USA - Known for their blend of magic and comedy, Penn & Teller's Las Vegas show takes a different approach to live entertainment with provocative, and often amazing results.
When looking to upgrade the intercom system for season seven of Penn & Teller: Fool Us, Tony Kremer, founder of Kinetic Productions, turned to Pliant Technologies’ CrewCom wireless intercom system. The show required a solution that offers increased flexibility and usability, and seamlessly integrates with the venue’s existing hardwired intercom systems for broadcast and theatrical use. Since 2014, the comedy/magic duo has presented their Fool Us television show at the Las Vegas Rio Hotel and Casino.
“With our previous system, each base station offered only four 2-channel beltpacks, limiting our capabilities in terms of communication,” says Kremer. “When looking to up

Europe - Merging Technologies has supported the AES Student Recording Competition for many years, both at the European and US Conventions, by donating a prize of a Pyramix Native licence to the top student in the appropriate category.
The situation was rather different this year with the Vienna Convention being virtual; no Merging employee could present the prize. Nevertheless, the competition went ahead as normal and produced an excellent result for a student from the Detmold Hochschule für Musik. Kseniya Kawko was awarded the Gold Award in the Traditional Acoustic Category for the recording of the piece by Michio Miyagi Haru no Umi and Silver Award in the Immersive Category for the recording of the Mendelssohn String Quartet No.2 in A Minor.
Kseniya recorded and mixed both projects on Pyramix since Detmold and McGill University, where Kseniya did her previous

Korea - Void Acoustics has confirmed the appointment of a new distributor for Korea.
Joeun Media Co is based in Busan, Korea and first came to the attention of Void Acoustics in 2013 at Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt. The company has operated since 1985 as a wholesale AV distributor and has established a significant reputation as an exceptional audio installation company for major clubs and venues around Korea. However, this will be the first time that Joeun Media has been appointed directly as a distributor for the audio manufacturer.
Jung Wook, CEO for Joeun Media comments: “I was first made aware of Void Acoustics six or seven years ago and was fascinated by the unique design and innovative speaker arrangement of the Incubus and Nexus systems, which so clearly demonstrate the unique production values of Void Acoustics.”
Since that first introduction to Vo

UK - Leading trade bodies and businesses are joining forces to issue a Red Alert and highlight the severe challenges faced by the live events industry and its entire supply chain due to the pandemic.
Planned for 11 August, the action will include social media and video drives as well as legal outdoor events, with other specific activities occurring on the day.
The initiative is part of the #WeMakeEvents campaign that aims to raise awareness of the sector’s struggles and to secure further support from the government.
“The live events industry supply chain that contributes to every single event in the UK is set to completely collapse,” comments Peter Heath, MD of PLASA. “Social distancing prohibits mass events, and even if this stopped now, long-term plan

France - In tandem with the recent release of LA Network Manager 3, L-Acoustics has introduced the M1 suite, a comprehensive set of measurement and monitoring tools. From data acquisition through system tuning to live monitoring, M1 harnesses the power of the manufacturer’s Milan-certified P1 processor and amplified controller hardware to deliver a streamlined system calibration process as well as realtime performance monitoring.
The M1 suite pairs system measurement and control software to work natively as one seamless solution. Providing an original, reliable, and more efficient method for calibration, M1 allows users to expand their capabilities and optimise their time, says the company.
Ideal tuning of a venue requires both data capture and analysis. For most systems on the market, calibration processes typically involve estimating optimum EQ and alignment sett

USA - An Audient ASP4816 is at the heart of a new studio setup at Kofa High School in Yuma District, Arizona, which happens to be the only school in the Yuma district to offer a Music & Audio Production programme. Career and technical education (CTE) Instructor, Adrian Matthews, describes it as “an incredible opportunity for our students”.
“We are currently in our second year of the program and it is going extremely well,” says Adrian, who since the new studio opened has been overwhelmed by the feedback from other staff members. “Reactions have ranged from complete amazement, to utter disbelief that there is a professional recording studio in a high school.”
When it came to specifying the gear, Adrian was looking for professional quality and an uncomplicated interface. “We only have 180 days in the school year, so I didn’t have the luxury of spendin

Australia - The Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) recently committed more than AUD$50m to a substantial upgrade to its 100,000-seat stadium.
This included an AUD$25m contract for a new site-wide PA, transport and connectivity, masterminded by two eminent technology companies. Australian sound & AV consultants Auditoria conceived the system, and Diversified (who in 2019 acquired Rutledge AV in Australia) undertook the complex integration at the famous MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground).
Premier pro audio brands, including fibre network specialists, Optocore, were vital to the implementation. To give an idea of scale, more than 3,000 speakers now populate the seating bowl, function rooms and VIP suites, atria, internal concourse areas and exit gates.
The existing PA system, installed 14 years earlier, no longer met audience expectations, hence informal conversations wi

China - Christie is continuing its long-standing partnership with the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) for the 12th consecutive year.
The 2020 festival, which runs from 25 July to 2 August, is the first major international film festival to be held in China since the COVID-19 outbreak at the beginning of this year. Christie cinema projection systems will be used for movie screenings in theatres across Shanghai’s metropolitan area throughout this nine-day event. In addition, a Christie cinema projector will also be deployed for adjudication of films nominated for the Golden Goblet Award for Best Film. A total of nine films from around the world will vie for this award this year.
“We’re delighted to continue our partnership with SIFF for the 12th consecutive year to deliver visually-engaging contents from around the world to cinema audiences in China,”

UK - Situated in the Dundela district of Belfast, St Mark’s Church has a remarkable heritage. Historically, it has strong links with the author CS Lewis, whose grandfather was the first rector of the Parish.
Designed by celebrated Gothic architect, William Butterfield, in 1876, it recently underwent a complete overhaul of its sound system, with Martin Audio partners, Rea Sound (under the project management of Roger McMullan), installing the manufacturer’s discreet O-Line software-optimised micro line array, which is purpose designed for houses of worship.
Rea Sound had introduced O-Line to the Irish church market as soon as it was introduced back in 2007 - and wherever budgets have permitted, they have continued to specify the award-winning solution. “Nine out of 10 people don’t believe it will deliver such clarity of voice reproduction until we demonstrate it,

UK - Live music is back on the Channel Island of Guernsey. With lockdown restrictions on the island completely lifted on 20 June due to the eradication of all Coronavirus cases, the St James concert venue in Saint Peter Port is in the fortunate position of being one of the only live music venues to have re-opened its doors. And when it did so, the 350-capacity venue had completed its first phase installation of a new JBL VTX A8 PA system, a key component in an ongoing series of upgrades to the historic venue.
The search for a new sound system began in August 2019 when St James' executive director Jon Bisson visited the Independent Venue Week conference in London as a fact-finding and networking opportunity. It was there he met team members from Harman Professional and UK distributor Sound Technology - including Sound Technology’s Ben Todd and Joe East, and Harman’s Ed Ja

Croatia - With its seaside villages, white beaches, hilltop views, and Mediterranean climate, Croatia’s Istrian coast is a popular holiday destination on the Adriatic Sea.
The five-star Istra Premium Camping Resort in the coastal village of Funtana is one of the area’s most-sought locations.
The resort recently underwent a major renovation project including all new audio and video systems featuring Biamp DSP and powered by Linea Research amplification. As Tomislav Stubičan of Hust d.o.o. in Zagreb explains, the resort’s many different spaces and diverse requirements made it a complex project.
“It was extremely challenging to satisfy all the different wishes expressed by the architects, designers, and the investors, the Valamar Group,” Stubičan remarks. “The goal was to harmonize the latest technology with the resort’s high standards of elegance a

Germany - Pioneer Pro Audio has appointed SLD Distribution as its new distributor in Germany.
The Fürth-based company distributes a number of leading international industry brands across the audio, lighting and AV sector. Its CEO Daniel Danzer has more than years experience in the audio industry, and in particular, the nightclub sector. He founded SLD Distribution last year to be a hub for installation, planning, rental and distribution of pro AV. SLD Distribution works closely with an established network of systems integrators and offers planning, advice, training and certification associated with all its brands.
Daniel Danzer comments, “We are very pleased to be representing Pioneer Pro Audio. The brand has a formidable reputation for sound and build quality. Where other brands manufacture plastic loudspeakers, Pioneer Pro Audio takes a different approach which I

Sweden - Östermalms Saluhall in the Swedish capital of Stockholm is one of the world’s premier food halls and a cultural institution in its own right. First established in 1888, the beautiful building is classified as a historical monument. It has recently reopened after the most extensive renovation project in its 130-year history.
Four years on and 130m euros later, the food hall has regained its former glory and developed into a modern and sustainable trading venue, complete with a Genelec Smart IP loudspeaker solution for the Saluhall’s largest trader, Lisa Elmqvist.
Having expanded operations considerably over the years to include a gourmet restaurant as well as the food stall, Lisa Elmqvist now occupies nearly one-third of the hall’s newly renovated star-shaped space. In order to find a suitable audio solution to cover the various zones, Lisa Elmqvist tur

Greece - Located in Porto Rafti (near Athens) Nakal is one of the city's most popular beach bar restaurants. The seaside restaurant offers a fusion and multi-cuisine dining experience with the signature of executive chef Dimitri Skarmoutso, the bar an endless list of classic and signature cocktails prepared by bartender/mixologist Aris Chatziantoniou and sounds are selected and spun by Maria Papidaki and VKD Djs.
The idyllic venue recently had a leading edge Outline sound system installed by the Italian manufacturer’s Greek distributor, Mega Event.
London-based sound designer and engineer John Karampelas made the first contact with Mega Event’s headquarters in Pallini (Athens) around December, requesting a preliminary proposal for a high quality audio solution for Nakal. The company’s team for the project comprised consultant Konstantinos Vaidanis, installation s

USA - What once was a 300-seat movie theatre Bristol Riverside Theatre (BRT) is located in the historic district of Bristol Borough in Eastern Pennsylvania. The theatre itself, built in 1937 and reopened as a performance hall in 1986, is well-known for bringing local and national artists to the stage, producing over 200 performances each year.
Earlier this year, BRT invited Eric Tucker, of New York City’s Bedlam Theatre to direct a production of King Lear with a fresh interpretation of the Shakespearean classic. The show ran for several weeks, starting 28 January and ending 16 February 2020.
When the production required a sound design, BRT re-enlisted the talents of consultant and sound designer, Brad Ward to assemble it. “One thing I liked about Bristol was the size, it’s a very intimate venue, you don’t need a lot of speakers to achieve the result you


Austria - Since its inception in 2011, the Woodstock der Blasmusik festival has been attracting crowds of up to 60,000 brass music fans each June to Ort im Innkreis in Austria. With brass aficionados obliged to stay at home by COVID-19, this year the organisers treated them to an evening of livestreamed performances from the festival site, featuring eight bands and mixed from an Allen & Heath dLive system.
The FOH and broadcast audio rig for this online incarnation of Woodstock Der Blasmusik was supplied and managed by Martin Bröll of Greenbee Records Studios, working closely with the festival’s technical manager, Mario Schwarz, who oversaw all aspects of the audio, video and streaming.
With eight bands, three stages and over 60 inputs to look after, Martin chose his DM32 MixRack as the core of a dLive system running the PA sound, broadcast mix and interc

UK - Hastings-based rock heavyweights, Kid Kapichi, stamped their name firmly onto the hide of the UK rock scene last year, and just before lockdown they played their local venue, The Printworks.
The band is fronted by Jack Wilson and Ben Beetham and for this gig sound engineer Alfie Rolph made sure that they performed to 200 ecstatic fans upstairs through a Martin Audio Blackline XP12 / XP118 PA rig, supplied by partners Old Barn Audio (OBA).
“The Martin Audio speakers represented a huge upgrade,” said Wilson, “and we’ll now be looking to use them for all future events of that level.”
Alfie Rolph, an employee of OBA, and one of the Printworks’ sound techs, reviewed the existing sound system and decided it was time for an upgrade. “Although it was a tried and trusted system, I knew that for Kid Kapichi’s last gig here, these local legends needed a

South Africa - In a live stream filmed at MGG Productions in Sandton, and hosted on SACIA's YouTube channel, the technical production and live events industry announced the launch the national campaign #LightSAred, to be held on 5 August 2020.
Sharif Baker, chair of the TPSA, announced that the technical production and live events industry will be spearheading a symbolic resistance campaign that will see buildings across the country lit up in red on 05 August.
"The colour red is the international colour of emergency," Baker explains. "We are following the example set by our colleagues in Germany and the UK in lighting our national monuments red to highlight the desperate plight of our industry under current lockdown policies and regulations." Baker went on to emphasise that the #LightSAred campaign is not affiliated with any political body or ideology. "We are simply a

APAC - Alwyn Wong has joined Symetrix as their new regional sales manager overseeing the Asia-Pacific region.
Wong comes to Symetrix with over 20 years of experience in the professional audio industry. He was first introduced to audio DSP’s while working on a system installation for the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur in 1998. He later spent six years at Harman Professional as a technical sales engineer, and then as a senior application engineer.
Most recently, Wong came from Peavey Commercial Audio where he was the technical manager overseeing the APAC territory.
“It is my honour to work for one of the top Audio DSP brands where I can utilise my expertise in network audio,” says Wong. “With my ample experience in the Asia-Pacific market, I feel confident that we can navigate the audio-visual landscape and produce favourable outcomes.”
Won

USA - Austrian AV technology manufacturer AV Stumpfl has appointed Conor McGill as a global business development manager with a special focus on the US media server market.
McGill is the former director of strategic partnerships at Float4 in Montreal. At aV Stumpfl, he will focus on growing the customer base of the media server system Pixera.
"I first used an AV Stumpfl product for a projection mapping project at a NFL football stadium in the USA four years ago. That project was a smashing success and every interaction I've had with the company since has been stellar,” says McGill. “I feel very fortunate to have found my way to the company and am looking forward to working with old and new customers alike on cutting edge media projects with Pixera," says McGill.
In 2018, AV Stumpfl GmbH established AV Stumpfl Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, and has continued to gro

UK - Realtime video manipulation expert Green Hippo has introduced “a small-yet-powerful” media server to its range, the Hippotizer Nevis+.
Featuring all of the creative power of its well-known bigger brothers, Hippotizer Nevis+ is designed to provide a smaller, inexpensive solution for video creation, visualisation and playback, with all of Hippotizer’s software features as standard.
The Nevis+ is a half-rack or wall-mount unit offering one display port 1.2 output with software-based EDID management, two network ports and the latest versions of Hippotizer’s user-friendly tools including SHAPE 3D Mapping, PixelMapper and the multipurpose pre-visualisation tool, all built into its Hippotizer V4 software.
“We’ve designed the Nevis+ for a broad range of less demanding applications, including live music and theatre tours, corporate events and TV OB/on lo

Rwanda - The first S12T Streamline OB van for the African continent has been successfully delivered to Rwanda Broadcasting Agency (RBA). Built and outfitted by Broadcast Solutions in Germany in just three months, the Streamline S12T is a truck/box body combination with one extension for up to 14 workplaces. Accommodating up to 12 cameras, it also features the first Lawo mc²56 MkIII console for the African continent.
Arthur Asiimwe, director general at Rwanda Broadcasting Agency, comments, “We were looking for a flexible OB truck that is easy to deploy and to operate. The vehicle’s fast delivery time and perfect price-performance ratio were further decisive criteria for contracting Broadcast Solutions with the production and delivery.”
At the heart of the vehicle’s audio section, Broadcast Solutions installed a Lawo mc²56 console with 32 channel strips and a L

UK - Audio manufacturer Powersoft has supported Leeds-based audio integrator, Audioserv, in creating a vast audio system for Roxy Ball Room, Roxy Leisure’s bowling alley and bar experience in Birmingham.
The American style venue harbours a 10-lane bowling alley, which also includes a bar, creating a vibrant experience with the help of a modern audio system. Audioserv, who have also provided audio systems for over 15 of Roxy Ball Room’s locations, took on the task of providing and installing audio equipment for the venue, with support from Powersoft audio distributor CUK.
“We’ve been working with Roxy Ball Room since the beginning of the brand in 2013,” explains Pete Rollinson, technical director of Audioserv. “For the Birmingham venue, we designed a system to give consistent coverage across the whole space, with an added impact in certain areas of the venue

UK - Cranborne Audio is now s shipping the Camden EC2 - a 19” rackmount, dual-channel preamp based on the award-winning Camden 500.
Camden EC2 combines two Camden mic/line/hi-z preamps featuring Mojo analogue saturation circuits with two reference-quality headphone amplifiers and discrete line mixers for zero-latency, direct-monitoring during tracking.
Featuring two reference-quality headphone amplifiers with independent line mixers, the Camden preamps can be monitored directly using headphones connected directly to Camden EC2’s front panel. Use headphones during mic placement to find the sweet spot of the instrument/source or create zero-latency artist mixes by combining the preamp signals with external playback from the Aux Input ¼” jacks on Camden EC2’s rear panel.
Camden EC2 also utilises Cranborne Audio’s C.A.S.T. system for distributing audio aro

Latest Issue. . .