UK - Abbey Road’s Studio Three, which has been home to artists such as Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Lady Gaga, Frank Ocean, Florence + The Machine, Brockhampton and Amy Winehouse, has installed 21 Van Damme Purple Patches as part of an extensive revamp.
Purple Parch is a PPE56 2x48 bantam patchbay, created as part of a two-year research and development programme to ensure that recording studios, theatres with recording facilities and broadcasting houses get the best in terms of performance, functionality and capability.
Simon Campbell, head of technical services at Abbey Road Studios said: “You can tell that the team at VDC have done their research and worked very hard on creating a great product. We received 21 units straight off the production line, configured them and really put Purple Patch through its paces before we signed them off. We identified a few things tha

USA - Patrick Dierson oversaw the production design at the Jay-Z curated Made in America festival in Philadelphia. “I love this event, because it never fails to surprise with unexpected challenges,” he said, looking back on the 2022 edition of the festival.
Made In America more than lived up to Dierson’s expectations this year, as just a few days before load-in he got a message that one of the headliners at the urban and Latin music festival, Lil Uzi Vert, wanted two Lamborghinis on the stage for his performance.
“This required a little more than your average production coordination,” said Dierson. “Let’s face it - this is Philly. The concept of handing two Lambos to a teamster in a forklift is enough to make an eyebrow raise. We didn’t want these things going back to the King of Prussia, PA exotic car dealership with two holes in the wing doors and co

Philippines – October 2022 – Located 30 kilometres from the Philippine capital of Manila, Dasmariñas City has seen explosive growth in recent decades. Founded in 1990 in the Salitran neighbourhood, the Dasmariñas Church of God (COG) serves as a beacon of hope and light for both the local population and the wider Manila metropolis.
Originally housed in a small rural complex, COG has seen impressive growth, which led the worship team to build a dedicated five-storey Generation Blessing Building in the heart of Dasmariñas to serve their current 15,000-plus congregation better.
Church of God reaches out to parishioners and locals with an open-all-week plethora of offerings like a fitness centre and sauna, a café, a dance studio, a photography studio, music classes, and more. But the heart of COG’s ministry are the eight worship services offered every Sunday in th

UK - Heavily supported by the local City Council, Brighton & Hove Pride - a celebration of Brighton’s LGBTQ+ community, annually attracts crowds of around 250,000 people to the seaside resort.
While the origins of the event date back to 1973, Capital Sound (part of the Solotech UK Group) has provided main stage sound reinforcement for the last three events. Having supplied PA and control for headliners Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue, following a break for COVID-19 they were back in the 63-acre Preston Park site for the 2022 edition which featured Christina Aguilera and Paloma Faith as headliners on the Saturday and Sunday respectively.
After deploying Martin Audio’s MLA loudspeaker array for Britney Spears back in 2018, the enforced break caused by the pandemic had enabled the British manufacturer to move the ground-breaking control technology further still,

USA - Harman Professional Solutions recently partnered with the American Cancer Society to provide a powerful and dynamic JBL Professional SRX900 Series sound reinforcement system at the annual American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Santa Clarita Valley.
Founded in Tacoma, Washington in 1985 by Dr. Gordon Klatt, Relay For Life is an ongoing community-based global fundraising movement in support of the American Cancer Society. With local fundraising events in thousands of communities and around the world, Relay For Life has raised approximately seven billion dollars globally since 1985 to fund cancer treatment research and provide patients with essential services. Located in Los Angeles County, the Santa Clarita Valley community has hosted a Relay For Life annually since 1999.
“I’ve been involved with various Relay For Life events for ten years, first as a volun

UK - The live production industry faces mounting pressure to operate more sustainably, despite a multitude of persistent challenges. A newly published whitepaper by Sony aims to present the key opportunities for businesses within the industry to implement change.
The report underlines that sustainable practices are not one-size-fits-all, as each production has unique requirements. By analysing the key areas of challenge for the industry, Sony has been able to look for spaces where creating change that benefits business and the environment is possible.
The report suggests that the key challenges at hand are:
Quantifying environmental footprint: Without clear knowledge of current emissions, it is difficult for companies to accurately perceive their carbon impact and justify the disruption and cost of moving to new systems and processes.
Considering indivi

USA - The University of Tennessee in Knoxville held its annual celebration of alumni at 2022 Alumni Awards Gala, and Bandit Lites donated a lighting system for the event which honours alumni across the state, country and world who bring recognition to Tennessee’s flagship campus. This year’s honourees included 24 notable alumni including Samuel E. Beall II, Tamika Catchings, Sara Croley, Donald E. Frieson, Ronald Earl Frieson and Sharon G. Lee. Bandit Lites founder Michael T. Strickland was honoured with this award in 2021.
To set the tone and ambiance for the room, Bandit supplied an upstage and downstage truss loaded with 44 GLP X4S, 8 VL 2500 Spots and 2 VL 3000 Spots. The GLP X4S fixtures were used in part to light the stage while most of them washed the ceiling in colours. The VL 2500 cast gobo patterns on the ceiling and walls, while the 3000s had custom Power-T al

Singapore - To transform the commercial building 61 Robinson into a luxurious office space, LuxLight Pte Ltd, and the lighting consultants involved in this project selected and installed a comprehensive selection of Martin Professional lighting solutions.
Located in Singapore’s Central Business District, 61 Robinson is a 20-story commercial building previously known as Robinson Centre. Built in 2000, the building features an art deco-inspired marble facade ornate classical architecture that provides a distinctive, memorable look.
To modernise and reinvigorate the space, the owners of 61 Robinson wanted to remodel the lobby and convert the fifth-level parking garage into an office building. These major renovations therefore required a lighting system that both accentuated the structural alterations and complemented the building’s existing features. To meet these re

South Africa - Stage Audio Works reports that the live workshops run by MxU on 12-13 October were a resounding success. Over 200 attendees from various ministries congregated at 3Ci Church in Pretoria for a masterclass in live production for worship. The event was led by MxU co-founders Jeff Sandstrom and Lee Fields, who travelled from the USA. Stage Audio Works and co-hosts d&b audiotechnik were on hand to provide technical assistance and any additional support required.
“We were thrilled to be partnering with 3Ci Church and Stage Audio Works,” says Sandstrom. “Lee and I spent a portion of the day challenging each other with best practices, sharing tips and tricks to try and find out how we can improve our process, to make the tracks we mix sound better. Our hope is that everyone present had the opportunity to eavesdrop on this conversation and apply some of these

USA - To provide Alice Cooper with impactful and dynamic audio for his 2022 US tour, SLS Production Services implemented a diverse selection of JBL Professional audio solutions.
Cooper is perhaps best known for his onstage persona and visuals inspired by horror films, injecting a sense of camp and theatricality in rock music that still inspires artists to this day. For his latest US tour, Cooper and his band performed onstage with gravestones, skeletons and a platform that doubles as a medieval castle wall.
As a result, the band did not use amps onstage to accommodate the set design, meaning that the tour required live sound that provided impact and clarity for both the band and audience while also accounting for the budget, personnel and gear limitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. To meet these requirements, SLS equipped the tour with a selection of JBL VTX Se

Germany - DirectOut has named Aspen Media (UK) as ‘Distributor of the Year’ for the third time in the history of the company, while Tonspur AG (Switzerland) and tm stagetec systems (Australia) are recognised with the ‘Best Sales Performance’ and the ‘Prodigy of the Year’ awards.
Aspen Media previously received the accolade in 2013 and 2018. Chris Collings, director of Aspen Media accepted the 2021 award.
Jan Ehrlich, CEO of DirectOut, comments: “This award is our special thanks to Aspen Media for a great and long-lasting cooperation and for the very special commitment Aspen Media shows according to their clients and us as a manufacturer. The last few years have been quite challenging for everybody, but Aspen Media is one of the very few examples which is always demonstrating comprehensive performance at its best.”
The second award handed out by Di

USA - The Lucky Day Tequila & Mezcal House in Las Vegas is a 3,000sq.ft, 100-person capacity bar filled with Mexican art and artifacts, colour, and an explosion of light and sound. A canopy of 15,000 colourful, programmable LED lights of all shapes and sizes dance above patrons as they sample cocktails and enjoy the music.
Local Las Vegas restaurant and bar development firm, Corner Bar Management, opened the Lucky Day Tequila & Mezcal House in early 2020. Corner Bar Management focuses almost exclusively on creating spaces within the artistic Freemont district of Las Vegas. Lucky Day was the company’s sixth project at the time, and two more restaurants have been opened since. A foundation of all Corner Bar Management projects is a well-equipped, high-quality sound system.
“Most all our venues are very dance forward. We create DJ-driven environments, and we

Japan - Built in 1633, Kiyomizu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of several Buddhist temples located in the foothills of Mount Otowa in Japan’s Kyoto prefecture.
Shortlisted as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007, Kiyomizu’s main building is famous for its 36m wide stage, supported by many wooden columns, which juts out over the hillside and to hover spectacularly 13m above the valley. Artists standing on the stage cannot see an audience in front of them, but instead look out over a beautiful tree-filled valley.
It was against this setting that Italian vocal trio, Il Volo, performed a special charity concert on 5 August 2022 in aid of Wedu Global, an organisation which supports the development of women in leadership roles around the world.
The concert was filmed in preparation for a worldwide premiere, in front of an invited VIP audien

UK - Fourteen fixtures from the first batch of Robe Painte moving lights off the production line have been installed as part of the house lighting rig at central Manchester’s New Century venue, a recently renovated 1200 (standing) capacity, multipurpose music, performance and event space in the city’s NOMA business and entertainment district.
The building has been completely refurbished and restored to its original 1960s glory when leading acts of the day graced the stage.
The 14 Paintes were specified, together with LEDBeam 150s and 350s, by Neil Hunt from ZigZag Lighting in Leeds, who came onboard to consult, specify, supply, deliver and commission the house lighting production package.
Neil worked closely with Abby Moore, one of the venue’s directors, to establish what was needed in terms of stage lighting production, and then weighed up the options to


UK – The Manchester home of !Audacious Church has benefited from the installation of 34 Chroma-Q Inspire RGBW LED house lights, supplied by A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET). The new fixtures were delivered and installed by Manchester-based lighting consultant, Urban Lites, after the church’s management decided to upgrade its flagship venue’s auditorium with a higher quality, more consistent and reliable lighting solution.
Founded in 2007, !Audacious Church has grown to the stage where its 1,400-capacity location in Salford regularly attracts a full house for each of its three scheduled Sunday services. With an ageing, failing house lighting system of early-generation LED fixtures limiting the venue’s potential, the management put the upgrade requirements out to tender.
Mark Steele, operations manager at !Audacious Church, says, “We wanted a bet


Combined Campaign - Two arts advocacy organisations have merged to form one nationwide initiative called Campaign for the Arts.The National Campaign for the Arts and the Public Campaign for the Arts have joined forces to continue their mission of championing and defending the arts across the UK. They have a combined supporter base of more than a quarter of a million people. Famous supporters include Stephen Fry, Meera Syal, Gary Lineker, Grayson Perry, Lauren Laverne and Philip Pullman.
Campaign for the Arts aims to use "digital tools and its UK-wide network to inform the public, express support and engage more and new people". It will also continue to run the Hearts for the Arts awards and will further develop the Arts Map, which was launched in 2020 to help people check the reopening status of cultural organisations post-lockdowns.
Former NCA chair Samuel West

UK - Britannia Row Productions, a Clair Global company, has acquired fellow UK-based sound reinforcement provider Skan to offer an even more comprehensive level of service and support to both firms’ existing and future clients. The transaction was finalised in September.
“Since its inception, Skan has evolved to become recognised internationally for its passion for providing the very best service, equipment, packaging, and people to its clients,” states Nicola Amoruso, managing director at Britannia Row. “Skan and Britannia Row have maintained a relationship of friendly competition and mutual respect throughout this time and both parties see this partnership as a logical step forward.”
Founded in the ‘70s, Skan is based in Newbury in the South of England and offers sound reinforcement services for tours, festivals, and large-scale events with an impressive

UK - Britannia Row Productions has a long-standing relationship with the WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) international arts festival, having been involved in several editions since the very first in 1982. The 2022 festival saw Brit Row provide skilled crew and audio packages for all four stages, catering to a diverse line-up of musical acts and performers.
“We love the festival, particularly because of its ethos to bring in these wonderfully diverse artists to headline,” says Brit Row director, Bryan Grant. “Another great aspect is that our engineers often mix bands, so it’s excellent experience for them. There are also roles on the crew for relative newcomers, whom the festival always encourages to get stuck in. Our freelancers line up to work at WOMAD!”
Audio crew chief Alex Hore had worked on the festival many times over the years, but this was his

USA - A 3D stage production featured at the Red Rocks amphitheatre in late September for Rowdytown X, the 10th anniversary edition of Big Gigantic’s flagship party. Lighting and production designer, Justin Casey of Helms Projects and the production team created a deep and evocative stage presence that made it easy for fans to feel like they were entering a 3D space as they watch performances by the event’s hosts, as well as guests Joyryde, Mitis, Jantsen, and INZO.
A variety of design elements, from a curved set that wrapped around the artists on stage, to blow-through video walls with generative content, were seamlessly fused to create this immersive panorama. Contributing to the overall effect was a collection of 40 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Helms Projects and Brown Note Productions.
“This production took a village to complete, so big thanks to

USA - The organisers of Downtown Napa’s Oxbow RiverStage along with Sound Image Productions, who provided the complete audio, lighting and staging package for the concert series, decided on a PA system from EAW’s ADAPTive line, including its Anya Loudspeakers and Otto Subwoofers.
This year’s event featured Brandi Carlile, Lovers and Strangers, a-ha, Trombone Shorty’s Voodoo Threauxdown, Third Eye Blind, Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, and Widespread Panic. In all, Oxbow RiverStage utilised nine Anya’s flown inside and three Otto subs on each side of the stage.
“We worked with the City of Napa this year to deal with concerns we’d had in past seasons with bleed into neighbouring communities,” says Mike Brown, head of audio, Sound Image Productions. “Turning the stage around and moving it to the other side of the venue helped, but EAW’s Anya ADAPTive

France - Amadeus has collaborated on a new artistic work with South African artist, performer, and director William Kentridge to create the immersive sound for his latest multi-sensorial installation, titled More Sweetly Play The Dance and hosted by France’s renowned cultural centre Les Champs Libres.
The new Kentridge exhibition is designed to be ‘open, festive, poetic, and generous but also contemplative, gruff, and militant. It intends to evoke the concept of celebration in its broadest sense, by uniting artistical practices from all horizons’.
This work surrounds the spectators in a seemingly endless parade of characters. A genuine dancing procession of cartoons and videos, the 35m-long frieze of moving images and sound invites attendees to enter a macabre dance while providing the opportunity to reflect on notions of injustice and inhumanity.

Austria - With the new Mythos Mozart exhibition, situated right in the heart of downtown Vienna, visitors are introduced to the life and work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the form of an immersive experience.
The timeless beauty of the musical genius’s legacy meets the latest audio-visual technology, with this process becoming a work of art in its own right that succeeds in entertaining both young and old.
“Mythos Mozart connects tradition with modernity, art and music, creativity with technology and creates a new space for innovation and culture to honour Mozart in a way that’s never been seen before,” explains Mythos Mozart managing director Hans Gasser.
Mythos Mozart enchants and informs across more than 1,500sq.m, at precisely the same location where the composer, who was born in 1756, spent the last year of his life and created unforgettable masterp

UK - Artistic Licence ran a competition at this year's PLASA Show in London to advertise one of its new products, an upgrade kit for the Micro-Scope DMX tester, which went on to win the Sustainability Award.
The Micro-Scope upgrade kit is a microprocessor that can be retrofitted (by the customer) to any previous generation Artistic Licence Micro-Scope product.
Micro-Scope is a rugged DMX512 tester that has been on sale for nearly 30 years. Many thousands of products have been sold, but they do not support RDM as that protocol did not exist when Micro-Scope was invented.
The kit enables any functioning Micro-Scope unit to be brought completely up to date with a full suite of DMX512 and, most significantly, RDM test functionality – at a low cost and without the need to recycle or discard the existing product.
As Micro-Scope has been on sale for so long, it

Europe - Shure supported Louis Tomlinson on his worldwide debut album campaign with 12 channels of PSM 1000 in ear monitors and two channels of Axient Digital AD2 handheld microphones with KSM9 capsules.
The world tour was rescheduled due to the 2020 pandemic and as a result, some shows were booked into larger venues with more production added. Show designer, Tom Taylor/TANCK came up with a new concept for the large outdoor European shows which allowed for a full width catwalk in front of the IMAG video screens, allowing Louis to walk and perform along the full width of stage and the catwalk, which was around 60m wide. This presented the concerns that his IEMs and radio mic wouldn’t have sufficient RF coverage behind the antennas at stage left.
Jack Drury and Stuart Stephens suggested a passive split of the IEM transmitting antennas, running our usual helical setup

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