PIXERA POWERS PRESIDENTIAL CENTRE
The Barack Obama Presidential Centre opened to the public on 19 June 2026 in Chicago’s Jackson Park. The date was chosen deliberately, as Juneteenth is a federal holiday that marks the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Following a dedication ceremony attended by dignitaries, the nearly-20-acre campus opened its doors to the general public. The Centre rises across eight floors, four of them given over to public museum space, presenting exhibitions that explore the story of President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama through film, interactive displays and large-scale immersive media. Barack Obama was the first US president to hold a Twitter account, the first to livestream from the Oval Office on Facebook and the first to answer questions from the public on YouTube. That relationship with digital technology is a central theme of the museum, where AV Stumpfl PIXERA media servers drive 35 distinct systems spanning the full breadth of the exhibition programme. Paul Horst, senior manager of exhibitions AV systems at the Obama Foundation, led the AV design and deployment across the museum. With exhibits ranging from individual 4K displays to large, multi-projector installations, the team required a media server platform capable of scaling across every use case within a single, managed ecosystem. “We selected PIXERA to consolidate our media playback into a unified ecosystem,” said Horst. “It provided both the hardware options needed and the comprehensive software required.”
COHESION COVERS A$AP ROCKY
has a ton of visions of stage designs and ideas for how the show needs to look and sound,” said FOH engineer Zach Stansberry. The PA was designed as four ‘quadrants’, each with two arrays of 16 Cohesion CO12 and eight Cohesion CP218 II+ subwoofers in a flown cardioid configuration for a total of 128 CO12s and 32 CP218 II+s in the aerial system, as well as eight Cohesion CO10s used as a flown pit fill. For the ground system, 21 additional CP218 II+ subwoofers were deployed on horizontal cardioid carts surrounding the circular B-stage, each topped by two CO10s as fill to shift the sonic image down to the main performance area.
In support of his fourth studio album Don’t Be Dumb , his first album (and subsequent tour) in seven years, A$AP Rocky travelled across the United States and Canada this summer, performing to packed arenas. The latter ten North American shows, from Phoenix to Western Canada to the finale in New Jersey – just outside A$AP Rocky’s Harlem hometown – were supported by an in-the-round Cohesion rig designed to provide the full-venue coverage and visceral output that was required by the Grammy-nominated rapper. “A$AP Rocky is really creative – you have to be on your A game working with him since he
DIGICO HELPS DELIVER RICHARD ASHCROFT’S TOUR
summer run, so most of the spec was put together at the beginning of the year and has carried through,” John says. “We have a simplified set-up for the summer, with a raw festival feel for the core band. “We have removed some of the live aspects and added a strings track to retain Richard’s signature sound. Control packages will be picked up locally for a lot of the shows and I will be moving between the DiGiCo Q338 and Q852. Being DiGiCo, it’s so easy to convert my file between the consoles. No matter where you are in the world, you can always find a DiGiCo to suit your needs.”
During the summer, outdoor events make touring even more exciting, with changeable weather and a huge spectrum of venues, from fields in the UK to arenas and stadiums across the world. This isn’t a problem for Richard Ashcroft’s engineers, thanks to their well-prepared touring package, including DiGiCo consoles and Fourier transform engine. Front-of-house engineer Eds John and monitor engineer Matt Lewis explain the planning in creating timeless summer festival magic moments. “This year, we have come from an arena tour almost straight into our
SPATIAL COMES TO NATIONAL SAWDUST
Network Platform as part of a renewed partnership. “When we released NADIA, we said National Sawdust is our benchmark venue for spatial audio integrated with active acoustics,” said Meyer Sound’s director of spatial sound, Steve Ellison. “They need to be on our benchmark platform.” For National Sawdust, the upgrade also marks a longer commitment. “It’s the start of a five-year partnership where Meyer Sound is becoming a real collaborator,” said National Sawdust MD Ana De Archuleta.
On a single night at National Sawdust, a programme might feature eight composers with eight sonic set-ups, each asking something different of the room. One piece might send playback tracks moving around the audience; the next might call for the spacious acoustic of a cathedral, or a tight, controlled room for a rock band. This summer, the Brooklyn venue upgraded the Meyer Sound Constellation system behind those shifts, moving from D-Mitri to NADIA processing and adding a Galileo GALAXY 816
25-26 NOV LONDON STADIA EXPO
26-30 JAN ANAHEIM NAMM SHOW
2-5 FEB BARCELONA ISE 2027
14-16 APR BEIJING INFOCOMM CHINA
11-12 MAY LEEDS PLASA FOCUS
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