USA - Founded in 1908, Harvard Business School in Boston is known worldwide for its MBA and doctoral programmes. With a faculty of over 200 experienced professors and entrepreneurs, the school recently opened Klarman Hall lecture auditorium.
Designed by the architectural firm William Rawn Associates, Architects, the hall needed a lighting solution that could meet strict acoustic and performance criteria, so they worked with the design firm Theatre Projects who specified PHX 150W LED profile luminaires from Altman Lighting.
“This was a new construction project and our first time working with the Harvard Business School,” says Steven Rust, Theatre Projects’ lighting designer. “In an atmosphere where people needed to hear each other clearly throughout the hall, the criteria from the acoustician was that the lighting had to be ideally convection-cooled, or near-silent. One thing we have learned over the years is that there really is no such thing as a silent fan, so we needed to find a solution that was completely convection-cooled.
“Another challenge to the design was that the room needed to be able to function in many different configurations and be able to accommodate multiple audience sizes,” continues Rust. “First and foremost, it’s a lecture hall, but then it can also be set up in five different configurations, so the lighting needed to be able to adjust as well. I have been aware of the PHX 150W for a few years now, and the convection-cooled aspect of its design, along with its performance capabilities, really made it stand out

UK - Bacchus Bar & Club in Bishop’s Stortford’s recently brought in XS Audio Visual to design and install an extensive sound system, powered by just two amplifiers from Linea Research.
The entire project had to be completed to a tight deadline. “We had only four days to completely rip out the existing sound and lighting systems and commission a whole new nightclub sound, lighting, and video install, including relocating the DJ booth and existing TV video feeds,” recalls XSAV managing director Lee Michael.
Michael describes the Bacchus Bar as “a perfectly sized, rectangular-shaped venue that can accommodate 500 people comfortably.” On weekends, the well-established hot spot is often busy enough to reach full capacity, with DJs energizing the crowd. During the week, the club’s entertainment systems are used for karaoke and sports events.
XSAV installed a dozen Void Acoustics Venu 12 loudspeakers, suspended from cradles near the ceiling. The low end, so crucial for DJs, was a little trickier. XSAV wanted to install a pair of Void Stasys 218 subwoofers, each loaded with two 18-inch drivers. “The club was concerned that the two subwoofers be out of sight,” Michael explains, “so we had a wall built around one of them and removed parts of the small bar to accommodate the other one.”
The dozen loudspeakers handle 400W AES power each, and the two subwoofers draw up to 2,400 watts AES power. But space taken by a large amplifier rack is space not usable by patrons. XSAV had a ready solution: Linea Research’s 44C20 power ampl

China - The historic city of Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, is preparing to host the 2022 Asian Games in the largest Olympic sports centre of its kind in China. The Tennis Centre, which belongs to this complex, has recently been inaugurated with the experience and support of DAS Audio systems.
The sound system was put to the test at the official inauguration of the stadium for the 14th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) held from 11-16 December 2018.
The team at DAS Audio China worked closely with the local engineering contractor and both sides collaborated in the design and completion of the installation, which has been specially tailored for this multi-sport stadium.
The HQ series speakers with IP54 certification were chosen for the installation. The HQ series are specially designed for medium to large size installations offering tightly controlled coverage patterns, long-throw and high output capabilities. They are made for weather resistance and extended durability in extreme environments. In addition, DAS’ latest DX (100I/80I) series digital amplifier with built-in DSP processor and Dante transmission protocol were installed to improve reliability and stability.
Providing wide coverage was also essential to enhance the acoustic experience at the Tennis Centre. To this end, the system was precisely distributed throughout the facility on four clusters of two HQ212.95 flown over the east and west spectator stands, 12 clusters of two HQ212.95 flown over the north and south spectator stands, six clusters of two HQ212.95 flown

USA - Penn State’s Nittany Lion athletics programme is fiercely competitive and well-supported by the school and its alumni. In that tradition, the Penn State men and women’s lacrosse teams now practice and compete in Panzer Stadium, a new multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art facility. Its 1,300 seats are close to the action, and the entire facility is wired for modern broadcasting, which will allow Penn State to host high-profile NCAA and Big Ten championship games.
Pennsylvania-based AV design and integration firm Clair Solutions handled the broadcast infrastructure and sound reinforcement at Panzer Stadium, earning the job based in part on the proposal of Jim Devenney, Clair Solutions’ senior systems designer and in part on the successful completion of numerous other projects at Penn State.
“We originally got involved because we’ve done a lot of other work at Penn State, including 100,000-plus-seat Beaver Stadium,” Devenney explains. “The school benefited because we’re a one-stop-shop with deep in-house knowledge about the design and installation of audio and broadcast systems. In Clair’s long history, we’ve seen it all.”
Clair Solutions’ design/build worked in synergy with the larger project, which was designed by Moody Nolan, of Columbus, Ohio and APArchitects of Lemont, Pennsylvania, and built by general contractor PJ Dick of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Devenney’s design gives Panzer Stadium comprehensive connectivity via a lot of single-mode fibre, Cat 6 data, video, and audio. “The cabling itself wasn’t che

UK - On 26 January, around 3,000 worshippers gathered at London’s SSE Arena for A Day of Prayer for Britain. Led by evangelist minister David Hathaway, the event saw Christian leaders from across the UK and from abroad coming together to pray for unity in the UK.
Audio, lighting, and video for the event was handled by Subfrantic Production Services, whose Yamaha Rivage PM10 and PM7 digital mixing systems managed all live and broadcast audio.
David Hathaway’s ministry approached Subfrantic because of the company’s work at The Experience in Lagos, Nigeria - an event which attracts over 500,000 worshippers - as well as its work on other religious events in the UK.
The event ran for eight hours and featured a mix of Christian worship styles, with a band, choir, and worship leaders including David Hathaway, Betty King, Bishop John Francis, Lou Engle, musical director Phil Woolley and tenor soloist Huw Priday. This provided Subfrantic with a challenge, as the audio production had to accommodate everything from quiet words and contemplation to rousing speeches, high volume preaching, Gospel worship and different styles of music, including opera.
Front of House sound was mixed by Subfrantic managing director Steve Davies on the Rivage PM10, with Adrian Chibulcutean mixing monitors on the PM7. Tom Gardner was the system tech, with Charlie Payne patching.
“This is the third time we’ve used Rivage on a big religious event. As a mixing system it suits them so well, there’s never any concern about capacity or audio quality. It’s

UK - The Digbeth district of Birmingham city centre has long been associated with the development of the British electronic music scene. Over the years, the regeneration of many of its old buildings has seen a vibrant club culture firmly established in the area.
Located in a former church, The Monastery is described by some as the current Mecca of the Birmingham club scene. It was designed and constructed from scratch, by a team of determined, experienced ravers, motivated by a common aim to create the ultimate music destination that put art before profit. An instinct for moving with the times informed their decision to seek a new sound system for the popular 200 capacity venue. The Monastery chose a Pioneer Pro Audio XY Series system.
The pre-existing system looked the part and had served its purpose reasonably well but the sense was that audiences have become far more discerning where audio is concerned and it was important to deliver sonic excellence that could keep pace with highest expectation. The club’s developers had witnessed the impact of Pioneer Pro Audio systems in action in some leading venues in Ibiza and had been impressed by their exceptional power and clarity.
Installer, Paul Adamson of The Audio Group, was engaged to install the system, which comprised two XY-3B speakers and four XY218HS subs. On this occasion, the XY-3Bs were flown horizontally with their horns rotated, in order to obtain optimal coverage. The system also includes four XY-122 12” two-way speakers for monitoring and delay and is driven by Powersoft amplificati

China - Shantou University in Guangdong features a 52,000sq.m sports stadium complex, the Shantou University Sports Park. It includes an international competition-standard gymnasium complete with basketball courts, multipurpose halls, swimming pools and VIP boxes.
This year, the stadium played host to the university’s 2018 graduation commencement emboldened by the retirement farewell ceremony for Shing - complete with a substantial, and mobile, Clair Brothers C12 and C8 loudspeaker system.
After several close inspection reviews of top brands, DMT, the Clair Brothers distributor in China presented the powers that be with a demo of components. “It was obvious,” explains Chris Fish, technical director at DMT, “that the Clair Brothers gear was making a real impression compared to the other systems.”
The final equipment list at the venue consists of a 32 Clair Brothers C12 full-frequency line arrays, 16 C8 full-frequency line arrays, 16 iS218 low-frequency line arrays and eight Clair Brothers 1AM stage monitors, accompanied by SSL L500 and L300 consoles, Clair Brothers/Lab.gruppen PLM amplifiers, Sennheiser wireless systems and DPA microphones.
In order to meet the requirements of various stage settings in the sports park, the C12s can be used in numerous combinations including modes such as left and right expansion of the mains, plus side-fill, or left and right expansion of the mains, plus delay tower. Additionally, the C8s can be used as an independent system combined with the lows of the iS218s when less than half of the audience f

USA - Led by Pastor Jeff Crook, Christ Place Church in Flowery Branch, Georgia, has been serving the community since 1955 by providing a safe place for everyone to come together in worship. The church recently finished construction on their new sanctuary, designed to use the latest in technology to reach a growing congregation.
Requiring a theatrical lighting design that could create the ideal worship environment and front light for their high-definition video capabilities, the church worked with the AVL integration specialists PRODUCTION/co who designed a new lighting system using PHX 250W LED profile luminaires from Altman Lighting.
“We’ve worked with the church on everything from student camps to smaller jobs, so when they began with the construction of their new sanctuary, we were brought on board to oversee the complete audio, video and lighting integration,” comments Dustin Whitt, PRODUCTION/co. “We had seen the PHX LED in a fixture demo and were impressed with both its output and quality of light across the beam field, plus it has an attractive price-point as well.”
“We had reviewed a lot of the competing products, and while we found that some weren’t really reliable enough, we also didn’t like the white’s created by others,” adds Cason Cleveland, PRODUCTION/co. “When we saw the PHX LED profile luminaires, they gave us the ideal output, consistency and performance.”
“The stage itself measures between 42ft and 56ft from upstage to downstage, and is approximately 90-feet wide,” continues Whitt. “There are the

UK - London’s Ministry of Sound (MoS) has upgraded its lighting control with Avolites Arena and Quartz consoles.
The South East London nightclub has been at the heart of the capital’s scene for almost 30 years. Household name DJs and performers are a mainstay of its offering, backed by serious sound and uplifting lighting.
International technical event production company Bigabox drew on its longstanding relationship with MoS to realise the enhancement of lighting control options in the club’s two main rooms - The 103 and The Box.
“It was my recommendation the MoS team got Avolites consoles for their largest-capacity spaces and that’s precisely what they did,” says Bigabox Productions’ director, Dean Graves. “The guys at Avolites are helpful, informative, passionate and incredible people to work with. It was imperative their products were in the Ministry.”
Oliver Young, lighting technician at MoS, comments: “We needed something which could work with the freelance lighting operators we have and the diverse events we have coming through the door.
“The Avolites Arena is the perfect console for club nights in The Box with its huge amount of faders, and the second screen is great for when we have corporate events because we can have our cue stack there while using the main touch screen for everything else. It’s amazing having the use of Avolites’ simple-to-use features such as Key Frame Shapes and a large amount of DMX outputs - we can make anything possible.”
As the name suggests, the Arena is designed for

UK - East of England Arena Events Centre (EEAEC) has announced a collaboration with Pearce Hire. The EEAEC is one of the UK’s top event venues, hosting over 300 events, conferences and meetings a year. The multi-purpose events complex sboasts over 9,000sq.m of indoor space and over 250 acres of outside space. With significant and ongoing investment in the venue and its infrastructure, the venue has appointed Pearce Hire as a preferred contractor working throughout the complex.
“With our HQ based in Peterborough we are ideally placed geographically to offer an outstanding level of service and support to the venue, to the organisers putting on events at the venue, and to the exhibitors at all the major trade and consumer exhibitions which take place here throughout the year,” observes Shaun Pearce, managing director, Pearce Hire.
“Having provided services for many years to the EEAEC, we are familiar with the venue, and understand the requirements of many of their regular event organisers coming through the doors year on year. We are delighted to have now stepped onto a more significant footing and to be linked more closely with the venue.”
Jason Lunn, venue director for EEAEC, explains: “Pearce Hire and EEAEC share the same goal to provide the best services possible to our customers. We consider Pearce Hire’s overall production services to be a faultless and wide-ranging offer. We note with pride that the touring productions which come into our venue always rate them very highly.”
(Jim Evans)

UK - Olympia London, the home of the PLASA Show, will undergo a £1billion transformation that will turn the exhibition centre into a 'world-leading cultural hub'.
The plans, which include two major venues and a host of arts, office and retail spaces, were approved by Hammersmith & Fulham Council on 31 January. The venue will remain open throughout the works, Olympia London has confirmed, with "no disruption to any trade show" held there. 
Peter Heath, PLASA managing director, comments: “We wholeheartedly welcome this news from Olympia and are excited to see how the classic venue evolves and expands over the next few years.
"We have seen PLASA Show rapidly grow each year since it moved to the west London venue in 2016. This announcement provides more opportunity for growth and secures the show's place in the international calendar for the long-term.”
The project, set to be carried out over the course of five years, will see upgrades to the existing spaces and the creation of a 1,500-seat theatre, a 1,000-seat performing arts venue, two hotels, a cinema, a 200,000sq.ft logistics centre and 670,000sq.ft of office space.
The scheme is financed by Olympia owners YOO Capital and Deutsche Finance International, with architects Heatherwick Studio and SPPARC leading the design and implementation.
PLASA Show returns to Olympia London from 15-17 September. For more information, please visit www.plasashow.com.

Australia - The Burdekin Theatre is the home for arts and entertainment in Burdekin, playing host to a diverse range of live performances including musicals, plays and rock concerts. The venue also hosts conferences and seminars, plus local events such as dance recitals, school award nights, and more.
The theatre features a 473-seat auditorium with proscenium arch and orchestra pit, supported by a professional technical staff. When it came time to upgrade its sound system, Clair Brothers topped the list after a competitive review of major loudspeaker brands.
David Luscombe, theatre technician, at Burdekin Theatre, explains: “As time went on, I knew our old system was reaching the end of its life expectancy. It just wasn’t keeping up with our ever-rising standards. I saw it as an opportunity to upgrade, so I took a listen to several top brands before I got the opportunity to experience an in-person demo with Wayne Grosser, the Clair Brothers’ audio and design consultant here in Australia. After hearing the system Wayne proposed, I was sold.”
The proposed configuration was an LCR system which would give the venue and its engineers total flexibility and headroom, while using Dante to drive the system from their Allen & Heath iLive console. Grosser says: “My design approach was to use the same speaker elements in all three main hangs horizontally arrayed, which fitted within the theatre’s proscenium.
“The new system’s top kiT12s on each hang are 60 x 40 degrees and the bottom kiT12s were 90 x 40 degrees. Each kiT12 is in bi-am

Russia - Since being founded 2012, the Moscow Musical Theatre has earned a considerable reputation for its original productions and unusual approaches to classic stories.
Just in time for the 2018/19 season, the Musical Theatre has made a new home for itself in the remodelled and refurbished Rossiya Theatre on Moscow's Pushkinskaya Square - one of the most frequented squares in the world. This new venue has an opportunity for the sound department to push the creative potential of the theatre to a new level by installing the first permanent theatrical installation of L-Acoustics’ L-ISA technology.
The theatre’s repertoire ranges from a rock opera production of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment to a fusion of circus performance with operetta and musical genres in The Circus Princess, and a re-telling of Cinderella.
The new sound installation will enable the sound department to take advantage of object-based, multi-dimensional mixing, with realistic and distinct localisation of audio objects, driven natively from its DiGiCo SD10 console using Desk Link L-ISA integration.
Head of sound Maria Lenarskaya sees this new chapter as a natural evolution of the sound department's culture of innovation: "Our theatre is growing rapidly. New productions appear regularly, and every year we always try to do something new, to step forward somehow."
The challenge of specifying the PA system for the new venue was given to Stage Audio, a long-standing partner of the theatre. Along with the client's creative requirements, maximum a

Hungary - Madách Theatre (or Madách Színház), one of the most popular musical theatres in Budapest, has recently undergone a major audio upgrade with several Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing systems.
The 800-seat venue holds around 350 performances a year, in front of approximately 500,000 visitors and stages some of the biggest international musicals, including works by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and is currently premiering dLive’s capabilities in Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock production.
Supplied by Allen & Heath’s Hungarian distributors, Audmax, the installation features three dLive Surfaces, three MixRacks, eight Expanders and several ME Personal Monitoring systems, which allow for the independent mixing of vocals, orchestra and IEM / stage monitors.
“The requirements of this installation were quite complex. Madách needed a system that allowed for four independent mixing systems, which could also work together. This meant we needed something with a very high level of flexibility, a large number of channels and a common “language” for inter-connections. Allen & Heath’s dLive system has so many options which allow for a flexible and easy workflow, it was the perfect solution,” comments Krisztian Varga, system designer and managing director at Audmax.
FOH comprises two dLive S7000s; one controlling sound for the orchestra and the other handling vocals and additional musical performers. Tamás Ditzmann (leading sound engineer at Madách) adds: “dLive was chosen for many reasons. The ability to have a l

The Netherlands - Fifty years ago, ‘t Spant was established as the first theatre in Bussum, a town 30km from Amsterdam. The venue now hosts a wide range of theatre, live music and television productions, as well as conventions and other corporate events. One of the few unsubsidised theatres in the Netherlands, it is celebrating its golden anniversary with a new, completely updated Yamaha digital mixing system.
‘t Spant was built in 1969 as a home for local music, theatre and operetta associations. This was replaced by a new building in 1980, which was further refurbished and renamed simply Spant in the 2000s, before the venue was bought by its managing director Paul Haighton and financial director Bert Dijkstra.
Spant has two theatres, the 780-seat Podium 1 and 275-seat podium 2. It hosts around 100 theatre performances and 200 conferences and other events each year. These include many well-known Dutch productions and corporate events for local, national and international businesses.
Most productions use Spant’s own technical inventory. For many years, the sound in Podium 1 was mixed on a Yamaha M7CL digital mixing console and on an 01V96 in Podium 2. Both were always very reliable so, when upgrading the audio system was planned for the end of 2018, Spant technical manager Marcel Scheewe and head of sound Jan-Willem van Vorst had no hesitation in choosing Yamaha again.
Marcel, Jan and sound engineer Frans Grollé looked at a number of options, choosing a system of two Yamaha QL5s and a QL1, two Rio1608-D2 and one Rio3224-D2 I/O units an

USA - California rental company Rat Sound Systems has decided to purchase some Newton 16+8, Outline’s FPGA-based processing platform.
Jon Monson, project manager at Rat Sound Systems states: "Rat Sound has been searching for several years for a solution to drive our festival sound systems and Outline has met the challenge with an elegant solution. With the Newton we can combine consoles and drive outputs in a multitude of popular formats, and we appreciate all the various clocking options.
“Our system engineers instantly appreciated the intuitive, easy to use software control. Rat has immediately started deploying Newtons on a multitude of festivals, and we plan on utilising them on all our festival events in 2019 and beyond."
Top bands, performers and venues serviced by the company from Camarillo, including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Warped Tour, Weezer, Queens of the Stone Age, Jack Johnson, Coachella, Ben Harper, Bryan Adams, Jimmy Eat World, Paramount Studios, Macy’s and The Pomona Fox Theater.
(Jim Evans)

UK - Adlib’s installation division are part of a team which has helped to deliver Europe’s first installed L-Acoustics L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound system at EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney), a vibrant new arts centre for live music, mixed arts, and performance located in the former Savoy cinema in Dalston, east London.
Adlib worked closely with client Auro Foxcroft and his team, with support from L-Acoustics’ sales manager, Paul McMullan and applications engineers, Jeff Woodford (installation) and Sergey Becker (touring) to specify and install the 360° L-ISA system with the aim of delivering an all-round audio experience for audiences and artists alike.
EartH is the brainchild of Auro, champion of Hackney nightlife and founder of Shoreditch venue Village Underground, a commercially successful, sustainable and community driven initiative that also provides affordable workspaces for artists and creatives.
Adlib director John Hughes comments: “When we first made contact with Auro, we were looking at a standard left-right configuration for both upstairs and downstairs spaces”. However, when Auro met Paul and Jeff from L-Acoustics on site, they highlighted how perfect the venue was for an L-ISA configuration.
Having an exceptional sound system was always central to Auro’s plan to reinvent the building as he understands the importance of sonic excellence and in making a performance something truly memorable rather than just a show, a gig or a night out!
“After a visit to hear L-ISA in action in Highgate, the EartH team w

Ireland - Early last year the INEC Killarney venue, the largest music and multi-purpose venue in Ireland outside Dublin, worked with AC Entertainment Technologies to fit a complete new lighting rig which featured a full fixtures range, cabling infrastructure and lighting control console.
Since Gavin James, the first artist to use the rig, many other big names have played at the INEC. Snow Patrol, Nathan Carter, Una Healy (the Saturdays), Jimmy Carr, Walking on Cars and Jake Carter have all subsequently performed at the INEC, with their production teams enjoying the benefits of a full existing rig at their disposal.
Mark Egan, director of corporate and leisure events at INEC says: “The lighting rig has been incredibly well received. The feedback we’ve had from LDs has been fantastic.”
The Prolights fixtures form the cornerstone of the rig, which uses a variety of moving lights including Pixie Wash and Diamond 19 RGBW LED wash lights, Luma 1500 LED profiles and Ruby discharge beam lights. These were supplemented with StudioCOB FC full-colour LED pars and Solar IP65-rated LED wash lights.
AC-ET supplied all lighting fixtures, complete with flight cases, clamps, safety bonds and replacement lamps, plus the lighting control console - an Avolites Arena - and DMX signal distributors. Power and DMX signal cabling was supplied by Tourflex Cabling, AC-ET’s in-house cable manufacturing service.
(Jim Evans)

UK - As one of the UK’s premiere performance venues, the National Theatre (NT) presents a wide-ranging programme. In 2018 a new permanent structure for corporate and other events was added to the roof space known as The Deck. A flexible audio system based on the Yamaha MRX7-D matrix processor has been installed, thanks partly to the unit’s success in providing show relay throughout the NT’s three theatres and other spaces.
Previously occupied by a pavilion-like tented structure, The Deck’s views across the River Thames to the City of London make it a popular rental space for corporate gatherings, product launches, parties and weddings. Last year, the NT redeveloped the space by installing a bespoke permanent structure with state of the art sound and lighting. The audio solution is based on the Yamaha MRX7-D, with control via an iPad running a custom-designed ProVisionaire Touch interface.
The NT has relied on Yamaha equipment for audio processing and routing for many years. Ten years after they were first installed, several DME series digital mixing engines are still reliably working at various locations, while MRX7-Ds on a Dante network play a key role in show relay and audio routing throughout the NT’s complex of three theatres, studios, foyer, bookshop, restaurants and bars.
“There is an MRX7-D in the central control room and one each in the Olivier, Lyttelton and Dorfman theatres, all installed to provide a flexible and reliable system for show relay,” says Dom Bilkey, the NT’s head of sound and video.
Controlled by both iP

France - Arena Pays d'Aix is a modern, multi-purpose venue which can house audiences of up to 8500. Designed to host a wide range of events, a Yamaha and Nexo audio system delivers quality, flexible audio throughout the arena complex.
Located close to the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence, the outside of Arena Pays d'Aix presents a futuristic vision, its clean, sweeping lines contrasting with the surrounding countryside of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It has quickly become a popular destination for sport and entertainment from throughout the region, including nearby Marseille, France’s third largest city.
Designed by architect Christophe Gulizzi, the vision of the future continues inside, where a modular format allows the 4000m2 interior space to offer 17 different configurations, depending on the type of event being hosted.
The main space (Grande Salle, unofficially nicknamed The Cauldron) is the home of the Pays d'Aix University handball club, which competes in Division 1 of the Ligue Nationale de Handball. Featuring an audience capacity of up to 7000, it can be configured to host a wide range of other events, including tennis, wrestling, indoor motocross, live concerts, ballet and much more.
Arena Pays d'Aix also features a secondary arena (Salle Annex) with room for up to 1500 spectators, as well as three exhibition / event spaces which can hold up to 450 people each, bars / concessions and a press room. The main concourse (La Coursive) can also be used to host events, with a capacity of 1,800 people.
The venue’s interior d

UK - Stage Electrics has announced it has won a £2m contract for the supply and installation of specialist production lighting and audio-visual infrastructure for Riverside Studios, Hammersmith.
The broadcast, arts and entertainment venue closed in 2014 for demolition and redevelopment and is scheduled to fully reopen its doors again in 2019. The new 90,000 sq. ft. Riverside Studios will comprise three studios, small, medium and large, as well as public and community spaces including a two-screen cinema, rehearsal space and a number of restaurants and bars.
The design of the medium studio is particularly flexible allowing for the easy alternation between theatre, music, events and television. During the consultancy phase of the project, Stage Electrics advised on the supporting infrastructure to allow it to function as a multipurpose space. The smaller studio is intended to be mainly used as a theatrical space, with broadcast facilities being integrated into the audio-visual facility panels.
The package also includes a high-quality PA system for the public areas of the building, rigging systems for the smaller studio & the Cinema.
Starting on site in early 2019, working for main contractor, Mount Anvil, Stage Electrics’ work will facilitate the installations of the broadcast systems integrator, ATG Danmon and TV lighting hoist integrator, DeSisti.
(Jim Evans)

The Netherlands - Blumano, engineering consultancy for design and safety in the entertainment Industry is expanding its operation with the announcement of Blumano Netherlands. This prime west European base will work in close collaboration with the existing offices of Blumano in the UK and in Italy.
Michiel van der Zijde is joining the ever-expanding organisation, who in addition to his extensive knowledge of stage machinery, brings a background in project management to the dynamic equation. He is an industry professional and has an impressive track record in production design and product development spanning over 20 years with experience working as a technical producer with industry leading brands.
“We share the same core values - a commitment to excellence, a passion for what we do and a dedication to making our industry a safe working environment. It’s the art of finding the optimum balance between creativity and pushing the envelope in safe and practical scenarios” commented Michiel.
The team worked with Michiel on several projects including the 2018 Beyoncé and Jay-Z On the Run II tour, which is where they noticed his erudite approach to project management and substantial knowledge of technical co-ordination, calm character, and the ability to source cost-efficient engineering solutions that do not compromise on safety.
Blumano is specialised in atypical technical frameworks - all of the areas that standard engineering companies might choose not to handle. This often includes dealing with performer flying, moving elements above aud

USA - Named after local businessman and philanthropist Jerry Scheidegger, the J. Scheidegger Centre for the Arts on the campus of St. Charles, Missouri’s Lindenwood University, is a $32m educational and performing arts complex.
The 138,000sq.ft facility’s main theatre, the 1,200-seat Lindenwood Theatre, can be a challenging acoustical space, with its high interior and ceiling weight load restrictions. The school’s ambitious theatre programme also adds its own specialised requirements. An L-Acoustics Kara sound system recently installed there by St Louis-based Logic Systems addresses both the acoustic and artistic requirements with ease.
According to Logic Systems president Chip Self, the Kara system was both the venue’s choice as well as his recommendation. “We have a long-time relationship with the school as their rental systems vendor, so we’ve been able to show them a number of different systems in the theatre over the years,” he explains. “When they heard the Kara, they knew that was the one they wanted to go with.”
The new system consists of a LCR front array, with nine Kara enclosures topped by three SB18 subs for the left and right hangs, and six Kara topped by a pair of SB18 in the centre, all powered by five LA8 amplified controllers. The PA, which is designed to be a 5.1 system, also has two pairs of self-powered, coaxial 112P speakers as left and right surrounds for the balcony and the main floor areas, while ultra-compact 5XT speakers are used as front fills and are powered by an LA4 amplified controller.
Brian B

USA - Covenant Presbyterian Church in Monroe, Louisiana had a welcome problem: its congregation had outgrown the 175-seat sanctuary that had served as its home for over 60 years years. The church is philosophically opposed to holding multiple services every weekend because that solution would sever many of the community connections that come with a single service attended by the entire congregation.
Overflow into the Fellowship Hall served as a stopgap measure, but it would not engender the right kinds of connections and togetherness in the long run. Thus, Covenant’s new 400-seat sanctuary solves its most pressing problem, but the new sanctuary’s generous reverb created another potential problem: intelligibility.
The AV integration division of Matt’s Music, also of Monroe, solved that potential problem by using Danley Sound Labs loudspeakers.
“Covenant wanted a cathedral-type space with a lot of ambience that would match the aesthetics of its older, smaller sanctuary,” explains Tony Cortellini, manager of the contracting division at Matt’s Music. “There was going to be a lot of stone, brick, and wood, which was going to look amazing. However, I was concerned that the space was going to be too reverberant. The church opted not to bring in an acoustical engineer and they declined my suggestions for acoustical treatments in favour of the visual aesthetic. In the end, we agreed to do the best we could without any adjustments to the acoustics, and we could revisit the issue if the best wasn’t good enough.”
Cortellini continues: