UK - SXS Events recently used Current RMS’ Open API to create a number of integrations to streamline workflow. The Open API is available for any of their software users to access and build with, for them to develop exciting and useful integrations that utilise their data within Current RMS.
Established in 1998, UK-based SXS Events specialises in event production and dry hire, and has grown to be a multi-million pound event production company. Using the Current RMS Open API, they created X Hire, a platform for their clients to view products directly on their website and hire them. Built to work alongside their normal website, this space allows them to pull across products and key information from Current RMS and onto a platform their new and existing clients can easily access and view.
“The website is a great tool for both the office team and clients. Instead of trying to explain equipment to clients we can send them a link to the product,” says Joe Sandford-Hughes, head of dry hire at SXS Events. “The same thing goes for clients needing copies of their invoices; we can give them an account on the site and they can get to everything they need.”
It’s not just front-of-house that the Open API has been useful for. The team at SXS has also made use of it to create a number of integrations that have been handy for internal processes, ensuring their jobs are always on time and up to the standard they need to be. This includes a dynamic ‘kiosk’ screen that staff can see, which updates throughout the course of the day to show outgoing jobs

Denmark - Popular Danish band Nephew reunited this year after a four-year hiatus, announcing two major gigs in October 2018 at the Jyske Bank Boxen Arena in Herning and the Royal Arena in Copenhagen. Over 30,000 tickets sold out in a day.
Lighting designer Theis Wemuth of design company Create This was tasked with the production design - lighting, video and set - for the shows. He specified 149 x Robe MegaPointes as the main moving light fixtures.
The fixtures were chosen for their multifunctionality and brightness which Wemuth knew would be a perfect complement and contrast to the 420sq.m widescreen video backdrop that was central to the look and aesthetics of the stage.
Eight BMFL Spots were on the front truss, six working as remote follow spots in conjunction with six Robe RoboSpot systems, together with other lights, all of which were supplied by Copenhagen-based rental specialist Comtech.
It was a high-pressure gug, with 10 trucks of equipment, limited production and tech time and an enormous amount of expectation.
Wemuth was chosen as the designer for his innovative approach to visual, lighting and stage design and his penchant for thinking ‘out-of-the-box’.
These shows also coincided with new music released by Nephew comprising four EPs - related to the seasons - and then an album which combined all four EPs plus additional tracks. A recurring theme of this music is the concept of ‘what goes around comes around’, circles, infinity, 360° cycles - both natural, artificial, literal and metaphorical, historical and con

USA - The new 200,000sq.ft Texas Live! entertainment complex features an array of dining, live music, and other entertainment options - and, next year, the first Live! by Loews boutique hotel.
Backed by the Texas Rangers and City of Arlington, among others, the $250m complex recently celebrated its grand opening, an event heard loud and clear via Kara and Kiva II systems in two of its primary performance spaces networked via AVB and processed by the Lone Star State’s first installed P1 digital audio processor.
The performance venues include a 5,000-capacity outdoor event pavilion, Arlington Backyard, and the Live! Arena, a 35,000sq.ft, two-level concert and festival space featuring a gourmet burger restaurant owned by Dallas Cowboys icon Troy Aikman. Both venues now sport L-Acoustics systems specified and designed by Las Vegas-based consultant Coherent Design, installed and integrated by AVI Systems’ Dallas team.
“When looking to equip these two venues with the best possible quality sound reinforcement, we felt that L-Acoustics gave us the biggest bang for the buck,” says Dan Defendorf at Baltimore-based Cordish/ECI, which owns and operates Texas Live!, among other sports and entertainment destinations around the country. “Texas Live! hosts a lot of national touring artists, and L-Acoustics satisfies them all when it comes to rider requests, which was an important factor in the decision. Plus, the Kara and Kiva II systems are delivering ideal coverage in their respective venues and sound absolutely phenomenal. We made the right choice!”<

South Africa - Rock band Prime Circle have invested in Robe fixtures. Marco Gomes the band’s bass guitarist, songwriter and manager together with lighting designer Benjamin ‘Benji’ Muir-Mills chose Robe miniPointes, LEDBeam 150s and VIVAs which the band have purchased from distributor DWR.
Gomes and Muir-Mills explained that touring in South Africa can be challenging - many venues on the circuit offer minimal lighting, so having their own rig now means that wherever they go, they can enjoy the continuity of a great lightshow, fans get better production values and less time is needed for re-plotting each show. Instead that creative clawback can be spent in developing the core lightshow they now enjoy with their own kit. It also makes get ins and outs significantly quicker and more efficient.
The decision to go with Robe was based on having used the products on many occasions. Pointes have always been on Benji’s favourites list, and the little LEDBeam 150 is fast becoming his preferred small wash beam fixtures.
Another key reason for choosing Robe is the service from DWR. “They are always incredibly supportive and friendly and offer some of the best general industry support in the country,” says Muir-Mills.
Prime Circle has already started using the new lighting on shows which has “upped the aesthetic substantially” as Muir-Mills explains, adding that he still has a lot of work to do in terms of developing the new show, and he wishes he could use them on every gig, but for now it will be just their SA shows when it’s practical

Austria - Studio Due Light, in collaboration with Laman Gmbh in Austria, has recently illuminated the Novomatic Forum in Vienna as part of a façade lighting overhaul. The previous fixtures installed were traditional luminaries with a high-level of energy wasted.
The project included replacing the façade uplighters on the ground and first floors, along with the balcony lighting around the forum. Confronted with new challenges to accommodate the LED fixtures, the specifiers noticed the impossibility to run DMX cable to the bottom part of the building, to replace the in-ground fixtures with the energy-efficient ones.
Faced with this issue, Mr. Robert Makovsky of Leman Gmbh turned to Studio Due to come up with a cost-effective solution. After several tests on-site, Studio Due implemented W-DMX into their Terra Plus RGBW RDM fixtures. “We have implemented Nano TRX modules from Wireless Solution, with an Indoor 2 Backbone antenna, so we could receive DMX and transmit RDM back to the controller,” says Paolo Carvone, field application engineer for Studio Due. With this implementation, it is possible to get power from the existent infrastructure, and DMX to the fixture wirelessly, without having to dig and run new cables.
Two WhiteBox F-1 G5 transmitters were also used in the installation, located on the second-floor, and transmitting on both sides of the building. Each receiving antenna is placed around the rim of the in-ground fixture, just behind the top cover, to optimize the incoming signal strength.
“This is a very cost-effective way of r

South Korea - Merging Technologies has delivered one of the largest Ravenna/AES67 installations for its networked audio interfaces. It features 16 Horus units, 11 Hapi units and 35 8-channel Premium A/D cards and 37 Premium D/A cards. It is also the first major installation to feature Aneman Enterprise as the master control for the whole system and the list of show control and playout servers is no less impressive. There are eight Ovation systems for all zones matrix routing and processing and six Emotion systems for audio-on-demand playback which can all operate in DXD by virtue of the premium cards being fitted.
Paradise City is such a huge complex and the audio network is across four buildings and features 35 zones with 69 subsidiary zones and these zones encompass four floors of a hotel, three floors of pools and spas, two conference rooms, public areas including a patio and garden, multiple restaurants, bars and clubs and a massive plaza with an immersive audio system. Control of each zone is by a local tablet which can pick up five radio channels, the audio-on-demand Emotion server and local microphone and line inputs for the DJ, Karaoke, live shows or whatever is needed. Aneman Enterprise is located in the central control area with the video, CCTV and safety systems.
“This was a real test of putting the theory into practice. A networked installation of this size requires some confidence in the technology and we were not disappointed,” Dominique Brulhart, Merging’s head of software engineering and project manager for this venue remarked. “Th

Europe - Grammy Award-winning artist, Imogen Heap, has taken to the road for the first time in eight years on a 40-week long Mycelia world tour, accompanied by an Allen & Heath dLive system and frequently partnering with a d&b audiotechnik Soundscape, to provide an immersive 3D audio experience for concert goers.
The full live set-up includes a dLive DM0 MixRack along with two DX168 expanders, purchased specifically for this tour (through Ampco-Flashlight-Sales), which are used in a multi-surface configuration to control both FOH and MON from a single MixRack. The configuration employed on the tour sees the DM0’s 128 input processing channels split to provide 64 input channels with discrete processing for both monitors and FOH.
dLive Director software is utilised for monitoring system control with all musicians having access to individual iPads running dLive OneMix, allowing them to further fine tune their IEM mixes. Each show also features a dLive surface (hired locally), which is connected to the MixRack and handles FOH duties.
Joep Hendrikx (FOH engineer) comments: “The DM0 gives us the option to bring a console with the proper analogue and digital I/O that we can easily travel with on a plane, without compromising on feature set or sound quality.”
To interface with the performers’ laptop-based setups, the DM0 is fitted with a superMADI card which sends audio to and from several RME MADIface Pro interfaces, enabling low-latency integration of software instruments and external processing, all at 96kHz. The DM0 is fur

Denmark - More than 130,000 people and 184 artists saw the AVB debut of Luminex Network Intelligence in a cooperation with Bright Group and Meyer Sound at the Roskilde Festival. On thr Orange stage and the Arena stage, audio was running on AVB protocol from Meyer Sound Galileo Galaxy 816 network platform through a network of 28x GigaCore 10 switches of Luminex Network Intelligence.
“We were very happy to have Luminex on board for the Roskilde festival. There are many reasons to go for the GigaCore range of Luminex but definitely the easiness, the GUI and the rock-solid reliable performance of their switches is remarkable,” says Fredrik Arwidson from Bright Group Sweden. “Furthermore, we were delighted with the upfront training, the intensive testing in our Stockholm warehouse and with the presence of Roel Apers (Support engineer) of Luminex Network Intelligence during the festival.”
“It was a great experience to test and validate our equipment with the massive Meyer Sound system upfront. The Bright Group has an impressive technical knowledge and after the test-runs together with Dennis Tholema (Meyer Sound) I was very confident our AVB debut was going to be successful,” says Roel Apers of Luminex Network Intelligence.
Artists like Bruno Mars, Eminem, Nine Inch Nails, Dua Lipa and many more were powered by Meyer Sound systems and Luminex Network Intelligence during the Roskilde festival.
CEO Bart Swinnen comments: “We are very proud of our new firmware release including the AVB feature. To debut of our AVB release at one of the la

Norway - In Tønsberg, 60 miles from Oslo, the magnificent Foynhagen has grown into one of Norway’s most important venues for concerts during the summer time. This year they presented a very impressive line-up of acts, from Röyksopp, Seigmen, Young Neils, Bo Kaspers Orkester, Cezinando, The Waterboys, Lars Winnerbäck, DumDum Boys and Åge Aleksandersen & Sambandet, among others, in a five-month run of concerts.
In previous years the event has been faced with the challenge of excessive noise pollution outside the venue, with the implementation of various delay systems being used, in an attempt to achieve coverage while keeping leakage to a minimum.
This year, the promoter was introduced to the force of MLA Compact. Inspired by the solution in Hyde Park at British Summer Time, where maximum off-site levels are restricted to 75 dB(A), Spekter AS, the Lillestrøm-based rental company, invested in a complete system consisting of eight MLA Compact elements per side, and four mighty MLX subs. Assisted by Martin Audio’s Scandinavian distributor, Atendi AS, in designing and calculating the venue and outside reduction, this investment immediately proved justified.
Completing the system were 12 Martin Audio LE100 wedges, as well as mics from Sennheiser and Shure, DI boxes from Switchcraft and a Midas Pro 2 FOH mixer.
The system proved an immediate success. Measuring the outside leakage at certain critical points showed a reduction of 8 dB(A) Leq 15 min as an average, compared to earlier seasons. This same system reached 102 dB(A) Leq 15 at F

Latvia - In July, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the independent republic was celebrated with an event featuring a choir of 16,5000 voices.
Purpose-built in 1955 the Mežaparks Great Bandstand where the event was staged is an open-air venue of unexpected dimensions. Not unlike a Roman amphitheatre, except that the curved stepped crucible is where the 16,000 plus performers are arrayed, facing onto an audience of up to 30,000. With so many voices and the presentational environment, promoter Girts Majors of Positivus Event turned to audio provider UBS to design an audio solution.
“The implementation of a d&b audiotechnik system was a key component in making this event truly memorable,” says Edmunds Verners Zazerskis, MD of UBS. “UBS was founded in 1998 and we have been providing sound for different choir song festivals for many years; Nordic; Baltic Choral festivals; Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Celebrations; and the many song and dance festivals staged here in Riga, nearly all with our d&b systems.
“Even so, such a large event was not without challenges. The audience area is approximately 130m x 130m; it would not be possible to get even SPL for all seats with a simple two or four hangs of line array, even if they are twenty metres high. And such intrusive towers with long arrays would in terms of listening experience virtually split choir from audience which is completely contrary to the whole ethos of how these events are meant to be experienced. The magic feel for the audience is not to be sat in front of an enorm

UK - After two years of building works, the revamped front of house spaces at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden opened to the public this autumn. As part of the renovation, a number of exhibitions and displays now enhance the new spaces and offer visitors the opportunity to learn more about the Royal Opera House and the art forms it supports as well as showcasing the ROH's past and present to inspire every day audiences. Unusual Rigging were brought on board to help devise a way of installing a number of scrims over the escalator leading to the newly refurbished spaces on Level 5.
Sarah Tatham, exhibitions manager at the Royal Opera house explains: "We approached Leon Ingram, Unusual's rigging project manager, in March 2018 to discuss the best way to hang the scrims. A principally artistic endeavour, the scrims required a technically complex hang and design. Unusual Rigging fed into the concept and generally advised us on the size of the scrims, the fixing methods and the installation."
Unusual has worked with the Royal Opera House itself and two of its design studios (Skellon Studio and Studio Eger) in the past. "Unusual is so well known in the industry we were very comfortable working with them from the word go. Our design studios developed a concept and Leon came on site to provide technical advice generally on installation and more specifically on fixing methodology. We supplied detailed drawings and the Unusual team developed the fixing methods and contributed to the paperwork for change of use of the track," explains test

UK - London’s Tobacco Dock venue was the place to get the inside track as BBC Introducing staged its annual three-day discovery festival in November. Now in its second year, the BBC Introducing Live event again benefitted from a strong musical partnership with Yamaha.
Attracting around 15,000 musicians and industry people to east London, BBC Introducing Live aims to discover unsigned and upcoming artists, as well as helping young people to gain knowledge about the music business. Presented by well-known artists, DJs, managers and A&R people, the wide-ranging programme included over 100 masterclasses and interactive sessions, practical workshops and Q&A sessions, as well as performance opportunities for all levels of talent from amateur rappers to Deadmau5.
In addition to providing extensive technical support for the performance and seminar areas, Yamaha showcased a selection of carefully-selected instruments to inspire musicians and hosted a popular seminar programme; the Yamaha Sessions.
The seminar programme was delivered in conjunction with Steinberg and Line 6. Topics ranged from how to write, record and perform (Mike Coyle Tonik, Hannah Vasanth, Mo Pleasure, Billy Lockett and more) to the creation of unique sounds, and how to get started with music production (Dom Sigalas).
Yamaha also provided mixing consoles and loudspeakers for the bandstands, mini performance stages, Great Gallery stage and the 24 seminar spaces. A Nexo Geo M10 line array was brought in for the stage sponsored by record label Believe, providing sound reinfo

UK - Back in the mists of time, dinosaurs roamed and ruled the world . . . and now with the arena spectacular Walking with Dinosaurs, they are doing so again (see production report in LSi November).
This time the mist, or rather haze and low fog, is courtesy of MDG with three ATMe haze generators and three ICE FOG Compack HP low fog generators supplied by Sonalyst, the South Wales-based production company looking after the UK and European tour of this show. Sonalyst was already aiming to expand its investment in some serious haze and fog equipment when Walking with Dinosaurs LD John Rayment approached them with his requirements for the tour which called for a huge amount of haze and low fog.
“We were really keen to get into MDG because we are aware of the capabilities of their haze and fog units as high quality, reliable machines,” says George Pakenham, project manager at Sonalyst. “When John confirmed he was a big fan of MDG, we decided to go down that route. It’s our first investment in MDG and the units have been excellent, really first class.”
He added, “a large amount of haze and low fog was needed to create the right atmosphere, so we purchased three of the ATMe haze generators and three ICE FOG Compack HP low fog generators. Each unit is put in the best position for the airflow of the venue, which of course ca

World - Shania Twain is hitting the road with her Shania Now tour. Twain has wowed audiences in North America and Europe this summer and autumn with her fast and ever-changing stage show. The constant motion and changing looks on stage are aided and abetted by Ayrton’s MagicPanel-602 fixtures.
Creative director and lighting designer Rob Sinclair, and lighting director Michael Straun were specific in what they needed to achieve the stunning visuals for this show which are based around five large, automated LED video cubes with dancer platforms placed on top.
Sinclair stated, “Shania wanted a fast-paced show where the appearance of the stage and people constantly changed, with the band, the video cubes and the dancers in constant motion. We needed to find some square-faced lights to complement the square video cubes, and the MagicPanels were the perfect answer.”
In total, Sinclair used 100 MagicPanel-602 fixtures, creatively setting them into five overhead pods each with 20 units arranged in a 5 x 4 configuration. The pods fit with the LED cubes, hanging behind and above each of them on automated winches. The video cubes variously carry singers, dancers, the drummer and other band members and can be deployed at different heights throughout the show to add to the overall spectacle. The MagicPanel pods also move up and down and can be angled into different formations so no two songs have the same arrangement of cubes and pods throughout the show.
Sinclair and Straun are joined on the tour by production manager Joel Eriksson, lightin

South Korea - For the past 13 years, Incheon, has hosted the Pentaport Rock Festival, held in the city’s Pentaport Park for three days each summer. Produced by Yescom Entertainment, it is one of the country’s biggest live music events and covers a wide variety of musical genres.
This year, it featured the industrial rock of Nine Inch Nails, the moody electronica of Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, the shifting nuances of My Bloody Valentine, and rocking performances from local favourites including Jaurim and Daybreak. For all of the diverse styles, the L-Acoustics K1 and K2 system, supplied by local rental company Seoul Sound, delivered consistency of SPL and tonal balance across the main KB Kookmin Starshop Stage’sextensive field.
When Yescom Entertainment’s An Heung Chan accepted the role of production manager for the festival, he was both honoured and excited at the prospect of working on such a mammoth event. “We know how crazy it can be to cope with so many bands from so many different musical genres, all sharing the same stage over three days,” he says. “Dealing with schedule and set changes took a lot of time, but audio was ultimately the most important part of the production.”
With An Heung Chanhaving had many good experiences working with Seoul Sound and its L-Acoustics systems, he was confident that the company’s Kim Do Seok and his team of engineers would be a great asset to the event. “Being a sound engineer and musician myself, I had great expectations of the sound system,” he adds.
“We chose K1 and K2 becaus

Poland - The church of St Brygida (St Bridget) in Gdańsk recently hosted a televised concert to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s appointment. An Alcons Audio pro-ribbon audio system was the solution to tame the church’s difficult acoustics.
St Brygida is a large, brick-built church, famed for its amber altar and its 1980s role as a sanctuary for the leaders of the Solidarność (Solidarity) trade union, when Poland was under martial law.
Staged to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Polish national Karol Józef Wojtyła being chosen as Pope John Paul II in August 1978 - the first non-Italian Pope for 455 years - the concert featured Cappella Gedanensis, a vocal and instrumental ensemble which performs traditional music from the region around Gdańsk and represents the city all over the world. The group’s performances often include well-known soloists. For this concert, they included singer Plácido Domingo Jr, mezzo-soprano Alicja Wegorzewska and pianist Maciej Miecznikowski.
Transmitted live by broadcasters Polish TVP1 and TV Polonia, the concert’s audio production was handled by Gdańsk-based Offstage. The tall interior of the church features vaulted ceilings, with many columns and other flat, reflective surfaces, but these were tamed by Offstage’s Alcons pro-ribbon system.
The set-up included two QR24 modular line-source array columns per side, with two VR12 mid-size versatile monitors as out-fills and two VR8 compact versatile monitors as zonal speakers in the middle of the church. The system was powered by Se

USA - Wu-Tang Clan celebrated their 25th anniversary with a sold-out concert 240 miles to the north of Staten Island at the Tsongas Centre in Lowell. The show featured a Freddy Thompson lighting design that featured over 60 Chauvet Professional fixtures, supplied by JDI Productions, Inc.
Thompson’s show did more than provide eye-popping visuals to match the various moods on stage; it also created a light bridge that connected the Wu-Tang Clan to their devoted audience. “There’s a strong bond between this group and their fans,” he explains. “The start of the show was pretty intense. The crowd was all about seeing the group making their appearance on stage. So, naturally we focused a lot on audience lighting.”
Thompson used 16 Rogue R3 Wash, 16 Maverick MK1 Hybrid, 12 Rogue R2 Wash, 16 Legend 230SR Beam, and four STRIKE 4 fixtures to create his looks on stage and over the crowd. The Rogue R3 Wash fixtures were flown on the downstage truss and were used to light the group and their set pieces. Also on the downstage truss were the STRIKE 4 units, which provided audience lighting.
On the upstage truss, Thompson flew eight of his Maverick MK1 Hybrids and an equal number of Rogue R2 Washes. The remaining Maverick and Rogue R2 units, along with the Legend fixtures, were positioned on 12’ truss towers stage left and right.
“We got some great looks out of the Mavericks,” says Thompson. “We wanted movement and intensity with some songs to balance the static looks we emphasized with some of the other songs. Aside from the aerial effect

Europe - Lighting designer Pryderi Baskerville is working with creative director Sean Evans, production designer Jeremy Lloyd from Wonder Works, video director Richard Turner, production manager Chris Kansy and production director Andrew Zweck to deliver for Roger Waters’ live productions.
Pryderi has worked for Waters since 2013 and as LD / lighting director / lighting programmer since 2016. The Us+Them world touring cycle (see LSi September 2018 for production report) started in May 2017 and runs until December this year. Pryderi specified 97 x Robe BMFL WashBeams for the stadium version of the shows and 57 x BMFL Spots and 8 x BMFL Blades for the arena gigs.
Waters himself is involved with every step of the production for all his touring work.
With video a major part of the show - a media in which Waters has consistently innovated through the years - and particularly with the impressive 65m-wide upstage LED screen for the stadium shows and the fly-in Rolio projection surfaces that bisect the arena shows - Pryderi needed some seriously bright and reliable light sources.
The BMFL WashBeams with their even higher output were a natural upgrade progression for the outdoor shows.The stadium shows feature 15 x BMFL WashBeams rigged above the LED Screen and another 10 per side on two special PA mast ‘torms’
These sleek PA t

USA - The Queen of Country Pop’s Shania Now 2018 tour is using a large complement of Claypaky Mythos2 and Scenius Unico fixtures to enhance the show’s dazzling visual palette. ACT Lighting is the exclusive distributor of Claypaky lighting in North America.
Shania Now takes multi-Grammy winner Shania Twain across North America and to South America and Europe this fall before culminating in a swing through Oceania prior to Christmas. Twain has sold over 100m records making her the best-selling female artist in country music history and among the best-selling music artists of all time. Last year she released her fifth studio album and her first in 15 years, entitled Now.
The production features 48 Claypaky Mythos2 and 80 Scenius Unico fixtures. “The Unicos are the main workhorse of the lighting rig: They provide key light, back light and floor lighting,” explains creative director and production designer Rob Sinclair. “The Mythos2 are hung on upstage torms and side ‘cakes’ to provide fill and big-picture looks during the show.”
He notes that the lighting design for the tour “needed to be big, flexible and rectilinear to match the video cubes” which comprise the core of the show’s visual canvas. Five 12-foot moving video cubes, covered with a total of 18 LED surfaces, continually reconfigure and recombine during the show to create an ever-changing environment for Twain, the band and the dancers. “It was hugely complex to rehearse as the stage reconfigures for every song.”
Sinclair adds, “We also nee

Denmark - Copenhagen’s magnificent Østre Gasværk Teater in the city’s Østerbro district is housed in a former gas holder once part of the old Eastern Gasworks complex, built in 1878 and designed by Martin Nyrop, also the architect of Copenhagen City Hall.
The venue has functioned as a performance space since the 1970s, however in the last year an extensive technical refit and major rigging upgrade has involved the installation of a completely new free-standing steel grid internal structure, together with a Kinesys automation system – featuring the latest Kinesys Apex chain hoists and DigiHoist control.
The theatre started off presenting alternative dance works and hosting concerts and fashion shows as well as gripping dramas. Over the years the production requirements have become steadily more complex and ambitious.
In 2016, the Østre Gasværk Theatre merged with another major cultural institution, the Republique Theatre, and Emmet Feigenberg was appointed artistic director, moving everything into a new era.
With this came - finally - the realisation that the old flying facilities were no longer realistically serviceable to stage modern productions, so with the writing on the wall, outgoing artistic director Pia Jette Hansen, the board of the building’s management company and previous production manager Frank Beck started a campaign to secure funding to make some radical changes, explained Østre Gasværk’s head of lighting Brian Njie and head of stage Jacob Frederiksen.
As a listed building and a much-loved landmark of Co

Europe - ER Productions has been working with the Chemical Brothers for a number of years, creating laser visuals worthy of the duo’s heady electronic shows. This year saw the pair appear at various festivals and venues across Europe and ER was on board for the ride once again, and this time bringing some exciting SFX into the mix.
Chemical Brothers Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons have spent nearly 30 years bringing big beat tunes to their fan base of dance and rock fans. The 2018 Chems live tour began in June, at Rockhal, Luxemburg, in June, and concludes at Corona Capital, Mexico City, this month.
The show design was to be a combination of mesmerising visuals, and ER Productions worked with production manager, James Baseley, stage manager Toby Dennis, touring lighting designer, Thomas Deschandel, and show designers, Marcus Lyall and Adam Smith to deliver another phenomenal show. The set’s visual highlights included huge LED screens, showing their signature array of 3D characters, an incredible strobe light wall, and the appearance of the four-metre tall robots, affectionately nicknamed George and Mildred, created by Specialz.
As part of the theatrical and immersive experience, ER’s lasers had an important part to play, and included a number of carefully-planned and perfectly executed cues. ER’s lasers created a stunning atmosphere during tracks Chemical Beats, Hey Boy Hey Girl, Surface to Air and for the encore Got Glint, using 18 Kinekts, (eight positioned along the downstage edge, eight upstage, and two located be

Belgium - A designer boutique hotel in the heart of Ghent is finding value in Dante Audio IP networking from Audinate for the business and entertainment needs of its guests. Designed and integrated by Belgian systems integration firm Round Group Audiovisual Engineering, the Dante network delivers high-quality background music in the hotel's atmospheric 1898 The Post cocktail lounge, as well as delivering pristine audio to all points, including audio support for presentations, meetings and events in a large multi-function room.
1898 The Post is a new venture from Zannier Hotels in Ghent that opened this past summer. Located in the upper two floors of Ghent’s old post office building, the hotel offers 38 guest rooms and public spaces that complement the building’s late 19th century architecture. Round Group was hired to provide a “very high-end sound system” for The Cobbler, the hotel’s cocktail bar and social hub, along with reception and other public areas of the hotel. The company was soon after provided with an opportunity to extend the system to support AV needs for the multi-function space.
“This was a ground-up reconstruction with new walls, new flooring, restored wood and new electrical systems, which gave us complete freedom to design and specify an audio-visual solution that would complement the cozy and relaxed atmosphere,” says Marc Bauwens, senior engineering & associate, Round Group Audiovisual Engineering. “We wanted a system that blended into the architecture, and they certainly didn’t want visible wires and big black

UK - Franki McDade is the lighting designer behind the show that has been supporting Swedish duo First Aid Kit’s world tour, which kicked off in January when their Ruins album dropped. The tour has just completed its latest UK leg, with lighting and video equipment supplied by Colour Sound Experiment.
Colour Sound has provided lighting and crew for previous tours with the band, this being their largest and most comprehensive to date in terms of production.
Colour Sound’s Haydn Cruickshank (H) comments: “I have known Franki since she first started her professional career – she worked hard and was an extremely good and conscientious lighting technician. She’s always had a great flair for imagination, so it’s fantastic to see her creative star rising and evolving. We were really happy to be working with her on this in the UK and Europe.”
In terms of design, this is one of Franki’s largest tours to date. On the video side, she collaborated with Paul ‘Pablo’ Beckett and the team from Bryte who produced the content to her brief, which included extensive input from First Aid Kit themselves, Johanna and Klara Söderberg.
This UK tour culminated in two sold-out shows at London’s Brixton Academy, and a production design that was evolved from a version used on the Swedish tour earlier in the year which played similar sized venues.
Projection was important on this tour. Film is a strong source of inspiration for Joanna and Klara, they take a keen interest, and much of the footage has a textured and cinematic feel presen

India - Munro Acoustics recently outfitted The Urban Foundry’s new location in Pune’s Kalyani Nagar neighbourhood with an end-to-end Harman audio system.
With several locations in Mumbai and Pune in India’s Maharashtra state, The Urban Foundry is a bar and eatery with an industrial aesthetic that incorporates brick, metal and glass materials. The Foundry’s new location features a performance area for live music, but the highly reflective surfaces in the restaurant made it difficult to control the sound. In order to solve this challenge, management hired acoustic consultancy firm Munro Acoustics to design and install an end-to-end Harman Professional audio system comprised of JBL loudspeakers, Crown amplifiers and a Soundcraft mixer.
“We wanted our new location in Pune to be different from the others, so we added a performance space for live music,” said Kishore Shetty, general manager of operations for The Urban Foundry. “This presented a challenge, as we had to ensure quality sound for performances while retaining our signature industrial design. We chose to work with Harman Professional Solutions and Munro Acoustics because they understood our situation better than anyone else. The service was great, the process quick and it was our easiest installation yet. The sound quality here has exceeded my expectations.”
The Munro Acoustics team selected two full-range JBL AM7215 15” 2-way loudspeakers for the main array, supplemented by six JBL AC16 ultra-compact 6” speakers as side-fills. JBL ASB6118 subwoofers with 18” Super Vented