Germany - Prolight+Sound 2020 has been postponed due to coronavirus (Covid-19) concerns, Messe Frankfurt has announced.
The annual entertainment technology tradeshow was initially scheduled for 31 March - 3 April, but organisers have now said it will take place on 26-29 May. Musikmesse, the music industry show that runs alongside Prolight+Sound, has also been postponed, with new dates yet to be released.
Messe Frankfurt said in a statement: "The ongoing spread of Covid-19 in Europe called for a reassessment of the situation in close cooperation with the public-health authorities in Frankfurt who require that steps be taken to prevent event participants from high-risk regions coming to Frankfurt and visiting the fair when ill.
"Given that these participants could

Security Measures - A new law proposed by the UK government will require venues to put measures in place to protect the public from a terrorist attack. Security minister James Brokenshire has announced plans for the new Protect Duty, following a manifesto commitment to improve the security of public spaces. The new law, which is to be consulted on this spring, would require owners and operators of venues and public spaces to consider the risk of a terrorist attack and take “reasonable measures” to protect the public from such an incident. Venues can include concert halls, stadiums and conference centres.
Measures could include increasing physical security, staff training and incident response plans in case of an attack. According to the Home Office, the Protect Duty “reflects lessons learned following the terrorist attacks in 2017, as well as more recent attacks”. Br

UK - Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Peter Mumford’s prestigious career, last December saw the ALD host an evening In Conversation with Peter Mumford where he was bestowed with a Fellowship of the Association, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the art of lighting design.
On presenting the award, Lucy Carter commented: “I’ve got a lot to thank Peter for, because 25 years ago when I was a dance and drama student, I didn’t even know about lights in performance and it was watching Peter’s designs for contemporary dance that I suddenly saw this new medium and is essentially why I’m a lighting designer now. I’m sure that Peter is still inspiring us all and inspiring a new generation as well.”
The event to reflect upon his career was held at the National Theatre on the night following his own press night as lighting designer for
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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

USA - ADJ has announced the availability of its most compact wireless LED uplighter to date, the Element ST HEX. Building on the success of ADJ’s popular Element Hex, the new model features powerful output, and compact design as well as a full colour touch screen display for easy setup and DMX addressing.
Featuring four 6W HEX (red, green, blue, amber, white + UV) LEDs the fixture offers smooth colour mixing with an almost limitless palette. The inclusion of both amber and (cool) white LED elements means that it can be used to create white light with a wide variety of colour temperatures. Meanwhile, the UV LED element not only allows for the creation of the classic ‘blacklight’ effect where white and fluorescent materials glow vividly, but it can also be combined with the other primary colours to create hues such as hot pink, electric purple and lime green that aren’

UK - AVer Europe has launched its professional conferencing system, the VC520 Pro, in the UK.
The VC520 Pro has been developed by AVer Europe as a solution for various meeting room sizes, alleviating the challenges that teams face on conference calls. The VC520 Pro has an audio pickup range of 15ft and the ability to daisy-chain two additional speakerphones to reach up to 45ft, offering “ultra-clear unparalleled audio even throughout large meeting rooms”.
With Sony True WDR capability, AVer Europe’s VC520 Pro offers clear and high-quality imaging even in high contrast backlit environments. With up to 1080p and 60fps even in poor lighting, the conferencing system’s 12X optical zoom with precise detail enables teams to showcase items such as products or documents live in the room on camera.
The VC520 Pro’s SmartFrame technology uses face recognition to a

Europe - Brompton Technology has hailed ISE 2020 as “a resounding success” after showing its Dynamic Calibration technology in Europe for the first time and launching its latest LED processor, Tessera S8.
“Our demonstration stations were a big draw and the reaction to the Tessera S8 has been very encouraging,” comments Brompton’s senior business development manager, Rob Fowler. “But the reactions to our presentations of Dynamic Calibration, the enabling technology for Brompton’s HDR solution, were truly astounding.”
The Tessera S8 is a “cost-effective solution for high profile projects that do not require the large output capacity of the award-winning Tessera SX40 processor, but still want to benefit from the flexibility of Brompton’s Tessera feature set and easy-to-use software to produce stunning results”.
“HDR is what everyone wanted

UK - The Lastminute.com London Eye dazzled its vast visiting crowds this year with a first-of-its kind, eight-metre tall Christmas tree adjacent to the attraction. With plans to transform the tree every hour into an attention-grabbing light show to music, the Merlin Entertainments team turned to TLS Lighting, for a bespoke LED lighting solution that would fully pixel-map the tree’s surface.
Merlin Entertainment’s David Rigby explains: “We wanted large scale pixel-mapping and TLS Lighting created a custom-designed and manufactured lighting system in a conical shape that was supplied to us as plug and play. We know we can always trust TLS Lighting to create exactly what we need with the feature sets we are looking for. They don’t let us down.”
The tree twinkled with almost 4000 RGB LED light modules and was adorned with a total of 64 strings of lights, varying

World - For the current world tour by Charli XCX, lighting designer Elliott Mountford is enjoying the power and consistency of the VL2600 Profile luminaire from Vari-Lite.
The tour is in support of Charli XCX’s third studio album Charli. Having worked with Charli and creative director Jed Skrzypczak through the summer, Mountford knew what was required, but also the limitations. “Charli hates key light,” he says, “so most of my show is backlit, with a very silhouetted look. I love big, backlit looks in white, but they have to be super-wide for every audience member to see the effect.”
In achieving this, Mountford was impressed by the VL2600 Profile’s powerful output and wide zoom range. “I wanted great contrast between the lights and the rest of the rig - we had 100-plus strobes that they had to compete with,” says Mountford. “They cut through e

USA - Michael Brown is a lighting designer who loves to experiment and take some creative risks in the quest for imagining new and exciting performance environments and that’s exactly what he did for the US leg of Bon Iver’s recent tour, part of the campaign for new album i, i, where 49 x Robe MegaPointes and 25 x Kinetic Lights custom moving mirrors were at the core of his design combining the diverse visual disciplines of art, architecture and concert lighting.
Michael has worked with the band since 2012, following a chance backstage encounter a few years earlier with lead singer Justin Vernon. It’s been a fertile and stimulating partnership, for which they implicitly trust in his creative judgment.
He first encountered the Kinetic Lights winch system in 2017 while researching cool art projects for the Eaux Claires Festival in Wisconsin for which he was

USA - As the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs battled it out for the NFL Championship, the Pepsi Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show brought a little Latin flavour to Miami’s 65,000-seat Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday 2 February, thanks to an explosive show by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, aided by Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny and Colombian star J. Balvin, and a cast of near 170 musicians, dancers, and performers.
This massive production - an eagerly awaited annual event - was broadcast live by Fox to 100m viewers worldwide, all of whom witnessed a lighting show which had at its centre over 120 Ayrton Perseo IP65-rated multi-function profile fixtures.
The spectacular production was created by the Super Bowl team headed by show designer, Bruce Rodgers of Tribe, Inc. and lighting designer, Bob Barnhart of 22 Degrees. “We quickly decided the Ayrton lighting rig

USA - The Bronxville Union Free School District encourages their students to participate in a number of extracurricular activities including the performing arts programmes produced by the High School, Middle School and Elementary School departments.
Wanting to supply their student technicians with the latest in production technology used to accentuate the performing arts, The Bronxville School Foundation awarded a grant submitted by student technician AJ Radik for the addition of Siren Series LED followspots from Altman Lighting.
“I’m a junior at Bronxville UFSD and I started doing tech for the theatre productions back in the sixth grade,” began Radik. “I am mainly focused on the sound and lighting designs of the productions and last year as we were doing a production of Little Shop of Horrors, one of our old spotlights starting smoking and became inoperable fo

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has supplied two Green Hippo Hippotizer V4 Karst+ Display Port media servers to full-service event production agency, T.H.Collective, to provide flexible, high-resolution video playback for a myriad of client events.
T.H.Collective was looking to invest in a robust system for large-format video playback on high resolution LED walls and edge-blended projection. These applications required the screen content to be displayed at a higher pixel count than a single video port could carry.
Matt Emmerson, head of video at T.H.Collective approached AC-ET to recommend a suitable playback solution to meet the company’s technically demanding requirements.
He comments: “The decision to use Hippotizer media servers came down to the flexibility in operating them. Triggers can be run using programmed timelines, individual DMX ch

USA - A majestic ‘magical’ 50ft tree is at the heart of the Wildwood Grove Tree Experience, a multi-media creation from LifeFormations and The Imagination House at Dollywood in the The Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee.
A collection of 650 pixel-mapped and illuminated butterflies controlled by Weigel software animate the 50ft wide expanse of the venerable tree’s branches, while music by Mike Avila and an alluring story narrated by the park’s cofounder, Dolly Parton, add to the enchantment. Accentuating the entire scene is a vividly coloured Susan Rose lighting design that features 16 Chauvet Professional Ovation E-910FC ellipsoidal fixtures supplied by Bandit Lites.
Deftly mixing colours, light angles and slightly off focus gobo patterns, Rose creates a captivating vista that adds depth to the tree and its rocky surroundings, giving them a dreamy edge that conve

Norway - A 100-year old historical machine hall situated in Oslo is home to Norway’s Design & Architectural (DOGA) foundation, with DOGA responsible for facilitating collaboration between creative talents and businesses, as well as promoting innovation and new ideas on the role of design and architecture throughout Norway.
The large main hall, dating back to 1898, needed a versatile and dependable system suitable for conferencing or seminar purposes - from single stage solo presentations through to larger conferencing situations, with multiple presentations held across various locations in the building. For these reasons, Shure Microflex Wireless was selected as the system of choice.
The space at DOGA is 340sq.m wide and 8.5m high, which makes it a popular venue for hire when organising large conferences, seminars and parties. As a historical building steeped in

UK - Hundreds of television buyers from across the globe headed to ACC Liverpool on 9-11 February for BBC Studios Showcase 2020 international television market. For the 14th year running, creative technical event production company Hawthorn supported the distributor to showcase its premium programmes, delivering two evening events.
The events previewed some of the BBC’s top programmes including Doctor Who, A Perfect Planet and The Watch. Led by the BBC Studios team, Hawthorn’s head of creative technical Peter Harding helped to produce and deliver a production design for the two evenings.
This year’s format saw a considerable shake-up with the construction of a curve-fronted 1000sqm 5m-high platform over a section of the arena’s tiered seating and floor. Hawthorn worked with specialists Acorn Event Structures and Steeldeck to create the stru

Japan - Martin Audio’s MLA Multicellular Loudspeaker Array played an important role at the Countdown Japan Festival 19/20 at the Makuhari Messe Convention Centre in Chiba.
Countdown Japan is one of the biggest new year countdown music festivals in Japan, held over four days at the end of December (and leading up to the final countdown at midnight on 31 December). This major event features between 40-50 Japanese music acts per day.
The main stage is the 40,000-capacity Earth Stage, while the other four stages comprise Galaxy Stage, Cosmo Stage, Moon Stage and Astro Arena (some with acts running through until New Year’s Day morning). Furthermore, a shrine is set within the venue, providing a genuine Japanese new year flavour.
On the Earth Stage, 19 x Martin Audio MLA and a single MLD downfill cabinet provided the main arrays on each side of the stage, while si

South Korea - Record-breaking crowds attended Seoul Light, where Nexo’s new Geo M12 line array made its debut. Newly-purchased by audio production company Plan 24, the M12 inventory was augmented by long-time Nexo user Way Audio, which ordered Geo M modules especially for this event.
Staged at the Dondaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in the centre of Seoul, the festival attracted more than a million visitors. The DDP is the centrepiece of South Korea's fashion hub and a popular tourist destination, Dongdaemun, which features a walkable park on its roofs, large global exhibition spaces, futuristic retail stores and restored parts of the Seoul fortress.
The entire outer wall of the DDP building, designed by Zaha Hadid, becomes a gigantic exhibition hall during the year-end and New Year’s period (20 December - 3 January). As the sun sets and the darkness falls, a larg

UAE - AO Drones recently delivered an airborne show in Dubai for a video campaign promoting Motorola’s reimagination of its Razr flip phone in the Middle East and Africa. The resulting video quickly attracted over 200,000 views through Motorola’s social media channels.
The teams from AO Drones and AO Creative, part of AO Technology, worked in collaboration with Motorola and netizency, the digital marketing agency, to design the visual content, including animated logos and brand names. AO Drones’ design team even created an animation of the Razr flip phone opening, closing and rotating in the sky.
Vinayak Shenoy, head of marketing, Middle East and Africa for Motorola’s parent company Lenovo, said of the Razr launch event, “We felt that this drone show symbolises what this product is all about - a great blend of technology and art. The beauty of 120 drones ris

UK - JoeCo’s Blackbox BBR64-Dante multitrack recorders feature in Spiritland One mobile studio set-up. The four-unit solution provides 256-channel recording and back-up capabilities so that the Spiritland Productions team can reliably capture live sound recordings over long periods of time.
Created by two ex-BBC sound engineers, Antony Shaw and Gareth Iles, Spiritland One is a high-end studio on wheels, designed to go wherever live music takes it. For Shaw and Iles, inspiration struck when they took over the technical fit out and management of Spiritland Studio, King’s Cross.
“When we mentioned that we would love to build something like this, the team at Spiritland jumped at the idea,” says Shaw. “The truck is designed to record and mix big live events, with a high channel count to capture sound as reliably as possible.”
With the Dante network providi

Denmark - Car manufacturer Porsche launched its new electric Taycan Turbo S sports car for the Danish market at the Porsche Centre Copenhagen in January. In keeping with the electric theme, Hippotizer Media Servers powered the electrifying video-mapping of the car’s exterior at the special event, which was produced for Porsche by Capital Events.
Copenhagen-based projection specialist 4K Projects, brought in by technical supplier Nordic Rentals, were responsible for the visuals. They supplied a Hippotizer Boreal+ for the playback, along with a second unit as backup. The graphics and video content was fed from a single 4K output, through a Datapath FX4, which split the output into four HD feeds.
4K Project’s production team was made up of Mikkel Samuelsen, Balder Thorrud and Rasmus Linck, who designed the video content to complement a soundtrack created by Porsche es

Russia - An assortment of Claypaky lighting fixtures are to be found in Salekhard, the only city located directly on the Arctic Circle.
Systems engineer Vladimir Spravtsev of DNK Corporation installed Claypaky Axcor Profile 600 HC, A.leda B-EYE K20, Axcor Spot 400 HC, Axcor Beam 300 and Stormy CC fixtures in the city’s Cultural and Business Centre. Artem Bogatyrev was the project manager.
Spravtsev was tasked with refurbishing the lighting in the concert hall portion of the building, known for its stunning architecture. “We needed to install fixtures that were multifunctional, that could be used for performances ranging from folk artists to classical music,” he explains. “We chose Claypaky lighting because we know Claypaky’s reputation as a reliable manufacturer. The company’s products are in great demand for Russian show production.”
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