Few bands have built more excitement over the past couple of years than Regional Mexican band, Grupo Firme. Out on a summer stadium tour across the US, the Tijuana banda and norteño group are performing beneath a rig of Elation Professional Smarty Hybrid and Rayzor 760 moving heads supplied by 3G Productions. Grupo Firme rose to fame in 2020 with a string of hit singles and has won a number of accolades in recent years, including a Latin Grammy for Best Banda Album. As a testament to their rising popularity, in 2021 the band sold out seven straight shows at…
Author: Jacob Waite
OTD Global called upon Israeli-based creative visual design practice, LEAD, headed by Omer Israeli and Dor Aichner to engineer lighting and atmospherics for a ‘Hack the Galaxy’ – a special event that was staged in Berlin’s Kraftwerk venue for Israeli FinTech enterprise, Rapyd. Israeli and Aichner put Robe moving lights – MegaPointes, BMFL Blades & Spots, Spiiders and LEDBeam 100s – at the centre of the lighting design in the main performance space, once the towering turbine hall and core of the former power station. During the evening, Tiesto entertained over 2,000 guests with a DJ set. This was the…
Despite having been active for over four decades, New Wave royalty Duran Duran continue to be a huge draw for diehard fans and newcomers alike, able to plunder an impressive back catalogue of crowd-pleasers such as Girls on Film, Wild Boys, and Rio among many others. For their latest UK and European festival run, the band picked up where they left off with long-time audio vendor Britannia Row Productions, which supplied the crew with a DiGiCo-centric control package, as well as an assortment of microphones and Sennheiser IEMs. “Brit Row have been great in providing the gear we needed, at…
One of Scandinavia’s leading distribution company for dynamic lighting, LiteNordic, will take over distribution of Elation Professional and Obsidian Control Systems products in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. LiteNordic is the foremost entertainment lighting provider in Scandinavia with an exceptional reputation for quality and service. The company maintains outstanding local representation in each country with a proven customer partnership strategy that works and skilled personnel with years of industry experience. The company’s pan-Nordic approach and alignment across borders provides a host of cooperative benefits and efficiencies, resulting in an overall higher level of customer service. “This is another big step forward…
Tasked with lighting dozens of different acts across the jungle, drum & bass, dubstep, and grime genres – none of which brought along visiting lighting designers – Elliot Baines of Spiralstagelighting devoted considerable time and energy into developing an advanced strategy. When he arrived at the stately Cholmondeley Castle to light the main stage at Outlook festival, however, he was in for quite a surprise. “We were supposed to be working on a domed semi-circular stage, but when we got to the site, we encountered a square one,” said Baines. “This complicated things, especially since we had to change all…
Vision 2025 and Future Festival Tools will present an impactful programme with thought leaders, industry experts and policy makers, to inform and inspire climate action in events on 19 October 2022 at Newbury Showground. The annual event returns with renewed vigour and focus, reflecting the shortening timescale to mitigate the climate emergency. The new look format will open with round table sessions, where Vision 2025 members and invited Green Leaders will explore the implementation of the, soon to be launched, Green Events Code. Following the Future Festival Tools Networking lunch, Richard Phillips, from Julie’s Bicycle, will present the first of the…
The Stage Bus, a Birmingham-based events production company that provides solar-powered staging solutions, has released the latest version of its newest stage, The Stage Box. A unique concept that’s been designed and constructed at the company’s Halesowen HQ, The Stage Box is built into a converted 20ft shipping container. It provides a stage platform which can operate from the back of a truck, or as a detachable unit which can self-dismount using hydraulic legs. The entire stage is solar-powered, and can run for up to eight hours on a full charge. The latest version of The Stage Box expands its…
With renewed energy, L-Acoustics welcomed Certified Provider partners to a technical boot camp in Bangkok, Thailand, for the first time in two years. After years of online-only sessions, technical referent engineers from partner companies based in ten countries in the Asia Pacific region could gather in person to learn about the latest technologies from L-Acoustics and update their skills with peers from the region. Welcomed by Tim Zhou, CEO of L-Acoustics APAC, up to a dozen boot camp participants shared and presented project case studies on the first day, highlighting their work with L-Acoustics products for various deployments. Rounding off…
Robe celebrated two PLASA Innovation Awards, stunned audiences with its All Environments live performance show and launched its new iFORTE IP rated LED moving light in style at London’s PLASA Show. The lighting specialist also introduced its brand new TX1 Posi Profile, which was presented live for the first time and showcased several iSeries products in the Great Hall of the Olympia exhibition centre over three days in west London, UK.. While showing off the durability, water resistance and many creative features of iSeries products – iBeam 250s and iSpiiders joining the iFORTE as stars of the show – Robe…
New York and LA-based lighting and visual designer, Rob Ross of Studio RRD, used his imagination and 160 Astera Titan Tubes to create a light sculpture centrepiece for the SOMA Tent at Outside Lands Festival 2022, which was staged in San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Park. Ross has been involved with the festival in several different roles for over a decade and was approached last year to light the brand-new SOMA venue, named after the city’s lively South of Market district – a haven for electronic dance music enthusiasts that debuted in 2021. This year, after multiple discussions and brainstorming,…
Panasonic has added Live Events and Esports rooms to AV Digital World, its next generation 3D digital platform, designed for visitors to discover and explore its solutions in a whole new way. Alongside Corporate and Education and TV and Broadcast rooms, visitors now have access through their PCs to the Live Event and Esports rooms where they can see the total glass-to-glass solutions available for these fast-growing industry sectors and explore and interact with each of the individual products. “The business world is changing and for those less inclined to visit shows and travel, they now have the opportunity to see the…
Backup Tech is delighted to announce an exciting new initiative, the Backup Photographic Competition, capturing live entertainment, the people that make it possible and the backstage atmosphere. The competition is held in association with headline partner and sponsor the Lightpower Collection, and was launched at this year’s PLASA Show at Olympia London. The Lightpower Collection is a long-time supporter of Backup and was looking for an idea that would shine a light on Backup and the work it does within the industry, that is directly related to its stunning photographic collection. “We’re delighted to collaborate with Lightpower Collection on this…
Ingo Powitzer has been an integral part of the Scorpions crew for 22 years, ensuring smooth operations on and off stage, as the backliner for lead guitarist Matthias Jabs. His responsibilities include executing the perfect transmission of wireless guitar signals, a job that Jabs and Powitzer have entrusted to Shure Axient Digital. “With Scorpions, the backliner job is a bit broader, more full-service. That’s why I also look after new equipment and regularly keep an eye out for suitable solutions on the market,” said Powitzer. After more than 20 years, Powitzer precisely understands the band’s live sound requirements. “With Scorpions,…
As the lighting designer for touring country star, Chase Rice, Zakk Bosserman has become a master at moulding a wide variety of house and festival rigs to fit his client’s versatile blend of music. “I design my floor package to be suitable to every size stage that we play,” said Bosserman, the owner of Nashville-based Retinal Abuse. “This ranges from one thousand capacity rooms to fifty-thousand-plus festivals. The back lighting and other lights in my floor package allow me to get the looks I want without having to rely on what I have above me. I need to do this,…
“We are pleased to announce that 2022 was a record-breaking international festival and music season for Solotech, representing an increase of over 20% in AV activities provided by our Live Productions teams,” said Martin Tremblay, President and CEO, Solotech. Solotech’s Live Productions Division increase surpasses even pre-pandemic levels, a clear sign of organisers, artists and festival devotees’ eagerness for the return of this summer staple. Chances are if you attended a popular festival this summer, Solotech was also there. These included headliner Harry Styles’ epic shows at Coachella, the iconic International Montreal Jazz Festival, the 15th anniversary of Osheaga, the…
Miami-based production firm True Audio has bolstered its PK Sound inventory with a substantial investment in T10 robotic line source elements and T218 subwoofers. A longtime PK Sound partner, True Audio is now a PK Alliance member and can provide T10 and Trinity Black robotic systems to touring, festival, and event clients throughout the US. “PK Sound is a technological leader in the pro audio industry, and we’ve been a proud partner offering systems at the cutting edge of innovation for nearly a decade,” says Anthony Betancourt, President and CEO of True Audio. “T10 has unmatched output for its size,…
QSC EMEA is set to open the doors to a new BeNeLux office in Nieuwegein, near Utrecht (NL). Slated to open 20 September 2022, the modern office space will serve as the business development and Q-SYS training hub, as well house an experience centre where customers and end users can see the Q-SYS Platform and Ecosystem in real world installations. In addition, the office will include the EMEA service centre, now based under the same roof, with significantly more room to continually support both Q-SYS and QSC Pro Audio divisions. “Since opening the first regional business development office in 2020,…
POLAR has appointed Nick Bellis to the post of Business Development Manager, Professional Audio. A vastly experienced pro audio sales manager and successful freelance FOH/Monitor engineer, with more than thirty years’ experience in the live and installation markets, Nick joins POLAR to strengthen its Professional Audio Division with specific responsibility for its Music Tribe brands. POLAR recently entered a partnership to re-introduce direct supply of Music Tribe’s leading brands to the UK market, and Nick’s background made him the perfect candidate for the role according to POLAR Managing Director John Midgley: “Nick is a highly respected figure in the industry…
