Europe - K-array has announced the strengthening of its EMEA distribution channels through new partnerships with distributors Medialantic in Germany and Senia in Romania. These distribution partnerships will reinforce K-array's global reach, providing its range of installed and live solutions to customers in new markets. "We are excited to partner with K-array and bring their innovative audio solutions to the German market,” confirms Veit Wegmann-Kamecke, CEO at Medialantic. “K-array's commitment to quality and innovation aligns with our values at Medialantic, and we look forward to working together to provide our customers with the best audio products and support." Based in Romania, Senia is the largest distributor and retailer of equipment and instruments for the music industry at a national level. They are also the exclusive representative for several leading a
UK - The widely respected PLASA Awards for Innovation are now open for entries, for any product released since PLASA Show 2022. The awards are open to all, including PLASA Show 2023 exhibitors, PLASA members, and non-member non-exhibitors. And this year, early bird entries can save 20% off the entry fee if they submit their application by midnight on Monday 7 August.
Organised in association with LSi, PLASA’s market-leading magazine, the awards celebrate innovative products from across the live entertainment technology industry that demonstrate a new style of thinking, improve technical practice or safety, introduce new materials or techniques, or offer a new commercial advantage.
Each successfully entered product will be judged by an independent panel of industry experts who have the authority to present up to eight awards of equal standing, one of whi
Renewable Energy - Glastonbury Festival will be run entirely by renewable energy this year. All production areas will either be powered by electricity from "fossil fuel-free sources" or will run on solar panels and battery hybrid systems. Generators will run on fuel made from waste cooking oil and Arcadia's giant fire-breathing spider will also run entirely off recycled biofuels. Organisers said "sustainability has always been at the heart" of the festival. In 2010, the festival's cowsheds were covered with enough solar panels to power 40 homes, making it the largest privately owned solar power station in the UK at the time. The site has also welcomed a temporary new wind turbine in Williams Green to provide clean power to some market stalls, and solar energy is used to power the Farm and Festival offices. Organisers said: "Our Green Fields have run on solar, wind and
USA - Headed by their flagship WPL line array, Martin Audio systems have been specified throughout the vast 250,000sq.ft Armory complex in St. Louis, MO. Originally constructed in 1938 as an armoury for the Missouri National Guard - part of the New Deal after the Great Recession - it later became a US tennis HQ before transforming into a concert venue in the 1960s and 1970s (featuring Ike & Tina Turner and the Grateful Dead, among others). More recently it has had a chequered life, before falling into disrepair. Several times it went back to the drawing board before Jake Miller and Chris Honstain of hospitality specialists Brick + Bev, an affiliate of local developers Green Street Real Estate Ventures, took it over. Honstain and Green Street’s Phil Hulse put their heads together and the project then went into overdrive. The operators’ principal focus was
Turkey - Show architects Black Skull Creative and Balich Wonder Studios collaborated to present Pepsi’s 2023 UEFA Champions League Final Kick Off Show on 10 June in Istanbul. Brazilian pop sensation Anitta and Grammy award-winning Nigerian superstar Burna Boy and special guest multi-platinum DJ and producer Alesso featured in the show. Black Skull’s Jay Revell comments: "With The 2023 UEFA Champions League Final Kick Off Show by Pepsi, we wanted to showcase the immense power of football to unite diverse fans and cultures. Istanbul, a symbol of global cultures, serves as the perfect backdrop for this unforgettable TV spectacle. “By enlisting artists from three different continents - Africa, South America, and Europe - we wanted to highlight the global reach and influence of football. This show is a testament to the unifying force that brings powerful, disti
Norway - The Voice, officially distributed in 62 countries, is one of the most-watched television formats worldwide, with over 650m viewers. For the eighth season of The Voice - Norges beste stemme, TV2 Direkte studios have chosen numerous Prolights fixtures. Prostage, the official Prolights distributor in Norway, supplied 20 Astra Wash19Pix moving heads, 40 Astra Hybrid420 hybrid moving heads, 50 LumiPar 12UQPro LED fixtures, 30 Lumipix 12QTour linear LED bars, and 20 Stark Bar1000 units. The lighting system installation, entrusted to Center Stage and Hilux, has delivered a visual experience, illuminating the stage, backlighting the contestants during their performances, and enchanting both the live audience and the millions of viewers at home. The lighting designer, Kasper Melgavis comments: “I worked very well with the Prolights lighting fixtu
USA - There are as many ways to tell a story as there are stories to tell. The incomparable Reba McEntire has demonstrated this with the rich and varied narratives that run through her songs. So too did Matthieu Larivée and the team at Lüz Studio when they created one of the final shows in the Queen of Country’s current tour at Madison Square Garden. The Montreal based design and production team, which included David Rondeau, Pierre-Luc Bedard, and LD Andy Knighton, wove a textured narrative to reflect the multi-Grammy winner’s music by using a range of different techniques, most of them centred on employing lighting and set extensions as storytelling tools. “This show is a great music show; it is not theatrical at all, so lighting is a big actor in the narrative,” said Larivée. “We wanted to create lighting moments. There’s so much history in Reba’s l
USA - While not a single moving light source could actually appear on camera, Robe BMFLs, Esprites and RoboSpots played a starring role for three different live concerts filmed for the live sections of the Amazon Prime hit Daisy Jones & The Six. A massive effort and meticulous detail went into crafting the vintage 1970s concert looks for the series by lighting director Matt Ardine, and while the hundreds of PAR cans visible at the gigs played their part in the visuality, for practicality, the band’s key lighting was achieved using Robe innovations. The narrative follows a fictional rock band embroiled in the thrills and spills of the LA music scene, as Daisy Jones & The Six rise rapidly from obscurity to global fame and success, quitting unexpectedly at the height of their fame. Matt was brought onboard by the series gaffer, Nicholas Kaat, and th
UK - Paignton Zoo is an education and conservation charity with over 2,000 different animals set in naturalistic indoor and outdoor exhibits, based in Devon. Their mission is to conserve species and their habitats, helping to save endangered animals in both the UK and across the globe, whilst inspiring everyone to help in the fight to protect wildlife. Revenue is key to their conservation efforts, and so Paignton Zoo is constantly looking to diversify, create additional income streams and secure sponsorships. With this in mind, an opportunity was recognised to transform a multipurpose space that was being underutilised, into a high-profile conference centre, which could also be used internally to promote their educational activities and rented out to external parties for meetings and events. Paignton Zoo contacted audio visual integration experts, AV-Tec to assist wit
UK - The high lumen output of the Vari-Lite VL3600 Profile IP from Signify was seen by millions of people for the King’s Coronation Concert, where landmarks across the UK were lit at part of the Lighting up the Nation event. Lighting designer David Bishop sourced 41 VL3600 fixtures, which were rigged outside Sheffield Town Hall in changeable weather with their IP-65 rating, to achieve the intricate Union flag design using their rich colours and optics system. “I discovered the VL3600s at Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt, getting a demo and trying out the output and colour wheel mixing system,” says Bishop. “The Sheffield project was meant to be a projection mapping job with a few luminaires around the building as fill light. However, this approach changed after I realised I could use the VL3600s even at a 66m throw from the building to both create strong enough light and
UK - In celebration of the coronation of King Charles III last month, the Palace of Westminster in London was illuminated in the colours of the Union flag - red, white, and blue. To illuminate the Gothic-style exterior facade in the national colours, lighting designer David Bishop chose a total of 74 units of Cameo Zenit W600 LED Wash Lights, supplied by Version 2 Lights. The IP65-rated Zenit W600 fixtures were placed at the base of the building's facade over a width of more than 250m by David Bishop and gaffer Matthew Zelmanowicz, focused to uplight the historic building with a beam angle of 18°. When choosing the colours, the lighting team didn't have to think twice: blue, white and red - alternating across the entire width of Palace of Westminster. “The Zenit W600 was the obvious choice”, says David Bishop. “Its power, reliability and IP rating combine to pro
Mexico - DirectOut has announced its strategic partnership with Aeris Group and the appointment of Diego Cárdenas as business development manager for Latin America. This collaboration marks an important milestone in DirectOut's expansion plan and reinforces its commitment to delivering enhanced local support throughout the Central and Southern American regions. Aeris Group, renowned for its expertise in assisting brands in developing their sales networks in Latin America, joins hands with DirectOut to further drive growth and deliver solutions to customers in the region. Diego Cárdenas, an experienced pro audio and acoustics engineer with over 11 years in the industry and a co-founder of Aeris Group, comments: “This is a very exciting time in the professional audio and broadcast applications world. I truly believe DirectOut's groundbreaking technology and solution
UK - The world of live entertainment technology will once again convene at Olympia London from 3-5 September for PLASA Show 2023. The key international show will connect 200+ exhibitors with 5,000+ visitors, who can now register free until 31 August. PLASA Show will feature cutting-edge technologies from respected brands spanning pro audio, stage lighting, audio-visual, staging and rigging. These include Chauvet Professional, Epson, ETC, GLP, L-Acoustics, Nexo, PSCo, RCF, Sennheiser, Steeldeck Industries, TAIT, Triple E, Theatrixx Technologies, Vari-Lite & Strand, UK Rigging and Vectorworks, to name just a few. Furthermore, headline sponsor Robe will wow audiences with regular demonstrations of their latest lighting products. In addition to the plethora of brands and new products, the three-day event will host 70+ keynote talks and interactive panel sessions. Acr
UK - The recent opening of Bradford recording facility KAD Studios is the realisation of a long-time dream for owner Karl Dunnachie. Located in the centre of the city, KAD features two production rooms and an impressive DJ set-up, which Dunnachie aims to make available for both pro and aspiring producers, musicians and DJs. The studio’s three rooms all feature extensive sound treatment from Portuguese specialists Artnovion, turning the 200-year-old building into a highly usable, musical-sounding space. Previously used as a chiropodist’s practice and left vacant for several years, the building required a back-to-brick restoration and conversion, which allowed Dunnachie the opportunity to design the creative spaces from the ground up, as he describes: “I was in touch with Artnovion - through UK distributor Audio-Technica - throughout the build process and they were
UK - Simon Horn designed the lightshow for Anastacia’s current tour. Originally scheduled to start in February 2020 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the singer’s seminal hit I’m Out Of Love, the tour had to be shelved because of COVID. This year, supply shortages and budget constraints still lingering from the pandemic lockdown made it impractical for Horn to get the level of video he wanted for the tour. He more than compensated for this, however, by creating a captivating background using geometric configurations of light that he is running on a ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M Stadium, which, like his lighting rig, is supplied by 4Wall Entertainment. “I have always stood by the idea that if you are going to use video, and do it well, it takes money,” said Horn. “There are some shows I’ve seen that were ruined by the desperate desire to use v
Thailand - Total Solution Marketing Thailand (TST), Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for Thailand, reports its first sale of Ayrton fixtures into Thailand with the purchase of 16 Diablo S by Creative Rock Thailand. Creative Rock Thailand, which specialises in servicing high end international conferences, was looking to upgrade its existing 700W moving lights to LED fixtures. “We had been hearing of the growing popularity of the 300W LED Ayrton Diablo so we compared it with several other LED moving light brands,” says Creative Rock’s managing director, Wikran Maneesri (Nit). “We found the Diablo to be compact and light weight and surprisingly very bright for its size. It has everything we need for the conference market: framing shutters, good colours, smooth dimming and great output. It is very versatile, which means we can use it across many segments including
Denmark - Lighting designer Ulrik Gad specified Robe iFortes for the Royal Danish Theatre’s 2023 summer production, Ragnarok, a new work by Kim Fupz Aakeson which premiered and is being staged at the Jægersborg Dyrehave, a deer park and forest north of capital city Copenhagen. The park is known for its undulating topography, tranquillity, ancient oak trees and large populations of red and fallow deer. The show runs for six weeks in a natural amphitheatre space that has had some performance infrastructure added over the years. All departments of the Royal Danish Theatre collaborate to produce a new summer show every second year, which alternates between playing this site and another just outside Aarhus in the western part of Denmark. This is the fifth summer show that Ulrik has lit. The stage space is completely open, and the usual challenges of outdoor per
The Netherlands - Partially funded by the municipality of Apeldoorn, Gigant is a versatile cultural centre in the heart of The Netherlands, featuring as of 1995 a cinema, a pop stage, a city stage, two theatres, a café with a terrace, and a course house hosting educational workshops in various art forms, including visual arts, circus, ensembles and orchestras, contemporary music and theatre amongst others. Since it was established in 1977 in an old school building, Gigant has focused on popular music and art-house performances, with international artists such as U2, Nirvana, Herman Brood, Golden Earring and UB40. Recently, the venue’s technical team has upgraded their console fleet by adding a DiGiCo SD12 and Quantum225 digital mixing consoles, supplied by Ampco Flashlight Sales to replace their existing console setup. Whilst Ampco recognises the SD12 as the ‘all-
USA - Inglewood California’s 70,000-capacity SoFi Stadium hosted the 39th annual WrestleMania with a blockbuster two-night event enveloped in LED screens and scenic video technology driven by an army of Green Hippo’s Hippotizer Boreal+ media servers. More than 161,000 fans witnessed WrestleMania over two sold out evenings, energised by high octane video content created by the WWE Media Graphics Department. The visuals were displayed on multiple entranceway LED screens, custom Ring Post, Ring Skirt, and LED Barricade. All these screens were supplied by ScreenWorks, a division of NEP. Upstaging provided Saber LED batons - a double row LED effects product that borders truss and scenic elements. In addition, the SoFi Stadium In-house Infinity Screen and five levels of ribbon boards were also controlled by the Hippotizer Media Servers. The massive amount of content mean
South Africa - Jeremy Kusner, owner of JK Productions for the past 22 years has invested in a DiGiCo S31 digital mixing console. “We looked at various brands and models and eventually chose the DiGiCo S31 for many reasons,” says Jeremy. “First, for the great support and people at DWR Distribution. Over the years we’ve bought various other bits of gear from DWR, but this is our first major purchase and knowing that DWR has always got our back it became a very easy decision. We are super excited because it’s going to put us into a different league, enabling us to get those bigger gigs that we are looking to do, and the future looks exciting. “DiGiCo is an incredible brand with such pedigree and heritage, and it will be super exciting to see the console on our gigs and showcase it to our clients. We feel like grown-ups now that we own a DiGiCo desk. The desk i
Italy - On 12 May, super-model/actress Elodie performed before a capacity crowd at the Mediolanum Forum in Assago. Contributing to the magic of the evening was a massive light show by Blearred, a lighting design studio with offices in London and Milan. Filling the venue with intense monochromatic colour palettes and bold videos fed to large LED walls, the design captivated fans as it drew them closer to Elodie’s personality and performance. A lighting rig of international level dimensions and quality energised the show, which was produced by Vivo Concerti. At its centre were 68 Chauvet Professional Color STRIKE M motorised strobes, exclusively distributed in Italy by Zalight. Ivan Russo, technical project Manager from Blearred, comments: “We used the Color Strike M during the event in 24 channel mode. Of the 68 units, 40 were positioned vertically on ladders
Full-service video and lighting company, 4Wall Europe, added Elation Proteus Rayzor Blade tilt FX bars to inventory this past spring and immediately deployed the units on the European leg of Depeche Mode’s Momento Mori world tour. The Proteus Rayzor Blade is a tiltable linear LED light that can function as a wash, strobe or FX light, all inside a compact IP65 design. Darren Poultney, managing director EMEA at 4Wall Europe, commented on the purchase: “We are thrilled to have invested in these impressive fixtures from Elation and to continue to grow our lighting fleet for concert touring, corporate events, exhibitions and beyond. The high-demand fixtures touched down in our warehouses and were very quickly prepped for Depeche Mode’s world tour, supported by our 4Wall US team who delivered the fixtures on the US leg. We can’t wait to see the results.” The lig
Israel - The Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv is one of the busiest and most recognised in Israel, and since 2003 has been located in the vibrant cultural hub that is the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Centre. Founded in 1848 shortly after the State of Israel itself was formally established, the theatre is focused on producing local works. It has five halls, the largest with a 1000 capacity and has recently invested in Robe Esprite moving lights and Tetra2 moving LED battens. These were the first moving lights in the venue and were initially purchased for a production of Kaymim Achadim lit by Nadar Barnea, explained technical manager Shabi Aaron Nahum, who is delighted with the new fixtures. The very first Robes in the house were ParFects, so they were familiar with the brand through these and generally. After making the decision to invest for the production, they specifi
Spain - My Mother’s Courage is a bold new theatrical co-production by Teatro de la Abadia in Madrid, Ur Teatro Company and Palma de Mallorca’s Teatro Principal, recounting a multi-layered narrative based on Jewish Hungarian-born George Tabori’s true story recalling how his mother Elsa Tabori escaped from Auschwitz and the Nazis during the Second World War, using her wits and determination. Multi award-winning lighting designer Nicolas Fischtel, AAI, was asked onboard by director Helena Pimenta with whom he’s worked on other projects. Lighting was absolutely integral to the storytelling, which took place over the course of one single day, and also in providing environmental and locational details and context. Nicolas used five Astera AX3 LightDrops as part of the lighting rig, which were located on scenery elements and props that were moved around the s
