Europe - ALC NetworX has confirmed British pro audio tools and interface experts, Nixer Pro Audio, as the latest Ravenna partner. Based in Dunstable, Nixer Pro Audio specialises in the design and development of professional AoIP monitoring, mixing and diagnostics solutions. Founder and CEO Nick Fletcher has an impressive pedigree in product design and development, having spent over 30 years designing and building equipment, including over a decade as director of R&D at Cadac. “We already have a number of products built on the Dante protocol, but our new RL Series (launched in June) was specifically designed to have Ravenna capability in response to requests from customers within the broadcast market,” explains Fletcher. RL Series is a range of 1U rack-mounted AoIP mixing and monitoring units available in 64, 128, 192 and 256-channel versions, c
El Salvador - San Miguel-based Electronica 2001, with seven branches across the country, has been at the forefront of El Salvador’s entertainment technology industry for the past 35 years. Most recently, it has invested in Central America’s first DiGiCo Quantum 7. “For many years, DiGiCo has been the benchmark in professional audio consoles,” says the company’s sales manager, Eduardo Gomez. “As a service company, we need to be at the cutting edge to address the demands of both producers and engineers who specify the best consoles for their shows. “DiGiCo’s range of products is the first choice on most technical riders. Our philosophy has always been to work with the best in the industry and owning DiGiCo consoles has allowed us to provide the equipment necessary to do any world-class show here in El Salvador.” “We are very proud to be part of
USA - Lighting and video designer Tony Caporale was at the visual helm for the new Triller boxing and music event in Atlanta, harnessing the punch and power of Hippotizer Boreal+ Media Servers to drive a host of LED screens at the city’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Music heavyweights including Snoop Dogg, Justin Bieber and Diplo joined boxing big-timers Jake Paul and Ben Askren for the event, which took the US by storm. A pay-per-view audience of more than 1.5m watched as the fights were interjected by pop performances, with each requiring a feast of visual delights to match the action. The boxing ring area had two portrait LED video screens for fighter entrances, a single LED video wall above the announcer booth, with another LED screen used as a fascia for Diplo’s DJ booth. The performance stage had five screens. “This was a lot of video, right?” says Capora
USA - The Scottish Rite Theatre (‘The Scotty’) in Peoria, Illinois, was built in 1925 as a Masonic cathedral. Recently, the Gothic-styled building underwent a $5m-plus renovation and now offers downtown Peoria a modern performance and event venue. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Scotty encompasses an 800-seat theatre, luminous stained-glass windows, a lower-level ballroom with capacity for 300 people, and more than 10,000ft of usable space, as well as a full basement kitchen and banquet facility. And it now boasts an L-Acoustics Syva sound system installed there earlier this year by the Chicago office of integrator Creative Technology. “Syva was the perfect solution for audio reinforcement at the Scotty,” says Greg Moore, installations project manager for creative technology. “It had to sound great, which it does, but it also had to disappe
UK - Audiologic has announced the expansion of its application team with the hire of Amber Jones, who joins the company as junior application support engineer. Jones joins the company as the fourth graduate hire from the University of Hertfordshire after studying Audio Recording and Production. The role reports to Ben Spurgeon, senior application engineer who comments: “Even throughout the pandemic we’ve seen a continuous rise in the demand for support from our application team. After the fantastic roles we’ve managed to shape with Anna and Kamil through our graduate hiring scheme, we decided once again to work with the University of Hertfordshire for this new position. Amber’s hire takes us to a team of six, once again proving how vital the technical offering is to Audiologic.” Amber Jones adds: “Having recently graduated, I was eager to get into the
UK - In the summer of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a live music training initiative was launched, designed to provide a broad set of technical skills to black women who wanted to break into the industry. The 3T (Tour Tech Training) course was founded by singer-songwriters Nao and Mura Masa who wanted to provide visibility and confidence for black women. The initiative had three key principles: It had to be free to participants (it was funded by Native Management, Sony Music UK and supported by donations from several other private individuals and companies within the industry); It was to take place over 12 weekends (24 days in total) and It had to cover the fundamentals of touring to be useful to attendees (such as loading/ unloading trucks, cable making, changing strings on guitars, building LED walls, tuning RF kit, audio patching, reskinning drums, looming e
USA - Illuminarium Experiences, an experiential entertainment company creating immersive venues, has opened its first Illuminarium in Atlanta. The venue takes visitors on African Safari via a multi-sensory journey brought to life with the help of modern technology. llluminarium has entered a long-term strategic partnership with Holoplot which will equip the Illuminarium venue in Atlanta as well as future venues with their sound systems. Holoplot is a Berlin-based hardware and software manufacturer of professional 3D audio technology. The company’s technology ‘allows to control sound similar to light, meaning to steer audio with highest precision to the desired target area only, all while creating a homogeneous soundfield with consistent level and quality over distance’. The company recently launched its X1 product line, including the X1 Modul 96, a full-r
Australia - Opera Australia (OA) presents more than 600 performances around the country every year, with more than half a million people seeing their work on stage and even more tuning into OA’s radio broadcasts and cinema releases. OA’s integrated digital technologies were used to transport Davide Livermore’s interpretation of Verdi’s Aida to a whole new level thanks to giant LED screens driven by Brompton processing and deployed by Big Picture at the State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne. A ‘feast for the senses’, 175sq.m of UniView Tekken LED screens were arranged in 10 towering LED columns seven metres tall, creating an immersive theatrical experience, with video designs ranging from symbolic pictures to picturesque landscapes of Verdi’s world of Egypt brought to life by 4K Tessera SX40 LED processors that conveyed the scale, depth and grandeur of thi
Finland - Genelec is establishing the first branch of its new G Innovation Lab in Kuopio, with the goal of nurturing creativity and entrepreneurship in the Savilahti region of the country and attracting imaginative professionals to the area. Starting with a Discovery Event Pitch Challenge this August, Genelec aims to recruit a team of ‘start-up minded’ individuals to further develop the innovative thinking that has helped inspire the company’s technical breakthroughs over the last four decades. Opening this August in Kuopio’s KPY Novapolis Microkatu, the G Innovation Lab will be the home to ‘talented individuals with complementary skills, but with a deep shared interest in the audio industry’, who will begin work this autumn. The Lab’s location is also designed to facilitate even closer co-operation with regional universities and educational institutions,
Japan - Japan Jam 2021 took place at Soga Sports Park in Chiba over the country’s big May public holiday weekend. The annual event, which has already taken place three times at this venue, had to be cancelled last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic - therefore, this was the first event in two years, and it was held under strict infection control conditions. Last time around, more than 30,000 people participated daily in the festival; however, this year the number was limited to 10,000 per day, and the event was devoid of alcohol. The audience needed to obey the rules such as wearing masks and were able to enjoy the live performance in 1m square frames arranged in front of the stage. As in previous years, Martin Audio MLA was adopted as the main speaker, with 10 MLA elements (including an MLD Downfill) and three stacks of subwoofers, nine per side in total, on main sta
Australia - NEP Group, technical production partner for content producers of live sports and entertainment, has announced that Mediatec Asia Pacific has rebranded to become part of Creative Technology (CT), a sister company also under NEP. The Mediatec and CT teams have worked together for many years across countries and markets, collaborating on projects for large corporate clients, international sporting events, Olympic and Commonwealth Games, and more. A change in name and branding only, the move is in line with similar strategic rebranding initiatives, including that of Mediatec Europe’s business in early 2020 to support NEP’s goal of using the global brand that best represents what the company provides to its clients. The combined brand also now enables NEP and CT to support its corporate and sport client segments in Australia and New Zealand as a true 360° s
USA - Several respected industry figures have joined forces to form Apex Technologies, a new company that will “distribute exclusive worldwide entertainment technology solutions” to the North American market. The founders Bill Morris, Anders Karlsson, Tarmo Krimm and Ola Melzig have run some of the biggest companies and productions in the industry. Their mission is to seamlessly deliver lighting, AV, staging and power supply products that are not currently represented in the US market. Most product lines Apex will represent are well-established on stages and venues in other parts of the world, says the company. CEO Bill Morris explains: “Apex Technologies is the brainchild of a few of us that saw an open niche in the marketplace to bring exciting products to the North American market. All four of us have either lived in or travelled the world extensively and can
UK - Audiologic, in partnership with GVAV, has delivered a hybrid teaching space at the University of Birmingham, providing a seamless learning experience for students, whether they are in person or remote learning off campus. The University of Birmingham has recently developed a new purpose-built Teaching and Learning Building. Developed as an education hub, the facility provides spaces for teaching that adhere to the University’s modern learning experience standards. The Teaching and Learning Building includes a 500-seat lecture theatre, a 250-seat interactive lecture theatre, ten seminar rooms, as well as individual study sections, collaborative group workspaces, and areas that accommodate creative break-out sessions. The entire teaching facility has been fitted out with hybrid teaching in mind. Now, more than ever, it is essential that lecture theatres ar
UK - This year’s BRIT Awards was a landmark event for live music. As part of a government-led research programme to assess how mass-participation events can safely resume, a socially distanced audience of 4,000, consisting mainly of NHS key workers, took their seats at London’s O2 Arena for the first indoor live music event in the UK since the beginning of the pandemic. DiGiCo consoles were once again deployed at both front of house and monitor positions by the show’s long-time audio supplier, Britannia Row Productions. Britannia Row’s Josh Lloyd took on the audio design and FOH artist mixes, with Chris Coxhead in charge of presenter audio and Colin Pink assuming his recurring role as Live Sound Supervisor. “After 15 months of very few live events, The BRIT Awards returned to the 02 Arena as one of the governments COVID Test Events,” says Pink. “It
UK - L-Acoustics rental network partner, West Midlands-based Tour-Tech / Stage Audio Services has invested in a K3 system, the first to land in the UK. K3, launched in October 2020, is the latest in the touring reference K Series. Designed to deliver big sound for mid-size events by providing full-range bandwidth without the need for a flown companion subwoofer, its design reduces amplification needs. According to Tour-Tech / SAS’s Kevin Mobberley, these benefits meant that K3 would be a profoundly useable tool and ultimately solidified their commitment to invest in the new loudspeaker. Although, like most of the industry, the company’s business has been seriously curtailed over the past 16 months, the management team foresaw a limited window of time to financially secure a new system. “We want to be ready when the big restart comes,” Mobberley notes. “K3 fit
UK - A Cornish event production company has completed its busiest ever period, working simultaneously on seven separate events over the G7 Summit week. Liskeard-based JHAV was appointed to help deliver multiple events associated with the G7 Summit for clients including Spaceport Cornwall, Virgin Orbit, the University of Exeter, and surfing brand Finisterre. The team also created a press conference suite to be used by US president Joe Biden in the Spaceport Cornwall hangar at Cornwall Airport Newquay. JHAV managing director Jamie Hedges explains: “We’ve been involved in all kinds of events since starting JHAV, but working on all of these projects revolving around something as high profile as the G7 Summit has to be one of our biggest accomplishments to date. “The top-secret nature has meant we have been under embargo since the event, and I am so proud
USA - Christie has launched the Captiva DWU500S 1DLP ultra short throw laser projector, designed for classrooms, conference rooms, museums, retail stores and other small-midsize applications. The DWU500S is the third generation of the Captiva Series, and it delivers ‘a host of improvements over its predecessors’, including a larger maximum screen size, a significant brightness increase and upgraded WUXGA resolution for sharper all-round performance. The new Captiva is available at the same cost as previous models and provides 20,000 hours of reliable operation with laser illumination. “We’re pleased that we’ve been able to provide significant enhancements to our popular Captiva Series while ensuring value to our customers; delivering more brightness and better performance at no extra cost,” says Chris Kee, executive director, enterprise product management,
Germany - Fischer Amps has teamed up with Sennheiser to create the FA 500 Custom. These in-ear monitors combine handcrafted custom earmolds by Fischer Amps with the transducer of Sennheiser’s IE 500 PRO. Featuring Sennheiser’s TrueResponse technology, the in-ears ‘open up a completely natural, clear and spacious sound stage, enabling musicians and engineers to fully focus and critically monitor their sound’. Jochen Fischer, founder and owner of Fischer Amps, comments: “At the heart of each precisely crafted earmold sits a truly incredible dynamic wideband transducer, which allows you to precisely monitor the entire audio frequency range with a THD of as low as under 0.08%. Having just one transducer does away with the cross-over effects and phase differences known from balanced-armature types that operate with multiple drivers.” He adds, “Custom earmolds
USA - disguise has been selected among the technology partners for Illuminarium Experiences, an immersive entertainment initiative transporting you to the wildest corners of the world, from one location. The first venue opening on 1 July 2021 in Atlanta will take visitors on African Safari via a multi-sensory journey brought to life with the help of technology, including the latest disguise hardware. Illuminarium’s immersive venues will transport millions to places they can only dream of by placing them “inside” another world with techniques used in traditional motion picture production and virtual reality. Visitors can experience real-world, filmed content (like a safari) and authentic, re-created worlds in an immersive environment. Illuminarium has chosen disguise to provide media playback systems and video server technology - pushing 4K content on one of the l
UK - The British and Irish Lions rugby squad taking on reigning World Champions South Africa in an upcoming summer tour was recently announced via live stream, across multiple global broadcast networks. Global integrated marketing agency, CSM Sport & Entertainment produced and directed the full show and appointed technical solutions specialist White Light (WL) to deliver the broadcast services, via their SmartStage XR studio in London. Working in close collaboration with FRAY Studio, a custom set was created using the Lions’ digital assets and imported into the Unreal Pre-Visualisation tool. This enabled the creative team to see exactly which shots could be achieved and make changes as needed to sponsor logos and other content, in advance of the live show. WL’s strategic partner SFL captured outside broadcast footage from Cardiff, which included the full-body t
Denmark - Technological Innovations Group (TIG) has appointed Ben Lund as its new regional sales manager for Crestron in Denmark. Representing Crestron's portfolio of commercial solutions, Lund's responsibilities will include assisting integrators, specifiers and end-users in deploying fully integrated, futureproof smart spaces with Crestron technology. Stein Ramsli, TIG's regional sales director for Crestron in the Nordics, comments: "We're very excited to welcome Ben to the team. From his 30 years of experience supporting integrators and specifiers in the AV industry, Ben brings invaluable sales leadership skills, an advanced technical knowledge and superb project management skills. This ties in perfectly with our strategy of remaining the No.1 end-to-end AV and IT solution portfolio provider, preferred by the majority of ver
Norway - Pixotope has announced two senior promotions and a new hire within its leadership team. The appointments follow the continued expansion of the company’s global staff. Ian Puszet joins Pixotope as its chief customer success officer after a decade working at Avid, where as vice president he led the global customer care team. Ian will drive customer success initiatives, align departments with a customer-centric culture and continue to construct relationships between Pixotope and its current and potential customers. Already a key player at Pixotope, Karoline Storbråten has been promoted to regional sales manager for Southern Europe. Karoline’s new role will oversee the daily and long-term sales operations across key European hubs such as France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Another Pixotope veteran, Joachim Ringstad celebrates his fifth year in the compa
UK - Neutrik has issued an update of its FOC Controller app for its compact, NA2-IO-DPRO I/O Dante interface device, that enables connectivity of legacy analogue and non-networked digital audio equipment within Dante audio networks, in the most demanding application environments. The DPRO Controller gives users remote control of device functions such as level, mute, gain, phantom power, input signal (including patching input signals to either output) and low-cut filter; as well as monitoring the status of the device and providing the ability to change the its network settings. DPRO also enables save, recall and loading of user presets. V2.0 introduces a completely new device discovery mechanism that dramatically improves the response speed of the software and enhances the user experience by separating online and offline devices. For optimal performance DPRO Controller
USA - When the Pawtucket Red Sox, the Triple-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, relocated from Rhode Island to Massachusetts, the city of Worcester built Polar Park as the home field for the now Worcester Red Sox. The Polar Park design team hired consulting firm WJHW to design the needed sound system. Central Communications was awarded the installation contract and they selected Fulcrum Acoustic products for the bulk of the project. Polar Park requested an efficient system with a full range of sound and strong intelligibility. WJHW created a distributed design, requiring high output, high fidelity, and good pattern control from a compact system. Central Communications mounted 17 of Fulcrum Acoustic’s FH1566 Full-Range Coaxial Horns along the sunshade, wrapping around the stands from first base to third base. The FH15s produce high output using a single amplifier chan
