Poland - Sixty million pixels of content is being driven to 18 HD projectors and three LED screens as part of an immersive installation at the Bieszczady Cultural Heritage Centre, with tvONE's Green Hippo Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 Media Servers at the core of the visuals. More than 200GB of animated graphics are being handled by the Boreal+ MK2s in a show designed to educate, inform and entertain.

The Centre, called Bieszczadzkie Centrum Dziedzictwa Kulturowego in Polish, is located in the southeast town of Ustrzyki Dolne. Its multimedia rooms, exhibition zones, and concert hall have been constructed in an old refinery, offering ample space for the AV show, which takes visitors into a virtual reality space to tell stories about multiculturalism, the richness of nature, and economic development. The room in which the project is installed measures 15 x 15m.

Europe - Lighting designer Andre Beekmans from design studio The Art of Light buckled up for hardcore techno rave action with Scooter on their Thirty Rough & Dirty tour celebrating 30 years of dance music!

Andre’s technical rider specifies several Robe moving lights – 78 x Pointes, 45 x Spiiders, 82 x Tetra2s and three Fortes used as follow spots on a remote follow system – all picked for their speed, functionality, and robustness for a genre of music that seriously challenges the build quality of any piece of lighting kit!

Andre – whose clients include Armin van Buuren, Afrojack and a string of other high profile dance artists – started working with Scooter in 2022 on a stadium tour of German-speaking countries.

One of Andre’s starting points for Thirty, Rough & Dirty’s production lighting design was M

France - The latest edition of ibis RockCorps returned recently with a major gig at Paris’s Accor Arena, featuring the triple bill of Macklemore, Franglish and Rosinia. The concept of the event is that anyone giving four hours of their time as a civic project volunteer in the French capital is eligible for tickets to this free concert.

Martin Audio partner, production company 22live, tendered and won the contract, having worked for the show’s producers CC-Lab in the past.

However, 22live director Paul Timmins was aware that to service a gig economically within the Eurozone would require a marriage of careful logistics and high-octane sound - knowing that working in Europe post-Brexit poses a bureaucratic nightmare of Kafkaesque proportions.

He rationalised that by flying Martin Audio’s large format Wavefront Precision W

UK - The new Coyote Ugly Saloon in Bristol is bringing a slice of the Big Apple to south-west England with a high-energy audio installation powered by Powersoft T Series amplifiers.

Inspired by the original Coyote Ugly bar in New York, immortalised in the cult 2000 film Coyote Ugly, the first UK Coyote Ugly Saloon opened its doors in 2016 and instantly proved popular in Liverpool and Birmingham. The newest venue, which also has sister bars in London, Cardiff and Swansea is located on Bristol’s Bordeaux Quay, with long-time integration partner Spartan Audio Visual adding the audio muscle.

“We’ve worked with the UK franchise owner for a long time and understand a lot about how they like to work in order to deliver maximum value without compromising the overall AV product,” explains Dave Morgan, Spartan Audio Visual’s sales and instal

USA - Guitarist and singer/songwriter Gary Clark Jr. is out on his Hyperwave tour in support of his most recent album, JPEGRAW. Bandit Lites provided the lighting for the North American dates, which covered nearly every type of venue, from mobile stages to Red Rocks to Radio City. When assembling the scalable lighting system, designers John Adamo and Robert Fuller took inspiration directly from Clark Jr.’s music.

“We really wanted to try and pay respect to the sonic diversity and range we felt was such a standout feature of the project,” explained Adamo. “We wanted the lighting design to try and reflect what we heard in the music: A combination of strong, defined layers that stand strong in their own right but really shine when woven together.”

The modular rig had a baseline width of 41’ that would need to compress inward or even have ent

UK - Take That’s This Life world tour takes in arenas and stadiums with audio design, equipment delivery and crew from Skan, a Clair Global brand. Led by tour director Chris Vaughan and production manager Wez Wearing, Take That still attract multi-generational fans in their tens of thousands per night.

Now a three-piece comprising Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald, FOH engineer Gary Bradshaw has had the same objective since their inception in 1993: “I must get the show to sound as close to the records possible, it’s what their fans expect. With the live band, the arrangements are different, but the overall sound needs to be similar. Mike Stevens, our musical director, is very good at arranging the music, and the musicians are brilliant.”

Gary has used DiGiCo desks since they came to market, this time taking an SD7 Quantum out.

USA - Lighting designer Tom Kenny utilised Elation lighting for both the indoor and outdoor stages at the 2024 CMT Music Awards earlier this spring. The lighting package, supplied by 4Wall, included Proteus Excalibur, Artiste Mondrian, and Dartz 360 luminaires, among other fixtures.

Broadcast live from the Moody Centre on the University of Texas campus in Austin, performances took place inside and on an outdoor stage in front of the University of Texas Tower. Lighting direction for the indoor show was by Felix Peralta, David ‘Fuji’ Convertino, and Michelle Griesmer, with Han Henze and Matt Piercy handling lighting direction on the outdoor stage. Production design was by Anne Brahic, her 15th year working the awards show.

Kenny was in his 12th year designing for the CMTs and his experience and proven approach are integral to the successful team ef

USA - The architectural design of the Insomniac Events Electric Daisy Festival’s bassPOD stage is impressive by any measure. With a 65ft high trim and a width of approximately 250-feet, it is clearly massive. But there is more than size to this impressive metallic structure designed by Stufish Studios. With its shapes and forms extending in every direction, and at multiple levels, it presents a labyrinth of possibilities, inviting all who look at it to let their imaginations run wild along its myriad paths.

Erik Mahowald spent countless hours delving into every nuance of this stage design long before it was ever constructed. He was tasked with making it come alive and accenting all its compelling power with light.

“Once we received the architectural design from Stufish Studios, my team and I closely evaluated the size and material of the structur

USA - In 2024, rockers 311 from Omaha, Nebraska, celebrate 34 years as one of America’s most popular indie bands with a massive ‘cult following’. The band celebrates biennially with a ‘311 Day’ concert event - two nights of ‘unapologetic 311-core music’. Since 2018, this has been staged at The Park Theatre at Park MGM, Las Vegas.

Lighting designer Bobby Grey of Notan Creative has been working as their production designer since 2018. But before then, he had completed his first ever 311 tour as a fresh-faced fresh out of school lighting tech, back in the day when Joe Paradise was pushing the buttons.

The 2024 event featured a completely new production design – which will be followed up by a heavy touring schedule – and Bobby took the opportunity to spec nearly 200 Robe moving lights – a mix of Fortes, Esprites, Tetra2s and MegaPoint

USA - Sphere Entertainment has announced that Sphere will celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Exosphere’s first illumination on 4 July with an all-new Exosphere content and audio experience – the Sphere Fourth of July Celebration presented by Verizon.

The Sphere Fourth of July Celebration will also mark the launch of two new features of the Exosphere experience: XO Stream presented by Verizon – an official livestream of the Exosphere that will be available 24/7 on thesphere.com, and XO Audio – custom audio synced to content on the Exosphere that will be audible both onsite within Sphere’s property and online via XO Stream.

Earlier in the evening, Sphere will honour the Las Vegas-based student artists who participated in the Sphere XO Student Design Challenge with a special pre-show ceremony

Denmark - The new Lion Productions show Cinderella the Musical (Askepot the Musical in Danish) premiered at the Tivolis Koncertsal, København, (Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen) and is being followed by an ongoing national tour.

Motor Stage Automation (MSA) has provided two elements of automation equipment for this acclaimed production – MRD750 7.5m double revolve comprising a 5m centre circle and a 2.5m outer ring, plus two tracking video screens on a rear truss.

All of this is being operated via a Kinesys Vector control console, programmed by Lion Productions’ head of automation, Erik Mølgaard Jensen, at the start of the tour. A touring operator runs the automation day-to-day, with Erik also overseeing the moves to different venues.

The MRD750 high gloss surfaced revolve is in constant motion throughout the performanc

Norway - The newly launched Grandeur is the sixth luxury ship to come from Regent Seven Seas Cruises. With 10 decks that can host up to 744 guests, the cruise ship promises a deluxe vacation experience with beautiful design throughout. The ship landed on many ETC solutions to outfit its lighting plot.

Filling many roles on the vessel, Travis McHale shared his experience working with ETC. Part of Travis’s responsibilities includes working as a contractor for Norwegian Cruise Lines, designing the light plot, producing paperwork, and creating the layout of all the networking, as well as specifying the equipment. Additionally, for Norwegian Creative Studios, he was the lighting designer and programmer for most of the production shows on board.

This is the third vessel in the class of ship. Prior to Grandeur, Travis worked on the second ship with a Gio

USA - Paul Maloof says he’s the kind of person who loves a challenge. He’s also always open to new experiences. He’s getting his share of both with indie icons Say Anything on their 27-city Is A Real Boy 20th Anniversary Tour.

Although they’ve recorded nine albums, in addition to appearing in films and on network TV shows over the past two decades, the popular six-member band has never carried their own LD with them on tour. For his part, Maloof, though admiring their music, was not very familiar with Say Anything’s songs.

“From the get-go, I knew that this was going to be a show of firsts for all of us,” said Maloof. “I started building a show file based on the album track listing and was not very confident it was going to be successful. I decided to take on the challenge of busking the show. It seems to have been the right choice.

USA - Country superstar Thomas Rhett’s tour is hitting US arenas and festivals with an “awesome” lighting and visual show driven by tvONE's Green Hippo brand of Hippotizer Media Servers.

A vast LED screen is constructed in each venue behind a wall of lighting fixtures, which are rigged on a scaffolding-style structure. Wrapping around the top of the stage, mirroring the thrust, a series of LED panels add height and drama. For each show, creative designer Alec Takahashi of BKD plays with depth, texture and layering to create what he describes as a “sense of wonder” with video surfaces.

Two Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 Media Servers – one as main, one as backup – are being used to provide the processing power, programming ease and eye-candy effects, with a Hippotizer Karst+ MK2 at FOH for HippoNet access.

“To create this show we utili

UK - A Thameside location in the well-heeled town of Marlow is the setting for Tom Kerridge’s firmly established Pub in the Park festival.

Thiis is more of a four-day community event than a festival - complete with stages, pop-ups and a line-up of top chefs, mingling with the DJs and artists of the calibre of Van Morrison, Paloma Faith, Busted and Example, while the array of DJs ranged from Judge Jules to Gok Wan via Vernon Kay.

Martin Audio partner SWG Events have a had a long history with the event, this year bringing their flagship WPL line array to main stage. The rental company will also be providing a turnkey solution for the other three Pub in the Park events, in Chiswick, St Albans and Reigate.

In Marlow, they populated the stage with hangs of 10 WPL enclosures a side, with four of the smaller Wavefront Precision WPS arrays providin

UK - Forty years in the business have seen Nils Edstrom cover the full range of audio engineering duties. Having started life as a performing musician, Nils moved into studio engineering, where he amassed credits on more than a hundred and fifty commercially released albums. After that, itchy feet took him out on the road as a freelance touring engineer, a role he occupies to this day alongside his gig as an educator at South and City College (SCCB) in Digbeth, Birmingham.

Nils has enjoyed a plethora of career highlights, not least of which was the Easy Star Allstars performance of Dub Side of the Moon on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, next to the Lovell Telescope at Bluedot Festival. Punjabtronix at Washington’s Kennedy Centre, Maximo Park at Kendall Calling, and a series of TEDGlobal events, are further examples of Nils’ versatility. He is a

USA - Elation supported the British Music Embassy (BME) stage at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) conference and music festival in Austin, Texas. Partnering with the Academy of Live Technology at Production Park, Elation lighting was used to illuminate the stage and artists while serving as a valuable training ground for the next generation of lighting technicians and operators.

The BME stage is a high-profile platform at the renowned festival and is run on behalf of the UK Government International Department for Business and Trade. It provides a valuable showcase for the UK's best emerging acts and has played host to a number of artists who went on to global fame such as Amy Winehouse, Sam Fender, The 1975, and more.

As an ongoing partner of the Academy of Live Technology, and Production Park, Elation was pleased to supply 18 Proteus Lucius,

UK - Flipside AV recently installed an Optimal Audio Zone 4 and ZonePad to control three audio zones at a modern café, bar and hotel called Bang in Wells in Wells-next-the-Sea on the North Norfolk Coast.

Zone 4 is a zonal audio controller with DSP providing everything required in a single compact unit to become the beating heart of an efficient, high-quality multi-zoned commercial sound system and features 4 line and 2 mic inputs plus 2 HDMI inputs for TV and video sound. It allows the installer to independently allocate sources across four configurable zones, such as a lobby, bar or restaurant, and each zone can be configured to do precisely what is required using the intuitive WebApp. This includes EQs, speaker presets, structured time of day routines and so much more.

In the case of Bang, Zone 4 was installed to control audio for three zones and

Bosnia and Herzegovina - Earlier this year, ProRent enhanced its already impressive array of rental solutions with a new multifunctional workhorse - the SD12 digital mixing console.

“At ProRent, we are committed to delivering top-notch solutions for our clients, and the addition of the SD12 aligns perfectly with our mission to provide cutting-edge technology,” says Sinisa Ninkovic, owner of ProRent. “DiGiCo is a premier global brand, and SD-Range consoles are often featured on technical riders of both regional and international artists, which played a pivotal role in our decision to make this purchase. The SD12 is recognised as a reliable solution within our industry.”

Ninkovic also notes that the SD12 commands an impressive array of features, including 72 input channels that can be expanded up to 96 channels, 119 dynamic EQ processors, 16 gr

UK - The Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is one of the country’s leading producing houses, based in the inner-city neighbourhood of Hammersmith, West London. The Lyric recently invested in a comprehensive audio upgrade, based entirely on EM Acoustics’ product portfolio. The upgrade, completed in early 2024, was led by the theatre’s Head of Sound, Daniel Ronayne.  

“Our existing system was due for an upgrade; it was around 30 years old and composed of many different products from different brands,” reflects Ronayne. “We had hired a demo rig from EM Acoustics for past productions, such as our yearly panto, and we were blown away by the quality and wanted to make these products a permanent feature of the theatre and the audience experience.”  

A complete upgrade is a serious decision for a busy theatre but following a trial period, the decis

Europe - Marking the 80th anniversary tour of Holiday On Ice, the 2023-24 No Limits tour was created by AED Studios in Lint, Belgium and played 174 performances in 21 cities across Germany with Claypaky Volero Wave and Scenius Profiles, from tour lighting provider Rentall Europe, lighting the figure skating spectacular.

No Limits and its 40 skaters and artists spanned many imaginative settings, from monster battles to Roman chariot races to the Wild West. The show also pushed the technical standards of live entertainment with an impressive three-dimensional, 200sq.m LED screen, approximately 300 projectors and a customised kinetic lighting installation.

Lighting designer Tim Routledge and lighting programmer James Scott focused on crafting a visually stunning and immersive environment that elevated the performances with inn

USA - Songs from Scott McCreery’s new album, Rise & Fall, feature alongside older material on his 16-city tour.

The power of McCreery’s performance is reflected in a richly textured production design by Drew Hornback, which, like the music it supports, features a strong narrative element. At its heart is a three-panelled blow-through video wall displaying captivating content created by filmmaker Jeff Ray, the Austin, Texas creative responsible for many of McCreery’s videos.

Adding visual impact to the video panorama are 18 Chauvet Professional STRKE Array 2 fixtures supplied by Blue Crew Productions of Nashville. Hornback positioned six of the high output warm-white blinders behind each of the blow-through walls. Turned on and off at different points in the show, and run at different levels of brightness, the high-output blinders c

Thailand - Studio X Beyond, in partnership with L&E Beyond, a division of Lighting and Equipment Public Company Limited (L&E), is a virtual production studio recently opened in the heart of Bangkok. On 18 July, during this year’s InfoComm Asia, the studio will host an open house event in partnership with Brompton Technology, AOTO and Disguise.

The event will showcase how Brompton’s advanced LED processing solutions, combined with Virtual Production (VP) technology, Disguise's real-time production capabilities and AOTO's state-of-the-art LED screens, can ‘revolutionise content creation’.

Targeting industry sectors such as film and television production, advertising, music video production, live events, and product launches, Studio X Beyond aims to attract professionals seeking innovative ways to enhance their production quality and eff

Indonesia - Mantra Club, the latest addition to the vibrant nightlife of Pantai Indah Kapuk (PIK) in Jakarta, has burst onto the scene with impressive décor and a sound system from KV2. Club owners and nightlife destination specialists, the Satulapan Group, turned to integration experts, Music Art, to deliver an audio system in line with their high-level expectations. Music Art recommended KV2 with the support of KV2’s Indonesian distributor, PT Goshen Swara Indonesia.

Mantra Club aims to provide an exceptional music experience, including high-octane DJ sets and live performances. The brief was therefore to design a high-quality audio system capable of delivering high SPL with minimum distortion for a high-energy yet non-fatiguing audio experience. Following a convincing demo at Goshen’s impressive demo facility in font of both the end client and the in

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