USA - Broadweigh Bluetooth has been put to the test for the first time at the New York International Auto Show.
Broadweigh’s US product partner Paradigm Rigging supplied the kit to Hang Ten Rigging, who were hired by brand experience agency, Imagination Group, to oversee the rigging component of the build of the Ford booth, complete with lighting, video and scenic truss.
As the exhibit booths at these motor shows compete to be ever more impressive, the designs become more and more challenging. Michael Sorowka, managing director of Paradigm Rigging is no stranger to these events. He explains: "Not only do the auto shows put the riggers to the test, but increasingly, the kit they use in order to build impressive, safe displays is also being required to do more.

Belgium - In the heart of Brussels, private members’ bar Impérial oozes with charm and the underground cool of a turn of the last century speakeasy. The vintage atmosphere and jazzy vibe that draws guests in, however, integrates a full, leading edge, AV solution with TiMax SoundHub and dcontrol central to the immersive environment, realised from concept by design and installation integrator, FACE Projects.
The vision of Carl de Moncharline, owner and manager of several successful Brussels venues was for an ‘immersive environment creating spherical sound experiences’, as well as a stylish lighting system in keeping with the historical façade and vintage ambience of the venue, that was versatile enough for live jazz concerts, a DJ clubbing experience, or even as a cocktail bar. The challenge to create this in a low-ceiling and small, 300sq.m space fell to long term and

UK - The summer classical concert season is in full swing at a range of heritage sites across Britain. The Proms in the Castle in the grounds of Pontefract Castle, West Yorkshire was an evening of music with the West Yorkshire Symphony that took place at the end of June and was witnessed by a capacity crowd of 2,000 people.
Local full-service production company, Sound & Light UK, put an EM Acoustics HALO-A large format line array system through its paces for the first time on a live outdoor event.
SLUK has been looking after the event since 2015 with an active system that required covered PA towers to protect the internal electronics. The client was extremely nervous about changing the system which, according to SLUK’s Chris Bottomley, had always done the job well enough, but as he pointed out, the opportunity to put HALO-A on the event was too good to miss.

UK - The beautiful surroundings of the Royal Botanic Gardens in south-west London, better known as Kew Gardens, provided the location for the facility’s annual six-day music festival Kew The Music.
Now a consolidated part of London’s summer festival tapestry, and with the world’s biggest Victorian glasshouse as the imposing backdrop, it is the quintessential summer event. For the past five years rental company, Capital Sound, and its loudspeaker partner, Martin Audio, have enjoyed a growing presence on the site.
Working with promoter, Stuart Galbraith from Kilimanjaro Live, and production manager, LarMac Live director Ian Greenway, Capital Sound again fielded Martin Audio’s MLA for audiences of 8,000 who arrived to see headliners, including Lewis Capaldi, Rick Astley, Garbage, Craig David and Billy Ocean.
To provide balanced audio coverage, Capital had t

UK - The stars came out in force to celebrate the career of the late Dame Gillian Lynne, with Unusual Rigging brought on board to rig the event at the newly named Gillian Lynne Theatre in London's West End.
The evening also saw the launch of the Dame Gillian Lynne and Peter Land Foundation, set up to help young performers, with Jerry Donaldson, technical director at Cameron Mackintosh providing his experience and expertise to manage the production.
Lean Two Productions, the producer behind the event, comments in a statement: "It was Jerry who brought Unusual in to work on this project which made complete sense as they are not only the very best at what they do, but had themselves worked with Gillie on shows for many years."
Scenically, the show was kept very simple with a small band onstage and a 'moon' which had been designed and built for the re-naming of the

Denmark - In lighting Musicalteatret’s Jack the Ripper musical at Copenhagen’s intimate Folketeatret, lighting designer Mikkel Bedsted faced some major lighting challenges. He found his solutions in the new VL2600 Profile LED stage luminaire from Vari-Lite.
Bedsted’s main challenge was the venue’s limited weight loading. With the small theatre’s fly bars able to support only around 125kg, it became essential that his lighting fixtures were lightweight and compact in size. Versatility was also a crucial factor, as the more functions a single fixture could fulfil, the fewer units would be needed overall. Next, as the show’s designer, operator and sole lighting technician, Bedsted required maximum reliability. And, of course, he needed quality performance - including high output, excellent optics and advanced theatre lighting features.
Through supplier

China - Ayrton has announced the installation of its first white Ghibli LED spot fixtures at the China National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. Eighty of the white units were recently installed into the elegant interior of the Centre’s Concert Hall by ACE, Ayrton’s distributor for China, as part of a major upgrade of its lighting inventory.
The Concert Hall, designed by French architect, Paul Andrew, within a giant oval shell that includes a 2,000-seat opera house and 900-seat theatre, is distinctive in its silver-white interior with an acoustic ceiling that resembles undulating white waves. The 1,900-seat auditorium is arranged in-the-round to enable the large-scale symphonies and Chinese traditional music that are performed there to be heard and viewed from any angle.
Consequently, its new lighting fixtures had to be capable of handling swift lighting

UAE - Reliability was a major factor for Middle East rental and production company MediaPro’s large investment in Robe moving lights earlier this year, according to sales and marketing manager Jinesh Nair.
When it came to making a decision about expanding the moving light inventory at their Dubai HQ, the vital parameters included engineering quality and versatile features as well as an increasing demand from international lighting designers requesting Robe products.
This all led to the purchase of 86 Spiider LED wash beams, 76 MegaPointes and three RoboSpot systems complete with the BMFL FollowSpot LT (long-throw) fixture with integral camera, which has been especially designed for large arenas and stadiums. These are the first of these special BMFL followspots in the UAE.
MediaPro’s initial relationship with Robe dates back to 2006. Established in the UAE in
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For 11 years, DiGiCo has supported the Montreux Jazz festival. At this year’s event, the company introduced its latest product development, the new SD7 Quantum console, and the 32-bit ‘Ultimate Stadius’ microphone pre-amp and DAC analogue output cards.
In 2019, DiGiCo consoles were installed at all of the festival’s major sites, each fitted with the new 32-bit I/O cards, whilst SD7 Quantum consoles were installed at FOH and monitor position at the flagship venue, Stravinski Auditorium. An SD7 Quantum was also installed in the demo/prep room, a facility DiGiCo provides each year, for visiting engineers to come and explore the new developments.
As well as the two SD7 Quantum consoles, the system specified for the Stravinski Auditorium included four SD-Racks and two SD-Mini Racks.
Festival highlight Janet Jackson performed her much-anticipated headline show at Stra

Europe - The Laserworld Group has released the tarm 2.5 laser light systems, a new generation of Art-Net/DMX-controllable lasers that can create and store artwork straight onto the device.
The laser module in the tarm 2.5 has been improved by combining all laser sources in one white light module, which has professional mirror mounts allowing for precise module alignment with hex keys. Different laser software can be used to directly access the built-in DAC (digital-analogue-converter) via LAN for professional show control.
Meanwhile, mobile DJs or entertainers who cannot actively control the laser during performance can make use of the sound-to-light or the standalone operation mode, which - combined with the option to load custom graphics to the mainboard - makes the tarm 2.5 suitable for advertisement projections or use in architecture illumination.
The tarm 2

UK - A week-long summer school run by the charity Magpie Dance at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley has provided the opportunity for children and young people with learning disabilities to develop their creative dance skills, thanks to a donation from Unusual Rigging.
Magpie Dance was founded in 1985 by Avril Hitman BEM as a way of including, rather than excluding people because of their disability. Since its inception, the group has grown from 45-minute sessions once a week to 13 sessions per week plus outreach workshops, enabling over 300 people to access regular dance activity sessions each year.
Alan Jacobi, managing director of Unusual Rigging, comments: “We are delighted to have sponsored Magpie Dance’s summer school this year, to give children and young people the opportunity to access an activity which provides such enjoyment. Just as importantly, it helps b

Spain - DAS Audio systems returned for the second year to the eighth edition of the Paellas Festival Live 2019 in Alicante. Located at the 200,000sq.m Rabasa Multispace facility near the university, the Paellas Festival offers uninterrupted live music, gastronomy and entertainment from 10am to 9pm to a 30,000-strong audience.
Oxigen Sonido e Iluminación was in charge of the installation of the systems in the venue. A main system of 28 Aero-40A was enhanced with 12 Aero-20A for out-fill, eight Aero-40A for front-fill, 24 Aero-40A for delay and 16 UX-221A subwoofers.
The audio challenges faced in this edition were different from last year´s since the festival has shifted from being a multi-stage event to focusing on a single stage. On this occasion, the objective was to achieve uniform coverage and high intelligibility all over the audience areas, as well as delivering

Hungary - The open-air theatre in Nyíregyháza recently upgraded their stage lighting capabilities with Prolights.
Located in the heart of the city of Nyíregyháza, the 1,000-seat theatre has been a key attraction in the area since 1955. Previously fitted with halogen fixtures, the renovation focussed on re-invigorating the space throughout and upgrading the technology to reduce running costs, increase energy efficiency and increase light output.
The new stage lighting system contains 20 Prolights Eclipse HD2 TU fixtures that were chosen for their brightness, even beam and clean shutter cuts, along with 20 Prolights full colour LED fixtures which provide a dramatically higher lumen level than their halogen predecessors. Both ellipsoidal fixtures were chosen for their versatility, broad functionality options and outstanding output levels and completed the reinvigorati

The Netherlands - Smile Licht En Geluid Utrecht BV is a busy design and technical production company based in Utrecht.
The company has recently purchased 12 Robe VIVA CMYs and 32 LEDBeam 150s - to assist in the creative illumination of a wide range of events.
The company was founded in its present format by Remko Vossen in 1998. The name already existed, however Remko took it from a disco based operation to a full-blown professional production facility which has become very well known locally and across Benelux.
Smile supplies lighting, sound, AV, staging, and expertise to the events sector and has a reputation for imaginative flair and offering innovative technology and high standards of excellence. They have just moved into a large and spangly new warehouse and office space in Lage Weide, in the west of the city of Utrecht.
These were the first Robe movin

Germany - A Yamaha audio and control solution has been installed at the multi-purpose conference room of regional German newspaper Eßlinger Zeitung.
The paper publishes in print and online, as well as having an online television channel (ES-tv), YouTube and social media presence. Used for meetings, presentations, interviews, staff and media briefings, the new conference room needed a flexible, high-quality AV system, which could be easily controlled by any member of staff.
events creative GmbH - based in nearby Hochdorf and with over 25 years in the AV installation and live production business - was asked to design and install the system. Managing director Markus Zimmer specified a Yamaha solution based on the MTX3 matrix processor and the MCP1 advanced surface-mount control panel, because it could deliver flexible control as well as high quality sound.
With up

Australia - After months of anticipation and secrecy, Halo - the light and sound experience designed specifically for Townsville, a coastal city in north eastern Queensland - has opened.
Created and produced by Sydney-based AGB Events, Halo transforms Castle Hill, the natural ‘halo’ that hovers above Townsville. Presented by the Townsville City Council, Halo runs in conjunction with the inaugural North Australian Festival of Arts, and has been made possible through the support of the Australian Government’s Building Better Regions Fund.
“Townsville City Council wanted to create something highly memorable that would truly mesmerise and captivate the public’s imagination,” says Anthony Bastic, CEO and creative director of AGB Events. “We were thrilled and honoured to be asked to undertake such a prestigious and challenging project. We’re de

Saudi Arabia - The Jeddah World Festival Closing Ceremony was the first of its kind and saw acts such as Janet Jackson, Liam Payne, Future, Tyga, 50 Cent, Chris Brown and Steve Aoki perform. The ceremony marked the end of the 41-day festival, which comprised of a series of events to include performances from national and international artists.
The ceremony took place on 18 July in the vicinity of King Abdullah Sports Stadium, which gave festivalgoers a view of the stadium as a backdrop to the main stage.
The event was not only the largest music festival to have been held in Saudi Arabia, but it also marked ‘a milestone in KSA’s 2030 vision to expand the entertainment sector in the country’.
Creative Technology (CT) worked alongside client The Manual, technical director, John Adkins (World Class Events) and production designer, Mark Cunniffe to deliver al

South Africa - Rental company MGG - the largest Claypaky stockist in South Africa - has purchased six Scenius Unicos from DWR Distribution.
“We initially received the Scenius Unicos as demo units and it was love at first light,” explains Denzil Smith from MGG. “In the end, they were never given back. The punch, brightness, versatility and fantastic gobo selection make it the first choice for events (budget dependent), and my personal favourite fixture.”
The Scenius Unico is able to perform in spot, beam or wash mode, and offers an assortment of solid colours. MGG’s lighting HOD, Jacques Pretorius, has test-driven the new workhorses and used them for front light and back light. What stands out for him is the full framing shutter, effective for applications like highlighting banners on stage as well as the renown Claypkay optical design.
“Claypaky is re

UK - Britannia Row Productions continued a busy summer of festivals and tours with a packed roster at Glastonbury 2019.
The audio rental company supplied PA and control to the British festival’s Arcadia stage - this year named Pangea - and teamed up with US partner Clair Global to supply bespoke control and monitor packages for a host of major acts, including headliners The Cure.
Arcadia, through its Spider and Metamorphosis spectaculars, has earned a reputation for wildly creative, multi-sensory experiences. This year, Pangea - a towering crane structure loaded with dazzling projections, a plethora of pyrotechnics and vivid lighting designs - created a ‘blank canvas in the sky’.
The Arcadia team has worked with L-Acoustics for a number of years, and following a recommendation from the loudspeaker manufacturer, Britannia Row was appointed as the 2019 audio

UK - The Broadway hit Come From Away landed in London’s Phoenix Theatre this February. The heart-warming production focuses on the kindness and fortitude of the residents of Gander, Newfoundland; a small Canadian town that welcomed 38 planes full of passengers in the wake of the Federal Aviation Administration closing American airspace on 9/11.
The production also marked the first d&b Soundscape show in London’s West End. An auspicious debut, the sound design provided by Gareth Owen, along with associate sound designer Russell Godwin and production sound engineer Andy Green won Best Sound Design at the 2019 Olivier Awards.
Using d&b Soundscape, Owen was able to overcome one of the major challenges of a show that features a 12-strong ensemble cast with actors playing multiple characters, often in the same scene: As he explains: “There are so many

UK - Technical production company Maestra Group has launched a scenic division. Based at Maestra’s London HQ, Maestra Scenic will offer services including CNC, carpentry and joinery, fabrication and engineering, painting and finishing as well as integration of other technical detailing - such as lighting, video or audio - into scenic fabrication projects.
The new division will employ a team of 20 full-time staff, who will be led by director of production Mark Davies, former director of technical operations at the National Theatre and sales director at Stage One Creative Services.
Davies comments: “The goals for good scenic companies are about meeting and then exceeding client expectations in all aspects - quality and build, finishing, being on-budget and ease of installation. It is essential to have the right people and processes all working harmoniously and with

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