Projects

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02 September 2024

Mexico - Based in Mexico City, Simplemente is one of the country’s pioneering virtual production studios. The company was founded by Mónica Reina and Rune Hansen in 2000 and has always operated on the forefront of technological innovation, embracing digital film, live streaming, VR, and virtual production early.

Simplemente’s clients range from independent artists and creatives to production houses and film schools to major television networks across Mexico and Latin America. The studio also offers production services, integration, training, and rentals.

Simplemente just celebrated the one-year anniversary of its LED stage located at the historic Estudios Churubusco. The volume features 200sq.m of high-density LED panels arranged in a 270-degree immersive screen. There are 782 AOTO RM 2.3mm LED panels for a total resolution of 14252 x 2582, prov

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30 August 2024

UK - Serious Stages’ Stellar Stage featured headliners The Prodigy, Sonny Fodera and Skrillex at Leeds and Reading Festivals’ new Chevron Stage earlier this month.

Designed and manufactured in 2024 at Serious Stages Wells HQ, the new 20m wide roof, with 8m screen and PA goalposts, was flanked by 12 6m high scaff towers supporting giant chevron LEDs, supplied by Colour Sound Experiment. Completing a distinctive arena design, a striking LED net curtain roof was suspended over the audience in front of the stage, creating a spectacular light show, supplied by Special Structures Lab and Colour Sound Experiment.

Serious Stages supported Festival Republic’s desire to create a new-look Chevron stage, with the introduction of the Stellar Stage. Its angled sides not only gave the crowd a different aesthetic, but also accommodated the technical production

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30 August 2024

France - Musée de l'air et de l'Espace, a 150,000sq.m museum located next to the Paris-Le Bourget airport, sparkled during Cercle Festival 2024. Created by Cercle, an artistic movement that produces experiences, events, festivals, and immersive musical journeys that showcase artists on ‘unique stages’, the festival delivered an absorbing tapestry of sights and sounds.

At the centre of the festival was a stage set up under the fuselage of Air France’s prototype Concorde, supersonic jet airliner, with the dancefloor located in the museum space around the aircraft. Enhancing this immersive setting on a multitude of levels was an inspired lighting design by Steph Viallon that featured 55 Chauvet Professional Color Strike M motorised strobe washes provided by Magnum.

"I wanted to work on both height and depth, and to obtain reflections under the Co

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30 August 2024

USA - This summer, Wonderland Forest, a campground and concert venue by GFY Entertainment, transformed the rolling hills of Central New York's Apple Valley into a hub of musical performances. The venue hosted a series of concerts and festivals all season long, powered by a 1 Sound audio system for the outdoor festival-style stage.

Upstate Stage & Lighting, a live production and installation company with a focus on music venues, selected 1 Sound for the Saloon Stage. The versatile system accommodated various musical acts, from full rock bands to DJs, with travelling sound engineers consistently impressed by the clarity and sound of the 1 Sound system.

For this outdoor system that was set to be installed for three months, Upstate Stage and Lighting deployed two Contour CT212s a side as the main left and right. These robust, three-way horn-loaded po

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30 August 2024

UAE - Pulse Middle East has completed an audio-visual installation at the Epik Club, situated in Dubai’s Meydan Grandstand. Based in the UAE and serving clients across the MENA region and beyond, Pulse ME specialises in AVL Integration for nightlife, museums and places of worship.

Pulse’s long-standing relationship with Martin Audio dates back to the team’s touring days. The journey began with the W8L Longbow while the LE1500 wedge monitor, with its unparalleled clarity, further cemented the preference for Martin Audio products. This time, Pulse’s team chose to work with the Wavefront Precision WPS system at a venue that is set on 25,000sq.ft of space – a decision driven by several compelling factors.

The WPS system’s clarity and natural sound quality immediately impressed them. What stood out was the midrange clarity that required no add

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30 August 2024

Finland - Kuopio’s Panorama Landscape Hotel sits at the top of Mountain Tahko ski resort overlooking a landscape that could have been hand-painted by Monet. Some guests sit in the clouds absorbing the natural beauty of the forest, while others choose to relax in their suites or in the traditional Finnish design of the spa.

Built by local entrepreneurs Harri Jokela and Katja Kuulusa, Panorama Landscape Hotel is a celebration of Nordic architecture, from the detailed wood interior to the RAW Genelec Smart IP loudspeakers located across the site.

Original planning started in 2018, with construction of the hotel made possible through investment by former rally champion Tommi Mäkinen and former Formula 1 titleholder Kimi Räikkönen – both legends of Finnish motorsports. Taking inspiration from Japanese onsen spas, the idea was to build a hotel that

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29 August 2024

Europe - Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres world tour has received widespread acclaim since launching in 2022, not only for the band’s celebrated music and engaging onstage presence, but also for their efforts in ushering in a new era of sustainable touring. Award-winning lighting designer Sooner Routhier has been working with Coldplay since 2019 and, keeping with the environmental ethic, she chose to light the shows using greener, more eco-friendly fixtures. The lighting vendor for the tour is a long-time partner, Upstaging.

Routhier’s original tour design launched in 2022 in support of the Music of the Spheres album, and the band is continuing the current stadium tour with the same design. For this summer’s European leg, which launched on 8 June at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, she was looking for the most effective way to add a se

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29 August 2024

Romania - The Sibiu International Theatre Festival, which is put on by The National Theatre Radu Stanca Sibiu, has just celebrated its 31st year.

This year the June festival featured indoor and outdoor theatre, music and dance, as well as street acts, and drew more than 100,000 international visitors who enjoyed over 830 performances, involving 5,000 artists from 82 nations. Among those performers was American actor John Malkovich, César Award-winning French actress Isabelle Adjani, and Romanian theatre director Silviu Purcărete.

Adding to the magic of the 2024 edition of the festival, which was built around the theme of ‘friendship’, was a massive collection of over 250 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied and installed by Andrei Popea and his team at Backstage Production Group.

The Backstage team deployed 106 of these fixtures, as w

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29 August 2024

Germany - Open Beatz is the largest open-air festival for electronic music in southern Germany and attracts tens of thousands of visitors to the 50-hectare site in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, every year.

Performers on the five creatively designed stages in 2024 included Afrojack, Nicky Romero, Felix Jaehn, Lilly Palmer, and many more. Eventures GmbH was responsible for the lighting, sound, and video equipment on the three largest stages. Tobias Reinartz (visualprime) was responsible for the lighting design, working with the new Cameo Oron H2 Hybrid Phosphor Laser Moving Heads for the first time.

The Oron H2, which Eventures sourced entirely from NicLen’s dry hire stock, was the central element of the lighting design this year. “The Oron H2 is the brightest and most powerful beam moving head I’ve seen to date,” says Reinartz. “It offers everyth

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29 August 2024

Germany - For more than 20 years, the Airbeat One festival has entertained fans with the harder side of electronic music with an event that features cutting-edge stage design, epic light shows and leading international DJs. 

Airbeat One 2024 was recently held at Flugplatz Neustadt-Glewe, where lighting designer Christopher Rostalski, CEO of CR Lichtdesign, used 130 Claypaky Tambora Linear 100 LED pixel-mapping bars designed for versatile lighting effects and artistic set decoration. 

The annual event is one of the largest EDM festivals in Germany, drawing some 100,000 visitors. Every year has a different country theme with France being highlighted in 2024, and the stage designs and presentation of the festival reflecting that choice: the main stage was a faithful replica of the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre in Paris.

Rostalski selected 130

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28 August 2024

Europe - Neg Earth supremo Dave Ridgway came to the assistance of creative director and lighting designer Terry Cook when he was seeking the kind of raw power from a new-generation washlight that audiences at an AC/DC show might expect.

“It needed to be bright, versatile, bold and strong,” says the designer, one of three partners at Woodroffe Bassett Design (WBD). And so Ridgway recommended GLP’s impression X5 IP Maxx, promptly arranging a shoot-out. Terry Cook’s conclusion: “It brought meanness, real character and was unapologetically angry. It was definitely an AC/DC light,” he states. “We have history of embracing new technology on AC/DC tours and the Power Up tour was no different.”

At the same time, he noted a further advantage: the fixture’s IP rating. In fact, its waterproof qualities would prove vital during the tou

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28 August 2024

Singapore - The Star Theatre, the main venue at The Star Performing Arts Centre, has invested in a quantity of Ayrton Huracán Wash fixtures supplied by Ayrton’s exclusive distributor for the region, Total Solution Marketing.

The Huracán Wash units will become a fixed installation as part of the permanent lighting rig and mark the second investment in Ayrton for the venue.

The Star Theatre is a 5,000-seat capacity theatre that features a traditional horseshoe shape auditorium with plush seating that helps create an intimate ambience. It prides itself in using only high-end professional equipment in its broad programme of events and performances.

40 Huracán Wash fixtures were installed at the request of The Star Theatre's head of lighting, Mohamad Azhar Bin Mazlan, who explains why he chose them: “I specified these particular fixtures be

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28 August 2024

The Netherlands - Conservatorium Maastricht, an international conservatory, is one of nine music academies in the Netherlands. With goals to set its musicians in motion, the school enables its students to achieve their ambitions in various musical fields through theoretical and practical approaches to artistic development and performance, along with cross-departmental activities, elective courses and professional development.

At the end of each year, Conservatorium Maastricht holds a graduation showcase, where students present their final projects. This event allows graduates to demonstrate what they have learned and their capabilities as musicians, composers and/or producers. This year, the event was held at Muziekgieterij, a local concert hall that was tasked with handling the technical aspects, which included providing the best possible sound for the show

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28 August 2024

Brazil - Visual tech provider On Projeções selected Christie Griffyn 4K50-RGB pure laser projectors to play a starring role at two of São Paulo’s most prominent electronic and techno music events: Time Warp Brasil and Illusionize in Saturn.

Established in 1994, Time Warp Brasil is one of the world's largest techno and house festivals, with events in Mannheim, Madrid, New York, and São Paulo. The festival is renowned for its use of cutting-edge technology to complement the musical performances. For Time Warp Brasil’s 30th anniversary, the festival commissioned On Projeções and The Force agency to project onto the building opposite the event venue, enhancing the attendees' sense of immersion and transforming the event into a visually impactful and engaging experience.

To achieve this, On Projeções used two Christie Griffyn 4K50-RGB pure las

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28 August 2024

South Korea - Busan Film Commission (BFC) has joined forces with Basictech’s Media Solution Department to launch the VP stage, a dynamic facility designed for film, TV and commercial productions. At its core, the stage features a large, fine-pixel LED screen, driven by Brompton Technology's LED processing.

BFC is a pioneering organisation dedicated to supporting film production and has been instrumental in transforming Busan into a 'city of film'. Its VP stage measures 20.5m by 3.5m and is equipped with an AOTO RM series 2.31mm pixel pitch curved LED wall, powered by three 4K Tessera SX40 LED processors and six Tessera 10G data distribution units. The setup also includes an MRMC Bolt high-speed cinema robot and Disguise vx4 and rxII media servers, among other high-quality equipment.

Brompton LED processing ensures that the VR stage delivers colour

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27 August 2024

France - Creative design practice Concept K employed 100 Elation SŌL I blinders at the Solidays Festival in Paris at the end of June, one of the first uses in Europe of the creative blinder and effect light. Lighting supply was by Dushow, a festival provider for many years, with lighting design by Frédéric ‘Aldo’ Fayard of Concept K.

Solidays is an annual music festival held at the Longchamp Racecourse in Paris. Organised by Solidarité sida, it brings together more than 150 artists and 170,000 festival-goers for three days with proceeds going to organisations fighting HIV/AIDS.

Aldo, founder and artistic director of Concept K, used the SŌL I blinders to artfully adorn the festival’s main stage, commenting: “Lighting designers have been looking for a source capable of replacing the FL650 and the SŌL I from Elation is the answer to this r

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27 August 2024

USA - To expand research opportunities and community resources, the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners partnered with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) to develop the Alachua County Agriculture and Equestrian Centre.

The centre was created to provide a comprehensive venue for livestock shows, agricultural fairs, equestrian events, and various community activities. To power outdoor speakers across the venue, the centre turned to the award-winning Connect Series amplifiers from LEA Professional.

The 37-acre site’s development involved the construction of new pole-barn structures, refurbishment of a 250ft x 150ft indoor equestrian arena, and construction of a new outdoor arena. These arenas included new lighting, PA systems, bleachers, and other infrastructure elements. When it came time to i

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27 August 2024

USA - Electricity was in the air (quite literally) on 11 July, as fans made their way to Ruoff Music Centre in Noblesville to attend the second show in the I Prevail-Halestorm co-headline 24-city summer tour. The display of light overhead matched the mood. All this was the result of a violent storm blowing across the Midwest that delayed the start of the show by 90 minutes.

When fans finally made their way into the 24,000-capacity amphitheatre, just north of Indianapolis, the vibe was just as kinetic, and the lightshow on stage gave Mother Nature’s lightning a run for its money. A dynamic design by Chris Denholm featured 40 Chauvet Professional Color Strike M motorised strobe-washes from PGP.

Denholm worked on his design with Mathes Kuhn who designed the Halestorm floor package and co-programmed their show with Rodger Pugh, Anthony Tran who did mos

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23 August 2024

Germany -This summer, the Großer Sendesaal of Hessischer Rundfunk witnessed a special performance. In the Lorenz Foundation’s inclusive dance project Babylon: Miteinander Reden ist Gold, 150 people - professionals and amateurs, people with and without disabilities - took to the stage and demonstrated what can happen when people come together without boundaries: participation for all, enjoyment of art and a strong sense of community.

Working closely together, all those involved created an extraordinary live experience with powerful images and stirring music - supported by the technical team from eCon GmbH and a sound and lighting setup from LD Systems and Cameo.

Babylon: Miteinander Reden ist Gold (talking to one another is golden) tells an old biblical story, adapted to the challenges of modern times: a lack of understan

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22 August 2024

Germany - Nature One is an established festival for techno, house, trance, hardstyle and all other varieties of electronic dance music. In 2024, tens of thousands of EDM fans again flocked to the Pydna Kastellaun missile base to party for three days with the scene’s best DJs.

Much of the special atmosphere at Nature One is thanks to its main stage. Here, visitors don’t just dance in front of the stage, but in the middle of an elaborate truss construction with numerous light and video elements. Marek Papke from Gerdon Design has been responsible for the stage, lighting and content design for the main stage for many years and once again relied on the IP65 lights from Cameo this year.

“I’m always amazed at how easily the Otos H5 survives an outdoor techno festival lasting several days,” says Marek Papke, impressed by the IP65 beam-spot-wash hy

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22 August 2024

USA - After more than 40 sold-out headlining shows in 2023, country music superstar Jason Aldean extended his Highway Desperado Tour with a lighting system from long-time vendor, Bandit Lites.

For the tour, named after Aldean’s 11th studio album, lighting designer Matthieu Larivée of Luz Studio wanted to avoid LED and instead focus on warm looks. “The start of the design was the band layout and riser fascia,” he said. “I like to get bright fascias for the focus of the band and the background of the pictures for socials.”

Larivée sought fixtures that would be able to provide colour washes as well as dynamic effects (noting the high-octane nature of Aldean’s concerts).

Bandit Lites supplied more than 250 fixtures including Ayrton Khamsin-S, Chauvet Maverick Storm 2 BeamWashes, Chauvet Color Strike M, Elation CuePix WW2, E

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21 August 2024

USA - Not to be confused with Area 51, Area15 is an immersive entertainment district just moments from the Las Vegas Strip. Already equipped with an X1 system, it includes the Illuminarium experience located in the Area15 District.

Now following suit in upgrading their audio experience with a Holoplot X1 Matrix Array sound system is The Portal, a multi-use venue and key element of Area15’s experiential entertainment. It offers experiences for the whole family, including rides and VR, live performances, DJs, food, and definitely no top-secret US Government experiments . . .

“Our motto is ‘Area15 does not exist’ because you can make your own story,” says Mark Stutzman, CTO at Area15. “It can be anything you want it to be.”

The Portal is Area15’s landmark venue. It can be used for private dining, all-night DJ sets, and everything

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21 August 2024

Mexico - Each year, the Mexican Telephone Workers Union (STRM) holds a festival for its members at the Plaza de Toros in Mexico City, the world’s largest bullring with a capacity of more than 40,000 seats.

This year’s event took place on 1 August and featured performances from popular Mexican singers Carlos Rivera and María José, and Colombian music groups Piso 21 and La Sonora Dinamita.

As usual, sound for the event was provided by local production services company Tecno Son, who deployed their Nexo STM system to cover an audience that rose quickly from the floor of the venue to the highest tier and wrapped right around the edges of the stage from left to right.

Left and right FOH hangs of 15 x STM M46 Main and B112 Bass Extension line array elements with three M28 down-fill boxes were supplemented by side-arrays of nine M46/B112 plus

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21 August 2024

Italy - Max Pezzali's first real stadium tour in over 30 years of his career, Max Forever, sold out across all venues, drawing fans of all ages eager to sing along.

The 10-date tour was a nostalgic journey through time, uniting different generations with the trends of the 1990s. The former 883 frontman performed over 30 songs, including timeless hits, rarities and his new single, released a few months ago after a four-year hiatus.

All the visual elements created a nostalgic, celebratory atmosphere, highlighting the milestones of Pezzali's career.

Jordan Babev from Blearred Milano, the studio which dealt with the show's lighting design, shared his insights:

“For us, it was a great opportunity, which we seized immediately. We have always had great confidence in Claypaky lights, and they did not disappoint this time either, on