Riedel Communications today announced that Chinese Television System (CTS) relied on a Riedel intercom solution to support its live production of the 2020 Taipei New Year’s Eve Party, hosted at the Taipei City Hall Square. Broadcast live by CTS on its flagship channel and on its news channels, the seven-hour broadcast included multiple Taiwanese star performances, with an impressive New Year’s Eve countdown lighting up the iconic Taipei 101 skyscraper and a stunning five-minute fireworks display. The show at Taipei City Hall is growing bigger and more spectacular every year and recently ranked among CNN’s Top 10 places to spend New Year's Eve.

A version of the most popular Italian operas that redefines the limits of the possible has been enchanting visitors to the ‘Seebühne’ (Lake stage) in Bregenz since the beginning of the 2019 season. The production of Rigoletto by Munich-based director Philipp Stölzl has been selected for this year’s ‘Opus – German Stage Award’. The centrepiece of the opulent and technically elaborate set are the moveable parts of a colossal clown, which reflects the fate of Rigoletto. Another part of the set, a tethered balloon, floats up to 45 metres above Lake Constance.

Back in 2016 Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera) with its chief sound engineer, Athanasios Rovakis, started investigating the possibility of moving its audio and video distribution to fiber. At first, the Opera House modernised its audio system, purchasing a network fiber solution based around Optocore X6R-FX analogue devices and M8 MADI switch to bring together additional signal sources from distant places in the house, and to share signals for broadcasting.

Mateusz Karon, deputy of technical manager the Teatr Dramatyczny m. st. Warszawy (Dramatic Theater of the capital city of Warsaw), is very happy with the new Robe Tarrantulas – the most powerful of the current LED wash beam range – that are part of the house lighting rig for this important venue, which has been at the forefront of producing Polish drama since 1949 and ensconced in the Palace of Culture and Science venue since 1955.

Award-winning independent French theme park, Puy du Fou, unveiled its first venture in Toledo Spain with an epic night-time immersive spectacular “El Sueño de Toledo” (The Dream of Toledo), creatively directed by Nicolas de Villiers and the team from Puy de Fou with lighting designed by Koert Vermeulen from Belgian creative visual practice, ACTLD. At the heart of Koert’s lighting spec are 74 x Robe BMFL WashBeam and 20 x MegaPointe moving lights.

More than five years in the making, Sharjah Grand Mosque opened its doors in 2019, becoming United Arab Emirates’ second-largest mosque. The building occupies 185,806 square metres with a capacity to accommodate over 25,000 worshippers. Five thousand worshippers, with allocated seating for 610 women, can be accommodated inside. Surrounded by gardens and water fountains, the domes, minarets and columns reflect a unique Islamic architectural style and reminisce Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia. The main prayer hall has arched windows with stained glass, walls decorated with verses from the Quran as well as a large chandelier in the centre and red carpeting is part of the design. To not spoil the artistic impression, the approach to AV had to be a thoughtful one, and the system integrator had to meet a demanding time-frame for completion of the full system.

Het Kunstuur (the Art Hour) is a new ground-breaking ‘interactive’ gallery concept developed by art collectors and entrepreneurs Hans & Joost Bourlon, presented in the charismatic former Holy Ghost Chapel in the historical heart of Mechelen, Belgium. Thirty-two priceless Belgian paintings from the 19^th century are displayed in three gallery spaces … where their stories are told by a series of well-known Belgian personalities.

Lighting designer Jacob Gowler relished the chance of using Robe’s new T1 Profiles and LEDBeam 150s for the first time on a Cambridge Theatre Company (CTC) production of the crime-and-passion fuelled musical Chicago (High School Edition), staged over six performances in the 337-seat Great Hall at The Leys School in central Cambridge, UK.

Panto (pantomime) season in the UK and Ireland brought another crop of side-splitting hilarity and slapstick to stages up and down the countries, with gags, double entendres and innuendo flying faster than foam pies from a Super Soaker Zipfire, delivered by a range of crazy eccentric gender-defying characters … following – sometimes vaguely – classic folk tale narratives. One of the most exciting and high-profile presentations for this season was UK Productions’ Peter Pan at Blackpool Grand Theatre, directed by Anthony Williams and lit by Andy Webb.

Normally spotted in a pristine studio environment, the Sony BRC Series PTZ remote cameras have found a new application documenting the heart-warming story of beautiful lynx cats in a Russian forest.

Light artist and designer Christopher Bauder and composer / music producer Kanding Ray brought their epic immersive kinetic light / sonic art piece SKALAR to Mexico City for a 5-week installation, which also featured seven live shows in Fronton Mexico, on the Plaza de la Republica, right in the heart of this massive vibrant megalopolis. Ninety Robe Pointe moving lights plus 65 x double-sided mirrors each with a perimeter ring of 180 addressable pixels and suspended on 195 x custom WHITEvoid motors … were at the core of the work.

Painting with Light (PWL) has created a 2-kilometre walk-through lighting and visual ‘experience’ in the centre of Bruges – one of Belgium’s most beautiful and historic cities and a UNESCO World Heritage Site – to add atmosphere, luminosity and magic for the festive ‘Wintergloed’ (Winter Glow) season. Commissioned by Bruges Plus, the organisation responsible for the town’s cultural events, PWL’s winning pitch was led by Peter van den Bosch (business unit manager for leisure & entertainment’) and lighting expert Iiris Rousku who designed the various lighting artworks with their team.

This year the additional resonance of the date made it 30 years since the ‘Velvet Revolution’ which saw the peaceful transfer of power (in then Czechoslovakia) from a one-party Communist system to a modern parliamentary democracy.

To mark this, various festival works touched on the themes of freedom of expression, change, transformation and evolution.

Throughout the world, Ronald McDonald Houses (RMH) can be found within or close to hospitals, allowing parents to stay close to their seriously ill children. Each country within the network has its own calendar of fundraising and awareness for the charity, and in Germany, the flagship event is a gala charity dinner and auction attended by around 500 celebrities, friends, board members and sponsors of RMH.

For the seventh straight year, Riedel Communications Switzerland AG provided a comprehensive communications infrastructure for the Winterthurer Musikfestwochen, held last August in the historic old town of Winterthur, Switzerland. In its biggest commitment to date for the world-famous music festival, Riedel supplied a communications and signal routing backbone based on its Bolero wireless intercom and MediorNet real-time signal transport, processing, and routing technology.