Costa Rica - The elegant Teatro Nacional Costa Rica in San Jose, completed in 1897, is the jewel of the nation’s capital city and one of the most beautiful concert halls in the Americas.
Leading up to this famed structure, the visitor can gaze on sculptures of poet Calderón de la Barca and composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Further down the entry walkway are statues of Frédéric Chopin. The message delivered by this external artwork is clear: inside is a venue that treasures artistry from around the world!
Recently, the Costa Rican Philharmonic Orchestra reaffirmed this commitment by performing a virtual concert at the site. Supporting their performance and making it more vivid to viewers was the colourful light from the theatre’s newly installed Chauvet Professional COLORado 3 Solo fixtures.
The 60W RGB LED fixtures were installed just prior to the show, when

USA - Audiovisual and lighting integrator Icon Media of Georgia is transforming a sanctuary space at Lighthouse Church in Ventura, California and has used Fuze Pendant downlights from Elation Professional for the first phase of the project.
Wanting to address their sanctuary lighting before Easter, the church initiated a house lighting overhaul as the initial step in a larger refurbishment project that will entail audio, video and lighting. Icon Media, specialists in integrated systems for houses of worship and an Elation dealer, was contacted by church leadership and strategic planning consultant’s GrowMentum to handle the project.
“We have a staff that understands the specific nuances of this market, how it operates and is structured,” states Icon Media president Brian Gore. “The HoW market requires a special approach, specific skills and sensitivities that

USA - Located on the Jamul Indian Village reservation, 20 miles east of downtown San Diego, the Jamul Casino attracts visitors from across southern California. In addition to gaming, it offers multiple restaurants, bars and lounges, the newest of which is The Rooftop.
Developed on the roof of the main casino building, it provides 360° views of the surrounding valley and is used for private parties as well as regular live music performances and theme nights. Having initially rented lighting for special events, earlier this year the casino’s management invested in a permanent house rig comprised of 80 ADJ fixtures.
For a number of years, AV support for the casino has been provided by CBC Technical Inc., located in nearby Temecula, CA. The company originally rented a lighting system to the casino for live music performances and special events at The Rooftop, following

Estonia - The five-decade old Saarepeedi Cultural Centre recently sought out a new PA for its facility and brought on Heliart OÜ for the project. Priit Kivimägi, CEO of Heliart OÜ, and his team were looking for a system with high SPL, consistent coverage and exceptional vocal intelligibility. Eastern Acoustic Works’ QX300 Series speaker system along with its RL18S Active Subwoofers were selected for their audio capabilities as well as its ease of use.
The Saarepeedi Cultural Centre, located in southern Estonia near Viljandi, is often considered the heart of Estonian folk music. Serving as a multi-functional venue for the local community, the space is used for different activities and performing arts including theatrical and dance events, seminars, rehearsals, sports and musical acts including choirs and live bands.
The main PA consists of two EAW QX364’s flown

UK - Entertainments venue, Grimsby Auditorium, has recently upgraded its sound desk to an Allen & Heath Avantis.
Based in North East Lincolnshire, Grimsby Auditorium is an intimate custom designed venue. Since opening its doors in 1995, it has played host to a number of high-profile performers as well as international touring acts and shows, including: Starlight Express, Blood Brothers and Calendar Girls, Jimmy Carr, Peter Kay and Sarah Millican), and international rock acts Morrissey, Kasabian and The Stereophonics.
Shane Jackson, Grimsby Auditorium’s stage manager commented: “After having our previous sound desk for around 15 year we felt it was time to upgrade to some newer technology. We have no doubt that this will have a positive impact on upcoming productions as well as our customers experience. Having researched our options and cons

World - When show producers welcome throngs of enthusiastic Harry Potter fans to the live stage production of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, they want to immerse the audience in a show experience like no other. Based on an original story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage.
With demanding production requirements, show producers turned to multi-award-winning sound designer Gareth Fry, and his experience with technologies from d&b audiotechnik, to cast a spell over the audience.
“There's a big responsibility when you're working with such iconic characters and stories; the audience has a strong, emotional attachment to what's happening on stage,” explains Gareth Fry. “With such an invest

USA - For Victory Church, Westminster, CO, entering the live-stream world was something that they aimed to achieve within the next few years, but when the pandemic struck, it was a shift that they needed to make within a few weeks. With a limited budget and requirements for wireless capabilities, Pliant Technologies’ MicroCom XR digital wireless intercom system was the chosen solution. With MicroCom XR, production staff and volunteers can deploy a reliable solution for clear communication, helping productions - both in-person and live-streamed - go on without a glitch.
“The Pliant system was the first intercom to be deployed at Victory Church,” says Krystle Thompson, creative director at Victory Church. “When looking at our options, I knew we needed a system that could handle upwards of five users, while allowing personnel to move freely in order to have multiple wir

USA - Lincoln Financial Field opened in 2003 as the home stadium for the Philadelphia Eagles NFL team. In addition to Eagles football, it regularly hosts the Temple University Owls, the Army-Navy game and many soccer games each season.
In 2017, the Stadium staff asked Diversified to design a new, upgraded audio system for the seating bowl. Diversified developed a comprehensive design, installed in multiple phases during off-seasons starting in spring of 2018.
The Philadelphia Eagles wanted to raise the bar for audio performance within the stadium. “The fan experience across the NFL has been improving for a number of years,” says Jeff Sanderson, senior design engineer at Diversified. “A lot of teams are renovating or building new stadiums. The Eagles wanted Lincoln Financial Field to sound as good or better than anything else in the NFL. Speech intelligibility and

Australia - ACMI, Australia’s national museum of screen culture located in Melbourne, celebrates the nation’s long history in the medium - including film, television, video games, and moving image artwork.
Recently, the museum underwent a renovation that completely overhauled its central exhibition design - and its AV system - to allow visitors to take a journey through Australia’s history of moving images. By utilising robust, immersive, and interactive AV, the exhibition, titled The Story of the Moving Image, advances through time – from shadow play to the films that shaped Australia’s cinematic landscape. The exhibition includes Games Lab Presented by Big Ant Studios, where AAA titles sit alongside a curated selection of locally made indie games, and a section dedicated to the power of citizen journalism.
And while the museum is largely focus

Finland - Tomi Björck is one of Finland’s best-known chefs and restaurateurs. With 10 restaurants and two bakeries already to his name across Finland, Sweden and Australia, Björck with his wife Minka and three other associates embarked on their latest project in Spring 2020.
Lily Lee, in the heart of the Finnish capital of Helsinki, offers a range of dishes inspired by Taiwanese cuisine, Hong Kong’s street kitchens and classical Cantonese cooking.
Finnish AV integrator, 4Business Oy, installed a Genelec loudspeaker system in the environmentally friendly RAW aluminium finish to enhance the dark, sultry interior with an audio experience that blends into the lush surroundings. In fact, Björck contacted Genelec directly for his latest project. 4Business’s Janne Lankinen was unsurprised by Björck’s choice. “Music and atmosphere are crucial elements for Tomi at

The Netherlands - The sustainable AFAS Theatre, which is incorporated in the new HQ of software developer AFAS, named the AFAS Experience Centre in Leusden, has recently been equipped by Rolight with 74 Infinity TS-260C7 Profile engines from Infinity’s Signature series.
The AFAS Experience Centre has been designed from the ground up to create an “experience” for clients, employees and visitors - a complex that includes office space, meeting rooms, relax areas, demonstration rooms, fitness area, gym, educational spaces, studios, patio & atrium suitable for events, exhibitions and social gathering. The complex takes ecological and environmental aspects into account as much as possible.
Almost energy neutral, it is fitted with solar panels, sedum roofs, heat pumps, heat exchangers, triple glazing, a multitude of sensors and 50 charging stations for electric vehi

South Korea - Harman Professional Solutions recently partnered with MIX Media and TechDataPS Coto upgrade Seongnam Arts Centre’s AV system with AMX networked video solutions.
Seongnam Arts Centre is the largest venue for cultural arts in the city of Seongnam. The facility features a 1,804-seat opera house, a concert hall, ensemble theatre for smaller performances, two visual art galleries and an outdoor amphitheatre with seating for 11,000 people.
The centre hired MIX Media to upgrade its video infrastructure with a HARMAN networked VoIP solution consisting of AMX encoders, decoders and controllers supplied by TechDataPS.
To provide a scalable AV control platform with intuitive operation, network security and backward compatibility, MIX Media selected the AMX NX-3200 NetLinx NX Integrated Controller as the core of the AV infrastructure. For transmitting and rec

The Netherlands - The new MIMIK cultural centre situated next to the IJssel river in Deventer has been outfitted with a number of Infinity’s professional theatre lighting fixtures. TS-260C7 Profile Engines equipped with TLT-1230 Zoom lenses and Irises, TF-260C7 Fresnels with barndoors and TCYC-7 Cycloramas were used by Rolight to provide the desired illumination.
In the MIMIK, a theatre, four movie theatres, and a grand café are merged into a cultural experience. Open all day and easily accessible, its programme aims to surprise visitors time and time again. MIMIK follows up on the success of film house De Keizer (the emperor) and Theater Bouwkunde (Building Science theatre). Combining both with hospitable catering creates a vivid meeting place that ticks all the boxes for current and future generations.
The theatre is fitted with a retractable grandstand and can be

Canada - A multi-venue arts centre in downtown Calgary, Alberta, Arts Commons (formerly EPCOR Centre for the Performing Arts) has invested in a complement of Ayrton lighting fixtures and Robert Juliat followspots from Sapphire Sound.
Arts Commons is located in Calgary’s Cultural District and is one of the three largest arts centres in Canada. Its five theatres and concert hall are home to six resident companies and host a wide array of guest performers annually. While Arts Commons is currently closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the centre has been busy upgrading and expanding its lighting inventory in anticipation of reopening.
According to Kris Ladd, head of lighting at Arts Commons, 16 Ayrton Huracan-X and four Ayrton Diablo-S fixtures were purchased for the Jack Singer Concert Hall, the permanent home of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the largest venue

USA - In the time since it was established in 1983, Northside Baptist Church (NBC) in Huntsville, Texas, has grown from a small group of people meeting in a living room to its current membership of 1,600. With construction now complete on its new home, the church’s management decided that it would need an audio system that could match the quality of such grand surroundings.
“Since it was a new construction project, we didn’t know what the best fit for the space would be, regarding the sound system,” comments Bob Slie, media director at NBC. “Our worship pastor and I attended WFX 2019 in Orlando, Florida, as they had almost a dozen audio manufacturers come in and set up in the same space, which allowed us to compare the different systems impartially.
“We were absolutely blown away by TW Audio’s then-new ELLA system, which was powered by Powersoft amplifier

Poland - The Florian Krygier Municipal Stadium has recently undergone a complete modernisation which includes the installation of a new sound system based on RCF P Series speakers.
The stadium, located in Szczecin, Poland, has a long history. It was built in 1925 with the name of Florian Krygier, named after a Polish football coach who was an instrumental figure in Pogoń Szczecin’s history.
Since the 1950s club management was under MKS Pogoń Szczecin until 1989 when Szczecin City Commune transferred operations to the Municipal Sports, Recreation and Rehabilitation Centre. Until the beginning of 2007, it was the most prominent facility in the Polish Orange Ekstraklasa football league. It is currently used for football matches and is the home stadium of Pogoń Szczecin.
The stadium itself has recently undergone a complete modernisation, so only part of the old

Kosovo - Funktion-One distributor 303.bg overcame the geographical challenges of the global pandemic to specify and install one of Kosovo’s first permanent Funktion-One sound systems. Fantazia, in Pristina, which is operated by renowned underground promoters Servis, is a bar and club concept with high quality electronic music, excellent sound and a policy of inclusivity at its core.
Servis was founded in 2016 by Leo Lumezi and Patrik Ukiq as a club night, which has expanded into a platform for different creative concepts and collaborative experiments with its crew of DJs and designers working on projects in the arts, sound, film and fashion
Lumezi explains: “Fantazia, meaning Fantasy, is the realisation of a long-term dream of ours to create a daily running home of music in Pristina, which would bring together music lovers and friends in a weekly curated programme,

USA - Based in Scottsdale, AZ, Impact Church is a fast-growing, multi-ethnic church known for high-energy worship and relevant, accessible teaching. The church recently moved into a new home, which was purpose-designed to host worship services with a focus on high quality audio, video and lighting.
The anchor point of this new AVL system is the ADJ LED video screen which fills the rear of the stage, while the lighting setup consists exclusively of fixtures from ADJ and sister company Elation Professional.
What began as a bible study for the Arizona Cardinals hosted by player Andre Wadsworth in the late 1990s was opened to the public and soon became one of the fastest growing churches in the nation. Headed up by Senior Pastor Travis Hearn, Impact Church has a reputation for diversity, authenticity and throwing a huge celebration each weekend. These gatherings have becom

Sweden - The impressive, airy Kulturhuset Spira (Culture House Spira) is a seven-story glass-and-wood structure on the banks of Lake Munksjön. Leading Swedish architect firm, Wingårdh, designed the structure that houses four stages and hosts a progressive programme of music, theatre, dance, and children’s programming, as well as serving as the headquarters for the regional Smålands Music & Theatre team.
Spira translates as ‘grow’ or ‘aspire’ and this spirit infuses the team at Spira’s desire to remain at the cutting edge of technology. When they recently embarked on an upgrade to the venue audio system, they opted for L-Acoustics Kara II.
L-Acoustics was the first and final choice of sound system for Spira. When the centre opened its doors to audiences in 2011, it was with a Kara system and it has served well in the intervening years. However, demand

UK - When London’s Adelphi Theatre re-opens later this year, it will do so with a new flying system. The refurbishment – stage one of three has involved a complete replacement of the fly tower hemp sets and a new front loading 42 set double purchase counterweight system.
With all theatres across the country having spent the last 12 months in the dark, LW Theatres and Nederlander who jointly own the Adelphi, has taken the unprecedented circumstances as an opportunity to carry out a programme of work across several of its venues. And with no shows or audiences, this has allowed for refurbishment to take place uninterrupted so that once theatres can open their doors, they can do so freely and start recouping lost revenue immediately.
Martin Skelton, technical and building services manager at The Adelphi said: “Phase one has seen the Unusual team come in to initially

Russia - Robe luminaires were selected for another cultural project, this one at the Said-Galiev Cultural Centre in Derbyshki in Kazan, the capital of the Russian semi-autonomous region of Tatarstan, an area renowned as a lively melting pot of Russian and Tatar heritage.
Robe’s Russian distributor LTM - with branches in Moscow, Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg - delivered the order of Robe Pointes, LEDBeam 150s and ParFect 150s for its client the Altin Group. LTM also undertook all the related installation and commissioning work for the Robe moving lights and other elements of the venue’s lighting that were extensively updated in this project.
The ornate Said-Galiev Cultural Centre has two main auditoriums, a main one seating 560 and a smaller 120 capacity hall and was originally built in 1959. This latest technical upgrade, which also included audio, flexible riggi

The Netherlands - Podiumtechniek B.V. has signed a contract with Nationale Opera & Ballet for the supply of 162 LED spotlights from the German brand JB-Lighting.
Deputy technical director Pieter Huijgen explains: "After years of searching for worthy replacements for the current halogen spotlights and spotlights with a discharge lamp, developments in LED stage lighting had progressed to such an extent last year that it was possible to make the switch to this form of sustainable lighting."
JB-Lighting's moving heads were also recently supplied to leading venues such as De Doelen - Rotterdam, Philharmonie - Haarlem, Schouwburg Ogterop - Meppel, De Nieuwe Schuur - Herpt and the AFAS Theater - Leusden. Many renowned stages in Germany, Austria and Scandinavia have already started using JB-Lighting LED spots.
The tender of Nationale Opera & Ballet includes JB-

USA - Attracting around 4,000 worshippers each week, Hope Church in Las Vegas opened a new, 1,750-seat auditorium worship centre and sanctuary in December 2020. The technical infrastructure was designed and installed by church technology specialists Stark Raving Solutions (SRS), who installed an Alcons Audio pro-ribbon system in the main auditorium.
At Hope Church, growth has been so significant, that in 2019, the church moved to add a fourth weekly service. With that additional service, average weekly congregation numbers grew by about 600, according to creative producer Micah Ogle.
Kansas-based SRS has installed many Alcons LR series pro-ribbon line arrays in churches. They introduced the leadership of Hope Church to Alcons solutions at a demonstration event in Las Vegas a few years ago. When SRS suggested a system based on the double 8” LR18 compact mid-size line-

USA - Passion Church, a thriving 400-congregant, multi-generational and multi-ethnic church in Casa Grande, Arizona, was in need of a complete audio, visual, and lighting systems overhaul to effectively equip its growing ministries into the future and chose Elation Fuze Pendants as part of the solution.
In early 2020, Passion Church reached out to 5 Words Media, an AVL production company based in Phoenix, to inquire about a full AVL system design. A day later, 5 Words Media sales engineer Brandon Cole met Pastor Romeo Leal on-site at Passion Church to walk the space and strategise an ideal AVL system to support their current and future needs.
“I wanted to hear the dreams Pastor Romeo had, not just for the AVL aspects of Passion Church, but for his church overall,” stated Cole. “Designing a system with the overarching vision and mission of the church in mind help

Latest Issue. . .