Poland - Production company PogoArt, owner of the largest Nexo PA system in Poland and a recent investor in Yamaha’s new Rivage PM7 digital mixing system, has helped Wroclaw Opera to stage an epic production of Guiseppe Verdi’s Nabucco. The sell-out performances of one of the most recognisable operas in history was presented outdoors, with the Wroclaw Opera building itself featuring in a special stage design capable of accommodating up to 350 artists.
Wroclaw Opera is accustomed to outdoor performance, but the production of Nabucco in Wroclaw’s central Plac Wolnosci was a most challenging one, featuring a 700sq.m stage with three levels for orchestra, ballet dancers, soloists and the Wroclaw Opera Choir. Marcin Nałecz-Niesiołowski, director of the Wroclaw Opera, who was conducting the performances, admitted that large productions are always a compromise

Australia - Novatech Creative Event Technology has given its 12 Elation Proteus Hybrid fixtures some serious punishment over the last few months. First, they left them outside for five weeks in February in Adelaide, copping the full heat of a SA summer. They then migrated north for four weeks on the beach at The Gold Coast for the Commonwealth Games.
The Adelaide Fringe Festival’s Parade of Light saw projection art from creatives including The Electric Canvas and Illuminart light up the heritage-listed buildings along Adelaide’s North Terrace, while Novatech’s Proteus stock beamed colours and break-ups.
“We had the Proteus out in three pods of four, controlled from a PC,” said Ashley Gabriel, director of sales and marketing at Novatech. “We were projecting across a major six-lane road onto buildings, while fighting lots of ambient light and a backgro

USA/UK - The latest incarnation of The Killers’ stage set owes much to the band’s Nevada heritage. As the band originally emerged from 20th Century Las Vegas, the design was to reflect an image of the small towns that straddled the American West.
Long-time Killers LD, Steven Douglas explains the process, “Our set designer, Josh Zangen from Fireplay had already put in place a large water tower stage right that harked back to the original look of the small American town and we felt something was required to balance that look on stage left.”
“We talked about something that was reminiscent of old Las Vegas signage and casino awnings. Josh came back with the initial drawings of large lit arrows pointing at a downward angle; the band loved them.” The design was put out to Jon Perry of Perry Scenic who, in turn, subcontracted the project to Specialz.
Specia

UK - Field Day 2018 celebrated its short move from Victoria Park, Hackney, to Brockwell Park in Brixton by spectacularly overcoming the noise pollution issues with which both these sites have traditionally been dogged.
PA specialists, Capital Sound, ended up equipping all seven stages, with their account manager Paul Timmins able to declare an astonishing SPL of 100dB(A)15 on main stage - thanks to the deployment of Martin Audio’s MLA, with its unique ability to limit offsite noise thresholds while maintaining unprecedented levels in the main bowl.
Residentially bordered on all sides, Timmins was mindful of Lambeth Council’s restrictions on sound escape at the nearby Clapham Common. But with careful orientation of the stages, and strong focus on rear rejection - coupled with some inspired optimisation programming in the Martin Audio software - they were able to del

Australia - Bloom - a new 24-hour underground club in Geelong, Australia - boasts an international-grade Funktion-One sound system, designed and installed by Full Throttle Entertainment.
At first glance, the sleepy seaside town of Geelong, 75km southwest of Melbourne, may seem an unusual choice of location for a club targeted at Australia’s clubbing cognoscenti. For the creative team behind the project, however, new venue Bloom is a perfect fit.
Bloom’s owners Ayman Muhor and John Kennedy - working with Aaron Cashion, Luke Jeantou and Adam Metwally - are well versed in the local club scene, having established and run a succession of the town’s best-loved venues and club nights. In creating Bloom, their aim was to take things to the next level: to provide a world-class club where music lovers could come together and lose themselves for the night - a venue that ha

Australia - Over 6,600 athletes and team officials from more than 71 nations and territories descended on Australia’s Gold Coast to compete in the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games in April.
Audio production specialist and official sponsor Norwest Productions deployed over 500 L‑Acoustics cabinets, including 124 K2, in 22 sporting venues.
“With the Games being held in our backyard, we’d always set our sights on being involved,” says Norwest’s Gra Whitehouse. “But the ceremonies audio project was an open tender, with all the usual pre-qualifying requirements, specifically around workplace safety processes and, of course, competency for the actual delivery of an audio project of that scale and nature. We knew we would need a watertight plan and some strategic investment.”
With their eyes set firmly on the prize, at the end of last year Norwest Pr

UK - While the 2014 Disney film production of Into the Woods garnered much attention, thanks in part to its all-star Hollywood cast including the likes of Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp, a recent UCL theatre production has succeeded in stripping down the Stephen Sondheim classic to its thematic core - exposing the eternal battle between darkness and light.
Instrumental in this exploration of desire, ambition and relationships through classic Brothers Grimm characters such as Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Rapunzel was a combination of Chauvet Professional Maverick MK1 Spot and MK3 Wash fixtures, specified by LD Alex Forey.
With the general concept for the lighting based around the need to support the director’s post-apocalyptic vision, the cutting and powerful effects of the Maverick combination were called upon to create unique and harrowing atmospheri

Poland - Centrum Spotkania Kultur (Centre for the Meeting of Cultures) - ‘CSK’ for short - in the heart of Lublin, Poland’s ninth largest city, is a performance and culture venue that opened in 2016.
Its main auditorium is now the second largest stage in Poland, and there is also a chamber space and a cinema hall with a programme of new, classic, reimagined and experimental works by creatives from all over Poland and across Europe.
CSK has 70 x Robe luminaires in the main stage space - a combination of LEDWash 800s, BMFL Spots, Pointes and ParFect 100s - which were specified by CSK’s head of technical, Bart Pyczek.
He was involved in the specification process early-on, when the initial equipment schedules were being proposed by Lublin-based theatre consultant Boleslaw Stecmach. “His practice is involved in many important buildings all over Poland, howev

UK - Hofesh Shechter Company celebrated its 10th anniversary and kicked off the first day of Brighton Festival in May with a performance of Grande Finale, the latest original dance work from award-winning choreographer Hofesh Shechter.
Signature to any Shechter production is the ‘Hofesh Haze’, a distinctive thick haze with an even, creamy look that remains consistent throughout the performances. To achieve this effect, Adam Hooper, head of production at Hofesh Shechter, relies on MDG haze and fog generators which are hired locally at each venue, or brought along by the company if there is no local availability. “Because haze is such a large part of Hofesh’s productions, we only use MDG haze and fog generators and specify them on every rider, with no substitute,” he says.
In Grand Finale, the set in Tom Scutt’s design consists of seven rolling

Sweden - When the 2018 World Team Table Tennis Championships were held 29 April-6 May in Halmstad, Sweden, the tournament attracted a worldwide viewer audience of 400 million. Lighting and sound rental company Tylösound AB served as the official technical supplier to the Championships and used Elation Professional’s Fuze Wash 575 cool-white LED PAR moving head luminaires to meet the strict illumination requirements.
Held at Halmstad Arena, with roughly 3000 live spectators each day, the event featured eight days of live TV and was streamed live. Light levels onto three centre courts - and every area of each court - were carefully monitored. “We required a measurement of at least 1600 lux on each 9 x 20m court,” stated Paul Aladin, owner of Tylösound AB, supplier of lighting, sound, smoke and LED screens for the event.”
Working with Elation, Aladin initially b

USA - This year’s Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette, Louisiana attracted over 300,000 festival goers with a world-wide audience listening to an FM and streaming broadcast from the festival’s Main Stage mixed on an Allen & Heath dLive C Class C3500 digital mixing system with DM0 MixRack.
Paul McCasland of Show And Tell Productions mixed the live broadcast from a temporary studio in the nearby Lafayette Science Museum. “I’ve been doing this particular event for over 15 years,” he says. “And, this year, we had a 48-channel Dante split from the Main Stage fed directly to us over a fibre network.”
McCasland mixed down to a stereo pair fed to another temporary studio in the museum where radio station KRVS combined the four festival stages with live commentary and interviews using an Allen & Heath SQ5 digital mixer also supplied by

UK - Roedean School, an independent girls school in Sussex, delivered a production of Oliver, enhanced with the recent investment of four new Chauvet Maverick fixtures.
In the weeks before the production, Roedean School got in touch with Stage Electrics looking to expand their theatre’s front of house lighting solution. Stage Electrics’ regional sales manager Paul Roughton, liaised with the school to establish exactly what they wanted. “The school were clearly after a lighting solution that could deliver ultimate artistic precision whilst combining top quality colour mixing and exceptionally bright LED,” explained Paul. “After looking at several different possibilities they decided on Chauvet’s Maverick MK2 Profile and Spot fixtures.”
After investing in two of both the Maverick MK2 Profile and Spot’s, Roedean wasted no time in putting these fixtu

USA - For automobile enthusiasts, history buffs, and anyone who’s generally curious, the Gilmore Car Museum is the place to go. Located on 90 acres in the rural town of Hickory Corners, Michigan, the museum opened in 1966 with just 35 cars from the personal collection of founder Donald Gilmore.
Success and interest led to even more interest and success, and partnerships with other classic car organisations helped to grow the collection to nearly 400 cars that are displayed in an ever-growing number of outbuildings.
Local AV integration firm Crookston Audio installed a paging system a decade ago centred on an Ashly amplifier that is still going strong. However, so much expansion has happened since then that the museum called the company back to extend it. Crookston obliged with new Ashly amplification and DSP, using Dante to feed signal to the more remote outbuildings

USA - Since opening in late-2011, Huntington, New York’s The Paramount has quickly established itself as the premier live venue on Long Island, one of the country’s top 20 media markets.
Now, the venue has added a DiGiCo SD10, paired with an SD-Rack - which was installed at the theatre’s FOH position during a December renovation of the club’s entire sound system.
According to production manager Sean Earley, the choice of the SD10 seemed almost inevitable, as the number of SD consoles being brought by touring artists with them into the venue had been steadily increasing in recent years. “We’ve just been seeing more and more SD10s and fewer and fewer of the other leading brands of consoles coming through here,” he says. “It’s pretty clear that the SD is becoming the console of choice for a lot of bands, so it made a lot of sense to put the SD10 in here.

Australia - The frenetic pace of the rugby sevens and tens competitions sees stripped-down teams competing in a gala atmosphere with lightning fast-halves and quick turnarounds between games.
To sporting audio and comms provider Gearhouse Broadcast, this means having around 40 referees fitted with wireless mics and monitoring, sending audio to broadcast and the coaches, and receiving audio back through their in-ear monitors, all with one minute to changeover active frequencies between games. In this environment, Gearhouse relies on Shure Axient Digital wireless and Clear-Com matrices to make sure no-one misses a call.
“The Rugby Sevens at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium were 79 games across three days, and the Rugby Tens at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium were 40 games in two days,” reported Andrew Henderson, OB supervisor at Gearhouse Broadcast. “At the Sevens, we had

UK - CPL supplied their new Roe 3.4mm LED screens and all associated processing and vision control for two major stages at the 2018 Hay Festival of Literature & Arts, the annual 10-day literature event staged in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales.
It was the first time the west-Midlands based visual and technical production specialist had worked on the event, for which they were approached directly by the event organisers and asked to be a video supplier after several recommendations. It was also the first time that the event had gone to LED for video display, having worked with projection festival-wide for several years.
There are eight major live stages - offering over 5000 seats - and CPL was the video supplier for the two largest areas, the 1716 capacity Tata Tent and the Oxfam Moot stage which accommodated 921 people. Both featured an eclectic line-up of events running

USA - The Shreveport Aquarium in Louisiana commissioned Fusiform Design Workshop to assist with the building’s lighting, signage, and digital interactive spaces.
Featured heavily throughout the exhibits, Visual Productions lighting controllers provide a robust and easy to deploy system for the special effect lighting. Fusiform is a multidisciplinary creative agency that has worked with clients to design everything from packaging to digital interactive spaces. Fusiform delivered four distinct signage systems and three lighting networks in the interactive elements for this aquarium.
Three QuadCore solid-state lighting controllers were installed in the network, controlling mainly Gantum spots and track lighting in the shipwreck, underwater cave and stand-alone virtual reality room.
In the stand-alone virtual reality room B-Stations were also used, so that each vi

UK - On 14 June, Her Majesty The Queen, accompanied by Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, officially opened Chester’s Storyhouse theatre.
The Chester Storyhouse theatre was built in 1936 and is a Grade II listed building. It was originally the city’s Odeon cinema but had been disused since 2007 - until a £37m RE:NEW project initiated by Cheshire West and Chester Council set about converting and extending the original building.
Stage Electrics were tasked with installing and supplying sound, production lighting, AV equipment, paging and technical infrastructure for the entire project.
The specialist integrator delivered the production lighting equipment, AV infrastructure and Front of House audio systems. In addition to the fully automated, DCI compliant cinema system, Stage Electrics also installed a versatile HD video distribution network throughout the ven

UK - Nuffield Southampton Theatres City (NST City) is a new arts complex in Southampton. It needed highly flexible solutions for its production lighting, performance audio visual systems, which have been recently been installed by specialist installer and integrator, Northern Light in a half million pound plus year-long installation.
The history of the NST dates back to 1964 when, with support from the Nuffield Foundation, the University of Southampton built a theatre on its campus for the people of Southampton. NST City is its second venue. Sited in the very heart of the City, it houses a fully flexible 450-seat main house which doubles as a cinema, a 133-seat black-box studio, workshop, rehearsal space and screening facilities, as well as offices, bar, café and a restaurant.
“Northern Light was selected through competitive tender to supply and install the production

USA - Event production house GVPmedia of Houston is responsible for lighting Ring of Honor events, a popular pro wrestling touring circuit that incorporates high-flying wrestling with mixed martial arts. Ring of Honor (ROH) puts on a high-energy, electric live show and GVP uses the power and dynamism of an all-Elation automated rig.
ROH matches are intense affairs that are also filmed for TV, Internet Pay-Per-View or DVD release. An important step in building up the exciting atmosphere is the energy created from pre-match introductions as loyal fans anticipate seeing their favourite wrestler enter the arena.
GVPmedia has been working with ROH for the past three years, providing lighting, LED video displays, and rigging for a growing list of events across the U.S. For an ROH event in February at Centre Stage theatre in Atlanta, GVP turned to its inventory of Elation h

UK - Lighting, rigging, audio and video provider SLX has a long-standing relationship working with Bristol Museums for equipment hire and live events and has supplied AV and lighting support for an exhibition titled Bristol Music: Seven Decades of Sound.
Bristol Museums, known for driving imaginative new exhibitions, developed concept plans and set out the initial themes for the spaces need in this exhibition. They then brought in SLX to propose creative ways that AV and lighting equipment would help add value to deliver an experiential exhibition for their visitors. The exhibition, which has decade booths spanning Bristol’s musical history, presented a challenge in that they needed to ensure audio clarity in each booth whilst not bleeding into the next. To counter this SLX supplied directional speakers with an acoustic curtain to contain any spill.
Ryan Str

Ireland - Waterford, one of Ireland’s oldest cities, founded by Norwegian pirates in 914, recently celebrated its roots at its inaugural International Viking Festival and Roadshow.
Taking place over three days, this event marked the 1,100th anniversary of the conquest of York, England, by King Reginald of Waterford. With all eyes on the city, the pressure was on for Waterford Council and Waterford Treasures Museums to select the right partners and suppliers to bring this historic moment in time to life.
The highlight of the event was a spectacular night-time Viking Roadshow - two 45-minute theatrical performances which took place on the last day in the Apple Market in the city centre. The specially commissioned theatrical piece by creative director Craig Morrison, set for a live tour in 12 of the most important Viking sites in Europe, was to be the jewe

USA - Live production and event management company Mountain View Staging (MVS) has invested in a FLEXTour LED video solution from Nashville-based PixelFLEX.
The HD, curveable LED video display is designed for live entertainment productions and can be configured traditionally and off-set, with each 500mm x 500mm tile front-serviceable. An integrated climbing ladder allows for quick access to displays flown high overhead.
Peter Johnson, Mountain View Staging CEO and owner, comments: “We have been in business for 18 years and have been using LED products for the last 10. Since LED now rivals projection, we have switched priorities to the new technology to keep up with changing demand from our clients. It’s all about the increased resolution, contrast, dynamic range and image quality, and the FLEXTour solution checked all the boxes for our priorities.”
Johns

Australia - Telstra recently installed a complete AMX by Harman AV control solution in Deakin University’s new Telstra Trading Room, a realistic stock exchange simulation room on the university’s Melbourne campus.
Established in 1974, Deakin University is one of Australia’s fastest growing research universities, winning numerous awards and consistently ranking among the top universities in Australia. In order to provide its business students with real-world insight into the workings of a live stock exchange environment, Deakin Business School partnered with Australian communications provider Telstra to create a simulated trading room complete with tickers, displays and a large video wall providing real-time finance updates.
Deakin worked with Harman Professional Solutions distributor avt and Telstra to design a state-of-the-art AV control system that could handl

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