Europe - From The Road to the Billboard Music Awards with NBC Universal, to the Thanksgiving Parade Celebrations in New York City, and a recent show in Las Vegas, Production Zync Entertainment are cementing their partnership in the world of design and production, and PRG has supported a diverse range of productions for them across the world.
Over the last seven months PRG has been working closely with newly formed Production Zync Entertainment, on the delivery and execution of a range of television, music, sport and live projects, from studio to arena across Europe, the US, and the UK.
PRG has provided Production Zync with a fully supported ‘one stop shop’ technical production solution across multiple territories, including equipment, crew, transportation, logistics

Poland - Glastonbury 2019 headliner Stormzy thrilled audiences at Open’er , one of Poland’s largest annual music festival.
Held in Gdynia on the north coast of Poland, this popular event has attracted a host of names over the years including The Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Bruno Mars and Radiohead.
This year’s headline acts were Kylie Minogue and Stormzy. Concept for the main stage was undertaken by lighting collective Green Beam Design.
The main stage rig, supplied by Transcolor, included a whole host of Prolights Sunblast fixtures. The external design team requested colour strobes on floor to complete the desired ‘colourful punch’ aesthetic and Prolights Sunblast3000FC were used. The fixtures have a track-record of providing the punch that this performance required, but also the flexibility of the 48 individually controllable groups of RGBW LEDs all

China - The Qing show is a hi-tech, permanently installed stage show produced by the Sunac Group in a purpose-built, 1,600-capacity venue at the Oriental Movie Metropolis complex at Qingdao in the Shandong province of China.
The venue’s architecture has a number of marine elements and is designed to represent a conch. Based on the Chinese legend of Eight Immortals Crossing the the show was conceived, designed and created by artistic director Luke Petit through Art Team Group Asia.
Four years in the making, the show, which covers a floor area of 21,500sq.m, has a cast of 63 performers, features a lifting stage, acrobatics, dance, classic Kung Fu moves, 3D holographic projections and a water curtain fountain to create the perfect fusion of traditional culture and modern stage art. The cast which features 12 main roles, was selected from more than 10,000

UK - The Zero 88 team fully embraced the buzz and excitement of the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival where they were - again - on the ground with training and technical support for a range of their lighting consoles and control solutions.
They also introduced #behindthefringe - a ‘fun and informative forum’ for anyone into fringe performance and involved with a show using Zero 88 products.
Building on this success, #behindthefringe will be launched as a website later in the year as a hub and platform for comments, experiences and opinions, sharing information and connecting people through various Fringe projects linked via Zero 88.
Over 100 different Zero 88 consoles were in action site-wide at this year’s Edinburgh event, which is the largest arts festival in the world, producing nearly 60,000 new performances in over 300 venues across 25 hectic and vibrant

USA - The first annual Peak to Sky festival in Montana in early July featured Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses), Josh Klinghoffer (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters) on the bill. Local event producers Outlaw Partners and lighting suppliers Jereco Studios were at the sharp end.
“We knew going in that we would have to put together a package that would be fitting of some of the biggest names in rock n' roll,” says Frank Douglas of Bozeman-based Jereco Studios. With at least 75% of the live production done by Jereco Studios during the summer months outdoors, Douglas says that in southwest Montana at least 75% of those shows experience some degree of inclement weather. “From sustained high winds, to hail, to rain, to snow, our most exposed fixtures need to be able to withstand that. Elation has

UK - Allen & Heath mixers tackled FOH and monitor duties for We Out Here Festival (see LSi September 2019), held for the first time this August and curated by BBC Radio 6 DJ, Gilles Peterson, his Bronswood Recordings label and Worldwide FM. Taking place across four-days in rural Cambridgeshire, the family-friendly festival showcased a line-up of underground artists and DJs.
Supplied by Glasgow-based A-Live Sound, five dLive and four SQ systems were chosen to run FOH and monitors across seven stages. Director Iain Mackie comments: “I chose to invest in dLive and SQ as they’re the best sounding consoles on the market right now. With dLive specifically, unlike some other manufacturers, it has endless high-qu

UK - Harlequin Floors has been picked to supply dance flooring to the English National Ballet’s new home in London City Island. The new location aims to bring world-class ballet to the widest possible audience and officially opened its doors last night (12 September).
The building has been designed by award-winning architects Glenn Howells Architects and combines top training, fitness, rehab and teaching facilities, seven stage-sized rehearsal studios and a unique theatre size production studio with five-storey fly tower unrivalled in the UK.
With funding from the Arts Council England’s Capital Large Grants programme and the National Lottery, the £3m investment brings both the English National Ballet and English National Ballet School together under one roof for the first time.
Harlequin installed over 1900sq.m of Harlequin Activity sprung floor and Harlequ

South Africa - The Roodepoort Theatre has seen various transformations since opening its doors in 1981, but one of the most recent has been the investment of an L-Acoustics ARCS WiFo system supplied and installed by DWR Distribution earlier this year.
Initially presenting opera and symphony performances, today the Roodepoort Theatre is a dynamic and diverse receiving house that plays host to an array of shows ranging from ballets to musicals, revues, dramas, dance competitions, bands and live recordings.
Over the years the theatre has stayed abreast with the latest lighting equipment, while aesthetic renovations, including new seats and flooring, have created a fresh and modern look. The new L-Acoustics system enables the theatre to offer a professional service to external companies making use of their facilities and a quality experience for the audience.
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The Many Looks of Zeo

Delivering ultimate brightness and unique looks, Zeo’s distinct face design is defined by a central LED monolith and four reflectors, backed by four RGBW engines. As a blinder or strobe, Zeo promises powerful impact with 30,000+ lumens. With its sheer brilliance and playful effects, Zeo is ready to amplify the energy on any stage.

USA - The Tony-nominated The Wedding Singer played Boca Raton’s Olympic Heights Performing Arts Centre this summer, with a lighting design by Clifford Spulock that featured Chauvet Professional fixtures.
“There are a lot of different emotions that go on in this show,” says Spulock. “It starts out with a massive party at a wedding. I light this with huge bump changes and big hits that play off the music. Light from my fixtures cut through the haze into the audience at this point to create a very immersive, energetic opening that encourages the audience to get up and dance to the music.”
Among the lights that Spulock had fun with were two Rogue R1X Spot fixtures that were positioned on the apron electric. Filling a variety of roles in the lighting design, the 170W LED fixtures were used for front light specials as well as to illuminate the mylar drop dur

Hungary - Robe moving lights helped keep pace with the demands of an eclectic mix of music and creative presentations on the main stage of Budapest’s Sziget Festival.
The stage saw performances from Martin Garrix, The 1975, Florence + The Machine, Foo Fighters and Ed Sheeran, who played to 80,000 fans a day for seven days.
The base main stage production / house rig was designed by Mark Kontra from rental company Colossal, who have supplied lighting for this stage of the event for the last several years.
The production lighting incorporated 172 Robe lighting fixtures which were a mix of BMFLs, Pointes and ColorStrobes.
It was designed to be practical, bearing in mind the amount of own kit coming in, offering all the breadth, fluidity and capabilities of a properly thought-through house lighting rig.
“We needed a powerful reliable rig with the flex

UK - James Eade, LSi columnist and leading consultant in electrical safety for the event production industry, has created a new course covering BS 7909 - the Code of Practice for temporary electrical systems for entertainment and related purposes.
BS 7909 Temporary Power for the Events Industry has been developed by Eade in consultation with industry experts to ensure the most up-to-date and relevant guidance for this rapidly changing discipline. Unique in the event production market, the course is only available from James Eade.
The course is up to date with the new 18th Edition of the Wiring Regulations (BS 7671:2018) and the new IET guidance on the use of generators and covers a broad range of areas including multiple sources of supply, RCDs, earthing and bonding, inspection and testing as well as the management of temporary electrical infrastructure.
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UK - PLASA Show 2020 is moving to London Olympia's Grand Hall, PLASA has announced. A scheduling change has also been made, with the 2020 event taking place on 6-8 September 2020.
The Grand Hall is the largest exhibition space at Olympia and the Show's move highlights its return to form since returning to west London in 2016. PLASA reports that the event has grown year-on-year both in terms of exhibitor and visitor numbers, and this latest decision has been taken to ensure the ability for future expansion of the show.
Sophie Atkinson, PLASA head of events, comments: “With the exciting redevelopment happening at Olympia over the next few years the opportunity has arisen for us to move the PLASA Show to the Grand Hall from 2020 onwards. This is a great oppor

UK - Peex, the company behind an app platform that enables concertgoers to mix audio from live concerts in realtime, has announced Patrick Vosgimorukian as its new CEO. With a background working with next generation tech companies, Vosgimorukian will be leading Peex into the next phase of its launch plan.
Vosgimorukian will be assisting the team in developing the business and identifying opportunities for the product to be scaled following its recent success in both the US and Europe where Peex was launched on Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour.
Vosgimorukian boasts considerable experience working within the tech and entertainment industries. He comments: “It is an absolute privilege to be named Peex’s new CEO. It is an exciting time to join the company following the successful commercial launch in the US and Europe. The goal of Peex is to enhance the

UK - ETC has hired Matt Cowles as field project coordinator for its London office.
Cowles will provide technical sales and manage projects across the country, be responsible for sales arrangements of key accounts in this region, and support regional sales manager, Jeremy Roberts in working with ETC and High End Systems’ dealers, distributors and customers.
A familiar face in the UK with 17 years of experience working in the industry, he joins the company from Ambersphere Solutions where he worked in technical sales for seven years. As key account manager, Cowles was responsible for numerous product lines and the development of the business with a focus on theatre. Prior to this, he worked in the live events sector with UK-based dealer Stage Electrics in the role of business development manager.
Regional sales manager Jeremy Roberts comments: “We are deligh

USA - Audinate has announced the availability of Dante Virtual Soundcard for installation in virtual Windows environments using Type-1 hypervisors. This update is especially important for customers such as broadcasters, educators and corporate users that want to deploy Dante networked audio throughout data centres, studios, server clusters and campuses, says the company. Dante Virtual Soundcard interfaces directly with audio software running on virtual machines, allowing distribution of media playback, centralised recording, and more.
Dante Virtual Soundcard turns any computer into a Dante endpoint for networked audio. It provides a standard WDM or ASIO audio interface that allows any installed audio software to send and receive up to 64 channels of lossless audio over a standard 1Gbps network to any Dante-enabled AV endpoints, including other instances of Dante Virtual Soun

UK - Outline has announced a major firmware (v95) and software (v1.9) release for its Newton multi-source audio processor.
Smaart API integration represents the quickest and easiest way for users to integrate Smaart measurement data into Newton and to plot it within the Outline Dashboard software environment. This new compatibility will provide a faster, simpler and more accurate method of system tuning for Smaart users.
“Outline has done an outstanding job of utilising the Smaart API to integrate Smaart measurement data within the latest release of their Dashboard control software,” comments Karen Anderson, CEO, Rational Acoustics. “This integration really highlights Outline’s commitment to providing their customers with powerful, forward-thinking professional audio tools and we are thrilled to see Newton/Dashboard added to the ever-growing list of Smaart API

The Netherlands - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) will exhibit an array of specialist TV, broadcast and film lighting solutions from leading brands including Chroma-Q, Vista by Chroma-Q, Quasar Science and RatPac on stand 12.D39 at IBC this week.
Chroma-Q will continue to celebrate its 15th year in LED lighting innovation. Drawing upon this expertise, its latest generation of award-winning solutions utilise proprietary homogenised optics, colour management and dimming technologies to deliver a superior quality of light output and colour consistency.
The new Chroma-Q Space Force onebytwo variable white LED soft light panel will make its IBC debut. Recipient of a Lighting Product of the Year Award at NAB, the unit is a modern replacement for traditional soft sources and is the ideal fit for creating a huge volume of light in standard room ceiling height studios

UK - Avolites will showcase the Q4 media server, the latest development in the Q server range. Q4 boasts four full 4K outputs, which will be able to drive three layers of visually lossless, 4K content to every output simultaneously.
It also features Avolites’ Ai software, built on the Salvation node engine, which provides the tools needed to create effective shows, whatever the requirements. The new server will ship with Modular Flex Inputs, allowing video inputs to be swapped in and out to suit every situation.
In addition, Avolites will demo Synergy with its latest integration between Titan and Ai. The software, which won a PLASA Award for Innovation in 2018, integrates lighting and video seamlessly, allowing users to turn their stages into one visual canvas. It has been used on shows and installations around the world, including the Temple Stage at Glastonbury th

UK - Following a critically acclaimed UK tour, the stage adaptation of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin promptly transferred to the West End for a recent nine-week season at the Harold Pinter Theatre.
Lighting the show throughout has been Malcolm Rippeth, who as with the touring version, made heavy use of Martin by Harman’s MAC Encore Performance CLD and MAC Aura XB fixtures when the show moved to the West End - supplied as part of the lighting package by White Light.
Based on Louis de Bernières’ best-selling novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is a story of romance in the face of the Second World War, set on the idyllic Greek island of Cephalonia.
The creative team did justice to this epic story in just two and a half hours of stage time. “Consequently there were jump-cuts throughout the play, split screens, and montages of years passing,” say

UK - Leeds Trinity University has upgraded the lighting infrastructure of its TV studio facilities to next generation systems utilising Vista by Chroma-Q lighting & media control.
The university was one of the first establishments to have professional TV studio production facilities as part of its courses. Student applications range from live daily news and culture shows to interviews or scenes for documentary and film productions.
After upgrading its original tungsten lighting to all-LED DMX rigs, the university wanted to invest in a control solution which staff and students would find straightforward to operate, whilst also being widely used professionally.
They invested in new control systems for both TV studios which utilise the latest Vista 3 software, with hands-on controls provided by Vista MV control surfaces.
Mark Willett, the university’s se

Sweden - Yamaha VXL1 slimline line array loudspeakers are proving the solution of choice for many houses of worship, radically enhancing sound but without compromising the aesthetics of church interiors.
Opened in 1815, the current Gothenburg Cathedral is the third on a site in Sweden’s second largest city which dates back to the early 1600s. The building has seen a constant series of improvements, including being the first Swedish church fitted with central heating, plus a number of major restoration and renovation projects.
The latest upgrade has been to its sound reinforcement system. Installed 11 years ago - including a Yamaha LS9 digital mixing console, DME24N digital mixing engine and ICP1 surface-mount controller - the installed loudspeakers were lacking quality and coverage by today’s standards.
“The main need was to improve the intelligibility and

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