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Italy - Between 11 and 19 September, the Arena di Verona hosted the seventh edition of the Festival della Bellezza (Festival of Beauty).
Visual representations, artistic and philosophic thoughts animated the location, with a wide variety of guests exhibiting on stage: from artists like Gianni Morandi and Mogol to intellectuals like Massimo Recalcati and Vittorio Sgarbi.
MeQuadro Show Service, a production-service company based in Verona, provided the lighting and oversaw the technical set up. Emanuele Mazzi, owner of MeQuadro, comments, “This edition has been a real challenge for the organisers, who allowed more than 35.000 spectators to take part to 10 days of concerts, performances and conferences, following the COVID-19 guidelines.
“The stage was set up in

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UK - Creative Technology (CT) worked closely with the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) to help deliver its third annual conference from Riverside Studios Hammersmith. The virtual event was livestreamed to a global audience on 6-7 October.
The initial challenge faced by Rob Day (senior project manager) and Emma Rössl, (project manager), was to find a suitable venue that could guarantee the right internet bandwidth, which is key in establishing a high quality connection and vital in delivering a successful online event. All spaces at CT’s Crawley facility were fully booked so Riverside Studios provided Studio 2 for the two-day event.
CT supplied a curved LED screen, relay / comfort monitors, PPU, video switching, cameras and comms for the studio set up. Full lighting and rigging were also provided along with scenic and furniture to create a professional

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Norway - In common with many other countries, the live event industry in Norway has been hit hard by the global COVID-19 pandemic. With all concert and cultural events either postponed or cancelled, Norwegian artists who had performances booked were left to wait until live shows could resume.
But folk/rock band Violet Road came up with an imaginative solution to the problem, bringing their music to 18 coastal communities from the foredeck of a 60 year old ship. An Alcons Audio pro-ribbon audio system was a vital part of the solution.
Violet Road had over 60 shows lined up for the 2020 festival season, all of which were cancelled. When the band put their heads together, bassist Hogne Rundberg came up with the idea of buying a boat. “We thought it would be the perfect tour combination - a stage, food, lodging and transport all rolled into one,” he says.
The b
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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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Zimbabwe - Blessing Bero was focused on creating uplifting harmonies for the Zaoga Forward In Faith Church at its October live DVD recording session; not in the form of vocals, the church’s acclaimed choir took care of that, but with balanced video and lighting displays. “We wanted to create flowing videos for the beautiful music,” said Bero, of Events Evolution. “Our team was able to do this throughout the recording.”
Bero, who served as technical director, set designer and lighting designer at the video shoot, hung 16 0.5m by 3m LED strips across the back of the stage. “I worked with LED screen engineer and operator Tatenda Rushwaya to create all the attractive visuals that the camera could capture on the strips,” he said. “We used them to play graphic videos that interacted with video playback.”
Having the strips display their captivating content w

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Australia - The 2020 NRL Grand Final, saw the Melbourne Storm defeat the Penrith Panthers at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium. Traditionally held on the first Sunday of October, the COVID-19 delay earlier in the year caused the date to be pushed back several weeks.
The pre-show entertainment was once again enriched by Tom Wright’s lighting and stage design with Chameleon Touring Systems supplying the equipment. This year Amy Shark walked onto the stage at ANZ Stadium in front of a 40,000-strong crowd to perform several of her biggest hits which have dominated the Australian charts over the past few years.
Unfortunately, as Wright lives in Melbourne, he was unable to attend the event and so Paul Collison and Dan Mercer worked closely with him to ensure his vision came to life. This was a task that ended up nearly impossible due to inclement weather that battered Sydney that we

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USA - A Hippotizer Tierra+ Media Server from Green Hippo is driving the videowall content at the WVU Football facility at West Virginia University’s new Puskar Centre, in Morgantown, WV.
Providing spaces for players, coaches, staff and visitors, the WVU Puskar Centre development is, with the help of Hippotizer, transforming the home of WVU Football, putting its facilities very visibly ahead of the competition.
The video playback solution was designed by BrightTree Studios and installed by its parent company, Synergy Media Group, preferred technology suppliers to WVU. It encompasses five large screens in the spacious, luxuriously modern locker room, including a main video wall and four ‘end-cap’ screens located at the ends of the locker rows. The Tierra+ Media Server will also handle content feeds and mapping duties for screens in other areas in future phases of t

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USA - Along with retro tech like vinyl turntables and instant film cameras, which have enjoyed a popularity resurgence in recent years, the drive-in movie theatres of old are also experiencing a revival in 2020. But that boom hasn’t always been sparked by patrons flocking to catch the latest Hollywood blockbuster.
Sully Erna and Aaron Lewis, frontmen for the hard rock bands Godsmack and Staind, recently wrapped up The American Drive-In Tour, a 13-date, coast-to-coast run of ‘unplugged’ concerts, many of which were staged in classic ’50s-era outdoor cinemas. To best reinforce every acoustic musical nuance and every word of intimate banter between these ‘old friends’ of 25 years, Denver-based concert sound company Brown Note Productions (BNP) chose to carry an L-Acoustics K2 system for the tour.
Produced by Danny Wimmer Presents (DWP), the promoter behind pop

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Spain - This year’s annual Coca-Cola Music Experience Festival took place again over two days at Madrid’s WiZink Centre (this year under the name CCME Reloaded, to reflect the COVID-19 restrictions).
The event was recorded for streaming only on CokeTV (the Coca-Cola YouTube channel) and Divinity (https://www.divinity.es/).
Celebrating its 10-year anniversary, despite the lack of venue atmosphere, the music was non-stop and featured local artists such as Aitana, Ana Guerra, Beret, Twin Melody, Cora Yako, and Lemot.
Working with production company, the Method Agency (under the show direction of Oscar Fernandez), PRG provided an inventory of 124 GLP fixtures, for effects, washlight, and keylight. These included 20 GLP impression X4 XL; 18 GLP impression X4 L; 20 GLP impression X4 Bar 20; 26 GLP impression X4 Bar 10 and 36 GLP Highlander Wash, being used for the

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UK - Audiologic has announced a new partnership with background music service provider Perfect Octave.
The agreement “capitalises on a module available within QSC’s widely acclaimed Q-SYS software-based ecosystem and recognises the move to fully digital distributed audio is gaining pace” says Audiologic.
The solution allows for multiple zones of curated, fully licensed music for businesses to be run directly from the audio processor. Advance scheduling, importing music from third party platforms and custom mixes are now fully under control without the need to install multiple third-party boxes.
Peter Sheppard of Perfect Octave comments: “This market is always evolving. There has been rapid change in how people discover and experience music and that shows no sign of slowing. The way people are listening to new music has shifted from radio play to streaming

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Australia - Big Picture is always looking for new methods to allow creative and technical professionals to tell stories in fresh and innovative ways, especially during COVID-19. One area that certainly required a COVID-revamp was the award show format. So, with the Dally M Awards looming, thinking caps were put on by the teams at Fox Sports and Big Picture.
“Usually the Dally M Awards are staged in a large event venue, but with COVID-19 we had to rethink how we would stage the 2020 production,” remarks Paul Slater, senior producer at Fox Sports. “We still wanted to have a big auditorium feel, but we didn’t have the budget or resources to shoot something like that in reality.”
Paul turned to Big Picture for inspiration, who in turn demonstrated how an xR (extended reality) broadcast could work. The technology impressed, marking a vote of confidence for Big Pic

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Planning Ahead - Theatres in England will no longer be at risk of demolition without planning permission, thanks to new laws introduced this week by the government. Housing and communities secretary Robert Jenrick has confirmed that theatres, concert halls and live music venues will no longer be subject to permitted development rights, which allow certain buildings to be demolished without full planning permission to encourage growth and redevelopment.
The changes cover venues that are not listed buildings. Many theatres are listed, and require listed building consent before any alterations can be carried out. The government said it had put the new laws in place to protect the country’s arts venues, which it said "cannot easily be replaced and are an intrinsic part of our cultural heritage". As such, permitted development rights have been removed for performance ven

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USA - With a portfolio of clients including Apple, Vogue, Amazon, and Spotify, GUM Studios is a New York Qualified Production Facility, offering expansive and versatile spaces that can confidently cater for any requirement and shoot.
Recently, GUM turned to 4Wall Entertainment to provide lighting and video equipment for its new Virtual Production (VP) facility. The high-spec virtual environment includes ROE Visual Black Pearl 2 LED video panels, which are driven by Brompton 4K Tessera SX40 processors.
“GUM is a long-term customer of 4Wall’s, and we have been supplying it with equipment for years,” says 4Wall’s account executive - video production, Wayne Romanowski. “With Virtual Production tipped to become a standard for how major motion pictures will be shot going forward, we were honoured when the GUM team contacted us about supporting them in bringing this

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Canada - Bluesound Professional has announced the launch of the BSW150 network active subwoofer. The BSW150 adds powerful, deep bass to any wired or wireless Bluesound Professional system and features the convenience of precision BluOS app control. The BSW150 will be available in late November in both black or white finishes.
The Bluesound Professional BSW150 is a network active subwoofer with streaming capability designed specifically for use in commercial installations. Designed to fit neatly in boardrooms or small commercial establishments, this compact subwoofer digs deeper and plays louder than its bulkier rivals. With several clever installation options, the BSW150 can be easily positioned to fit perfectly into the location of choice.
The BSW150 is based on the established BluOS platform and can be network paired with other Bluesound Professional speakers or str

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USA - Located at the Oconto Falls High School in Wisconsin, an ageing sound system in the Falls Area Performing Arts Centre (PAC) has been replaced with Martin Audio’s new scalable resolution Wavefront Precision Mini (WPM) line array. Part of a complete AV upgrade to the technical infrastructure, the work was carried out by Camera Corner Connecting Point in Green Bay, Wisconsin, following a competitive bidding process.
According to their project designer, Steve Littlepage, the contract was broken into two phases: a complete video upgrade, followed by the installation of the PA and system processing, as well as supply (and relocation) of a new digital mixing console.
The function of the PA was to provide an even coverage for a seated audience of up to 700, and be sufficiently versatile to serve not only a range of school events, but incoming productions hosted through

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USA - The second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) located in the heart of Downtown Chicago, is home to more than 100 companies and is one of the city’s best-known tourist attractions. When a tower client needed a powerful, flexible, and scalable audio system, USIS AV looked to LEA Professional.
The team at USIS AV was tasked with the AV design and build in two floors of the tower, encompassing over 90,000sq.ft. The floors are leased by a global coworking company who provide premium work, meeting and event spaces around the world and needed a multifunctional system that could meet the ever-changing needs of their clientele. The space in Willis Tower was designed to be re-configured depending on the specific need, with flex walls allowing the area to accommodate both small breakout sessions and open out for larger conference and

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USA - While the majority of festivals and concerts scheduled for the summer of 2020 had to be cancelled due to COVID-19, a few smaller events were still able to go ahead with social distancing in place. One example was the fifth annual Birds of a Feather Music & Arts Festival, which took place during August in Northern Kentucky. It featured a varied line-up of bands playing across two adjacent stages, which both featured identical lighting rigs comprised exclusively of ADJ fixtures.
Located at the picturesque Thornhill Drag Strip in a little town called Morning View in Kentucky, Birds of a Feather is a small family-friendly festival that hosts a mixture of local and regional touring acts. At the top of this year’s line-up was Tropidelic, a band that blends reggae, hip-hop and high energy funk alongside ‘trashgrass’ string quartet The Rumpke Mountain Boys and electr

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South Africa - MJ Event Gear has created an outdoor music concert environment at The Local Bar and Kitchen in Kyalami, no. 66 on the R55 Main Road, for those who want to enjoy good music in a space that strictly complies to the COVID-19 safety regulations. MJ has also set up a venue incorporating sound and lighting at the Bryanston Country Club.
The Local has JOC approval and has been given the green light by the SAPS and the fire marshal. The venue has various seating options available and includes paramedics on-site in case of an emergency, while all tables and chairs are sprayed and sanitized by Gary Love and the Viral Shield team. Patrons entering the venue will walk through a humidifier tunnel (not spray) and endure the usual hand sanitization and a temperature check, while face masks are sold on site.
Mike Jones, the owner of Johannesburg technical supply company

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USA - Behind the Scenes has announced that Light Touch Designs has become its newest Pledge-a-Service member by pledging fees from speaking engagements and online training to the charity.
Light Touch Designs is a Chicago-based design firm supplying lighting design services to the corporate meeting and special event industry. Owner Michael Sharon, a 30 year veteran of the profession, is happy to share his knowledge of design, programming and Vectorworks drafting with the community.
On making his commitment to the charity, Michael commented, “As freelance workers in a high-risk industry, we are all just one accident away from financial ruin. BTS has provided a crucial safety net to help people back on their feet. In times of pandemic, when we are all working to share knowledge and keep the industry alive, it seems right that I should take my teaching income and put it

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The Netherlands - The newly built Terra Emmen school offers a varied and practical curriculum – including cooking, ‘green subjects’, and sports, alongside more traditional subjects – and, as such, required an audio system that could be as versatile as it was discrete.
After assessing the options available to them, the school’s administrators decided that MM Concept Audio Solutions was the right company to assist them in creating an audio infrastructure that could fit into Terra Emmen’s sustainable, forward-thinking ethos.
“The initial brief from Terra Emmen was rather a simple one,” said Mark Molema, CEO of MM Concept Audio Solutions. “At that point, they weren’t being supported by an AV system advisor, which was a huge benefit for us. As far as they were concerned, the functionality and ease-of-use of the system was key, which is a welcome change f

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USA - Symetrix has announced their expanded control solution, Symetrix In Control. With Symetrix In Control, users have more control from the same processor with the freedom to design, display and deploy tailored user experiences and system control solutions, says the company.
After releasing the T-5 Glass Touchscreen remote and the W Series IP remotes this year, the addition of Lua Scripting in Symetrix Composer 8.0 software completes the Symetrix In Control solution. Everything needed to get started is available on the Symetrix website for instant access to control with no additional fees or licenses.
Whether you’re programming a small restaurant or a 50,000-seat stadium, the Symetrix control solution allows complete system control without complicated programming.
ARC-WEB is an out-of-the-box virtual user interface that can be used on a smartphone, tablet o

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USA - Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) has unveiled the MKD1200 Series, the newest additions to the MKD Series of full range loudspeakers created for installation applications. The MKD1294 and MKD1264 are three-way designs engineered to produce high output levels and outstanding fidelity while maintaining broadband pattern control for use in applications ranging from stadiums to small music venues.
Both models incorporate dual 12-inch low-frequency transducers with 3-inch vented voice coils, and coaxial 3.5-inch voice coil midrange and 1.75-inch voice coil high-frequency compression drivers. Nominal beamwidth of the MKD1294 is 90º horizontal x 45º vertical, while that of the MKD1264 is 60º horizontal x 45º vertical. The large-format horn utilised in the MKD1294 and MKD1264 may be rotated for increased versatility in pattern control, providing sound system integrators with a
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