Staged in the The Vaults, a maze of disused railway arches underneath London’s Waterloo Station, Sounds and Sorcery is an ambitious immersive audiovisual experience inspired by Disney’s Fantasia.

With 3D projections, elaborate set designs and spectacular lighting set to a specially recorded score from the City of Prague Symphony orchestra, the show relies on elaborate and technically challenging sound design built around Williams Sound Hearing Hotspot technology supplied by CUK Audio and installed by Direct Audio Visual.

Among the highlights of the UK summer season, the five-day Henley Festival is a ‘black tie’ event with RG Jones Sound Engineering having provided isoundfor 36 years. In recent times, the company has fine-tuned coverage of the main stages – including the tricky Floating Stage – using Martin Audio MLA components.

‘The Floating Stage has always been a challenge in that the front to back of the arena is only approximately 30m, but it is extremely wide, and with the introduction of general admission tickets outside the arena we are being asked to cover a width of something like 100m,’ says festival Technical Manager and Head of Sound, Jim Lambert. ‘The MLA Compacts more than rise to this challenge and yet enable us to keep to the fairly strict off-site noise limits set by the Council.’

Academy Music Group called on Liverpool-based Adlib to co-design and deliver a touring specification audio system for its 2,000-capacity O2 Academy in Newcastle, one of the most active and vibrant live music venues on the UK touring scene. The project was led by Academy Music Group Divisional Manager Steve Hoyland and O2 Academy Newcastle Technical Manager Nile Lines, with Adlib’s Andy Dockerty and Rob Crossland, who specified DiGiCo mixing and a Coda Audio PA system.

Rosewood Studios is a new purpose-built recording facility in Redhill, Surrey, opened by Edward Scull. ‘I wanted to create a space that focuses solely on the musician and the music itself,’ he says. ‘Our mantra is to create an optimum space for creativity to flourish. As soon as you walk through the door the outside world stops, there are no distractions, a nod to the studios we had back in the day.’

The studio features a large 5m-high live room that houses a 115-year-old Weber grand piano, while the control room is equipped with an Audient ASP8024 HE console supplemented by high-end mic preamps and outboard from the likes of Neve, SSL, Manley, Chandler, API, Thermionic Culture and Prism Sound.

The Warehouse provided an advanced audio solution for Edinburgh International Festival’s spectacular opening event, Five Telegrams, which was attended by 15,000 people and marked the beginning of the 2018 event.

Five Telegrams is part of the 14-18 NOW project, a five-year programme of arts experiences designed to ‘connect people with the First World War’. The Warehouse has worked with the festival for more than 27 years, with each opening event proving more challenging than the last. This year, The Warehouse fielded an Adamson Systems sound reinforcement system for the first time.