USA - Nexo’s flagship modular line array system, the STM Series, with supplementary Geo S12, was used for a very large house-of-worship event in the impressive US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Fifty thousand people attended the free Pulse - Twin Cities show, with Reach Communications providing the 360° Nexo PA system.
Multiple headliners played the concert, including LeCrae, Hillsong and Jaberwockies. The recently-built stadium is already known for its challenging acoustics, but, as one of the largest venues in the region, it has played host to many world-class touring artists and their engineers. All eyes were on Nexo, to see how STM Series would perform!
System deployment was in a 360° arrangement, with STM as main, out, side and delays, S12 as rear, and M10

USA - Barry Manilow began an extended residency at the International Theatre at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino on 24 May. The 1,600-seat theatre is where Elvis Presley performed 837 consecutive sold-out shows. As part of a $150m renovation, it now boasts a RoomMatch sound system from Bose Professional.
Ken Newman, Manilow’s long-time front-of-house engineer, says he had some hesitancy about using the new sound system ahead of the first shows, having never worked with a RoomMatch system before. “I went there and put the system through the same evaluation process I always do, including analysing pink noise through the system and then playing eight sets of stem files through the house console from previous recordings I’ve done of Barry in other venues,” he explains.
“I came away rather impressed. It’s a challenge keeping Barry’s vocal above the

UK - Martin Audio has completed a management buyout (MBO) from global audio specialist Loud Audio. The MBO has been backed by private equity investor LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group.
As part of the deal, LDC, alongside the Martin Audio management helmed by MD Dom Harter, has invested £12m in the company. The investment will enable the business to further develop its product range, improve its sales and marketing capabilities through the extension of its global distribution network and enhance its digital infrastructure through software development, says Martin Audio.
As part of the deal, LDC investment directors Troy Harris-Speid and Philip Weston will join the board, alongside James Browning who will join as non-executive director.
Dom Harter, managing director of Martin Audio, said: “Our success to date has been underpinned by providing

UK - Stage Electrics have supplied the Stamford Shakespeare Company with a new Altair wireless communication system ahead of their summer season of plays. The Stamford Shakespeare Company is an amateur theatre group, who perform at the distinctive Rutland Open Air Theatre, within the grounds of Tolethorpe Hall, Stamford.
Requiring a new wireless comms system ahead of their 2018 season, the Stamford Shakespeare Company enlisted Stage Electrics for guidance. “The client approached us with an idea of what they wanted. We discussed several different comms systems but settled on Altair’s WBS-202HD dual channel wireless intercom system,” comments Jonty Gray of Stage Electrics.
The WBS-202HD offers a secure communication between the base station operator and a maximum of eight wireless beltpacks. “The client specified that they needed the ability to allow the backsta

USA - Calvary Chapel Las Vegas supports five worship services each week, using an Allen & Heath dLive Digital Mixing System in their main worship space and an Allen & Heath GLD-80 Digital Mixer in a smaller chapel. Vocalists and musicians in both spaces use Allen & Heath ME-1 Personal Monitor Mixers.
The church’s several buildings, including a K-12 school, are connected with a fibre network and its audio systems communicate via Dante so that the chapel can be used for overflow from the main worship space and services or events in either space can be broadcast over a streaming service and recorded for the church’s website.
Technical director Michael Millington explained the decision to adopt Allen & Heath. “I wanted the dLive because, at 96k, it was an amazing option and it met our budget. Second, it doesn’t scare volunteers away like some of th

USA - The inaugural American Knight of Illumination Awards (KOI-USA), has announced the full judging panel for the five awards in the Concert Touring & Events category.
Concert Touring & Events judging panel:
John Featherstone, principal lighting designer and founder of Lightswitch and chair of the judging panel, has worked with The Pretenders, Van Halen, Duran Duran and Bryan Adams
Barry Lather, creative director, began his career starring as a dancer in Michael Jackson's film Captain EO, and has since gone on to direct world tours for Usher, Mariah Carey, Rihanna and Carrie Underwood
Angie Warner, touring manager for Guns'n'Roses, has more than 18 years' experience in the industry and has previously worked with NSYNC and Imagine Dragons
Yelena Filipchuk, artist and co-founder of installation art collective HYBYCOZO, creator of large-scale,

New Zealand - Wellington’s Te Auaha is a new university campus that provides a home to students of creative disciplines such as photography, film production, performing arts, visual arts and music.
Supporting the wide variety of productions at the school’s 200-seat theatre auditorium is a carefully planned LED lighting rig that features a large collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures installed by MDR Sound and Lighting, including 12 Ovation F-915FC Fresnel, 12 Ovation F-165WW, 10 Ovation E-910FC LED and 10 Maverick MK2 Spot fixtures.
"The Ovation F-915FC is a remarkable LED Fresnel," comments James Kearney, technical manager of Te Auaha. "One of the most impressive features is its ability to reproduce true theatre colours with near perfect CRI – astonishing, considering the fact that the LED source has none of the drawbacks of traditional tungsten Fresnels.<

France - Not far from the major port city of Caen in the Normandy region of north-west France, lies the small town of Mondeville. Despite its close proximity to Caen, Mondeville enjoys its own mayor, town hall and local services, including the municipally owned La Renaissance theatre, now the proud owner of a new d&b audiotechnik sound system solution.
While d&b systems can be found among the world’s most prestigious venues, it is the teams behind lesser known local applications that are making quality listening truly accessible to all. To that end regional projects like La Renaissance receive every bit as much attention, time and effort as the globally renowned stadiums and concert halls.
Laurent Coulombier is the theatre’s technical manager. “We needed to replace our old sound system that was completely obsolete, and it ultimately came down to three bra
featured content

ETC Halcyon Silent

High End Systems Halcyon Silent builds on ETC’s legacy of fanless automated fixtures by incorporating features from the highly sought-after Halcyon family. Halcyon Silent perfectly balances silent operation with brilliant output of 18,400 lumens and high-impact features. 

For more information visit us at www.etcconnect.com

Switzerland – The Geneva International Motor Show attracts more than 700,000 visitors every year. This year, Source Four fixtures from ETC were among the luminaires selected to highlight the new models unveiled by premium car manufacturers Mercedes-Benz and Audi.
German-based rgb GmbH was entrusted to supply bespoke lighting solutions for the exhibition spaces of Audi and Mercedes-Benz. In order to illuminate global premieres from Mercedes-Benz, the rgb team specified 141 Source Four PAR 750, 43 Source Four Profile 750 and three Source Four LED Series 2 Daylight HD from ETC.
Meanwhile, a press event for Mercedes-Benz called for an additional 49 Source Four LED Series 2 Daylight HD fixtures, a further 25 Source Four PAR 750 and 28 Source Four PAR 575.
Additionally, almost 140 ETC fixtures were positioned to complement the Audi exhibition area, including 54 Sou

USA - Jack White has kicked off his headlining tour of North America and Europe with a large complement of Claypaky Sharpy Wash fixtures supporting the show.
White’s tour follows the release of his new solo album, Boarding House Reach. The Detroit native began the tour in his hometown in April and will play dates across the US and Canada before heading to Europe. Then he will return stateside for more dates in the fall and possibly into 2019.
Montreal-based Luz Studio designed the show’s production, lighting and video elements. Using a blue-and-white colour palette and White’s penchant for the number three, or multiples of three, the design features “three column-shaped rotators upstage with video on one side and three rows of 12 Sharpy Washes on the other, which can be positioned individually allowing for a wide variety of looks”, explains tour light

Europe - Björk’s ninth studio album, Utopia, was announced last summer, with the promise of a supporting tour this year. That tour kicked off at the Háskólabío Theater in the artist’s native Iceland. Headline appearances at the All Points East festival in London and Primavera Sound in Barcelona followed in May, with We Love Green Festival in Paris and Northside Festival in Arhus in June.
A run of own headline shows will follow for July, including The Eden Project UK, Gent, Rättvik, Helsinki and Rome. Front of House engineer John Gale joined Utopia’s touring team during its production stage in March, choosing a DiGiCo SD12 as his preferred method of control, that rental company CS Audio purchased from SSE Audio Group.
“Björk spent a long time producing and mixing the album and was very specific about the effects she wanted, in particular the pannin

UK - Triplex is the latest company to become an Adamson certified re-seller and rental partner appointed by Adamson’s UK distributor The Warehouse.
Based in London, Triplex was founded in 2013 by Ross Cornwall, Mark Sunderland and Sam O’Riordan. Triplex specialises in turnkey audio rental for concert touring, events & private parties. Alongside the rental business, they run a thriving install arm serving houses of worship, clubs & bars amongst others.
Jake Rudd, project manager at Triplex, comments: “As a touring engineer I have been stunned mixing on Adamson systems. We are so pleased to join with The Warehouse to deliver Adamson products to our clients. The team always strive to provide products that we believe will provide the best for our clients’ needs and Adamson ticks this box completely.”
Derek Blair, director of The Warehouse says: “T

UK - Loudspeaker manufacturer, EM Acoustics, has significantly expanded its manufacturing facility in Surrey, UK. Part of the expansion includes the investment in new hi-tech machinery to enable much more of the manufacturing process to be performed in house.
“We first moved into our current building in 2014,” explains operations director, Mike Wheeler. “We’ve gradually expanded as space has become available, and we now occupy just over 15,000 sq ft, which is three times our original surface. We’ve also tripled staffing levels since 2014 as our operations have expanded. The building now houses just about every part of the production process – from woodworking at one end of the factory, through warehousing, crossover assembly, final production, QC and shipping.”
Apart from the increase in space which has enabled everything to be brought under the same ro

USA - Lawo has continued its expansion in the Americas with the appointment of Jeff Smith to the post of vice-president of sales, Americas. Smith’s career in broadcast began in 2006 at Canadian broadcast equipment and solutions manufacturer Evertz, where he first worked as regional sales manager before becoming director of sales (sports and entertainment) this year.
Jamie Dunn, Lawo’s head of global sales, comments: “We are seeing rapid growth in the Americas based on our ability to deliver full IP broadcast infrastructures. This region has become our fastest-growing global territory. Jeff’s experience and background with these technologies makes him a natural choice to lead our sales organization there. I am delighted to welcome him to our team.”
Smith adds: “I have always had a deep passion for technology and science and what Lawo is doing with IP technol

Belgium - Belgian TV and stage entertainment producers Studio 100 asked Painting with Light to design lighting and video, including content creation, for their 2018 Ketnet (Children’s TV channel) musical Team UP, which played to sold-out crowds in four major cities around Belgium.
Directed by Tijl Dauwe, the production starred musical actress Goele De Raedt and Ketnet-wrapper Sander Gillis in the lead roles, accompanied by a cast of 12 - 15 year-old new actors and singers who auditioned via TV series Ketnet Musical, a reality style competition devised to source potential new singing, dancing and acting talent.
Painting with Light’s Paco Mispelters worked hard to deliver a tourable lighting design to meet everyone’s dramatic expectations and fit into an expedient budget. He took Studio 100’s impressive double-decker set design as a starting point

USA - The members of German supergroup Alphaville always dreamed of playing at Hollywood’s Whisky A Go Go. The synth-pop stars’ wish came true recently when they journeyed to the US and performed two Whisky a Go Go shows over the Memorial Day Weekend. Supporting their high-energy performance with fresh looks were eight Chauvet Professional Rogue R1 FX-B LED fixtures.
“This was a dream come true not only for Alphaville, but also for many of their diehard fans in the US,” says Richard Kay, who has been with the band as its lighting designer since 1998 and has toured 91 countries with them. “The whole experience was a bit surreal – LA, Hollywood, palm trees, who wouldn’t love it? Marian Gold (the band’s lead vocalist) always wanted to perform at Whisky a Go Go. We were on tour in the US last year; we all knew about Marian’s dream so we did some sniffing, met s

USA - Hayley Kiyoko tour engineers Dusty Black (FOH/TM) and Nic Monaco (Monitors/PM) continue to expand their use of the Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system as they set off on their latest summer tour season. Building upon the buzz of Kiyoko's recent hit album release, Expectations, upcoming performances include shows at dozens of arenas across the US and Canada supporting the Panic! At The Disco Pray For The Wicked tour.
Having worked together for over a year as a FOH/monitor engineer team, Dusty and Nic each selected a compact C1500 dLive Control Surface along with a shared 96kHz 160x64 FPGA Core DM48 MixRack as their console of choice. Utilising the multi-surface feature within the dLive, the same MixRack engine works across two surfaces.
Speaking to the sound of the dLive, Dusty says, "The desk is very transparent and easily transfers from

Belgium - ArKaos continues to expand its work and partnerships in the architainment, architectural and commercial creative media installation sectors on a recent project in the International Terminal at Brussels’ Zaventem Airport.
This is a collaboration with lighting and visual designer Koert Vermeulen of creative agency ACTLD.
The power and flexibility of ArKaos’s Kling-Net control protocol and Kling-Force LED interfaces have been harnessed to bring dynamic control to a 30,000 pixel video and kinetic sculpture which runs above the main travellator leading from the jetway to the baggage reclaim hall.
ACTLD was commissioned by Toerisme Vlaanderen (Flanders Tourism) to design, specify and supervise the production. For the installation, integrators Create won a public tender to deliver the project based on ACTLD’s specifications.
ArKaos and ACTLD have

Germany - Berlin-based Complete Audio has been supporting local punk rock band Beatsteaks with production almost since they formed more than two decades ago.
Now the group can sell out the massive 24,000 capacity Waldbühne Berlin amphitheatre - and for their recent outdoor show there André Rauhut’s company rigged their flagship Martin Audio MLA.
Complete Audio had been the first company to invest globally in the new MLA platform when it was launched eight years ago - and it was the first choice both for this show and a second open-air show the band are due to play in August, this time at the slightly smaller Kindl Bühne Wulheide in Berlin.
The rental company are no strangers to the Waldbühne, having worked there many times in the past, and Rauhut has system pre-sets to meet the challenges of a sensitive site. “Due to it being situated close to a residenti

USA - Audinate has announced the immediate availability of its Dante Certification Level 3 - Advanced Dante Networking training online.
This is an online version of the in-person Dante Certification Level 3, launched at InfoComm 2017 and conducted globally since. The Level 3 training course is an advanced level course aimed at those who have already been using Dante and want to gain more insight and knowledge in setting up and managing larger Dante-enabled networking systems. Building on what was covered in previous levels of Dante trainings, the Level 3 course delves deeper into various advanced networking concepts, mixed-use networks, networking best practices, and troubleshooting techniques.
The online version of the course is designed in such a way that it can be taken in short modules. The modular nature of the course will enable those who are familiar with some

UK - Star Events supplied the best seats in the house for Fly By Night, artist Duke Riley’s s show featuring 1,500 pigeons wearing tiny LEDs, which took flight in Thamesmead at the weekend.
Part of LIFT 2018, London’s premiere festival of international performance, and more than 12 months in the planning, Riley adapted Fly By Night from its New York debut in 2016 for three shows in the capital.
The performances paid homage to pigeons’ Great War effort, tiny LEDs replacing the messages pigeons carried between the lines from 1914 to 1918.
Called from their purpose-built, illuminated coop at dusk by Riley’s whistle, the specially trained birds lit up the sky in an impressive display over Thamesmead, which was home to munitions factories 100 years ago.
Rachel King, Star Events’ project manager, comments: "Alongside a 310-seat grandstand

Latest Issue. . .