Production Futures has announced its Industry Partners Pledge with the aim of ensuring that every business in the entertainment production industry can offer training, a placement, or an apprenticeship by 2030. The initiative seeks to build a more accessible and inclusive industry by nurturing the next generation of talent and promoting a diverse workforce. The Industry Partners Pledge was announced at Production Futures’ ON TOUR show at the AO Arena in Manchester, which proved to be the organisation’s busiest ever event with more than two thousand people in attendance. To further support its aim of increasing knowledge and accessibility in…
Author: Alicia Pollitt
Unusual Rigging is undertaking a sustainability initiative that aims to embed environmental and social sustainability across its operations and supply chain. With ambitions that extend beyond internal improvements, the project is designed to identify key areas for action aligned with recognised industry frameworks. To deliver this work, Unusual is working with Hope Solutions, a leading sustainability consultancy operating at the intersection of climate science and live events. Known for their work with clients including Coldplay, Netflix and Live Nation. Hope Solutions brings deep expertise in carbon measurement, stakeholder engagement, and long-term sustainability planning. The project is being led internally by…
TAF has launched a new base plate. The new base plate from TAF provides a range of new possibilities for mounting moving heads or lights to TAF’s FT34 truss. Featuring eight cutouts in the shape of a star, along with a convenient circular cutout for routing cables, you are provided with a highly flexible choice of mounting points across the entire surface area of the plate. With its Quicklock connection system, you can count on quick and easy attachment to all FT34 series truss from TAF. www.taf-uk.com
Hype Fest arrived at the 30,000-capacity Cần Thơ Stadium in Vietnam on 12 April with headlining sets from top DJs including Tăng Duy Tân, HIEUTHUHAI, Quang Hùng MasterD, Wean and DJ Wukong. Delivering impact for an audience that was there to party, local production services company PVN Vy Phuong deployed their NEXO STM modular line array system, with left and right hangs of nine M46 Main and B112 Bass modules flown side by side with two M28 down-fill boxes, and side fill arrays of eight M28s flown beneath two S118 subs. Referred to by PVN as its ‘Bass Monsters’, a…
Raw Cereal was tasked with designing a bold, immersive visual experience for Hardy’s Quit!! tour. With Hardy’s evolving musical style blending country, rock, and pop, Raw Cereal had to ensure the visual elements matched the energy and variety of his performances. For the second time, they relied on AV Stumpfl’s PIXERA media server. Cort Lawrence, the tour’s creative director, explained the scope of Raw Cereal’s involvement: “On the show, we handled everything from the production design, stage design, lighting design, scenic design, as well as pyro, special effects, video content, and just overall show.” The team was responsible for creating…
Music Venue Trust (MVT), launched its 2024 Annual Report in Scottish Parliament with a special event for politicians, policy makers, venues and key stakeholders featuring a performance from Indoor Foxes and keynote speeches from Michelle Thomson MSP and Claire Baker MSP. Despite highlighting positive activity such as MVT celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2024, the continued success of Music Venue Properties (MVP), the success on planning objections, and the publication of a Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) report that made strong recommendations to support grassroots music, it is clear that significant work is still needed to prevent a continued decline…
British rock band The Darkness has elevated their live performances to new heights with the implementation of a Follow-Me 3D remote follow-spot system. The Follow-Me 3D SIX system, supplied by CEG and deployed by Zigzag Lighting, has become an integral element of the band’s stage production, particularly enhancing the visibility of Hawkins’ signature acrobatic performances and audience interactions. The system has proven essential in capturing the band’s dynamic stage presence that has made them favourites on the live circuit for over two decades. Follow-Me 3D is an automated performer tracking solution that transforms standard lighting fixtures into precision follow-spots without…
Jasper Goossen, international event entrepreneur and founder of Apenkooi Events and DGTL Festival has joined Showpower as Co-CEO alongside Paul Schurink. This comes after his successful exit from Apenkooi in 2023 after it was fully acquired by Superstruct. Goossen is a leading figure in the sustainable events industry having positioned DGTL Festival as one of the first fully circular and sustainable festivals in the Netherlands including many international editions. It’s obviously a huge testament to Paul, Rob and Tim’s experience and ambitious vision alongside the continued success of the SmartGrid on the Coldplay tour that Goosen joined. And his appointment…
Working through its dedicated Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force, L-Acoustics pursued legal action in both Germany and Norway against companies that were acquiring and renting fake L-Acoustics products, including loudspeakers and electronics. Initial analysis of the seized counterfeit products revealed alarming safety concerns, including metal components only half the required strength of authentic L-Acoustics specifications, resulting in a 48% decrease in safety factor. In Germany, the court ruled against a rental company utilising counterfeit Kara loudspeakers, rejecting their defence that they were not liable as they were only renting the equipment rather than selling it. The tribunal recognised the products as counterfeit,…
2024 saw Nina Chuba’s first large-scale arena tour, starting in October 2025, has sold-out for most dates. Christopher ‘Toffie’ Plaschke has been Nina’s FOH engineer since the beginning of her live career. In 2023, he also took on the role of production manager, switching to DiGiCo consoles and sticking with them for every show he has done since. “Nina is an incredible artist, and I’m truly grateful to be part of her journey,” Plaschke explained. “I used the Quantum 338 throughout the year, for both the tour and festival dates. The experience was fantastic, especially with the additional routing options.…
Meow Wolf transformed its Convergence Station venue into a dancefloor experience for the Deep Dark & Dangerous ‘Danceportation’ takeover, with Lost Horizon Productions entrusted with delivering exceptional audio to match the venue’s otherworldly setting. The result was a fusion of immersive art and Funktion-One sound. A sprawling, 90,000-square-foot creative universe, Convergence Station blurs the boundaries between art installation, interactive museum and event space. For Danceportation, the venue played host to 14 artists from the Deep Dark & Dangerous roster, who performed across two stages surrounded by Meow Wolf’s distinctive environments. Lost Horizon Productions, a full-service event production company based in…
Reinforcing a long-standing relationship built on trusted in-house design capabilities, the BRIT Awards chose to work with Britannia Row for a 30th year. The UK music industry showcase asked ‘Global Success Award’ recipient Sabrina Carpenter to open the 2025 proceedings, followed by live sets from Sam Fender, JADE, Ezra Collective, Jorja Smith, Lola Young, Teddy Swims and Rising Star winners Myles Smith, and The Last Dinner Party. The show’s audio delivery is overseen by Britannia Row Account Executive Tom Brown, with the sound system design created by Britannia Row’s Head of Engineering, Josh Lloyd. “It’s a great way to see…
On its latest world tour, metal band Underoath wanted to remind its fans of where the group got its start, while celebrating the 20th anniversary of the successful album, “They’re Only Chasing Safety.” The set begins with what appears to be a dingy living room and gradually evolves into an expansive, modern show with intense lighting effects provided by SONUS Productions out of Moorestown, N.J. “I always try to tell the story,” explained Lenny Sasso, Lighting Designer for the tour and Director of Touring Accounts at SONUS Productions. “Essentially for the band, this tour was telling the fans, ‘This is…
Production Freight has announced a new chapter in its history as Elliott Stroud takes the helm, succeeding founder Derek Hale. Established in 1993 as All Mode Forwarding, the company carved its niche by revolutionising the movement of equipment for the burgeoning Britpop scene. Under Hale’s leadership, Production Freight quickly rose to prominence, becoming a formidable challenger in a landscape previously dominated by a single major player. Their agility and personalised approach resonated within the rock and roll world, fostering intense, yet ultimately collaborative, relationships as the industry evolved. Production Freight’s expertise soon expanded beyond music touring, successfully navigating the intricate…
IPS (Impact Production Services) has announced that its brand new, purpose built warehouse in Milton Keynes is now officially open. This opening marks a significant milestone in the company’s continued growth journey and represents the realisation of a vision first announced in February. The new facility, located just a mile from the existing site, is now fully operational and already playing a key role in supporting IPS’s expanding operations across the UK and beyond. “Opening this new facility has been long awaited, and we’re absolutely thrilled to see the warehouse up and running,” said James Mason, Founder of IPS. “This…
HK Audio helped to deliver an experience at Malaysia’s annual Rock in the Jungle festival. The two-day event brought together a combination of local Malaysian and international rock artists from Indonesia and Singapore who all performed through a COSMO concert sound system on the main stage at the Sarawak Cultural Village. Rock in the Jungle has become an iconic event that is the highlight of the year for local rock fans. Taking place at the end of December as an end-of-year celebration and organised by Authentic Ideas And Events, the most recent two-day festival featured performances from Wings, Sweet Charity,…
Luis Torres created an immersive lighting design for the Royal Ball Room stage at Decadence Festival. Working with the teams at Relentless Beats and Kelco, which handled all the production management for the show, Torres pulled the entire area, as well as the 96-foot wide by 44 ft deep stage, into an embracing sea of bold monochromatic colours accented by stark white light. Torres, of HiLite Designs, relied on 48 Rogue R3 Beams and 24 STRIKE Array 2 blinders from CHAUVET Professional (supplied by Hardwired Productions) to create this panorama. In addition to reflecting the music and stage personas of…
All lighting designers love challenges and none more so than Crt Birsa from design studio Blackout, who fitted nearly 400 lighting fixtures into a 20 x 20 metre space in Studio 1 at the Slovenian National television station complex in Ljubljana. A large proportion of these were Robe moving lights – with 54 MegaPointes, 54 Spiiders, 24 Pointes, 12 FORTES and 14 Tetra2s on the rig – all delivered by Slovenian rental company, Event Lighting. Birsa added these to all the fixtures that were available from RTV’s studio in-house rig which also included two Robe BMFL Blades used as rear…
