Japan - Robert Juliat continues its collaboration with Japan’s Zepp Hall network of concert venues via its exclusive Japanese distributor, Sogo Butai Co.
The latest project, supplied and installed by Sogo Butai, was for the 2,900+ capacity Zepp Haneda in Tokyo and consists of a full complement of LED fixtures across the whole range of Robert Juliat’s LED portfolio: profile, single lens, followspots and cyclorama lights.
Sogo Butai lighting designer Yukiteru Hayashi chose the comprehensive selection of LED fixtures to include 24 Dalis 860 cyclorama lights, six Tibo 533CW 115W Cool White and four ZEP 664SX2 300W profiles, 28 Warm White ZEP 360LF2 300W and 10 Cool White ZEP 360LF2 300W Fresnels, alongside 6 Oz 600W LED followspots.
Four of the Oz followspots are sited in front-of-house positions and two in side positions. The profiles are rigged to a movable ba

UK - Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, and directed by Polly Findlay at London’s The Bridge Theatre last autumn, the European premiere of White Noise explored the subject of race in the 21st century from both a black and white perspective through a group of college friends.
Working on an ambitious set design by Lizzie Clachan, lighting designer, Jackie Shemesh, chose six Ayrton Diablo LED profile fixtures to deliver some extremely precise lighting effects and ambient washes, and worked hard to sculpt the huge set despite some difficult rigging angles and ensure the skin tones of the diverse cast looked correct on stage. The 27m-deep set included a thrust stage, an overhead catwalk, a series of side wall flats arranged in perspective to frame the stage, and an angled ceiling flat which severely restricted hanging positions and lighting a

The Netherlands - The Harbour Club brand is known worldwide. The latest evolution in this successful concept is the just-completed The Harbour Club Theatre, a new 300-capacity purpose-built performance and event space located adjacent to The Harbour Club’s flagship restaurant Amsterdam Oost. It extends the opportunity of sampling exquisite food whilst enjoying top-notch entertainment, starting with the show Vegas, starring Dutch magician and illusionist Hans Klok, plus a cast of eight dancers, four singers, three acrobats and a live band.
Lighting for this enew venue has been designed by Benny La Maitre, who put 24 Robe T1 Profiles, 28 LEDBeam 350s and six Spiider wash beam moving lights at the centre of the rig.
This is part of an overall production design encompassing audio, video, staging, pyro and SFX, all planned and co-ordinated by The Harbour Club tec

USA - During the holiday season, Legacy Production Group of Minneapolis worked with Street Factory Media to present Nature Illuminated at the Minnesota Zoo, a magical driving or walking experience that featured displays of larger-than-life inflatable animals. Their second year working on the project, Legacy used a lighting package of Elation IP-rated luminaires to compose picturesque environments and controlled the lighting scenes using a large Obsidian lighting control network.
The oversized animals - more than 30 specially crafted works of art illuminated from the inside with LED lights - were presented across five different zones on a nearly mile long loop, each zone with its own theme.
Legacy’s Tom Gorman, lighting designer and production manager on the project, explains the role of the Elation lighting system. “We didn’t necessarily need to light the

USA - When Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall re-opened after a pandemic hiatus, those patrons attending the season debut of the resident Oregon Symphony were delighted to hear a striking difference in the sound of the orchestra. Following the installation of a Constellation acoustic system, they experienced for the first time a rich and balanced natural reverberance distributed evenly throughout the hall. On stage, the musicians could hear each other clearly despite disappearance of the massive and ungainly physical stage shell. The Rose City’s popular Italian Rococo Revival landmark had acquired a new and flexible acoustical signature.
With a current seating capacity of 2,776, the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall is one of a quintet of venues operated by the appropriately stylised Portland’5 Centres for the Arts. It was built in 1928 as a vaudeville house, transit

UK - Burn The Floor is a fast-moving, high-intensity live dance show, which since its formation in 1997 (for Elton John’s birthday party) has performed in over 130 countries worldwide.
Martin Audio partner dBS Solutions first provided sound system support for the 2019 UK tour (with a W8LM line array) but when producers Strictly Theatre Company re-engaged dBS for the 2022 tour, they upgraded to their latest acquisition - Wavefront Precision WPS optimised line array, with scalable resolution.
dBS Solutions MD Chris Bogg says that having previously provided sound reinforcement for the Kevin & Karen tour, featuring Strictly dancers Kevin Clifton and Karen Hauer, this has become a genre in which they have found themselves specialising. “Burn The Floor is loud, high energy rock music, a combination of live band, vocalists and music to track,” he expla

South Korea - TechDataPS Co installed a Harman Professional Solutions audio system to create a lively and engaging space for visitors to the Paju City Civic Centre.
Founded in 1994, the Centre is a public facility owned by the Paju City Facility Management Corporation, with five floors above ground and five basement floors. The public corporation utilises the centre to promote the arts, host sporting events and improve the quality of life for Paju residents.
But the venue’s existing audio system presented major challenges, including inconsistent electrical work and a lack of output from the speaker amplifier, prompting organizers to commission a complete system overhaul. Additionally, the centre is an old building that isn’t structurally equipped to handle modern audio systems without additional support.
After conducting a structural safety diagnosis, TechD

Europe - Deploying Riedel's Bolero wireless intercom system on its broadcast-camera motorcycles, Danish RF video specialist Krickhahn TV ensures seamless communications between the camera operator, driver, and production team during live coverage of cycling road races.
Deployed on specially adapted motorcycles as a standalone system, the Bolero system allows the Krickhahn TV team to use a variety of headsets, and even helmets with a built-in Bluetooth headset, to maintain clear communications with high audio quality so they can bring viewers the best shots from the road.
"When I was presented the idea of using Bolero for this application, I was immediately hooked - we had a proof of concept planned in just a few days where we made the configuration file and ran a test to make sure the whole system was stable over a whole day. We were very happy to verify the setup with

India - Naveen Deshpande, founder of Ground Control, is an award-winning lighting designer. He and his creative team are working on progressive and futuristic lighting design and audio-visual experiences for artists, festivals, corporates and other large-scale events across the globe. He speaks with admiration of the Showtec Sunstrip MKII blinders and uses 12 of them in one of India's biggest touring acts.
The Showtec Sunstrip MKII blinders fitted well into the 2021 Prateek Kuhad India tour. Prateek is a noted singer-songwriter, creating independent music in Hindi and English. Last year he performed in places such as Bangalore and Pune, where the Showtec fixtures were used on stage. The tour was led by production company WMS Online and the lighting inventory suppliers were Star Dimensions India Pvt and J Davies Pro Sound and Lighting.
Naveen Deshpande describes the Sho

UK - The joys of lighting pantomime are many. High on that list is the opportunity it affords a designer to unfurl a rainbow of colours and transform the stage into a playland that delights actors and audiences alike.
Johanna Town, award-winning designer and chair of the ALPD, notes: “Panto is all about being bold with colour. It also has some big traditions of happy good fairy and wicked bad fairy, so it’s a lot of fun to reflect this in colour by doing things like making dramatic transitions, such as going from golden rich pinks, to menacing magentas and greens.”
Town, who has worked at leading theatres throughout the world, got to spread her colour-rendering wings recently when she lit a panto production of Beauty and the Beast at Theatre Clwyd in Mold, Flintshire. Working with a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures, she impishly mixed bold prim

Belgium - The high-profile Belgian Golden Shoe Awards, produced by DPG Media and Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN), is a prize given to the Belgian First Division A’s best male and female football players based on performance over the preceding year.
Broadcast live on the national television channel VTM, this year for the first time, the lighting design was taken by Thomas Boets of LDP.
Thomas made sure he scored plenty of aesthetic goals with the choice of lighting fixtures, which included 162 Robe moving lights installed at the Avenue venue, Antwerp Expo Centre, right in the heart of Belgian port city, where the 50 Robe T1 Profile, 60 LEDBeam 150s, 40 Pointes and 12 Spiiders were supplied together with other lighting kit plus all the audio and video production by rental company, Lust for Live.
Thomas worked closely with creative director Steven Segers and producers S

UK - Located on the waterfront in the North Wales seaside resort of Rhyl, the 1031-seat Pavilion Theatre hosts touring theatre productions, comedy acts and music tours, alongside playing a key role at the heart of the community, staging local cultural events and school productions.
When the theatre’s technical manager Andy Hughes was tasked with replacing the existing PA with a modern, versatile system capable of handling everything from a comedy gig to a rock & roll show, one brand came immediately to mind. “I had heard a lot of systems in the theatre over the years from touring shows, including many big-named brands and Nexo always really stood out sound wise.”
Andy approached entertainment technology specialists A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET), where senior audio sales executive Steve Eaton turned to the Engineering Support Team at the Nexo Campus

Japan - Tempest has helped to produce an eye-catching projection mapping installation at Kumamoto Station. At Aso Caldera Hike near the busy station, visitors were able to walk through the representation of a circular caldera - a large volcanic crater - and experience a spectacular show of light and imagery in a relaxation spot in the city.
A custom Tempest Cyclone outdoor projector enclosure installed high up on a nearby building balcony protects a Barco UDX-4K32 projector with a Dynamic Projection Institute Mirror Head, enabling mapping coverage of the entire caldera. The project was carried out S.C.Alliance, with technical direction from Bassdrum.
S.C.Alliance has used Tempest outdoor enclosures successfully for several years in a variety of installations, and the Cyclone enclosure was supplied by Tempest’s Tokyo-based distributor TSJ. “At the ISE exhibition, we

Slovenia - A Dicentis conference system from Bosch played a key role to ensure a structured meeting and making the EU Western Balkans summit a successful event. Two Dicentis multimedia devices, 40 Dicentis discussion devices and 18 interpreter desks from Bosch were deployed at the summit, along with six Avonic CM73 and two CM20 cameras for split view plus other peripheral equipment.
The in-person summit was held in October 2021 in Brdo pri Kranju. The leaders of the EU member states met in person with the six Western Balkans partners. Slovenia took over presidency of the Council of the European Union in July 2021 and hosted this get-together, marking the highlight of their presidency. Local AV solutions company and Bosch partner Robotrade, a member of the Congress Rental Network (CRN), was commissioned with the technical execution of the two-day summit.
Though many co

USA - NBC Sports has selected Calrec to provide remote audio workflows for its production of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games from Beijing. The announcement was made by Karl Malone, director, sound design, NBC Sports and NBC Olympics, and Dave Letson, VP of sales, Calrec Audio.
NBCUniversal is providing coverage of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games until 20 February, featuring a Winter Olympics-record 2,800+ hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, CNBC, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app.
For the first time ever, NBC Sports is employing fully remote audio workflows for all its production of the Winter Games, with no audio consoles physically on-site at the event. NBC Sports will have four Calrec RP1 Remote Production cores in the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) in Beijing to cover numerous studios. Full control for the IBC remote production cores will b

Austria - Earlier this year, Viennese BMS Production Group, a client of German Follow-Me partner LMP, was responsible for the technical production of the live ORF broadcast from holiday village Kirchleitn Kleinwild in St. Oswald.
“Since we had already covered the stage situation with a Follow-Me 3D TWO system in summer 2021, we decided to integrate the entire site into the system in winter 2022,” explains Fritz Staudinger, managing director of BMS. “We installed the camera on the top floor of an adjacent building, protected from the weather, so that we could capture the entire area, including the open-air stage.”
Director Fabienne Pinter made good use of the newly created 360° situation. In addition to the classic open-air stage, that the Follow-Me 3D system was originally based on, new viewing angles and performance areas were introduced throughout the locat

France - Comedian Maxime Gasteuil’s show Arrive en Ville is playing to sold out houses and is now the subject of an Amazon Prime programme.
The show is more a comedic narrative than a standup routine, as it contrasts Gasteuil’s life in his hometown, with its historic Romanesque churches and famous vineyards, to the fast pace of 21st century Paris.
Helping this entertaining narrative unfold is a richly textured theatrically flavoured lighting design by the G!theimagineers team of Vincent Rautureau and Andreas Monschauer that was powered by a ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M console.
Involving close to 300 fixtures and 50 universes when it debuted at Casino de Paris for nine sold out shows, which were recorded for the Amazon Prime, Arrive en Ville reflects the various situations, humorous and thought provoking, that Gasteuil finds himself in on his cultura

Australia - Harman Professional Solutions recently partnered with Prestige Group and MadisonAV to outfit Cali Beach Club on the Gold Coast with weather-resistant audio solutions for “top-notch sound in outdoor conditions”.
Cali Beach Club is a $10m Ibiza-inspired beach club in the heart of Surfers Paradise. Surrounded by residential development, the venue showcases a new type of beach club with pools, open-air spaces, outdoor deck areas and cabanas overlooking the picturesque Gold Coast beach.
In order to deliver immersive audio experiences for its guests while minimising noise pollution for its neighbours, Cali Beach hired MadisonAV and the Prestige Group to design and install a complete Harman audio distribution system consisting of JBL Professional loudspeakers and Crown amplifiers.
“Cali Beach is the first of its kind,” said Matthew Keegan, partner, A

Italy - The new Harley Davidson Bergamo building extends 2,000sq.m, with showrooms, offices, rental spaces, and a customer service shop. The style of the new structure includes architectural elements that combine steel details with wooden elements, giving it an exceptionally bright atmosphere.
The new headquarters building also features a spacious relaxation area that is available to its customers. Shared spaces and the showroom feature new RCF audio systems, with over 20 high-power speakers installed in the ceiling. All speakers, part of the RCF Business Music Series, are two-way wooden cabinets with 10-inch woofers in white, perfectly discreet, and suitable for the style of the environment.
“A brand like Harley Davidson trusts RCF when it comes to power and acoustic detail,” comments Yuri Casi, RCF Installed Sound Italy sales manager. “With our range of options

USA - The Seattle Space Needles’s New Year’s Eve fireworks and light show is arguably the most notable NYE celebration on the West Coast. This year, in spite of a recently-upgraded lighting system, organisers called upon Illuminate Production Services (IPS) and Elation Professional products to once again illuminate the legendary NYE show.
IPS were the first worldwide to debut Elation’s new Proteus Excalibur beam moving head as part of a larger Elation lighting package and were excited for the opportunity. “We received the first 12 units in the country and put them to use two days later,” says IPS president, Rick Franke. “Supply chain issues caused it to be a close connection between product arrival, QC and deployment but Eric Loader and his team at Elation made it happen. We could not ask for a better partner.”
After two years of cancellations - high win

Germany - The vision of founder Ariel Schiff, the Amano Group of hotels, bars and restaurants relies on sound design as the basis to transport interior design, bar and culinary concepts. This recognition that sound plays a key role in curating a memorable customer experience in a hospitality setting is evidenced by the fact that the group has its own sound designer on staff.
When the group first approached experienced German AV technology specialists Raum+Schall to design and install a sound system in the soon-to-open restaurant of the prestigious Hotel Amano East Side in Berlin, CTO Markus Lienhart knew that he wanted to use the Nexo ID Series. “When I first saw and heard the Nexo ID24, I thought, wow, this is installation loudspeakers v2.0. In terms of design, performance and the versatility of its HF directivity, it gives us the tools we need to realise a whole new leve

UK - Christie's RGB pure laser projector D4K40-RGB has been installed at the Legoland Windsor Resort, the company has reported. The Christie D4K40-RGB is a key part of the technology set-up for the resort’s newest attraction, The Flight of the Sky Lion.
The Flight of the Sky Lion is billed as the UK’s first ‘flying theatre’ ride and is the main attraction in Legoland’s new £20m imaginary land Mythica: World of Mythical Creatures. Inspired by the ideas of children, the focal point is the Sky Lion that is created out of 685,530 Lego bricks. The ride itself stands 25m tall and visitors are transported below the Sky Lion’s wing to Mythica, where Lego creatures, such as the two-headed Hydra and Fire and Ice Bird come to life.
The adventure is projected onto a 20m high concave screen, and the gondola, in which the audience sits, is capable o

USA - Super Bowl LVI attracted 70,000 fans at LA’s SoFi Stadium, with more than 100 million TV viewers tuning in from around the world. The event’s RF coordinators, referees and performers relied on Shure gear.
The line-up featured the Axient Digital Wireless System which captured uninterrupted audio from the game’s most meaningful moments, including the pre-game show, key parts of the half-time performance, and crucial fourth-quarter referee decisions. Off the field, Shure technology was counted on to bring memorable events to life, including Budweiser’s Super Bowl Music Fest and NFL Honours broadcast.
“Shure Axient Digital microphones have been a key part of our Super Bowl wireless system for the last five years,” comments Gary Trenda, lead RF technician for Professional Wireless Systems (PWS), which was hired by ATK Audiotek to handle wireless microphon

USA - LEA Professional supplied the owners of a large residential property in Houston with network-based audio through the company's Connect Series amplifiers.
A long-time customer of Texas-based AV integration company Sound Lab Designs, the homeowners were looking for an entire new AV system across their six-bedroom home which is set over five acres of land in the middle of Houston. Sound Lab Designs designed and installed a new system from scratch to cover the interior and exterior of the large property.
For Ernie Blumenthal, owner at Sound Lab Designs, this project was different from other residential installations he’s worked on because, for the first time, he used LEA Professional amplifiers. Blumenthal mapped over 20 audio zones in the property, many of which were external zones including the pool, patio, front and near lawns and balconies. Initially for Blumen

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