At ISE 2025, TPi launched the Live Events Stage. Building on previous year’s work hosting the Live Events Summit, the Live Events Stage was a three-day event that saw 21 panels take place over three days. The stage was situated in Hall 6 on the show floor, among the lighting exhibitors. The goal of the programme was to bring voices from throughout the live events industry to share an insight into the world of live touring and events. Covering a range of topics from audio, video, lighting, staging, transport, special effects, and more – there was a little something for everyone, with all content being completely free to all attendees at the show.
With TPi curating all the content for the show, the programme was sponsored by MA Lighting. “Sponsoring the Live Events Stage as a main sponsor was a no-brainer for us,” commented Stephan Saremba, Managing Director for MA Lighting. “Bringing it down to the show floor and allowing people to participate at any time gives everyone the ability to learn from the experience that the speakers share. That is what it is all about in our industry.”
DAY ONE
After a brief opening introduction by host for the week, Stew Hume, Editor of TPi Magazine, the first session saw WICREATIONS CEO, Hans Willems and PRG Commercial Director, Miles Hillyard both give an overview of the past 12 months in the live touring sector. Next attention moved to the world of lighting with Concept K’s Frédéric Fayard, Spectrum AV’s Lex Willems and Gary Numan’s Lighting Designer, David Howard coming to the stage. The lighting professionals discussed the growing number of brands on the market and how they deal with the proliferation of choice. Then to close the morning, Adele’s Production Manager, Paul English, walked through how he and his team pulled together the artist major production in Munich.
After the lunch break, we then heard from Koen Peeters from WICREATIONS, who explained some of the latest innovations within automation, providing an insight into some of the recent productions he and his team had been working on. Then from automation to audio, Peter James from Shure gave a brief history of the company as it celebrates its 100-year anniversary.
From there, the Live Events Stage returned to the topic of counterfeiting and how it is affecting manufacturers in the live events sector, with MA Lighting’s Franco Zaghini and L-Acoustics’ Laurent Ostojski.
Closing out day one, Paul English returned to the stage alongside Ben Brooks of TAIT and Chris Neary, Senior Technical Manager, Live Entertainment for Scottish Event Campus and OVO Hydro. The topic on the docket was venues – specifically how spaces are having to deal with increasingly complex and large tours.
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DAY TWO
Starting the second day, the Live Events Stage welcomed Dave Weatherhead from TAIT and Mike Birch from NEWSUBSTANCE who conversed about the latest developments in automation as well as the type of requests they are getting from clients. Then headline sponsor, MA Lighting took the reins, welcoming Tue Knudsen, System Engineer of the Eurovision 2024. With questions being delivered by MA Lighting Brand Manager, Daniel Kannenberg, Knudsen walked the audience through the complex control setup that helped to make the 2024 edition of event possible.
Then from lighting control to projection mapping, the Live Events Stage delved into this visual format welcoming Martin Pošta, Co-Founder of Signal Festival. The annual festival takes place in Prague each year with visual artists deploying the very latest in projection technology throughout the city. Also joining Pošta was Graham Miller, Director of Live Events for 4Wall Entertainment, who spoke about his projection mapping at Glastonbury this year, along with Will Harkin, who mentioned several case studies such as the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, as well as Joe Graziano from Christie Digital.
In the afternoon, the conversation turned to sustainability within the live events sphere. To speak about this hotly debated issue we had Tim Benson from Showpower Global and Barbara de Gregorio from Atlas Copco – both companies offering alternative power solutions for live shows utilising battery technology.
Also joining the debate was Richard Burnett from KB Event – a company examining multiple ways to improve the sustainability of logistics, specifically with the use of HVO fuel in the live entertainment and touring sector.
Next, the Live Events Stage welcomed Patchwork London’s Calum Mordue. Fresh from touring with Burna Boy, he spoke about some of the latest innovations within wireless technology and the logistics of having to run RF on these complex shows.
Having arisen in previous discussions, the topic of tracking software was one that carried a lot of interest. This technology has been prevalent within the lighting world for a long time but is now often utilised within video, automation and audio departments. Naostage’s Olivier Le Doeuff, BlackTrax’s Nicholas Lau, zactrack’s Paul Roch and Follow-Me’s Tim van Dijck all shared their thoughts on the subject.
Closing the second day, the host city of Barcelona was in the spotlight as we welcomed Primavera’s Head of Press, Marta Pallarès. As well as discussing how this year’s event was shaping up, she also gave her thoughts on the state of the European festival scene, not to mention the overall need for festivals to franchise a brand, giving the example of Primavera’s satellite events in South America.
DAY THREE
Opening the Live Events Stage’s third day was Laura Frank and the team from frame:work, who brought together a stellar panel of video experts to tackle the topic of ‘The Art and Science of Time’. The panel featured Emily Malone, Head of Live Events for Disguise, Nils Porrmann, Director of Content Workflows for dandelion + burdock, Chema Menendez from Evoke Studios, and Sean Hooper from Carbon Arc Projects. Following that, the Live Events Stage maintained the theme of content creation, welcoming Lewis Kyle-White from Pixels & Noise and Adam Young from FRAY Studios. Both Kyle-White and Young revealed how they go about creating and delivering content for various touring clients. From pixels to SFX – the next session featured leading voices from the special effects and pyrotechnics effects world, including Matt Hales from BPM SFX, Dan Mott from ER Productions alongside drone specialist John ‘JP’ Partridge from Celestial.
Following a lunch break, the Live Events Stage welcomed James Chapman from TAIT. As one of the leading providers of staging for the touring markets, Chapman spoke about some of the changes he’s witnessed in the market and the demands coming from artist and productions – specifically the growing trend of artists wishing to have stages that spiral out on an arena floor.
From there, TPiMEA’s Peter Iantorno hosted a session discussing the development of the Saudi Arabian events market, welcoming some of the team behind the record-breaking MDLBEAST Soundstorm festival, including Michael ‘Curly’ Jobson, Executive Director of Events at MDLBEAST, alongside PRG’s Director of Music Lighting, Yvonne Donnelly Smith and Rock-it Cargo’s Harry Calthorpe.
In the penultimate session, the Live Events Stage welcomed famed Lighting and Show Designer Roland Greil. Having worked on shows for the likes of Rammstein, Genesis and The Rolling Stones, Greil described his process for designing and how he takes an original idea into pre-vis before pulling everything together. Closing out the programme this year, the Live Events Stage welcomed Solotech’s Technical & R&D Director for Live Production in the UK, Nick Lythgoe, and Head of Soundscape for Southby Productions, Aaron Holloway-Nahum, who spoke about some of the latest developments within immersive audio.
For the last day of the show, Hannah Eakins and the team from Production Futures produced content aimed at inspiring the next generation of events professionals. Part of ISE’s Fast Forward Friday, Production Futures’ programme provided an inspiring focus for young people on networking, training, and career growth in the live event technology and broadcast sectors.
Hannah Eakins of Production Futures saw the organisation’s first appearance at ISE as an important milestone in taking its message to a global audience:
“Throughout the day, we invited special guests from all corners of the industry to give the ISE audience an insight into the world of training and work opportunities within live event and broadcast production, while simultaneously raising the profile of newcomers who are shaping the future. Through the generosity of our sponsors, who provided support in the form of travel bursaries, five of our Breakthrough Talent Award winners joined us for the day and gave fascinating insights into how the industry looks through their eyes, reflecting on the pathways and opportunities that were fundamental to their progress.”
Words: Stew Hume
Photos: TPi
