Robe - Leaderboard - 27 Aug25 - Jan26
ISE 2026 - Banner - Oct 2025

Business

Details
USA - tvONE and Green Hippo are inviting programmers, operators and designers who use Green Hippo’s Hippotizer range of media servers or tvONE’s CORIOmaster family of video processors to take part in the CONECT Control Competition.
Launched at tvONE’s CONECT Summit, which focused on how tvONE, Magenta and Green Hippo products can help professionals reimagine the AV landscape, the competition aims to showcase some of the best-use cases of the companies’ solutions for creative control.
Prizes of up to $1,000 will be awarded to the best entries in three categories: CORIOmaster Video Processors; Hippotizer Media Servers; and creative install using tvONE or Hippotizer products.
Submissions opened on 5 April and remain open until 14 May, with the winners announced soon after. To enter, contestants need to fill out an online submissions form and attach a file th

Details
Germany - Prolight+Sound 2022 will host a Green Event Day on 27 April that will offer lectures, panels and best-practice presentations on the careful use of natural resources. The programme is being developed in cooperation with the European Association of Event Centres (EVVC) and supported by the Association of Media and Event Technology (VPLT).
What impact does the EU Green Deal have on the events industry? How can sustainable event technology support the industry on its way to a greener future? What needs to be considered in terms of communication to ensure that the commitment is also noticed by visitors and partners? These and other questions will be addressed during the theme day.
Representatives from associations (EVVC, VPLT, LiveMusikKommission), companies from the entertainment technology sector (Adam Hall, Neumann & Müller, Cameo Light, DeerSoft), venues
ISE 2026 - Banner - Oct 2025

Details
UK - The Association for Lighting Production and Design (ALPD) has opened its Design Lumière Scheme 2022 for applicants. The aim of this professional development scheme is to establish assistants who are employable by producers and lighting designers. The Lumière will gain first-hand experience as an assistant lighting designer with industry-recognised skills.
This year, the ALPD has partnered with Glyndebourne, one of the world’s most celebrated opera houses.
Charlotte Burton, ALPD’s Lumière Working Group Chair, comments: “It is a joy to be partnering with Glyndebourne for the Design Lumière Scheme in 2022. It will give the Lumière a unique experience to work in one of the world’s most renowned opera houses alongside the incredible in-house lighting team and this season’s wonderful lighting designers.
“As a former Lumière, I know that work exp

Details
Grammy Awards - Olivia Rodrigo, Silk Sonic and jazz musician Jon Batiste shared the top honours at the 64th Grammy Awards. Batiste's soul record We Are won album of the year, while Rodrigo won best new artist and best pop album. Silk Sonic's soul throwback anthem Leave The Door Open took home both the record and song of the year prizes.
Apart from the awards, the ceremony saw a tribute to Foo Fighters star Taylor Hawkins, and a video plea from Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky. In a pre-taped message, he urged musicians to "fill the silence" left by Russian bombs "with your music". His speech was followed by a performance by John Legend, accompanied by Ukrainian musicians Siuzanna Iglidan and Mika Newton; and poet Lyuba Yakimchuk.
Foo Fighters won three prizes - best rock album for Medicine at Midnight, rock performance for its opening track,

Details
UK - Backup has joined forces with Big Drop, brewers of alcohol-free beer, to generate wider awareness and increased funding for the live events/entertainment technical supply chain.
“We’re all painfully aware of the devastation that the pandemic caused to our industry around the globe,” says John Simpson, Backup chairman. “The generous response to Backup’s fund-raising efforts over the past two years has been phenomenal, and we’ve been able to offer help to our colleagues in the UK who were and still are in desperate need, both financially and for the impact the situation has had on their mental health.”
As theatres open, and concerts and festivals start to re-emerge, the pandemic is viewed as being over. But it has left serious scars. Help is still needed, as it was pre-pandemic, but now even more so, to allow Backup to continue to address mental health

Details
Czech Republic - LED and architectural lighting brand Anolis, a Robe business, has launched a new brand identity including refreshed visuals and optimised website ahead of the release of its new Calumma range of products.
This follows the growth and expansion of Anolis’ business over the last two years and its close alignment to and connection with entertainment brand Robe.
The new streamlined and contemporary Anolis look reflects the changing nature of installation lighting and technology, says the company. It underlines "the enhanced commitment to sustainability, creativity and invention which has always been at the heart of Anolis since its launch in 2005".
The brand identity is designed by creative agency KHS and is led by a new logo. The original chameleon is retained as a fine detail in the form of an eye in the upper right-hand corner.
The new ide

Details
UK - PTZOptics, manufacturer of robotic cameras, has announced an extension to their distribution partnership with the Midwich Group into the UK and Ireland. Midwich (UK) and Square One (Ireland) now offer the full range of PTZOptics products, including from sister brands HuddleCamHD and TallyLights.
This partnership expands PTZOptics’s relationship with the Midwich Group, the global distributor of AV products that includes Midwich, Square One, and Starin, a current distribution partner for PTZOptics in North America.
“It’s been amazing to see, in less than a decade, the growth of PTZOptics into a truly international brand,” says Will Golde, director of channel development for PTZOptics. “Midwich Group is the ideal partner to help bring PTZOptics into new markets in the UK and Ireland. With their deep understanding of customer needs in the broadcast space, te

Details
UK - It’s been two long years, but it’s time to pull on your racing suits, don your helmets and get back behind the wheel for the industry’s favourite get together, Kartfest 2022, which takes place on 7 July at Daytona Sandown Park.
“Kartfest has always been an amazing event,” says Backup’s Lee Dennison. “We’ve missed the fun of getting together with our industry friends, and the thrills and spills of the teams battling it out for the coveted Kartfest Champions title, so we’re delighted to announce its return.”
Kartfest is a vital fundraiser for Backup. The charity has been a lifeline for so many during the pandemic and, whilst recovery of the industry is underway, the ongoing work it does, including medical grants and wellbeing support with a 24-hour helpline, mental health counselling grants, MHFA training bursary and support of Addiction and Reco

Details
World - PRG has given its moving light range a major boost by committing to an investment of over 1,000 automated LED luminaires from Ayrton, adding a selection of Huracán Profiles, Domino Profiles, Eurus Profiles, Perseo and Khamsin fixtures, which will be spread over the different depots in the US, EMEA and APAC region.
Recently celebrating its 20th year Ayrton has continued to focus on LED source lighting and has emerged as a market leader in that technology. Ayrton also prides itself in boasting a net carbon goal in its manufacturing and delivery ethos, developing high density sustainable packaging to ensure its fixtures are able to be shipped in as small a footprint as possible, which is definitely not negligible in PRG’s steps to increase its green footprint.
Michael Althaus, global sales director at Ayrton states: “We are excited to welcome PRG into the fas

Details
Europe - Riedel Communications has announced that the company has been named the official supplier of motor sports telecommunications for the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). After a two-decade relationship between the two organisations, Riedel will now supply the FIA with hardware and software technologies to take safety, sustainability, and innovation across all global FIA championship series to the next level.
Peter Bayer, FIA secretary general for sport and FIA F1 executive director, said, “The FIA's decision to name Riedel as an official supplier of its motor sports communication is a result of a trusted relationship over two decades. It illustrates our shared commitment to use the most advanced technologies, with the safety and sustainability requirements that we have for all our championships.”
Communications and signal distribution solutio

Details
Germany - GFR (Gesellschaft für Regelungstechnik und Energieeinsparung) has been part of Bosch Building Technologies since 2019 and is changing its name to Bosch Building Automation effective 1 April.
The company’s portfolio comprises complete automation solutions for the operation of buildings on a sustainable basis and related services with a comprehensive range of hardware and software. “We are achieving strong growth with connected building automation and energy efficiency solutions that are planned and implemented on a highly customized basis in close cooperation with our customers. The Bosch brand will open more doors for us and give us the opportunity to position ourselves even more prominently on the market for building automation,” explains Volker Westerheide, managing director of GFR.
The building automation specialist will continue to market its produ

Details
USA - ESTA has announced the North American Theatre Engineering and Architecture Conference (NATEAC) as the newest addition to its community. The association is to be the new host of the quadrennial conference, the fifth iteration of which will take place July 2024 in New York.
Created by Bill Sapsis of Sapsis Rigging, NATEAC was first produced in 2008. Since then, it has been bringing together the architects, engineers, consultants, and manufacturers who are responsible for designing, building, and renovating theatres. NATEAC also facilitates communication between those groups and end users. Over the course of a weekend, conference-goers attend panels and exchange ideas at social events like an evening boat cruise in New York Harbour, dinner at Sardi’s, and a cocktail reception.
“I believe ESTA and NATEAC will be a natural fit,” Sapsis explains. “After 14 years

Details
UK - Crewing platform Entourage Pro (EP) has launched its free to use and join freelance production crew resource. The service connects and sources freelance production crew and underpins traditional word-of-mouth methods for finding work and sourcing crew.
Partnered by major manufacturers of production technology including Robe, Avolites, Yamaha, d&b audiotechnik, MDG, Chainmaster and Marshall, EP is an online network of crew that has already secured thousands of members from over 60 countries around the world.
Initial uptake is being extended by EP’s partnership with Showcase Music, with the platform being promoted to over 350,000 rental companies, artists, labels, management, venues and production and tour managers from across the globe.
Searches by role, experience, availability, credentials, visas, rates, languages, qualifications and much more, gives

Details
The Netherlands - The Jeroen Pit House, a new children’s transitional care unit in Amsterdam, is now completed and ready to welcome chronically ill children and their families when the facility officially opens on 11 May.
With support from the AV community, the building boasts a sophisticated systems integration tailored to the special needs of its users. At a celebratory event last week, Mike Blackman, managing director of Integrated Systems Events and Wendy Griffiths, VP engagement and global development at CEDIA were in attendance to congratulate the project team on this achievement.
The Jeroen Pit House has been championed by ISE, along with ISE’s co-owners CEDIA and AVIXA, since planning began more than three years ago. The build has been supported with generous contributions from the AV industry to complete the eight apartments, dedicated cinema and presentati

Details

In the Dark - COVID-19’s impact on the UK’s theatre industry has been widely understated in public discourse due to an "ongoing devaluation of the live arts", according to a report. Freelancers in the Dark is a research project undertaken between July 2020 and March 2022, funded by the UK Research and Innovation’s Economic and Social Research Council. It investigated the economic, cultural and social impact of COVID-19 on theatre’s freelance workforce and was led by Holly Maples at the University of Essex, in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University and Queen’s University, Belfast.
The report includes a series of recommendations for the industry informed by the previously published findings from a survey of 397 freelancers from November 2020 to March 2021, as well as 135 one-to-one interviews, focus groups and creative workshops. In the survey,

Details
Poland - Formed in 2019, Technical Production Group (TPG) is a relative newcomer to the Polish market. Its age, however, belies the experience of its team, who have worked together on productions for many years. TPG has ensured end-to-end services for the conference and corporate events market, investing in an inventory of sound, lighting, multimedia, and broadcast solutions from the outset.
A recent opening of its own studio for live streaming events has added to its capacity to serve the market. Its latest technical acquisition is a Syva system, purchased from L-Acoustics certified provider distributor for Poland, Audio Plus. TPG chose Syva not only for its audio quality but also because it, as owner Piotr Badalski puts it, "is a beautiful piece of furniture."
“We looked at several solutions but found there was always a compromise between sound quality and the aest

Details
UK - CEG is a UK-based independent equipment rental provider to all sectors of the technical entertainment industry in music, theatre, film, TV and corporate settings.
In March CEG made the first of a number of investments in Ayrton with a consignment of Diablo LED profile fixtures, purchased from Ayrton’s exclusive UK distributor, Ambersphere Solutions.
“We chose Diablo because it is the trifecta of what you want a product to be: cost-effective, feature-full and very popular with our clients,” says CEG’s Ben Bowles. “Our core business is to supply industry providers, all of whom have been telling us that Diablo is the fixture they want and the key spot of its type for the foreseeable future, and we couldn’t agree more.”
Vitally, Bowles sees Diablo as cost-effective fixture with no compromise on features: “Our business is about giving our custome

Details
The Netherlands - Robe Esprites have joined the house lighting rig at Patronaat in Haarlem, one of the core music venues in the northern Netherlands, which features two busy halls and a café area all hosting performances, a mix of rock and pop shows, club nights and dynamic music-based festival events.
The new fixtures were actually delivered at the start of 2020, but with successive Covid-19 lockdowns over the last 18 months, they have only started being used extensively since re-opening, explained head of lighting Robin van der Plas.
Lighting designers and the Patronaat’s own house lighting crew – including senior lighting technician Frits Barends – are loving the new moving lights.
Twenty-four Esprites are installed in the main 950-capacity main hall, with the other 12 in the smaller second hall space, making up a total of 36 luminaires, all of them

Details
USA - Rosco Laboratories continued their long-time support of the charity with a cheque presentation at USITT 2022, reflecting sales of Roscolux #359 Medium Violet.
Henry Cowen, live entertainment sales manager - North America, presented the cheque on behalf of Rosco, saying, “I am truly honoured to able to present this donation to our friends at Behind the Scenes this year. The work you do is so important to the industry we all call family, particularly in the past two years when so many of our colleagues and their families were negatively impacted by the pandemic. I speak for the entire Rosco family when I say Thank You for the work you do. We appreciate you, and we are committed to you.”
Tobin Neis, a BTS Board member, accepted the cheque on behalf of the charity, and commented, “It’s so gratifying to accept this donation from Rosco who was our very first Pl

Details
Lithuania - Keistuolių Theatre in Vilnius has reopened its doors after a two-year break to undergo a major overhaul of its underperforming sound system. The renovation brief required a versatile, modern audio system to optimise sonic distribution and quality around the venue, which led to the selection of DiGiCo, and its DiGiGrid networking solution, along with a compact S21 mixing console, as the centrepiece of the new system.
Opened in 1989, the theatre was originally built as a conference space, providing a multi-purpose setting to cater for various events. Consequently, the main hall suffered with poor acoustics when staging concert and theatre productions, causing the theatre major problems.
"We are a theatre that uses a lot of music in our performances, so the quality of sound is very important to us,” says Keistuolių Theatre director, Aidas Giniotis. “We h

Details
Europe - LED manufacturer Absen has announced the start of a new recruitment phase in a bid to further expand its global partnership network.
Supporting the growth of the LED market, Absen – who currently operate in over 130 countries – is set to expand its global network of systems integrators and rental stagers by reaching out to other like-minded businesses who may apply to become an Absen partner representative in its commitment to remain market leaders globally.
Absen currently boasts 13 domestic and overseas offices, employing over 2,000 staff and representatives who are responsible for the completion of over 50,000 projects to date. To further establish the global partnerships already fostered from two decades in the LED industry, the company is committed to welcoming ‘businesses with similar ideologies, vision and drive’.
“We have, and will cont

Details
UK - Artists including Ed Sheeran, Snow Patrol, Elbow, The Chemical Brothers and George Ezra have announced a series of prize draws to benefit the Ukraine humanitarian aid appeal set up by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).
Each draw will be on sale for at least a week, with all proceeds being immediately paid over to the DEC once each draw ends. Winners will be drawn at random, with customers able to buy up to 10 draw tickets (at £5 each) at a time for each prize. You can purchase draw tickets at //ukraineappeal.seetickets.com.
Crosstown Concerts co-founder Conal Dodds comments: “We wanted to make as much of a difference as possible, beyond giving money. We contacted artists we know and got a great response and will be adding more

Details
Italy - Green Hippo has appointed Prase Media Technologies as its new distributor in Italy.
Working on applications in the install, retail and rental channels, Prase will distribute the full range of Green Hippo’s Hippotizer Media Servers and in addition, tvONE products.
“We are excited to announce Prase as the latest distributor for Green Hippo,” says Frithjof Becker, EMEA sales director, Green Hippo by tvONE. “Our goal is to continue developing the growth of Green Hippo product lines within the retail and rental markets in Italy. We can’t wait to see the next set of impressive projects featuring Green Hippo and tvONE products.”
“We welcome Green Hippo’s premium media servers in our catalogue, and are thrilled to offer to Italian professionals the best-in-class technologies for creating an engaging and stunning multimedia experience,” says Luc

Details
Concert For Ukraine - Camila Cabello, Ed Sheeran and Snow Patrol will all play at next week's Concert For Ukraine, which will be broadcast on ITV and STV. Emeli Sande, Becky Hill, Gregory Porter and Chic are also in the line-up, with more acts to be confirmed. Tickets for the concert, which will take place at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, go on sale today.
Proceeds from the concert will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee's Ukraine Humanitarian appeal, which is providing food, water, shelter and medical assistance to refugees in Ukraine and neighbouring countries.
ITV has also pledged that all sponsorship and advertising revenue generated from the broadcast - an estimated £3m - will be donated to the appeal. “I will be singing to try to help every human being forced to flee their home and in solidarity with those being racially discriminated against eve
  1. Audiologic upgrades audio at Swansea.com Stadium
  2. Polar to distribute Pan Acoustics in UK and Ireland
  3. Digigram Asia and AxelTech forge APAC pact
  4. DiGiCo and KLANG make US trade show return
  5. Westview Productions supports Behind the Scenes
  6. Astera wins 2022 Bert Easey Technical Award
Page 139 of 1813

Latest Issue. . .