Europe - Following its successful launch last September, Vista by Chroma-Q has announced ‘Release 2’ (R2) of their Vista 3 lighting and media control software.
Since its launch last year, Vista 3’s approach to lighting and media control has been embraced by major rental companies, production houses and international lighting designers. It has also been used on a number of international tours - notably, for Cliff Richard and Don Broco.
As part of Chroma-Q's ongoing commitment to increased functionality and enhanced capability, Vista 3 R2 highlights include: expanded fixed installation and external trigger capabilities, including an Astronomical clock and new auto show load options. Other additions include a further improved FX engine, expanded Command Line function

Germany - Adamson Systems Engineering is set to expand its S-Series, a line of sub-compact, tour-proven loudspeakers, with several new solutions at this year’s edition of Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt.
The latest additions include the S7 ultra-compact two-way, full-range line array enclosure and complementary S118 subwoofer, plus the S7p and S10p two-way, full-range point source cabinets. Together, they offer a substantial increase in configuration options for standalone S-Series systems in corporate, theatre, worship, and live music applications or, thanks to Adamson’s uniform voicing between product families, deployments supporting the flagship large-format E-Series.
“The S-Series family changed the face of Adamson, transforming it from a manufacturer of performance loudspeakers to a provider of complete system solutions,” shares James Oliver, director of mar

USA - Dante will be demonstrating how networked audio can revolutionise conferencing and collaboration at Enterprise Connect 2019 in Orlando later this month. The inaugural Dante AV Networking Pavilion will showcase how Dante-enabled products from Bose, Sennheiser and SoundTube can transform enterprise conferencing and collaboration.
In addition, Zoom Video Conferencing will be demonstrating how Dante networking can bring unprecedented flexibility and audio quality to conference spaces with a Dante-enable Zoom Room demonstration in their booth.
In the Dante AV Networking Pavilion, Bose will be showing the new Dante-integrated PowerShare amps and expanded ControlSpace EX line of DSPs. Sennheiser will demonstrate the new Dante-enabled TeamConnect 2 beam forming ceiling microphone, and SoundTube will display their revised lineup of Dante-enabled PoE powered loudspeaker s
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Strictly FX, Pushing Boundaries

Strictly FX was founded in 1996 by industry veterans Mark Grega and Ted Maccabee. Our expertise and knowledge of the world’s leading pyrotechnic, laser, and flame manufacturers allows us to curate astonishing live events. With over 500+ shows performed a year, there’s good chance you’ve seen some of our work!

China - Creative director Daan Oomen and his team from Netherlands-based visual specialists Live Legends have delivered a major club project in China – OT Kun in Kunming – following up their work at One Third in Beijing.
At the core of the lighting rig are 56 x Robe MegaPointes and 110 x Spikies chosen by Daan and Live Legends’ lighting designer/production manager, Serge Patist.
They were again working for NOA’s Arc Group as the design partner for this newest flagship venue, a 1,500-capacity property that includes 50 VIP tables positioned right in the centre of the main room action around the dancefloor.
Prominent guests can therefore be in the vortex of an immersive lighting, video, automation and visual experience, all designed and specified by Live Legends. The long-term objective is to create a series of clubs that “unite imagination and cutting-ed
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Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

Spain - A glittering array of national and international movie stars gathered at the Palacio de Congresos y Exposiciones in Sevilla on 2 February 2019 to celebrate the 33rd edition of the Goya Awards, celebrating the Spanish film industry.
Presented by the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (AACCE), the Goya Awards were established in 1987 to honour the best in Spanish filmmaking. The ceremony, which is always a glamorous occasion with high production values, was televised nationally by Spanish public television broadcaster, TVE, and internationally by the TVE Internacional channel.
This year, the Goya Awards took place for the first time in Seville instead of Madrid, its traditional home since the inaugural event in 1987, and the new host city took the opportunity to spruce itself up by lighting some of its most famous monuments. The emblematic Torre del Oro

UK - Rope Assemblies has supplied a range of Doughty kit to the Royal Albert Hall to help improve safety in the performance space. As a duty of care to performers on stage and to ensure that any falls from height are prevented, Doughty designed and fabricated some bespoke handrail braces to make the space as safe as possible.
Ian Redding, technical supervisor at the Royal Albert Hall explained: "While there were no incidents that triggered the need for these rails, our technical team are always striving to ensure that no stone is left unturned when it comes to the safety of our performers, crew and audiences. The challenge was to design and create something that could work for our stage, but at the same time, not to look too intrusive.
“It also had to be strong enough to withstand the weight of an average person. We had a round, scaffold size connection on the off s
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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 - Special Event Services (SES), headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has sent a large complement of Claypaky Scenius Unico, Mythos 2 and Sharpy fixtures on tour with American country group Zac Brown Band. ACT Lighting Inc. is the exclusive North American distributor of Claypaky..
Zac Brown Band has commenced the second leg of its Down the Rabbit Hole Live tour, the group’s fifth headlining concert tour, in support of its fifth studio album, Welcome Home. The tour launched last summer; the new 15-date leg kicked off this month in Tulsa, Oklahoma and wraps in Peoria on 27 April.
SES is the lighting vendor for the band; its sister company Special Event Transportation (SET) serves as the trucking company.
“We’ve worked with Zac Brown Band for the last 10 years, including the first leg of Down the Rabbit Hole,” says Jeff Cra

South Korea - 3.15 Art Centre in Changwon recently collaborated with TechData Co and Harman Professional Solutions to upgrade their concert hall with a JBL audio system for events, live performances and more.
3.15 Art Centre is a multi-purpose venue dedicated to enhancing the creativity and diversity of the performing arts. In order to provide suitable sound quality for live performances in their 1,100-seat concert hall, 3.15 Art Centre recently decided to upgrade their existing sound system. Together with TechData Co, 3.15 Art Centre outfitted their concert hall with JBL VTX V20 line-array loudspeakers, VTX S25 subwoofers, SRX812P powered speakers and Crown I-Tech 4x3500HD amplifiers.
“3.15 Art Centre asked us to deploy an audio solution capable of outputting high sound pressure levels with a flat frequency response,” said Jonathan Choi, tech lab engineer, TechDat

Italy - On 21-23 February, Stazione Leopolda and The Student Hotel in Florence hosted the first edition of the Bright Festival, an event dedicated to digital art, lighting design and electronic music, organised in collaboration with Florence Chamber of Commerce and Municipality and addressing pros, students and fans of the three sectors.
The festival’s innovative format proposed an original fusion of education and entertainment, which was anything but conventional “edutainment”. The daytime programme featured meetings, master classes, workshops and lectures, which covered highly varied topics: from music production to virtual reality, in collaboration with universities, Italian and international companies and start-ups. Participants showed great interest in all the initiatives dedicated to electronic music, but also those regarding projection mapping, lighting design f

UK - In 2016 Capital Sound Hire’s technical manager, Robin Conway, designed an audio system for an in-the-round presentation of Fatboy Slim (aka Norman Cook) at the O2 Arena, using the Martin Audio MLA sound rig to bring him closer to the audience.
“All of a sudden with the DJ booth in the middle you forget you’re in a big arena. We worked out that’s a way of turning an arena into a huge nightclub,” Cook had declared in an interview. “You get all the benefits of collective euphoria with the budget to do a very big production.”
When he later announced his biggest arena tour yet, with six dates fittingly called The Round Trip, complete with revolving stage in the centre, circular overhead video, confetti cannons and pyro, Capital decided to extend this ‘boxing match meets rave’ concept by increasing the ordnance of the PA.
To pull off this

USA - Lady Gaga launched her Las Vegas residency Enigma show at MGM’s Park Theatre with Elation Professional DARTZ 360 beam/spot effects playing an integral role in LeRoy Bennett’s lighting design. Lighting supply is by Solotech.
Headlining her own Vegas show, Enigma, and an accompanying jazz and piano show, the two-year residency will cover 74 shows and possibly more. The theatrical show relates the story of Gaga and her Enigma character and embraces a message of healing and discovery. Lady Gaga herself calls the show "a celebration of all that is unique and different within us".
Although the Park Theatre is a smaller venue, Bennett, who serves as production, lighting and set designer, says he designed the show to feel like an arena concert. To that end, a huge custom-built light pod fabricated by Unison and outfitted with over 230 DARTZ 360 LED mo

UK - Green Hippo has been visiting Backstage Academy and providing Hippotizer training for a number of years now, during which time it’s seen the education facility grow from strength to strength.
Therefore, when the Academy decided to hold a dedicated Green Hippo Week recently, in which 10 first year students and six second year students participated, the manufacturer provided maximum support by sending senior product specialist, Lanz Short, along for the duration.
Under the tutelage of him, and Backstage Academy’s course leader in Live Visual Design & Production, Graham Thorne, the students were tasked with producing a project - a show, performance or event - resourced with all the ingredients that they might have expected in a Masterchef kitchen.
These ranged from Notch, Maya and Isadora software platforms, while in the hardware domain Hippotiz

UK - Well-known industry figure, Matt Lloyd, is to leave his role at Bristol-based technology company GDS after 14 years’ service. Following a restructuring of the company, the co-founder and former managing director had been working in a consultancy role but a change in direction, following the sale of key brands including ArcSystem to ETC, led GDS to terminate the arrangement.
Having gained a wealth of experience and know-how during his time at GDS and Stage Electrics, Matt, vice-chairman of PLASA, will continue to advance the gb4u consultancy he launched in September 2018. gb4u works with a range of businesses, from start-ups to established operations, to advise on and assist with the promotion of strategies for growth and development. Matt is also discussing a number of other opportunities with businesses keen to take advantage of his wide-ranging skills and industry

UK - Harman’s UK distributor Sound Technology is bringing the company’s latest performance audio and lighting products at a showcase on 27 March (Wednesday) at the Islington Assembly Hall in London.
The event is aimed at venue operators, rental and production companies, engineers and designers.
Delegates can hear the new JBL VTX A8 Series line array system, which has been installed by the host venue. The demos are taking place at 12.30pm and 4.30pm.
Meanwhile, those interested in lighting can attend the Martin by Harman showcases at 11am and 3pm, which will feature the new ERA 300 Profile (modern day LED successor to the much-loved MAC 250), the now-shipping ELP Series LED Ellipsoidal fixtures, the MAC Allure Profile creative fixture with P3 technology, plus the award-winning MAC Encore Wash, MAC Encore Performance and JEM Glaciator Dynamic.
In additi

USA - Chauvet Professional has added a collection of PAR fixtures to its Ovation line, which already features LED ellipsoidal, Fresnel and batten fixtures.
Available in RGBA-Lime, warm white, variable white and UV models, the new PAR fixtures have 16-bit dimming, a single-source homogenous light, RDM and Variable Pulse Width Modulation. All of the new PARs come with interchangeable lens plates for medium and wide beam angles, and they accept standard 7.5” beam shaping accessories.
The three non-UV PAR fixtures also feature a high CRI, which results in more realistic lighting for stage and broadcast applications. Virtually silent in their operation, the new PARs have the bright output that designers have come to expect from the Ovation series.
“We’re very excited to be able to offer designers Ovation level performance in LED PAR fixtures,” says Albert Chau

Germany - L-Acoustics is returning to Prolight+Sound with an exhibition space in a new area and a host of product-related announcements, demonstrations, and contributions to events throughout the show.
Following the introduction of the small and highly weatherized X4i enclosure for installation markets at ISE 2019, the manufacturer has announced plans to unveil a new range of scalable solutions for the rental market at the Frankfurt-based trade show.
Jochen Frohn, director of business development, L-Acoustics, comments: “We always look forward to welcoming visitors, customers, and partners to this important annual gathering in Frankfurt. This year, we are especially looking forward to revealing new enclosures for our touring range that offer accessible, scalable solutions to any application.”
L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound demonstrations, which filled to

South Korea - TechData Co recently provided Oryun Community Church in Seoul and its newly-built religious retreat, the Oryun Vision Village, with a complete Harman Professional Solutions audio and control systems.
Founded in 1988, Oryun Community Church is a South Korean Christian organisation that operates multiple churches and worship spaces in and around Seoul.
Having had a positive experience with Harman products during their last renovation, Oryun Church hired TechData to design systems for both the Vision Centre and Vision Village facilities.
"We were very satisfied with the Harman solutions we acquired in our 2015 renovation,” says Sunho Ju, sound director at Oryun Community Church. “Since Vision Village is not only our training centre but also available for outside rental, we needed a solution that would be easy for anyone to use, including those who

USA - The work of rock‘n’roll photographer and author Neal Preston is coming to the USITT show, taking place on 21-23 March at the Kentucky International Convention Centre in Louisville, KY courtesy of The Lightpower Collection.
Preston’s pictures will be displayed in the Behind the Scenes stand #1253 and his books Exhilarated & Exhausted and In the Eye of the Hurricane will be available for sale. Posters, including his famous images of Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant, will also be available for just $10 each. Sales of books, posters and prints will benefit the Behind the Scenes charity.
The photographer will be present in the Behind the Scenes booth to sign books and posters on Thursday and Friday from 12-1pm and 4-5pm.
Preseton’s client list is a virtual who’s-who of rock royalty and his archive is regarded as one of the music indus

USA - Described by CMT as a “true representation of current country for the next generation”, newcomer Cash Campbell burst onto the music scene in 2017 with his debut song, Cannonball, and has already racked up 20m streams and views worldwide. He has built a fan base on the road with headlining shows and sharing the bill with A-list acts on multiple tours, including his current trek on which he’s carrying a DiGiCo SD12 console to run both FOH and monitors.
Chosen by Dallas-based Jordan Bledsoe, who serves as Campbell’s FOH engineer, production manager and tour manager, the SD12 and its accompanying DiGiCo SD-Rack were rented from Arlington’s B&L Sound and Lighting, which is supplying the tour’s complete control package.
“This has been my first experience with DiGiCo and, to be honest, I had been intimidated to use one because of how detailed yo

USA - For Pigeons Playing Ping Pong’s sold-out Stage AE show in Pittsburgh in January, the band’s lighting designer Manny Newman created an intense panoramic mothership landing look that appeared like something out of a Steven Spielberg film.
“We wanted not just to immerse fans, but to kind of challenge their sense of reality,” explains Newman. Helping him in this ambitious endeavour was a collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue fixtures from his personal stock and rented from Hougie’s in Pittsburgh.
Newman used 12 Rogue R1 Wash, eight Rogue R1 Spot and 12 Rogue R2 Wash fixtures in his rig. “We relied on these fixtures to create a mothership look,” he says. “What we did didn’t involve science fiction; it was just the result of the careful placement of fixtures. We get this gigantic look when the upstage movers are in a high fanned-out position and t

Macau The House of Dancing Water - the water-based stage production, directed by Franco Dragone and staged in the House of Dancing Water Theatre in Macau, has recently added 63 new Robe moving lights to the theatre’s rig.
The 41 x BMFL Wash XFs and 21 x Tarrantula LED wash beam lighting fixtures have now been installed in the theatre as part of a drive to upgrade the technical equipment to include more sustainable and advanced options than were available when the show launched in 2010.
The integrity, drama and dynamics of Luc Lafortune’s original lighting design are all preserved as the concept works to support the show narrative.
The House of Dancing Water (THODW) show is one of the most successful entertainment phenomena in the world - having clocked up over 3,500 performances, it has been enjoyed by over three million spectators.
Karl Jenkin

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