UK: LEO Family systems kicked off Meyer Sound’s 2016 summer festival season, powering multi-day events at two major music festivals on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Boston Calling drew huge crowds to City Hall Plaza while BigCityBeats’ World Club Dome played out over 700,000 square metres in Frankfurt’s Commerzbank Arena. The outdoor, city-centre site for Boston Calling featured two LEO Family systems supporting artists such as Sia, Disclosure, Robyn, Sufjan Stevens, Janelle Monae, and Haim. The systems were provided by Atkinson-based Rainbow Production Services. “This was the first year we had the LEO Family on both stages, with LEO on…
Author: Festival Insights
Dax Cochran oversees business operations for WDT’s WeatherOps Event Safety Services, managing all day-to-day business development strategies and direct sales efforts with a goal of increasing safety standards throughout the events and entertainment industries. As festival season cranks up, so does severe weather season. Festival and event managers are busy finalising details for the event, securing vendors, and wrapping up all loose ends. With safety a growing priority for all outdoor events, weather planning should be one of the top items on your checklist. Maybe it won’t be at your next event, but eventually weather will put you in the…
UK: The Northern Festivals Network and Unlimited Impact are inviting disabled artists and companies from any discipline to request support for the creation and touring of a new outdoor work for families at greenfield festivals in 2017. This is a unique commission opportunity for disabled artists and companies developing disability-led work to create or adapt a work in any artistic discipline for families in an outdoor setting with guaranteed bookings at four festivals in Summer 2017. The Northern Festivals Network is led by Wild Rumpus, award-winning producers of the Just So Festival and is a consortium of festivals in the…
PORTUGAL: Held in Bela Vista Park in Lisbon, Gabisom Audio Equipment from Brazil deployed Martin Audio’s premier MLA rig on the World Stage for the first time at the recent five-day Rock in Rio Lisbon Festival. In doing so it was the largest deployment of MLA on a single stage. The historical ties between Martin Audio’s MLA and Rock in Rio began with a system test at the US event in Las Vegas in May 2015, where it appeared on the second stage, the Mercedes-Benz Evolution. An eclectic line-up over the Rock and Pop weekends included Foster the People, Gary…
PORTUGAL: From June 30 – July 3, the Historic Centre of Loulé will welcome back Festival MED, one of the biggest world music festivals in Europe. This year’s edition will represent 19 nations, more than the event has ever had before. In total there will be eight stages, where 55 bands are going to play with more than 250 musicians in 75 hours of music. The alignment of the 13th edition of Festival MED continues to bet on quality and artistic diversity, with well known names and new artists within the international world music scene. Dubioza Kolektiv (Bósnia and Herzegovina),…
USA: AGNT, a new desktop platform and iOS app that connects DJs and organisers in a complete end-to-end process, recently launched at the EDMbiz Conference and Expo. Built by EDM industry pros Mike Henderson, Viet Nguyen and David Nguyen, AGNT is a marketplace with access to thousands of DJs and event listings for any style or budget across the US and Canada that utilises a suite of tools to seamlessly manage all the logistics and transactions from beginning to end. “The EDM market is worth $6.9 billion globally and within that there are an estimated 1.3 million unrepresented DJs,” said…
DENMARK: The American whistleblower and political activist Edward Snowden will be one of the speakers as Roskilde Festival, and will be paying special attention to equality and human rights in tandem with the festival’s theme for 2016. Every year, Roskilde Festival focuses on an issue that deserves special attention. In 2016 this will be equality and human rights. This year’s festival consequently offers much more than music, with themes like digital surveillance, the right to privacy, freedom of speech, equality between the sexes, and refugees to be debated and discussed. As an intelligence agent, Edward Snowden caused much controversy when…
ICELAND: Iceland’s Secret Solstice has already unveiled a line-up of 177 acts, including Deftones, who are scheduled to headline the main event. However, the alt-metal band’s lead signer will also perform an acoustic set as part of the festival’s ‘Inside the Volcano’ show, within Iceland’s Thrihnuagigur volcano in front of a handful of guests. The event will mark the first time in history an artist has performed publicly inside a volcano, and a mere 20 guests will be allowed to witness it. Although there have been several live performances on top of volcanoes around the world – Hawaii and the…
UK: Liverpool International Music Festival has announced the addition of LIMF Radio to its 2016 festival programme. Broadcasting locally on 87.7FM, as well as online, the station will be used to reflect the past and present Liverpool music scene as well as featuring artists and bands who will be taking part in July’s event. The radio station will also be an invaluable platform for the region’s new music, presenters and DJs, once again highlighting the festival’s commitment to new talent and strengthening the local scene and industry on a global scale. LIMF Radio will also provide training for 35 local…
USA: Forecastle Festival will continue its partnership with Arcadia Power this year to ensure the festival’s carbon footprint is smaller than ever. Forecastle will run on 100% pollution-free electricity, made possible by the collaboration. For every kWh of electricity used at Forecastle Festival, a kWh is produced and put on the grid by a pollution-free, renewable source – like wind or solar. “We pride ourselves on being one of the most sustainable, ecologically focused events in the nation,” said Forecastle Founder and Captain, JK McKnight. “Forecastle Festival was built on the premise of environmental responsibility and for years we’ve worked…