At the 2026 NAMM Show, RCF’s JAMM NIGHT once again stood out as one of the week’s most anticipated and attended live music events, filling the Anaheim Convention Centre Arena with over 5,000 attendees on Friday, 23 January, with an unforgettable evening of performance, community and tribute. Produced in support of the David Z Foundation, the event united musicians for a high-energy yet deeply reflective celebration of music’s enduring legacy. Hosted once again by Paulie Z, the evening featured standout performances from an all-star lineup spanning rock, metal, pop and beyond. Highlights included appearances by Nuno Bettencourt, Corey Glover, Billy…
Author: Alicia Pollitt
A major production at London’s Royal Albert Hall relied on Shure’s Axient Digital Wireless System to deliver RF performance and audio quality for a demanding, multi-act show produced for Cascade Productions. Audio Alliance, Shure UK’s trusted partner on the project, specified and deployed Shure Axient Digital to support a complex programme featuring a full orchestra, an international A-list artist, a second major ensemble, an opera singer, speeches and playback elements, all delivered within an exceptionally tight production schedule. With the entire production loaded in, rehearsed, performed and loaded out in under 20 hours, reliability and certainty were critical. Audio Alliance…
Digital Audio Denmark will be presenting a full program of professional training sessions at the AES Live Sound Training Expo in Nashville, TN, on 24-25 February 2026. The sessions will demonstrate the capabilities and versatility of DAD’s best-in-class Dante audio network control application DADman and playback management software Control|Pack for a wide variety of live audio applications. The sessions will also include a special workshop on Plugin Processing and Redundancy in live audio with monitor engineer Salim Akram [Billie Eilish, Finneas, Dijon]. DADman / Dante Workflow Session, presented by Jon Schumann and Kurt Howell. An in-depth discussion on working with…
With nearly 2,000 seats and a highly transparent acoustic environment, Barbican Concert Hall is a venue where technical decisions and consistency matter. It was in this setting that a collaboration between Soweto Kinch and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) took place, with both a live concert and a live album recording. This ambitious performance was supported by Freelance Sound Engineer, Jack Jordan. “The task was to balance the detailed requirements of an orchestral recording with the immediacy and impact of a contemporary, hybrid live production,” he explained. “The solution came not from reinventing the signal chain, but from refining it,…
DirectOut has announced the appointment of a new three-member Management Board. This strategic evolution prepares the company to navigate its extraordinary global growth and the increasing complexity of the professional audio market. The new Board of Directors consists of Luca Giaroli as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), René In der Stroth as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and Jan Ehrlich, transitioning from his previous role as CEO to Chief Operating Officer (COO). Giaroli, who previously held the pivotal roles of Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Solutions Officer at DirectOut, has been instrumental in transforming the company from a hardware-centric manufacturer into a…
Denmark-based Motor Stage Automation (MSA) supplied a complete automation system, comprising Moveket VMK-S 500 vari-speed hoists, Moveket V-Motion 40 E-drives, especially modified Alfasystem M-1020L stage lift and Moveket control, to facilitate several scenic, creative and technical solutions for Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism tour. Moving objects included two spectacular eight and five-metre-diameter ‘astrolabe’ LED rings, six lighting pods, a ‘puck’ on which the artist flew above the stage, while the two astrolabes created kaleidoscope effects above, and the upstage lift, which was utilised extensively for stage access throughout Dua Lipa’s acclaimed live performance. The production design was a collaboration between tour…
Clair Global has opened its first premises in central Las Vegas, Nevada. Clair Global’s Integration Division specialises in installed solutions for large- scale construction projects across performance venues, sports facilities, corporate headquarters, and houses of worship, while its Events Division provides robust and technically advanced road-ready systems for live event deliveries, including music concerts, sporting events and festivals. This move demonstrates the company’s dedication to seamless customer service across both divisions. The new locality welcomes Troy Staton as General Manager and will back ongoing Clair Global projects in the city, enhancing client relations and simultaneously catering to Clair Global brands…
TSL has reinforced its concert touring and festival team with a series of senior industry appointments, bringing decades of touring and festival experience into the business and expanding its capability to deliver lighting and rigging services at the highest level. Joining as Account Director, Ian Turner brings more than 30 years of experience across theatre, touring and UK festivals. Having founded and led GLS Lighting for three decades, Turner built long-standing relationships across the industry, working as a Lighting Technician, Crew Boss and Lighting Designer. As Account Manager, Turner has worked on touring shows for artists including Motörhead, Thin Lizzy,…
dBTechnologies ACADEMY held the masterclass Global Sound Concert: Shaping the Sound at its Bologna headquarters, led by Josh Rogosin, longtime recording engineer for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts and founder of Global Sound Concerts. Rogosin helped shape the sound and production language behind NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts and now applies that same philosophy through his own Global Sound Concerts platform. Across two intensive days, Rogosin deconstructed the technical framework behind his approach to live capture—an engineering discipline grounded in deliberate microphone deployment, spatial awareness, and source-first balance. Rather than relying on post-production correction, his method emphasises gain structure, capsule selection, placement…
Follow-Me has announced the successful deployment of its Follow-Me 3D TWO system on Swedish singer-songwriter Miss Li’s energetic summer festival tour. The production marked the first time a summer festival tour utilised the system in Sweden, showcasing the platform’s flexibility in challenging outdoor lighting conditions. Linda Therese Karlsson, known professionally as Miss Li, has released eight studio albums since beginning her career in the early 2000s, with her songs featured in Swedish commercials and numerous American television series. Her high-energy performances and time-coded shows present unique challenges for lighting teams, particularly during Swedish summer festivals where daylight is a constant.…
Young Voices is one of the largest and most technically complex education-based touring productions. Now in its 30th year, the family run organisation brings together around 250,000 children annually from approximately 4,500 schools, performing across major UK arenas including BP Pulse Live, The O2, Wembley Arena and Co-op Live. While the scale is comparable to major touring artists, the priorities of the show are entirely different. The production must deliver arena-level impact while remaining flexible, fast to install and sensitive to the fact that thousands of first-time performers are at the centre of the experience. Trustee, Clare Edwards, commented: “At…
With The Legendary Tour, metal band Sabaton is setting new standards in arena productions. The central element of the show is a 24-metre-long flying catwalk designed to look like a medieval drawbridge, connecting the monumental main stage with a B-stage – directly above the heads of thousands of fans. At the start of the show, the structure hangs almost invisibly into the arena roof. During the performance, the catwalk is lowered, creating an intense 360-degree moment in which the band performs directly above the audience. The project demonstrates how precise static calculations, modular truss systems and integrated automation merge to…
22live has now rescheduled it’s ‘Test Drive’ event, following a move to an entirely different premises from that originally planned. Alex Penn, 22live’s Commercial Director, commented, “After originally planning to host this open day in September 2025, we were forced to postpone as our plans changed and we moved to an entirely different building! However, we hope that relaunching now will develop even more interest as we are in a bigger more exciting space, and the event promises to be even better than before.” 22live is throwing open the doors of its brand-new Redditch HQ for 22live Test Drive, a…
With tour and production management company, Travelled Music, celebrating its 24th year in 2026, TPi caught up with Tour Manager, Alan Thompson, to discover how touring has changed for him, and what we can expect from the sibling-run company in the future. Can you tell us about your role as Tour Manager with Barry Can’t Swim? “I came onboard with Barry Can’t Swim in early 2024. I recommended and was fortunate enough to have some good people join me and the team at the same time. We brought in a new MD and FOH, and as the year developed and…
The Who’s The Song Is Over finale tour in North America featured original members Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend as they wowed fans one more time across the US and Canada. Cohesion was the chosen PA for all dates on the band’s farewell trek. Prior to The Who’s closing Philadelphia performance at Xfinity Mobile Arena, FOH Engineer, Robert Collins and System Engineer, Chris ‘Chopper’ Morrison, who have performed their respective roles for both The Who and Eric Clapton for more than a decade, discussed their working relationship, their philosophies mixing and designing the Cohesion audio system, and their perspective on…
In December, Michael Bond’s much-loved children’s character gently padded into the silvered environs of London’s Savoy Theatre as Paddington the Musical erupted into a glorious, fast-paced confection of a production that enchants audiences of all ages. A co-production between Sonia Friedman Productions, STUDIOCANAL, and Eliza Lumley Productions on behalf of Universal Music UK, with music and lyrics by Tom Fletcher, book by Jessica Swale and direction by Luke Sheppard, this production is packed with outrageous characters and new musical numbers. Curious, atmospheric, fantastical and homely scenes are juxtaposed with complex, compact sets all of which add to the magic and…
The Obsidian Control Systems team will showcase the new ONYX NX3 lighting console at the upcoming ISE tradeshow, February 3-6 in Barcelona. Lighting control specialists are invited to Booth #6Q300 for an up-close look at this new addition to the ONYX platform—and much more, including the new NETRON FS16, a new rackmount network switch in Obsidian’s award-winning line of data distribution products, and HELIOTRAQ, a new simplified performer tracking solution. The Obsidian team is proud to introduce the NX3, an advanced full-size lighting console built on the intuitive ONYX platform. Crafted to boost speed and creativity, it delivers lighting control…
Fourier Audio has announced HYPERPORT, a new low-latency, point-to-point audio protocol designed for seamless integration between its transform.engine or transform.go and DiGiCo’s Quantum and SD-Range consoles. With the launch of HYPERPORT, Fourier Audio addresses one of the most critical challenges in live sound – latency. Built from the ground up for professional touring, theatre, and broadcast environments, HYPERPORT delivers ultra-fast, reliable audio transfer, giving engineers the speed, precision, and confidence they need in high-pressure performance situations. When connecting transform hardware as an insert on a DiGiCo console, HYPERPORT achieves an astonishing 1.2ms roundtrip latency, a reduction of more than half…
