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Video and AV

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USA - Katy Perry and XR Studios, a Los Angeles-based production company dedicated to producing XR content in live entertainment, engaged Production Resource Group (PRG) to support the virtual 3D interactive environment for Katy Perry’s Daisies performance during Sunday’s American Idol finale on ABC.
The performance made comprehensive use of Extended Reality (XR) for television. XR Studios in partnership with Silent Partners Studios of Los Angeles and Montreal, created an environment with comic-book style graphic elements that changed throughout the performance, including a house, chair and, of course, daisies that enveloped Katy and to which she interacted and reacted.
XR is an umbrella term for all immersive technologies that enable the layering of 3D on top of the real world. The technologies available today - augmented reality (AR), virtual realit

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UK/USA - The organisers of the 2020 Knight of Illumination (KOI) Awards have announced the cancellation of both the UK and the USA events due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the entertainment industry.
The difficult decision has been reached following extensive discussions between the committees of both the UK and US versions of the KOI Awards: The Fifth Estate and KOI co-founders Durham and Jennie Marenghi, along with the ALD and STLD in the UK and Live Design/LDI in the USA.
All parties explored various possible options to secure the events, including virtual, live streamed/webcast ceremonies and postponed or scaled-back ceremonies. However, these ideas were ultimately deemed not to be viable for 2020.
KOI-UK and KOI-USA executive committee member Sarah Rushton-Read of The Fifth Estate comments: "This has been a challenging decision, given the unpredi
ISE 2026 - Banner - Oct 2025

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The Netherlands - Rental company MHB developed a digital audience platform for MediaLane, based on a curved LED display consisting of ROE Visual Diamond LED panels, to enable a TV show continue under COVID-19 restrictions.
With the help of the facilities provided by, MHB, broadcast station BNNVARA was able to continue the popular television programme Even Tot Hier in a corona-proof adaptation.
MHB set out to develop a digital audience platform, enabling live interaction between the studio and an audience of 100 people.
Using lots of conference connections, the audience is able to participate and intervene live during the show, just like a normal live audience in the studio would be able to. The curved display, measuring 17mx3m, makes the interaction “up close and very natural”.
Supported from a custom-made truss construction, neatly following th

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UK - Manchester-based Sterling Event Group has opened the doors to the newly-created Sterling Studio.
As the events and AV industries face increasing uncertainty as to when ‘business as usual’ will resume and live events can take place again, Sterling Event Group has announced the launch of the Sterling Studio Space. This comes at an instrumental time for the industry as Sterling works to reassure their clients that there are a multitude of alternatives to the traditional live event, says the company.
“At this current time whilst live events are on hold, we wanted to offer our clients a solution to continue communicating, engaging, educating and entertaining. The studio allows clients to present their virtual events at the same high standard and production values they would expect from a live event.” comments Richard Bowden, founder and MD.
As a company

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USA - Obsidian Control Systems continues to expand its line of professional solutions with the launch of the NX Sync, a plug’n’play USB SMPTE timecode device.
The NX Sync captures timecode in various SMPTE formats from its three-pin XLR connection and converts it to a MIDI Timecode (MTC) stream, where it can be read into Onyx or any other MIDI Timecode compatible software. Additionally, it also has the power to take MTC and send it back out as SMPTE. The NX Sync contains a powerful hardware architecture for instant processing and minimal frame delays.
The NX Sync does not require custom drivers, and in addition to working with Onyx, it can be used as an SMPTE to MTC/ MTC to SMPTE device for both Windows 10 and MAC OS software applications.
The device is available for immediate shipping from Obsidian Control Systems’ global distribution network.

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Saudi Arabia - Commissioned by the Qiddiya Investment Company (Q.I.C.) and with phase one planned to open in 2023, the ambitious Qiddiya project is destined to be the upcoming capital for arts, entertainment and sports in Saudi Arabia. The 334sq.km site will be built from a focus on the tourism and recreation industries, as highlighted in the Saudi Vision 2030 expansion plan.
The destination includes plans for expansive water and theme parks as well as a community of 5,000 residents, all within a 40-minute journey of the Riyadh capital. The destination, currently an expansive, vast land with hundreds of miles of potential, will be surrounded by 200m cliffs. Phase one of the project will feature Six Flags Qiddiya as a family attraction, providing visitors with entertainment and attractions to explore which take into consideration the cultural and natural aspects of th

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Germany - The Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus theatre has extended its long relationship with Optocore, in order to keep pace with evolving technology. In the case of such a formidable, multi-space complex as this, an agile digital infrastructure, with multiple routing options and interconnectivity, is essential. To maintain this, the theatre has upgraded the original Optocore analogue network, installed in 2011, to an advanced and future-proof system.
The latest integration, undertaken by Amptown System Company (ASC), was overseen by the theatre’s tonmeister (and deputy head of sound) Torben Kärst, who designed the audio system, working alongside head of department Peer Seuken, and video specialist Tim Deckers.
This has seen the installation of Optocore M-series MADI boxes in both the 800-seat main theatre and 350-seat studio theatre, with an Optocore AutoRouter instal

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UK - The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden is one of the world’s leading opera houses. The recent Open Up refurbishment created a series of new spaces within the building offering a more welcoming visitor experience.
Built in 1858, the Royal Opera House is home to The Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera, as well the Linbury Theatre and various restaurants and a gift shop. The Open Up project was a £62m major refurbishment to create a welcoming visitor-friendly experience, improve crowd flow, welcome daytime activity of events for all ages relating to the art of dance and music and refurbish the Linbury Theatre into a world-class venue for intimate performances for ballet and opera.
Martin Adams, technical manager, Open Up Project, Royal Opera House, and Tom Thompson, technical manager, Linbury Theatre, were tasked with creating an audio network to meet the theatre's c

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The Netherlands - ROE Visual Europe has recently completed a refurbishment of its showroom in Leek, showcasing its LED products in an intimate setting.
With its flexible set-up, the showroom is created with the intention of allowing clients and designers to use it for demos, try-outs or testing and to accommodate different set-ups and events. The facility will be open from 1 June.
A broad range of the company’s latest LED panels will be on show, with the highlight being the Ruby RB 2.3 screen shown as a full HD wall measuring 5.5 x 3m and with a resolution of 2376x1296.
The showreel displayed is based on the 4K content shown at the ISE exhibition.
Flanking the Ruby screens are panels of Black Quartz, Carbon, Diamond and Vanish. The showroom will also feature the Black Marble, showcased both as wall mounted screen and interactive LED floor. The selection o

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Singapore - Singapore’s Bicentennial Experience was conceived to illustrate milestones in the island’s history. It employed a rich mix of immersive audio-visual solutions, from the large-scale to the intimate. Originally aiming for 300,000 visitors, by the time of its close at the end of 2019, its creative storytelling had attracted 760,000.
Behind that success was show design specialist Ctrl Fre@k, whose Wee Cheng Low used the power and versatility of Hippotizer to realise the multitude of solutions. A founding partner of Ctrl Fre@k along with Jeffrey Yue, Wee is one of Singapore’s leading experts in video and lighting control solutions, a long-time Hippotizer user and a member of Green Hippos’s Key User Support Programme (KUSP).
Wee’s career path had its beginnings in 2002, when he worked for a time as a theatre technician for a local theatre company. “I

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Denmark - The annual music competition to find Denmark’s Eurovision entry reached its finale in March at Copenhagen’s 16,000-capacity Royal Arena. Known as the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, hopefuls battled it out against a striking stage design made up of 450sq.m of LED screen, shaped into ever-expanding triangular shapes. These were fed visuals by a chorus of Green Hippo Hippotizer Karst+ Media Servers.
Hippotizer aficionado 4K Projects, which is based in Copenhagen, was commissioned by Danish national broadcaster Danmarks Radio to project manage the video and lighting aspects of the show. The company’s Mikkel Samuelsen and Balder Thorrud have been involved with Dansk Melodi Grand Prix for a decade, and are well-versed in creating memorable visual feasts.
The 2020 heats were held without an audience, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite this, TV viewers at home wer

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USA -The Production Equipment Rental Group (PERG) has released a draft of its return-to-work guidance for the safe resumption of camera and lighting rental services.
The PERG Safe Return to Work Guidelines provides recommendations for the prevention of the spread of COVID-19 and was created by a task group who took into account recommendations from the CDC, OSHA and public health officials and applied them to rental operations, equipment and facilities.
The draft will undergo a public review process from 19 May through 9 June, providing an opportunity for materially-affected parties to participate in the development of these industry guidelines, ensuring that they reflect an industry consensus.
Feedback is welcome from all stakeholders, and instructions for providing feedback are included with the download. Comments will be reviewed by the task group for r

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Spain/Italy - Prolights has announced the appointment of Seesound as its new distributor in Spain with immediate effect.
Nacho Alberdi, CEO of SeeSound, comments: “To me, working in this kind of industry means to carry on my family legacy, as in 1880 my grandfather started manufacturing pipes for church organs. That’s why we aim to continue doing what we do with passion and in the most professional way, taking care of the quality of the work done by our team. This should allow us to offer the best solutions to our customers and partners.
“When I first approached Prolights, I was fascinated by the ambition and dedication I could see throughout the headquarters, from the R&D department, production, logistics right to the sales and managements departments. Prolights boasts a broad portfolio and a one-of-a-kind product design, which will grant us to provide innov

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UK - Knight of Illumination Award winning live video director Ben Farrey (previously Miles) sadly passed away last week. Sharing the news, Coldplay – just one of many high-profile bands and artists Ben worked with throughout his career – paid tribute to a ‘beloved’ member of their crew in an emotional post shared across their social media platforms on Thursday 14th May.
The message, signed by all members of the band, reads: “We're sad to report that we lost one of our most beloved and talented crew members last night. Ben Farrey was our live visuals director. He was in charge of everything that you saw on the screens at our live shows. If you ever made it to a show, you’ll know that he was ridiculously good at his job. He was also one of the kindest and most generous-spirited people you could ever meet. We love you, Ben.”
The message was accompanied by

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UAE - Digital signal processing specialist Xilica has appointed Venuetech as its new distributor for the GCC. Based in Dubai with an experience centre in Riyadh and staff in Kuwait and Egypt, Venuetech will work closely with Xilica to raise brand awareness with AV consultants, systems integrators and IT engineers that specify, install and manage AV systems. Venuetech’s represented brands include Atlona, Barco, Sennheiser and Televic.
“We continue to see rapidly evolving business opportunities in MENA across most AV verticals, and almost every project requires a professional DSP,” said Ismat Assafiri, audio specialist, Venuetech. “Xilica separates itself from other DSP manufacturers with truly modular, plug-and-play designs that can support projects of any size, and they deliver the future-thinking technology that will become integral as our industry moves towards gre

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USA - Medialon has launched a new micro embedded solution for museum audio-visual (AV) control applications – Showmaster Mini.
Showmaster Mini is suited to simple AV control applications and installation types. Its ruggedised and fanless small form factor makes it easy to mount where AV racks aren’t suitable, says the company. The ultra-compact design solution is available, as standard, with a reduced-feature version of Medialon Manager show control software which makes it a low-cost solution.
Created for less demanding installations, Showmaster Mini can control up to 20 devices in its standard configuration, and is expandable in batches of ten devices, up to a maximum of 50 devices.
Each Showmaster Mini unit measures 158 mm × 114 mm × 53.5 mm and weighs 1.2 kg.
“For some installations, the requirement is for a control solution that simply needs to

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USA - Extending the spirit of the CARES Act enacted last month by Congress, Stampede has announced the pro AV industry-specific Stampede XtraCare Programme to “provide employees with much-needed extra protection and resellers with business relief and facilitation tools, as well as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits to enable them to complete projects in a safe and secure way”.
Complete information about the programme can be found at www.stampedeglobal.com/xtracare.
“Commercial AV is an essential infrastructure industry, as defined by the federal government, but the industry is being challenged on every front to remain viable in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Stampede president and CEO Kevin Kelly. “Supported by the strength of our corporate resources, Stampede is making available to employees, resellers and manufacturer partners a comprehens

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UK - 7thSense Design has appointed Geoffrey Platt to the position of product manager.
With over 20 years of experience as a media server technology and emerging digital media specialist, Platt has worked with a number of real-time video companies, and on many high-profile shows and events, including concerts, theatre, film, location-based entertainment and television.
Platt will work with global systems engineering and sales teams from the 7thSense Orlando office, defining key product features and future roadmaps of the expanding 7thSense product range.
“We’re excited to have Geoffrey join our team,” comments Eric Lehman, global sales and marketing manager, 7thSense Design. “His extensive experience of media server technology, interactive digital installations, product design for large-scale live events and video technology workflows will be a huge asset

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Europe - BroaMan has announced that it will now offer its Multipurpose Fibre Extender for video, audio and intercom (MUX22) with 12G-SDI interfaces - to support greater resolution, frame rates and colour fidelity.
The 12G addition to the existing 3G support means that BroaMan will not only continue to support 4K SDI transport formats but also routing and transport of high bandwidth data streams, such as 10G IP traffic for SMPTE 2110. Uniquely, the company offers not only single-mode but also multi-mode options for 12G fibre transport.
BroaMan technical sales manager Maciek Janiszewski comments: "12G migration is our step into the future. Our customers have been asking about 12G and IP technologies, and the new hardware upgrade will allow us to meet all modern requirements; it means we can offer pure 12G-SDI, pure IP or a mixed 12G-SDI and IP transport solution.”

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USA - For 11 years, country music lovers in the Valley of the Sun, Phoenix, have gathered for the KNIX BBQ and Beer Festival, enjoying on stage performances, along with things like a petting zoo, games and popular food pits. With this year’s live event postponed, HDE Agency, its organiser, has moved the festival online with a series of five livestreamed Saturday shows.
They don’t have a petting zoo (viewers will have to rely on their own dogs and cats for that), and they’re not cooking up any finger licking good treats, but the livestreams are offering generous servings of country music. Supporting these performances are a John Garberson-designed lightshow that features Chauvet Professional Maverick and Rogue fixtures supplied by Creative BackStage. (Pro Production provided the audio.)
Taking place on a temporary stage in a converted studio in the Creative Backst

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Europe - ALC NetworX, developer of the the Ravenna technology, has announced Weigl Control as the latest Ravenna partner.
Based near Linz, Austria, Weigl s known around the world as Weigl Control, a specialist in high performance hardware and software solutions for show control. Weigl Control provides interactive and multi-media electronic controllers for theme parks, museums, sauna & spas, retail and more.
Created with a focus on embedded playback for animatronics and motion control, Weigl has expanded their hardware and cross-platform software offerings over the past decade to include large scale lighting, media and logic capabilities to support the production of some of the world’s best themed entertainment examples.
“I’m happy to be a Ravenna partner,” says Manfred Weigl. “The ProCommander X Series, which we developed in celebration of our compa

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China - Brompton Technology has launched a Chinese version of its website. Including all downloadable documentation, as well as product and feature pages, it makes Brompton’s technical information readily available to the Chinese market.
A major part of Brompton Technology’s strategy in recent years has been to find ways of strengthening its support for its panel manufacturer partners, most of whom are based in Shenzhen. The new website is the latest in a string of initiatives, the first of which was the creation of an office in Shenzhen at the beginning of 2019.
Led by Elijah Ebo, Brompton’s general manager (Asia), the office is staffed by Chinese-speaking account managers and field application engineers (FAEs). In addition to employing native Mandarin-speakers, th

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Australia - ClearOne has announced a new distribution agreement with Audio Visual Distributors (AVD), headquartered in Queensland Australia to represent ClearOne’s full line of audio conferencing, visual collaboration, and AV networking solutions.
"AVD’s experience in the AVIT Australia and New Zealand market is second to none with prime focus on customer service and support,” noted David Gledhil,l regional sales consultant, UK, Ireland, Benelux, Oceania at ClearOne. “ANZ is an important market for us and we are looking forward to working with AVD to serve our channel partners and customers in the region who will effectively offer full commercial and technical value from pre-sales thru post-sales support.”
"We are delighted to partner with ClearOne as a leader in voice and visual communications solutions for changing workspace demands,” stated Simon Fourie,

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UK - Ampetronic and USA-based Williams AV have announced a pan-European strategic partnership, as well as a distribution partnership for the UK and Ireland.
From 1July, Ampetronic will provide in-region technical and sales support for Williams’ European distribution partners and customers. Ampetronic will also provide European warehousing and logistics support to ensure rapid stock availability across the region for both Williams and Ampetronic product ranges.
In addition, effective 1 May, Ampetronic will become Williams AV’s exclusive distribution partner in the UK and Ireland, offering Williams’ broad product portfolio to its customers.
Ampetronic and Williams AV are both long-standing global champions for hearing accessibility, each of them leading their technology fields in assistive listening solutions. Ampetronic is a market leader in hearing loop tec
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  3. Alcons opens webinars to wider audience
  4. Atlona to host virtual tradeshow
  5. Steven Jackson relies on Hippotizer platform
  6. Obsidian presents Onyx live webinar series
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