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UK - The Power of Events has launched a website to promote its activities: www.thepowerofevents.org
The not-for-profit organisation aims to unite interested parties from across the core sectors of the UK events industry and includes a taskforce (in which PLASA takes part) and action groups dedicated to research, skills, digital, content, comms, infrastructure and governance, and the next generation. It has evolved from the One Industry One Voice coalition, which was set up in July 2020 in response to the COVID-19 crisis, with The Power of Events set up in April this year.
Rick Stainton, founder of The Power of Events, comments: “We have always felt that we had to be impactful, clear and content led, mapping out and signposting the UK events industry in an inclusive w

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Italy - Mantova-based ZaLight has been appointed to handle the Italian distribution of all products manufactured by Fantek, part of the Spanish group Equipson and manufacturer of telescopic towers, platforms, trusses and modular supports for LED walls.
"I am very happy to work with Fantek again, having launched the brand on the Italian market almost 20 years ago," says ZaLight business development manager Luca Di Donato. "In my view, Fantek's careful quality process and attention to detail are a guarantee of reliability and success. ZaLight's philosophy is to only distribute brands of the highest quality and indisputable prestige. Fantek perfectly embodies these features."
Juan José Vila, COO and CMO of Equipson, adds: "We are delighted to have a company of the calibre of ZaLight representing Fantek products. Some Fantek products are already well known in Italy but we

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UK - Nine Avolites consoles and four media servers were specified for this year’s Glastonbury. Avolites products lit nine of the main sites, including Temple, Totem, RumShack, the three Bloc9 areas, Theatre, Cabaret and Salon Carousel, and individual production teams brought in Avolites kit for additional performances on The Pyramid Stage and Other Stage.
For Avolites, the return of Glastonbury, following a pause as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, has marked the festival debut for its flagship console Diamond 9. It was the demands of Bloc9 East, hosting ICON, the epic monument which debuted at Glastonbury in 2019 and featuring a 65ft head as its centrepiece, and a number of alternative performances, that led the D9-215 to be used to control the lighting for his stage. Offering intuitive and integrated control of all visual aspects of the show, the compact version of the
PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025
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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!

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China - With over 10 years of experience in advertising, photography, film and television production, the Shanghai MuShang Advertising Co is familiar with the use of technologies to enhance customer experiences. Its latest brainchild, MuShang XR stage, uses cutting-edge technology including Brompton Technology LED processing, ROE Visual screens, Mark Roberts Motion Control cinebots, Unreal Engine and disguise media server hardware, to deliver visual creativity and high-quality productions.
“We’ve been working in the creative industries for over a decade and know all too well the complexities associated with large-scale, outdoor production settings,” explains Henry Sha, the founder of Shanghai MuShang Ad CO. “From manpower to lighting equipment, to tons of things in between, we wanted to bring a more efficient and cost-effective way of doing productions to our clients

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UK - For the 16th edition of the annual Performance Marketing Awards ceremony at London’s Grosvenor Hotel, Bristol-based production specialists Pytch were tasked with creating an impressive array of visuals for the awards ceremony, hosted by television personality Joel Dommett, as well as for the club-like, high energy afterparty.
Responding with a lighting concept anchored by an assortment of carefully curated Chauvet Professional fixtures, the company’s design team was able to create a colourful, immersive, and multi-level visual production that endowed the stately hotel’s ballroom with a stylish air of contemporary elegance and festiveness.
With little to no scenic elements upon the actual stage to carry the visual communication and branding of the awards ceremony, Pytch was ultimately given something of a blank canvas to work with, as the design team relied o

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USA - The Dollar Loan Centre in Henderson, Nevada is home to the Henderson Silver Knights of the American Hockey League and the Vegas Knight Hawks of the Indoor Football League, seating over 5,500 fans for those sports. In addition, the Big West Conference announced last year that the NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball championships would be held there starting with the West Coast teams of the March Madness series.
The $80m-plus arena officially opened on 8 March this year as Covid began slowly releasing its grip on live events. AV systems designer and consultancy Anthony James Partners specified a DiGiCo S31 as the new arena’s front-of-house audio mix console, which was installed and integrated by C.V. Lloyde Audiovisual.
“I’d like to say it’s just cost, but the fact is that DiGiCo consoles deliver for both the budget and sonic quality,” says J

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Singapore - SurgeX has appointed Generation AV as its sales agency in the Asia Pacific region. The agreement will see Generation AV staff based in Asia providing a full service, encompassing sales, training and technical support for the brand in pro audio, residential and pro AV markets.
“We’re very happy to be working with Generation AV, which has the specialist expertise and regional market understanding that we need to help grow our presence in APAC,” comments Justin Peyton, director of sales EMEA and APAC at SurgeX. “Generation AV has an excellent record of delivering for brands, and we’re excited to work with them to further establish ourselves in this territory with our extensive range of power management solutions.
“This deal will also be of huge benefit to our existing partners in the region, who will now have access to a team able to provide local
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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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Estonia - The Estonian Traditional Music Centre (ETMC) is a venue which hosts international concerts, conferences, receptions, dinners, and parties.
Situated next to the historical Viljandi Castle ruins, the former 18th century granary was transformed into a contemporary concert hall and cultural hub almost 15 years ago. It incorporates two concert halls - the Grand Hall with a capacity of 400, and the Chamber Hall with seating for 80 - and boasts an extensive concert programme, including the renowned Viljandi Folk Music Festival. To celebrate the return of live events, ETMC has recently invested in a selection of new gear, including High End Systems SolaFrame Studio fixtures and an Ion Xe console from ETC.
In 2019, more than 100 concerts featured on ETMC’s roster, and it hosted an additional 250 events arranged by visiting organisations. Naturally, the pandemic led

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Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem has returned to the West End 11 years after its last record-breaking, sell-out run. Mark Rylance reprises his role as the ebulliently irresponsible, anarchic Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, ably supported by the rest of the cast. The play is back at its West End home of the Apollo Theatre with a sound design from Autograph’s Ian Dickinson, this time featuring Reference Series loudspeakers from EM Acoustics.
“I did the show the first time around when it was at the Royal Court, followed by its subsequent West End iterations, so I knew exactly what was required,” explains Dickinson. “The Apollo is a beautiful theatre on four levels so, as ever, the priority was flawless coverage across all seats in the auditorium. The actors don’t wear microphones, so the PA system is there to deliver clear playback of the music and numerous effects used in t

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USA - Country artist Kane Brown returned to his hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, on May 7 to play his first-ever stadium show at the Finley Stadium. Lighting and production design for the sold-out show was by Trevor Ahlstrand who used Elation lighting on the milestone event, including the company’s popular IP-rated powerhouse luminaire Proteus Maximus, all supplied by DCR Nashville.
Brown’s popularity has grown exponentially since debuting only a few years ago. Ahlstrand has collaborated with the artist since the first headlining arena tour, Live Forever in 2019, and served as lighting designer and programmer on the stadium show. Nick Chang served as lighting director.
Following the Live Forever tour, Brown managed to get in six shows with a new design from Ahlstrand before everything shut down due to COVID. The current touring design, which contin

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Top Ticket prices - Prices for top tickets to see West End shows have risen by 21% since before the pandemic, according to research by The Stage. The average top ticket price is currently £140.85, up from £116.09 in June 2019, the publication says. The most expensive show in the survey is Cabaret at the Playhouse, for which some tickets will set you back £303.80. But the research found that the lowest-priced tickets have risen by an average of just 3.3% since 2019, up to £22.56.
The most expensive seats for West End musicals now cost an average of £154.36, although that was a relatively modest increase of 3.5% since 2019, The Stage said. Plays had an average top ticket price of £114.69 - a jump of 38% compared with three years ago.
One factor in the high ticket prices for Cabaret was the redesign of the theatre to accommodate the produ

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UK - Severine Anvoner is Martin Audio’s new HR manager. Born and brought up in France, she has lived in the UK since 2001 and now considers both the country and the area of Bucks where she resides as home.
Anvoner has considerable experience in the corporate world including at Coca-Cola Enterprises and more recently at Seagate Technology. “But I realised that a new industry would provide a different challenge and I also wanted to move away from the big corporate world,” she admits. “Although there are many positives about big corporations, the downside is there are many layers of management, and I wanted to interact more, and become closer [to the workforce]. This industry is dynamic and exciting.
Unlike her previous trans-EMEA roles, at Martin Audio her challenge will be more UK-based, offering more flexibility and versatility than she has experienced previous

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USA - Markus Burger, coordinator of music technology at California’s Fullerton College has recently overseen the recording of a string ensemble library album by LA Philharmonic with composer/director Yuval Schrem, using a portable recording rig which included 32 channels of Audient mic pres.
Comprising two ASP880s and two ASP800 eight-channel units alongside an interface, this rig is used for a range of applications. This particular recording is currently being mixed and is due to be released at the end of the year.
“We took a mixture of Audient and Neve preamps with us this time so we had a variety of recordings to choose from,” explains Markus, confirming that the recording went without a hitch. “The Audient mic presets are bullet-proof. We’ve never had any issues with them in all the years that we have had them.”
A consistent champion of Audient,

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UK - Educational roadshows led by BlackTrax specialist Tom Boucher have been outlining to students the creative possibilities BlackTrax offers to live event professionals. Students have been bringing their ideas to life by using CAST’s innovative technology.
“Taking BlackTrax into an educational environment has introduced students to technology that they will come across in the workforce. It has given students the ability to create scenarios, ask questions and really get to grips with BlackTrax as a system and the numerous integration possibilities,” says Tom Boucher.
Many questions were answered, and the system was put to the test, right down to students calibrating a BlackTrax Real system themselves and learning how to get their educational wysiwyg license.
“I really enjoyed using the BlackTrax system, I thought it was intuitive and relatively easy,”

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The Netherlands - Jeroen van Geffen is a Dutch lighting designer with the multidisciplinary broadcast and event specialist company Chain. For a live TV broadcast production in a 360° degree venue, Jeroen chose to use a Follow-Me 3D SIX System. From his previous experience with the overall scalability and flexibility of the Follow-Me systems, including fixture independence, he knew that this would be the right choice for enabling his creative and challenging lighting design.
Jeroen first used the Follow-Me 3D remote follow-spot and performer tracking solutions about three years ago for the ZappAwards, the Dutch kids television series awards show broadcast from De Vorstin concert hall in Hilversum. Since then, Chain has overseen the Follow-Me 3D SIX system installation into the Studio 11 event location in Almere. It is here that Jeroen has recently been working with Follow-Me

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USA - Multiplatinum selling pop group New Kids On The Block (NKOTB) continues to wow fans with their MixTape Tour 2022 featuring friends Salt-N-Pepa, Rick Astley and En Vogue as special guests. Lighting designer Cat West of Flash and Trash Works, Inc. selected 108 Ayrton Intellipix R Creative Solutions as a central part of the high-energy, party look of the show.
Boston natives, the quintet NKOTB has sold more than 80m albums worldwide. Their 2019 tour by the same name - their biggest since reuniting in 2008 – was a huge success and pioneered the concept of a super-sized show with multiple guest acts. The new arena-based MixTape Tour is scheduled to play more than 50 dates across the US from its kick-off in Cincinnati in May to its finale in Hawaii in August.
Cat West programmed the band’s MixTape Tour 2019 and their Fenway Park and Merriweather Post Pavillion even

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Poland - Cavatina Hall, which opened at the beginning of the year in the city of Bielsko-Biała, is the first concert hall in the country to be built and managed entirely from private funds.
This multi-functional building, combining office and cultural spaces, is set over six storeys on more than 9,000sq.m and includes a recording studio as well as a 1,000-seat concert hall.
Its AV infrastructure is woven into a sophisticated digital/analogue network, designed around an Optocore backbone, feeding a multiplicity of signals to an L-Acoustics L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal sound system from a pair of roving DiGiCo Quantum 338 consoles, operating from four different locations.
These were specified and delivered by system integrators Audio Plus, along with the latest stage mechanics and AV technologies, including sound and light tracking, variable acoustics and visual inf

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Europe - The 2Cellos duo of Luka Šulić and Stjepan Hauser is currently playing their Dedicated world tour - billed as their ‘final’ as 2Cellos, the format in which they shot to fame and prominence in 2011 with lighting designed by their long-term LD, Crt Birsa.
Crt has worked with the band since 2014 and wanted this design to be completely different to anything that had gone before. Rather than the full-on rock ‘n’ roll of the previous tour, this sees a more architectural approach with the lighting, which includes Robe MegaPointes and Spiiders at the heart of the rig.
“It’s all about defining the performance space and creating a series of shapes and different areas rather than bashing out dramatic lighting for effect! My thinking started with creating environments and rooms in which they play,” he explained. He presented a couple of different co

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UK - Shure was the chosen digital wireless system for the stars at Big Night of Musicals by the National Lottery.
At the end of January, Jason Manford hosted a celebration of the best of musical theatre at the AO Arena in Manchester, Big Night of Musicals by the National Lottery. The show was packed with performances from the casts of the UK’s biggest West End and touring shows and collaborations including Beverley Knight, Keala Settle star of The Greatest Showman, and Olivier Award winner, Sam Tutty.
Joining them to perform some of the most popular songs from the theatre were the casts of Dreamgirls, Back to the Future, Dear Evan Hansen, Tina - The Tina Turner Musical, Bat Out of Hell, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock as well as Disney shows The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and

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Romania - Lighting designer Andre Beekmans of TAOL, in collaboration with Andrei Predut of Apart in Bucharest, used a large complement of Claypaky fixtures to light the We Are One concert in the city’s National Arena to benefit humanitarian causes in the region.
The day-long concert on 12 March drew an estimated 50,000 people to the stadium and more watched the YouTube livestream and broadcasts on Romanian TV and radio. Organised by SAGA Festival, Pro TV, KISS FM and the City Hall of Bucharest, the event featured local and international artists, including Armin van Buuren, Tom Odell, Jamala and INNA. It raised more than €750,000 for the Red Cross.
“Quick thinking and fast problem solving are a given at any time in this line of work, but for this particular project everything needed to be on steroids given the virtual no heads up regarding what would be hap

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USA - With summer productions back in full swing, Bandit Lites has announced the hiring of Kelly Feild, Tim Keller, Hayley Elliott, and Katie Feltes as full-time, touring lighting technicians.
“Bandit is pleased to announce the addition of these four great people to our full-time team, on the career path.” says Bandit Lites chair Michael T. Strickland. “Please note that three of the four hires are women, another indication of our focus on gender equity. But do not believe that is what this is about, it is not. We bring on the best and the brightest and Kelly, Katie, Tim, and Hayley are just that – stars! We thank thme for joining the team and look forward to long, accomplished careers for each of them!”
Feild graduated from Belmont University with a BBA in Music Business before working full time as event staff for Belmont's Curb Event Center arena. Feild the
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