Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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Time Flies - Live Aid was staged 30 years ago yesterday. On 13 July 1985, 75 different acts performed live for about 170,000 people in London and Philadelphia. An estimated 1.5 billion people in 110 countries watched it via a live television stream from 13 satellites. More than 40 nations also held telethons for African famine relief during the broadcast.

In our current digital age, these numbers may seem quaint, but in 1985, there was no World Wide Web, no email, no live blogging and no Twitter. Most people still listened to music by listening to the radio or playing vinyl records and cassette tapes; compact discs only became widely available this same year.

The event was a spectacular success, though not without its problems. Satellite links between London and Philadelphia fai

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India - Barco hosted its entertainment & corporate partner event in India on 25 and 26 June. Over 70 business partners gathered in Goa to get an overviews of the latest developments in entertainment and corporate visualization.

The Radisson Blu Resort Goa Cavelossim Beach traded its holiday atmosphere for one of hi-tech visualization and industry-leading projection. Throughout an action-packed two-day event, Barco offered its local business partners a series of workshops and hands-on product demos. "Staying abreast in a fast-evolving industry is not always easy," says Mandar Gupte, Barco E&C sales director. "Hence we took this opportunity to give our business partners a comprehensive overview of recent trends and new product launches."

Barco along with High End Systems turned the venue into a blank canvas onto which several of its newest solutions could shi

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UK - Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting - including over 300 moving lights - to the four principal stages at new UK festival Wild Life, together with their new high definition proprietary 7 mm LED screen for one stage. The weekend line-up was presented by two of the country's leading electronic artists - Disclosure and Rudimental - both also main stage headliners.

The event was staged over two days at Shoreham Airport in Sussex near Brighton, and enjoyed - together with excellent weather - by capacity crowds of 35,000 music fans each day.

Colour Sound won a competitive quote to supply the four main stages of the event which was organised and promoted by SJM. Haydn 'H' Cruickshank comments, "It's always really exciting to be involved in something fresh, new and different and we were delighted to be working on this one. It was a great chance to put the new screen thr

Doughty - Banner - from 4 July 2025

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UK - The Theatres Trust, the National Advisory Public Body for Theatres has announced the appointment of Claire Appleby as the Trust's new architecture adviser to provide expert advice on the architecture, design and heritage conservation of theatre buildings.

Claire will deliver high quality theatre building architecture, design and heritage conservation advice to theatre owners, operators and developers, members of the public, and local authorities. Her role involves advising on theatre-related capital redevelopments, refurbishments, restoration and rebuilding projects, providing one-to-one advice, and delivery of the Trust's Advisory Review with the advisory team.

As architecture adviser, Claire will also have a lead role in co-ordinating and advising on work to secure theatres at risk, in association with our Theatres Adviser.

Director Mhora Samuel, said, "I am deli

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UK - Star Events continues its campaign to make stage construction safer with the introduction of a tool-free handrail for the downstage edge of festival/event performance platforms.

Developed with an industry specialist and trialled during 2014, Star Events' handrail has had an immediate impact at sites this summer, clipping in and out of adapted sockets on performance stages, simply and quickly.

Rookie Manning, Health & Safety advisor to SJM Concerts at Summer in the City, Manchester, comments, "Star Events' system provides an excellent solution during build and strike phases of a production and I cannot see any reason why it shouldn't be used at all future events.

"The handrail can be erected or removed by two crew in a matter of minutes and having seen a number of people fall from stages over the last 16 years, I will have no hesitation in recommending it to cl

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Germany - Some 90,000 people descended on Rock am Ring in Mendig in western Germany last month for the festival's 30th anniversary in a new location. Attendances hit record levels to see headline acts Slipknot, Foo Fighters, Motorhead and In Flames amongst others. With over 150 bands playing over three days, festival-goers were spoilt for choice.

Southside, which took place in Tuttlingen in southern Germany, featured over 100 bands but with a distinctly more "alternative pop/rock" flavour. This time, around 60,000 fans turned out over three days to enjoy the music and a mix of sunshine and rain. DirectOut was on hand for the duration of both festivals to ensure seamless audio transmission from the stage to OB van for regional public broadcaster SWR.

DirectOut product manager Christian Müller was on site to assist SWR engineer Björn Lautenschlager throughout the two

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Australia - Vivid Sydney is the largest festival of light, music and ideas in the Southern Hemisphere and this year, Pyrmont's harbourside has been transformed into a buzzing multi-sensory, engaging zone where you control the entertainment.

The precinct features a number of interactive installations including Mission Control which gives the public the opportunity to create their own two-minute light show. Once you've selected your music track, you then get to play with forty-four Clay Paky Sharpys and ten Mythos fixtures positioned on The Star building and Sky Terrace.

Control, housed in a glass booth located in the park opposite The Star, consists of a large 60 inch touch screen controller with selectable colour, movement and effects.

"There's also a Leap Motion Controller, which is an infra-red detector that allows you to control the intensity of the lights by

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UK - Blackpool Council has announced the appointment of WarPro as specialist contractors for the town's new Illuminations project.

As announced in January, the resort's world famous illuminations display will this year be enhanced this year following a £2m cash boost from the Coastal Communities Fund.

With a further £420,000 being contributed by Blackpool Council contributing and public arts body LeftCoast, the £2.42m 'LightPool' project will give a new lease of life to the flagship attraction by enhancing the display and creating new exciting new light shows, events and features across the town centre.

New state-of-the-art signage will be included at key sites, guiding people around town and leading them to the different installations and new Illuminations 'ambassadors' will also be employed, supplemented by additional volunteers, to improve the visitors'

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North America - UK instrumentation specialist Mantracourt Electronics has announced the appointment of Paradigm Rigging as technical partner for the supply of its BroadWeigh wireless load monitoring equipment to the Canadian and United States entertainment sector.

The BroadWeigh portable wireless system offers real-time, simple, effective and accurate load monitoring for rigging professionals, safety officials and site managers, enabling them to monitor and log the precise loads on any given rigging point.

Central to the design of the BroadWeigh system are wireless shackles equipped with a high accuracy load pin that reports data remotely to a computer or a handheld display. The system is able to monitor multiple load cells and can trigger an alarm should a load exceed a pre-set parameter.

"We are very pleased to be appointed as a distributor for the BroadWeigh equipmen

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Czech Republic - Backstage Academy's BA Visual Production students have triumphed on production for The Society of British Theatre Designers' Make/Believe showcase at the Prague Quadrennial, where they created an immersive environmental projection mapping of a room in the Clam-Gallasuv Palác and won the Special PQ Jury Award.

"This has been a great collaborative process with creative and technical dialogue between professional designers, students and projection mapping experts. We are seeing the work in a completely new way," remarked Make/Believe curator Kate Burnett.

The Special PQ Jury Award, judged by a team of top international directors and designers, recognises "the richness and diversity of an exhibition that shows high quality work from across the spectrum of contemporary performance design - in a variety of venues, and embracing space, light, media an

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India - Just before the PALM expo in Mumbai, Laserworld welcomed a new member to the company group: Laserworld India was founded as a Laserworld company in New Delhi. Managing director of Laserworld India, Arun Kalra, comments, "I've been working in the entertainment technology industry for many years and have a huge business network all over India. With the huge product portfolio and the different product levels of Laserworld I'm very confident that we can meet the large demand that is in our market here."

Laserworld India will mainly act as sales hub, but will also maintain a service department for show laser service and repairs for India and surrounding countries. All brands that are manufactured or distributed through the Laserworld Group will be available through Laserworld India for the Indian market.

The new website for Laserworld India will provide further in

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USA - The Behind the Scenes Happy Hour, hosted by PLASA will go on sale to the public on 15 July, 2015. The biggest pre-LDI party of the year will take place on Thursday, 22 October, from 6pm-8pm at the Westgate Las Vegas. Tickets are $60 each and includes an open bar, hors d'oeuvres and music and all proceeds go to benefit the Behind the Scenes charity, the only industry charity that provides grants to ill or injured entertainment technician professionals. Following the success of the Behind the Scenes Happy Hour last year, tickets are expected to sell quickly.

Starting 15 July, tickets can be purchased online: http://behindthescenescharity.org/btshh. They can also be ordered through your LDI registration once available.

Current sponsors for the Behind the Scenes Happy Hour include: Altman Lighting (Executive), Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc. (Platinum), Ultratec (Platinum), Hea

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USA - Lighting designer Preston Hoffman created a dynamic and flexible production lighting design for the 2015 Summer Camp Festival staged at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Illinois. His stage, the Moonshine Stage, was based primarily around 16 x Robe BMFL Spots and 10 x Robe Pointe moving lights.

It was the second time that Boston-based Preston, also LD for headlining jam band moe. had worked at the four day event. The lighting equipment was supplied by Chicago-based Performance Lighting, a recent investor in BMFLs and Pointes.

A major challenge for the Moonshine Stage lighting design was that any equipment - trussing, set, lighting, etc. - had to be rigged off two roof beams with limited weight loading that were part of the semi-permanent stage's structure. Similar to the concept of the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, this encapsulates the spirit of the Festival, and has b

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USA - Hundreds of Elation lighting fixtures were used again this year on Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas, North America's largest dance music festival, with the latest incarnation of the electronic rave taking place 19-21 June at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Lighting supply companies Visions Lighting, AG Production Services, Felix Lighting and Pro Systems all supplied Elation gear to the Vegas version of EDC with many of this year's awe-inspiring lighting and stage looks again by SJ Lighting.

With over 400,000 attendees for the three-day event, producers Insomniac brought in some of the world's biggest EDM artists and production talent to supply the heart-thumping atmosphere. Elation products wowed massive crowds on Stage 7 (Pro Systems), Bass Pod (Visions Lighting), Circuit Grounds (AG Lighting) and Cosmic Meadow (Felix Lighting) stages with several of Elation's newest lum

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UK - Allen & Heath's modular iLive digital mixing system was employed to manage FOH for the recent production of Pete Townshend's Classic Quadrophenia, taking place at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

A classical reworking of The Who's 1970s album, Townshend's production featured the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Oriana Choir, and guest singers Billy Idol, Phil Daniels and Alfie Boe.

"The brief was to emulate the Quadrophenia studio album, and provide clean, open sound, so I knew I had to choose iLive because it fits the bill exactly - it has a very open, clean sound, great audio processing, is super flexible, networkable, and is customisable so I can make it work for me, rather than the other way round. With an 80-strong orchestra, 90-strong choir and various guest celebrity singers, there was a lot going on, so iLive is just what I needed,"

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Sweden - Melodifestivalen is Sweden's national contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest, where their winner candidate is found. For the stage setup, lighting designer, Fredrik Jönsson implemented both X-5 strobes and P-5 wash lights. Jönsson here explains the effects he wished to achieve using these two specific types of LED fixtures from SGM:

"The X-5s were scattered around the lighting rig downstage to add glitter and bursts that would penetrate the air through the set and give more energy in the camera shots. We mainly used the segment feature with fast randomly chases to add that extra razzmatazz during choruses and such.

"The P-5s were brought in for a specific act to be used as a strong colour signature and as uplight through a glass floor for a custom made transparent podium. They were purely used in a strong and vibrant red that became a very strong sign

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UK - American rapper Kanye West's headline gig at this year's Glastonbury Festival has gone viral due to the incredible 792-strong PAR can rig controlled by 16 Avolites ART2000 48 way 16A dimmers and 2 Avolites Power Cubes.

Lighting experts, Elstree Light & Power (ELP) supplied the rig and the dimmers for the huge rectangular array of PAR cans, which moved up and down during West's set as 135,000 revellers watched in awe at the Pyramid Stage.

ELP's Chris Rand oversaw the delivery of the kit, reporting directly to Kanye West's 'people'.

"Avolites is the preferred dimmer supplier for ELP, and we've been a long time fan of Avolites kit with a large stock of Avolites ART2000 dimmers and Power Cubes," says Chris Rand. "We came in rather late on this project and immediately turned to in-house Avolites dimmers - we regard them as the industry standard for robust, rel

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Germany - With new opening times, a new hall layout and a new "Education and Associations" area, it's all-change for Prolight+Sound 2016. Taking place at Messe Frankfurt from 5 to 8 April 2016, the exhibition is moving to the eastern part of the expansive venue. Here it will occupy six halls, two outdoor arenas, a new indoor arena and a new, bigger outdoor area all targeting specific themes.

Organisers comment: "At last year's event more than 900 exhibitors welcomed over 42,000 visitors to their booths. In 2016, we are moving to the east of the Frankfurt Exhibition Centre in order to accommodate our increase in size. Prolight+Sound is the perfect industry forum for face-to face discussions and for developing your business networks. Benefit, too, from the synergies of the parallel Musikmesse and meet the right target groups for you."

Within the framework of

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USA - Following the completion of the 2015 cycle of PLASA Focus events in Orlando and Kansas City, a full review was undertaken to ascertain the progress and success of the PLASA events produced in the North American market over the last 4 years. While some progress had been achieved over this period it was decided that significant change was necessary to create an event that better satisfied the business needs of the exhibitors, creating a profitable event for all those involved.

To fully explore and understand the changes necessary the decision of the PLASA Governing Body and the PLASA Executive Management has been to take a hiatus from producing new events in 2016.

Christopher Toulmin, PLASA's Director of the Events Division comments: "Despite considerable financial investment from PLASA and a great deal of hard work from the various members of the events team in the U

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USA - Meyer Marketing, based in Wellington, Florida, iselebrating its 30th year in business in 2015. Its staff includes founder Larry Meyer, Larry Boscarino, Garrett Meyer, Sherry Halecki and Daniel Orr.

President Larry Meyer emphasized the importance of building strong relationships with integrators and consultants through regular on-site business meetings, product demos and sales and applications support. He commented, "Community is a great company and we are very pleased to represent their products to our integrators and consultants. Community is a great fit with our company and I'm excited about growing their brand and sales in Florida."

Steve Young, Community's director, North American sales, added, "Meyer Marketing's reputation for great service and strong support along with their complementary, integrator focused line card will help us achieve Community's

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Belgium - Following the success of their three-Michelin-starred restaurant Oud Sluis, chefs Sergio Herman and Nick Bril wanted to create a completely new experience for diners: The Jane Antwerp. The Jane serves a mix of fine dining and music in a relaxed atmosphere, set against the backdrop of a stunningly renovated church.

Opened in 2014, The Jane has two areas. Downstairs is a high-end restaurant for 75 people, while upstairs is a 38-seater bar area where guests can share food, enjoy cocktails and listen to local and international DJs. Later in the evening diners can move upstairs to enjoy a pre-clubbing vibe and The Jane also hosts special events where big-name DJs play to the whole venue.

The Jane team had a clear idea of the kind of sound they needed, as Bril explains: "We wanted the music to be like a waterfall - with more intensity upstairs, yet diners downstairs s

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