Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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Europe - R&B diva Mariah Carey recently packed arenas across Europe with a Meyer Sound Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system. The powerful and transparent system clearly delivered Carey's five-octave range and soaring, melismatic vocal style to every seat without the use of delays. Mixed by FOH engineer Lorin White Jr., the 22-city Sweet Sweet Fantasy Tour was Carey's first European tour in 13 years.

"The Leo system is superb for handling Mariah's voice, particularly when I'm tracking her extended high notes," reports Lorin, whose mixing credits include Roberta Flack, Jon Secada, Hilary Duff, Melissa Manchester, and Machine Head. "She always gets a strong crowd reaction when she hits those extreme highs - like on Emotions - so I always try to give her a push o

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UK - The Theatres Trust has announced that booking is now open for its tenth annual conference: Conference 16: Protecting Theatres, to be staged at the New London Theatre.

Says the Trust, "In this milestone year in the history of the Trust we will examine the state of our nation's theatres and discuss their future. We will consider the past and present influences on theatre architecture and design; the provision of existing and new theatres in response to city and government devolution; changing demographics; housing delivery and community and audience demand.

"We will then look to the future, and the potential for the next 40 years, and ask: What kinds of theatres will we need to build, and how will we find the resources to do so? How should we be asking existing buildings to adapt and change? What impact will the popularity of digital distribution of live theatre have? H

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Germany - HK Audio has formed a new Business Solutions division, offering "highly efficient and acoustically outstanding packages" worldwide for installation projects which require special custom solutions.

With a focus on the hospitality sector, HK Audio Business Solutions delivers the company's 30+ years of 'Made in Germany' pro audio experience to customers who are not only looking for exemplary sound reinforcement, but who also want to be able to aesthetically integrate loudspeakers into sophisticated design environments, says the company.

To this end, Business Solutions customers will be able to customize their HK Audio system of choice to perfectly suit their needs.

Available in any desired colour, and featuring either printed or engraved design elements (such as company logos or slogans), the speakers will end up forming an integral part of the location's interi

PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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Australia - MPH Australia is a busy lighting rental company based in Melbourne, headed by Matt Hansen, a well-known personality in the Australian production world.

The company has enthusiastically embraced Robe as an in-house brand - with LEDWash 600s, MMX Spots, LEDBeam 100s - and was an early adopter of Robe's game-changing BMFL series fixtures.

MPH started as 'Matt's Party Hire' 11 years ago with the tongue-in-cheek trestle table and balloons logo for which Matt is still known and loved, a free-spirited attitude to life plus a selection of niche LED products, control and media servers also offering bespoke and off-beat lighting system designs.

This was a great success, and through his contacts, imagination and ability to think 'out-of-the-box' Matt designed and toured internationally with a number of top Australian bands, leaving his own kit with his colleagues and

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UK - Hawthorn has been awarded the contract to supply lighting and crew for upcoming performances by 80's British new wave group, OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark).

The band, which has sold over 40m records worldwide, is returning to the stage to perform classic 1980's albums Dazzle Ships and Architecture & Morality in full, with performances kicking off at a sell-out gig on 9 May 2016 at London's Royal Albert Hall. Further shows have been announced in Germany, with the band now also playing in Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg.

The Concert Touring division in Hawthorn is drawing upon its extensive range of hire equipment, supplying lighting to specification, including Clay Paky Wash, Clay Paky Sharpy, Robe BMFL Spot and Martin Atomic 3000 Strobe fixtures. Hawthorn is also supplying two members of crew for the four dates.

Mick Freer, head of concert tou

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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

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UK - The Shaftesbury Theatre in London prides itself on being the largest independent theatre in the West End. For over a century it has played host to many high quality, large scale productions, and in order to ensure its long term ability to do this, the theatre recently extended its fly tower, increasing both the height and loading capacity.

This valuable addition to the Grade II listed theatre has made the venue more capable than ever of accommodating large scale productions, particularly musicals, and indeed earlier this month opened Motown The Musical to critical and audience acclaim. The theatre now also provides additional dressing room accommodation and increased on-site office space. To help facilitate the refurbishment, Unusual Rigging was engaged on each of the three phases of the construction process, the last of which was completed in February 2016.

Ja

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In The Vatican - The Edge has performed four songs in the Sistine Chapel to raise awareness for cancer prevention, becoming the first contemporary artist to play at the venue. The guitarist played for around 200 doctors, researchers and philanthropists as part of a conference at the Vatican on regenerative medicine. He played acoustic guitar and was backed by a choir of seven Irish teenagers. He performed Leonard Cohen's If It Be Your Will, and versions of three U2 songs. The Edge, whose real name is David Evans, lost his father to cancer last month. He is on the board of several foundations working in aid of cancer prevention.

Park Life - T in the Park will go ahead at Strathallan in July after councillors granted the festival a one-year public entertainment licence. The approval followed a five-hour Perth and Kinross Council meeting attended by organisers and o

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Create new traditions – Cameo P6 - High Output Full-Spectrum Ellipsoidal

Cameo's P6 is a future-proof LED profiler with a powerful 600 W RGBACL engine and 16,000 lumens. It’s an energy-efficient replacement for 2.5 kW halogen profile lights in theatres and venues. With excellent light quality and natural colour rendering, it fits perfectly in theatres, musicals, TV studios, congresses, and live events.

With an LED life of 50,000 hours and low power use, the P6 cuts energy costs and supports the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ goals for climate neutrality by 2050. It also meets updated eco-design rules for lighting.

www.cameolight.com/p6profile

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UK - Following on from PLASA's backstage tour of Sadler's Wells in March, a visit has been arranged to the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

The Royal Shakespeare Company will be welcoming PLASA members on 24th May 2016 to take part in an immersive backstage tour covering the transformation of Elizabeth Scott's iconic 1932 cinema-style Royal Shakespeare Theatre into a definitive new environment for performing the works of Shakespeare.

This was a major construction programme and Stage Electrics were involved on-site in the realisation of this transformation for over four years working to the design brief created by Charcoalblue (theatre consultants), Buro Happold (engineers) and Bennetts Associates (architects).

This project was a huge collaborative effort with a number of different contributors all handpicked by the RSC. More r

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UK - Following its successful launch in the US in 2015, Marq Lighting, a new player in the entertainment lighting sector, hasannounced the global rollout of its diverse range of innovative professional lighting products.

Marq Lighting is an independent brand owned by music industry heavyweight inMusic. inMusic has a long-standing reputation designing, engineering, manufacturing and marketing twelve different brands of music recording and performance equipment and software from influential lines including Numark, Denon DJ, Akai Professional, M-Audio and Alto Professional.

Marq was born from a long-established pedigree of innovative in-house music/DJ design and engineering, where the needs and requirements of artists and performers are understood and experienced first-hand. This experience offers a unique perspective that directly benefits the design and specification of the

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USA - Elation Professional has added to its family of LED strobes with the new Protron 3K Color, a high-power LED strobe light featuring 240 x CREE XLamp 3W RGBW LEDs and 40,000 lumens of power for an explosion of colour. The Protron 3K Colour not only packs a powerful punch of coloured light - and without thermal issues - it provides a much better ROI compared to conventional 3K Xenon strobes on the market, says the company.

Utilizing special optics and new LED driver technology, the Protron 3K Color includes built-in strobe effect macros like burst, pulse and lightning for different effects possibilities and can even operate full on without causing thermal-out issues (output at full max 10 seconds) thanks to regulated silent cooling fans that keep the strobe from overheating.

The Protron 3K Color uses much less power than Xenon strobes (peak power output is 800W) and is

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One of the most highly tipped rock 'n' roll exhibitions of all time - the Rolling Stones' Exhibitionism at the Saatchi Gallery in London - uses technology on a grand scale to create the realism of the band's early history, and enhance the visitor experience through seven separate zones.

Produced and curated by Australian event company IEC (International Entertainment Consulting), the lighting design has been created by another major event company, Woodroffe Bassett Design (WBD). They, in turn, have specified a number of LED fixtures from GLP, who are the nominated exclusive automated lighting partner.

The inventory was supplied and installed through partners White Light, under the project management of Simon Needle. This included 25 GLP impression X4, each featuring 19 high output RGBW LEDs, along with six of the new X4 Bar 20 high performance battens. All appear in the 'P

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UK - Bluebell Opticom, provider of innovative fibre optic solutions for fixed and remote applications, has announced that UK broadcaster ITV has installed a ShaxX Lite SMPTE hybrid alternative connector kit as part of a studio upgrade and relocation. The ShaxX Lite allows ITV to share the refurbished studio with an existing master control room in another part of the building.

"Thanks to Bluebell's ShaxX Lite, we didn't need to design and build a new cable bridge between buildings to reach the gallery from the studio," said Steve Usher, project manager, ITV. "Eliminating those steps saved us time and money."

The refurbished studio, which is used for live broadcasts of This Morning five mornings a week, has been relocated a long distance away from the master control room, and the ducting was too congested to run SMPTE hybrid cable between them. Thanks to the ShaxX Lit

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USA - Located near Oklahoma City, Maple Schools is a K-8 elementary school serving 155 students. Its new Clyde Gene Miller Gymnasium, completed in 2014, is a multi-purpose facility for Maple Eagles sports, band and choir performances, assemblies, graduations and other events. In 2015, the school added a versatile, high-performance audio system designed and installed by Video Reality of Oklahoma City.

Sales manager Cody McDowell knew that the school needed a multi-purpose audio system with good coverage and clear voice intelligibility. And the school added one more requirement, "We want this place to rock!" To meet the school's needs, McDowell designed an exploded cluster system using eight Community V Series V2-3264 three-way, full-range loudspeakers supplemented with two I SeriesIS6-218 dual-18" subwoofers. The loudspeakers are arranged to cover the floor and the home and vis

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USA - Indoor cycling is a fitness activity that has raced into the fast lane. According to one study, the number of dedicated cycling centres in the US increased by over 20 percent last year. A visit to Ride Delray Indoor Cycling Studio makes it easy to understand why this trend has taken off. Guests at the sparkling new facility aren't simply exercising, they're participating in a fitness party, cycling together in choreographed rhythmic moves to the beat of lively music. Contributing to the good feelings is an immersive lightshow created with a collection of Chauvet Professional and Iluminarc LED fixtures.

"Lighting is a key part of the experience at Ride Delray. It helps to set the mood and engages people," said Jay Krause of Sound and Lighting Solutions, who designed the centre's lighting system. "The owners of this centre, Susan Albinder and Linda Besman, recognized the i

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USA - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) recently opened a new exhibit, The Heavens Are Opened, at its Church History Museum in Salt Lake City. The exhibit includes a seven-minute short film that depicts the First Vision, an integral moment in Mormon history when Church founder Joseph Smith prayed out loud within a grove of trees asking for guidance.

In an effort to immerse the audience in the recreation of Smith's original experience in Palmyra, New York, the production team filmed in the area using 14 strategically placed d:dicate 4006A Recording and d:screet 4061 Miniature mics from DPA Microphones.

The d:dicate 4006A microphones were used in a traditional DPA Decca Tree in the grove, to support the nine cameras that were shooting a 360-degree area. Though the video was edited down to only 240 degrees to accommodate the size of the video screen

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USA - Three draft standards have been added to the ESTA public review page at http://tsp.esta.org/tsp/documents/public_review_docs.php. People materially affected by the standards are invited to review them and to offer comments, if they chose, before the reviews end on 27 June. The three draft standards are:

BSR E1.40, Recommendations for the Planning of Theatrical Dust Effects

ANSI E1.40-2011 is being revised to warn against deflagration--deflagration being the technical term for the wave of flame that burned hundreds of people at a water park in Taiwan last year. Other changes include a regrouping of types of dusts and changing MSDS references to SDS references.

BSR E1.41, Recommendations for the Measurement of Entertainment Luminaires Utilizing Solid State Light Sources

ANSI E1.41-2012 is being revised to specify that the Fidelity Index (Rf) rating, as defined

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Macau - Studio City carries the strongest entertainment theming of any resort in Macau and the epic movie theatre vision is carried throughout every part of the building. The fa

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USA - In the 1970s, the Skyway 6 in Minneapolis was one of the biggest downtown multi-cineplexes in the US. Twenty years later, its glory days as a movie theatre gone, it stood worn and neglected, before being reborn as the Skyway Theatre, one of the hottest electronic music venues anywhere. Virtually every major EDM artist has performed at this spacious 2,000-seat Minneapolis icon, but the same cavernous qualities that make this a magical place to take in a concert can also create special challenges for a designer wanting to create big looks on stage.

Being from Minneapolis and having designed for the Skyway Theatre before, lighting designer Ryan Warffuel and VJ/content creator Max Koehler of Antic Studios were familiar with this challenge. They were therefore ready to "fill space" when they created a rig for the red-hot Canadian duo Adventure Club at Skyway, using a collecti

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Columbia - Estereo Picnic is Colombia's biggest live music event - staged in Bogota, the weekend festival is now in its seventh year, and attracted more than 50 national and international artists to perform on its three principal stages.

This year, for the first time, Nexo's flagship STM Series modular line array was in action on the Pepsi stage. In another Latin American first, the new M28 double 8" cabinets were the main modules in the PA arrays, in an extensive Nexo system supplied by a team effort between rental companies Arbol Naranja and Audionexo, supported by the Nexo distributor Sound Logics and field engineer Roberto Tschopp from Nexo itself.

Using Nexo's proprietary NS-1 modelling and prediction software, Roberto Tschopp helped the rental providers to design a main PA with 9x STM M28 main cabinets per side, flown with 6x STM S118 subs per side. With a significan

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UK - Blackburn based lighting specialists Lite Alternatives has been busy beefing up the stunning lighting rig for supergroup Coldplay. The company's MD, Paul Normandale, is the band's lighting designer and Lite Alternative is supplying the worldwide lighting control package and European lighting equipment for the band's latest tour.

For the cabling and assemblies, Lite Alternative's Andy Rhymes turned again to VDC Trading who have supplied the Neutrik Opticalcon MTP Fibre Cables and new custom break out panels. VDC has supplied a further two 150m and one 75m fibre multicores to enable Andy to expand his existing control system to meet the needs of the latest production, linking dimmer positions on stage left, stage right and under the 'B' Stage with FOH control.

VDC's Adam Jafrabadi commented, "Lite Alternative has kept us busy this year. Most of it custom racks, associat

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UK - Old Barn Audio (OBA) has equipped a five-star sushi and fish restaurant in London's Belgravia with Martin Audio's new CDD system, to meet its expanded business model.

Opened two years ago, Salmontini initially brought in OBA to fit a background music system following a referral. But as the business developed, managing director Jason Bassili responded to the demands of his upmarket clientele by requesting a full-blown live music system. Directors Phil Clark and Neil Kavanagh had no hesitation in which brand they would use, and the latter was soon on site specifying a potent CDD system.

CDD's innovative engineering, using patented Coaxial Differential Dispersion technology, which guarantees consistency of coverage, is matched by the general aesthetic of these distinctive curved enclosures.

"It was the logical decision for them," says Clark. "They were not only spend

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Astera - Large MPU - June 2025
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