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South Africa - Heartfelt Arena, a 4,500-seater venue in Pretoria, and technical supplier AJR Audio have stood together in protest by hosting events, without making a profit, to prove how shows can safely continue during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In July, Eugene Pienaar from Heartfelt Arena and Altus Janse van Rensburg, owner of AJR and the venue’s in-house technical supplier, hosted a drive-in church service which saw 210 cars attending the event.
In August, the team took it further. They applied tape on the venue’s floor to mark out blocks and walkways. A table with chairs was placed within each block. Each block would host a family. They then held five sold-out shows for Neverland Circus, a circus that combines the traditional Brazilian, South African and a few international circus acts, also known for reaching out to less privileged communities and charities across

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USA - When professional basketball resumed in the US during the coronavirus pandemic, the NBA protected its players by establishing a ‘bubble’ isolation zone at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida. Although the general public was not permitted in the stands at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex where the games were held, fans were glad to be able to watch the season’s televised final games and the playoffs once again.
Fuse Technical Group, which supplied all the court video systems, provided four programmers with an arsenal of grandMA hardware to play back and trigger various assets and effects during the games: five grandMA3 full-size units with one MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) plus two grandMA2 full-size and one grandMA2 light consoles, the latter as backup systems and the tech desk.
Three basketball courts were created in the sports complex with gi
Nexo - Main Banner - June 2024

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USA - Tom Sutherland was back on the set of Dancing with the Stars recently, lighting his second season of the American reality dance competition for the ABC network. Lead designer at DX7 Design, Sutherland, who used Elation lighting on last season’s show, again turned to Elation fixtures to light the myriad of dances while finding a visual solution to fill empty audience space.
“There were some challenges this year as there was no audience, which usually plays a big role in the show. Nobody, especially in television, likes black holes,” said Sutherland. “When you have an expensive set that looks like a million dollars, you don’t want to sacrifice that by a few dodgy shots. With HD cameras and 360-degree looks we have to make sure we have all our bases covered.”
Dead space on the set was something Sutherland was especially wary of when lighting this

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Sweden - Visual design studio PXLFLD recently deployed Hippotizer Media Servers from Green Hippo to provide the visual backdrop for a secret party and live performance by singer-songwriter Veronica Maggio.
Conceived by Red Bull, the exclusive event, staged at the Nobis Hotel in central Stockholm, was available only to fans who completed a treasure-hunt-like series of tasks.
Nikolaj Brink, Maggio’s lighting designer and a recent addition to the PXLFLD team, was responsible for the event’s show design, and called in his colleagues to deliver the show’s visual playback elements. But with the limitations imposed by Covid-19, this was a show with a difference.
PXLFLD’s Anders Granström explains, “The stage was built in the hotel’s grand lobby. To maintain social distancing, the audience enjoyed the concert from their hotel rooms, looking down at the perfo

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USA - New England audio production company, Paddle Out Productions is in the middle of a 16-week contract with M.E. Productions at the Cheshire Fairgrounds drive-in music venue - a huge open field, allowing up to 425 cars parked in every other space - hosting performances from the likes of Guster and Grace Potter. To ensure every spectator could enjoy the live performances, Paddle Out Productions deployed its recently expanded Martin Audio WPM system.
Organising such an event in a large and socially distanced space has had its challenges for the events team, and Ryan Burhans of Paddle Out Productions admits that in a space like Cheshire Fairground, sound quality and audience coverage were his top priorities. “I was nervous with the size of the field that we weren’t going to fill those ‘rock and roll’ shoes that are expected now and again,” he explains. “For examp

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Italy - The Green Carpet Fashion Awards (GCFA), organised by Italian fashion body, Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana and sustainability consultancy, Eco Age, traditionally presents a star-studded celebration of sustainability in the fashion industry during Milan’s Fashion Week.
This year, the Awards’ ethos of togetherness was upheld with a revolutionary show designed by NorthHouse incorporating cinematic footage with augmented reality, visual FX and hologram technology provided by AHRT Media. The show was directed by Giorgio Testi and produced by Livia firth and Pulse Films.
NorthHouse, a creative studio focused on design and direction for live shows, put forward the concept to overcome the restrictions in place due to the global pandemic. The studio’s ideas saw Milan’s La Scala transformed into a vibrant magical garden.
Founder and creative director o

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France - Silence is often elicited by the sight of the Louis Vuitton Foundation building, Frank Gehry’s stunning architectural gem in Paris. Soaring skyward like the giant sails of a great ship, the distinctive structure inspires a quiet, cathedral-like reverence through the sheer power of its design.
Inside the expansive auditorium section of Louis Vuitton Foundation, silence is not only a natural response to the room’s beauty, it also quiet desirable - enriching the experience of hearing performances by internationally renowned artists like Yuja Wang, and Vladimir Spivakov that take place within its walls.
It was with this desire for utter quietness in mind that Prodster recently installed 14 Chauvet Professional Maverick Silens 2 Profile fixtures inside this performance space. The 560W fanless fixture operates in complete silence, making it well-suited for this

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Greece - The National Theatre of Greece (NTG) staged three acclaimed performances of Aeschylus’s The Persians - first produced in 472 BCE - in July at the ancient Epidaurus open-air amphitheatre, complete with a fully socially distanced audience - of 4,500 instead of the usual 10,000 capacity, who enjoyed the drama and energy of live performance in this classic tragedy.
Lighting designer Christina Thanasoula chose Robe LEDBeam 150s to add flexibility and multiple options to her design, placing 10 of the fixtures in the footlights position around the front of the stage floor.
All three shows, directed by Dimitris Lignadis (artistic director for the NTG), were fully sold out, and the second night’s performance was live-streamed worldwide with support from the Greek Ministry of Culture in partnership with Google Greece as part of the 2020 Athens and Epidaurus

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Japan - Bringing out the beauty and diversity of the underwater world, Art Aquarium hired TSP Taiyo to integrate and install a Martin by Harman lighting solution that delivered stunning visuals and a mesmerizing experience for guests.
Since its inception in 2007 and subsequent shows every year after, the Art Aquarium has emerged as a summer tradition in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. However, stretching beyond the base of Nihonbashi, Art Aquarium producer and artist, Hidetomo Kimura, has seen his exhibit on display in countries around the world.
The shows take place every year with previous locations including Milan, Italy, Shanghai, China, Nihonbashi Mitsui Hall, Kyoto’s Nijo-jo Castle and the 21st-Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. To enhance the exhibit, Art Aquarium hired TSP Taiyo to integrate and install a Martin Professional lighting solution that ‘provided u

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Belgium - Allen & Heath Avantis and SQ mixing systems have been installed as part of a major update of Music Centre De Bijloke in Gent.
The venue reopened in September, resuming its role as a focal point for classical music in the region following a one-year refurbishment. Although Music Centre De Bijloke has been hosting performances since 1988, the building dates all the way back to 1228, when it served as a hospital.
A team of experts has enhanced the experience for performers and audiences in the main performance hall, going so far as to lower the floor and install extensive wood panelling to bring its unruly acoustics into the twenty-first century without detracting from its medieval oak ceiling and stone walls.
With the acoustics finely honed, the venue turned to its AV partners, City Sound Rent, to identify a mixing system capable of delivering excelle

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USA - As the Henrico County, Virginia school system slowly rolls out a turf upgrade for all of its high school football stadiums, the Deep Run High School Wildcats are the lucky recipients of the first upgrade. Attendance at the games is a regular part of Friday-night football culture in the suburban-Richmond area.
To give a sense of its size, the Deep Run stadium held over 8,000 people for a Sarah Palin rally in 2008. As part of the entire upgrade, Deep Run High School local AV integration firm RTW Media installed a new, concert-level sound reinforcement system comprised of Danley Sound Labs OS80 fully-weatherised loudspeakers and stand-shaking TH118XL subwoofers. The other schools in Henrico County will follow Deep Run’s lead in the coming years.
“High school football is a huge part of life in southern Virginia,” explained Zack Guida, logistics manager at RTW M

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Australia - The Pilbeam Theatre in Rockhampton, Queensland, is a lively performing arts hub for the city and region. Located in a commanding position fronting onto the Fitzroy River, before the coronavirus pandemic dramatically impacted on all areas of performing arts the venue regularly presented a diverse mix of drama, dance, musical, concerts and comedy productions in its main 1000 capacity auditorium, and they also invested in Robe T1 PC wash moving lights.
These are replacing 12 tungsten moving head washes – from a competitor brand – as part of a general lighting upgrade which is part of a programme to transition to LED.
Jim Thorogood is the theatre’s head of lighting. The venue is both a producing and a receiving house, and he lights most of the shows produced there. Jim was integrally involved in the specification of the T1 PCs together with Ashley Salta w

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Greece - Athens football club Olympiacos celebrated the 45th championship title in its history by sending a message of hope and optimism to its supporters in Piraeus, all of Greece and around the world.
A spectacular televised show, filled with light and music, was staged in the empty G. Karaiskakis Stadium where the team demolished a coronavirus pandemic “wall” and fans joined players virtually to raise the championship trophy. Claypaky Mythos 2 fixtures contributed to this Lights of Hope ceremony and its theme of overcoming obstacles to emerge triumphant.
George Tellos, lighting designer with Lighting Art Athens, was responsible for the programming and lighting coordination for the show. He selected Claypaky Mythos 2 fixtures over two other moving light candidates for their performance across long distances. “I was astounded by them,” he says. “I had seen

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Columbia - Drive-in concerts have become popular in the wake of Covid-19 lockdowns. So too have livestream shows. Orbit Eventos combined the two formats this September, in a show that offered fans the choice of watching at home via a livestream, or enjoying the DJ and band performances from their automobiles at a simultaneous drive-in show.
Collaborating with Orbit Eventos, Colombian producer, Ricardo Ruiz, who has worked with leading Latin stars like Justin Quiles, Darkiel, Victor Manuelle and Grupo Niche, created the dual-purpose show at a park south of the city of Cali. Although the two-hour event offered fans the best of both worlds, it did present some special concerns for lighting designer Milton de la Cruz, who had to balance the demands of creating looks that were bold enough to reach the spread-out drive-in audience, yet tight enough to work on a livestream.

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South Africa - Rokunda Netshiluvhi of DirectorRo has managed to ride the COVID-19 wave and come out tops, using this time to learn, establish himself as a lighting designer and set up a virtual platform at Vision View Productions based in Cosmo Business Park, Johannesburg.
Rokunda resigned from full-time employment at rental company Murangi Productions and started his own company as a freelancer in November 2019. “I decided to register myself as a business so that I could be accountable in everything I do,” he explains. “If freelancers pay attention, they can do what I’m doing. It starts off by thinking of yourself as a business instead of living hand-to-mouth.
“Many freelancers rely on receiving a phone call and being booked for an event. They think that to get work, someone has to call, instead of thinking let me try and make something myself, let me pitch

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USA - In Sioux City, Iowa, BNY Productions has been working in their production studio remotely broadcasting an average of 100 live and virtual ‘hybrid’ events per week for the past six months. As high-profile candidates travel throughout the United States for political rallies and speeches, BNY Productions has relied on Meyer Sound Bluehorn System full bandwidth studio monitors for accuracy and precision every step along the way.
BNY, a Meyer Sound dealer and collaborator, is a full-service production company, delivering events that vary from phone and television interviews, video conferencing, and remote recordings. The circumstances called for an audio system that would deliver transparent and linear phase response. The Meyer Sound Bluehorn System was the optimal solution for BNY and their clients.
“Bluehorn eliminates the guesswork. So if it sounds good here,

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Australia - Sunstudios in Sydney, is a diverse creative hub for the photographic and motion picture / imaging industries and creatives. Owned by Canon Australia, the Sydney facility offers five studio spaces plus camera and lighting rentals, CPS service, a gallery space as well as fine art printing and other specialist services.
With the video elements of the business expanding, explained sales manager Zoltan Blazer, they sought more flexible and practical options for lighting, and were hearing good reports about Astera’s wireless battery-operated LED product range from several sources.
So, he and motion specialist Neale Head thought they should take a further look for themselves.
Astera’s Australian distributor ULA group arranged a demo and the Titan range of LED tubes “really impressed us” stated Zoltan, “and after seeing this we knew we wanted this

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USA - In mid-August, Matchroom Boxing and sports streaming service DAZN placed a boxing ring in the middle of the street in downtown Tulsa for a night of fighting action that gave a whole new meaning to street fighting. Omni Lighting in Tulsa was called on to light the event for co-producers Matchroom and DAZN and chose to support the action using an adaptable rig of Elation lights. Holden Productions promoted the event locally.
There are few things more exhilarating than a good boxing match where two evenly matched opponents go toe to toe to see who’s got the most grit. Tension runs high and the excitement level is at a peak both leading up to and during a bout. That suspense is the result of a number of factors, not least the lighting environment, which can ratchet up the fervour one moment then settle to put clear focus on the task at hand once the bouts begin.

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UK - Veteran broadcaster Johnnie Walker has chosen the RØDE RØDECaster Pro all-in-one podcast production studio to professionally record his weekly BBC Radio 2 show Sounds of the 70s, from his home in Dorset.
Hosted by Walker since 2009, Sounds of the 70s shares a portion of the over 14m weekly listeners to BBC Radio 2 on FM, DAB and the BBC Sounds app. Responding to a need to record the programme remotely in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Walker sought a solution from retailer Solid State Sound based in Warminster, Wiltshire, who recommended the RØDECaster Pro.
Walker co-presents with wife Tiggy Walker in their home, creating an ad-hoc studio environment to record the programme. The RØDECaster Pro allows for up to four in-studio guests to record professional, Aphex DSP-enhanced sound at the touch of a button, with remote guests - via bluetooth on

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Japan - The Kaho Theatre in Iizuka City, Fukuoka, has survived many difficulties since the original building appeared in1922 and along the way this playhouse has been designated a Japanese ‘national registered tangible cultural property’.
The predecessor of the current Kaho Theatre, Nakaza, was originally opened as an entertainment place for people working in coal mines in the Chikuho region. Mainly traditional drama, Kabuki, standup comedy, juggling and silent films were performed during that era.
In recent years, it has been used as a multi-purpose event venue, and at full capacity can host audiences of 1,200. In addition to traditional performing arts, various events such as music plays, lectures, talk shows and concerts have all been staged there.
Because of Covid-19, the theatre was recently forced to close, but in collaboration with rental company, Toy

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UAE - ETC lighting solutions have been selected for the new TV studios of news channel Al Arabiya. ETC dealer, Oasis Enterprises supplied the equipment including a Sensor3 Power Control system, a Gio @5 Eos-family control console, Response Mk2 DMX Gateways and DataTrack Backbone system.
The TV studios, located in Dubai, had the full ETC lighting equipment installed in just three weeks with the help of Oasis Enterprises who have worked in collaboration with Al Arabiya for almost twelve years.
Lighting manager at Al Arabiya, Safwan Harcouss commented on the installation: “The news programme is a 24-hour show and requires the best and most reliable equipment. Having worked successfully with ETC products in the past, we are confident that the new additions will perform well.”
Last year, the Al Arabiya news station added an Eos Ti console desk to its production st

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USA - Chris ‘Thumper’ Hathaway made the backdrop created for Blackberry Smoke’s Leave A Scar LP an integral part of his design for their performance at the Starlight Drive-in outside Pittsburgh. Aside from that, the colourful backdrop also helped him create a compelling look for the show, despite the small size of the drive-in stage, especially when it was enlivened by the eight Chauvet Professional Maverick Strom 1 Wash fixtures in his rig.
“I have always been a big fan of backdrops, especially for Blackberry Smoke, given the nature of the band’s sound,” said Hathaway. “This one was designed by the band’s drummer, Brit Turner, as album cover art. It’s a blow-through and has become our go-to piece for outdoor shows, including this one, even though it’s supporting a new album.
“A thing I really like about this backdrop is that it lights up v

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India - Sighapandi Electronics recently equipped Royal China with a JBL Professional networked audio system to deliver the audio in the restaurant and nightclub areas.
Royal China is a fine dining restaurant in Kolkata, serving authentic Cantonese cuisine in a chic and upscale environment. Located in the Forum Courtyard Mall, Royal China also features a small nightclub.
During the design phase, the owners of Royal China recognised that the restaurant needed a flexible loudspeaker system that offered a clear, high quality sound. However, due to the low ceilings in the venue, they required a compact solution that would not detract from the décor. The owners of Royal China worked with Sighapandi Electronics to install a JBL Professional network audio system featuring JBL loudspeakers, JBL and Crown amplifiers and a BSS signal processor.
“The ceiling height of ni

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Germany - The 10th anniversary edition of the iHeartRadio Music Festival took place recently in Los Angeles. Among the cast was Usher, broadcasting from a red-lit stage. Both his 20-minute set, and the generic lighting rig at the iHeartRadio Theatre LA, were studded with GLP fixtures - supplied by locally based Volt Lites and put to work by LD Matt Ardine and programmer Mark Butts.
While the generic rig itself contained a ceiling of 36 GLP X4 atoms - described by Ardine as “an inexpensive way of making the lighting rig look large” - along with 77 discreet GLP FR1’s, Usher’s set featured GLP FR10 bars, at the request of the artist’s design team, Eric Gorleski and John McGuire from TrasK House creative agency.
“We wanted Usher’s set to feel different than the other performances at the theatre, with a more intimate, but still 6ft socially distanced feel that
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