The sustainability initiative, Festival Vision:2025, has released the second edition of its flagship Show Must Go On report, revealing the latest figures, trends and practices surrounding the festival industry’s response to the climate crisis.

The full report is available as a free download here.

Five years on from the publication of the first edition, the new 126-page report gives an insight into sector sustainability, and reflects the progress made in technologies, materials and operational practices to reduce environmental impacts. Its main chapters, authored by experts in their own fields, cover governance, resources & waste, water, food, energy, and travel & transport.

Coinciding with the release of the report is the newly launched online Knowledge Hub, a significant free-to-access resource that will feature case studies, briefings and a supplier directory.

More than 100 festivals and events have made the Vision:2025 pledge and more than 60 suppliers, including Fineline Lighting, have supported the report.

Chris Johnson, chair of Powerful Thinking and Vision:2025, stated: “After a decade of the Powerful Thinking industry steering group, this is a significant step in the journey. The industry has now come together around a vision and has crowdfunded world-leading resources to inspire meaningful action. This has been a huge collaborative effort and our thanks go out to all contributors, including our three Gamechangers: Festival Republic, Continest and Nordic Wristbands, whose financial support underpinned the process.

“The report is a call to action. Whatever people and organisations have done to date, the time to act and to tackle the climate crisis is now.

“The Show Must Go On report opens with a clear note framing the climate emergency with an optimistic message – we must act now and ‘We Can Fix It’.”

Alison Tickell, CEO and founder of Julie’s Bicycle, the charity behind Powerful Thinking and Vision 2025, said: “Living within the generous boundaries of our planet’s ecosystems is now the only job in hand. As a creative and events collective, we can bring inspiration and community to this task.”

On 23-24 January Fineline Lighting hosted students from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School for a set of “Introduction to Rigging Training” courses at the company’s Clevedon warehouse.
The training is held annually for students at the school and provides a vital next step into the world of rigging and technical event production.
Rob Sangwell, Director at Fineline Lighting, commented: “It was fantastic hosting the students from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, they all worked hard and learnt a lot. It’s always great to see new generations of technical production professionals expanding their skillset.”
“All the feedback from the students about the training was positive,” added Bristol Old Vic Theatre School Tutor Frank Bradley. “They really enjoyed the sessions and felt they had learned a basic knowledge of rigging truss which would give them confidence if they needed to apply it practically in future, and provided an insight into an area of work in which some of them would like to gain more experience.”
If you are involved with a Production Arts course and would be interested in working with Fineline to provide practical training sessions for students, please get in touch.

Multi-platinum selling band Skid Row embarked on a 14 date European winter tour in 2019, and brought Lighting Designer Will Furze on board to enhance their design and programme the show lighting utilising his own GrandMA2 Light console.

“I was extremely excited to have been part of this,” he said. “Skid Row are legendary and for good reason! To be working with them is an absolute privilege especially as they take their production value very seriously, hence the decision to incorporate a choreographed light show as a core part of their performance.”

The run was across a number of European and UK venues, along with two winter festivals, throughout November and December 2019.

Will enlisted Fineline Lighting to supply the lighting floor package for the tour.

“I’m lucky to have Fineline as my local company,” he continued. “The team are absolutely fantastic and extremely helpful, often going above and beyond to help me out on various projects.

“For the Skid Row tour I was looking for a floor package that was light, compact and easy on power but would also be able to keep up with any house rig we came across. The Rogue R2X that Fineline stock fitted the bill perfectly and performed flawlessly even up against 1200w discharge fixtures – their punch vs size is incredible!

“We used 8 of the fixtures, 4 on Novopro podiums on the upstage, 2 on the riser and 2 on the downstage.

“Fineline put together a neat cable pack of dmx and powercon looms that had me all set up and ready to go in under 30 minutes with the ability to make the package work on large or small stages.”

Will will be rejoining the band in 2020 for the next part of the United World Rebellion Tour.

We’re excited to announce that Fineline Lighting has been nominated in two categories of the upcoming TPI Awards: Favourite Rigging Company and Favourite Lighting Rental Company.

The Fineline team have worked across a wide range of events in 2019, including Love Saves the Day, Shambala, Glastonbury and the Eden Sessions, which took place across June and July in 2019.

Fineline is shortlisted for its work providing rigging and lighting support at the Sessions, which saw performances from Nile Rodgers & Chic, Noel Gallagher, Stereophonics, Kylie Minogue and more.

A win (or two) at the awards, which take place on 24th February next year at Battersea Evolution, would be a fantastic way to kick off Fineline’s 30th year in business.

Rob Sangwell, director of Fineline, commented: “We’re thrilled to be shortlisted in two categories at the 2020 TPI Awards. Fineline is all about providing a high quality, professional and personal service to our clients and we’re very pleased that our work across the Eden Sessions has been recognised.”

You can find the entire shortlist for the TPI Awards on their website.

Fineline Lighting has been shortlisted in the National Outdoor Event Association (NOEA) annual awards in the ‘Event Supplier of the Year – Infrastructure’ category.

Susan Tanner, CEO of the association, commented that this year saw an increase in the number of overall entries and that the quality of the submissions received was extremely high.

The Event Supplier of the Year categories (subdivided into Infrastructure and Services) highlight companies across a diverse range of disciplines which have provided a first-class product and service to their clients in the outdoor events industry.

Sevim Sangwell, Director of Business Development at Fineline, said: “We’re thrilled to be shortlisted in the ‘Event Supplier of the Year – Infrastructure’ category. This recognition from NOEA reflects the stellar work carried out by Fineline Lighting throughout the past year on outdoor events.”

NOEA was first established in 1979 to promote best practice, consistency and robust business throughout the outdoor events industry and to date has over 500 members covering local authorities, festival and event organisers, universities & students, entertainment agencies, promoters, venues and suppliers of equipment and services.

This year the 16th annual Convention and Awards Dinner will be held in Bath’s Roman Baths and Pump Rooms venue on 27th November.