First party in times of Corona with 100 guests

Coconut Beach in Münster shows how it could work

Yesterday an experiment took place in Münster that could set a precedent: Partying at a distance. The Coconut Beach celebrated an open-air party with only 100 guests instead of 2000 as usual.

Already a few months ago Professor Drosten said that we have to get used to having to find individual rules for each area during the pandemic. Even if there are hardly any new infections, the distance rule still applies, everything else must and can be regulated.

The Münster open-air club Coconut Beach organized an outdoor rave on Father’s Day with only 100 guests and simply tried out some of the new rules.

The organizers had negotiated with the city about the details of the concept for a long time. In the end it was approved with strict conditions.

The party cost a proud 70 Euro entrance fee (including drinks) to at least cover the costs, but was still sold out within minutes.

The organizers emphasize to Resident Advisor that they know very well that not everybody can afford it and that some guests were disappointed not to be able to join the party. Nevertheless, the experiment shows a way how it can work with a few compromises:

  • All guests had to wear face masks and keep a distance of 1.50m at all times.
  • On the dance floor, circles were drawn in which one could dance, each one for himself. Each guest was assigned his own table.
  • At the bar there was plexiglass between guests and staff, as well as between DJ and dance floor.

DJ Gerd Janson said that he was booked anyway, but had waived 80 percent of his fee. The club made no profit from the event.

Sure, we all long for live music and movement. And we couldn’t spend our money in the last months. Many clubbers currently support “their” club with donations, because everyone is aware of the seriousness of the situation. Many clubs are currently in danger of losing their existence, without events they cannot pay their rent and employees. So why not simply pay more for events with significantly fewer visitors than normal?

The next parties in Münster are already planned, with the next step being to increase the capacity to 250 guests. This event could also have provided the blueprint for an opening in an intimate setting for other cities around the world.

Of course, we won’t be able to celebrate again as usual until a vaccination against the virus is widely available. Therefore, it is important for cultural events to sound out how they can survive this time and how we can at least find our way back to normality a little bit.

It should be clear to everyone that this can only work if the rules are strictly adhered to and we pay attention to each other, because otherwise the virus will inevitably spread again, with a renewed lockdown of all public life. No club would probably survive that. And in clubs that don’t want to risk all this under any circumstances, it is probably much better to regulate it than, for example, in crowded public parks, where everyone simply does what they want – regardless of losses. Unfortunately, this was also to be seen in many places on Father’s Day.

75 years of Sennheiser: Review of a success story made in Germany

The German audio manufacturer celebrates its anniversary and offers insights Audio manufacturer Sennheiser is celebrating its 75th anniversary this month. We look back on a German success story.

The renowned audio manufacturer Sennheiser was founded in June 1945. Even though the anniversary year is going differently than planned due to the Corona pandemic, the audio specialist is telling the stories of his crew.

A total of 75 stories bring the Sennheiser world and the history of the company to life: they tell personal anecdotes behind the innovations, unique sound experiences and they give an insight into the history of the company founder.

Sennheiser: The future of the audio world for 75 years

75 years ago, Prof. Dr. Fritz Sennheiser founded the “start-up” that would one day become Sennheiser in a farmhouse near Hanover. To this day, the passion for sound and the joy of innovation continue to drive the company he created back then.

Through post-war reconstruction, Fritz Sennheiser went from university lecturer to entrepreneur and founded the small company “Laboratorium Wennebostel” – or “Labor W” for short.

There he manufactured audio products that helped rebuild the destroyed infrastructure and facilitated communication. After initially producing vacuum tube voltmeters and other measuring instruments, the company received its first order to manufacture microphones in the summer of 1945.

The rest is history: Fritz Sennheiser’s company developed numerous other audio products and eventually became the globally successful brand that still bears his name today. Microphones and headphones from Sennheiser are standard equipment in every studio, and with the HD25, Sennheiser has developed the de facto standard for DJ headphones.

This is Your Crew

Although the anniversary cannot be celebrated as planned this year, Sennheiser shares many magical moments and stories on his website under the motto “This is Your Crew”: A total of 75 stories provide an insight into the world of the company.

For example about the best headphones ever, which appeared in 1991 under the name Orpheus.

The multimedia collection of anecdotes from employees, customers, friends and fans illustrates what makes Sennheiser so special. In one of the stories, for example, the company historian tells how she found the oldest document in the Sennheiser archive: the British Military Government’s release document – an important foundation stone for the company’s origins.

At the beginning of the Corona pandemic, Sennheiser employees from all over the world also supplemented the stories with personal pictures and messages from their home office.

What unites this crew: a love of music. To make sure that the music doesn’t fall silent during Corona times, Sennheiser has created the live streaming concert series #DontStopTheMusic. Live concerts by international artists are regularly held on the Sennheiser Facebook account – so you don’t have to miss out on live concerts during Corona times and you can get the musicians right into your living room.

And if you want to use your time at home to expand your specialist knowledge, the #DontStopTheEducation initiative is the right place for you. Webinars and round tables cover a wide range of topics that are of particular interest to customers from the music and AV industry, film and video production teams and the education and corporate sector. An overview of the free online trainings and round tables as well as the corresponding registration option can be found here.

We congratulate the company on its success story. To the next 75!

Adding music to Instagram Stories – this is how it works

Your favorite songs directly in the story

Recently, songs can be directly integrated as background music in Instagram Stories. Here are the instructions on how you can spice up your stories musically.

Within a very short time, Instagram and its stories have become one of the most relevant features of the social media world and a constant companion for many of us. Where all areas of life come together, music always plays a big role.

From now on you can add music directly to your Instagram Stories. Similar to how GIFs could finally be used some time ago, there is now a sticker that lets the user choose from songs in the categories “Popular”, “Mood” and “Genre”, or lets him manually search for a specific song.

And this is how you build music into your Instagram Stories:

  1. select sticker
  2. select “Music
  3. search music

Once you’ve found the right song, you can then use the slider to select a specific section of the song and adjust its length from 5 to 15 seconds. As soon as you publish the story, a sticker will be placed on it, informing the viewer about the artist and song name.

Instagram Music Sticker missing – what now?
Again and again users report that their music sticker is missing or has disappeared. The exact cause of this problem is not known yet, but we have already found out that it is not related to the smartphone or operating system, but always to the respective Instagram account.

So it seems that the new feature has not been released for all users even half a year after its release. So in the worst case it means: practice patience. However, to make sure that this is not another bug, you should make sure that you have done the following three steps:

Upgrade your smartphone operating system and Instagram app to the latest version.

Open the Instagram app, log out your IG account, and then log back in.
Delete the Instagram app completely from your phone, then download it again from the App Store. Don’t worry, nothing will happen to your account and you can log back in normally.
If you still can’t find a solution, you should leave this information in a review of Instagram in the App Store. Experience shows that companies react quite quickly to bad ratings…

Screen Recording for iPhone users
If you have an iPhone, you can also simply play a song and record the screen as a video.

That’s the way to do it:

  1. go to Settings > Control Panel > Customize Controls, and then tap.
  2. swip the screen up and press the round button. The entire screen is recorded, including audio.
  3. press the round button again to stop recording. The video will be saved to your iPhone.

Now you can upload the video as Insta-Story.

Screen Recording for Android users
Android users can also record their screen, for this the app AZ Screen Recorder must be downloaded from the Play Store and installed.