iconic events on the cinema calendar, and it’s a real honour to once again play our part as the official projection partner,” says Adil Zerouali, vice-president, sales EMEA, Christie. “We are pleased to continue our work with the Festival and the Commission Supérieure Technique de l'Imag

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16 May 2025

UK - Spotlight Sound, a fast-growing national AV and event production company based in Essex, has announced the appointment of Ed Guest as its new AV service engineer. With over 15 years of experience across theatre, live events, and AV installation, Ed brings considerable technical expertise to the expanding Spotlight Sound team.

Spotlight Sound specialises in audio-visual installations, event production, and equipment hire across the UK, with clients ranging from local authorities and schools to national venues and entertainment providers. As the company continues to grow, Ed’s addition is set to strengthen its technical offering and drive further excellence in project delivery.

Ed's journey in AV began in school theatres, eventually leading him to a BTEC in technical theatre and a BA in Lighting Design at Rose Bruford College. He has worked in s

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15 May 2025

USA - ACT Entertainment has been selected as a US distributor for the live sound portfolio from Avid. ACT and Avid will officially debut this partnership at InfoComm 2025.

ACT Entertainment has a proven track record of building infrastructure and market presence for premium brands, such as Ayrton, MA Lighting and PK Sound. This new partnership represents a significant expansion in Avid’s US strategy and underscores its commitment to serving the professional live sound community with exceptional service and support.

“The partnership with Avid represents another major step forward in our strategic initiative to build the ACT Entertainment portfolio with class-leading solutions across all categories of entertainment technology,” says ACT CEO Ben Saltzman. “We have long admired Avid’s commitment to innovation, and we believe this collaboration