Having recently celebrated its 40th anniversary and welcomed its 1,000th team member at the end of 2024, L-Acoustics entered 2025 with the announcement that Bryan Bradley has joined the company as CEO, Americas. The news was jointly shared by global L-Acoustics Co-CEOs Laurent Vaissié and Hervé Guillaume, to whom Bradley reports. In his new role, Bradley will oversee all operations across North, Central, and South America, dividing his time between the company’s global headquarters in Westlake Village, California, and a new Americas operations and creative hub set to officially open later this year at Nashville Yards. What initially attracted you…
Author: Jacob Waite
As someone who has visited many offices through my time at TPi, it must be said there is something special about Adam Hall Group’s German HQ. Based in Neu-Anspach – a short drive from Frankfurt – the company’s campus houses all the brands under the Adam Hall Group umbrella and is set up to be not just a hub for the group but a place to inspire. From the opening foyer, which features several pieces of memorabilia including guitars played by some of the world’s biggest rock ’n’ roll stars, it acts as a reminder of both the foundations of…
Having worked with the classically-inspired pop trio for several years, STUDIO/ led the creative charge for Clean Bandit’s recent show at The London Palladium. The intimate performance was part of #BRITsWeek for War Child! which saw notable artists perform in famed venues across the city in the lead-up to this year’s BRIT Awards. TPi sat down with Show Designer, Jack Fox of STUDIO/, to learn more about the creative process. For the uninitiated, STUDIO/ is a creative agency which specialises in show design and creative direction. Recently founded by the team at Really Creative Media (RCM) – themselves veterans of…
“It was such a surprise be recognised by our peers and colleagues at the TPi Awards,” Cruickshank stated proudly, speaking to TPi shortly after the ceremony. “We’ve put a huge effort into stepping up how we deliver shows over the past few years, so it feels good to know it’s been noticed.” As a proudly independent lighting and video rental outfit, Colour Sound Experiment thrives by staying true to its ethos. With no outside investors to answer to, the team remains focussed on the craft of live production and people. Cruickshank elaborated: “Our uniqueness is being able to offer technical…
Launched in 1997 with the KF900, ADAPTive technology remains a benchmark in live sound. More recent releases like the AC6 build on EAW’s legacy of products such as Anya, Anna and Otto — each introduced as the touring industry was embracing line array systems. Almost three decades on, how has ADAPTive stood the test of time? Well, to begin with, ADAPTive continues to be the only line source PA system with a high enough driver density to create a multi-driver, single acoustic source out to 13KHz. This is true for a single cabinet, or any length ADAPTive array. “ADAPTive was…
There is no doubt that audio prediction software plays a key role in the modern show, with system designers working side by side with FOH engineers on the design of a sound system, performing all the required calculations before even setting foot in a venue, with the goal of ensuring the best experience for the audience and managing off-site noise issues and multi-stage interference at festivals. Officially launched at ISE, Funktion-One’s Projection 1.0 system design software uniquely provides fast wave-based simulation for low-frequencies for greater accuracy when predicting bass array performance. “The origin of Projection goes back to the launch…
In support of Foster The People’s latest US tour, FOH Engineer Adam Rowley recently hit the road with East London-based alt/indie-pop band, Good Neighbours. “I’ve known Oli, the lead singer, for a long time. We used to write together before the pandemic, so it was lovely to be part of this tour – a real full-circle moment,” he told TPi, as the dust settled on a successful 42-day, 30-show run. “We used Clair Global to fill in the gaps alongside my FOH setup. The main advantage of working with such a large company, especially when we needed such a small…
Having diversified its line-up in recent years, Download Festival is not only growing in a programming sense – adding more hard rock bands to its roster – but the event has also bolstered its production value. “Expectations from festival audiences is at an all-time high,” Live Nation’s Andy Copping told TPi. “It is super important to offer a ‘wow’ factor at festivals now, as well as the lineups fans are eager to see something creative on the production side too – it is just as important.” Reflecting on the 2024 edition, Copping mentioned Dan Braun’s production design. “Having seen what…
What influenced the creation and feature set of the NXW? “Our users requested a portable wing featuring motorised faders and full front-panel backlighting. These features make programming easier, allowing for playbacks to be colour-coded for quick recognition. The ability to upgrade the universe count of the wing after purchase, was also high on the request list, to ensure our customer’s investment is future proofed. We now offer options to upgrade NXW up to 128 universes when needed. Being a wing, it relies on the user’s laptop. Nowadays, many laptops do not feature a network port, and an increasing number of…
Technical Academy, run by the Southbank Centre in collaboration with ABTT, The Albany, ATG Entertainment, Factory International, Live Wire Productions, National Theatre, Roundhouse, Royal Albert Hall, RNSS, and The Production House, offers a unique, no-cost opportunity for aspiring live event technicians to gain hands-on experience. Its mission is to remove social, cultural and financial barriers and open doors to backstage careers in live events and theatre, as TPi discovers. “There is a looming skills crisis in the sector,” said Southbank Centre’s Amber Lee, Project Manager for Technical Academy. “This is in some part due to COVID-19 and people leaving to…
Fulfilling our representation mandate and being the voice of 2,500 event production members, the PSA have recently participated in several discussion sessions at industry events with similar themes related to collaboration, the event ecosystem and vital role freelancers play. In May, we will participate in a Power of Events panel session at PLASA North discussing the topic The Power of Cross-Sector Collaboration (no spoilers here, promise). Back in February we were at Confex/Event Production Show considering the events ecosystem with a panel of agency and supplier representatives, between these and other discussions, we reflect and reinforce the recurring theme that…
What was your first album? Or maybe it was a CD? A download? What was your first concert? Your first real gig? Did you grow up in an entertainment family? Do you remember connecting to the internet for the first time? Or maybe, you’ve always had access to it, born into a world that was already changed. Pop influence, family values, and technologies all help shape how we grow and have a major impact on who we become. As we share impactful cultural experiences, shifts in human behaviour can be felt worldwide, and generations begin to emerge. No one knows…
TPi readers are more aware than most of radio spectrum’s importance. It is critical to wireless audio content production and has a fair claim to be considered as the raw material on which many events depend. Yet within the arcane world of spectrum regulation, discussions are taking place that could have profound long-term consequences for the future of wireless audio production. The past 15 years have seen successive losses of radio spectrum for wireless microphones and in-ear monitors, principally in spectrum shared with digital terrestrial television. In most cases, the spectrum has been re-purposed and auctioned to mobile phone networks.…
What challenges did you face bringing A20-HH to the market? “Handheld microphones have been on the market for decades, so when it came time to design Sound Devices’ first, we knew we wanted to create something that improved on every aspect of the category while also adding some new features that had not been attempted before. Development was informed by relationships with end users. The ability to easily swap the threads out of the microphone to utilise any capsule design was major. Furthermore, the ability to customise the shell of the microphone was also crucial. When it came to features…
The path from YouTube covers to worldwide success is one that has become increasingly well-worn in recent years, with some of the biggest stars of the past decade beginning their careers in their bedroom with a guitar. Teddy Swims’ emergence at the top of charts worldwide also began online, and with his popularity now seeing him perform at the biggest arenas in Europe. TPi caught up with his team at Co-op Live to gain an insight into the complex production behind his biggest shows to date… Meeting TPi at the gate was a familiar face; Production Manager, Rob Bright, who…
Having worked for multiple years in the live events sector, Simon James and Tim Roberts joined forces with Dick Tee and Mike Richmond to form The Event Safety Shop (TESS), offering support for concerts, tours, technical providers and festival organisers as a ‘Creative Safety’ partner. With some of its first clients in the early 2000s being big names such as The Rolling Stones, the company was quickly elevated to the international events scene. Its list of clients now reads like a who’s who of headliners, having provided their services for the crew of AC/DC, Genesis, Green Day, KISS, Queen +…
Indie-rockers The Wombats recently embarked on an arena tour to celebrate their first album in three years, with a lighting design from Rosie Haigh, who started working with the band in 2023 at the end of the previous album campaign. “For the band, it’s all about how it feels on stage, as much as it is about how it looks,” Haigh began. “They play a high-energy set, so they like to feel the energy close to them on stage, hence a good-sized floor package, but also, they aren’t afraid of the dark, which really helps me build dynamics for the…
Could you explain the journey behind VLHive 151 Digital FX’s development? “The VLHive platform has been in development by the Signify R&D team for eight years, and leverages a significant number of patented technologies, with the goal of creating a digital light fixture with fewer mechanical parts and more long-term customisation capabilities. We wanted the fixture to be bright, fast, and controllable, rather than just a projector with a pan/tilt motor.” What challenges did you and the team face? “The key challenges in developing the VLHive – apart from the technical challenges and physical hardware – was ensuring that what…
