Latvia - Ayrton has announced VGD Project SIA of Riga, Latvia as its newest distributor. With immediate effect, VGD Project will exclusively represent Ayrton in Latvia and Estonia.
VDG Project was founded in 2013 as the certified provider distributor and training centre for L-Acoustics in Baltic States where it is responsible for the territories of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Uzbekistan.
The company then looked to extend its offering to include professional lighting and turned to Ayrton’s comprehensive product line to fulfil this promise: “Our goal is to represent only one manufacturer in each market segment,” explains VGD Project’s CEO, Igor Verkholat. “In this way we can be sure to supply a complete service for b

Canada - Gil Perron lit a special, private show by the award-winning Italian trio Il Volo at Montreal’s Teatro Leonardo DaVinci. Although rigging was a lot easier at this beautiful facility, the design team had to be much more mindful of load capacity.
This was “sort of a big deal” for Perron, given his penchant for grouping fixtures in clusters to create unique multi-directional light angles. “It’s kind of my thing; I like clumping fixtures in groups of three and then layering them vertically and horizontally,” he said. “This is tougher on a fly system than on truss, but it’s well worth the effort. Doing this, I can use colour theory to create either triadic or analogic colour complementariness.
“Working with another proponent of colour theory, our programmer/operator Guy Laflamme, made this a lot of fun - you pick the primary and then, as if by magi

USA - Last year, César Benítez Seilhamer became a fan of KLANG’s approach to immersive in-ear monitor mixing on a co-headlining tour with Latino superstars Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias, using a DMI-KLANG card mounted into one of the slots on the back panel of his DiGiCo Quantum5 console.
And the shows keep getting bigger - Martin is doing a series of one-off orchestral dates this year, including two recent nights at the Hollywood Bowl with the 100-plus-member Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in July - but Benítez has a new way to keep up with that, as well as giving the artists and musicians the most effective sonic environments possible on stage.
His solution is the new KLANG:konductor immersive in-ear mixing processor. Able to deliver 16 immersive mixes and process 128 input signals at up to 96kHz at an astonishing internal latency of less than 0.25ms, th
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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

The Netherlands - Heerlen hosted the 10th edition of ParkCity Live on 16 and 17 July 2022. Headliners on the main stage on Saturday night were BLØF and Limburg legends Rowwen Héze, while Sunday night ended with performances from Danny Vera, Anouk and renowned Dutch DJ duo Lucas & Steve. The main stage featured lighting provided by Ampco Flashlight Group, while spectacular lighting effects for the tented dance area were provided by SLF Group.
ParkCity Live is an event that's gone from strength to strength since its inception in 2010 and this edition welcomed around 35,000 festival goers over the course of two days.
For the main stage, 24 iFX-640 effect moving heads by Infinity were used. These versatile light fixtures ensured that the main stage was illuminated with an ever-changing variety of colourful light effects.
For the tented dance area, SLF Group us

UK - London's first permanent digital immersive arts experience, Frameless, will be opening in October in the heart of London’s West End. Frameless has partnered with projection technology provider, Panasonic, who will use the venue as their global flagship showcasing their projection technologies and large format displays. Creative Technology, have also been brought on board to deliver integration services for all video systems across the attraction.
Using over 50 of Panasonic’s 3-Chip DLP laser projectors, the art projections inside the attraction will be delivered by 479m pixels and 1m lumens of brightness and colour, to give ‘a truly stunning image’ quality across all four immersive galleries as well as a fifth gallery dedicated to corporate and educational events.
A second layer of audio immersion is achieved by 360-degree surround sound played over 158 l

Austria - Sting visited Eisenstadt during his My Songs Tour and performed on 15 July in the grounds of the Esterházy Palace Park in Vienna. With him on tour were Austrian Audio mics. Since all Austrian Audio mics are hand-made in Vienna, it’s an actual homecoming for the OD505, CC8 & OC818 mics, used on backing vocals and guitar amps.
Sting: My Songs is a special performance featuring the 17-time Grammy Award winner's best-loved songs, like Englishman in New York, Fields Of Gold, Every Breath You Take, Roxanne and Message In A Bottle and many more. Sting performs live, accompanied by an electric rock ensemble consisting of: Dominic Miller (guitar), Zack Jones (drums), Rufus Miller (guitar), Sting (bass), Kevon Webster (keyboards), Shane Sager (harmonica) with Melissa Musique and Gene Noble (backing vocals).
Sting’s FOH engine

Europe - Located at the intersection of France, Germany and Switzerland, the Basel Train Station (Basel SBB) in Basel, Switzerland is a primary hub for travel throughout Europe and is often regarded as Europe’s busiest international train station. With high background and travel noise compounded with highly reflective ceiling and walls, announcements were hard to understand, resulting in traveller confusion, missed trains and unnecessary congestion throughout the station. To combat the acoustic challenges Basel SBB faced, Renkus-Heinz Iconyx Compact loudspeakers were installed to aid in delivering intelligible announcements for passengers and staff.
Travellers are inundated with a wide range of sights and sounds as they pass through any busy transportation hub: arrival, boarding and departure announcements, safety and security information, marketing and services messaging

USA - Michigan’s much-anticipated Electric Forest Festival returned for 2022 with an expertly curated line up of EDM stars, jam bands, dubstep heroes and multiple other genres.
On the Sherwood Court stage, a massive 7056x2864 canvas of LED screens made up of 180m2 of Roe MC7 and 150m2 of YesTech MG7 featured visuals created by Observatory and powered by Hippotizer Tierra+ MK2 Media Servers.
Notable on the Sherwood Court stage were US ‘heaven trap’ DJ duo Slander, bass-heavy Mersiv, and ‘chillwave’ pioneer Toto y Moi. Observatory’s brief was to create the scenic visual content for the Sherwood Court stage’s proscenium arch LED screens, and the upstage LED screen when there wasn’t a guest VJ or content supplied with the performer. The team was commissioned by Electric Forest organisers Insomniac events and Leisure Expert Group, on the back of a successful

Switzerland - During the first two weeks of July, legions of music lovers again descended on the shores of Lake Geneva for the Montreux Jazz Festival, which returned this summer.
Meyer Sound also returned to Montreux at full force for its 36th year as a strategic partner and official sound provider, supporting the festival with nearly 300 loudspeakers deployed across 12 venues, indoors and out, large and small.
Most of the festival’s headliner concerts are presented in the 4,000-seat Auditorium Stravinski, and this year the venue also had the distinction of hosting the first indoor concerts to be reinforced by Meyer Sound’s new system, the Panther large-format linear line array loudspeaker.
“It was pure joy to mix on Panther,” said festival sound coordinator Martin Reich of audioconsulting ag, who also served as FOH engineer for Westerman and Gregory Port

USA - AV systems integrator and remote collaboration service provider Kinly has announced the reappointment of Vel Johnson as its managing director for the US.
Johnson returns as Kinly’s US MD, having originally relinquished the position in December 2021 as part of his semi-retirement plans, after three years.
Based in Kinly’s Cedar Knolls (NJ) corporate office – one of four on the east coast (Fort Lauderdale, Washington, New York) – Vel was inspired to return to Kinly following positive discussions with newly appointed CEO, Tom Martin, who revealed his growth and expansion plans for the company in the US market.
Vel, leading the US team, will now develop and execute ‘a more business and culturally aligned go-to-market strategy to mirror that deployed in Kinly’s other global markets’ including Europe.
Tom Martin, CEO at Kinly, comments: “W

UK - City Theatrical's Moving Light Assistant is an application designed to document both the physical setup and programming information for moving light rigs commonly used in the entertainment industry.
The software offers a spreadsheet view to show the configuration (lenses, lamps, menu options etc.) of moving light fixtures in your production's rig, to save you time and keep your project organized. It also allows you to design and edit moving light gobo, colour, and effect wheel loads, import console reports from leading lighting consoles, and much more, depending on the needs of your unique project.
The Moving Light Assistant application will run on both Apple Mac OSX (Intel only) and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Moving Light Assistant software is full of useful features for lighting professionals. Additional features include the ability view cue list

Germany - With the MAUI 44 G2, introduced in 2020, LD Systems established the MAUI Series in the professional sound reinforcement sector. Since then, the German manufacturer’s most powerful column PA system has proven its versatility in clubs, at festivals, and at corporate events across the world. Now, LD Systems is again expanding the application possibilities of the MAUI 44 G2 – and is launching the column PA in a white colour version.
With the white colour version of the MAUI 44 G2, LD Systems is responding to numerous requests from MAUI users worldwide. Technically identical to the black version, the white MAUI 44 G2 integrates seamlessly into modern and open visual settings – from weddings to corporate events and more.
“Time and again, we’ve received inquiries and photos from MAUI users asking for a white MAUI 44 G2, or showing us how they’ve converte

South Africa - AV Distribution, the dedicated distribution division of the Stage Audio Works Group headquartered in Midrand, South Africa, has announced an exclusive distribution agreement with Hollyland, specialists in wireless communication.
Established in 2013, Hollyland’s wireless solutions are expressly designed for wireless audio and video transmissions and wireless intercom systems for real-time team communication. The product range includes affordable solutions for wireless video broadcast, monitoring and live streaming in addition to wireless microphones and intercom on the audio side, plus a host of accessories.
According to AV Distribution general manager, Ashley Coleman, Hollyland is a valuable addition to the brand portfolio. “Hollyland products combine versatility with innovation and a refreshingly robust build quality,” she notes. “Suited to a wi

Poland - In the city centres and main squares of many Polish towns and cities, visitors will come upon a multi-purpose building known locally as a ‘culture house’. Like many of these structures, which date back to the 1960s, Arts and Culture Centre Oskard in Konin was beginning to show its age.
A renaissance has now taken place in this centre thanks to a renovation project run by the Arts and Culture Centre Oskard's Arts Council and Committee. A key part of this rejuvenation was the installation of two all-new lighting rigs, one for each of the centre’s stages.
The council did careful research, visiting trades shows and consulting with local installation specialist, LTT, which distributes Chauvet Professional products in Poland.
In the end, Chauvet Professional fixtures were used for the new rig. To provide the foundation for a multitude of powerful looks

UK - AED Audio supported a student music showcase, What’s Going On at The BRIT School in Croydon, South London which is funded by the British Record Industry Trust. Its alumni include artists such as Adele, Jessie J and Amy Winehouse.
What’s Going On was a showcase of protest music in a variety of eclectic styles, all performed and written by current year 12 music students.
The concert took place in the School’s Obie Theatre, which AED Audio provided with a range of equipment to help bring the student’s creations to life. This included two line arrays consisting of eight FLEX6 speakers and one SOLID15 low cabinet/subwoofer, as well as a ground stack of SOLID28 and SOLID15 subs with a FLEX6 in point source to provide infill to each side. The AED Audio system integrated seamlessly with the Obie Theatre’s existing Dante network, meaning it could o

USA - Tallowood Baptist Church, in the Memorial City neighbourhood of West Houston, replaced an aging mixing console at front-of-house with a Solid State Logic Live L350 in recent months. The installation was part of ongoing upgrades at the church that also includes construction of a new video and audio control room, new audio and video equipment and wider implementation of a network infrastructure.
When the choir and the musicians returned to the church after the initial lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, they all wore masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and, not surprisingly, it sounded like it. “It was really hard to get intelligibility and clarity,” Tallowood’s director of technology, Miguel Ortiz, says. Then the church replaced the old desk with a new SSL Live L350. “The choir was still wearing masks when we switched the console - and it sounded as if

USA - DJ Deorro played two shows at the Hollywood Palladium in early July and electrified the sold-out crowds using a lighting rig that included Elation’s multi-functional Smarty Hybrid CMY colour mixing moving head as the main moving effect light. The atmosphere at the 4,000-capacity venue both nights was raging, reflecting the EDM community’s excitement to be back live, as well as the hype around the artist’s new album Orro which was released just days before.
“The Smartys were an excellent choice because they can move as fast as a typical beam fixture, but also provide all the core attributes a spot fixture has to offer,” said Lorcan Clarke of the full-featured 11,000-lumen moving heads. Clarke served as lighting director, programmer and operator on the shows, coordinating 12 Smarty's on the downstage floor plus another 12 on the downstage overhead truss

USA - Veteran audio engineers Ross Landis and Andrew Crow had the opportunity to demo an Allen & Heath dLive system earlier this year. “You can do basically anything, and set it up how you want,” recalled Landis. When it came time to tour with Grammy-nominated rock group Nothing More, the pair opted to each bring along a dLive S5000 surface - one at front of house, and one for monitors.
Both Landis and Crow appreciated how many user-defined SoftKeys were available to them on the large format 28-fader dLive surface. “I was able to use those for mute groups, stopping and starting my recordings, FX controls, and even selecting certain channels that aren’t always visible on my fader banks” noted Landis. “To be able to mix how I want to mix without having to navigate through layers - that was huge.”
Their system incorporated a DM64 MixRack, which features

UK - Japanese-born singer-songwriter, model, and actress Rina Sawayama, released her debut album during lockdown on the Dirty Hit Label to favourable reviews, from ‘strongest album of the year’ (Elton John) to ‘something truly beautiful’ (NPR).
In support of the album, Patchwork London was selected by Rina’s management / record label to record live video shoots during the lockdown period, providing monitoring and multi-track recording, which led to Patchwork being asked to support the UK tour, followed by her biggest show to date at Roundhouse and ultimately the NME Awards 2022 show.
With lots of energetic choreography and dancing, on her first large scale tour, a premium wireless microphone system was a necessity. Patchwork London’s touring director and Rina’s production manager / FOH engineer, Calum Mordue selected the Shure Axient Digital Wireless Sys

Singapore – This summer, the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) returned to the Southeast Asian city island for the first time in two years. Titled The Anatomy of Performance - Ritual, the event featured over 70 performances staged at seven sites and venues, all designed by creative designers in various performance art disciplines. Opening the festival with a performance in a defunct power station, SIFA presented the Singapore Chinese Orchestra in L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound provided by J5 Productions.
The Singapore Chinese Orchestra, together with the Tuyang Initiative, a Sarawak-based creative agency that focuses on the cultural heritage of indigenous Borneans, opened the festival with their performance of Mepaan. In the language of the Kayan peoples of Borneo, mepaan means ‘always’ and the performance was a sonic and visual voyage through the

UAE - Creative Technology (CT) has announce a further two additions to its live team in the Middle East.
Joshua Spencer has joined the company as a crew operations manager. Joshua is responsible for the management of the crew bookings where he utilises his extensive knowledge on management of people to ensure every event has the right calibre of people assigned.
Spencer comments, “I feel very privileged and proud to be able to call CTME my new home. It’s so evident to see that everyone here shares the same vision and dedication to maintain the highest level of service. I am excited to develop this team and be part of CT’s growing vision.”
The company also welcomes Samantha Peltret who has joined as a projects co-ordinator. She has many years of experience within the Middle East and South Africa.
Pelteret comments, “It’s so great to be a part of

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