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South Africa - With the new production of Phantom of the Opera, which started a world tour in January this year in Manila, Philippines, Gearhouse Splitbeam have added the Eilon Ron StageMaster 6000 G4 Wireless System to their rigging rental stock for the first time.
“The 10-load cell system, that we purchased from DWR Distribution, can be remotely monitored in conjunction with the wireless receiver and Apple compatible software via blue tooth technology,” comments Alistair Kilbee, managing director at Splitbeam. “The Eilon load cells are easy to install due to the perpendicular design and wireless capabilities.”
The Eilon Ron StageMaster 6000 System, that allows for “always on” wireless continuous monitoring, was the main reason Splitbeam selected the

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USA - Astro Spatial Audio is at the centre of a new flagship e-sports studio in Los Angeles, bringing object-based 3D sound to one of the world’s fastest growing areas of sports entertainment.
For millions of fans worldwide, the future of sports can be found not on a pitch or a field, but on a screen, with e-sports such as League of Legends and Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) having now entered the mainstream.
For leading South Korean e-sports promoter and broadcaster OGN, the popularity of PUBG has prompted the opening of its first dedicated North American e-sports arena, located in Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles, California. Equipped with 80 PCs on stage with a backdrop of giant three-sided immersive LED screen, the 35,000sq.ft arena delivers entertainment not only for those watching at home but also the in-house audience. A key part of the experience is true

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China - Point Source Audio (PSA) has appointed China’s EAD and South Korea’s Capstone Pro as distribution partners for its SERIES8 and EMBRACE microphones and CM-i series of in-ear headsets.
The appointments come on the back of an expansion effort in response to increased sales and product awareness outside of the USA for Point Source Audio. These partnerships further expand the company’s worldwide reach, which now includes international partners in the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan Italy, Norway, Finland and France, among others.
“We’re excited to be working with both Capstone Pro and EAD,” says James Lamb, president of Point Source Audio. “The creative community in these regions is massive and our products fit their needs. Our goal is to continuously improve our customers’ experience around the world in every aspect and we are confident that our
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Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

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Norway - Clair Brothers has partnered with Bary AS, one of Norway’s largest suppliers of technical solutions and equipment for concerts, festivals, events and other productions.
Bary has reportedly ordered an extensive list of Clair Brothers equipment for demo and sales purposes, including a selection of 1AM stage monitors, 1.5AM stage monitors, 10SPOT hybrid speakers, CB-PLM12K44 amps, CB-PLM5K44 amps, kiT-Sub-Mini+s, kiT-Sub+s, CS218-M mobile subs, kiTCurve12s, kiT12s, 8CX-P-100 point source speakers, 5CX-P-70 point source speakers, and a various support products like road cases, rigging equipment, dollies, coupling links, soft covers and more.
Morten Bakke, director of business development at Bary AS, comments: “We got everything delivered a couple of weeks ago and have already confirmed three different installations with the 10SPOT and kiT-Subs - a total of app

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UK - Community Professional Loudspeakers has announced the appointment of Rob Davidson to the UK-based position of EMEA sales manager. With an early career in medical technology sales, Davidson joins Community from the professional audio export company PAXT, where he held the position of senior international sales manager.
Davidson will report directly to Community’s CEO, Steve Johnson, who commented, “We’re very pleased to welcome Rob to the team. Combined with excellent technical experience, he has a proven track record of building great working relationships with distributors, consultants, system integrators and dealers.”
Johnson continues: “With our wide offering for installed sound, market leading all-weather systems, and new products like the IV6 modular vertical array already rapidly increasing sales, Rob’s professional approach will provide great su

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USA - In the continuing effort to release quarterly software updates to the Hog 4 operating system, High End Systems has released Hog 4 OS v3.12 software.
Hog 4 OS v3.12 brings support for ETCnomad Dongle/Gadget II, as well as minor improvements including XML Import/Export of custom fixtures, Carallon-sourced fixtures, Custom Lock Screen Image and hiding of PIN dialog and Capture Presentation CITP connectivity (requires Capture 2019).
Console product manager Sarah Clausen comments: “We're very excited to bring Hog 4 PC to the ETC nomad family. Users of our Educational package will now have yet another control system option to expand their horizons. Professional users will enjoy the new options for data distribution using Hog 4 PC and the ETCnomad USB key.”
(Jim Evans)

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Europe - The last nine months has seen major changes at the new Prolight Concepts HQ with the openning of a larger warehousing and office complex  allowing for an even greater stock holding and more efficient dispatching.
Now the company has introduced a new catalogue, listing This, in turn, has allowed expansion of the product range, hence the requirement for the new catalogue.
The marketing and purchasing departments have been working hard over the last three months to get the catalogue ready. The Big One just got even bigger, with over 2200 products featured and the introduction of multiple distributed brands including LDR, Lynx Pro Audio and The Confetti Maker.
The new 2019/20 catalogue has arrived and will be officially released at PLASA Focus Leeds.
Andrew Jeffrey, managing director comments, “Our 2019/20 catalogue contains over 2,200 stock lin

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USA - Robe MegaPointes were used to dramatic effect on the most recent US tour by multi-instrumentalist French Kiwi Juice (FKJ).
Lighting and production designer Stu Dingley was delighted when approached by FKJ’s management and asked if he would create a design for the artist known for his elegant loungy music and funky visuals.
He chatted to FKJ at the start of the design process. The artist was open to ideas, however as a keen videographer with terabytes of content available, he really wanted to get selected elements of this right at the essence of the live show… to tie everything together visually.
With that in mind, Stu immediately thought of MegaPointes which he wanted to use for some very specific effects - shadows and silhouettes - to balance artfully in juxtaposition with the video images. He needed brightness, accurate shuttering and a beautiful qual

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The Netherlands - Poppodium Nieuwe Nor, a 400-capacity venue in the city of Heerlen not only hosts a diverse programme of music from pop and hip-hop to metal, blues and everything in between, it also holds regular club nights with DJs and serves as a location for corporate presentations and other events.
As Nieuwe Nor was getting in bigger acts with greater lighting needs, the venue’s existing discharge-based lighting rig was proving outdated with limited features and colour choice, as well as restricted output. “It just couldn’t deliver some of the things guest LD’s were looking for,” says Youri Gidding, head technician at the venue. Having to replace lamps every year was also taking a bite out of the tech budget, he says, and as the contract with their previous supplier was ending, the time was right to upgrade.
“Since we get a lot of different kinds of

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South Africa - First Love Generation, a church based in Ruimsig Roodepoort, has invested in an L-Acoustics ARCS WiFo system knowing that their ministry will, in the future, include international speakers, worship bands and become a home to equip Christians on their daily walk.
Ordained Pastors Pieter and Tilla van Tonder initially left a mainstream church in 2006, planted a church on their property with another pastoral couple in 2007, and served together for nine years. During this time, the couple obtained permission to build a church, auditorium and lecture rooms on what used to be their tennis court. In January 2016, First Love Generation was officially born. Since the new church was formally launched, the numbers continue to grow year-on-year from the original handful of people.
DWR Distribution’s Victor Vermaak has been a friend to Pastor Pieter for many yea

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UK - McQueen in Shoreditch has been a feature of London’s club landscape for 10 years. Themed after the late American star Steve McQueen, the multiple award-winning venue has an overall capacity of 650, divided between two principal spaces and a 55-cover restaurant. Its strong reputation has been built on its ability to stage and attract high profile events, feature top DJs and deliver excellent hospitality.
Shoreditch continues to grow as one of the capital’s leisure industry hubs and entrepreneur Dezzi McCausland, head of design and concepts at McQueen, is aware of the need to take a progressive view in an evolving and highly competitive market. Recognising a trend towards increasingly multi-functional venues, McCausland took the decision to use the occasion of the club’s 10th anniversary to re-launch McQueen - updated, upgraded and able to deliver a wider spectrum o

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UK - When Elliot Patterson from Evolve Install embarked on his third fit-out for the Kricket restaurant chain at the BBC Television Centre in White City, he worked in a new building with an industrial theme. This gave him the opportunity to suspend a series of down facing JBL pendant loudspeakers in the three open-plan zones and direct the sound away from the offices upstairs.
Owned by Will Bowlby and Rik Campbell, Kricket Television Centre is also the group’s largest restaurant to date, offering 100 covers inside and 40 outside. It features an open kitchen, booth and banquet seating, and a garden terrace with views of the studios.
Like the other two venues (in Soho and Brixton), Patterson turned to the Harman Pro audio catalogue for his solutions, sourcing the materials from their UK and Ireland distributors Sound Technology.
“It’s always nice to be invol

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USA - It was still 32 days before the Cubbies kicked off the 2019 baseball season, but as one of the coldest winters in memory drew to a close, a group of 400 Windy City rock fans jump-started summer on the 20th annual Chicago Music Cruise, a weeklong Caribbean excursion on Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of The Seas.
Organised by local rock icons 7th Heaven, the cruise featured a group of leading Chicagoland bands and radio personalities. When cruise-goers weren’t walking the ship’s promenade or dining at its restaurants, they were packing its theatre to dance to a relentless procession of rock and country tunes. Keeping pace with the hard-driving music notes was a dynamic and colourful Zach Scott-designed lightshow, run with a ChamSys Maxi Wing and ChamSys Extra Wing Compact.
“Given that space is always an issue in a cruise ship environment, I wanted something wit

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UK - Creative vision can often be frustrated by the limitations of technology, yet ever so quietly, UB40, with some help from Grant Hickey, Oli Metcalfe, Video Design, and the latest Notch effects software are revealing to their UK audiences that at least one technological barrier has been crossed. “Astro and Ali said to Grant, their production designer, that they wanted to ‘step it up a bit’ as far as this year’s tour was concerned; they wanted something that set it apart from other recent outings.”
As Metcalfe comments: “This was a case of right place, right time. It was an opportunity to try out some ideas I’ve been having about generative video and being creative in real-time.”
Metcalfe is video director for the tour, called in by Hickey on that ‘step-up’ initiative from Ali and Astro. “Grant and I have worked together many times before; he h

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USA - Lightswitch has become the latest Behind the Scenes Pledge-a-Service partner by pledging to donate a percentage of their design fees to the charity.
For more than 25 years, Lightswitch has been committed to changing the way people experience their world. They are a consortium of internationally recognised lighting, media and visual designers who create unforgettable experiences where people live, work, learn and play. Whether for a concert, an event, an experiential environment, or an architectural project, they use a balance of artistry, practicality and technical mastery to create memorable, compelling and responsible lighting and visual design. This core principle guides their team of dedicated designers who serve clients from their full-service studios around the world.
On presenting their first cheque for $1,000, Howard Werner, partner and principal, states:

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UK & Ireland - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has been appointed as the exclusive UK distributor for PureLink's IPAV Pro series of 10Gb AV over IP transmission, switching and signal processing solutions. AC-ET sister company A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ireland will handle distribution in the Republic of Ireland.
With the Pro AV industry currently transitioning to AV distribution over IP, to create entirely new user experiences with 4K+ video content, there is a growing demand for technologies which meet tomorrow's as well as today's video performance needs. In addition, companies are seeking products which utilise a widely adopted VOIP protocol, such as SDVoE (Software Defined Video Over Ethernet).
The IPAV Pro series combines 10Gb Ethernet over IP switching technology with a toughened chassis custom made for the rigours of rental and staging. Utilisin

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Bulgaria - On 12 January, the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv began its year as one of the two European Capitals of Culture for 2019. The opening ceremony was again under the artistic direction of Sven Sören Beyer of phase7 performing arts. For the third time, the Berlin artist collective took over the artistic design of the opening ceremony of a European Capital of Culture, and the opening show titled We Are All Colors attracted over 50,000 viewers.
The central element of the show was a 30m-high media tower in the form of a regular octagon, which had been designed and built specifically for the event. Running in a north-south direction, a 100m catwalk linked to the tower. The 360-degree light show spanned across all five levels of the entire tower, 1,500 show participants performed on five levels. The spectacular performance combined traditional Bulgarian show acts with f

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EMEA - Production Resource Group (PRG) is integrating its global research and development efforts into a new operating group, PRG Innovation.
Joining under PRG Innovation will be PRG Projects, PRG Research and Development, and the VER product development initiatives. The new operating group will encompass operations in Belgium, China and the USA, which include facilities in Dallas, New Windsor, New York and Los Angeles.
Jere Harris, chairman and CEO of PRG, comments: “PRG Innovation brings all of our talent focused on product development into a single, global team, allowing us to anticipate market trends, move with agility and align product development with our larger strategic objectives. I believe that our investment and performance in market-driven innovation is one of the most powerful points of difference separating our brands from the competition. Now, that adv

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Foundation Funding - Andrew Lloyd Webber’s foundation is overhauling the way money is awarded, with three new strands aimed at supporting potential and reaching diverse communities. The foundation will award funding under the strands Unlock, Enhance and Empower. The Unlock strand will give grants if up to £5,000 to projects that increase diversity by “breaking down social, economic and geographical barriers”. This might include youth theatres or music therapy groups.
The Enhance strand will award grants of up to £10,000 to projects that provide specialist training and workplace experience for emerging artists and newly graduated professionals, while the Empower section will award funding of up to £25,000 to projects that allow practitioners to “apply resources widely” and give training to a significant number of people.
Lloyd Webber said: “Music a

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Europe - Launched at Prolight+Sound 2019, Ayrton’s ultra-compact Diablo profile is the smallest, lightest and most efficient LED luminaire of its type. Weighing just over 20kg, Diablo delivers an output of 19,000 lumens from its 300W source, and matches the ultra-compact Mistral in dimensions. Diablo is the latest to join Khamsin and Ghibli in Ayrton’s new profile luminaire range.
Diablo’s miniaturised framing system uses eight motors to accurately position its four blades across 100% surface area, enabling precision framing of any object, regardless of the luminaire’s position. The 119 mm frontal lens produces an extremely uniform flat beam with no hot spot that renders perfect images at any beam angle, says the company.
Diablo shares Mistral’s 13-element proprietary optical system to deliver an 8:1 zoom ration and produce a 6.7° to 53° zoom range. It in

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USA - Tour provider Clair Global, has invested in two of SSL's newly-launched Live L550 consoles.
“We are thrilled to offer the new L550 to our clients, who are putting out some of the most demanding tours on the road today,” says Clair's account executive, Justin Weaver. “As we continue to invest in our global inventory to keep it fresh and up-to-date, adding the latest SSL consoles to our arsenal was a positive step in that direction.”
The L550s are already out with two major international acts - Childish Gambino's This Is America tour and Nick Mason of Pink Floyd's North American Saucerful of Secrets leg.
The L550 enhances SSL's previous L500 console, and boasts increased system power delivering accelerated screen responsiveness, a total of 288 processing paths, 36 Matrix outputs, and 48 VCAs. To ensure current L500 customers continue t
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