A year on from Dua Lipa’s headline appearance at Glastonbury Festival, and hot on the heels of multiple sold-out nights at Wembley Stadium, TPi headed to Anfield to catch up with a well-travelled touring production crew championing a culture of innovation and care on and off stage. Ahead of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA)’s backstage tour, while walking through the tunnel pre-show, Tour Director, Pete Abbott shared how he has worked with Dua Lipa since 2016 – initially through tour management and direction, which evolved during lockdown into creative and show direction. During the student open day at…
Author: Jacob Waite
Stageco steel and ROE Visual LED screens played a pivotal role in one of the most significant live music events in Dutch history – DI-RECT’s farewell concerts at Rotterdam’s De Kuip stadium, home of Feyenoord. Tasked with delivering this historic production, Sightline Productions engaged Stageco to provide staging infrastructure and the build while Creative Technology (CT) Netherlands selected ROE Visual’s Black Quartz LED panels to create an impressive production for 145,000 fans. The concerts marked the final chapter in De Kuip’s legacy as a live music venue. Over nearly five decades, the stadium has evolved into one of the Netherlands’…
On the Summer Solstice, Pulp’s latest arena tour had its curtain call at Manchester’s Co-op Live with a bold, visually rich show that fuses nostalgia with innovation. Featuring bespoke lighting, wacky-waving arm-flailing inflatable tube men, AI-enhanced visuals, an orchestra, and sentiment-rich design, the production celebrates the band’s legacy while pushing creative boundaries. In keeping with the title of the band’s new album, the aim was the addition of more production and originality. “The creative direction from the band is more about what’s artistically interesting and tells the stories in the songs,” Production Designer, Douglas Green said, recalling the project’s creative…
When Katie Melua’s technical rider specified L-Acoustics for her performance at Poland’s Energa Ladies Jazz Festival, they did so because her performance demands precise sound coverage at controlled SPL levels across the challenging 4,500 capacity Polsat Plus Arena. The response came through a strategic partnership between Polish rental company Krupski Sound and L-Acoustics Certified Partner Audio Plus, deploying flagship L2 arrays that transcended the venue’s difficult acoustics and marked a defining moment for regional sound production capabilities. The 21st edition of Europe’s only recurring festival dedicated to female jazz artistry, which has brought together over 110,000 attendees and 600+ performers…
For Lighting Designer, Tom Edwards, 2025 has been a year of bold moves and creative breakthroughs. Freshly freelance after nearly a decade with one of the UK’s leading production houses, Edwards has stepped into the unknown with a clear goal: to strike a better work-life balance while elevating his design portfolio. One of his first major solo ventures? An immersive headline show with Jamie XX at the brand-new LIDO Festival in London, as TPi’s Jacob Waite discovers… You recently made the move to go freelance, what spurred this and how have you find acclimatising? “I did! I’d worked at a company…
On the road in support of the release of their seventh studio album, Clancy, Twenty One Pilots made their much-anticipated return to the touring circuit on 15 August 2024 at Denver’s Ball Arena. Over a year, multiple continents and 73 shows later, the production’s curtain call took place at The O2 arena in London with TPi on site to meet the team powering The Clancy World Tour. Enlisted by the band in January 2024 to take this new tour on the road, experienced Production Manager, Matt Doherty’s brief was to work with production design collective District 5 to build a…
It’s not every day that an invitation lands on your desk to witness one of the most striking live shows in recent memory. However, when it does – and it features automation, layer upon layer of drapery, special effects and pyrotechnics, eclectic video content, and a Flashdance-inspired ‘rain shower’ moment – it’s certainly a gig worth attending. With cutting-edge technology at its core, creativity and coordination played key roles in Shirin David’s SCHLAU ABER BLOND Tour 2025. To meet the artist’s creative vision, Production Director, John Pryer and Production Manager, George Doherty of 24/7 Productions advanced the project – enlisting…
How did you break into the sector? “After graduation, I took a job doing logistics for an AV production company, which helped me develop an understanding of the technical side of live events. I later decided to go freelance. My first job was a corporate awards show, and not long after, I shadowed some friends at Goldsmiths Students’ Union who taught me how to busk lighting on a ChamSys MQ50. I also learned the basics of touring with 3T. However, just a couple of weeks later, I tore the MCL in my knee during a show – only a month…
After an eight-year in-person hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the long-awaited return of Showlight – the quadrennial gathering of lighting minds – took centre stage at Le Parc des Expositions et Congrès de Dijon. With over 400 attendees, 40 exhibitors, and an enthusiastic cohort of students and emerging professionals, the event proved that its community spirit remains undimmed. In May, some of the world’s leading lighting professionals gathered in eastern France for Showlight 2025. As a journalist who reports on touring technology, I was fortunate to be able to engage with both seasoned veterans and rising stars of the…
Indochine are renowned for spectacular productions, utilising the latest technological innovations. The band’s Central Tour graced the pages of TPi in 2022, bolstering a new LED solution that could be rigged in front of a PA hang – a concept that would later feature on Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour. Although the French band’s latest run was through arenas rather than stadiums, this did not mean there was any shortage of innovation. Taking up the story was the band’s long-serving Lighting Designer, Jean-Christophe ‘JC’ Aubrée. Also known for his work with The Chemical Brothers, JC has worked with Indochine for the…
Trading digitally rendered content for real life footage, Chase & Status’ latest arena run is a homage to ’90s rave culture – part warehouse rave, part post-apocalyptic theatre. Behind the controlled chaos is a roster of TPi Award-winning live event professionals and technical partners, who collectively brought the electronic music duo’s vision to life. From blowing up cars in central London to integrating live camera feeds through a custom ‘letterbox’ LED screen, this production pushed the boundaries of what live electronic music can look and feel like, as TPi discovers. Chase & Status’ latest arena tour began in April, with…
Clear-Com has revealed new software updates to its award-winning Arcadia Central Station, making it one of the most powerful and flexible 1RU intercom solutions on the market, enabling connectivity across parent and third-party Dante/AES67 devices. Arcadia Central Station is the leader in scalable, IP-based intercom by seamlessly integrating wired and wireless systems across digital, analog, Dante/AES67, and Clear-Com’s I.V. Direct. The latest enhancements include support for V-Series IrisX Panels & flexible port allocation. Users can now connect up to 32 V-Series IrisX panels directly to Arcadia, enabling high-density keypanel workflows traditionally reserved for expensive and complex matrix systems, making this…
The new TC45 truss line from TAF is designed to support big LED screens, heavy lighting fixtures, and other higher capacity loads for live events. Featuring a central C-profile tube with channel for mounting hanging eyes, end users reportedly have complete freedom in positioning their hanging points – from end to end of the truss segment. Fast and easy build-up is ensured by its quicklock connection system, which includes a connection kit included as standard. The new product line features 400 mm (15.75 in) heavy-duty square truss; quicklock connection with a connection kit as standard with 0.5 to 4m lengths…
TiMax has expanded the unparalleled audio capabilities of TiMax SoundHub with a progressive new feature named, Scaling Surfaces(TM). The new tool’s exclusive feature-set allows users to rescale a spatial show file from a studio playback environment to an auditorium – all with just two mouse clicks. It could not be simpler to translate the work users do in the studio to the stage or from venue to different-sized venue, saving significant time. As expected in TiMax, Scaling Surfaces is styled with a level of detail garnered from decades of experience working with spatial audio workflows. Users can rescale their entire…
Powersoft has announced its participation in InfoComm Asia 2025, continuing its 30th anniversary tour. This will be the second time Powersoft will independently exhibit at the event, leveraging the InfoComm Asia platform to spotlight its newest innovations and integrated solutions for the professional audio market. On booth #J20, show attendees can explore all the latest Powersoft technologies, including the ultra-compact Nota 142 amplifier platform, the rugged Unica T platform for touring applications and MyUniverso 2.0, Powersoft’s cloud platform for remote monitoring, management and control of audio systems. In demonstration at InfoComm Asia 2025, Powersoft will be exhibiting its Nota 142,…
SMODE, Smode Tech’s innovative media server and real-time compositing platform, is powering Sensitive Abstraction, a new fulldome graphic and sound art performance by visual artist Yannick Moréteau and electronic music composer Flore. Described as an immersive journey through the poetic dimensions of mathematics, Sensitive Abstraction has been touring planetaria and digital arts festivals in Canada and France since its premiere in 2024. Created entirely within SMODE, Sensitive Abstraction transforms abstract mathematical principles such as the Fibonacci sequence and Euclidean grids into flowing visual tableaux, synchronised in real time with Flore’s score in spatial audio. Yannick Moréteau, founder of the arts…
Sam Tozer, lighting designer and creative director of Plymouth-based Vision Factory, created the lighting for the Chase & Status Live Tour using a combination of Ayrton’s Domino LT and, taking centre upstage, over 100 Ayrton Rivale Profiles. “Ayrton is one of my go-to manufacturers,” saud Tozer. “Their fixture range consistently delivers when it comes to reliability, feature set, and output. I’ve used their products across multiple projects.” For this run of six exclusive arena shows across major UK cities, Tozer needed a lightweight yet punchy hybrid fixture to meet the demands of Chase & Status’ eclectic sound: “The Rivale Profile…
A legendary piece of music history is back and is making its last stop for the time being in Neu-Anspach near Frankfurt. To mark the 50th anniversary of the Adam Hall Group, the restored tour bus of Paul McCartney and his band Wings has been presented to the public for the first time on the company’s campus. The psychedelically painted double-decker bus in which the band toured Europe in 1972 will in future be on display as part of the company’s own Rock‘n’Roll Library in the Experience Centre at the Adam Hall Group’s German headquarters – and is symbolic of…
