Projects

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04 July 2024

UK - The Marshall Amplification headquarters in Milton Keynes recently expanded to incorporate the recording studio, record label and live agency service. The space features a world class, 250-capacity live performance space, from which artists can record and prepare for live shows.

“Marshall started because artists needed amps,” says studio manager Adam Beer. “And 60 years on, we asked ourselves what modern artists need. This led us to found a record label, a live agency, and now a recording studio to enable up-and-coming artists to access the resources needed to become successful musicians.”

It was crucial to the Marshall team to retain a live element in the studio. “In this live space, we host events, album launch parties, and performances from visiting artists. Our sound system needs to reflect the high quality of the building and the w

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04 July 2024

UK - Situated close to the O2 Arena and Excel Exhibition centre in London, Crowne Plaza Docklands is a 210-bedroom hotel featuring the brand’s new Fremantle Bar & Restaurant concept. Creating the Australasian-inspired all-day restaurant involved a significant recent upgrade to existing audio infrastructure, a project tasked to Uxbridge-based AV specialist Middlesex Sound.

Briefed to deliver a high-quality, zoned audio system that met the hotel’s specific aesthetic requirements, Middlesex Sound supplied and installed a turnkey solution from Optimal Audio.

Director Darrel Olivier explains, “There were four separate zones we needed to cater for - the main bar, the restaurant, a private dining area and terrace. It was very important to deliver consistent, high-quality audio across the spaces, so we employed 16 Optimal Audio Cuboid 6 speakers wh

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04 July 2024

Europe - Front-of-house engineer Burton Ishmael found himself at the helm of one of the largest concert audiences in history.

On Madonna’s Celebration world tour, Ishmael’s technical prowess and creative vision were put to the test. Madonna’s discography spans over 40 years, requiring much more than a one-size-fits-all approach. With a long list of hit songs with different sonic signatures recorded all over the world, the goal was to stay true to each record while providing a cohesive experience.

Enter the Avid Venue | S6L. Captivated by its versatility and intuitive interface, he found in the S6L a platform that not only complemented his workflow but also ‘elevated his sonic palette’. With its onboard plugins processing power, and seamless integration with his preferred outboard gear, the S6L became an indispensable tool in his arsenal.

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03 July 2024

USA - Four-time Grammy Award-winning guitar player and singer/songwriter Gary Clark Jr. has embarked on the North American leg of his 2024 world tour with Claypaky Sharpy X-Frames and Midi-B FX fixtures filling the lighting rig.

Lighting designer John Adamo, who co-designed the show with Robert Fuller, selected the fixtures, which have been supplied by Bandit Lites, the tour’s full-service lighting and effects provider. Both designers have long histories with Clark and previously have used Claypaky Sharpy Plus fixtures for his shows. The tour, in support of Clark’s new album, JPEG RAW, kicked off in Fort Worth, Texas on 8 May and will play more than two dozen dates, including Radio City Music Hall, Wolf Trap and Red Rocks.

“I view Gary’s music as complex and modern yet timeless and classic” says Adamo.  “We wanted the lighting r

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03 July 2024

Iceland - The Reykjavik City Theatre is one of Iceland’s most prestigious theatrical institutions. It offers a wide range of performances in a high-tech modern theatre complex.

There are three formal performance spaces in addition to less formal areas. The Main Space has a 546-seat auditorium, with revolving stage and orchestra pit. The New Stage is a smaller, black-box studio that is endlessly flexible, while the Small Stage has around 200 seats with flexible seating and balconies for a theatre-in-the-round experience.

The theatre’s educational programme is central to the ethos of opening up theatre for all, with regular visits from nursery and primary school aged children, educational programmes and regular publications of educational material for all areas of theatre available via its website.

When the tender for replacing the existing

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03 July 2024

Japan - Connected to the largest freshwater lake in Japan, Karahashi Deck in Otsu City is a multifunctional facility offering water sports, corporate training, education, and a glass-enclosed restaurant with a stunning view. Sitting on the banks of the Seta River, the new venue is operated by Biwako Rowing Club – an organisation that offers rowing classes to children with disabilities. The newly opened café and restaurant, La Cosso, offers a naturally serene environment, which is complemented by six 4020 installation loudspeakers from Genelec.

Alongside its water sports lessons and educational seminars, Karahashi Deck aims to provide employment support for people with disabilities, through work in the café, boat repairs and additional roles across the site. Genelec helped to provide a relaxing environment where people with and without disabilities can in

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03 July 2024

Portugal - Europalco orchestrated the 120th Anniversary Gala for Sport Lisboa e Benfica, the Portuguese football club. The event, known as the Cosme Damião Awards, was held at the MEO Arena in Lisbon and paid tribute to the rich history and achievements of the club, as well as the personalities who have contributed to its legacy.

The Cosme Damião Awards is a ceremony that recognises the achievements of Sport Lisboa e Benfica and pays tribute to Cosme Damião, one of the club's founding fathers. This annual event holds immense significance in the hearts of Benfica fans and the sporting community, as it commemorates the club's enduring legacy and honours its brightest stars.

The centrepiece of the gala was the 70m x 12m main screen, creatively designed to resemble the wings of the Benfica eagle, the club's symbol. Europalco used 12 Christie Boxer pro

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02 July 2024

France - Alain Corthout’s production design for Black Eyed Peas show at La Défense Arena in Paris reflected the music and stage persona of the LA band with a transcended visual panorama that wove light and video together in concentric patterns.

“The lighting and video concept aimed to create a seamless fusion of elements, utilizing expansive curves and circles to present a unified visual experience,” said Corthout. “By integrating concentric rims extending from the video screens, we sought to evoke a sense of grandeur and cohesion within the large venue setting.”

Using this canvas, Corthout unfolded a narrative over a show that spanned more than two hours and featured a 24-song set list. “The narrative of the show centred on encapsulating the joyous, ecstatic, party atmosphere synonymous with the Black Eyed Peas' music,” he explained.

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02 July 2024

Finland - The country’s biggest rap stars descended on the Nokia Arena in Tampere recently to treat more than 10,000 music lovers to a night of pumped-up performance, with live action footage and pre-made content on an LED cube and wraparound ticker screens powered by tvONE's Green Hippo brand of Hippotizer Media Servers.

Organised by the international Rockstar Energy Drink brand in association with Def Agency and Warner Music Live, rappers including Ahti, Cledos and Elastinen played the in-the-round stage. This was dominated by a star-shaped overhead lighting truss and a 360-degree, four-fascia LED cube, and a DJ booth and stage riser formed of ROE Black Pearl 3 screens. LED stars – the branding of Rockstar – were built from Sceptron linear fixtures and rigged throughout the arena and from the ceiling truss. All the lighting and Hippotizers were contr

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02 July 2024

Greece - The country’s hospitality industry is gearing up for another busy summer, with operators increasingly upgrading to world-class sound systems as the importance of music and sound is recognised more and more as central to driving revenues in flexible venues for eating, drinking and dancing.

Athens-based Nexo distributor IMA Audio Lighting has been busy this year designing and installing Nexo systems in hospitality settings across the country.

With a vibrant and energetic atmosphere complete with music and dancing, the Barbarossa Restaurant occupies a prominent position on the waterside in the picturesque fishing village of Naoussa on the island of Paros.

A new installation of just six Nexo compact ID24 speakers with three IDS110 subs has given this venue what the owner describes as ‘the best sound on Paros’, with the versatility

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02 July 2024

UK - The annual Hay Festival returned from 23 May - 2 June to the picturesque town in Powys, Wales attracting over 250K visitors.

Founded in 1987, Hay Festival Global has grown into one of the most celebrated literary charities in the world and delivers events with authors, thought leaders and artists from around the globe. This spring’s edition in Hay-on-Wye featured 800 conversations and performances with diverse voices and genres including best-selling novelists, pioneering scientists, influential politicians, comedians, musicians and innovative artists.

Stage Sound Services based in Cardiff worked closely with the production team and provisioned all the technical equipment and installation to the seven venues located throughout the site. The Stage Sound Services team have worked directly with the charity’s in-house team for the last three yea

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02 July 2024

UK - Tunes in the Dunes is the apt name given to an annual three-day festival on Perranporth Beach in Cornwall.

The festival has been running on the golden sands for 11 years, having sprung up from the live music events at the beachside Watering Hole.

Based nearby in Plymouth, Martin Audio partner Nub Sound this year provided the technical infrastructure, deploying their Wavefront Precision Compact (WPC), eight elements a side, which ensured headliners McFly (Friday), Craig David (Saturday) and Ocean Colour Scene (Sunday) could be heard to the max by crowds assembling on the beach as their music drifted out towards the Atlantic Ocean.

On duty was Nub Sound director of operations and sound engineer Josh Small. He explained that in addition to the eight WPC per side, a cardioid sub array of eight SXH218 in a castellated format, ensured rear rej

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02 July 2024

USA - The Terre Haute Casino Resort in Indiana just celebrated its grand opening with integrated 1 Sound loudspeakers. NV5, consulting and engineering firm, and American Sound and Electronics worked together to design and install various AV aspects in the resort. The 56,000sq.ft gaming floor has 1,000 slot machines, 50 table games, poker rooms, and a TwinSpires Sportsbook area.

For the central bar on the gaming floor, American Sound installed a 360º, dual-sided, LED video wall above the bar. Both teams together implemented 1 Sound loudspeakers for this bar where they would expect live music, live sporting event audio, and background music.

For this central bar, two of 1 Sound’s Contour CT28s were deployed in the ceiling paired with SUB310s. These three-way, constant directivity, horn-loaded, point sources provided the SPL and energy needed for the

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01 July 2024

Germany - Just before the start of UEFA Euro 2024, Frankfurt, one of the 10 host cities, set the stage for four weeks of international football fever with a spectacular multimedia show. The show, a collaboration between bright! studios and spatial experiences agency Atelier Markgraph on behalf of Tourismus + Congress Frankfurt, transformed one of the city’s notable bridges over the Main River (Flößerbrücke) into a gigantic musical instrument. 

The bridge, covered in the colours of the 24 participating nations for the duration of the European Championship, became the centrepiece of the football world for the 25-minute show. Lighting designer Thomas Giegerich from bright! used 96 Proteus Excalibur, 48 Proteus Maximus and 48 of Elation’s new Pulse Bar L linear lighting solutions to visually bring the concept to life. Kaiser Showtechnik was responsible f

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01 July 2024

Denmark - Powersoft’s Unica amplifier platform is the backbone to recently refurbished screening rooms in Nordisk Film Cinemas’ Danish cinema Kinopalæet.

Nordisk Film Cinemas, a prominent cinema chain in the Scandinavia, recently refurbished two screening rooms in its Kinopalæet cinema, north of Copenhagen.

Kinopalæet turned to Powersoft Unica amplifiers in order to achieve a stable audio experience to its cinemagoers. Spearheading the rooms’ refurbishment was Jan Rasmussen, head of screen technology at Nordisk Film Cinemas: “The main factors in choosing audio equipment for cinema are quality, features and stability,” he says. “We prefer using networked sound in our cinemas because of the flexibility and cost efficiency and Powersoft fits perfect in all these categories.”

The refurbishment was done in two rooms, Screen 8 with

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01 July 2024

Australia - Adriano Candeloro is a founding director and technology guru at Sightline Productions – a busy and successful NSW-based AV and rental company that covers a range of corporate and B2B clients across Australia, New Zealand and much further afield with a variety of international work.

Joe Murray is also a founding director, and they and the team are all big fans of Astera, having first started hearing about the brand a few years back when the neon lighting look was very popular in Australia.

The first Astera products to arrive at Sightline were AX1 PixelTubes that joined the inventory in 2019, a figure that’s now jumped to over 50 fixtures.

In addition to these, they also have AX2 LED battens, AX3 LiteDrops, AX5 TriplePARs, AX9 PowerPARs, as well as the 2 metre Hyperion Tubes and the half metre Helios Tubes, totalling over 200 As

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01 July 2024

USA - This year’s Bonnaroo festival was hot. During the three-day event, temperatures were consistently in the 90s (+30°C), sometimes reaching 100°F, with plenty of humidity and one thunderstorm thrown in.

These conditions made the covered This and That Tents welcome places to cool off. These shaded venues offered much more than more than thermal relief; they also served up “some of the best sets of the weekend”.

Anyone who caught Dashboard Confessional’s Superjam emo performance with a bevy of special guest stars on the This Tent Stage would readily agree with that assessment. So too would those captivated by Thundercat’s thunderous bass on the That Tent Stage. Throw in performances by GWAR, Eggy, Taking Back Sunday, Interpol, IDLES, and more, and there was plenty to get swept up by in the shade of the tents.

Adding to the energy

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28 June 2024

USA - Ben Gilbert was called upon to light the 31 city North American leg of LANY’s Beautiful Blur tour in support of their fifth album. Not endowed with a great deal of time to do their thing, Gilbert and his team came up with a design that used a curved truss configuration to engage audience by changing the depth and shape perceptions of the stage and its runway.

“The biggest challenge on this for us was time,” said Gilbert.  “We managed to pull this whole show together in under a month and programmed it all in about 10 days. Coming up with the design and getting it to work with the music of the show in such a short space of time was challenging, but working with a great team we got it done.”

Providing assistance to Gilbert in this task was Bandit Lites, which suggested the idea of using pre-rig gates for the curve design. Bandit also su

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27 June 2024

China - The architecturally stunning Xiao Theatre inside Beijing’s Huilongguan Cultural and Art Centre Theatre has installed a Green-GO ethernet-based digital communications system to aid clear, seamless interactions between the technical team.

The theatre, which is named for renowned Chinese director Rao Xiaozhi, has become a go-to venue for immersive sound technology, attracting a range of dance and theatrical companies. China Green-GO dealer and AV expert EZPro specified a complete AV solution for the theatre, helping it to gain a reputation as a pioneer in audio system design that brings audiences a more involved experience.

To ensure clear communication and efficient workflow, EZPro introduced the Xiao Theatre’s technical team to the Green-GO system. During the planning process Wei HE, Green-GO product manager at EZPro, demonstrated its wire

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27 June 2024

Singapore - Changi Airport in Singapore recently unveiled its latest attraction: Terminal 2 which now boasts an immersive experience across two installations aimed at recreating the wonders of Singapore’s natural environment.

The two multimedia installations, named Digital Sky and Wonderfall were created by multimedia studio Moment Factory, in close collaboration with the design studio Boiffils Architectures, and implemented by systems integrators Electronics & Engineering (Wonderfall) and Electro-Acoustics Systems (Digital Sky).

Moment Factory also designed the soundscape of both installations and a K-array system was chosen to provide sound reinforcement for this ambitious installation.   “For our third collaboration with Changi Airport Group, the trust already established with the client allowed us to push the envelope, both creatively a

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27 June 2024

USA - When the University of Michigan set out to enhance the audiovisual experience for spectators at Michigan Stadium, one of college football’s best-known venues, university officials pledged to take the game-day atmosphere to ‘unprecedented heights’. To deliver on that promise, the university chose the technology of the Anya 3-way Full-range ADAPTive Array Module and Otto ADAPTive Subwoofer from EAW.

Led by Paul Haley, lead audio/visual engineer at University of Michigan Athletics, the multi-million-dollar project included the new EAW audio system, two new video boards (the main North videoboard and a South videoboard), as well as lighting and production studio upgrades.

“The decision to integrate EAW speakers into the renovation project came after meticulous consideration and consultation with industry experts,” says Haley. “We wanted

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27 June 2024

South Korea - Nothing But Thieves were very happy with their touring set-up, but a ‘fly-in’ gig in South Korea changed everything. The in-house desk was a DiGiCo Quantum 338 and Gary Curtis, front of house engineer, knew as soon as he heard it that there was no going back, and once the band had heard his multi-track recordings, they agreed.

The Quantum 338 is now their desk of choice at both the front of house and monitor positions. “We had been using another system for about seven years,” Curtis explains. “But when we heard the Quantum, we all knew it was really good. I was able to do a recording of the sound check, so we could A-B it. The other console was great, but the DiGiCo is completely different.”

David Ruffle, monitor engineer, was unable to attend the dates in South Korea and the last thing he expected was to come back to a comp

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26 June 2024

Slovakia - For almost half a century, Jean Michel Jarre has pushed the boundaries of studio production and live performance.

Jarre’s most recent appearance saw him take to the stage in the Slovakian capital Bratislava to perform his Bridge From the Future show in front of 100,000. The gig opened STARMUS, a science and music festival founded by Queen guitarist Brian May and astrophysicist Dr Garik Israelian, with the aim of uniting science, art, and music to explore critical questions about the future of the planet.

For what would be an audio tour-de-force involving additional contributions from Brian May, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra and a 19-strong chorus form the Slovak Philharmonic Choir, delivered from the largest stage ever constructed in Slovakia, Jean Michel Jarre specified a Coda Audio system to meet the challenge.

Exp

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26 June 2024

UK - The Olivier Awards 2024 took place on Sunday 14 April 2024 at the Royal Albert Hall, from where it was broadcast by ITV1, and streamed internationally on YouTube and by BritBox. It was presented by Emmy winner and multi-Olivier nominee Hannah Waddingham who opened the show, accompanied by the London Community Gospel Choir, with a performance of Anything Goes.

The three-hour long Awards show was interspersed with performances from the casts of West End musical theatre including Hadestown, Sunset Boulevard, Operation Mincemeat, and Guys and Dolls.

Lighting designer Ben Cracknell, lighting the Olivier Awards for his 11th year, chose 78 Ayrton Perseo Profile fixtures, provided by White Light, as his work horse fixtures. He wanted to modernise and unify under one fixture type his previously mixed rig, so h