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

Business

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Italy - Giovanni Pinna has worked with Vasco since 1991. What is the secret of this alliance? "Vasco believes in people's ideas. Moreover, all the technical and creative workers who have been around him for years, from the stage design team (Gio Forma Studio Associato since 1998) to the stage director Diego Spagnoli, play an active role in the whole show preparation process.

"First of all we begin by working around various set design ideas. Then everyone says which one they prefer. This year, the choice was unanimous: a large covered stage, modelled on the keel of a ship. This is when you start processing the ideas yourself, while the activity of discussing and sharing the project goes on as it develops over six months. It takes a long time, but that is what it needs for a set of this size.

"You have to realize you are in a stadium, with an audience of 60 or 70,

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USA - Rock and roll never dies; neither do rock and roll dreams, although sometimes they may take an extended hiatus while "adult responsibilities" are looked after. Such was the case for New York attorney Charles Bonfante. In the '80s and early '90s, the Long Island native was the drummer for a number of touring rock bands. Then adulthood happened; so did law school, followed by a successful career as an attorney. Now Bonfante has travelled full circle, forming a band and reliving his rock road warrior experience with help from something that wasn't available back in the day: a collection of high-output lighting fixtures (primarily LEDs) from Chauvet Professional.

Bonfante's group, Reservoir Dogs, is a Pink tribute band that has been wowing audiences with a dynamic lighting rig consisting of 32 Rogues and a variety of other Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Th

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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The Netherlands - Globally the popularity of outdoor music is great as ever and, while the higher profile festivals like Glastonbury, Roskilde, SXSW and Coachella inevitably receive much of the coverage, for every big event there are hundreds more smaller ones which cater for every possible age, interest and musical taste. In Amsterdam, the Brave festival champions new bands, with Yamaha and Nexo systems ensuring that they enjoy a thoroughly professional production.

Now in its second year, the Brave festival is held in Amsterdam's Tuinen van West, a managed 'green space' that provides a range of recreational facilities away from the city's built-up area.

Held on 15 August and headlined by US indie rockers Augustines, this year's festival featured three stages of live music and a 'food village' featuring cuisine from many different cultures. The festival's production company, K

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UK - HHB Communications has supplied numerous Mogami 'Cable for Life' cables for the popular Reload Sessions YouTube channel.

With over 11m YouTube views, Reload Sessions is the premiere channel for unsigned musicians. Priding themselves on creating high-quality content, the videos are recorded in HD and only the best audio equipment used. As such, Owner Peppe Fazzolari has added numerous Mogami 'Cable for Life' cables to his arsenal of equipment.

Peppe comments, "The Reload Sessions have travelled to many sites to record, but we are now mainly based in a studio in Central London. We have found that Mogami cables are the best sounding and most durable cables available for any application. We have used numerous other cables over the years, but Mogami is the only one durable enough to withstand the heavy use we require."

Mogami 'Cable for Life' p

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USA - When lighting designer Steve Comer began working with Jackson Browne in 2008, the goal was to create a 100 percent LED system, and with the help of Bandit Lites, that goal is coming closer and closer to fruition.

Comer tackled the project with production designer Dennis Scrimo and chose a design that would be flexible enough for a 2000 seat theatre and a 10000 seat amphitheatre in addition to being cost effective, efficient on space, and load in and out times.

"I have smaller profile fixtures so they can mostly fit inside Bandit's Go-Go Truss, which has cut down time considerably in hanging fixtures or needed to have cases of fixtures in a truck or on a stage," explained Comer. "Once we decided on an idea we liked, I got with Dizzy Gosnell and we talked about how to streamline some things to make it work. The design has gone through a couple of modificatio

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UK - South London-based technical production and design specialist Presentation Rentals has re-branded as 'PR Live' to reflect the dynamic nature of its business and the current scope of the company's activities.

The company was launched in 1997 by MD Ian Coull as an AV equipment rental company - initially supplying small projectors, screens and PowerPoint presentation kits.

It's now grown into a highly successful full high-end technical production supplier offering the latest audio, lighting and video hardware and technology, plus a comprehensive range of associated services including complete show and event design, video content creation, graphics, artwork and set design / building. In short, everything to cover all aspects of any types of live event or brand activation, together with a full logistics department and transport fleet.

"Live - and larger scale - producti

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USA - Since 1996, LA's Skirball Cultural Centre has gained a reputation as one of the world's foremost Jewish cultural institutions, a leading cultural venue and a truly elegant event space designed by renowned architect Moshe Safdie. With the latest addition to their campus, the 44,000sq.ft Herscher Hall/Guerin Pavilion, Skirball has dramatically enhanced its ability to serve the 600,000 patrons who visit annually.

Lauded by the New York Times as a lesson on how to connect the eye to heart and mind, the Guerin Pavilion combines exceptional versatility and high aesthetics and features a state-of-the art AV system in which Tannoy's Dual Concentric loudspeakers are integral components.

"The Dual Concentric design originally comes from our studio monitors from back in the day," says Dudley McLaughlin, consultant manager, install and tour, North America, for TC Gr

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Austria - When experiential event production agency, Media Apparat took on the technical aspects of Pioneers Festival in June 2015, the unique multimedia control and display capabilities of AV Stumpfl Wings Engine Stage and Fullwhite screens were used to their full capability.

"The prestigious annual festival at Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna, Austria brought together the smartest start-ups, corporate, media and investors in one place, eager to support the next big thing," says Andreas Göltl, managing director at Media Apparat. "The event happens every year and our task was to make Pioneers Festival a stunning event experience to remember. It's the type of event that gets a lot of business interest and press internationally and is broadcast live to an international audience of 100,000."

At Pioneers Festival, video content covered the entire main stage a

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UK - David Cameron has announced the government approval of 59 group standards for 'Trailblazer' apprenticeships, as part of its commitment to supporting three million new apprentices in the UK by 2020.

Supported by key industry experts, this new initiative launches the first apprenticeship as a Live Events Rigger, the development of which has been facilitated by NRAG (National Rigging Advisory Group).

Representatives from leading industry employers formed the NRAG working group. In April 2015 the standard was agreed by the Government Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to be put forward to lead the rigging apprenticeship initiative, assisting other companies to do the same through the provision of structured opportunities to young individuals interested in a career in rigging.

Key rigging industry leaders already committed to supporting the Trailblazer initia

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Czech Republic - The Vivaldianno Project - a sumptuous and ambitious combination of popular classics played in a classical rock style - is a successful crossover musical concept evolved by Italian violin virtuoso Jaroslav Sveceny and Czech rock keyboardist Michal Dvorak.

The latest touring version of the show played five large arenas in the Czech and Slovak Republics with a full Robe moving light rig supplied by rental company Q-99 from Slovakia.

The largest venue was Prague's 17,000 capacity O2. The concerts were so popular that extra shows were added in both Ostrava and Brno which immediately sold out. Lighting was designed by Martin Hruska.

The Robe fixture count included BMFL Spots and BMFL Blades, LEDBeam 1000s, CycFX 8s and 4s, Pointes and LEDWash 1200s - a combination that gave Martin the chance to create all the drama and intensity expected from the genres of rock an

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UK - Long days in the sun and surf, long nights lost in music. That's the promise of Boardmaster, Europe's leading celebration of all that is surfing. Grown from small beginnings in 1981, Boardmasters has become the epitome of boutique festival going, an event packed day and night with a feast for all the senses; not least visuals. "We're doing something quite different at the Unleashed stage in the Big Top this year", said Rhodri Shaw of Video Design. "That's as well as provide the big IMAG screens for the main stage."

Shaw, as project manager for Video Design, has been instrumental in driving the development of LED at Boardmasters and it's not as straight forward as it sounds. "The Unleashed stage is a saturation situation with pumping music from the likes of Groove Armada and Roni Size. The designers asked that we provide great arches skinned with LED

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Germany - After a turbulent renovation phase, the renowned Stuttgarter Schauspielhaus opened again after several phases of rebuilding. Also on board: A new sound system by Alcons Audio. After the last renovation phase, the main room of the Theatre of the Year award-winning Stuttgarter theatre, now has a maximum of 670 seats, which all offer a very good listening experience thanks to the new sound system.

Frank Bürger, head of the audio and video department of the Schauspielhaus, explains the decision for an Alcons system: "From a natural, balanced sound for unobtrusive theater reinforcement to a powerful sound for modern productions and concerts a versatile system was required. In comparison tests, the Alcons components excelled by far."

Thomann Audio Professional, as technical service provider involved in the project, installed the system during the first restructu

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Denmark - Recently, hearing health experts from around the world converged on Aalborg University in Denmark for the International Conference on Music-Induced Hearing Disorders, organized by the Audio Engineering Society (AES). The three-day conference featured 21 technical papers presented by participants from across the globe, plus a series of panel discussions on the link between music and hearing.

The conference organizing committee was chaired by AES member Professor Dorte Hammersh°i of the host university. "The exchange of views across four continents was a highlight of this conference, with the inherent variety of traditions for culture, legislation, and behaviour," she notes. "I was very happy with the atmosphere that was created by the diverse participants, which is something one can only hope as conference organizer."

This was the second AES in

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Spain - The latest addition to Ibiza Town's extensive nightlife platter is a club cum restaurant named Heart, perched idyllically at the foot of the Marina next to the Ibiza Grand Hotel. The club, which provides guests with a three-pronged experience of food, dance and musical performances and DJs, is the brainchild of Albert and Ferran Adrià - the world-famous chefs renowned for their Michelin three-star restaurant elBulli - and Guy Laliberté, founder of Cirque du Soleil.

Belgian-based Arf & Yes were responsible for coming up with a lighting concept for the main part of the experience, and called upon the services of 112 Rogue R1 Washes supplied by Spanish distributor Stonex Show Lighting.

"The concept is nothing like a normal club," commented Ignace D'Haese, one half of Arf & Yes. He continued: "It's more like a Vegas show in a way, with many evolving

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Slovenia - Leading Slovenian lighting designer Crt Birsa was asked to create a dynamic production lighting scheme for the main stage at the 2015 Schengenfest event, Slovenia's largest festival, staged at Vinica, Bela Krajina and attracting up to 10,000 music fans each day. They enjoyed a series of rousing performances from a selection of top international artists and local heroes including Rudimental (DJ set), Asian Dub Foundation, Magnifico, Siddharta Stahlzeit and Guano Apes.

Crt chose to use close to 80 x Robe moving lights which were mostly supplied by rental company Intralite. This included 20 x Pointes, 16 x Robin 600E Beams, 20 x ColorSpot 1200E ATs, 20 x ColorWash 575E AT Zooms and three ColorSpot 700 E ATs all right at the centre of the design, which also utilised a number of other lights.

Crt and programmer / operator Nikola Podlesnik worked closely on creating a ran

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UK - Quick fire comedian Lee Mack is back on prime time screens with a new series of the popular fact finding panel show, Duck Quacks Don't Echo. Filmed live in front of a studio audience, lighting director Oli Richards is taking care of the lighting installation, with assistance from crew chief David 'Frankie' Francis.

Set designer Markus Blee has created the backdrop to the show using an array of pictorial acrylic blocks arranged to form a cascading effect. Aurora worked closely with the designer to populate the boxes with hundreds of metres of LED ribbon, adding colour and depth to the set pieces.

Elsewhere, to wash the set Aurora supplied Martin MAC Auras augmented with a selection of Viper Performances that add versatility with their framing and focusing capabilities. Martin Rush Pars are also included in the installation to keep the audience illuminated during ca

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Germany - The Airbeat-One festival happens annually since 2002 on the private airfield of Neustadt-Glewe in North Germany and is held by the rental company Music-Eggert. There are several floors where a lot of EDM fans can listen to several styles of their favourite music.

The Main Floor this year alone was equipped with the following material: 108 x Clay Paky Mythos, 28 x Clay Paky B-EYE K20, 20 x Clay Paky B-EYE K10, 16 x Alpha Spot HPE 1500, 66 x Laser Imagineering Sunbeam 100 4C Zoom, 34 x Laser Imagineering CLED 1000, one grandMA2 full-size, two grandMA2 light, with lighting design from Sebastian Heise.

Heise, who is also CEO of Laser Imagineering, explained, "The base design idea of the different dance floors is to get an impressive feeling to all festival guests. The lighting fixtures themselves should be part of the decoration and shall not dominate the total opti

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Sweden - Wireless Solution hosted three very successful training days in Marstrand, Sweden. From the 25-27 August the Wireless DMX team introduced the new G5 software to 23 distributors of 13 different nationalities in this picturesque Swedish west-coast city.

W-DMX introduced innovative new features in the new G5 software, including Triple-Band communication, Wi-Fi, improved Adaptive Hopping with four times increased resolution and many other great components soon to be released.

The team also introduced a redesigned product line: a sleek MicroBox, IP66 rated WhiteBox, new ProBox, BlueBox and completely reshaped UglyBox. "It was very important to present these new products to our loyal distributors first," said Niclas Arvidsson, CEO of Wireless Solutions. "We have got the most unique software on the market, and the best product range created to date. The new im

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UK - The Warehouse Sound Services, helped this year's Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) achieve its many and diverse sound requirements across the summer season after designing, installing and engineering the sound for the opening and closing shows. As a lead partner supplier to the EIF, the company also provided the audio solutions for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and FFS (Franz Ferdinand and Sparks) amongst others, working closely with Tom Zwitserlood Head of Sound and John Robb Head of Technical at EIF.

The Warehouse provided a range of diverse audio solutions for the spectacular opening & closing shows at the EIF as well as a diverse range of shows across the Festival's calendar from 7-31 August 2015. The company has been a supplier to EIF for over three decades as a key provider of audio equipment and sound design and engin

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USA - Appearing on the National Register of Historic Places, the Kansas City Club was established in 1882 as a business and professional men's social club. Now under new ownership and rechristened The Brass on Baltimore, this elegant downtown venue offers a variety of meeting and event spaces including two with newly-installed professional audio systems.

After a major renovation that restored much of its historical architecture, The Brass on Baltimore used portable audio and AV systems for most of its events.

However, these portable systems, often supplied by a DJ, were of varying quality and typically looked out of place in the venue's elegant event spaces. For these reasons, The Brass on Baltimore asked Harvest Productions of Kansas City to propose permanently installed audio systems for its Rooftop Room and the Tudor Room.

Harvest's Martin Pilewski explains, "Our pro

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The Netherlands - The 'Groots met een zachte G' show from the artist Guus Meeuwis, a huge celebrity in the Netherlands, is the biggest concert of a solo artist in the country. The event takes place every year at the Philips Stadium, Eindhoven. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the event this year, the artist performed five concerts in the stadium. Each concert was sold out with 35,000 attendees per show, with the last one broadcasted live on Dutch televisions for the first time.

The video setup was extremely challenging to provide an unparalleled visual experience for this high-end concert. Faber AV, a leading company in the rental market of LED screens and audio-visual productions, supplied all the video equipment for the concerts. Two weeks of installation were required to produce the demanding setup.

For the stage, Faber AV supplied a massive LED screen of 700sqm (7680x2

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UK - Sound Division Group has carried out three installations in high profile London venues this summer, making widespread use of Martin Audio's discreet but high performance C6.8T and C8.1T ceiling speakers. Featuring a 6.5" (165mm) bass driver and a 0.8" (19mm) dome tweeter, these circular recessed speakers have achieved wide adoption since their launch in view of their wide (150°) dispersion, high SPL and suitability for low-ceilinged venues.

In two of the venues - Circus Bar & Restaurant in Covent Garden and Aqua Nueva at Oxford Circus - these have been retrofitted into an existing Martin Audio technical infrastructure as part of major revamps carried out by the London-based installation company.

Circus was first fitted out by Sound Division with Martin Audio AQ architectural speakers back in early 2010. The latest phase sees the company bringing more control

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UK - Following the inauguration of their new R&D facility, loudspeaker manufacturer EM Acoustics recently announced a range of new, state-of-the-art products, which includes the M-C12 and M-C15 monitor loudspeakers. Moving away from the traditional EM Acoustics monitor design which has always consisted of dedicated wedges, these 12 and 15 inch coaxial monitor speakers work just as effectively when used either on a stand or flown, and feature hidden pole mounts and flying points for cradles. Their first sale has been made to White Light (WL), with the company continuing to establish itself as a leading audio solutions provider.

Head of audio Lee Dennison comments, "When we started the audio department, we were confident that we had the team and resources to provide strong audio support for any occasion. A few months later we have gone on to prove this and are now being ap

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The Netherlands - Cadac, as an official IBC sponsor, is again providing the audio networking and control for the Big Screen Experience at this year's convention. Working with Terry Nelson, from IBC Technical Resources, the leading UK mixing console manufacturer is installing a high definition, ultra-low latency MegaCOMMS audio network, throughout the digital cinema auditorium.

This year, Cadac audio mixing consoles can be found at both mix positions, with its flagship CDC eight-32 handling the audio for presentations, film extracts and product reels, and the newly shipping CDC six taking care of the on-stage microphones. The IBC event will be the first official deployment of the company's new CDC-six console.

During the course of IBC, the Big Screen Experience will feature a series of free to attend, editorially led sessions plus complimentary movie screenings of Fantastic Fou

  1. TiMax world-first Shakespeare musical in a half-pipe
  2. Clay Paky celebrates with Oriflame
  3. Gilded Balloon adds Flare to its 30th Season
  4. Mats Karlsson launches product innovation consultancy Intendor
  5. Boras Stadsteater Chooses Robe LEDWash 800s
  6. Primus with Meyer Sound LYON
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Astera - Large MPU - June 2025
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