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USA - Darren Lussier and his team at Image Production Services in Shrewsbury, MA responded to the lockdown’s impact on their live event business by launching the Image Theatre Virtual Venue.
Rather than converting a small space of their warehouse into a production studio, however, Lussier and his team built two complete sets outfitted with over 40 Chauvet Professional fixtures as well as a large LED wall, plus three high-definition cameras and four high DEPTZ cameras. They also became a production partner of Stellar Tickets, an online streaming platform owned by Goldstar, which allows them to sell tickets to a large audience.
“If you’re going to start something, you should be fully committed to doing it in the best possible way,” said Lussier. “Even during this

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UK - Shure partnered with SFL to provide a COVID-secure solution to Royal Star & Garter care homes, allowing residents to stay connected to family and friends throughout the pandemic.
The impact of coronavirus has been devastating for the care home industry. The risk of transmission means that family and friends cannot visit care home residents under the circumstances that they are used to. Royal Star & Garter, a registered charity providing care for veterans and their partners living with disability or dementia in their homes wanted to enable residents to stay as connected as possible to their families during this difficult time and so working with SFL Group, they designed COVID-secure visiting rooms.
Sam Jacobs, project manager, SFL comments: “SFL were approached to provide a holistic audio, acoustic & furniture solution to the custom built rooms, havin

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USA - Hope Fellowship Church in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas, made a recent purchase of Obsidian NX4 and NX Wing lighting controllers and runs the intuitive Onyx platform across the ministry’s four campuses. Mark Ellis, production development director at the church, is a past user of M-PC lighting control software but made the smooth transition to the Onyx platform when Hope Fellowship upgraded their lighting control system.
“When I first came to the church they were using a Martin M1 console with M-PC software,” says Ellis, who has been with the church for the past eight years. “When it was time to upgrade to something new, I was looking for something user-friendly that all my volunteers knew. We looked at other consoles but they were more than what we wanted to pay and overly complicated. The Obsidian gear was a great value plus it let me keep familiarity wi
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Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

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Norway - Despite its rural location, when the concert hall at the Inderøy Kulturhus complex in Norway needed a new sound reinforcement system, its managers were determined that local residents would enjoy the best possible experience. Choosing an Alcons Audio LR7 pro-ribbon system, Inderøy Kulturhus shows that community facilities do not need to compromise on their sound.
Opened in 1990, Inderøy Kulturhus was the first major cultural centre in the historic Innherred region of Norway. As part of a project to add physical education facilities for the primary school and premises for Inderøy Upper Secondary School, a sports hall, concert hall and service areas were built. Operated by municipal limited company Inderøy Kulturhus AS, the concert hall stages a wide range of events to benefit the whole region.
Although this agricultural area has a low population density, t

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Kosovo - Funktion-One distributor 303.bg overcame the geographical challenges of the global pandemic to specify and install one of Kosovo’s first permanent Funktion-One sound systems. Fantazia, in Pristina, which is operated by renowned underground promoters Servis, is a bar and club concept with high quality electronic music, excellent sound and a policy of inclusivity at its core.
Servis was founded in 2016 by Leo Lumezi and Patrik Ukiq as a club night, which has expanded into a platform for different creative concepts and collaborative experiments with its crew of DJs and designers working on projects in the arts, sound, film and fashion
Lumezi explains: “Fantazia, meaning Fantasy, is the realisation of a long-term dream of ours to create a daily running home of music in Pristina, which would bring together music lovers and friends in a weekly curated programme,

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USA - Martin by Harman has unveiled the Martin MAC Ultra Series with two “extremely bright” new workhorse stage lights – the MAC Ultra Performance and MAC Ultra Wash.
Featuring high lumen output across the zoom range, a new framing system, high-definition optics and low noise levels, the MAC Ultra family is ideal for concert and touring productions as well as noise-sensitive broadcast and theatre applications.
With high output a key design pillar, the MAC Ultra Series is powered by a 1,150W, 6000K proprietary LED light engine, Martin’s brightest to-date. It gives the MAC Ultra Wash the ability to project 63,500 lumens of output and the MAC Ultra Performance, 46,500 lumens. In addition, with higher red content and better daylight balance, the fixtures produce rich, vivid colours and more natural skin-tones, says the company.
Key features of the MAC Ultra

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Middle East - Creative Technology Middle East has welcomed two new additions to its operations. Dailos Rodriguez has joined as venue operations manager for the company’s newly-formed venue services department. He has over 24 years of experience in the hospitality and AV industry and has worked across multiple venues. He has secured various high-profile contracts during his time and implemented in-house AV services for some of the Middle East's biggest hotel chains.
Of his appointment, Rodriguez says: "It is a great honour joining the CT team, and I look forward to getting started on the variety of fantastic projects we already have lined up."
Also joining the team is Mark Johnson, who has been appointed business development manager for venue services. With over 19 years of experience in the AV hospitality industry, he brings a wealth of knowledge and exper

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USA - UPMC Cooper Field House is the home arena for most of Duquesne University’s major sports teams, including their NCAA Division 1 Basketball team: the Duquesne Dukes. During a recent renovation of the facility, Daktronics installed a Fulcrum Acoustic-based system to deliver the high impact sound that Duquesne was seeking.
Daktronics mounted Fulcrum Acoustic’s FH15 Full Range Coaxial Horns in a centre cluster above the court. Four FH1596s were selected for their 90° x 60° pattern to cover the lower-tier seating, while narrower-coverage FH1565s cover the upper seats. A fifth FH1596 faces straight down to cover the court. The FH’s extended directional control keeps the sound focused on spectators while minimizing reflections, thus improving intelligibility and overall clarity.
Four of Fulcrum’s Sub218L Subwoofers are suspended from the ceiling in a vertical

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UK - EF Infection Control, a part of the EF Group, has announced the availability of a new solution to help ensure the safety of attendees at tradeshows and other major indoor events as industries worldwide move towards post-lockdown operation.
EF has partnered with infection and virus control specialists Aeret UK to develop the service Sanitise 360. Sanitise 360’s technology delivers a non-toxic atomised mist that kills 99.99% of bacteria and viruses that are airborne as well as on surfaces including Hepatitis, COVID-19, CoV2, SARS, MRSA plus fungi and mould that are associated with a variety of infections and allergies. Unlike most fogging systems, it is claimed to be completely safe to use around electronic equipment and has been engineered to leave no chemical residue behind in any of its applications.
Undisturbed surfaces can remain protected for anything up t

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UK - A new ranking developed by Leeds-based events specialist AYRE Event Solutions reveals the events capitals of the UK, with London taking the top spot.
The new ranking is based on the number of large event facilities in the city, successful Business Event Growth funding applications, the number of major events held in the location, percentage of corporates and associations which chose the location for events and finally the total number of events related jobs available in the area.
Unsurprisingly, with 60 large event facilities across the city, London takes the top spot across all metrics but is closely followed by Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow. The top 10 locations in the UK for events as revealed by the new study are: London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Leeds, Belfast and Brighton.
AYRE managing director, Chris Ayre

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USA - "For us, every single one of our songs got big in a different way," Adam Met, one of the three multi-instrumental brothers who make up AJR told an interviewer.
Creativity is one of the things that makes AJR a delight to work for, according to their lighting designer Ezra Donellan. Another is their seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy. Both were on full display in January on Squeek Lights’ Ruby Stage, when after performing their hit Bang on The Late, Late Show with James Corden, the band forged ahead and recorded a video of their new song Way Less Said, supporting by a lightshow featuring the Chauvet Professional Rogue R1 BeamWash.
“One of most impressive things about this band is their ability to keep a high level of energy under all circumstances,” says Donellan. “We were all excited to be able to perform Bang for James Co

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USA - Based in Scottsdale, AZ, Impact Church is a fast-growing, multi-ethnic church known for high-energy worship and relevant, accessible teaching. The church recently moved into a new home, which was purpose-designed to host worship services with a focus on high quality audio, video and lighting.
The anchor point of this new AVL system is the ADJ LED video screen which fills the rear of the stage, while the lighting setup consists exclusively of fixtures from ADJ and sister company Elation Professional.
What began as a bible study for the Arizona Cardinals hosted by player Andre Wadsworth in the late 1990s was opened to the public and soon became one of the fastest growing churches in the nation. Headed up by Senior Pastor Travis Hearn, Impact Church has a reputation for diversity, authenticity and throwing a huge celebration each weekend. These gatherings have becom

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Germany - The proposed lavish party for the launch of Microsoft's new Xbox Series X had to be waived due to the COVID pandemic. Nevertheless, the market launch of the new generation of consoles in the Gamescom city of Cologne was celebrated with a live stream (known as the Xbox Dream Stream).
The highlight was a drone show over the Rhine. At the start of the 150-drone extravaganza, Jens Hillenkötter, in his role as both executive producer and director for the drone show and the broadcast of the live stream - on behalf of the GUD.berlin agency - deployed 36 Creative Light 1 Plus fixtures from GLP.
For outdoor use in Cologne, Hillenkötter chose the Creative Light 1 Plus model with wireless control. The total of 36 LED effects deployed were attached to six vertically standing pipes in groups of six. In this configuration they offered an impressive backdrop for the excit

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UK - BBC Studios' popular celebrity TV contest Strictly Come Dancing returned for its 18th series at the end of 2020, with new visual content choreographed by Hippotizer Karst+ media servers.
Leading the dance was a partnership of a Karst and Karst+, with the same duo serving as backup. An average series audience of more than 10 million Brits watched as the routines played out in front of a colourful array of visual content. The main stage was constructed as a series of arching LED screens, providing an eye-catching backdrop for the cameras.
The visual content included custom-made content for each performance - created by Potion Pictures and led by David Newton - and a mix of loops, full length time-coded tracks, and live rendered visuals.
These utilised Unreal Engine and nDisplay, with the data fed into the Hippotizer Media Servers by an output splitter.

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UK - Focusrite Group is launching Optimal Audio, a commercial audio brand that will join a stable that also includes Focusrite and Focusrite Pro, Adam Audio, Martin Audio, Novation and Ampify.
The new brand will be introduced to the market on 20 April in a virtual event, for which interested parties can register here.
“It’s a rare privilege to create a brand from scratch,” comments Focusrite Group CEO, Tim Carroll. “The commercial audio sector has grown consistently over the years, and even during the pandemic has been more robust than many. We expect that momentum to accelerate in the coming months, so we feel that the timing is perfect for the introduction of Optimal Audio.”
He adds: “Taking a considered view of the commercial audio sector led us to conclude that it

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To Safely Go - Pilots to assess how small and large-scale events can reopen safely are being launched by the government, which is describing the work as “crucial” for getting venues such as theatres reopened in June under the roadmap. The government said it was working with event organisers and local authorities to get “fans safely around a dozen events this spring”, as part of the previously announced Events Research Programme.
The ERP will provide “key scientific data into how small and large-scale events could be permitted to safely reopen”, the government said, in line with getting venues - including theatres - reopened without social distancing no earlier than 21 June. Major events already lined up for the pilot scheme include the World Snooker Championships, at the Sheffield Crucible, and the FA Cup final at Wembley.
The World Snooker Championships at

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Germany - Audio specialist Pan Acoustics has announced that Johannes Kampert has joined the company as head of global sales. In the position he will be responsible for all worldwide sales activity and will drive continued expansion of the global sales network.
“Johannes brings to us vast experience in international sales of complex audio and video networks. His commercial expertise combined with technical know-how is a real benefit to our organization and we are looking forward to working together,”says Udo Borgmann, CEO at Pan Acoustics.
“At Pan Acoustics I found key values that are crucial to me: quality, experience, passion and fun in what you do. I sincerely believe in success through people and in building long term partnerships. Pan Acoustics has an ideal growth perspective and I’m looking forward to each client who wants to work with us now – and in th

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UK - disguise has announced new features for its xR software. This upgrade will further enhance its integration of Unreal Engine and address the continued demand for immersive content of the highest quality, detail and frame rate across Extended Reality (xR) and Virtual Production, says the company.
The latest features introduced by disguise include ACES colour management, DirectX12 (DX12) and Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) support from Nvidia. Together, they will allow users to deliver images of the highest quality via 10-bit HDR processing of Unreal content through disguise RenderStream.
RenderStream is a proprietary IP protocol that enables the hosting of Unreal content on dedicated disguise hardware. “This approach of scale-out rendering in conjunction with features such as DX12 support, DLSS and the ACES colour management workflow allows Virtual Production

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Denmark - Sound recordists and production sound mixer Jono Cary has switched to Bubblebee Industries’ Sidekick in-ear monitors because they are “so comfortable that they can even be worn underneath headphones”.
“Comfort is such an important factor, especially when you have a long day ahead of you,” he says. “Sidekick fits into my workflow perfectly and makes monitoring the IFB feed when doing ‘lives’ so much easier. I’m able to wear the earpiece all day without any pain or discomfort.”
Designed to be virtually invisible, Bubblebee’s Sidekick in-ear monitor features a micro driver solution where the driver fits invisibly in the ear canal, eliminating the need for acoustic tubes outside the ear. This gives it a small and lightweight footprint and makes it a popular alternative to earwigs. With this IEM in place, the sound crew, presenters and talent

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UK - Brixton Village Market, purchased over two years ago by new owners, Hondo Enterprises, has since undergone a series of renovation projects with the most recent, a sympathetic rejuvenation of the lighting system. The Brixton Market team turned to Bristol-based Fineline Lighting for a system that met the diverse needs of the space whilst maintaining the integrity of the Grade-II listed architecture.
Brixton Market is a traditional market by day and the place to go for foods from around the world. At night, the space transforms into a popular nightlife hub, drawing in the locals with restaurants, rooftop bars and a bar playing jazz music.
The lighting system, however, was inflexible and did not meet the diverse needs of the space. Brixton Market’s general manager, Diana Nabagereka, explained, “The lighting had always been a problem across the two covered markets

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USA - Ferri Lighting Design & Associates (FLDA) recently equipped CNBC Studio B with a complete Martin LED lighting rig for optimal on-camera looks and increased energy efficiency.
When anchor Shepard Smith joined CNBC in July 2020 to host The News With Shepard Smith, the network took the opportunity to completely renovate its 3,600sq.ft Studio B set. The new set is dominated by two massive LED video walls, including a five-panel display opposite the host’s desk that can be used to show multiple video feeds for remote guests and correspondents or combined to display one large image.
Additionally, the centre screen can be moved up to 17ft away from the wall via a motorised arm to draw focus to a specific element. In order to complement the light from the displays with precisely-calibrated illumination and reduce electricity costs, CNBC opted to replace the
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