Spain - National state-owned public-service television broadcaster RTVE recently teamed up with Antonio Banderas’ television production company, Teatro Soho Televisión (TST), to produce the 10-episode series of Las Tres Puertas, a new arts and culture show for its flagship TVE La 1 channel.
Presented by María Casado, a distinguished journalist and news presenter, and a key member of Banderas’ production team, the show featured guest interviews with luminaries from the worlds of culture, science, politics, business and sport, together with live performances by artists from Spain and around the world.
The weekly programme was produced live in RTVE’s Studio 6 in Sant Cugat, just north of Barcelona. A striking feature of the production was the stark visually arresting set, the appearance of which changed every week. In keeping with the set design, the sound

USA - After two years of waiting, fans of the Hangout Festival returned to the Gulf Shores beachfront for a weekend of live music. Headliners included Post Malone, Fallout Boy, Halsey, Tame Impala and Megan Thee Stallion. More than 40,000 fans turned out for the sold-out, three-day event, and Bandit Lites provided the festival lighting system for the main Hangout Stage and the Surf Stage.
Bandit’s vice president of production, Dizzy Gosnell, has designed the festival lighting rig for many seasons, and he meticulously works to ensure the headliners on each stage have a plethora of lighting to work with from washes, spots, beams, strips/strobes and blinders/safety lights spanning across both rigs.
“The first thing I try to get is to layer the lamps on each truss,” explains Gosnell. “For example, having lamps perched from the top chord, outrigged down from the t

UK - Located in the heart of Newcastle’s vibrant city centre, The Lofts, which opened in August last year, has already earned a reputation for being a new ‘super club’, welcoming high-profile artists and delivering some of the liveliest nights out in the city.
The 1,500-capacity venue was co-founded by directors Rob Seaman, John Dance, and Marty Smith, whose extensive nightlife experiences in the Balearics and beyond drive the ethic at The Lofts. And that ethic extends to the L-Acoustics K3, which is a key part of the overall experience, designed and installed by Adlib to deliver excellent coverage and crystal-clear audio throughout the venue.
“The club’s owners approached Adlib after we’d been recommended to them by a mutual acquaintance,” recalls Nick Whitehead, Adlib’s project manager and project lead on The Lofts. “They came to us with an ambitio

Norway - Det Norske Teatret (the Norwegian Theatre) in Oslo houses three stages in its main building in downtown Oslo, plus one more in another venue in the city run by the same team, all of which work on a busy repertory schedule. Together at least 25 original productions are created annually, in the Norwegian language of Nynorsk, and some guest works are hosted.
Also known for high production values, the theatre has recently invested in 15 Robe Esprite moving lights for its 250-capacity Scene 2.
The theatre’s resident lighting designer Torkel Skjærven, explained that they previously had Robe ColorWash 750AT Tungsten moving lights in the black box Scene 2 space, and these have worked hard and reliably for over 10 years. However, the time arrived to replace them with a more modern LED light source.
The drive to convert the theatre’s lighting to LED has bee

Europe - Gary Numan took to the road in April with a moody and ethereal lighting design created by award winning LA-based designer Dustin Snyder.
An essential objective of the design was to ensure that the fans could see Numan and his band’s expressive faces from all parts of the room and also on camera. For that reason, Snyder sought out the precise framing capability and familiar CMY colour palette of the VL2600 Wash from Vari-Lite.
Atmospheric and moody, the design is inspired by Numan’s three red stripes of facial war paint, from his portrait on the cover of the Intruder album, and centres around a heavily backlit, multi-layered, video and lighting design.
The main scenic element on stage is a huge video wall that oozes ominous, cinematic insights into a broken planet, destroyed by humanity, as Numan manifests as the planet’s own lamenting voice.

USA - The NAMM Show finally made its much-anticipated return to Southern California last week with international delegates from the music production and pro sound industries coming together at the Anaheim Convention Centre.
Alongside all the booths and exhibits, visitors enjoyed a series of outdoor shows from a variety of bands and musicians on the Grand Plaza Stage, located directly outside the main convention centre entrance, with sound provided by a Nexo STM modular line array system supplied and deployed by Minnesota-based events services company Reach Communications.
Side by side hangs of 12 each STM M46 main and B112 bass extension modules with two M28 down-fills were used on either side of the stage, while six pairs of Nexo Geo M10 cabinets were used as front-fills. With other buildings in close proximity, a controlled low frequency dispersion was a particular r

UK - The new 3,500-capacity Swansea Arena forms a central part of the new £135m Copr Bay regeneration programme in the Welsh city.
The latest of Ambassador Theatre Group’s (ATG) 58 operator run venues, the venue has been equipped with a JBL VTX A8 line array, installed by Glantre Engineering following a competitive tender issued by main contractors, Buckingham Group Contracting. Consultant on the project was Neill Woodger Acoustics and Theatre Design. Glantre’s contract as system integrator was a turnkey, covering rigging, drapes, full AV (including IPTV) and lighting, as well as the audio component - not only in the main event rooms but also the meeting rooms.
However, the recommendation for JBL’s compact line array had come from ATG’s head of technical operations, Stuart Graham, who had been involved in the project from the outset. “We were able to have so

USA - Over 16,000 athletes representing 800 teams from 40 countries participated in the 2022 Allstar World Championship in Orlando this spring.
Craig Huddleston, the designer and show director, comments: “This is a competition, but it needs to be fun. We wanted to highlight the athletes and make them feel like rockstars when they ran out on stage.”
Huddleston and his team at AVOS agency succeeded in doing this in spectacular fashion. Athletes competing in 50 different divisions were greeted with a walk-on light and video display reminiscent of a NBA championship game, complete with flurries of strobing and aerial effects, as well as dynamic neon-like video wall patterns heralding their arrival.
Helping them accomplish this on the event’s main stage was a 4Wall Entertainment Nashville supplied rig that featured over 300 Chauvet Professional F 5IP LED panels

UAE - Lighting designers Travis Hagenbuch and Bob Dickinson lit the Expo 2020 Dubai Closing Ceremony and turned to Elation Professional’s powerful Proteus Excalibur beam moving head to create a spectacular finale look that brought to a close the six-month Expo journey.
The Emmy-award winning designers - who also lit Expo’s Opening Ceremony back in September - sought a compact, IP-rated beam light with power to project an impactful ring of light out of the Al Wasl Dome. “We were tasked with how to make it happen within the constraints we had,” comments Travis Hagenbuch, who notes that the brief came from Expo 2020 director-general Reem Al-Hashimi. “It was a beautiful poetic moment, simple and elegant, and a fitting way to end the Expo.”
The Expo story began during the Opening Ceremony when a young Emirate girl was given a ring, which unlocked a world of dis

UK - The eyes of the world were on the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Concert to witness a host of big-name singers perform on a specially created stage in front of Buckingham Palace. As the royal family, politicians, dignitaries and the public looked on, a show fit for a queen unfolded, backed by LED screen content driven by Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 media servers.
More than 200sq.m. of Roe Black Quartz LED screens, supplied by Creative Technology, were erected on the stage, which surrounded the famous Victoria Memorial statue in front of the Palace. These were split into one large LED screen upstage centre, and eight LED pillars edging out toward the audience.
Tasked with media server programming was Matthew Lee, who was approached by lighting designer for the event, Nigel Catmur. “We had two Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 servers, one main and one backup,” says Lee. “LED sc

UK - Britannia Row Productions is providing equipment and personnel for Scottish rock royalty Simple Minds as they play an extensive world tour consisting of over 80 shows across more than 18 countries.
Simple Minds’ 40 Years of Hits Tour (see LSi June 2022 for an in-depth feature on the production), which included a homecoming show at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro, celebrates an impressive four decades in music for the genre-defying band and features a set spanning their back catalogue.
Britannia Row Productions - Simple Minds’ audio supplier of choice since 2012 - re-joined the band for this ambitious arena run to provide a full PA system, FOH and monitor consol

UK - Great Britain marked the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's reign with thousands of events and street parties over a long weekend, including a large-scale live concert at Buckingham Palace. 22,000 spectators gathered in front of the three stages, where Queen & Adam Lambert, Rod Stewart, Alicia Keys and Ed Sheeran played, among many others, and another 13.4 million watched the BBC's mega-event live on TV. For the lighting of the main stages, Buckingham Palace and the Tree of Trees sculpture designed by Heatherwick Studio, Version 2 Lights supplied more than 600 cameo spotlights, including over 60 of the new hybrid outdoor all-rounder Otos H5.
The forecourt as well as the Palace itself was staged by 62 Otos H5, 156 Zenit W600, 392 Flat Pro 7 G2 and 72 Flat Pro 12 G2. The lighting design was done by Nigel Catmur, who used the Cameo spotlights for the numerous live

USA - In 2010, The Wonder Years released The Upsides, followed a year later by Suburbia, I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing.
As the 10th anniversary of these albums approached, the band intended to celebrate with successive tours. But with the pandemic lockdown putting a crimp on live music, The Wonder Years had to hold off until this spring to mark the anniversary of the LP releases with a coast-to-coast US and UK tour.
Supporting them every step of the way is a David Summers lightshow featuring Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Squeek Lights.
True to the spirit of a tour that celebrates not one, but a pair of albums, Summers’ design has two distinct personalities. “Dan Campbell, the singer of The Wonder Years, told me he wanted to do a special set up for their double album anniversary tour,” explains Summers. “In essence, h

Indonesia - Leisure and entertainment brand, Holywings, has partnered with PT. Electro Audio Engineering to bring Funktion-One sound to its latest venues. The group, which has over 30 café, bar and club venues across the country, has set its sights on growing to 100 outlets and is in the process of creating ‘Asia’s largest beach club’.
The design concept of each Holywings venue is guided by the latest trends, taking inspiration from major cities around the world. “We bring ideas that we’ve picked up from other countries that are new to Indonesia,” explains Holywings Group’s Marvin Saputra. “Then we tailor them for our audiences and add a unique energy that can compete with other countries.”
This includes the Funktion-One sound systems that are helping to bring a new level of experience. Saputra reveals: “We think Funktion-One offers the best sound

UK - Digital Stages, five dynamic digital events celebrating Chichester Festival Theatre (CFT) across the decades, will be released over CFT’s birthday week in July for audiences across the globe. The events range from VR tours and online performances to a new virtual game created by CFT’s community companies for adults with learning disabilities.
In Visionary Stages, actors Sir Derek Jacobi and John Simm, author and playwright Kate Mosse and designer Joanna Scotcher join CFT artistic director Daniel Evans and the artistic director of the Stratford Festival Theatre in Ontario Antoni Cimolino, for a virtual meet-up using modern technology to recreate Chichester’s 1962 stage.
During lockdown, the Festival Theatre auditorium was scanned by the specialist company Preevue with LiDAR technology, enabling them to recreate the 1962 stage using plans, photog

South Africa - Blue Array Productions, a professional rental and production company, has invested in two Fenix Stage Hercules 8 front-loading lifting towers supplied by DWR Distribution. The units were put to work for the first time at Liefde by die Dam, a festival attracting 8 000 revellers and held recently at Emmarentia Dam in Johannesburg, where Blue Array supplied the audio solution.
The Hercules 8, made from aluminium, is the tallest tower by Fenix at 8m high. The system lifts line array systems, trussing or LED screens with a maximum load of 300kg from the floor and is height adjustable.
“We initially tried out the smaller AT-906 Fenix towers, only to find that we had some weight limitations which forced us to go for the bigger towers,” explained Nathan Thiart, senior sound engineer at Blue Array. “It was a happy coincidence because we definitely had a ne

Chile - The city of Viña del Mar is renowned for its colonial architecture, vibrant nightlife, and the annual Festival Internacional de la Canción de Viña del Mar (Viña del Mar International Song Festival).
Coupled with a Mediterranean climate and beautiful, abundant greenery, the city, nicknamed Jardín Ciudad (Garden City), is one of the country’s most-visited spots. In 2010, a devastating 8.8 magnitude earthquake severely damaged some of the city’s best-known buildings, including the heritage site Teatro Municipal of Viña del Mar.
Today, the Teatro been fully restored and fitted with the most advanced L-Acoustics Kara sound system in the country, delivered by L-Acoustics certified provider distributor for Chile, VGL.
Built between 1925 and 1930 by famous architects Renato Schiavon and Aquiles Landoff, the Teatro Municipal de Viña del Mar features a f

USA - Outline’s Newton FPGA processor played key operational roles at Coachella and Stagecoach Festivals. Both returning after two-year layoffs caused by Covid, the back-to-back festivals and their big crowds returned to the Californian desert in style this year.
With its roots going back to 1993 and still held at its original venue, the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, and now one of the world’s largest music festivals, The Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival was staged over two consecutive weekends in April, once again showcasing an array of established and emerging artists.
Presented the following weekend in the same location, its sister production The Stagecoach Festival is a leading event for folk, mainstream country, bluegrass, roots rock, Americana and alt. country.
As they have been for every Coachella since 2000, Camarillo-based Rat Soun

Zimbabwe - Napoleon Nyanhi knew what kind of look he wanted to project for the music video he was directing on 30 April for The Vine music collective in Harare. It had to be warm, intimate, and all-encompassing to reflect the familial spirit of the Grammy winning Soweto Gospel Choir and other artists in the ensemble.
What Nyanhi was less clear on was how he was going to create this image on a small music video stage that would hold as many as 78 performers at a time. That was when he reached out and called his friend Tatenta Gaylord Rushwaya of Events Evolution.
“Napoleon’s request was straightforward; he wanted a beautiful harmonious stage,” recalled Rushwaya. “But when he told me how many people would be on it, the request was suddenly not that simple.”
Taking the challenge, Rushwaya contacted his friend and colleague Blessing Bero and described some

USA - Grammy Award winning, Puerto Rican mega-star Bad Bunny kicked off his 36-date sell out El Último Tour Del Mundo 2022 from the Ball Arena, Denver in February. Featuring a show design as stylishly unconventional as the artist himself, lighting designer Alain Corthout, chose to deploy a battery of VL10 Beamwash luminaires from Vari-Lite.
“Bad Bunny takes an alternative approach to his live performance, so the show design had to be as outspoken as he is,” explains Corthout. “I was looking for a lighting workhorse that would offer the ultimate in creative versatility, while delivering consistent, high output light, even at the more saturated end of the spectrum. I also needed a versatile palette of effects. The VL10 Beamwash fixtures gave me all of this and more.”
Challenging the conventions of traditional show design, Corthout had to accommodate the fact tha

UK - The much-anticipated and publicised ABBA Voyage brings the 70s supergroup back to the stage in a blend of the virtual and physical worlds.
Several years in the making, the ABBA Voyage show opened on 26 May 26 in a purpose-built arena designed by Stufish Entertainment Architects at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London. The production adds a new element to the live music experience by blurring the lines between CGI and reality, with The Guardian calling it a “jaw-dropping avatar act that’s destined to be copied”.
Solotech worked under the direction of director Baillie Walsh, working alongside Aniara’s technical producer Nick Levitt and technical director Joe Frisina, and collaborating with concert producers Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and TETRO and Greenwall’s Fredrik Stormby to provide audio, lighting, and v

USA - Founded in 1940, the Church of St. John the Divine in Houston, Texas, today hosts 900 attendees on any given Sunday across its traditional, contemporary and family services.
While the church’s sanctuary is ideal for traditional hymns, providing amazingly long reverb times, there were notable challenges with an aging sound system. With such challenges, a new system was needed. Brightengale - formerly Houston Sound Service - was selected for the project through a recommendation from another area church.
“The prior installation leaned heavily on digital signal processing and beam steering to fill the room with intelligible sound,” said Adam Keho, system designer at Brightengale. “Acoustically, the room is fantastic for pipe organ or choral music but it’s very difficult for speech intelligibility. When the system was first installed, it was only designed t

Columbia - Latin Grammy winner Karol G blends a mix of genres in her rhythmic sound, treating fans to generous helpings of reggaeton, trap, sertaneja and a host of other influences.
Karol G concerts are intense with no lulls in the action. Reflecting this explosiveness in light requires a bold, fast-moving design, which is what the team at Línea Estratégica delivered for the star with help from a massive collection of the new IP65-rated Chauvet Professional Color Strike M.
Conrado Santamaría, CEO of the Línea Estratégica, added 120 of the versatile fixtures to his inventory soon after they became available in Colombia, purchasing them from distributor Yamaki. His vision was to use the motorised strobe/wash lights to add an extra level of impact to shows. He hasn’t been disappointed, as the fixtures have already worked their magic at concerts by the likes of Rub

Germany - The Giovanni Zarrella Show is a quarterly highlight on ZDF, Germany’s second TV station, featuring Schlager (a style of European popular music) with established stars from pop and classical plus promising newcomers performing new arrangements, previously unreleased duets and exclusive live performances. DiGiCo SD consoles are at the heart of the audio system.
The show appears in a prime-time Saturday evening slot with its second edition attracting a TV audience of almost five million. The eponymous host, formerly a member of the pop group Bro’Sis, regularly duets with his guests and his February show (broadcast just before Valentine’s Day) took love as its theme throughout.
The show’s audio infrastructure is provided by Kürten-Herweg-based B&R Medientechnik, a full-service company with roots in recording mobiles but now delivering event te

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