Sunflower Jam is the brainchild of Jacky Paice, wife of Deep Purple drummer, Ian Paice, and was founded to raise money for underprivileged and sick children via the medium of live music. For this year’s event, SSE Audio Group deployed HARMAN’s Soundcraft Vi6 consoles for FOH and monitors respectively, each utilising 64 inputs, while the latest Soundcraft console offering, the Si Performer, received its live show debut. Connected digitally via MADI to the Vi6 at FOH, the Si Performer controlled all narrator mics and interval music.

Jennifer Lopez’s dynamic Dance Again World Tour came alive in Minsk with the help of a super-bright rig of Clay Paky luminaires.

Studio Berar recently provided an extensive HARMAN audio system for The Prodigy’s Warriors Dance Festival at the Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade, Serbia. Co-promoted by the team behind Exit Festival, the event featured an eclectic and innovative lineup, while the sound reinforcement system included JBL VERTEC® powered line arrays and Soundcraft Vi6 digital audio consoles.

South London based technical production specialist Presentational Rentals (PR) supplied all technical elements for the recent London launch of rock legends’ Led Zeppelin’s “Celebration Day” movie – featuring their one-off 2007 reunion concert at London’s O2 Arena.

After taking last summer off, the Dave Matthews Band is back on the road with a North American tour previewing their upcoming album, “Away From The World”.  The tour features 16 Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures specified by the band’s longtime lighting designer Fenton Williams and supplied by Theatrical Media Services Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska.

The 2012 iHeartRadio Music Festival didn’t just repeat itself, it got bigger. For the second year in a row, New York-based Firehouse Productions deployed HARMAN’s JBL line arrays for the festival at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Hosted by Ryan Seacrest with performances from top artists including Lil Wayne, Rihanna, Swedish House Mafia, Aerosmith, Mary J. Blige, Bon Jovi, Green Day, Pink!, Usher, Taylor Swift and more, the show closed with Pitbull, joined by Ne-Yo, singing “Give Me Everything.”

Lighting designer Richard Locklin has over 30 years of experience lighting the likes of Little Feat, Sting, Bob Dylan and many other top music industry names. Most recently he designed the lighting for Paul Simon’s “Graceland 25th Anniversary” tour and was one of the first LDs worldwide to use Martin Professional’s award-winning MAC Viper Profile. Lighting vendor Neg Earth supplied 20 of the new 1000-watt profile fixtures along with Martin MAC Auras for a European leg in July.

Clay Paky Sharpys provided spectacular impact at Welsh rock band Lostprophets’ homecoming gig to support of the band’s fifth studio album, Weapons - released in April 2012.

When MTV asked the “Fantastische Vier” (“The Fantastic Four”, “Fanta 4”) if they were prepared to repeat their ingenious unplugged concert of the year 2000, the four artists decided for a remake with new songs at that same spectacular venue that twelve years ago had been such a unique atmosphere: the Balve Cave (German: Balver Höhle). With regard to audio technology, they were served by Audio Broadcast Services (ABS) – and Lawo audio mixing consoles provided excellent sound under very difficult acoustic conditions.

Stadiums, arenas and open air venues across Asia, Europe, North and South America are hosting Madonna’s 2012 MDNA World Tour with all featuring a large Sennheiser microphone and RF system which helps deliver a flawless performance, night after night. Madonna has six Sennheiser SKM 5200 mics for each show, which, as monitor engineer Matt Napier explains, get tested to the limit.

“It's the first time I've used the Auras and they are spectacular!” Thus exclaimed lighting designer Susanne Sasic of Martin Professional’s versatile MAC Aura LED wash light. Using a nearly all Martin rig on the David Byrne & St. Vincent “Love This Giant” North American tour, the LD, who also handles production design and lighting direction on the tour, has teamed the MAC Aura™ with Martin MAC 101™ LED washes and MAC 700™ series fixtures.

As it has done for the past 15+ years, veteran mobile production company NEP Broadcasting, based in Pittsburgh, Pa., successfully brought to viewers the live broadcast  of this year’s 64th Primetime Emmy® Awards (Sunday, September 23) on ABC. NEP Broadcasting’s expanding fleet of state-of-the-art trucks feature a variety of Grass Valley® Video Production Center switchers, some of which were onsite and used extensively by ABC and E! Networks to facilitate the pristine HD coverage of the red carpet ceremonies.

Early in September, British band Coldplay gave a huge concert in the Stade de France, an 80,000 capacity stadium just outside of Paris. United were given the task of making a flawless recording of the show.

XL Video is supplying a high power projection system and Green Hippo Hippotizer i7 HD media servers for uber cool Mercury prize winning UK indie band The xx, who are currently in the middle of an 18 month world tour having just released their second album, Coexist.

The Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) Labor Day Telethon is a time-honored television tradition in the U.S. The 2012 edition, renamed MDA Show of Strength, featured a new format with LD Lee Rose of Design Partners turning to the Martin MAC Aura as a key element of the lighting design.