When times get tough, artists adapt, relentlessly leveraging leading-edge production technology to explore ever more innovative ways of making an impact with remote live performances. And that’s exactly what drove the deployment of an Adamson Systems Engineering CS-Series loudspeaker rig for Tate McRae’s performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Directed by Jonah Haber and filmed in Brampton, Ontario, the Alberta-based, global pop sensation’s performance of her massive international hit, You Broke Me First featured all the trappings of a high-end video shoot courtesy of Vancouver-based production house, Boldy, and set design, video and staging by Toronto’s Congo Blue Productions.
Typically on video shoots, audio is an afterthought. Not in this case, explains Jeremie Ngandu, who designed the system for the production and credits the Adamson l

Germany - The German Sustainability Prize (Nachhaltigkeitspreis) has been awarded by the Nachhaltigkeitspreis Foundation for the past 13 years, in cooperation with the country’s Federal Government and several public and civil society institutions. Outstanding sustainability achievements in business, municipalities, and research are awarded in several categories. On 3-4 December 2020, the prizes were presented at the Maritim Hotel in Düsseldorf.
There were two premieres this year: on the one hand, the award in the Design category was presented for the first time, and on the other hand, the award ceremony itself (and accompanying congress) were extensively streamed live due to the pandemic. A large number of award winners were connected live, as were most of the speakers. There were also a few guests who formed part of the supporting programme.
12 of the new GLP JDC

USA - Preparing the Way Ministries, a small but thriving local church in Lake Charles, Louisiana, has invested in an ADJ Pixie Strip system to enhance the lighting in its worship space. The new configuration of pixel-mapped linear LED fixtures allows low-resolution video playback across the rear of the church’s stage area. This provides a versatile backdrop that can be easily adapted to the style or tempo of worship to help enhance the atmosphere without distracting congregants.
With a capacity of approximately 150, Preparing the Way Ministries’ auditorium is a relatively small but modern space. Worship for Sunday services is led by a multi-piece contemporary worship band and the facility is also used for midweek prayer and worship meetings which tend to feature a more stripped-back music group.
Prior to this recent upgrade, the church’s lighting setup simply inv

USA - When the First Pentecostal Church in North Little Rock, Arkansas (FPCNLR), decided to upgrade its sound system three years ago it became the world’s first adopter of Martin Audio's then new Wavefront Precision Compact and Mini optimised arrays.
Fast forward to the present and the church has added a new mid-size chapel on its campus for multipurpose use and brought in a new sound contractor. However, it has kept faith in the British brand that has served the community so well in the main church.
This time the PA needed to reinforce events that were “too large for our rotunda space, too small for our sanctuary, and not quite casual enough to be held in our Great Hall,” according to the church’s director of communications, Zachary Ward.
With aesthetics a prime consideration, the solution was found in the House of Worship favourite, the discreet O-Line

USA - The ever-evolving Las Vegas strip is renowned for its approach to building bigger, bolder, and brighter structures. One of its latest additions, the Caesars Forum conference centre is no exception, spanning a mammoth 550,000sq.ft and boasting the two largest pillarless ballrooms in the world.
Located in the centre of the Las Vegas strip, Caesars Forum features 300,000sq.ft of flexible meeting space. This consists of the two large ballrooms of 110,000sq.ft each, a further two ballrooms, and six boardrooms and a dedicated outdoor event plaza connected to three hotels with 8,500 guest rooms
As part of the technology integrated into the new event space, Caesars Forum is home to one of the largest single installations of DMX controlled tuneable white lights. The Creston building control system installed and commissioned by NTA and Pulse features over 4,500 DMX lightin

USA - A new immersive orchestral experience has brought back the spirit of live performance in a socially-distanced environment. With audio amplifier solutions from LEA Professional, residents in South Bend, Indiana, can once again enjoy the sounds of their local city orchestra in a more intimate and experimental setting.
The new listening installation, Octet, came about as the South Bend Symphony Orchestra needed to re-think its performances after the pandemic forced a number of cancellations.
“It was very important for us to not only give something back to our community - which was starved of live performance for the last few months - but also to invigorate our musicians,” said Halle McGuire, director of development programmes, South Bend Symphony Orchestra. “We knew that everyone was combating a level of Zoom fatigue and we needed to think outside of the box a

UK - Intu Lakeside’s new Leisure Realm, complete with immersive sound, light and multimedia environment, showcased its first seasonal update during the pre-Christmas shopping period. Designed by engineering consultants, Hoare Lea, the Leisure Realm features a multi-channel Meyer Sound audio system driven by the spatial rendering and playback capabilities of TiMax SoundHub across its three distinct external zones.
The seasonal update evoked the spirit of Christmas; the bespoke sound design & music composition by Hoare Lea’s creative AV team used a mixture of sound FX, field recordings and re-scored traditional carols, spatially enhanced, panned and timed with TiMax to work with the sound system design & acoustic characteristics of each zone.
Hoare Lea’s audiovisual lead, Kevin Luckhurst produced the sound design & content creation for the update over C

UK - Mad Dogs Television is a facilities house supplying camera equipment and crew for TV productions. When it was asked by its client Round World Studios to build a new kitchen studio for their regular cookery shows, Martin Huntley,founder of Mad Dogs TV turned to Doughty Engineering to supply some of the key equipment.
Martin explained: “Round World Studios regularly hires kitchen studios in London but had the desire to have their own studio. Through a pre-existing relationship, the company linked up with the Carbis Bay Hotel and Estate near St Ives in Cornwall, which has just been announced as the location for this year’s G7 Summit, to create a permanent television production space available for hire by television producers and other content creators.”
The studio, which is located in a shop front on the beach promenade, has been built as a box within a box con

Columbia - Rapper and singer-songwriter Nanpa Básico held his virtual Kosmo concert last autumn with a large complement of Claypaky fixtures lighting up the live-streamed show.
A team from Arbol Naranja, led by Jorge Jiménez, Camilo Mejía and William Gallo, were challenged to craft a virtual concert that the public would enjoy from their homes and that recreated the mood of a live show on any digital device. “Reinventing the way in which Nanpa's music is consumed live opened a door for us to a format that we will continue to perform in, without any doubt,” says Arbol Naranja manager Jorge Jiménez.
Nanpa Básico fuses rhythms, such as bolero and reggae, for a hip hop style very much his own. According to the Arbol Naranja team, he is an unconventional artist who integrates orchestral musicians and treats the rhythm and style of each song with great presence and

Italy - Andrea Bocelli and Igor Mitoraj’s sculptural works were the protagonists of a special evening in Noto to promote Sicilian Unesco sites. wysiwyg was also honoured to be there to help light this concert and its cultural assets as Andrea’s voice filled the piazza in front of the Noto Cathedral in Sicily during a concert held to convey a message of courage and unity among the seven sites recognised by UNESCO in Sicily (see our latest issue for a report on the event).
The tenor was accompanied by an orchestra and the Teatro Massimo Bellini choir in Catania, directed by Alberto Bartalini.
The event is organised thanks to the financial commitment of the Sicilian Region and the Municipality of Noto. T

Finland - The 2020 series of Finland’s Tanssii tähtien kanssa - a version of the BBC’s popular Strictly Come Dancing TV show - culminated at the end of December following a visual feast driven by Hippotizer Montane+ RTX Media Servers.
A host of Finnish household names participated in Series 13 of the show, ranging from politicians to rappers, actors to YouTube stars. Their performances were backed by a mix of live feed and pre-made content, displayed on a huge LED screen backdrop and on smaller screens behind the judging panel. The live shows were seen by an average audience of more than one million, which is a sizeable chunk of Finland’s 5.5 million population.
At the visuals helm was Nordic events and experiences company Bright Group, headed up by designer and creative director Eero Helle, video operator Tero Kärpijoki and chief video tech Topi

Japan - Lighting designer Mr. Mitsumasa Hayashi created The Robe Lighting Show - a piece of light art at the Urayasu Mai Studio of the Nihon Stage Co, which featured over 350 Robe moving lights. These were supplied by prominent Japanese rental companies, M-Tech Style and the Mula Corporation. The piece was commissioned by Mr. Masaharu Sakamoto who heads up LTG, Robe’s Japanese distributor.
With live performances halted worldwide due to the pandemic, Mr. Sakamoto was keen to produce a lighting art video concept that could be enjoyed and appreciated by lighting enthusiasts worldwide, and he knew Mr Hayashi was the right person to create a brilliant, poignant, and high-impact work.
Mr Sakamoto himself was inspired by the positive, robust power of Robe’s brand messaging during these uncertain pandemic times. “A show like this using Robe products exclusively i

Slovakia - Ŭsmev ako dar (Smile As A Gift) is a high-profile gala evening and charity concert broadcast on Christmas Eve on Slovakia’s national RTVS Channel 1.
The show features the participation of children from orphanages and foster care facilities across Slovakia, together with some of the country’s best known popular singers, bands, and dancers.
Slovakian technical production and rental company Q-99, headed by Martin Kubanka, has been involved with the Smile As A Gift foundation since 1994, and this year’s festival special was recorded – without audience due to Covid restrictions – in a pop-up streaming studio created at their warehouse facility in Bratislava-Čunovo.
The studio was built earlier in the year to provide some revenue during the pandemic. In keeping with Q-99’s commitment to excellence in lighting, video, and audio, it

Estonia - On the final day of Bocuse d'Or Europe 2020, leading chefs from 24 nations gathered with their teams in different rooms at the Saku Arena in Talin early in the morning to review their secret plans for the dishes they would be offering judges later that afternoon.
All of them would be working with Estonian quail and eel catfish. The culinary wizard who blended these basic ingredients into ‘the most sumptuous and alluring gastronomical creation’ would be crowned European Champion by Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid.
As the top chefs and their assistants met in secret that morning, Olev Luhaäär was also busy meeting with his team as they reviewed plans for lighting the televised event under unusual circumstances. (Unlike in previous years there was no live audience in the 10,000-seat arena because of the pandemic.) Luhaäär had begun preparing for this

Grammy Award-winning mixer Chris Lord-Alge (Green Day, Muse, Bruce Springsteen) has kept a busy schedule during the COVID-19 lockdown, taking on projects from a wide range of artists. In addition to applying his mixing skills to these recordings, in many cases he has been tracking artists’ vocals himself.
“In March 2020, I devised a makeshift vocal booth at my facility that we were able to disinfect after every use,” he explains, “and everything could stay properly distanced to adhere to the health guidelines of the situation. Originally I set this up just as a temporary solution for a project or two. But nine months later, this setup is still in use, right where we assembled it.”
Key to the success of this vocal recording setup is the Audio-Technica AT5047 cardioid condenser studio microphone.
“The AT5047 is a game-changing microphone in a lot of ways,” C

Denmark - Live Company is a full technical production and rental specialist based in Skovlunde, a suburb of Copenhagen, owned by Peter Clausen, Mikkel Bedsted and two other business partners, all of whom are dedicated to providing quality service and high production values to clients across multiple performance genres.
Since 2018, the company has invested steadily in Astera products, the first ones being AX1 PixelTubes which were purchased to illuminate the domed roof of Cirkusrevyen’s big top venue in Dyrehavsbakken (the north of Copenhagen).
Started in 1935, Cirkusrevyen is the biggest revue show in Denmark and has been performed every year except 2020, when the season was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic!
The AX1s were modified with special magnetic fastenings for this specific project. They were utilised during a spectacular dance number, where t

USA - Like all minor league baseball teams, The New Hampshire Fisher Cats had no 2020 baseball season, because of the COVID-19 lockdown. Although the crack of the bat and thump of a fastball hitting the catcher’s glove could not be heard at C this summer, the connection that the club, an affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, has to fans remains as strong as ever.
This was very evident at the team’s annual Granite State Baseball Dinner. Held virtually this year, with Events United producing the event at Studio Lab, the fundraiser ran over its scheduled time because of the high level of interest from fans throughout New Hampshire. “The Fisher Cats are an institution in this area,” said Tim Messina, owner of Events United. “Since they could not hold their dinner live, we helped them create a new atmosphere of their traditional event in a livestream.”
The key to

UK - Over the past 25 years Music Bank has established itself as one of the leading rehearsal and backline hire facilities in Europe. In recent months, Music Bank’s director Jimmy Mac has been busy modifying the studios to create a live streaming space, allocating its DiGiCo SD12 to mix duties to ensure familiarity and total flexibility for visiting engineers.
“We knew people would want to use Music Bank as a streaming location for the same reasons they use it for a rehearsal space,” says Charlie Bryson, monitor engineer for Rod Stewart’s band and long-time DiGiCo user who started his career at Music Bank and has returned during the pandemic to look after all things audio for the live streams. “The new studios offer huge, great sounding, well-serviced rehearsal rooms with a plethora of backline and instruments available to hire right across the hallway.”
Th

China - When Mikkel Borg Bjergsø started experimenting in his kitchen with his childhood friend Kristian Keller in 2003, the initial thought was to recreate the beer they most enjoyed and save themselves some money in the process. Today Mikkeller exports craft beer to over 50 countries and operates an equal number of bars and restaurants around the globe.
The latest venture is Mikkeller Shanghai, the brand’s first bar in China and a step into a new and developing market. Designed by Mikkeller’s own designer, Camilla Monsrud, the bar is a fusion of Chinese architecture with Nordic minimalism, including a Genelec 4000 Series sound system.
The accent throughout the bar is on raw, natural materials. Wooden furniture and soft lighting contrast with concrete floors and exposed brickwork.
The Genelec 4030 loudspeakers are a match for the quality and aesthetic crit

Italy - As part of a project funded by the European Union, a former military barracks in northern Italy has been transformed into a ‘social activation hub’. BASIS Vinschgau-Venosta aims to facilitate the development of ideas in economy, culture, education, social development and is designed to bring people of all ages, backgrounds and experience together. The multi-use space features a comprehensive yet versatile Alcons Audio pro-ribbon audio system.
The former Druso army barracks was opened in 1937, closing in the late 1990s. In the summer of 2020, the completion of a long-term project saw the building given a new life as BASIS Vinschgau-Venosta. It’s the brainchild of Hannes Götsch and is designed to host a wide range of events, including theatre, live music, movies and club nights.
Hannes knew Wolfgang Sauter, founder and owner of the Austrian audio specialis

Canada - Vancouver-based Promosa has enhanced its 20 year-old legacy in film and television production by investing in disguise’s vx4 and rx machines and undergoing specialist xR training to become the first official disguise partner in Canada to deliver full end-to-end xR stage production.
With offices across Western Canada and in Washington state, Promosa is a full-service production management company specialising in large-format LED video screens – the largest inventory in Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest. They have been used in countless productions, including TV series DC Legends of Tomorrow, A Million Little Things, The Twilight Zone and the upcoming Disney+ series Turner & Hooch.
In partnership with Animatrik Film Design their Vancouver headquarters features the largest independent motion capture sound stage in North

Sweden - Östgötateatern, Sweden’s largest regional theatre, has further invested in Chroma-Q’s award-winning Color Force IITM Cyc, Wash & Effects LED battens.
Welcoming around 100,000 visitors a year across their two theatre buildings and smaller venues, Östgötateatern offers a wide range of theatre - from classic Swedish tales, to modern international plays. With Color Force II in demand for a number of their performances they have expanded their stock to 26 units to enable the fixtures to be used on multiple stages and performances at the same time.
Linn Persson, lighting designer at Östgötateatern, comments: “We first purchased Color Force II back in 2018, and they have since become a staple fixture for a number of performances taking place in our theatres. We have been very impressed with their performance, which meets our requirements for a good, s

UK - The 2020 celebrations marked the 17th year that DeltaLive has provided communications and audio services for London's New Year's Eve festivities (get the full story of the NYE spectacular in the upcoming LSi issue).
Jack Morton, the global brand experience agency, helped to develop the original concept for this annual event and worked in partnership with the Mayor of London's office and a dedicated team of experts to create the experience. The 10-minute show, designed for home viewing and created in collaboration with the BBC, was broadcast live on BBC1 and watched by a global viewing audience of millions.
Due to COVID-19, audiences were not able to attend the event this year, which would normally see some 100,000 spectators. But with no audience, this gave the Jack Morton led production team the opportunity to expand on previous years and utilise multipl

Russia - The Palace of Culture “October” is an 850-seat theatre with two levels. Opened in 1966 in Podolsk, Moscow, the venue hosts many types of events from dance to concerts and local shows.
RCF Russian distributor ARIS provided a new HDL 28-A line array with SUB 9004-AS for a new and improved sound. The upgrade has allowed the 240- seat balcony to be opened to the public; it previously remained closed due to acoustical issues.
Installed more than 10 years ago, the previous sound system was unable to cover the rather spacious balcony properly. This meant that tickets to the balcony during box office concerts were not sold, to avoid complaints from disappointed patrons.
When the budget was approved for a new sound reinforcement system, a mandatory requirement from management of the House of Culture was to provide a high-quality sound experience to all secti

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