The combined strength and stamina of the hundreds of people involved in each complex tower construction was a sight to behold in the electric atmosphere at a packed Tarraco Arena Plaza. Spain’s human-tower building championship is a highly anticipated fixture on the national sporting calendar with Castellers de Vilafranca targeting an eight title.

Blackmagic Design today announced that Sowing the Seeds 2016, a music and lifestyle festival in Jo’burg, South Africa relied on Blackmagic Design’s ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K and Micro Studio Camera 4K to produce the live to screen visuals for festival performers, including headline acts Of Monsters and Men (OMAM) and Jungle.

Having founded the sound reinforcement company EBR Providers LLC. in 2012 to support regional events in Michigan, Eric Rayford recently purchased a HARMAN’s Soundcraft Vi1 digital console for local acts such as the Southfield Jazz Orchestra, which began in 2010 in collaboration with the City of Southfield Parks and Recreation Department. The Vi1 will serve as a powerful upgrade that not only fits into the budget of the orchestra, but also the modest spaces of its venues.

UK-based live recording specialists and CD label Chorum Records, run by recording engineer and producer Steve Swinden, used the SoundField DSF-1 digital microphone system to record a recent choral concert at Hereford Cathedral in the West of England for release on CD.

Taking place each May in Vienna since 1993, Life Ball is Europe's largest AIDS charity event and this year once again featured a star-studded cast of artistes and VIPs, with the theme dedicated to the element of air under the slogan, “Spread the Wings of Tolerance.”

The annual Belgrade Jazz Festival brings together some of the world's best jazz musicians, and this year’s season kicked off in the Great Hall of Belgrade's Sava Center, with a performance by legendary jazz guitarist, Pat Metheny. Once again with the 27th edition, sound and lighting specialists Studio Berar were entrusted with providing full technical support and they turned to HARMAN’s JBL VERTEC® VT4888 midsize line array elements and a Soundcraft Vi6 digital FOH console as their main sound reinforcement components.

Four years after its major success with Thor, The Royal Danish Theatre (Det Kongelige Teater) is presenting its fifth and biggest outdoor production so far, as Alexandre Dumas’ classic The Three Musketeers story is played out by more than 200 participating actors, singers, horses and stuntmen — to loud pyro accompaniment. The event is taking place in Ulvedalene, Dyrehaven, a public deer forest north of Copenhagen, situated next to a famous 1000-year-old oak tree.

The Cinematic Orchestra performed a large-scale concert at London’s legendary Royal Albert Hall with the London Metropolitan Orchestra that required the use of Soundcraft Vi6 and Vi1 consoles at front of house and a Soundcraft Vi4 for the monitor mix.

Soundcraft helped The London Community Gospel Choir (LCGC) into the Guinness Book of Records last weekend when experienced sound engineers Raphael Williams and monitor engineer Nikoma Bell specified 96- and 64-channel Soundcraft Vi6 consoles respectively to mix the largest gospel choir ever assembled on a stage.

HARMAN’s Soundcraft and Studer’s Italian distributor, Leading Technologies Srl, along with sister company Sound Light & Technologies (SL&T) recently participated in an exciting recording project with RAI Radio, using a combination of Soundcraft and Studer digital mixing platforms in order to optimize the sound.

A massive spiritual convention, in which 350,0000 worshippers descended on the Indian city of Jalandhar, in the state of Punjab, over three days, saw the audio relayed over the vast site using an Optocore network, designed and supplied by the production company SOUND.COM.

Sony Europe Ltd (‘Sony’) has announced today the acquisition of Memnon Archiving Services SA, a Brussels based company providing a world leading service in the field of digitisation and digital archive preservation. Memnon’s archiving services and technologies coupled with Sony’s extensive workflow and media solutions and leadership position in the broadcast industry will create new market opportunities for advanced media asset management and digitisation solutions for media companies, broadcasters and institutions around the world.

Sony Corporation ("Sony") today announced the establishment of Sony AI. This new organisation, with offices globally in Japan, Europe, and the United States, will advance fundamental research and development of AI (artificial intelligence).

Vatican Media and Sony Professional Solutions Europe once again came together to continue their joint effort to study and evaluate future technology possibilities for capture and archive. For the first time on December 24th 2017, at 9.30pm in Rome, during the Christmas Eve Mass, presided by Pope Francis from St Peter’s Basilica, a trial capture in 8K took place.

Every 10 years the municipality of Echallens in Switzerland stages Fête du Blé et du Pain (The Festival of Wheat and Bread), a 12 day cultural event which celebrates the traditions and history of the region. This year the centrepiece was Solstices, a spectacular open air musical production, performed by 8,000 volunteers, attracting 40,000 spectators and using five Yamaha digital mixing consoles.