UK - When famous climber Jimmy Chin made an appearance on Good Morning Britain last month, the show's production team tasked host Ben Shephard with the challenge of interviewing his guest while abseiling down the side of the ITV tower. With just five days in which to put the segment together, production manager Malika Keswani and the programme's line producer Viviana White asked Unusual Rigging to provide rigging gear for the abseil along with competent manned crew to manage the rig.
"ITV has worked with Unusual on various other productions and so we knew we were dealing with a team that knew its stuff," said Malika. "We scheduled a recce with Unusual's Robin Elias, explaining the nature of the slot and Robin ran with it. One of the key aspects of this job, as a live event, was to ensure the rig was set to perfection from the word go. On live TV, there are no opportunit
Belgium - Robe's new Square LED fixture made its European live TV debut on the three shows produced by Flanders' public broadcaster VRT which selected the song to represent Belgium at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Stockholm. The shows featured an intricate and interesting lighting design by Ignace D'Haese from Arf & Yes.
The 24 active Square fixtures were central to Ignace's scheme and concept for the shows which were staged at AED Studios in Lint, Belgium, in front of a live audience and a huge TV following who tuned in to watched the five final contestants perform their songs before voting on the winner.
Ignace has an architectural background and is known for his intelligent and thoughtful approach to lighting high profile, blockbuster music television shows. He unties all the drama and emotion of the music and the 'moments' on screen and for the live audienc
German artist Andreas Bourani recently toured his Hey tour through Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Bourani's success story started with his song Auf uns (On Us) during the 2014 football World Cup. Timo Martens, Philip Hillers and Nik Evers created the stage, video content and lighting design for the tour.
They chose three grandMA2 light, four MA Network Switch, four MA NPU (Network Processing Unit), two MA 8Port Nodes and 11 x MA Digital Dimmer 12 x 2,3kVA5 for lighting control.
Nik Evers explained the lighting design he realized together with Timo Martens and Philip Hillers. "One task was to light Andreas Bourani and his band perfectly. Besides this we had other considerations. For example, the musicians shouldn't be disturbed by the lighting, and the lighting had to 'complete' and emphasize the stage design. Each lighting system should stand for itself. It was a
Australia - Community Professional Loudspeakers has appointed Hills Limited as its exclusive distributor for Australia and New Zealand. Hills is a leading ANZ pro AV distributor for commercial installations across the enterprise, hospitality and entertainment, health, sports education and security sectors.
"We are delighted to partner with Community Professional Loudspeakers as their exciting product range of commercial loudspeakers complements our range of industry leading audio technologies and provides our customers with complete end to end solutions for their commercial audio and video needs," said Dan Fletcher, Head of Hills AV. "Community are well known for high-performance outdoor loudspeakers as well as indoor products designed to be attractive yet unobtrusive. They offer great musical sound quality and clear voice intelligibility, with many Community products ETL cert
Italy - FBT is set to welcome visitors from around the globe to its newly opened demonstration facility in Recanati, Italy, the result of a substantial investment on the part of the company's owners. The facility is equipped with a full range of FBT's audio solutions from line arrays to systems for installed sound.
The facility will now serve as the main hub of FBT's technical education programme, hosting seminars for both international and domestic visitors. As well as providing a dedicated space in which FBT technical experts and product specialists can meet and assist FBT clients, the demonstration area will also provide new opportunities for product testing, ensuring that FBT remains at the forefront of the market.
"The investment that we have poured into this facility has been quite high, and we have equally high expectations of how it will help us to reach out to our
UK - SSE Audio Group has been identified in the top 1000 companies to inspire Britain, by the London Stock Exchange. Dubbed a 'landmark report identifying the UK's most exciting and dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises (SME's)', the companies included needed to show consistent revenue growth over a minimum of three years, significantly outperforming their industry peers.
This is the third report of its kind published by the London Stock Exchange Group and it shows some interesting trends emerging.
Xavier Rolet, chief executive, London Stock Exchange Group said, "Our report shows more high-growth firms coming from outside London, with 8% fewer companies coming from London compared with last year. Continually strong UK sectors such as IT, telecommunications and the creative industries remain exceptionally well represented.
Germany - Two of the world's best known pro audio and MI companies, Yamaha Music Europe and DPA Microphones A/S, will join forces at the 2016 MusikMesse and ProLight+Sound shows in Frankfurt to demonstrate the advantages of combining their two powerful technologies.
As always, Yamaha will have a major presence at both events. The company's Musical Instrument division will be exhibiting in Portalhaus at MusikMesse, with the company's professional audio products shown in Hall 3.1, Booth E50 at ProLight+Sound. DPA Microphones will be exhibiting on Booth C11, Hall 4.1 at ProLight+Sound.
Yamaha's live performance stages will be equipped with DPA d:vote Instrument and d:dicate recording microphones, while the DPA booth will be equipped with Yamaha band and orchestra instruments for a number of demos and workshops and for by-passers to try out.
USA - University of Tennessee president Joe DiPietro hailed the university's "countless success" at the first ever 'State of the University' event at St. Thomas West Hospital, where, in addition to other goals and objectives, he announced the expansion of the UT Health Science Centre residency programme.
Bandit Lites provided the lighting for the event at no cost in a continuous effort to give back to its local community. Bandit founder and chair Michael T. Strickland, himself an alumnus of UT Knoxville, views the mission of the university as a clear path to the success of the country. Consistently ranked as one of the top 50 public universities in the country, the University of Tennessee system includes campuses in Chattanooga, Knoxville and Memphis, where the Knoxville flagship campus alone boasts more than 27,000 students and 300 degree programmes.
Croatia - Since 1991 Eldra LLC has been building a reputation as one of the foremost sound, lighting and video rental and sales houses in Croatia. Based in Bregana, near the capital Zagreb and established with the aim of bringing the best technologies to the Croatian market, Eldra's portfolio includes television shows, corporate events, festivals, high profile tours, even state visits by international leaders. Recently, Eldra's founders and co-CEOs - Igor and Damir - made the decision to invest in L-Acoustics Kara and K2 systems.
"Kara is a small system that can be used for big things," says Damir. "We use it as a main PA for smaller gigs and it is on almost on every rider for things like delays, fills and DJ monitoring, so it is in constant use. It's lightweight, very easy to handle and performs amazingly well on corporate events and live shows."
USA / Europe - Lightconverse and High End Lighting have launched their Lighting Challenge 2016.
"We continue to believe and embrace that the most imaginative and resourceful lighting artists among us deserve to be recognized and rewarded for their talents," say the companies. "The theme is up to you: The only thing we need to see is your original design.
Contest Information and rules can be found at the following links: https://www.highend.com/news/events/lc-challenge and
First prize is a High End HedgeHog4 X console and LIghtconverse Unlimited; second d and third place winners will receive Lightconverse Trace and Media, the popular choice winner will receive Lightconverse Media.
Closing date for entries is 1 April 2016. The winners will be announced at Prolight+Sound 2016, held from April 5-8, 2016 in Frankfurt.
South Africa - Over the next few months, various Vectorworks Training sessions presented by Francois van der Merwe, will be hosted at Johannesburg based DWR Distribution.
The Basic One Day Training will be held on 30 March from 9am to 5pm. Students will be given the fundamentals of Vectorworks, Layouts, Pallets, Basic Tools, Classes and Layers. The cost is R570 inclusive of VAT.
An Intermediate two-day training session takes place on 18 and 19 April, from 9am to 5pm. Topics include Preferences, Workspace, Basic Spotlight, Basic Renderworks and Intermediate Tools. The cost is R1 500.00 Inclusive of VAT.
For Advanced Users, a two-day training session will take place on 3 and 4 May from 9am to 5pm. Francois will focus on Working Planes, Advanced Modelling and Advanced Renderworks. The cost is R1 500.00 including VAT.
All delegates are requested to bring their laptops,
USA - With the start of the spring semester at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Connecticut, students in the University's theatre, music, and visual arts programmes are settling into their new Fine Arts Instructional Centre.
A collaboration between Theatre Projects, design architect William Rawn Associates, executive architect The S/L/A/M Collaborative, and acoustician Kirkegaard Associates, the 118,000sq.ft arts centre features a 400-seat concert hall, 250-seat courtyard theatre, and a 120-seat studio theatre, as well as support spaces including rehearsal rooms, scene and costume shops, dressing rooms, and a green room.
"Theatre Projects and William Rawn have a long history of successful collaborations," Scott Crossfield, Theatre Projects' theatre designer, said. "We're excited to add ECSU's beautiful new arts centre to that list and we look forward to
UAE - Working with Dynamic Motion, Protec delivered expert video design services and technology including BlackTrax real-time motion tracking at the grand opening ceremony of World Air Games 2015 held at the beachside coastal location of Sky Dive Dubai, UAE in late 2015.
Taking centre-stage, a raised inflatable 6m-wide spherical projection surface was suspended 30m above stage alongside aerial performers suspended on cable lines. Protec placed 15 BlackTrax stringers and five BlackTrax cameras to track the sphere's movement ensuring that video was perfectly aligned. BlackTrax streamed positional information via the high-speed protocol (RTTrPM) to d3 Technologies 4x4 pro servers, which visualised and handled the 3D geometry in real-time throughout the ceremony.
"The coastal wind did play its part in blowing the screen slightly during the ceremony, but with the live tracking
Italy - The fascinating story of Jack Kelly is on stage at the Teatro Nazionale in Milan. It is inspired by the true story of the news boys' strike in 1899, when it was the news boys themselves who sold the papers. They were mostly teenagers who bought the copies from the publishers and then tried to sell them at their own risk: unsold copies were not returned.
Jack Kelly, the charismatic leader of a gang of young messed-up newsies, dreams of better conditions far from the adversities of street life. When the publishing giants raise distribution prices at the expense of the news boys, Jack sees a reason to fight and persuades the young retailers throughout the city to go on strike for their rights.
Disney made a film from the story in the 1990s, which was a box office flop. However, it turned into a cult classic in America when it came out on VHS. Twenty years later, the m
Singapore - For SGM, 2015 ended on a high with a significant injection of capital to boost the company's global presence. On a mission to intensify focus on the Asia Pacific region, as of 1 January 2016, SGM has appointed Vijay Thaygarajoo as area sales manager for Asia Pacific.
Apart from Vijay's appointment, to further strengthen SGM's commitment to the area, a new SGM Service Centre has opened in Singapore to provide fast and reliable service to customers around the region. This centre will be supervised by Billy Magendran.
"I have spent my entire career in the lighting industry and I've kept my eye out for opportunities with SGM for a while," says Vijay. "What attracted me is the company's vast product portfolio for both architectural and entertainment lighting, and Singapore is the perfect gateway into Eastern territories."
UK - New Malden-based event lighting and production specialist EffectEvent has made a new investment in Core Lighting's flagship ColourPoint 2 wireless LED up-lighters to service their busy schedule.
EffectEvent was founded in 2010 by Duncan Owen who is still one of the primary hands-on project managers. The company is active in and around London and the southern counties, providing innovative and imaginative full lighting and production solutions for a multiplicity of events including corporate presentations and conferences, parties, awards shows and gala dinners, plus exclusive weddings.
The purchase of the infinitely useful and successful ColourPoint 2s add great flexibility to their current lighting rental stock, and follows a great experience utilising the older Core Point20 products - still going strong - as a reliable workhorse.
USA - With its new Every Story Starts with an Idea video, Powersoft seeks to deepen the brand's connection with its customers, partners and professional audio-oriented professionals, while reaching broader audiences via YouTube, Vimeo and other interactive social media platforms.
The video explores many of the key attributes that have made Powersoft a leading international audio manufacturer: innovation, teamwork, research, energy and many others. The narrative utilizes compelling video and imagery, capturing the people behind the design, engineering and manufacturing process.
Every Story Starts with an Idea takes viewers through a 'day by day' experience at the company through different vantage points. From the very first scenes in the video, Powersoft makes it clear that the essence of its brand is its people: product designers, researchers, engineers, asse
Italy - Immediately upon their release, the latest High End Systems luminaires were selected by lighting designer Vincent Longuemare as an integral part of the current production installment of la Boh
UK - Abbey Road Red is an incubation programme based at the world famous Abbey Road Studios. Designed to support the brightest music tech entrepreneurs, researchers and developers, the global programme involves the Studios selecting and mentoring three of the most promising and innovative music tech start-ups, and then working with them for six months to help develop and grow their businesses. The programme goes live on Monday 14 March.
Providing a bespoke mentorship programme delivered by executives and experts from both Abbey Road Studios and Universal Music, and unparalleled access to Abbey Road's facilities and international network of contacts, the inaugural three companies have been announced as OSSIC, UberChord and CloudBounce. All three companies were recruited through an open process of online submission, followed by multiple rounds of assessment, pitching and selecti
The Netherlands - Designed to host musical acts that cover the entire spectrum of genres, from classical to heavy metal, TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht called on Martin by Harman to deliver dynamic lighting solutions that create different atmospheres for each of its unique performance spaces.
The prestigious live music venue is made up of two previously separate entities, Tivoli and Vredenburg, that were recently brought together to form a single large venue. TivoliVredenburg comprises five distinct performance spaces: a jazz hall, a concert hall, a chamber music hall, a pop/rock hall and, for crossover genres, Pandora hall.
Lighting integrator and distributor Fairlight BV worked with professional lighting supplier and installer Air Light to create the lighting system at TivoliVredenburg. The line-up of Martin equipment at the venue is nothing short of impressive: 72 MAC Aura
Australia - ULA Group represented Robe on the recent 2016 Entech Roadshow in Australia which visited five major cities - Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth reaching out to a wide cross section of industry professionals from all sectors.
The one-day format of the show - with all exhibitors having the same stand space and freight allocation in the trucks - once again proved a great success. Every city's event was packed with visitors from start to finish and a series of seminars and presentations ran alongside the show floor action.
Featured Robe products included the new BMFL WashBeam, the popular Pointe, the new LED ColorStrobe and the retro PATT 2013. Aimed at theatre applications the new DL7S Profile, the DL4 range of LED luminaires and PARFect LED PARs took centre stage.
The small size and light weight of all of these fixtures enabled ULA's sales team t
UK - On Tuesday 22 March, Oran Burns of d&b Education and Application Support will present the timeless d&b Electroacoustics seminar at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, in London.
The focus of the session is 'achieving intelligibility' and the day is pitched at anyone wishing to broaden their knowledge and understanding of the principles of electroacoustics for sound system design and engineering.
"The seminar covers the basics in an accessible and fun way through practical demonstrations," explains Burns. "It's been evolved over the last fifteen years and has become something of an industry standard."
The seminar is suitable for all levels of experience, for anyone wanting to know more about how loudspeakers interact with their environment and how that affects what the listener hears. Spaces are limited so please book as soon as possible. To register or t
USA - Motion control systems manufacturer Kinesys hosted a highly successful training event and open-house in its Lithia Springs, Georgia, USA facility, which was attended by over 50 people connected to the world of rigging automation and its application in the live entertainment industry.
The format included two days of technical and operator training on Kinesys products, presented by David Martin (head of training - Kinesys USA), which catered for a range of ability and experience levels. This was followed by two days of general 'open-house' product awareness sessions for potential clients, existing customers and associates.
The objective was to increase familiarisation with Kinesys' capabilities, methodology and interfaces, and to expand the pool of Kinesys-trained technicians in the United States.
David Bond (head of sales - Kinesys USA), says, "We were extremely h
UK - PLASA members enjoyed a unique opportunity to take part in an informative and fun day backstage at the recently refurbished Sadler's Wells theatre last week.
The venue - one of the most respected and important receiving and co-producing dance houses in the world - recently underwent a major refurbishment, as detailed in the June 2015 issue of LSi.
Emma Wilson and Christian Wallace from Sadler's Wells, plus the specialist teams from Stage Electrics, Stage Technologies, Carr and Angier and GDS led the tours from the impressive auditorium up to the dizzying heights of the grid and flying system. Members then reconvened for a lively networking lunch before taking the opportunity to further explore areas of specific interest. The busy and insightful day finished with tea and cake.