Disguise has launched X2 and X3, making its Designer software more accessible to small and mid-sized productions. The launch builds on the success of X1, which since its release last year has been deployed across live events, immersive experiences and corporate brand activations — including Charlie Puth’s European tour, Tennocon’s 2025 conference and the Dunham Massey Christmas light trail installation. X2 and X3 have been available to select customers since earlier this year and are already powering major productions for artists including David Guetta, Martin Garrix and Central Cee. “Following the success of X1 last year, X2 and X3 are…
Author: Jacob Waite
For the third year running, dBTechnologies returned to Lucca Music Festival with large-scale VIO Series line array systems deployed by the festival’s trusted sound partner, TEMA Show Service, across the city’s challenging historic venues, including Piazza Napoleone and the Mura Storiche – providing visiting performing artists, engineers and technical production teams the consistency and confidence to perform. Among those on site was the effervescent Andrea Brasolin, Product Specialist at dBTechnologies and part of the company’s Application Department, who was on hand to support the system deployment. “It’s an interesting and difficult venue,” he explained. “Every year, we make slight modifications…
There is a familiar story behind successful technology companies: a person encounters a problem, becomes frustrated by the lack of a solution and decides to build one from scratch. For Roy van den Broek, founder and CEO of Rentman, that problem, as TPi discovers, was crewing for projects. Having established an AV rental business as a teenager, touring the circuit in the Netherlands, van den Broek soon realised that keeping track of freelancers, equipment and schedules was becoming increasingly difficult. “Communication among the staffing of freelancers was always the biggest problem, which is where the idea for Rentman came from,”…
When news broke of Take That’s revival of The Circus Live Tour, an iconic production that set the benchmark for stadium-sized spectacles in 2009, it was clear that this would be an ambitious feat not only by critical standards but one that would demand an approach befitting modern touring conventions and technology as TPi discovered at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium. Leading the 150-plus touring party, veteran Production Director, Chris Vaughan; Production Manager, Richard ‘Wez’ Wearing; Production Coordinator, Lizzie Graham; Site Coordinators, Phil Broad and Jez Craddick; Technical Designers and Engineers Wonder Works enlisted a range of suppliers including: Area Four Industries…
Liverpool-based dBS Solutions, who recently celebrated 20 years of business, provided sound and lighting for the second edition of We Are Wirral, staged at historic Birkenhead Park and organised by Jazz Events. The festival featured a family-focussed line-up including local headliners, The Coral, as well as Dick & Dom, The Lottery Winners, Greg Wilson, Hard-Fi, Tinie Tempah, Sigala and Chesney Hawkes, among others. The company has worked with Jazz Events on Camper Calling Festival for the past five years and supported the inaugural We Are Wirral. For dBS Solutions co-Director Chris Bogg, the second edition represented an opportunity to build…
Over two decades ago, The Streets released A Grand Don’t Come for Free. Music theatre meets garage, the seminal concept album follows Mike Skinner’s relationship with Simone, sidetracked by the devastating loss of £1,000 from right under his nose. The album has soundtracked countless long drives and encapsulated early-2000s British culture like few records, so it was a pleasure to track down the vendors and touring crew tasked with building a production befitting the brief. Production and Tour Director Will Driscoll of 24/7 Productions enlisted trusted suppliers Boxcat Studio (content creation), CSE Crosscom (radios), FOMO London (band rehearsals), Gravit8 Travel…
We have recently spent a lot of energy on attracting new talent into our industry, and rightly so. How do we attract young people? How do we diversify our workforce? How do we create better career pathways? These are all important questions. But there is an issue that is rarely mentioned, except in hushed tones and anonymised social posts. What happens to our workforce, having devoted many years to live events and touring, when they decide it’s time to leave? Perhaps it’s time we normalised an exit strategy. Through hosting The BACK LOUNGE we’ve had a growing number of people…
Pieter Smit Group recently acquired MM Band Services. The move marks a significant expansion of the Pieter Smit Group’s existing nightliner fleet and establishes a permanent, strategic passenger transport hub in the UK. Under the terms of the agreement, MM Band Services will continue to operate under its own name from its UK base, ensuring continuity for clients and day-to-day operations. This, the Group believes, will ensure “complete continuity” of service for its existing clientele of tour managers, promoters, and artists. While Pieter Smit Group already operates its own dedicated fleet of nightliners, the addition of MM Band Services significantly…
With the release of the eagerly anticipated L1, the flagship of the L Series, and its companion cardioid subwoofer, CS1, L-Acoustics made headlines across the sector. However, it was the reveal of the less predictable Source Intelligence – a real-time vocal enhancement technology that isolates the human voice from background noise using a unique source separation algorithm – that turned heads in the TPi office. This isn’t L-Acoustics’ first exploration into source-based technology. That came with the release of HYRISS, and subsequently L-Acoustics DJ. Taking an input source and performing real-time stem separation, allowing a creative or artist to create…
What challenges did you face bringing the CM-Series to the market? “The biggest challenge was ensuring that scalability and flexibility never compromised what matters most to Cadac: sound quality and latency performance. The decision to standardise on fibre was central to solving that. Coaxial infrastructure starts presenting real problems at around 150m, and that is a limitation for the distributed deployments modern productions demand. Fibre gives us the headroom to run MegaCOMMS up to 2km while keeping the signal path clean and the system behaviour consistent. The goal was never simply to move audio over longer distances. It was to…
Born in Caracas, Karl Milan relocated to Miami in 2010 at the age of 18 after his father moved to the US and sponsored his move from Venezuela. Although proud of his Latin roots, his entire professional career has been built in the United States, dedicated more than 16 years to mixing artists and bands within Miami’s thriving Latin music scene. “I started out mixing in the corporate world, working in bars, smaller venues and weddings – the typical rite of passage – before I got my first opportunity working with an artist,” he recalled, speaking to TPi from Nashville…
Having spent nearly 50 years gracing some of the world’s biggest stages, you may be familiar with Le Maitre’s expertise and pioneering work in pyrotechnics and special effects. The company developed the Pyroflash system, considered the world’s first professional indoor pyrotechnic effect, and remains a global supplier of multiple markets, with offices on both sides of the Pond. Still under the same family ownership as when it was founded in 1977, Le Maitre has built a reputation for innovation and reliability. What is far less well known, however, is that in the early 1980s, Le Maitre had its own in-house…
What was the goal behind the development of the ONYX NX3 lighting console? “With Obsidian firmly establishing itself, we wanted to develop a stronger identity for our consoles. We listened carefully to customer feedback and looked at how we could modernise the platform. We already had the NX2, and it is a great console in its class, but our users were asking for several hardware features including motorised faders, backlit keys and faders, and a larger screen. Rather than creating an NX2 MkII, we wanted to raise the bar and deliver the features our customers were requesting. We had started…
Few manufacturers have shaped the touring LED landscape as visibly as ROE Visual. Its ‘transparent’ LED screens have become a familiar fixture on arena and stadium productions worldwide, now embedded in inventories of rental warehouses across the industry. That position, however, has been built as much on unwavering operational responsiveness as product development, leveraging its unrivalled supply chain and partnerships with global rental companies to meet the demands of modern productions. The industry, as ROE Visual’s teams point out, rarely runs to a nine-to-five schedule. Technical issues, freight challenges, and last-minute production changes are commonplace. “It’s not unusual for our…
In the decade leading up to Super Furry Animals’ (SFA) return to the stage, a wave of ‘90s reunions swept through the live music landscape, earning widespread critical acclaim. Yet, aside from active projects from the SFA orbit like Gruff Rhys’ solo work, Das Koolies and Neon Neon – the band remained entirely absent from the touring circuit. True to their reputation for defying convention, this reunion is far from a nostalgia exercise, as TPi discovers at O2 Apollo Manchester. Production Manager Shaun Kendrick collaborated with the band to devise “amazing” looking and sounding shows with a “confident and capable”…
In the build-up to the third edition of BLUDFEST, YUNGBLUD returned to the touring circuit, bringing a classic rock-inspired spectacle to arenas across the UK and Ireland, supported by a vibrant and road-tested crew. Production Director, Steve Down of Only Helix oversaw staffing, budgets and liaison with management and creative departments, handling the logistical groundwork before the tour hit the road. He enlisted a trusted network of technical vendors including Adlib (lighting and video), CSE Crosscom (radios), EFM (freight), KB Event (trucking), Kearsley & Sons (rolling stage), Multicast Audio (communications), Music First Partnership (travel), Opto Live (playback), Ox Event House…
As official technical suppliers to host broadcaster ORF for the 70th anniversary edition Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) 2026, Sennheiser deployed its largest Spectera set-up to date at Vienna’s Stadthalle. This included pre-production samples of the yet-to-be-launched Spectera handheld transmitter; Riedel Communications resumed its long-standing relationship and enlisted newly acquired ARRI to capture the action. A total of four active base stations handled around 150 live streams covering wireless microphones, in-ear monitoring and control data, in what is widely regarded as the best live sound ever achieved for ESC, delivered by technical production company Agorà. Sennheiser’s technical application engineering (TAE) team,…
Wireless technology is now fundamental to modern live production. From radio microphones and in-ear monitoring systems to comms, tracking and data transmission, the demands placed on RF systems across touring, festivals and large-scale events continue to grow. At the same time, the amount of available spectrum has steadily reduced, creating it increasingly complex to deliver reliable wireless performance.For engineers who have worked across that transition, the change is not simply technical. It represents a broader shift in how wireless is understood within productions. What was once a manageable part of the audio system has become critical infrastructure and a layer…
