The Netherlands - The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is considered one of the world's most prestigious live television events. Being involved in this spectacle is an honour that many companies want to be credited with. Organising the ESC in the Netherlands has given many Dutch-based companies that chance. ROE Visual is among them.
Early 2020, just before COVID-19, gave the world and our industry a different outlook. The team from Faber Audiovisuals, including Jeroen Jongenelen, international sales director, gathered at the ROE Visual booth at ISE to discuss possibilities and products that would be suitable for the ESC 2020. One thing was clear from the start, Faber Audiovisuals would bid for the ESC event with the ROE Visual products specified.
Later, the final bids were discussed; products were screened and evaluated in the technical ESC team, consisting of Hans Cromheecke, ESC's head of video department, and Erwin Rintjema, ESC's head of production. The ROE Visual products made it through the final selection. Having been used on many ESC editions before, both the ROE Visual products and the technical support they offer have an excellent track record.
ESC 2021 host broadcasters NPO, NOS, AVROTROS, producing the event on behalf of the European Broadcasting Union EBU, continued to involve all parties initially engaged in the 2020 edition. With Faber Audiovisuals appointed as ESC's official technical supplier for video, This also meant the green light for ROE Visual.
Faber Audiovisuals is one of ROE Visual's largest customers on the European cont

Dubai - Pixel Artworks recently specified a TiMax SoundHub spatial audio server for a new high-profile AV experience greeting visitors arriving into Dubai International airport. The immersive installation captures the spirit and ethos of the rescheduled Expo 2020 event, now running from autumn 2021 to spring 2022.
Raven AV’s Dan Roncoroni handled the highly sophisticated audio aspects of the installation, following an earlier preparatory visit to site by Out Board’s Robin Whittaker. Due to its late addition to the project, TiMax had to be retrofitted into an existing system design within very tight timescales, adding interesting challenges into what was, as Roncoroni explains it, “quite a difficult scenario”.
Aside from the airport’s highly reflective environment and characteristically high level of background noise, the requirement for loudspeakers to be neither surface mounted nor visible added to these challenges. Additionally, significant negotiation with the airport had been necessary to ease some incredibly restrictive decibel limits, and because intended electrical cabling ran contrary to the airport’s infrastructure schedule, only data cables could be run across the airport.
Despite these challenges the client expectation was for sound as immersive as the visuals from a comparatively small physical area. Roncoroni comments: “The project called for a spatial audio setup outside the envelope of most spatial audio processors. It was just one of many situations where you could either mess

Vietnam - BaSao Invest recently partnered with Harman Professional Solutions to outfit Saigon South Marina Club with JBL Professional line array loudspeakers and portable PA systems.
A popular getaway destination, Saigon South Marina Club provides a range of activities and services for visitors, including catering, entertainment, private events, a playground and river rides. The club hired Pro Sound Centre Viet Nam to install a Harman event audio solution consisting of JBL BRX300 and EON Series loudspeakers supplied by BaSao Invest.
BaSao Invest reported that the client required a versatile audio system for both small and large events.
For the facility’s main sound system, BaSao selected JBL BRX308-LA line array loudspeakers and BRX325-SP subwoofers. For smaller events, the team included JBL EON612 self-powered PA speakers for maximum flexibility, portability and ease of use. Saigon South Marina Club reported that the JBL sound systems enable them to create a much greater impact during events and connect better with their audiences.
“Saigon South Marina Club is a unique and carefully planned space that required well-constructed audio systems to provide exceptional guest experiences,” said G. Amar Subash, VP & GM, APAC, Harman Professional Solutions, APAC. “We thank our partner BaSao Invest for creating a robust design that met the client’s specifications right to the last detail.”

UK - It has been a tough year for the entire industry and none more so than those studying the performing arts, with colleges having to radically re-think not just the teaching process and online learning, but also the realisation of practical coursework modules.
Second-year students on the Creative Lighting Control (CLC) and Lighting Design (LD) courses at the UK’s Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance thought out of the box and forged ahead with the staging of their annual Live Event project, delivering a full programme of music entertainment in a fully covid compliant environment.
The action took place at the 330-capacity Rose Theatre on the college’s Sidcup, Kent campus, comprising a series of shows featuring the talents of four live artists – two solo acts, a band, and a DJ – with performances either livestreamed by the Lighting Design students or recorded music-video style for broadcast by the CLC students instead of being played to a live audience.
Each year, the College reaches out to different industry players for the Live Event project looking for partner companies on the technical side who will participate by providing equipment, and those responding this year included Avolites, Colour Sound Experiment, ER Productions (lasers), Neg Earth Lights (NEL), Rigging Team, Tom Young (MA3) and White Light, among others.
Neg Earth was the sole provider of the Robe equipment in the form of LEDBeam 150s, PATT2013s and two MegaPointes running on two RoboSpot systems – organised in conjunction with NEL’s Sam Ridgway.

The Netherlands – A newly formed group of Hippotizer Media Servers worked in total harmony for this year’s Eurovision final, feeding lighting and visual data into LED strips and LED tape on the main stage, set pieces and in the ‘green room’ artist area.
An estimated 183m people around the world watched as a Hippotizer Boreal+ served as lead in the band, driving all of the LED tape and strip colours on and around the main stage at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena. Contestants from 39 countries took part in this year’s event.
Second in command was a Hippotizer Karst+, which controlled all of the LED strips in the artist booths – where the all-important live interviews took place - as well as the specials for selected performers on the night.
No band is complete without support, so the set up was complemented by a Karst and Karst+ Media Server as backup for the live finals.
Lighting designer for Eurovision 2021 was Henk-Jan van Beek from Light-H-Art. Managing the Hippotizer line up was André Beekmans from The Art of Light, who worked alongside show lighting programmers Micky Dordregter, Robbert-Jan Vernooij and Erik-Jan Berendesen to achieve the huge range of looks.
“Henk-Jan van Beek asked me to join in his team as one of the four show lighting programmers, and I was of course thrilled to be part of one of the world’s biggest events,” says Beekmans. “Right from the start, we knew we needed some seriously powerful kit to feed around 800 universes of LED pixels, so we began searching for the right solution – a powerful media

UK - The Brit Awards 2021 was staged at the O2 Arena, London, featuring an elegant and dynamic production design by Es Devlin and Yinka Ilori with lighting created by Al Gurdon. The live broadcast event celebrated some of the best British and international music and broke ground as the first major indoor live music event with an audience – of key and frontline workers – since the pandemic shut down of March 2020.
Hosted by comedian Jack Whitehall, and aired on ITV, the live line-up included Coldplay, Dua Lipa, Elton John, The Weeknd, Griff, Rag’n’Bone Man, Pink & The Greenwich & Lewisham NHS Choir, Headie One and several more.
Al Gurdon worked alongside a lighting programming team comprising Alex Mildenhall looking after the show’s ‘effect’ lights using a grandMA3 full-size console running grandMA3 software, and Ross Williams who took care of all the key lighting. The lighting rig consisted of around 1,600 fixtures, with over 105 DMX universes containing 43,000 parameters.
Alex himself owns three grandMA3 light consoles – one of which was running as his backup on this event. He had been working with the powerful and versatile new grandMA3 software for some months already, and decided it was the way to go for this year’s high profile ‘Brits’.
The show was moved back from its usual February slot to May, so Alex had already had the chance to use the full grandMA3 combination on shows earlier in the year, including Dancing on Ice also for ITV at Bovingdon Airfield, and Game of Talents at Maidstone Studio

USA - Toby Keith kicked off his Country Comes To Town tour at the Denny Sanford Premier Centre in Sioux Falls, SD on Thursday May 20.
Stepping onto the stage, the country superstar became the first major artist to embark on a tour since the start of the pandemic 14 months earlier. For the happy fans in attendance that night, Keith’s appearance represented not only a chance to enjoy live music again, but a reunion with an old and treasured friend.
“The connection with the audience has always been a big part of who Toby is,” said Seth Jackson of Darkroom Creative, who along with his partner, Nathan Alves handled the lighting, video and production design for the multi-city tour. “From the earliest days of his career, Toby has developed an especially close rapport with fans, doing things like bringing soldiers on stage to express his gratitude for their service, and arranging surprise deployed soldier reunions during his shows.”
In recent years, Keith’s shows have featured a T-shaped runway to allow him greater opportunities to interact with the crowd. For Country Comes To Town, his design team took things a step further, creating a diamond shape runway with a pit that includes a full bar in the centre, and other “party pits” around its perimeter – all intended to bring the artist and his fans closer together for their long awaited post-lockdown reunion.
Enhancing the warm, familiar mood of the evening, was an inviting lighting and video design that featured Chauvet Professional Maverick MK3 Spot, Rouge R2X Wash and Nexus 4x4 fix

USA - The fountain at Cary’s Downtown Park, in Cary NC, has quickly become a landmark in the town since its construction in 2017.
The fountain has served as a backdrop to lighting displays marking celebrations and causes that are important to townspeople. This has included being illuminated in the rainbow of colours symbolising LGBTQ+ Pride Month every June.
This year, however, the fountain was temporarily decommissioned as part of a larger park renovation project. Moving quickly, the city turned to another nearby landmark, the historic Cary Arts Centre. By the start of June, the centre, which traces its roots back to the 19th century, was glowing with a brilliant display of Pride Month colours.
“With the fountain shut down right now as part of a renovation, we needed to come up quickly with an alternate way to celebrate, which led to the selection of the Arts Centre,” said Cailen Waddell, the town’s programme supervisor of technical operations. “We are also lighting the Arts Centre in colours of the local high schools for their graduations, as well as for Juneteenth, which this year became an official town holiday.”
Helping to achieve this quick and impressive transformation at the centre was a collection of 12 Chauvet Professional WELL Panel fixtures supplied and installed by Bandit Lites.
“The town wanted something that would be easy to setup and strike every night,” said Andrew Fisher, senior systems integrator at Bandit Lites. “They also did not want to run cables that would inhibit foot traffic, so the wireless D

Czech Republic - The largest performance space of Brno City Theatre (Městské divadlo Brno), The Music Theatre, is a 680-seat venue that hosts a programme of current musicals and large-scale drama.
Technical manager, David Kachlíř, recently added a Robert Juliat SpotMe tracking device to the venue’s lighting inventory, thereby increasing its existing complement of Robert Juliat products of three RJ Ginger followspots, Dalis 864 coloured footlights and a number of RJ 600 and 700 series profiles. The RJ SpotMe device was supplied by Prague-based Prolight s.r.o., Robert Juliat’s exclusive distributor for the Czech Republic, as part of an improvement initiative to future-proof the Theatre.
SpotMe is Robert Juliat’s award-winning server that produces real-time tracking information with no emitters or cameras on stage or performers. It uses feedback from sensors mounted on a tripod and followspot to coordinate moving lights with the movement initiated by a followspot and its operator - a perfect combination of high technology and human control in lighting design and operation.
Kachlíř chose SpotMe after a request from artistic director, Stanislav Moša, who wished to be able to follow actors with backlight from upstage lighting positions. “Such positions are impossible to access with a human operator due to the number of moving flybars, lights and scenery,” explains Kachlíř, “so we decided to bring in SpotMe which can be controlled remotely by a console operator in conjunction with a followspot operator.”
The newly-acqu

Germany - At the Department of Music (Institut für Musik – IfM) of the German Kassel University, prospective music teachers are being trained to teach at all kinds of schools. The department also has its own concert hall, which is used for concerts of all musical genres as well as lectures and examinations. Plain concrete walls and a high proportion of glass elements characterize the room - and place special demands on the sound system.
After a PA workshop with Rolf Dressler - probably Kassel's "longest-serving sound engineer" in 2018 - instructors and technical assistants were enthusiastic about the sound of his Alcons system which he set up in the IfM concert hall in addition to the house system.
"Whenever we switched back from the Alcons to the house system during Rolf's workshop, I kept thinking that our speakers had just been broken," says Roman Beilharz, a lecturer in the popular music department and the main person in charge of sound engineering. "It was striking: the house system didn't just sound worse in a direct listening comparison, it sounded downright broken! When switching back, the clear, punchy sound of the Alcons systems collapsed into a nasal, muffled mush. After that, it was clear which loudspeaker systems we wanted to install in the long overdue renewal of the hall's technical equipment."
Once the funds had been approved, the replacement of the PA system was put out to tender throughout Europe in 2020. The bid from Dressler, an Alcons user from the very beginning, received the highest score in the evaluation process and was

The Netherlands - The 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest at Rotterdam’s Ahoy arena, marked the first major live event to take place in the Netherlands since the pandemic. The event was powered by disguise.
The official technical supplier for the contest, Faber Audiovisuals, relied on a complement of disguise vx 4, gx 2c and 4x4pro media servers to power a total of 55 scenes on a giant LED video wall and floors, used across all 39 competing performances, the opening ceremony, the flag parade and all interval acts, such as the impressive Power of Water. The six-week production period was led by ESC head of production Erwin Rintjema and head of video Hand Cromheecke.
Faber’s Eurovision team included disguise workflow specialist Jo Pauly (of Visual Solutions) as media server operators for the show. The two share a long history of successful live projects powered by disguise, including Marco Borsato’s show at De Kuip Stadium in 2019.
Ben Augenbroe and Steve Ackein, ESC project managers for Faber said: “We chose disguise for reliability and stability. Because we had to run in full redundancy, disguise gave us the right solution. We did not have any issue on this complex production and the disguise 24/7 stand-by team supported us real quick when needed.
“This Eurovision Song Contest 2021 went smoothly for Faber, as all went according to plan and all of our crew were outstanding. Our client, NPO/NOS/AVROTROS expressed they were delighted to have chosen Faber as their technical partner as we delivered as promised. All three live broa

UK - Jakarta-based Mola TV introduced Chill Fridays an interactive weekly livestream that features stars playing mellow music in an intimate setting and, every once in a while, taking questions from fans.
Many of the episodes are filmed at Mola’s London TV studio, where artists like Jacob Collier, Tom Misch and Bruno Major have performed in a set that evokes images of the kind of hotel bars where friends gathered for a pre-weekend happy hours back in the day.
Key to creating this ambience is a warm, inviting lighting design that works hand-in-hand with scenic elements like potted plants and table lamps to engender a homey feeling. Fold Sound owner Tristan Finn, who supplies lights, sound gear, recording equipment and cameras for the show called on Martin Dudley of Martin’s Lights to handle lighting duties, something he’s done skilfully with his ChamSys PC Wing and MagicQ software on a touch screen laptop.
“I have worked with Tristan for years and was very glad to hook up with him on this project,” says Dudley. “We have been supplying power distribution, cabling, DMX control, and technician services, to the shoots. Our goal is to make sure that the show has lighting for the shoot up and running as quickly as possible.”
Although the programme helps viewers chill at the start of their weekend, setting up the show is a somewhat pressured experience. Schedules are extremely tight, with set up starting at 9 am, and shooting at noon, whilst the show is expected to wrap up by 4pm.
Keeping his controls simple with the ChamSys

Romania - Based in the Romanian port of Navodari, Alezzi Yacht – a 42m x 18m, 1,000-capacity catamaran - offers cruises along the Black Sea coast, complete with fine dining, cocktails and glamour along with breathtaking views of the lively beach resort of Mamaia and Constanta City.
The afternoon is dedicated to an experience aimed at the whole family, whilst the evening cruise is reserved for those looking for a full-on party atmosphere. Any good party requires great audio, and Alezzi Yacht is no exception - Constanta-based AV specialists, AudioVision, were asked to design, supply and install a comprehensive AV system throughout the catamaran. AudioVision selected KV2 Audio for the project.
“We were fortunate to have been involved from the early stages of construction, which made AV integration much more efficient,” observes AudioVision general manager, Vasile Mara. “We decided that KV2 would be the ideal audio solution due its low distortion, extremely high definition and the capacity to cover large areas with relatively little equipment, which is important when you’re restricted for space, as is inevitably the case on a boat. All loudspeaker elements were supplied in white to blend as seamlessly as possible into the surroundings.”
Alezzi Yacht features three decks, each offering a different experience. The lower deck is a restaurant space where guests can enjoy a relaxed brunch or a drink while admiring the sea views through the windows or the panoramic floor. The middle deck is the club where revellers can party without being at the m

The Netherlands - The Grand Final of the 65th staging of the Eurovision Song Contest event took place at the Rotterdam Ahoy in May, where winners Italy triumphed over the other 25 finalists with their song Zitti E Buoni performed by Måneskin.
Utrecht-based Ampco Flashlight were the ESC’s official technical supplier for audio, lighting and rigging, working with Erwin Rintjema, ESC’s head of production, who was responsible for the whole technical production this year and Jeroen ten Brinke, ESC’s head of live sound.
Ampco Flashlight’s Remco Verhoek was their project manager, audio, for the event and he describes the role which Newton played in their system design: “Newton was used as matrix mixer to sum all the mixers to the PA feeds. There were two DiGiCo Quantum7's and two Yamaha CL1's, matrixed into a number of feeds outputting over Dante - on the other end we converted back to AES and analogue via LM44. All desks had AES and analogue outputs into the Newton with its failover feature enabled.”
“The PA consisted of a mixture of L-Acoustics K1, K2, KS28 and Kara in a total of 16 hangs spread across the Ahoy venue. Control of the Newton was done via a Mac Mini that resided in the control rack.”
Ampco Flashlight purchased their first Newton units shortly after its launch in 2018 and have built dedicated drive racks equipped with Newton for use at all their festivals and indoor shows, including North Sea Jazz, Lowlands and Down The Rabbit Hole Festivals, Vrienden van Amstel Live and many others.
Look out for LSi's cover

Europe - The inaugural Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) event - a European Union initiative to reform its policies and institutions - took place in May at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The hemicycle debating chamber sits inside the striking Louise Weiss Building designed by Parisian-based Architecture-Studio and opened in 1999. It includes a 60m high tower which is left looking deliberately unfinished and was inspired by Roman amphitheatres and the mythical Tower of Babel.
The event included a welcome speech by French President Emmanuel Macron and contributions by other high-ranking politicians and EU officials. As CoFoE was aimed primarily at a younger audience of under 40s, production company Nimblerr asked lighting designer Dimi Theuwissen of Belgium-based creative practice ID2Q to energise the distinctive hemicycle ensuring it looked dynamic and different on camera for this special broadcast.
Dimi decided to change up the look and mood completely with a fresh approach, lighting the room architecture in the background, and in doing so, bringing its presence right into the foreground and camera shots. Helping him to achieve this aesthetic were over 200 Robe moving lights - Spiiders, Tetra2s and LEDBeam 150s.
CoFoE was livestreamed and joined by 300 gen-public via zoom together with various ministers, dignitaries, and VIPs, all of whom appeared on seven large LED screens strategically deployed in a circular around 300 degrees of the hemicycle. Erasmus students from all EU member states were present in a socially distanced live a

Austria - 4youreye and Rezac employed Pixera media servers for this year’s most anticipated charity fund raising event in Austria, Austria for Life, which involved complex media playout and advanced projection mapping setups.
The Stephansdom Cathedral in Vienna, was beaming not just with the enthusiasm of the countless helpers on the 28 May, but also due to the impressive usage of modern media playout display technologies.
The 90-minute-long live TV charity fundraising show was broadcast on ORF 2 and Krone.tv. The project, which had been initiated by the LIFE+ chairman Gery Keszler, supports the aid organisations Caritas, Diakonie, Hilfswerk, Red Cross, Samariterbund and Volkshilfe.
LIFE+ itself supports socially relevant projects that fight epidemic diseases and helps people impacted by them.
A variety of well-known Austrian artists invited the Austria for Life audience to follow them on a trip through Austria’s past, that highlighted the different ways in which the country had successfully dealt with great challenges throughout the centuries.
The Stephansdom’s complete south view was bathed in spectacular video content and light, courtesy of a large number of acclaimed visual artists, using Christie projectors. A large 200m2 LED display acted as a frame for the stage and visually connected the cathedral and the cathedral square below.
Rezac HPP from lower Austria used AV Stumpfl‘s multi-award-winning Pixera media server system for realising the projection mapping.
The Viennese company 4youreye also employed Pixera

USA - A mad scientist locks his daughter in a garden full of beautiful but deadly flowers. An earnest medical student spies her and falls in love, but her surroundings have made her poisonous to the touch. Will their romance bloom or wilt? This is the question posed by La Hija de Rappaccini, a contemporary opera based on a Nathaniel Hawthorne story composed by Daniel Catán and live-streamed by the Chicago Opera Theatre this past April.
Drawing on Mexican musical influences, the performance streamed from the Field Museum of Natural History in keeping with the botanical theme. Chicago Opera Theatre’s audio and video production partner Valhalla Media teamed with location audio experts Second City Sound on A/V support, choosing Lectrosonics’ D Squared line of digital wireless. DBSMD transmitter-recorders fitted to the cast members were picked up by a pair of DSQD four-channel receivers. DCHT portable digital stereo transmitters joined an M2T for monitoring by the conductor and mission-critical crew via M2R receivers.
“Midway through the pre-production process, we found out that the opera would be live at the Field Museum,” says Nikolas Wenzel of Valhalla Media. “This presented all sorts of logistical challenges for coverage. My first thought was that for reinforcement of the vocalists, we were going to need something stable, reliable, and easy to use between different levels of the museum. One of the performance levels was on the floor of the great hall and another was tucked off up to the side.”
“One thing viewers of the stream d

UK - This April, Volkswagen UK took over Stage A at Millennium Studios in Thurleigh, one of UK’s premier music, film and TV production facilities, to deliver its annual conference.
Traditionally hosted as an in-person event, Volkswagen opted for a virtual setting built around a live, complex agenda that included keynotes, videos, presentation slides, and more. Volkswagen’s team delivered an immersive presentation in front of an LED screen backdrop supplied by technical production and LED screen hire company, iMAG displays, with iMAG’s sister company Graymatter delivering the control infrastructure for a headache-free Virtual Production event.
IMAG’s involvement stems from an initial conversation between its technical sales and relationship manager, Jonathan Dyson, and Simon Garrett, who was working with event producer Second Sight to source a reliable company to supply the screens for Volkswagen’s virtual event.
“Having developed our own mobile LED virtual production facility, which is currently being used by companies such as Netflix and Amazon, we have first-hand experience of delivering a full ecosystem for all types of immersive events,” says Dyson. “When Simon got in touch to ask if iMAG wanted to be involved with the tender Volkswagen, I was very excited.”
IMAG supplied ROE Diamond 2.6mm LED panels for the centre wall with ROE CB5 LED panels for the side screens, creating a large, U-shaped LED backdrop for the set.
iMAG’s creative production manager, Daniel Acland notes that a key challenge for the project overa

USA - The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a non-profit organisation founded in the United States that helps to fulfill the wishes of children with a critical illness between the ages of two and a half and 18 years. Towards the end of last year, when Becci Smith of the Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area Chapter in Northern California received five-year-old Valeria’s wish to sing on a big stage, she decided to contact the team at the Concord Pavilion. Operated by Live Nation and owned by the City of Concord, the venue has a capacity of 12,500.
What followed was a display of cooperation between entertainment technology professionals that not only made Valeria’s wish come true, but reminded everyone involved just how much they’d missed the shows that are the lifeblood of the industry. Against the backdrop of the Coronavirus pandemic where access to venues was naturally difficult, the team at Concord made iconic venue available without hesitation.
When regular Make-A-Wish volunteer co-ordinator, Ian Williamson, reached out to a selection of suppliers for advice, they all immediately chose to offer their services and join in. The resulting performance saw Valeria, who suffers with a congenital heart disease, take to the Pavilion’s stage with a full professional production, and deliver an exceptional performance.
One such contributor was audio provider Some More Sound of Walnut Creek whose owner Yuri Sumnicht answered the call in the affirmative. Yuri chose to install a Coda Audio APS system to take care of the front of house, with stage monitors and front-fil

USA - William Mooney, lighting designer for BYB Extreme Fighting, a bare-knuckles form of boxing, is using an IP-rated Elation Professional lighting rig to highlight the action inside the ring while supporting the atmosphere outside the ring.
With BYB’s three-sided triangle cage, known as the Trigon and the smallest ring in combat sports, there is plenty of that. “It’s the most exciting franchise I have ever been involved with,” states Mooney, a man who has worked on boxing and mixed martial arts projects such as ESPN’s Friday Night Fights (2008-2015) and Combat America MMA Fights. “I’ve worked on all the major networks but I feel more excited about this show than anything I’ve ever worked with in my life.”
Although the fights take place indoors, Mooney uses a multi-environmental IP65-rated rig as a peace-of-mind layer of protection. “To have most of the rig LED and then have the IP rating on top of it, it gives me a greater level of confidence and comfortability,” he says. “If it’s not going to fail outdoors in the rain, it’s not going to fail indoors.”
The latest BYB event - BYB Extreme 5 - took place at the Miami-Dade County Fair Expo Centre on 15 May with an in-person audience in attendance and bouts broadcast worldwide via pay-per-view. Mooney’s rig consisted of six Proteus Hybrid and six Proteus Rayzor 760 moving heads, 54 SixPar 200 IP and 10 SixPar 100 IP Par lights, four DTW Blinder 350 IP and two DTW Blinder 700 IP white light effects, and two TVL 2000 LED panel lights. He also incorporated 18 12PX HEX and

USA - The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Mobile, Alabama had long struggled with inadequate sound system performance due to the cathedral’s high curved ceilings, large stained-glass windows, wooden pews and other acoustically challenging design features.
An upgrade to the sound system became a necessity, but to preserve the beauty and historical nature of the cathedral’s large sanctuary, the ministry leadership decided against acoustic treatment. Instead, they trusted a high-performance sound system backed by Renkus-Heinz loudspeakers.
The cathedral’s sanctuary was plagued by a great deal of acoustic shadowing due to the building’s columns, with sound sources out of the sightline of the congregation, which significantly diminished levels and effective coverage. The previous attempt to redesign the sound system over-compensated with pairs of relatively short column arrays on each of the pillars – 18 in total. The large number of loudspeakers resolved the acoustic shadowing issue behind each column. However, each array was too short to effectively control the lower & mid frequency range. As such, they delivered a significant amount of unwanted energy into the highly reverberant space resulting in harsh and unintelligible sound for many of the congregants.
When Reverend Monsignor William Skoneki was named Rector of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, he reached out to Joe Fulton, owner of Modern Sound and Communication, to improve the sanctuary’s audio performance. Richard Hembree, from Griffith Sal

Germany - Frankfurt Opera is one of the most renowned opera stages in Europe, having paved the way for many successful operatic careers. Recently, with an extensive d&b audio system already installed, the venue chose to enrich its audiences’ sound experience with d&b Soundscape technology.
A d&b DS100 Signal engine was duly purchased in time for the 2019/2020 season and the staging of a world premiere at the Bockenheimer Depot - Frankfurt Opera’s second venue.
"It was a spatially complex work, with moving actors and an orchestra spread across the stage” explains sound engineer, Margit Baruschka. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic the production was postponed to 2021.
The decision was then made to move the entire Soundscape system to the Frankfurt Opera. Here it could be used to adapt some of the regular programme to allow for social distancing rules.
Head of sound, Christian Wilde reports, “For a production of Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, we moved the orchestra behind the stage. Despite these unusual circumstances, we wanted to achieve a credible orchestral representation for the audience - and in this context Soundscape became our primary tool.”
The explicit aim was to let the orchestra sound as realistic as possible - something Baruschka values highly. But with large amounts of scenery onstage, very little direct sound could be heard from the musicians playing backstage, presenting something of a challenge for the sound engineers. "The premise is that you shouldn't hear our work,” said B

South Korea - TechDataPS Cocollaborated with All That Sound to equip YeonCheon Sureul Art Hall with a Harman Professional audio solution.
Located in Yeoncheon-gun, Gyeonggi-do, Yeoncheon Sureul Art Hall is a cultural facility that offers a variety of performances, including small plays, musicals and solo concerts. The venue houses both a 580-seat grand concert hall and a smaller 166-capacity concert hall. Organisers wanted an audio system that evenly transmitted sound, achieved a sound pressure deviation of +/- 3dB for over 90% of the audience and provided impactful performances for shows of all genres.
To supplement the venue’s existing JBL VT4887A line array loudspeakers, the installation team equipped the venue with a range of JBL solutions including VTX V20 and VTX S25 line array speakers, VTX M20 stage monitors, AC18 two-way speakers, 308P MkII studio monitors, Control 28-1 indoor/outdoor speakers and Control 24CT ceiling speakers.
For amplification, Crown I-Tech 4X3500HD, Crown DCi 2|300N and Crown DCi 4|300N power amplifiers provide consistent power output and user-friendly interfaces. Finally, the Soundcraft Vi series digital live sound console ensures comprehensive, crystal-clear coverage throughout the venue thanks to their extensive I/O and powerful DSP.
Organisers at the YeonCheon Sureul Art Hall reported that TechDataPS both faithfully repaired the venue’s existing system and accommodated the unique infrastructure while installing new products. They are especially delighted with the Soundcraft Vi console, which will be of gre

The Netherlands - May saw Faber Audiovisuals join forces with many of the Netherlands’ world-class technical production companies to deliver a successful Eurovision Song Contest at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena.
Sint-Annaparochie-based Faber Audiovisuals were selected as official supplier for all video display technology, providing both the video hardware and the skilled team of technicians that installed and operated it. "Eurovision is an unparalleled show,” says Faber Audiovisuals CEO Cees-Jan Faber. “To be able to deliver to such high expectations during a pandemic is an achievement that makes us extremely proud.”
Designer Florian Wieder, who celebrated his seventh Eurovision set design in 2021, created a stunning set design for this year’s event. Perhaps the most eye-catching element was the 508 sq.m LED wall, which was built using the new ROE Visual BQ4, controlled by Megapixel VR Helios processing. Central to the huge wall were two 12m-high rotating LED doors, designed to visually echo the Eurovision theme of 'Open Up.'
There were also two huge ROE BM4 LED floors. One formed the main, 127sq.m, stage and the other the centrally located, 27sq.m, B-Stage. Both stages were fitted with dark glossy glass surface panels. Creating an extra dimension, the B stage also included a transparent 110 sq. m ROE Vanish8 'runway' LED that could fly in and out of the arena on demand. All video content was delivered by twelve disguise media servers: 4x VX4 and 8x GX2c, while the Barco Event Controller platform was used for video switching.
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