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UK - Backup is delighted to announce the much-anticipated date for this year’s Kartfest, and Thursday July 6th is the day to get your best tweed, flowery dress and, if you’re so inclined, Morris Dancing regalia, ready for the Kart-Fest Village Fete.
Tickets will be on sale from 0900hrs on Monday 20 March and it will be very much first come first served. “After an unprecedented demand last year, we are also restricting one Kart per team to make sure as many companies can attend,” says Backup’s Lee Dennison. “We are also placing much more of a focus on the activities on

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Bill Toppers - Arctic Monkeys and Guns N' Roses will top the bill at this year's Glastonbury Festival, organisers have announced. The rock bands join previously-announced headliner Sir Elton John, who will play the last UK show of his farewell tour at Worthy Farm in June. Other acts on the line-up include Lizzo, Lana Del Rey, Lil Nas X, Manic Street Preachers, Wizkid and Blondie.
Yusuf, also known as Cat Stevens, will play the ‘legend slot’, previously occupied by Kylie and Dolly Parton. The coveted Sunday afternoon set traditionally draws one of the festival's biggest audienc
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Eurovision Funding - The Eurovision Song Contest, being held in Liverpool in May, will get £10m from the UK government, it has been announced. It will be spent on operational costs like security and visas, as well as making sure the event "showcases Ukrainian culture". Local authorities in Liverpool have already pledged £4m in funding. About 3,000 tickets to the song contest will also be made available for Ukrainians living in the UK.
Liverpool is staging the event at its M&S Bank Arena on behalf of Ukraine. It will be the first Eurovision Song Contest to be held in the UK f

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Post Pandemic Blues - The pandemic has wiped billions of pounds from the night-time economy, including theatre, according to a new report. The research indicates that the night-time sector has had a greater struggle to recover to pre-pandemic income than the economy generally, despite a robust response to the challenges of Covid. The chair of the Night Time Industries Association, which carried out the report, said the government had "failed" the sector.
The report highlights how seriously jobs in hospitality, theatres, bars, restaurants and those that operate between 6pm and 6am

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USA - ESTA has announced that Katie Jang is the new Protocol editor, taking over the role when Beverly Inglesby retires in April.
Jang (née McCulloh) has over two decades of marketing, communications, and advertising experience in the live entertainment industry working with Broadway venues, touring productions, traveling exhibitions, regional theatres, and more. Additionally, she worked for both ESTA as a marketing executive and Lighting&Sound America as a media executive.
“I am thrilled to re-join the ESTA team in this capacity and look forward to new opportu

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UK - PLASA is set to host a Member Business Forum at the Victory Services Club in London on Wednesday 29 March. The forum will feature guest speakers to discuss ways of building culture, continuity and resilience.
PLASA members can attend the forum free-of-charge, with up to two members of your team able to attend. Non-members will have the opportunity to purchase tickets from Monday 13 March for £55+VAT.
The Member Business Forum will offer an afternoon of keynote talks from respected business leaders, followed by an evening of networking and drinks. Attendees will gain ac

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UK – Electric Airshows, the new company offering aerial drone light shows to the UK events industry, has announced its membership of PLASA, the UK-based Professional Lighting and Sound Association, and ARPAS-UK, the only trade association focused on the UK drone community.
Electric Airshows, which officially announced its arrival at the start of 2023, has been a long time in development. Headed by two well-known figures from the entertainment production industry, Chris Crockford and Ian Lomas, the company is now offering an initial fleet of 100 drones, purchased from leading Ch

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Coronation Concert - A ballot has opened for 10,000 free tickets for a star-studded concert at Windsor Castle to mark the King's coronation. The televised show will be on 7 May, the day after King Charles is crowned at Westminster Abbey. The BBC has promised the line-up will feature "musical icons and contemporary stars". There are 5,000 pairs of tickets in the ballot, which opened at 07:00 GMT on Friday and will close on 28 February. The tickets would be allocated based on the geographical spread of the UK population, the BBC said, with those successful notified by late April.
Th

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Time Traveller - Beyoncé won a record-breaking 32nd Grammy Award, while Harry Styles won album of the year, at this year's ceremony in Los Angeles. Beyoncé made history as she won best dance/electronic album for her dance opus, Renaissance. In doing so, she overtook Hungarian-British conductor George Solti, whose record of 31 Grammys had stood for more than 20 years. Overall, Beyoncé won four prizes at the ceremony - but missed some of the early presentations after getting stuck in gridlocked downtown Los Angeles. "I'm surprised traffic could stop you," joked host Trevor Noah.

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USA - ESTA has announced that Richard Nix is the new technical standards manager for the Technical Standards Programme (TSP). His predecessor, Karl Ruling, will stay on in a supporting role.
Nix’s involvement in the development of standards spans decades. In early 1994 he was already actively involved in the USITT Rigging Standards project when discussions began about the TSP and its mission. He immediately came on board as a volunteer and has been, as he puts it, “a rather hyperactive standards evangelist ever since,” having led multiple tasks groups over the years before

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Planning Ahead - The Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival could become a permanent fixture, if plans are backed. Festival organisers currently have rolling temporary planning permission but want it to become permanent. It would mean that as well as the festival, it would allow use of the land, on the Somerset site, throughout the year for parties and camping. But local residents are concerned it would change the land from a working farm to a festival and camping site.
The permission would also allow the "permanent regularisation" of the Pyramid Stage, along with a building cu

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UK - The Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT) has announced the launch of the Make A Difference conference, an annual proactive conference day committed to finding solutions to current industry issues. The conference will be more than simply talking and will ask attendees to commit to taking action and developing strategies to achieve solutions for the issues discussed.
The first conference will be held on Friday 21 April 2023 in the Ambassadors Lounge, Lyceum Theatre, 21 Wellington Street, London WC2E 7RQ with thanks to Ambassador Theatre Group for their support of t

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Spain - BikeFest returned to Spain last week, cycling over 360km towards ISE in Barcelona, and so far has raised an astonishing £40,000 for industry charities Backup Tech, Music Support and Stagehand along the way.
The now annual event has garnered huge support from across the live AV and events industry, in both the UK and Spain. Organised by #WeMakeEvents, PLASA and AFIAL, the 2023 edition of BikeFest Spain was proudly sponsored by Ayrton, AVIXA, d&b Group, EARPRO, Fantek, ISE, SOJC and Total Solutions Group.
Piers Shepperd, Backup Tech Chair, Technical Director of Wo

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UK - Event Power Ltd, one of Ireland’s leading electrical hire companies supplying temporary power to major sports, festivals and state-run events, has invested in Data Strategy’s QC-Check workstation so that in the company’s busy warehouse, safety is an integrated part of the daily process.
With its power and cable inventory in constant demand, the company required a system to facilitate control of the stringent record-keeping associated with certified testing of distro and cable, as well as one that offered on-demand reporting.
Taking the advice of global temporary p

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New Theatre - Southwark Playhouse Elephant has become the latest theatre to open in London. The 310-seat venue in Elephant and Castle, the sister venue to Southwark Playhouse Borough, is the fruition of an idea first conceived in 2006. Among its first shows are Bermondsey Revolution, which opens on Thursday, and The Walworth Farce on 17 February.
Artistic director Chris Smyrnios said: "It's a great feeling to come to the end of the journey and to be at the beginning of a new one. Because of the regeneration, we've always been renting places and never really had a pla

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Spain - 22 live event and AV professionals are ready to cycle up to 390km from Valencia to ISE in Barcelona this weekend. Together as the BikeFest team, they are raising vital funds for industry charities Backup Tech, Music Support and Stagehand.
Organised by #WeMakeEvents, PLASA and AFIAL, BikeFest Spain is in its second year. Last year’s debut saw a team of 10 head toward the empty Fira de Barcelona exhibition centre, where ISE should have been taking place, poignantly showcasing the impacted live events sector.
However, this year’s BikeFest will head towards a thriv

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Creative Warning - Government complacency risks jeopardising the future of the creative industries, a report from the House of Lords has warned, as it called out an "indifference to the sector’s potential". The report from the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee follows an inquiry into the future challenges of the creative industries, which heard evidence from sectors including the performing arts, film, TV, gaming and music.
It warns of missed opportunities among senior government figures to recognise the sector’s commercial potential and makes a series of re

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USA - ESTA has announced approval of three standards by ANSI's Board of Standards Review.
ANSI E1.37-1 - 2012 (R2022), Additional Message Sets for ANSI E1.20 (RDM) -- Part 1 is part of the E1.37 project and provides additional get/set parameter messages (PIDs). Most of the messages in this document are intended for use with entertainment lighting dimming systems. These additional messages allow access to configuration parameters commonly found in many theatrical dimming systems.
ANSI ES1.18, Event Safety – Rigging, provides minimum requirements and gen

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Europe - In the next phase of Power Logistics’ ambitious plans for expansion, the temporary power specialist has appointed a European director to lead its newly opened office in Maastricht, Netherlands.
Experienced international sales and marketing professional, Patrick Elissen, will be spearheading the company’s EMEA operation from the centrally located office. Situated in close proximity to both the German and Belgian borders, the new office is just a short hop from many major European cities.
The news follows the company’s announcement in November that it had establ

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Flagship Opening - City Academy is to open a new arts complex in the former home of the Central School of Ballet, which it is describing as a "flagship" offering. Opening in the old heritage building in Clerkenwell, London, the site will contain a purpose-built black-box theatre – opening later this year – and classes that will run over the five storeys, with the first course having started already.
City Academy offers dance, acting and other creative courses. Its managing director Michael Ward said: “We are incredibly excited to be bringing this wonderful heritage building

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USA - Behind the Scenes is offering virtual training for mental health First Aid and Bystander intervention.
Says BTS, “Become a certified mental health First Aider in 2023 and make a real difference. Take an active role in helping to care for those you work with. Expand your skill sets by learning how to identify, understand and respond to signs of distress in your colleagues and help make our workplaces healthier and safer spaces for all. You will be able to use the information you learn every day in interactions with your co-workers as well as friends and family.”
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Lights Dimmed - Many West End theatres dimmed their lights on the evening of 21 December, in support of Ukraine and the winter blackouts the country will face due to the ongoing war with Russia. 21 December is the darkest day of the year, with the shortest day and longest night of the year, and West End theatres, along with other London businesses and the Mayor of London, participated in the worldwide supportive act.
West End theatres have a tradition of dimming theatre lights before or during an evening performance to pay tribute to notable figures who have died, mark a m

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Italy - Sadly, we report the death of pro audio consultant and journalist Mike Clark, who passed away on 30 December at the age of 77.
Mike, Scottish by birth, arrived in Italy at the end of the sixties as a sound engineer for a band. He fell in love with the country and decided to live there.
He always worked in the field of music, first as a DJ in the leading discos of the Riviera, and then as a music expert in one of the largest shops in Italy, Dimar in Rimini.
A specialised journalist and correspondent for entertainment industry magazines including LSi, he also col

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World - The LSi and PLASA team are getting ready to down tools for the last time in 2022, but before we do, we’d like to thank you for your continued readership and support this year.
Our daily online news service will resume on Tuesday, 3 January 2023, but if you find yourself pining in the meantime, all 37 years’ worth of LSi’s back catalogue is accessible for free, HERE.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays - we hope the new year finds you happy, healthy, and thriving!
The LSi team
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  2. MDG is theONE for Gerry Cinnamon homecoming
  3. Osram sells Claypaky to ARRI
  4. Sony recognised for efforts climate change initiative
  5. Warwick Arts Centre chooses LSC Control Systems
  6. The Week in Light & Sound
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