USA - New Yorkers gathered in Central Park on 21 August to celebrate the city's comeback from COVID-19 with one of the most diverse and star-studded line-ups ever assembled on one stage entertaining beneath a complement of Elation IP-rated luminaires.
Organised by NYC in partnership with music producer Clive Davis and Live Nation, the show offered a potpourri of genres from LL Cool J to Barry Manilow. Scheduled to be headlined by Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello and others, the concert was stopped a little more than halfway into a planned five-hour show due to lightning storms tied to approaching Hurricane Henri. Still, performers like Jennifer Hudson, Carlos Santana, LL Cool J, Andrea Bocelli, Earth Wind & Fire, Kane Brown, Journey and Barry Manilow, among others, were able to take the stage.
Despite the weather, the show was a huge success with a crowd of 60,000 responsible and vaccinated music fans celebrating the return to live music. “It was a good example of how you can put on a safe, large live event,” stated veteran designer Tom Kenny, who was brought on the project by Diversified Productions Services (DPS) to design lighting.
Kenny teamed with renowned production designer Bruce Rodgers on the spacious open stage design, which featured generous amounts of automated lighting and huge NYC letters across the front. “We only had about an hour of darkness so it needed to look big and spectacular during the day but we didn’t want to depend on lots of gags,” Kenny explains. “So powerful lighting was a must

Taiwan - The dramatic combination of lighting, audiovisual, choreography and staging in fashion shows requires highly creative and specific design.
For the debut of his Salon des Visionaires - Luxxury Godbage, a 1990s fashion themed fall-winter collection and Sherry Bomb Opening Party held at Ximen Literature and Arts Centre on 8 May 2021, Justin Chou, designer and founder of Taiwan fashion label JUST IN XX selected Calibre LEDFusion A130-15 all-in-one Direct View screen management solutions.
The 1990s was an era of freedom, boldness and adventure with bright colours and style – people dared to experiment. JUST IN XX’s philosophy when it came to technology echoed this, and he collaborated with Calibre UK for LEDFusion A130-15 LED displays to be positioned on each side of the main stage for the show.
Justin Chou held two different shows at Taipei Fashion Week Fall Winter Season on March and May 2021. Themed around fashion sustainability, Taipei Fashion Week was organised by the Taiwan Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Education and was supported by fashion brands including Loreal Professional as well as Vogue, GQ, Elle, Marie Claire, Bazar and Cosmopolitan.
“In the fast-paced world of fashion, there’s no room for compromise,” said Justin Chou. “We rely on lighting and video to play a powerful role in the creative design and to help tell the story of each of the garments. For this project the main stage needed to look amazing, from so many different angles to meet the demands of photographers, television broadcast, socia

India - When it comes to lighting production, young aspiring lighting designers Sachin Dunakhe and Amey Pendharkar are always keen to experiment. Recently, they have invested recently in the grandMA3 onPC command wing. With their lighting company, Pixelbug, which is based in Pune, they are enjoying steady business.
Sachin Dunhake has been using the grandMA2 console range for more than three years now, and he also owns a grandMA2 onPC command wing. He says: “grandMA2 has always been a go-to console for me for various types of lighting design work, ranging from theatre and fashion shows to live concerts and corporate events. The all-new grandMA3 user interface and improved software functionality are definitely worth the time and money investment to help create more enriching visual experiences for the audience. And what better time than this pandemic to dive into this all new grandMA3 world.”
Pixelbug offers a repertoire of lighting solutions with the primary motto of providing innovative and enchanting visual experiences. Now with the new grandMA3 onPC command wing, the company can further expand its client base, and especially with an eye on corporate and business ‘hybrid’ meetings, virtual events and product launches / experientials. Architectural installations are also now on their agenda.
Pixelbug’s co-founder Amey Pendharkar has worked in the entertainment industry for more than a decade including being a touring lighting designer and operator for assorted artists including Sunidhi Chauhan, Amit Trivedi, Divine, Vishal-Shekhar etc. He

USA - Singer/songwriter Hardy is a rising star on the country music circuit and with that newfound fame comes an opportunity to up his on-stage game in order to appeal to an even wider audience. Out in support of his debut album A Rock, Hardy is touring with an upgraded lighting rig of Elation DARTZ 360, Artiste Picasso and other lighting fixtures. Lighting design is by Zac Coren.
In early August, he started warming up audiences on Jason Aldean’s Back in the Saddle tour while headlining his own dates in between Aldean shows.
Lighting designer Zac Coren picked up with Hardy earlier this year and has known the artist for quite some time. “He didn’t have an LD and I was designing some things for him already,” Coren explains. “I was fortunate as Hardy was one of the first artists to get out there and start doing shows again. He did a lot of shows this past spring in smaller venues with lots of restrictions like limited capacity, pod distancing, outdoor sets, etc. It felt a bit like we were part of an experiment on how to do shows again but Hardy loves touring so we did what it took.”
Part country storyteller, part rocker, Hardy is a dynamic and versatile entertainer. “Honestly, he’s one of the coolest artists to work for,” Coren says. “He lets you do your thing; he might have a few comments at rehearsals but for the most part he trusts the folks working for him. After showing him some options, I helped guide him toward what I felt was best and we charted a path based on what he likes.”
That combination is reflected i

The Netherlands - The newest addition to the Dutch based Jules Boules Bites Bar chain of drinking, dining and jeu de boules experience venues has opened in the city of Rotterdam. Its exclusively Amate Audio sound installation prominently features the company’s latest G7 loudspeaker.
This, the fifth branch of the themed restaurant chain, encompasses a 12-lane indoor jeu de boules ‘parcours’, together with extensive bar and restaurant facilities. Audio for the entire bar and restaurant area is provided by an installation of 12 ultra-compact G7 loudspeaker cabinets and a pair of N12WP subs - the titanium colour scheme of the G7 cabinets matching the exposed metal work in the ceiling.
A separate installation for the jeu de boules parcours comprises 12 Amate Audio Nítid series S6P 2-way, high power handling birch ply cabinets, together with a pair of N18WP subs.
Power for both installation zones is provided from a rack of seven Amate Audio HD series high efficiency amplifiers, totalling almost 13,000W RMS power. System control is managed with two LMS608 loudspeaker management processors.
Specifications include four analogue and dual channel AES/EBU inputs, and eight analogue XLR outputs, a 64-bit DSP architecture, and a continuous ‘around the clock’ operating capability.
Rotterdam based Imagination AV’s technical sales manager Jason Lupgens states: “In keeping with the ‘high-end’ interior design, we needed to visually blend the loudspeakers, in so far as possible, with the decor. In a meeting with the owner, Peter van Leeu

France - Paris-based producer and head of the Mille Feuilles label, Romain Delahaye - a.k.a. Molécule - has been called ‘the pioneer of nomadic electronic music’ and the artist takes his musical inspiration from far-flung locations, recording ambient sounds on his expeditions around the globe and turning them into lively, atmospheric musical creations.
Molécule records sound in extreme locations: aboard a fishing boat in the Atlantic, in a village in Greenland or on the mythic surf swells of Nazaré in Portugal. More recently, he captured the sound of Thomas Ruyant's monohull during the Vendée Globe yacht race. Molécule transforms his recordings into spatialised music with the help of sound designer Hervé Déjardin, engineer in charge of developing immersive audio at Radio France.
Now, Molécule and Déjardin have brought a 360-degree spatialised sound experience to concert audiences listening in darkness, in the round. With the moniker Acousmatic 360°, the duo has taken the concept on tour, using L-Acoustics’ L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound technology
The term acousmatic, from the Greek word akousma, ‘a thing heard’, can be traced back to Pythagoras. The philosopher tutored his students from behind a screen so as not to let his presence distract from the content of his lectures. Taking inspiration from the idea, Molécule discovered he could create extra synergy with his audience by extinguishing the lights.
Molécule and Déjardin came up with the concept after performing at Paris' Rex Club in 2018. As an experiment, they pla

France - The Monumental Tour is an innovative visual and musical concept initiated by DJ and music producer Michael Canitrot and visual activists AV-Extended in conjunction with French cooperative bank Credit Mutuel, which encompasses streamed electronic music performances and collaborations with outstanding monumental sites all around France.
Lighting designer Cédric Davignon of Bordeaux-based creative practice Electron Libre Design designed lighting for the first digital gig of the tour, staged at the Phare des Baleines (Lighthouse of the Whales) on the Ile de Ré, which is off the west coast of France near La Rochelle.
Cédric chose to work with 10 x Robe Spiiders and 13 x MegaPointe moving lights to create his lighting design which complemented stunning large-format projections beamed onto the newer of the two Ile de Ré lighthouses, transforming its octagonal tower and base building below into a magical kinetic canvas for the performance.
The intriguing 57m-high lighthouse building was designed by architect Léonce Reynaud and started operating in 1854.
It stands nearby to the original 29m-high lighthouse - which dates to 1682 and has the same name - and is directly on the Ile de Ré’s Atlantic facing beach. The old lighthouse has been restored and now operates as a museum, and both lighthouses are heritage listed monuments that provided a stunning backdrop for the concert.
Cédric adds that the goal with lighting was “very much to support” the video mapping and reinforcement of the music and video.
He wanted to add

Australia - Striking a pose on the skyline of the city of Brisbane, the new Hotel X is located in the centre of the city’s Fortitude Valley, also known as the ‘Valley’.
The hotel’s custom façade lighting system has been created to reflect the Valley’s progressive and dynamic atmosphere.
To deliver this large-scale, high-profile façade lighting system, integrated solutions provider bluebottle was appointed to the project. Given its sheer size, LED fixtures were the only choice to fulfil the requirements, with Color Kinetics the chosen brand. The iColor Flex LMX gen2 RGB luminaires were used; mounted in a custom aluminium channel that forms part of the building façade.
To fulfil the control elements of the lighting scheme, bluebottle partnered with Pharos Architectural Controls. A Pharos VLC 500, directly controls the hotel’s façade fixtures creating a showpiece, celebrating notable events, calendar dates, and more.
Commenting on their collaboration with Pharos, Claire Enoka, technical sales from bluebottle said: “The Pharos VLC 500 Controller handles the pixel mapping of over 40,000 nodes. Used in conjunction with the bluebottle remote management portal, it has allowed for an intuitive, easy-to-use system with full visibility of status, shows and schedules for the facility manager.
“To date some of the more notable shows we’ve been able to achieve have celebrated Easter, The State of Origin Rugby and Brisbane’s successful 2032 Olympic bid.”
Tony Symms, regional manager from Pharos added: “The façade of B

UK - The new studio at London’s Metropolis features a fully certified Dolby Atmos system, based entirely around Neumann monitors.
Developed in conjunction with immersive audio and live streaming specialist Sonosphere, versatility was the key for the Munro Acoustics-designed room. Its centrally located mix position and immersive monitoring environment ensures it can cater for all current surround formats. The room fully meets Dolby Atmos specifications, is capable of delivering 11.8.1 Atmos and includes a Dolby Atmos Mastering Suite server.
Whilst Metropolis has not traditionally been a Neumann house, the Sonosphere team has a long history with the brand and were keen to demonstrate its benefits. A key mission was to ensure clean and extended low frequency, with the required isolation to accurately judge tone-shaping a full octave below the effective range of many monitoring systems.
As a result, three Neumann KH 420 tri-amplified monitors are soffit-mounted to the front wall, with one KH 420 positioned horizontally beneath its video screen and twin Neumann KH 870 400 W subwoofers flanking the three-way monitors, with deep bass response up to 18 Hz. Surround monitoring is handled by 17 Neumann KH 120 compact bi-amplified studio monitors.
“We decided on three loudspeakers across the back wall, with all the loudspeakers around the room arrayed at 30° of separation to each other, so the setup was completely symmetrical for doing third-order [high-order Ambisonic] work,” explains Sonosphere mix engineer, Phil Wright, who was a key member of

USA - On the outskirts of Cincinnati, the city of Blue Ash came to life this summer with the sounds of Carmen, Tosca, and The Barber of Seville reimagined for Cincinnati Opera’s Summer at Summit series, held outdoors from 11 July to 1 August at Summit Park. It featured singing and music from internationally renowned guest artists, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Opera Chorus. The outdoor setting, a choice driven by the Covid pandemic, allowed for an under-the-stars experience, yet with all the grandeur of grand opera theatre sound, thanks to the use of L-ISA immersive technology provided by L-Acoustics.
A system co-designed by Jonathan Burke, who directs the sound design programme in the School of Theatre, Film and Television at UCLA, incorporated L-Acoustics’ broad range of technologies. Sixty Kara II enclosures were configured as five arrays of a dozen enclosures each, all flown from towers and the stage canopy, as the Scene system. The arrays benefited from L-Acoustics Panflex horizontal steering, which assured coverage over the entire seating area extending 450ft from the stage.
In addition, 16 KS28 subs were arrayed in a centre arc on the ground, while nine Kiva II enclosures were deployed as front-fills along the leading edge of the stage, placed atop the subs. Finally, six Syva medium-throw colinear source speakers were mounted on light poles at the rear of the seating area and, using L-ISA Room Engine functionality, created the rear-surround array. All components were provided by Firehouse Produ

USA - Stuffed animals aren’t something usually associated with a band like hardcore metal giants Killswitch Engage. Still, the fluffy playthings helped create a sense of intimacy this summer when the Grammy-nominated quintet recorded a video of their latest album Atonement.
The band, which normally plays at jam-packed venues, was performing at an empty 2,200-capacity venue, The Palladium in Worcester, MA, for the video. To encourage them to look out into the “audience” despite the vacant hall, their long-time lighting designer, Cody James hid stuffed unicorns in the seats.
That worked for the band. As for the fans watching the video, James fostered a powerful, you-are-there feeling by unleashing a torrent of genuine concert looks with help from a beefy collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by JDI Productions.
“After some long conversations, my PM Josh Mihlek and I decided we wanted the band’s fans to get an experience as close as possible to a true to live show,” said James. “With that thought in mind, I went ‘full Killswitch’ with our looks. We just went for it as hard as we could with help from our light crew Paul Maloof and Peter Therrien to bring an exact live show experience to people’s screens.”
James pre-programmed the show and stored it in cue stacks and scene windows, but ran it in a busking style. “I like having to trigger everything myself,” he said. “I think it’s from all the years of running par cans.”
The show took place in two locations within the Palladium. The first

USA - For years, fans flocked to the University of Tampa’s Bob Martinez Athletics Centre to witness excellence on the court. But no matter how many national titles Spartans supporters and athletes enjoyed - including three NCAA Division II women’s volleyball crowns (2006, 2014, and ‘18) - there was no getting around at least one major disappointment on perennial display at the Bob Martinez Athletics Centre: A failing sound system.
That is why, when the University of Tampa undertook renovations of the 36-year-old, 3,400-seat arena that the Spartans’ men’s and women’s basketball teams also call home, it opted for a complete overhaul of its audio capabilities.
And when Regional AV integration firm AvTek introduced Spartans athletic department members to Danley Sound Labs components, the University of Tampa had finally found a sound to match the quality of what was happening on the court.
“Over the years, we’ve had a few sound systems in the Martinez Gym, and they’ve all been terrible,” said Scott Gossen, senior project manager for the University of Tampa. “Announcements were boomy and indecipherable. You couldn’t understand anything that was being said.”
Looking for something to crown the renovation, which featured new bleachers, new floor, new exterior entrances, and new lighting, AvTek, located in Clearwater, Fla., designed and installed a Danley Sound Labs reinforcement system. The system included Danley SH69 loudspeakers, a Danley BC412 subwoofer, and Danley DNA-series amplifiers.
AvTek engineer Geoff Alvarez

Serbia - On its website, Kaleidoskop Kulture describes its mission as one of promoting “a unique image of diversity”. A look at this ambitious project’s itinerary is enough to convince anyone that this is no idle claim. Just about every form of human creativity is displayed, studied, and discussed at the event, which began on 2 September in the city centre of Novi Sad on the banks of the Danube.
The creative scope of this ambitious cultural project was on full display at its opening ceremony, which was attended by an impressive assemblage of dignitaries, including Serbia’s Deputy Prime Minister Maja Gojković. Adding to the celebratory atmosphere of the occasion was a vibrant Nemanja Pavelić lighting design anchored by over 40 Chauvet Professional Maverick fixtures supplied by Chameleon Rental.
Chameleon Rental’s Dragan Rajčin, production manager for the opening ceremony, credits the Maverick units with setting an immersive visual tone at the event for those in attendance, as well as viewers watching televised reports. “We created very nice ambient colours with the Mavericks, both on the stage and the wall,” he said. “This resulted in attractive visuals without distracting from the performers or presenters on stage.”
A total of 38 Maverick MK2 Wash fixtures were used throughout the opening ceremony site. The Chameleon Rental team positioned some of these units across the deck of the main stage, using them to accentuate the richly coloured scenic backdrop that was painted on its walls. Other units were flown on truss structures on

USA - The church building of Christ King Parish in the western Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa has been through over half a century of construction, reconstruction, renovation and updates. But the one that likely may have made the most difference was the recent replacement of its old sound system with a new L-Acoustics A10i array and Syva loudspeaker enclosures installed over the summer by the local office of Clearwing Systems Integration.
The building, which opened in January of 1957, was designed to seat 1,200 parishioners. However, like many older Catholic house of worship designs, the preponderance of marble, glass and hardwood made for a highly reflective sonic environment that was highly challenging for music, and especially for speech. As is often the case in these types of spaces, speech is sourced at the altar in the front while music emanates from the rear choir and organ loft, so addressing Christ King Parish’s needs would have to come from both directions.
Using L-Acoustics Soundvision design software, Clearwing Systems Integration created a solution that featured a single central array comprising a five A10i - four Focus enclosures over one Wide - flown at the front of the room, and a pair of Syva and Syva Low speakers mounted on either side of the doors to the building’s narthex underneath the loft at the room’s rear.
Four compact 5XT coaxial speakers are mounted two per side under the acoustically shadowed left and right transept areas, while four portable X12 monitor wedges enable the musicians upstairs to clearly hear themselves

UK - With the new month-long South Facing Festival, music has returned to the Crystal Palace Bowl, scene of legendary rock shows in the 1970s. The site’s revival has been led by The Crystal Palace Trust after securing substantial funding.
The stage this time may have been built on a floating pontoon - in front of the original stage - and the venue capped at 5,000, but in the hands of festival director Marcus Weedon, and with the equally experienced Loudsound providing site and production logistics, the event was in safe hands.
Capital Sound extended this duty of care by deploying Martin Audio’s MLA technology, which ensured that sound would be contained within the bowl, avoiding any bleed to the nearby residential area.
Over the month, acts as diverse as The Streets, Supergrass, Corinne Bailey Rae, Dizzee Rascal and English National Opera graced the stage, as Capital project manager, David Preston and his team, set about overcoming the challenge of installing and optimising the PA.
“It is hoped that this will become a regular fixture on the festival landscape, which is why we chose MLA, for the close control we could achieve on this site,” remarked Preston, whose team worked alongside production manager, Julia Bruns.
But installation was far from straightforward. With the height of the top of the bowl only two metres below the trim height they were able to achieve, Capital needed to fly the array almost flat in order to ensure sufficient coverage at the back. “This meant striking a fine balance between achieving even coverage

Japan - The Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics opening and closing ceremonies almost certainly represented the largest deployment of Optocore audio network devices ever seen.
This was according to Norwest head of special projects, Andrew Marsh, whose company has a long pedigree of fashioning vast digital broadcast networks for spectacular Games Opening and Closing ceremonies, built around Optocore devices.
To give an idea of scale, he says, “The system we provided for our client, Hibino Corporation, comprised just under 1000 audio signals transported on each main and backup network.”
As usual, Norwest duplicated the 21-node system to provide full redundancy. “And we used every one of them,” said Marsh, “along with our usual set of HP switches in RSTP, using our spare pairs of fibre.” These switches controlled the entire audio system at multiple field locations and control rooms. The network design was a collaboration between Marsh himself and John Watterson, Norwest’s senior system engineer at the head of a combined team effort.
Norwest, who already hold a large inventory of Optocore devices, expanded further for this event, to include a number of M12-BNC devices among the 50 Optocore interfaces deployed. “These act as the primary MADI devices where signals are routed on and off the network which interlink us with replay devices or other suppliers,” he said. “With the addition of some custom firmware and macros, we were able to switch between main and backup devices seamlessly.”
They also purchased additional X6R-TP-and X

USA - CityHope Church in Mobile, Alabama’s metro area has just made another leap forward with its summer installation of a new DiGiCo Quantum338 console at its flagship Malbis campus, just north of Daphne.
It’s the centrepiece of a larger audio upgrade that also includes two integrated DMI-Dante cards, an Orange Box interface for MADI, integrated DMI-KLANG card for in-ear monitor mixing, SD-Rack fitted with 32-bit “Ultimate Stadius” mic preamps, SD-MiNi Rack used for broadcast audio-for-video I/O (including video switcher, computers, and lobby audio-processor feeds), and DiGiGrid rackmount Quad MADI interface that allows recording of up to 128 channels at 96 kHz. The Q338 console, SD-Racks and KLANG audio are all on a newly-installed Optocore loop network.
The entire package was specified, designed and installed by Springville, Alabama-based AVL firm ESB Group, the same integrator that installed CityHope’s L-Acoustics Kara(i) and ARCS WiFo loudspeaker systems six years earlier when the fast-growing church first moved into its new 1,400-seat worship centre, which at the time more than doubled CityHope’s worship space.
The installation of the new DiGiCo Q338 console replaces three existing consoles with the single Q338 desk. “The consoles they had at front of house, monitor world, and broadcast were showing their age and lack of support, but putting in the DiGiCo Quantum console was more than just an upgrade - it represented an order-of-magnitude improvement,” says ESB Group Solutions architect/design engineer Drew Breland.
“Fo

USA - The Dave Matthews Band is back on the road for their annual North American Summer Tour with stops at sheds and amphitheatres across the country from late July through November. Longtime rental partner UltraSound of Petaluma, CA has once again supplied a Meyer Sound system based on Lyon linear line array loudspeakers.
This year marks Dave Matthews Band’s 30th anniversary as well as 25 years of UltraSound and Meyer Sound’s collaboration with the band. After more than a year and a half without performances, the UltraSound and Dave Matthews Band production teams were eager to bring music back to fans.
“Getting back on tour has been a crazy experience. After a year and a half off, all of us had gotten a bit rusty,” Tom Lyon, UltraSound senior systems engineer and FOH engineer for Dave Matthews Band, said. “Luckily, we scheduled a few days with just the band and the monitor rig to rehearse privately and get the muscle memory back. Once we started our first show in Raleigh, we were in fine shape and ready to shine.”
The system configuration for the tour includes main and side hangs of 16-each Lyon line array loudspeakers, augmented by two hangs of nine-each 1100‑LFC low-frequency control elements, and a centre hang of four Leopard compact loudspeakers. Front-fills consist of four additional Leopard loudspeakers, with four CQ-2 loudspeakers deployed for miscellaneous fill as needed. System optimisation and drive are supplied by Galileo master processors at FOH and Galileo Callisto array processors at the stage. The artist foldback system

Germany - Robe’s waterproof iSpiiders wash beam LED moving lights provided the solution for the recent production of Stuttgart. Ein Traum (Stuttgart. A Dream) a new work that is a collage of street, puppet, physical and ensemble theatre performance referencing the city’s history and culture, created in a collaboration between Stuttgart Staatsgalerie, the Schauspielbühnen Theatre.
The show was presented in the open air over 10 days in the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie’s Rotunda, an outdoor amphitheatre and one of the most striking architectural features of this postmodern masterpiece building designed by James Stirling in the 1970s.
Lighting and audio rental company Mad Music supplied the lighting and sound for the production with company owner Mathias Bremgärtner and project manager Peter Wormstädt working in close conjunction with the Schauspiel’s technical director, Stefan Hauschke.
The iSpiiders were part of a purchase by Mad Music initially for this show, and now for general rental stock.
With the live performance and event industry cautiously returning to work after a lengthy pandemic-enforced shutdown, Mathias and Peter felt confident about making this investment in iSpiiders due to the general increase in outdoor events prompted by the Covid situation.
Initially this is through the rest of summer and the early autumn months, but it’s a trend they think could easily extend further during these Covid times, to feed the general surge in demand for performance events in safer external environments.
Funded

Europe - Venice, once the epicentre of culture and commerce - and a work of art in itself - has perhaps enjoyed a more relaxed, touristic reputation over recent decades. However, this medieval city’s influential and entrepreneurial spirit is still very much alive, with new and innovative ventures re-establishing it as a hub for forward-thinking organisations in the creative industries.
Spearheading the city’s creative reawakening is PASE Platform, a cultural organisation melding together art and technology. Located far from the madding crowds, in the city’s tightly-knit Cannaregio district, PASE is rooted in the local contemporary arts scene, as well as Europe’s wider creative community. Harnessing the collaborative power of artists, designers, technicians and researchers the PASE team have set out to uncover and create experiences from new creative languages and technologies. Among them, and central to its working studio, is the d&b Soundscape.
For PASE co-founders and directors, Victor Nebbiolo di Castri, and Valeria Zane, being at the avant-garde of creative production is no less than a social and artistic obligation. “Recent developments in immersive listening and spatial sound diffusion confirm we must take these advancements into account,” explains Zane. “For creators and the public, we want to support new projects by exploring space and sound in an innovative way. To provide the technology that will take us into a new digital golden age.”
Fundamental to this endeavour is a flexible d&b Soundscape rig. Among PASE’s f

UK - Lighting designer Tim Lutkin employed two Robert Juliat SpotMe systems in their first double use at the National Theatre on this summer’s production of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood.
Lutkin, who has extensive experience of automated tracking systems - but none with a real person behind the light - was curious to explore the features of SpotMe. The result was a lighting design full of sculptural subtlety and creativity that went far beyond traditional tracking.
Jack Champion, National Theatre’s lighting supervisor for Under Milk Wood, explains: “Tim used SpotMe in a different style, hardly using the actual light output from the front followspots, but using instead the positional data generated by SpotMe to control the moving lights to follow the actors. He assigned one SpotMe system to lead actor Michael Sheen and the other SpotMe to cover the rest of the cast, and could use SpotMe to cherry pick the lights he needed at any certain moment, picking the actors up and ‘releasing’ them when he wished.
“This way he could, for example, follow an actor to a position with moving lights, then instead of fading off that set of lights to pick up someone else, he could remove just some of those moving lights from SpotMe control to leave them covering the stationary actor, then assign different lights to SpotMe with which to pick up another actor. It was clever, and a subtle and sophisticated way of using SpotMe that was much more fluid and organic, especially with the followspot operator being in control of the movement. It felt

Dominican Republic - The Voice Dominican is being aired for the first time ever in the Dominican Republic and is being run from the largest studio in the country by Procapital Films and RAM Productions.
Paulinho Lebrão, a Brazilian designer, has recently had the opportunity to work on this project. Working for BM Eventos, the lighting, video and sound supplier of the Voice Dominican, Paulinho is the owner of FOH Lighting Control, established in 2009, specialising as a light programmer and operator. He has been using wysiwyg since 2016.
As with everyone in the industry, struggling through the pandemic, Paulinho has been no different, taking this time to focus on his family and expand his skills and repertoire of abilities. Rather than think of it as a negative, Paulinho used the time to evolve into a more forward-ready person, for when our industry kicks back into gear, which he seems optimistic is happening, considering the work coming in.
wysiwyg is used on all aspects of this show as an important tool, because the show is programmed virtually, even before rehearsals start. So, all the details and the process need to be very reliable and wysiwyg delivers that.
The show has a total of 84 Universes running (including lighting and video mapping).

Italy - The 17th Century Teatro Municipale in Italy’s Piacenza reopened its doors with a endition of Verdi’s Requiem. Directed by Placido Domingo and performed by the Arturo Toscanini Philharmonic orchestra and the City Theatre Choir, the concert was held in front of a socially distanced in-person audience and live streamed, utilising a KLANG:fabrik unit to deliver those at unable to attend with a 3D audio mix.
Traditionally used for in-ear monitoring, with the emergence of live streaming, KLANG systems have more recently found favour with productions for spacial audio mixes for online viewers, making their listening experience engaging and immersive.
Federico Bianchi, audio engineer and KLANG specialist for Italian distributor AudioLink, was approached by Acid Studio, the theatre’s technical partner, to work on the mix for the live stream of this special event.
“From the very beginning, I proposed an immersive audio solution,” he recalls. “Recently, many events have been streamed and the opportunity to offer listeners a different, more suggestive and qualitatively superior experience was an idea that I immediately married with this production.”
Bianchi notes that most viewers of this type of event listen with headphones via mobile devices or computers. For him, this made the choice to raise the quality of the audio even more obvious and important.
“There are various systems on the market for immersive audio, but KLANG is the one with the highest quality and algorithms, and it has an easy to use, intuitive interfac

USA - The Brooklyn Mirage is an aptly named open-air live music venue located in the heart of New York City’s most populous borough. The sanctuary in the East Williamsburg area of Brooklyn recently reopened after a 15-month hiatus and now greets crowds of eager live music fans with a an IP-rated lighting package from Elation Professional.
The Brooklyn Mirage lies in the Avant Gardner complex, an 80,000sq.ft site that occupies an entire city block. The vast complex includes an indoor space, The Great Hall, and an intimate club space called The King’s Hall, as well as the outdoor The Brooklyn Mirage.
The large courtyard is surrounded by towering walls and is lined with palms and other foliage. Multi-tiered, it includes a balcony that encircles the courtyard, as well as a fourth level overlook called The Crown. The venue hosts all types of events - corporate or private - but thrives as a bastion for electronic music lovers.
Head of production at Avant Gardner is Stephen Wyker, who verifies what many had expected after an extended absence of live music. “Not only are people back, they are back at 150%. Artists were ready to get back on the road and demand for tickets has been sky high.”
Wyker handles lighting design at The Brooklyn Mirage and says lighting wise the overall need was fairly simple. “We wanted a creative lighting package we could use outside and the only way to do that was to use IP65-rated fixtures. When we were looking for IP fixtures in 2019 there was really no other competition to the Proteus Hybrid. We had used 16 of t