France - Anolis ArcPar 150 Outdoor architectural luminaires have been installed for an urban lighting renovation scheme – halving the power consumption – in and around the vibrant Gerland Park district of Lyon.
Gerland is a dynamic residential area that has also become a hub for emerging tech companies and commerce and a hotspot for sports and entertainment events with several world-class venues located in its 7th arrondissement catchment area.
Lighting designer Laurent Fachard, founder of Les Éclairagistes Associés (LEA), has worked extensively in and around this area, and recently two of his key landscape lighting projects were updated with new LED technology that had subsequently come to the market.
The new Anolis lighting authentically replicates his original illuminated art, simultaneously making these landmark urban lighting designs more energy efficient and sustainable.
The two areas that have been re-lit using the Anolis fixtures are the Chromatic Garden in Gerland Park, running adjacent to the river Rhône, and a landscaped roundabout on the Place des Docteurs Mérieux, part of the major road gateway into the city of Lyon.
The job of completing this diligent and meticulous task fell to Thierry Marsick, head of the city of Lyon's urban lighting department (DEU), who commented, “With LEDs coming onstream, apart from the energy efficiency, it was also an opportunity for us to utilise fixtures with much finer colour control and tuning”.
A main requirement for the new luminaires was to reproduce the original lighti

Italy - Neapolitan rapper and record producer Luchè, former member of the hip hop group Co'Sang, landed in arenas across Italy with his latest platinum-selling album DVLA - Dove Volano Le Aquile. The sell-out tour has crossed Italy from Naples to Milan via Rome and Rimini and will reach London in March 2023 for a special one-off date. During the tour the singer was joined by other stars of the Italian music scene such as Shiva, Elisa, Marracash, Sfera Ebbasta, Paky and Guè.
Lighting designer Giorgio ‘Josh’ Geromin chose 42 Ayrton Domino Profile S fixtures as the main light source and key lighting for the tour. The concept started from the idea of an eagle's flight, echoing the name of the album Dove Volano Le Aguile (Where Eagles Soar) and symbolising a human being’s attempt to rise up and land on Mars. From this was born the idea of approaching the stage as if it were a first outpost on Mars through the use of visuals and set design.
"I used Dominos for their great versatility as spots, with intensive use of zoom changes and prism rotations,” says Josh. “The Dominos were rigged both vertically and horizontally along the five trusses that formed the scenic structure. Because of Domino’s wide zoom capability, in some scenes we were able to light the structure directly to emphasise the 'ironwork' of the structure, while in other scenes they were used to expand the stagespace through the use of gobos which gave a sense of ‘air’ to the light. I was impressed by Domino’s ability to achieve and maintain gobo focuses with great precisi

USA - Dead & Company kicked off 2023 with a concert series in Riviera Cancún, Mexico and chose Meyer Sound’s Panther to power the destination event. Dead & Company tour director and FOH engineer, Derek Featherstone brought UltraSound LLC’s Panther system to the beach to anchor the 14-17 January series that also featured a one-night headline performance by rising American rock band Goose.
UltraSound provided a Panther system with 16 per side (12L, 4W) providing even coverage across the long, narrow waterfront audience area. The system also included six Panther per side (4L, 2W) for out-fill, six Panther (L) for lipi-fill, a centre cluster with six Leopard, and 24 1100‑LFC, supported by six Galileo Galaxy 816 processors.
“The Panther system covered the space as we expected it to and easily kept up with the wind,” said Derek Featherstone, UltraSound CEO. “We are happy with the simplicity of deployment and fidelity.”
Goose FOH engineer Eric Loomis commented: “The Meyer Panther was a joy to mix on. Its phase coherence is quite apparent, and the transient response is wonderful. The UltraSound team was very accommodating to our whole crew and made the show run smooth.”
UltraSound introduced Panther on Dead & Company’s 2022 summer tour and plan to deploy it for The Final Tour: Dead & Company Summer 2023, with 29 shows in 19 American cities starting 19 May in Los Angeles.

USA - Philadelphia’s HiJinx Festival transformed the Pennsylvania Convention Centre into a massive two-night EDM New Year’s Eve party, bringing a stellar line-up of bass heavy DJs who played out amid lighting that was designed to uplift and thrill.
Creative production company Raw Cereal, known for pushing the boundaries of light-art shows, created a wide range of powerful effects using Vari-Lite VL3600 fixtures from Signify.
Raw Cereal’s Cort Lawrence joined HiJinx as production designer and creative director for the inaugural Philadelphia incarnation of the festival in 2018 and has been raising the bar ever since. Working with Live Nation Philadelphia, which runs HiJinx, Lawrence created a design that integrated multiple artists’ production riders, resulting in a curated lighting environment that made each performer shine and ensured upbeat consistency throughout.
“We supplied a design that pushed forward current design trends and technology, creating the right balance between lighting, lasers, and video, for a well-rounded show,” says Lawrence. “EDM fans are well educated when it comes to production, so we do our best to wow and dazzle them with lights and give them a fresh show every year.”
The Raw Cereal team learned about the VL3600 following a demo by Tyler Gannaway, Vari-Lite business development manager central and eastern rental & touring at Signify and went on to work with Nashville’s Premier Global Productions to invest in them for the HiJinx Festival.
“We were stunned by the level of quality and powe

UK - The MOBO Awards, which recognise and celebrate black music and culture, returned for its 25th year in October last year. With Craig David, Little Simz, Central Cee and Knucks among the artists recognised, the annual ceremony took place at the OVO Arena Wembley, where a star-studded line-up of artists including Nile Rodgers, Kojey Radical, Tion Wayne, Fireboy DML, Cat Burns, FLO and Eliza Rose all performing on the night.
DiGiCo’s SD10, SD12 and S21 digital mixing consoles offered flexibility, sound quality and reliability to the technically challenging event.
Simon Purse, head of audio at South West Group Events (SWG Events), who also acted as audio crew chief at MOBO Awards, explains that, for the first year, SWG Events was sole audio supplier for the event.
“The MOBOs is a technically challenging event to pull off,” says Purse. “It was also an extremely quick turnaround from when SWG Events won the project to when the event happened, so prep time was limited.”
The company’s own DiGiCo digital mixing consoles, including an SD10 and an SD21 were used at the event, with a guest SD12 deployed at Nile Rodgers monitor position and an additional SD12 at FOH.
“DiGiCo is always extremely rider friendly,” continues Purse. “If you put an SD10 on monitors and an SD12 at FOH, you just know that whoever turns up they are going to be happy. With the MOBOs being such premium production and knowing there could be last minute additions to the lineup, we wanted to ensure we had the best audio equipment to work with.”
Withou

Belgium - The cavernous North Hall of Koninklijk Legermuseum - Musée royal de l'Armée (Royal Military Museum) in Brussels houses a wide collection of aircraft from different eras.
“People have always dreamed of flying,” said Mathias Roelandt. “You think of someone like da Vinci studying the flight of birds and insects over 500 years ago to draw flying machines and know that the idea of flight eventually became a reality that continues to evolve all the time. We humans always want to do something that’s never been done before. That’s the spirit that’s reflected here in this space. It is inspirational, and worth celebrating.”
Roelandt and his brother, along with their team at IIIMAGINE, including lighting operator Michiel Goedertier, did indeed celebrate flight by turning the museum’s Aviation Hall into an electronic music space for three captivating performances. Setting up a stage amidst the aircraft they wove the entire hall into their shows with the help from over 60 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by AB Sound.
This was not the first time that the IIIMAGINE team has transformed an out-of-the-ordinary location with music and light. Prior to their show at the Aviation Hall, the brothers and their team performed at venues like the historic Liège-Guillemins railway station, and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, where they performed between Rubens paintings.
“We feel we have more freedom to explore ideas in spaces such as The Aviation Hall compared to a black box stage,” said Roelandt, who performs music in

South Africa - Bridge Church in Alberton, Johannesburg, is a contemporary church that strives to be a catalyst of positive social change within the local community; ‘moving lives’ forward. The congregation has grown considerably in recent years, causing the church to undergo a renovation, increasing its capacity from 400 to 900.
As part of this renovation, Stage Audio Works (SAW) was brought in to design, supply and deliver a complete audio overhaul plus a turnkey house lighting and additions to the existing stage lighting solution, complete with flexible control for all of these systems.
SAW was referred to the project by their very own Lee Thomson, a SAW project sales manager, who is also a member of the church. Having observed the successful delivery of many similar solutions, he could confidently recommend SAW, who have an extensive House of Worship project portfolio, to help take Bridge Church’s system to the next level.
“This project was especially important to me as it is one of the initial Plus Audio installations that we’ve carried out in the House of Worship market. It’s great to see the technology being put to good use,” explains Thomson. “They get a new system providing the required headroom, coverage and even intelligible audio reproduction within a very reasonable budget. I can help my church operate and provide in situ training, and SAW can add another satisfied customer to the list - a win, win!”
SAW’s primary brief was to provide a significant upgrade to the church’s audio system. They completely replace

Sweden - ‘Attention! This Performance Contains Lighting That May Be Considered As Disturbing’. This is the caption that presented itself on the Royal Swedish Opera’s site publicising the show by the Royal Swedish Orchestra devoted to celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Swedish gaming phenomenon that is DICE.
The dynamic meeting of cultural opposites showcased the musical accompaniments of games such as Battlefield 1, 3, 4 and V, Battlefield 2042, Battlefield: Bad Company 1 and 2, Star Wars: Battlefront I and II, Mirror’s Edge and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst. The musical background of a video game, similar to the function of a film soundtrack, guides and supports the gamer through the narrative of the game.
For LD Ishai Mika of Green Wall Designs AB, Sweden, this presented a challenge: how to light a multimedia performance that embraces musical genres that range from traditional classical to the far reaches of electronic sound. He opted to turn to Ayrton’s laser source luminaire, Cobra, to offer him the range and flexibility required in his design.
Cobra is the result of Ayrton’s relentless quest to move forward in developing and exploiting new technologies to bring fresh opportunities to lighting designers worldwide. This laser-sourced fixture houses a D65 white point that allows perfect colour reproduction within its compact structure. The optical system uses 13 lenses, producing an unprecedented 38x zoom ratio, a zoom range of 0.6° to 23° and a phenomenal throw distance. IP65 rated and, unsurprisingly, with Ayrton’s signature con

Europe - Andrea Bocelli’s audio team has relied on DiGiCo’s professional touring consoles during the star’s career, starting in 2006 with the original D5 Live. After a brief move to an analogue solution, the production migrated back to digital with the SD7, but recently upgraded to DiGiCo’s flagship premium Quantum 7 console and its advanced processing suite to cater for the high I/O count typical of the classical genre and the grand venues in which it is hosted.
With an average of 45 concerts a year, the renowned tenor maintains a busy touring schedule. Reportedly the biggest selling solo classical artist of all time with 85m worldwide album sales, Bocelli sustains an ongoing tour programme for his legions of international fans, selling out arenas across the globe.
“My colleague Francesco and I started working with Bocelli in September 2006,” comments senior FOH engineer, Andrea Taglia. “We started with a DiGiCo D5, but digital technology was still in its infancy, and we moved back to analogue when Bocelli decided to hire local orchestras and choirs, as, at the time, analogue desks were faster and more familiar to set up on a channel-by-channel basis than digital.
“However, it was not long before digital technology was advancing rapidly and the SD7 became our mixer of choice. By this stage, the number of channels on the production was too large for analogue to manage. Thanks to DiGiCo’s Italian distributor, Audio Link, the transition was effortless.”
The latest world tour series called Believe showcases songs from Bocelli

UK - The Christmas holidays ignited the zany and uniquely British performance phenomenon of pantomime which came to theatre stages up and down the country. This year, lighting designer Andy Webb was asked to design two high-profile panto shows – Aladdin at the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury and Beauty and The Beast at the Festival Theatre in Malvern, both for UK Productions (UKP).
Andy chose a selection of Robe moving and LED luminaires to help bring the vibrant, trippy craziness of the genre to life.
“Rule number one in panto lighting is keeping up with the fast-and-furious pace of the action whilst informing the narrative and captivating the audience’s attention,” he explained. Audience participation is a major aspect of any panto production.
All of this means that lighting must be highly adaptable and multi-functional, as the LD must be thinking constantly on multiple levels and able to change at the drop of a proverbial hat!
In the last decade, Andy has been among the trailblazers advocating the use of LED and moving light sources in panto. He has dipped extensively into the various Robe product ranges, and lit several seasons in Blackpool and other cities, known for his fresh and enthusiastic approach.
The theatres in Aylesbury and Malvern are very different in size and shape, and to facilitate the tight programming schedule, Andy chose primary lighting fixtures which would work in both contexts and be scalable to fit the two venues, with Robe Spiiders and Esprites as the main workhorses.
Five MegaPoi

USA - Dave Koz, the chart-topping saxophonist kept the holiday tradition alive with his Dave Koz & Friends Christmas Tour. Bandit Lites provided the lighting system for the tour’s 25th anniversary, where Rick Braun, Peter White, Keiko Matsui and Rebecca Jade joined Koz for an evening of holiday music and memories.
“This is an incredible outfit full of wonderful people,” said Bandit Lites vice president Mike Golden. “I believe we just completed our tenth year of Mr. Koz and company coming to our programming and rehearsal studio Venue One and it seems much like old friends coming together once a year to share company. I cannot say enough about Brian and Josh Foisy who share production management positions and of course any time Chris Lisle comes into play you can be assured of a wonderful environment and beautiful lighting.”
Chris Lisle designed the lighting for show, utilising Elation Proteus Rayzors, Elation Smarty Hybrids, GLP X4S and Martin Sceptron VDO fixtures. Working with lighting director Terese Fensler, pivoted back to the Smarty Hybrids during programming, noting their zoom, brightness and hardy road life exterior.
While some may think a Christmas production leads to rocking around the Christmas tree ad nauseum, Lisle and Fensler made sure to tailor the show’s lighting to each performance, Christmas trees and all.
“Chris and I really love how much energy and enthusiasm Dave has put into his show,” explained Fensler. “We wanted to acknowledge all of those moments the musicians brought: from a quiet lingering sa

Australia - A light art installation created by Ben Cisterne and comprising 450 Astera NYX Bulbs graces the ceiling of the newest Great Southern Land permanent gallery at the National Museum of Australia (NMA) in Canberra.
Designed as a digital ‘murmuration’, emulating the kinetic phenomenon made by hundreds of starlings flying in swooping and random but apparently intricately coordinated kaleidoscope patterns at speed through the sky, Ben, was commissioned to create this special work with the exhibition designer, Fernanda Reis of Local Projects based in New York.
Ben, who also lit the other elements of the Great Southern Land Gallery, has known and worked with the NMA Canberra team led by NMA assistant director for the discovery & collections division, Katherine McMahon, and Suzanne Myers responsible for management and development of the Museum’s permanent galleries, for close to 20 years. This has been at the NMA and other cultural institutions.
His background in theatre lighting and narrative interpretation has been highly inspirational in creating this and other light art works.
In this case, the NYX bulbs provide a living / breathing animated and illuminated trail for guests navigating the exhibition space that is a visual contrast to the intricate, practical but still dramatic lighting of the various exhibits around the rest of the vast gallery.
The idea of having a murmuration was always a conceptual part of the plan for the gallery space, however it went through several iterations before the design team comprised of

Philippines - Located in the central business district of Makati, Philippines, HIT Productions is a 31-year-old post-production studio known for creating award-winning work serving the advertising, music, film, and streaming localisation markets.
With recent changes in how content is created, distributed, and consumed, HIT realized that its old facility no longer met the needs of its production teams and clients. Studios in the old facility were based on analogue point-to-point connections built back in the era of specialised rooms with limited signal routing options, resulting in inefficient use of space and resources. When a new building became available in 2021, HIT jumped at the opportunity to build a new facility that would allow them to meet the challenges of a constantly changing technology ecosystem. 
Dennis Cham, founding partner and chief technology officer of HIT Productions, decided to implement Dante AV as the transport mechanism for all audio and video between rooms. He recognized the new facility needed to have a flexible AV design to support the physical reconfiguration of the studios for production needs, with seamless re-routing of audio and video streams as required.
Because the pandemic forced many employees to work remotely to keep onsite headcount down to minimize infections between staff and on-air talent, the AV system also had to support hybrid workflows for the company’s employees.
“Dante AV gave us the flexibility to connect rooms in any number of combinations with standard Cat 6 Ethernet cables,” said Cham

Qatar - Creative Technology Middle East supported broadcaster Fox to deliver the largest temporary studio in Qatar on the Doha Corniche waterfront promenade, for the live broadcast of the FIFA World Cup 2022.
Fox sports broadcast all 64 World Cup games live across the United States from their set featuring four different stages, each having a backdrop of the West Bay illuminated skyline of Qatar's capital.
CTME delivered the studio’s AV requirements across the impressive space which span across 148ft x 33ft within two stories. The onsite build started on 22 October and ran 24/7 until FIFA went live on 20 November.
The AV solutions consisted of 500sqm of LED controlled by multiple Novastar H9 splicers and Barco E2 screen management system to manage over 22m pixels. A bespoke lighting package consisted over 700 lighting fixtures.
CT also managed all of the daily systems and operations, providing critical support for Fox Sports. A team of six engineers were working on a rota to ensure all the requirements were met.
Irum Ashraf CTME’s general manager comments, “Our journey with Fox sports started early in 2021 when we first met with top level senior executives. With the pandemic still looming it was almost a miracle that were able to sit around the table with the FOX team. They had a great vision of how they wanted the studio to look and nestle itself amongst Qatar's most renowned locations.
“The historic relationship between NEP/ CT and Fox played an instrumental role in the award of the project as we proved that we as a

UK - Ollie Titterington of O T Events Technicians knows every inch of the path that winds through Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens for Illuminate. That’s not surprising; after three years of working on this winter light celebration at the historic Dorset garden (it dates back to 1756), he’s traversed the event’s well-planned route time and time again, visiting the site months in advance to look for optimal lighting positions.
Titterington couldn’t help but feel a delightful sense of newness and discovery every time he walked down this year’s Illuminate path. Seeing the brilliant bursts of reds, blues, purples and other colours playing against shadows of forested paths never gets old. Neither does gazing at a fallen pine tree laying near scenic objects in a peaceful pond, all embraced by dreamy gobos. Nor does coming upon a classic statue that beckons at the end of a wooded path as it shimmers in light.
There is in the words of Titterington, a “continuous route of light, a canvas of colour” that has “no start or finish, all flooded with light” at this popular annual event, which has become a source of pride for all Dorset.
Helping Titterington and the O T Events Technicians team create this magic was a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures that included the Maverick Storm 1 Spot, Ovation E-910FC IP colour-mixing ellipsoidals, and COLORado Batten Q15 linear, IP65 ratted lights.
These fixtures helped light a carefully-planned Illuminate walk-through route that is just over one mile long. They also contributed to an electrify

The Netherlands - The first season of the 1% Quiz TV show in the Netherlands was recorded at EMG's Mediahaven Studio in Amsterdam with a stylish lighting design by Henk-Jan van Beek of design studio Light-H-Art. This featured 110 x Robe Esprites, 98 x LEDBeam 350s, 46 x LEDBeam 150s and 20 x T1 Profile moving lights, all delivered by Eventec.
Dutch producers Blue Circle Productions added a few of their own exclusively Dutch elements as this was the first time the show concept has been produced outside the UK where it originated on ITV. One hundred contestants – who are also the audience – try to answer a question that only 1% of the country can get right. The show is styled as an IQ test with questions based on logic and common sense rather than general knowledge.
Henk-Jan worked closely with Dutch set designer Harald Kassies who took the original 1% Club signature set design and reimagined it with some small adaptations that saw all 100 contestants seated around a striking and elegant 270 circular set.
“Continuity was absolutely vital when it came to lighting,” explained Henk-Jan who needed one luminaire per person to replicate the fast-paced and complex set of cues that were integrated into the Market Graph gameplay machine.
“I wanted a luminaire that gave exactly the same quality of light and characteristics and the same CT utilising the same LED light engine.”
The key light for each contestant was aligned at the same distance to produce identical CT whites plus blue and red cues associated with the game

Italy -Two events - Legend 375 and Christmas Night - staged at the Coccia Theatre in Novara marked the Italian debut of the Adamson Fletcher Machine the immersive audio processor designed and created by Adamson.
On stage was the musical project written by Claudio Mazzucchelli - co-founder of the orchestra and director of the two shows - and interpreted by the 50-piece CM Orchestra Rhythms & Drums directed by Maestro Andrea Pollione.
A story in music, through which the director wanted to relive the soundtrack of his life, together with the audience, where everyone can recognize passages of their own. An exciting choral play of sound, light, and color designed to immerse and excite.
Claudio Mazzucchelli, artistic director and concert technician said, “With the CM Orchestra we looked for an audio system that was capable of interpreting the skill of each individual musician adding the ensemble quality of the whole orchestra and reproducing it to the audience.”
Together with the Fletcher Machine, the Adamson sound system centred on five hangs of Adamson’s S7 ultra-compact line array cabinets.
The lighting setup was born from the technical and artistic collaboration between Claudio Mazzucchelli, Nicolò Damiani – lighting designer of MG Service – and the lighting product specialist of Audiosales - Mattia Fasolo. More than 80 ClayPaky moving heads were chosen for the events to help create an original and enveloping atmosphere.
The evening was highlighted with the presence of special guest Tony Hadley, frontman

USA - Nick Chang has been overseeing lighting for services and other events at Church of the City in Nashville since 2020 and again handled lighting programming and direction for five Christmas services this past December. Employing Elation’s Artiste Mondrian LED profile FX luminaire on the worship services, Nick hid the multi-functional moving heads behind a blow-through LED wall to create a variety of impactful and unexpectedly striking lighting scenes. Production and lighting design was by Jori Johnson.
Held in a 3,000-seat auditorium at Church of the City’s main campus in Franklin, Tennessee, this year’s services featured an increased production value, including a dedicated producer (Tommee Profitt) and expanded lighting design.
At Nick’s disposal were 32 Artiste Mondrian luminaires rented through 4Wall Nashville. “Previous years were more traditional so it was exciting to see that we could do more on this year’s production,” Nick stated. “I wanted a fixture that could shoot through a blow-through LED wall and not lose any intensity with gobos or when projecting saturated colours like red or blue. The Mondrians did a great job and played the biggest role in the service. The whole church was super impressed and I was too.”
Nick knew what he was getting with the Artiste Mondrian as he had used them on Church of the City’s 2021 Christmas services as well. “I found then that they were really versatile and did all roles very well,” he said. The Artiste Mondrian is a high-impact fixture that produces over 51,000 lumens of pow

Iceland - Known for their ethereal sound, frontman Jónsi's falsetto vocals sung in Icelandic and non-linguistic vocalisations, as well as their use of bowed guitar, Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós have recently completed their first world tour in nearly five years, delivering 70 shows across 28 countries.
The band’s monitor engineer, Throstur Albertsson, deployed KLANG’s immersive in-ear monitor mixing solution, using a DMI-KLANG card-equipped DiGiCo SD12 96 digital mixing console, supplied by new UK pro-audio equipment rental and support provider, 22live.
Albertsson was recommended to Sigur Rós in mid-2021, as they were starting to plan their 2022 tour. “As the tour was going out for many months, I had a few meetings with the band to make sure the fit would be a good one, both for them and me,” recalls Albertsson. “At the time, my mixing abilities were secondary. It was all about seeing if we had that perfect ‘vibe’ between us.”
Off to a good start, the band commenced with rehearsals in Iceland mid-March, with Albertsson using the time as an opportunity to understand their sound preferences and prepare the equipment for the tour.
“DiGiCo’s SD12 96 console was already in full use by the band, together with an SD-Rack fitted with 32-bit in/out cards,” Albertsson explains. “Additionally, the band was using an IEM system and wedges as part of their standard setup.”
Mid-tour, Albertsson decided to investigate KLANG fand was recommended to talk to Pasi Hara, a monitor engineer who was one of the first adopters

UK - Multi-award winning Bellowhead reformed for a one-off tour in November 2022 to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of their Broadside album. Providing lighting for the 18-night UK tour - which included London’s Royal Albert Hall - was Martin Dudley’s Martin’s Lights Ltd, using an inventory of Martin ERA 300 fixtures in a lightweight, bright, easily deployable stage package.
The ERA 300 is  part of the Martin ERA Performance & Profile LED family  consisting of the ERA 300, 400, 600 and 800.
“Six ERAs were used in a floor package designed to be versatile enough to light the wide variety of songs and moods in the show.” describes Martin Dudley. “They were placed as part of the band’s stage set at various heights on risers and boxes. A further six ERAs were hung on an upstage truss or bar when needed to bolster venue lighting rigs.
“The ERA 300s were a vital part of the show, acquitting themselves well against bigger fixtures we encountered in some of the house rigs and carrying the show themselves when house rigs were more basic.” says Martin. “It was also great to have colours and gobos that matched those in the other Martin fixtures at the Royal Albert Hall.”
Martin worked with tour manager Adam Maughan and lighting technician Chris Davey of Touring Electrics Ltd on the tour and will next be working on UB40’s ongoing 45th anniversary celebration touring.

USA - Nestled in a wooded setting just north of Chicago, Philharmonic Studios is a new, full-service recording studio that offers five-star, private experiences. This upscale, multi-room facility was built from the ground up, intending to meet the highest technical standards and set new benchmarks in design and performance.
The facility has hosted many diverse clients and provides a unique, concierge-level experience to projects, such as solo piano, brass, strings and choral ensembles. To complement the facility’s esteemed recording spaces, Philharmonic Studios relies on multiple vocal and instrument mics from DPA Microphones for ‘pristine audio and excellent transient response’.
“I am relatively new to DPA,” says Philharmonic Studios owner and recording engineer Greg Miner, “but I immediately recognised that the company has elegant and practical solutions for every imaginable scenario. With impeccable sound quality, superb transient response and low self-noise, these microphones are ideal for all types of demanding applications.”
Philharmonic Studios currently utilises several of the brand’s pencil mics, including the 4011 Cardioids, 2011 Twin Cardioids, 4015 Wide Cardioids, 4006 Omnidirectional Condensers and the 4041 Omnidirectional Large Diaphragm Microphones. The studio also calls on DPA’s new 4055 Kick Drum Microphone and 4099 CORE Instrument Microphones.
For the studio’s ensemble clients, the 4011 Cardioid Microphones have been a solution on strings, brass, piano and guitar amps. “Whether used individually or in

Serbia - As the frontman and founder of the band Balkanopolis, Slobodan Trkulja has collaborated and performed with renowned jazz and symphonic orchestras including the Grammy Award winning Metropole Orchestra from Holland, Belgrade Philharmonic, Jazz Orchestra of Concertgebouw, and Eddy Martinez Latin Big Band, as well as artists like Mariza (Portugal), Oleta Adams (USA), and Babba Maal (Senegal), to name just a few.
DiGiCo’s authorised distributor in Serbia, AVL Projekt, created the sound system comprising of DiGiCo SD11 and SD12 consoles and a KLANG:fabrik immersive in-ear monitor system, empowering Slobodan Trkulja & Balkanopolis to deliver the sound for the band’s sonorous and emotional performances.
Trkulja can play up to 20 instruments including clarinet, bagpipes, kaval, acoustic guitar, flute, Cretan lyre and Cretan lute, various types of tambourines, piano, mandolin, saxophone, and Armenian duduk. According to the singer, each instrument allows him to portray his inner artistic world and forms part of his continuous pursuit for the perfect sound.
“Slobodan's quest for the perfect sound does not stop, even when the sound leaves the instrument,” says Dragoslav Beljin, sound engineer at AVL Projekt. “In order to faithfully convey the splendour of the sounds travelling from the stage to the audience, he insisted on the highest quality professional audio equipment to ensure it’s perfectly transmitted every single time.”
Under the guidance of two experienced sound engineers and members of Balkanopolis, Milos Djajic and D

UK - STS Touring Productions has chosen Van Damme as a key partner to help deliver the many live music and sporting events it has become known for.
Founded 25 years ago, STS Touring has long provided complete technical and logistical solutions to large-scale live and entertainment events. Its bread and butter is backline – essentially all the necessary gear, including guitars bass and keyboard amplifiers, drums, microphone stands and cables.
Portfolio clients include Midge Ure, Mott The Hoople, Frankie Vallie, plus many world class sporting events and major music festivals. With a constantly full diary of challenging and high-profile projects, STS Touring needs to ensure that every element of its kit will stand up to rigorous use.
Will Hurn, senior audio systems engineer at STS Touring, commented: “Van Damme is a key part of our offering because its cables are so reliable. For a long time we’ve used the Van Damme Black Tour Series 16-pin multicore cable but have recently also started ordering the same in 8 pair because it’s perfect for smaller tours and clients with specific requirements.
“The product quality is recognised across the industry, hence they’re in our list of ‘must-haves’ when we have a job on the go. The team at VDC know their stuff and ensure that everything they’re providing meet our requirements exactly and get to us well in advance of any deadline. Our events are picking up again for 2023 and we’re just about to put another order in.”
Jim Bulbeck, technical support manager at VDC Trading said:

USA - Based in Los Angeles, Impossible Objects is a creative studio and lab combining artists and engineers, specialising in virtual production for both commercial projects and original IP. Founded by Joe Sill and Jerad Anderson, Impossible Objects has established key relationships and partnerships across film, gaming, and technology, and has built innovative projects and workflows with a growing list of clients including Blizzard, Google Play, Western Digital, Honda, and Toyota.
Having worked with numerous clients in a variety of different settings, Impossible Objects’ preferred LED stage partner is NantStudios – a service provider of Virtual Production and Visual Effects stages. NantStudios’ 24,000sq.ft LED stage, powered by Unreal Engine, in El Segundo, California houses some of the most advanced and established technology in the industry, including Brompton’s Tessera SX40 LED processors, ROE Visual’s Black Pearl BP2 LED panels, and Carbon CB3 LED panels.
Impossible Objects has filmed several projects at NantStudios recently, including an impressive automotive demo film for the Polestar 2 electric vehicle, which was created to convey the potential of virtual production to automotive marketers.
“With each production at NantStudios, we can rely on their experienced team and the outstanding visual performance enabled by Brompton processing to deliver exemplary results,” shared Joe Sill, founder and director at Impossible Objects. “Especially for automotive projects, we’re aiming to achieve a very seamless photoreal look, and Brompt