Details

27 August 2025

USA - dBTechnologies USA has announced the appointment of Scott Thompson as Western US regional sales manager, bringing more than two decades of experience in the pro audio and music industry to the role.

Thompson most recently served as vice-president of sales at The Music Link, where he managed more than $20m in worldwide sales across multiple channels, supported a global distributor network, and oversaw the successful launch of a European 3PL warehouse that expanded the company’s international footprint. He also held leadership roles at Córdoba Music Group, driving both domestic and international sales efforts for the Córdoba and Guild brands during a pivotal period of growth.

Before transitioning fully into sales leadership, Thompson worked as an independent audio engineer for nearly a decade.

“I’m truly excited to join the dBTech

Details

26 August 2025

UK - This year’s PLASA Show (7-9 September, Olympia, London) will debut a new Careers and Networking Hub, which the show’s organisers say is set to be “a vibrant, inclusive space designed to support early-career professionals, apprentices, students, and anyone seeking their next step in the live entertainment and events industry”.

A collaboration between PLASA, The Power of Events, Production Futures, and Access Industry, the hub will feature: speed networking sessions with top industry professionals; professional development support, including CV and LinkedIn reviews and free headshots (limited availability); live talks and panel sessions exploring careers and opportunities in live events; and a welcoming lounge space with comfortable seating and coffee, open to all ages and experience levels.

Apprentice ambassadors from Acc

Details

26 August 2025

World - The latest issue of LSi is out now, and can be read online for free here.

This issue is packed with stories from across the live entertainment tech world. Ian Cullen reports on Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism tour, exploring how crew wellbeing sits at the heart of its ambitious production. Rob Halliday visits Chris Ewington’s Manchester workshop to discover a unique new piece of visual technology, while Phil Ward meets the audio team behind Kraftwerk’s Jazzopen performance. We also take you backstage at the National Theatre for Sondheim’s Here We Are, and at London’s Duke of York’s theatre for Stereophonic, complete with a classic Cadac console on st

Details

26 August 2025

UK - LED walls, IMAG screens, and holographic projections elevated Lana Del Rey’s five-date summer stadium tour across the UK and Ireland, delivering a “theatrical and emotionally charged spectacle,” powered by Hippotizer Media Servers.

Phil White of nlitedesign LTD specified and supplied two Hippotizer Tierra+ MK2 and two Boreal+ MK2 Media Servers in a primary and backup configuration for the stadium shows. The tour stopped at major venues, including Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, Anfield Stadium in Liverpool, and two sold-out nights at London’s Wembley Stadium.

“The initial brief called for a three-part stage LED wall and IMAG screens, but we quickly expanded that to include a projection surface, holographic projections, and downstage wing LED screens on either side of the stage,” explained White, who has collaborated with Lana Del R

Details

26 August 2025

Italy - Sitting some 50km south of Pisa and set in the Tuscan countryside, the Teatro del Silenzio was designed by architect Alberto Bartalini using a natural amphitheatre adjacent to Andrea Bocelli’s home-town of Lajatico. Produced by City Sound & Events, recent shows by the celebrated Italian tenor marked the 20th anniversary of this performance space.

Lighting designer Alberto Negri, who used Ayrton Mamba, Domino S and Cobra fixtures in his design, explains how they fitted into the production which was adapted to maximise the location’s singular beauty: “The production and I aimed to minimise the visual impact of the technical setup – since the audience enters as early as the afternoon, the landscape must remain the protagonist until showtime. We reduced the use of tower structures to a minimum and prioritised floor-level lighting positions an

Details

26 August 2025

Brazil - The 2025 edition of the Tardezinha tour celebrates the tenth anniversary of one of Brazil’s most popular live music projects, created and led by Thiaguinho, and stands as one of the most ambitious productions in the country’s entertainment calendar.

Across 26 shows in Brazil and several international stops in Lisbon, Miami, Sydney and Luanda, the tour presents samba and pagode classics from the 1990s and 2000s to tens of thousands of fans in an in-the-round (360-degree) stage format that both enhances the visual impact and significantly increases the technical demands for audio reinforcement.

São Paulo-based Gabisom Audio Equipment is supplying the complete sound system, with a touring inventory of 172 Outline enclosures, including 64 GTO C-12, 64 Superfly, 32 DBS 18-2 subwoofers, and 12 Mantas 28. All the Superfly cabinets are

Details

26 August 2025

Israel - Be'er-Sheva-based lighting rental specialist Koltech has invested in 24 new Robe Esprite moving lights to add to its ever-expanding rental inventory, which now includes over 150 Robe moving lights.

The company was founded in 2007 by Yossi Bendavid – better known industry-wide by his nickname ‘ZakZak’, which means talkative.

ZakZak purchased the Esprites as he believes the fixture is “a great all-round workhorse luminaire and a professional-level spot fixture that is the lightest, brightest and most efficient currently available in its class.”

He is a lighting designer as well as running the company, and he and his crew, including other regular lighting designers like Mor Avitan, were impressed by the Esprite’s framing shutters and the gobos as well as the pure flat beam output, completely devoid of hot spots and edge-frin

Details

26 August 2025

UK - Over 200,000 people attended Glastonbury 2025, while 21m tuned into the BBC’s coverage of the festival, plus the untold millions more who engaged on social media. Tim Fawkes was mindful of both when he ran the show he designed for The Prodigy, as the rave-dance masters closed out the proceedings on Sunday evening at The Other Stage.

“Finding a good balance between the live and TV audience is always a challenge, especially at a festival like this,” said Fawkes, who has been associated with The Prodigy since 2012, first as a tech, and for the past eight years, as their designer. After all, some of the most intense looks that stir the passion of live audiences might not translate well on TV and computer screens.

Multiple features in the Strike V helped Fawkes achieve the desired balance at Worthy Farm. “The Strike V was a great choice,” h

Details

26 August 2025

USA - From 21 June to 3 August, Magik Theatre brought to life an adaptation of the New York Times bestselling book Dragons Love Tacos using a variety of Mega-Lite luminaires. This carefully crafted production tells an adventure in which the audience learns the “do’s and don’ts” of what kinds of tacos to serve dragons - a sizzling story full of fiery fun for the entire family.

Lighting designer, supervisor, and programmer Thaddeus Morris needed to create a colourful world to match the magical dragon characters in this playful adventure. To achieve this, he used: 10 MW1, one Framebot 600, four MS1, 14 N-E Pixstrip H216, four Drama LED W50, two Drama W3, oneMega Node and eight Outshine Flash Strip TW.

The MW1 was highlighted for its versatility, serving as backlight, top wash, front wash, flickering effects, and beams. The Fram

Details

26 August 2025

Europe - Nothing More, known for their intense, high-energy performances and innovative stage presence, have just wrapped up a successful European festival circuit, where they played in front of hundreds of thousands of fans in 15 cities across nine countries, including the Download Festival in Castle Donington, United Kingdom and Rock am Ring in Nürburg, Germany.

Drummer Ben Anderson uses the Audix D6, D4, MicroD, SCX25A, i5, ADX51, and f9 microphones exclusively for these demanding live performances and his intricate studio recordings. He finds them “spot on” and “unstoppable,” especially in a rock setting.

Anderson’s preferred Audix setup is meticulously chosen to capture his powerful drum sound. He relies on the Audix D6, as his “go to kick drum mic”, noting “it's unstoppable, especially for rock.” He position

Details

26 August 2025

USA/Europe - The latest addition to ADJ Lighting’s popular Hydro Series of outdoor-ready moving heads, the Hydro Flex L19 is a powerful LED wash-zoom luminaire capable of generating wide washes, tight beams, and eye-catching pixel effects. It features high-output, lime-infused LEDs to deliver impressive output, combined with a wealth of professional-grade features. Housed in a rugged, IP65-rated enclosure, this versatile fixture is designed for event production and stage lighting applications, both outdoors and indoors.

Featuring 19 potent 60W RGBL (red, green, blue and lime) colour mixing LEDs, the Hydro Flex L19 offers an impressive output of up to 17,000 lumens. The LEDs deliver a wide spectrum of colour options, including white light with colour temperature that is variable between 2700K and 10,000K. Thanks to the inclusion of the lime LED element, the

Details

26 August 2025

USA - Audinate Group has announced the appointment of TJ Adams to the newly-created position of chief platform officer. Adams joins Audinate from QSC, where he was senior vice-president, Q-SYS product strategy and was instrumental in the development of the Q-SYS platform. He previously held engineering, sales and product management roles at Biamp and SITA (formerly Com-Net Software).

In his new role, Adams will lead Audinate’s platform strategy to deliver an interoperable audio, video, control and management platform. Building on an established and strong foundation across the millions of Dante-enabled devices in the field, Adams will lead Audinate’s initiatives to deliver cohesive platform software, products and service offerings for designers, integrators and users of AV systems across a wide spectrum of vertical markets and applications. He will repor

Details

26 August 2025

Fringe Figures - Total ticket sales at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe have stalled compared to last year, marking the first time since COVID that there has not been a year-on-year increase. There were 2,604,404 tickets sold across the festival in 2025 to 53,942 performances of 3,893 shows from 62 different countries, figures slightly down on the 2024 event, when 2,612,913 tickets were sold to 3,746 shows.

Figures are not broken down by genre, so it is not possible to discern how theatre has performed compared to comedy, for example. Commenting on the 2025 figures, Tony Lankester, chief executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, said: “It is clear that, despite many ongoing challenges facing the Fringe community, it remains the single best platform in the world for artists to showcase their work.”

Revamp - Glasgow

Details

22 August 2025

UK - Each summer, the Edinburgh Castle Esplanade transforms into one of the most extraordinary performance spaces in the world. The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo brings together massed military bands, cultural troupes, dancers, and special guest artists before a live audience of over 8,000 each night and a broadcast audience of millions. The spectacle is vast in scale and is both visually and musically striking, and one of the most technically complex audio challenges in live events.

For the third consecutive year, the Tattoo entrusted Auditoria to deliver the sound design for the show. Returning in 2025, the team built on two years of refinement, working closely with the production and music teams to ensure audiences experienced every note as it was intended.

Movement is one of the Tattoo's greatest strengths, but it is also its biggest c

Details

22 August 2025

UK - On 5 July, 17 days before Ozzy Osbourne passed away, Ozzy and Black Sabbath band mates Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward gave the world the band’s last live performance at Birmingham’s Villa Park Stadium, alongside a star-studded line-up for the band’s retirement gig Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning.

Over the years, Clair Global has worked with Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, helping to provide engineers with the tools needed to bring the prominent sounds of rock royalty to live audiences. So, when Back to the Beginning production director, Jake Berry, asked Clair Global if Ozzy’s vision to play a final show – where it all started in Aston, Birmingham, in 1968 – would be possible as a mutli-band live stream, the answer was always going to be ‘yes’.

Paying homage and supporting Black Sabbath and Ozzy O

Details

22 August 2025

USA - Sir Tom Jones returned to the road with a new production that blends powerful video content with a bold, versatile lighting design, supplied by Bandit Lites. Under the vision of lighting designer Mark Cunniffe, the rig showcases both technical precision and artistic flair, seamlessly enhancing Jones’s dynamic performances.

Cunniffe’s design centred around creating a cohesive integration between lighting and video, making the visuals feel like a natural extension of the artist’s storytelling. Rather than traditional left-and-right IMAG, the video content served as the backbone of the production, with carefully programmed lighting weaving between video columns to complement the immersive atmosphere.

“I have always been a fan of the Claypaky B-Eye,” shared Cunniffe. “It is a very versatile unit and when used in full pixel mode it can c

Details

22 August 2025

USA - A world-premiere modern adaptation of Hamlet recently wrapped at Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles. Adapted and directed by Robert O’Hara, this modern take on Shakespeare’s classic tragedy blended video, new scenes and characters, and a film noir aesthetic with lighting design by Tony Award nominee Lap Chi Chu. To help realise the show’s visual concept, Chu turned to Elation’s award-winning Paragon LED framing profile moving head.

Running from 28 May through 6 July, the production was boldly imaginative and anything but traditional. “The show was an adaptation that caught the spirit of Hamlet,” Chu commented. “It was a fun production, but very different.”

With a younger audience in mind, the creative team leaned into a stylised visual approach, and lighting played a central role.

Details

22 August 2025

Saudi Arabia - 62,000 people witnessed the King’s Cup Final 2025 at King Abdullah Sport City in Jeddah, where Claypaky Skylos fixtures delivered piercing beam effects.

A sea of light and colour enveloped the sold-out stadium in a visual spectacle created by SLS Production, which provided 498 lighting fixtures, including 44 Claypaky Skylos. 

Lighting was woven into a cohesive visual narrative that guided the audience through pre-match anticipation, the immersive half-time show, and the climactic emotion of the trophy lift ceremony. The event underscored Saudi Arabia’s rising prowess in large-scale live entertainment production and set a high bar for future sporting celebrations.

The Skylos fixtures featured prominently across all the segments of the King’s Cup Final. “They served as bold visual accents – beam eye candy –

Details

22 August 2025

USA - International logistics provider Freight Minds has expanded its US operations with the opening of a new office in New Jersey. This expansion is part of a long-term global strategy to align its freight services with the evolving needs of live events, touring entertainment, sports, broadcast, TV and film, and commercial productions, while building the infrastructure to support sustained growth and exceptional service delivery.

Building on its established presence in London and Los Angeles, the New Jersey office extends Freight Minds’ reach across the US, including key markets such as Chicago, Miami, Nashville, and other major cities. This growth strengthens the company’s ability to deliver localised expertise, agile operations, and around-the-clock support across all US time zones.

Founded in 2021 by industry veterans, Freight Minds applies d

Details

22 August 2025

Spain - PPDS has announced the installation of a Philips Urban LED wall at FC Barcelona’s Ciutat Esportiva training campus.

Together with FC Barcelona’s commitment to installing advanced and sustainable technologies in its new Spotify Camp Nou stadium – for which Philips Professional Displays is the official digital display supplier – the club also prides itself on developing and implementing the latest training methods and innovations, with an ever-growing emphasis on technology to help stay on top.

Ahead of the 2025/2026 La Liga season, FC Barcelona sought new opportunities to upgrade Pitch 1, with the introduction of a state-of-the-art display system to bring new visual capabilities and detailed analysis to the touchline for both coaching and playing staff. Now known as Camp Tito Vilanova, Pitch 1 is the first team’s official training ar