In the age of streaming, live performances remain one of the most powerful ways for artists to connect with their audiences. A live show isn’t just music — it’s an experience, filled with the energy of the crowd and the spontaneity of the moment. Yet most artists treat live shows as one-and-done events, overlooking the lasting value that can be created by capturing and memorialising emotions for fans. Jam bands have understood this value for decades, encouraging fans to record and share their performances. While this built a devoted fanbase, it also normalised the idea of giving away live recordings…
Author: Alicia Pollitt
The £100K Funding Campaign for 2030 Outdoor Event Sector’s Climate Transition Plan has hit 75% of its target. Wide support from across the sector has secured production of the Show Must Go On Sector transition plan, which strives to set ambitious climate plans for the festival and live outdoor events industry. “The working group is delighted by the widespread support from an industry struggling against the economic backdrop in 2024. This is an acknowledgement that now is the time to show leadership and ambition in taking action, meeting the urgent challenge of climate breakdown, and coming together as an industry…
What inspired the creation of the Nucleus? “The inspiration for the Nucleus came from listening to the industry and designing a product that fits both fixed installations and live entertainment.” How does the compact 1U chassis balance durability and performance for touring environments, and why was machined aluminium chosen? “Beeblade products are among the smallest high-performing media engines in the market. Their size enables very powerful audiovisual playback, mapping and show control to be easily toured and installed, providing customers with a significant advantage compared to much bulkier and heavier competitor products. The other reason we work with aluminium because…
The final Production Futures ON TOUR event of 2024 took place at Production Park in Wakefield on 27 November. Some 53 companies were on hand to interact with those looking to take their first steps in the production industry as well as up-and-comers. ON TOUR provided a space to network, hands-on training as well as employment opportunities in live entertainment, brand activation, theatre, installation, audiovisual, broadcast and film production industries. A selection of the key industry players from the dynamic world of live entertainment in attendance included KB Event, Robe, Neg Earth Lights, Disguise, Martin Audio, CHAUVET Professional, Black Lives…
Hardly an issue of TPi goes by where one of our editorial team has not sat down with one of the many faces of the global Solotech family to discuss a recent project. Take consecutive cover stories such as Justin Timberlake’s The Forget Tomorrow Tour and Adele’s record-breaking Live in Munich, for example, the company has been supplying technical equipment and expertise for some of the most discussed shows of the past 12 months. With 2024 ending, TPi was keen to catch up with the company to hear about this bumper year. Three key members of the Live Production management team…
Within the pages of our sister publication, TPiMEA, there have been many times over the years when we have covered the story of either a UK or European-based company opening an office in the Middle East – and the frequency of this type of story has only increased in recent years as the Saudi Arabian events market has moved into high gear. It’s been much less common for us to cover a story with a Middle Eastern-based company opening a European base. However, this is exactly the circumstance that saw TPi sitting down with mediaPro International’s Mikin Shah to hear…
Built on the foundation of its E-Series E119 subwoofer, Adamson’s custom designed, and in-house manufactured VGs subwoofer boasts a single channel 6kW Class-D Amplifier with on-board DSP. TPi goes under the hood to find out more. What were some of the goals of the VGs? “VGs is the second product release in the Vergence Group. As such, this powered subwoofer is the perfect companion for our line-array speaker VGt.” Where does the VGs fit into Vergence group? “Like the VGt, the VGs is self-powered and has redundant and daisy-chainable AVB/Milan connectivity allowing the full rig to be controlled by Adamson’s…
Notwithstanding geopolitical uncertainty, a global pandemic, and rising costs associated with modern-day freight forwarding and logistics, Freight Minds has grown from strength to strength since its formation in 2021. With the live entertainment sector as active as ever, 2024 saw the firm collaborate with the production teams powering Adele, Billie Eilish, David Gilmour, Def Leppard, Jeff Lynne’s ELO, Liam and Noel Gallagher, Sleep Token, and Squeeze’s latest live offerings, among many other projects – spanning multiple industries. As the dust settled on a successful calendar year, TPi sat down with Freight Minds’ Matt Wright, a second-generation freight forwarder, to reflect…
In 2015, having been at TPi for three months, I found myself on the top of the Studio 001 staircase with Production Park founder, Lee Brooks, as he discussed his vision for this Northern campus. “We have a long-term master plan to bring a lot more space to the site,” stated Brooks. “We want people and companies to come here for the right reason – seeing not just short-term revenue but rather buying into the collaborative future of Production Park.” Walking around the site nearly a decade later, you could argue that the Park’s team has certainly achieved this goal.…
Since its launch in 2018, the originators of General Device Type Format (GDTF) and My Virtual Rig (MVR) – Vectorworks, MA Lighting, and Robe – have committed to spreading the word, with increasing participation from industry manufacturers, in identifying ways to expand the development of what GDTF and MVR can offer the live entertainment sector. For the uninitiated, GDTF is a system that helps manufacturers and users share information about technical equipment – such as how they work, what they look like, and how they respond to controls. It makes it easier to find and use the right data without…
Sound Designer Gareth Owen deployed the d&b Soundscape system to achieve what he describes as one of his ‘biggest and most ambitious sound design yet’ for the London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express. With an installation of four DS100 processors driving the Soundscape system through more than 350 d&b loudspeakers, this project stands as one of Owen’s most intricate sound designs to date. The system was supplied by Cardiff-based rental provider Stage Sound Services, which made an additional investment with d&b in order to fulfil the specification. Owen first used Soundscape back in 2019 for the high-profile rejuvenation…
Teddy Swims’ Deck The Hall Ball was led by the production team at Events United led by Project Manager/ Systems Engineer, Chase Clark who drew on the bright output and colour rendering prowess of 82 CHAUVET Professional fixtures. Rachael Fahey, Production Designer for the concert, described how the fixtures were used. “When I design a show, I try to give our lighting designers a variety of tools to work with,” she said. “Our light director, Meg Fiske, consistently does a great job working with these lighting rigs with amazing success.” Playing a key role in making the show come alive…
Front-of-house engineer German Tarazona chose Waves’ SuperRack LiveBox for The First Howl World Tour for XG, a Japanese R&B and hip-hop girl-group based in South Korea. The new SuperRack LiveBox Dante supports up to 128 channels, and features low latency, PSU redundancy, and the reliable industry-standard SuperRack Performer audio plugin host, all in one 2U unit. Each SuperRack LiveBox Dante purchase also comes with the Waves Live bundle, which includes over 50 must-have plugins for live mixing. SuperRack LiveBox gives live sound engineers and creative artists access to their VST3 plugins by diverse brands. “I have been a Waves user…
Martin Audio is revving up the excitement at ISE 2025 with The FlexPoint Pitstop Challenge, a competition to test your speed and skill in rotating the driver on its flagship FlexPoint loudspeaker, the FP8. The contestant with the fastest time recorded over the four-day event will be crowned the ultimate speed champion and receive a prize package valued at £10,000, including two FP8, two SX112 and one iKON iK41. The FlexPoint series is celebrated for its acoustic design and exceptional versatility, making it a solution for installations and live sound applications. Each model in the range, aside from the ultra-compact…
The Latin Grammy Awards celebrated its 25th anniversary in a big way on 14 November 2024. Every genre of Latin music shined at the Kaseya Center, which resonated with performances by Marc Anthony, Pitbull, Eladio Carrión, Becky G, Sivia, DJ Khalid, Luis Fonsi, Jon Bon Jovi, and multiple other artists. For Tom Kenny and the rest of the lighting team (LDs David Convertino, Felix Peralta & Joseph Vineyard), creating looks that reflected the individual musical personas of all these performers in the three-hour live broadcast show represented a challenge. “We had to come up with a lot of looks over…
L-Acoustics has announced the addition of its 1,000th team member with Kevin Gouriou joining the company as a prototypist in Research & Development. This milestone comes during a period of growth for L-Acoustics, which has seen a 40% increase in its workforce over the past two years. With global hubs in Paris, Los Angeles, London and Singapore, the company has strategically expanded to support its worldwide network of partners and clients while maintaining its commitment to innovation, with 20% of its workforce dedicated to design and R&D. “For forty years, L-Acoustics has been driven by a spirit of innovation and…
As the Grateful Dead and Francis Ford Coppola are celebrated at the 47th annual Kennedy Center Honours and Meyer Sound reflects on its decades of collaboration. The Grateful Dead and Coppola have left indelible marks on culture, and their work with Meyer Sound has helped shape their artistic visions in ways that continue to resonate. The Grateful Dead’s recognition at the Kennedy Center Honors and their selection as the 2025 MusiCares Persons of the Year are testaments to their six-decade legacy of musical exploration, community-building, and philanthropy. Meyer Sound’s relationship with the Dead began in the early 1970s, when sound…
Apulanta met the sweeping strings of the Sinfonia Lahti for a series of special concerts recently with a stage-wide, wraparound LED backdrop powered by tvONE’s Green Hippo brand of Hippotizer Media Servers. “At the very early stages, when designing the looks for each song, we were already imagining how we could utilise Hippotizer’s possibilities to deliver something special for the screens,” said Avantrum Visuals’ Set and Lighting Designer, Harri Kauppinen. “We had formed a vision about what camera angles we wanted, so the planning of camera placement was important and at the same time we were able to already think…
