Opened in 1956 as the UK’s first purpose-built TV centre, the Old Granada Studios is a landmark of central Manchester. Once home to Coronation Street, the studios are now at the centre of a major redevelopment featuring event spaces and hospitality venues including Manchester’s first Soho House and Mollie’s Motel & Diner. London-based system integration specialists, Tateside, led the vast AV installation across both the Soho House & Mollie’s sites. “As part of our continued relationship with Soho House, we were pleased to be involved as technical partner for the first Soho House in the North of England,” explained Jack…
Author: Daisy Thorogood
Cambodia’s W CLUB brand has a new home on the country’s southern coast, in the port city of Sihanoukville. It’s the second location after the flagship in the capital, Phnom Penh, already established itself as one of the country’s beloved electronic-music venues. The brief for the new Sihanoukville site was to go bigger still, as the venue owners set out to build one of the largest nightclubs in Southeast Asia, built around DJ sets and live EDM performances for crowds expecting intensity every night. Fitting the space with a powerful audio solution was therefore paramount. The job went to FEEL…
The Theatre at Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto opened with back-to-back sets from Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton for the resort’s Official Grand Opening Weekend, and the room made a bit of history in the process. The 5,000-capacity venue is home to the first permanent installation of Meyer Sound’s Panther line array in Canada, delivered by an integration team that was able to configure and refine both the venue’s complete audiovisual system and elements of building construction. Located ten minutes from Toronto Pearson International Airport, The Theatre is the flagship room for Ontario’s newest and largest casino resort, built with…
“Like everything in life, first impressions matter,” is how Giannis Nestor, Music and Entertainment Managing Partner at Botánica in Manama, Bahrain, summed up the thinking behind the venue’s newly completed refurbishment. This push to focus on instantly impressive visuals doubles as a fair description of the brief handed to the space’s lighting designer. Botánica is a premium cocktail bar that sits in Adliya, one of Manama’s busiest nightlife districts, and looks to grab customers with its aesthetic; the retractable roof, an extensive drinks menu, and a giant palm tree at the centre of the room all lean into this. Earlier…
When Mint XL opens its doors on Friday 25 September, its main rooms will be running on a permanent Funktion-One sound system installed by the same audio partner that has worked with the venue’s promoters for the best part of 20 years. The 2,500-capacity venue occupies the former PRYZM site inside Leeds’ Merrion Centre, and lands at a point when plenty of UK nightlife operators are closing rooms rather than opening them. Mint XL offers an encouraging example of the UK entertainment industry finding fresh purposes for existing club spaces, transforming a once-empty venue into a new experience. For Mint…
L-Acoustics has achieved B Corp™ Certification, awarded by the non-profit B Lab to companies independently verified against rigorous global standards of governance, transparency, and social and environmental performance. Certified through B Lab’s Large Enterprise and Multinational pathway, built for companies with complex, multi-site operations, the certification covers the entire L-Acoustics Group across all 13 sites worldwide. Encouraging other pro audio manufacturers to join them, L-Acoustics joins a broader community of more than 10,000 Certified B Corporations in over 100 countries, including more than 640 in France. The live events industry is being asked, more each year, to account for the…
City Theatrical’s QolorPoint Mrk 3 Wireless LED Uplighter sets a new standard in temporary wireless event lighting, combining powerful output, sophisticated colour control, long battery life and built-in Multiverse Wireless DMX/RDM technology in a stylish, compact, and portable design. Rated for outdoor use at IP65, QolorPoint Mrk 3 Wireless LED Uplighter delivers an impressive 4000 lumen output from a single RGBW LED array, providing the power to illuminate medium-sized trees and buildings up to five stories high. The even colour mixing, extensive colour presets, long battery life and flicker-free DC dimming make QolorPoint Mrk 3 a versatile solution for events,…
Today, exactly 50 years after its foundation, Claypaky celebrates its golden anniversary. It was on 28 August 1976 that Pasquale Quadri “Paky” – a promising young musician from an early age and passionate about photography and optics – founded the company in the province of Bergamo, northern Italy, with an idea that was anything but obvious at the time: light could be much more than illumination. In an era when stage lighting was primarily descriptive and functional, fixtures were largely static, with little or no connection to music or movement and almost no possibility of creating dynamic visual effects. Colour…
Since opening its doors in 2004, Bootshaus has built one of the most recognisable identities in electronic music. The Cologne club, consistently ranked among the top venues globally by DJ Mag and recognised as the world’s fourth-best nightclub by the International Nightlife Association in 2025, has long staked its reputation on exciting spectacles and top-notch sound. The flamethrowers and CO₂ cannons are part of the Bootshaus mythology, but the club’s sustained position at the top of global rankings reflects a more deliberate commitment to attracting the best artists in the world – because the sound is worth the trip. EDM…
Ten years after defining tungsten-inspired stagecraft, the Polish manufacturer has released its weather-hardened, dual-engine hexagonal masterpiece. Portman Lights officially launched HEXY, dubbed “The Ultimate Portman.” Marking a decade of stagecraft innovation, HEXY transitions the brand’s signature hexagonal identity into an all-weather, high-performance visual centrepiece engineered for touring mainstages, broadcast studios, architainment, and mobile productions. A decade ago, Portman Lights transformed stage design by bridging the raw aesthetics of classic tungsten lamps with modern engineering. HEXY represents the latest evolution of that legacy, combining two independent light engines inside a weather-sealed, 3D-sculpted tactile chassis. “HEXY is our tribute to the lighting…
