Switzerland - As part of its commitment to its professional customer base, DPA Microphones has appointed two new distributors in Switzerland with immediate effect. Z-Audio and MusicNetwork AG are now responsible for the company's entire range of high quality microphones, which includes products aimed at the recording and pro audio markets, live sound, installation and broadcast.
Established 25 years ago, and with office and warehouse facilities in Russikon and Pully, Z-Audio handles distribution for a wide range of professional audio and lighting brands. The company offers free project consulting and technical support, and has an extensive network of installation partners and resellers.
"We are very excited to be representing such a great microphone brand - one that is

UK / USA - Christie Lites is ‘crossing the pond’ with the opening of Christie Lites Coventry in the UK. This new office is Christie’s first expansion outside of North America. The North American lighting and rigging rental company is bringing its successful business model from its network of 12 office warehouse locations across the US and Canada to further serve client demand into the UK and Europe - and vice versa.
Christie Lites CEO Huntly Christie says: “We have always expanded to places where we can best support our long-standing client partners. We’ve had inquiries for years about expansion overseas from various genres of clientele, including touring, theatre, auto and trade shows, corporate - the full gamut of our business. The time is finally right, with a great alignment of eager new staff, solid equipment support and motivated customers. Our first overseas


USA - On 5 February Houston, Texas played host to the NFL’s Super Bowl LI, fought out between the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons at NRG Stadium. Entertaining the crowds in the hotly anticipated Pepsi Zero Sugar Halftime Show was Lady Gaga, whose high-octane performance earned the respect of millions in an intense 13-minute spectacular that was viewed by over 115 million people worldwide. The show was another world-class collaboration from co-production designers, Bruce Rodgers of Tribe Inc. and LeRoy Bennett of Seven Design Works, and lighting designer, Bob Barnhart of 22 Degrees.
Ayrton was, once again, proud to be part of this show with 81 new MagicDot-XT fixtures, 40 new MagicPanel-FX fixtures and a solitary CosmoPix-R chosen to adorn the major scenic elements of Barnhart’s lighting design.
Both Bennett and Rodgers had a message to
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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

UK - When James Priddle, sales and project manager for Pyrojunkies, needed a console to programme a special effects show for the 2016 BPM/Pro trade show in Birmingham, they chose the MA Lighting dot2. The trade event was an opportunity for Pyrojunkies to showcase Magic FX products in a live situation. To do this they created a short but intense show that highlighted what could be achieved with the equipment, so he got on the phone to Ambersphere Solutions to see what they recommended.
Thor-André of Ambersphere’s Technical Sales reports, “I spent a lot of time with James, looking at the various options and how they could best work for him, and we eventually settled upon a dot2 Core.”
Priddle explains further, “We wanted to create a show that had the feel of a concert. We achieved this by using a large, high-definition screen, a crowd barrier and using a combi

USA - The good times never stop for Brothers Gow. The popular California jam band, which has been touring non-stop, doing close to 100 shows a year since 2007, shows no signs of slowing down. With each passing mile, this tightly woven quintet has expanded its musical horizons, mashing up a mixed brew of influences from Snoop Dogg-like funk to Grateful Dead-inspired psychedelia to create a cornucopia of sounds that is all their own.
Lighting designer Matt Collier is capturing the pure joy and live-for-music spirit of Brothers Gow on their Fall Tour with a compact, but punchy and fast-moving lightshow that is built around 10 Rogue fixtures from Chauvet Professional.
Collier, who the band describes as “the sixth member of Brothers Gow”, has loaded six Rogue R1 Washes and four Rogue R1 Spots into the band’s well-travelled trailer for the tour that started in San Dieg

UK - Tamworth-based AV specialists TechPro Events recently invested in beyerdynamic's TG 1000 24-bit digital wireless microphone system. Having consulted with POLAR, TechPro purchased the system to address growing demand for its event support services. TechPro operates inside and outside the UK, with more than half its event support services being delivered in mainland Europe.
Rob Stokes, director at TechPro reports: "The TG1000 exactly meets our needs. The frequency range is very important given that a large proportion of our work is carried out across Europe and being able to cascade six dual receivers allows us to operate 12 channels of wireless microphones without the need for additional splitters. This is perfect for the scale of events we regularly support.
“The TG1000 system was our first order with POLAR and the support from Dave Ball was fantastic. Having g

Israel - The wedding industry in Israel is a massive and highly competitive sector. When Nesher Edri teamed up with entrepreneur Yigal Ben Lulu and chef Zeev Tamarov to create his new enterprise LARA as “the ultimate wedding experience”, he specified 60 Robe VIVA LED spots.
High production values have underpinned the LARA concept, so the 60 x VIVA LED moving heads are right at the core of the lighting rig above the main dancefloor. “I simply wanted absolutely the best sound and lighting and so I chose Robe - I think it's the best,” he declared.
After acquiring the land at Kannot Junction, Nesher designed and built the venue from the ground up, fine-tuning the various details to ensure everything from the architecture to the feng shui of the space is perfect.
The VIVAs together with the rest of the lighting production were supplied by Danor Theatre & S

UK - Adlib continues its work with top comedians having just supplied full production - sound, lighting and video - for Jack Whitehall’s sold out, three-week At Large UK arena tour.
All the crew were pleased to be working with TPi Award-winning production manager Neil McDonald who made sure everything was well organised and that there was a great flow of communications. Johnny Dodkin was the ever-cheerful tour manager who kept everything in check and Adlib were thrilled to be back working with Chambers Touring Ltd on another exciting comedy project.
Steve “Patto” Pattison mixed FOH, working with a strong team from Adlib including monitor engineer / sound crew chief Marc Peers and systems tech Tony Szabo, KSE, who were responsible for the precision and detail required to ensure that every seat in the house had crisp, clear and audible speech.
Tony wo

UK - DMX Productions’ managing director, SJ Grevett is the first to admit that he is something of an MA control newbie. “We were looking to expand our control inventory and, as MA control is requested on all our major rock ‘n’ roll gigs, it seemed the logical choice to investigate further. I was completely unfamiliar with the MA system having spent years working with other boards but within 30 minutes of the grandMA2 Command Wing arriving at my door I had it outputting art net and talking to our media servers via CITP, something that has caused considerable headaches with other boards. I just love the desk.”
SJ’s contact at MA Lighting’s UK distributor Ambersphere Solutions was sales manager Thor Andrè Saether. “The first Command wing and fader Wing DMX Productions bought was DMX’s first real encounter with grandMA2 control. Talking to SJ over the next cou

UK - Not since Adele performed Someone like you at the Brit Awards in 2011 has the O2 audience sat in such reverential hush. Chris Martin’s tribute ‘duet’ with George Michael at Brits 2017 was as spine tingling as it gets, and more authentic than you might imagine, as Michael’s long time sound engineer, Garry Bradshaw explains.
“Chris Martin was singing live while obviously, George’s vocal was a recording of A Different Corner, but not a studio recording; this was a live take from one of his concerts on the Symphonica tour. For me, hearing his voice again like that really raised the hairs on the back of my neck.” Not surprisingly a lot of attention went into this performance, “We rehearsed on site the previous day,” explains Bradshaw.
“Myself and Dan Green for Chris Martin had half the desk each, I had the left side, three faders, one

Germany - To mark the third year running of the Lightconverse and High End Systems Lighting Challenge, and to celebrate the past years' imaginative entries, the organisers have decided to sweeten the pot by adding the brand-new Lightconverse Tools 2017 to the four-level Prize Pool this year. The theme is ‘Inventive and original as always!’.
The contest entry deadline is 1 April 2017. The winners will be announced on 6 April at the Prolight+Sound trade show in Frankfurt Germany (Hall 3, Level 0, Booth E90).
First prize is the High End HedgeHog 4X console and Lightconverse Trace (with special one year upgrade to Lightconverse Unlimited) plus Lightconverse Tool 2017.
Follow this link for full rules and to enter the contest: challenge.lightconverse.com
(Jim Evans)

The Netherlands - Nearly 100 Claypaky Sharpys were exclusively selected to deliver an immersive eight-hour light show to 2,000 partygoers at an underground club night that was hosted by trailblazing Dutch techno music agency Claydrum at Complex nightclub, Maastricht for their New Year's Eve celebrations.
Dutch production designer Joël Lemmerling, from Maastricht-based production company, Stöd, selected 96 of the multi-award winning Sharpy fixtures to create a fastidious design formulated by gridded white, coloured and UV light beams and clever manipulation of angles. The fixtures were supplied to Stöd by Claypaky's Belgium distributor AED.
"We wanted a fixture that could deliver perfect beams of light that were easy to see, even with colours that are normally less visible, like red and UV," says Lemmerling, who utilised the Sharpy's 14-option colour wheel in conjun

UK - Wayne McGregor’s highly-acclaimed Woolf Works - his first full-length work for the Royal Ballet - returned for a revival performance at Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House. The ballet triptych is based on Virginia Woolf as viewed through her three major novels: Mrs Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves.
The high-tech multimedia production features an original score by Max Richter that called for a complex sound design by Chris Ekers, enabled and energised by a TiMax2 SoundHub spatial audio processor.
As this was a revival, the original challenges of a score incorporating both electronic music and a live orchestra, set in an environment not optimally suited to amplification, had largely been addressed previously. This time around, due to the efficiency and flexibility TiMax brings to multi-channel spatial audio production workflows, it was m

Sweden - Danmon Group Sweden has been appointed distributor for Optocore and BroaMan fibre solutions, having been representing the brands in Denmark for a number of years.
With business units across Scandinavia, and more than 25 years of experience behind them, Danmon Group has evolved to become one of the leading suppliers to professional users of equipment for broadcast, television, film and commercial productions, originally in its native Denmark.
Back in 2001, Danmon Sweden managing director, Marcus Lundahl, started to build the Group’s audio division, Soundware, after which they began representing Optocore.
While Soundware will continue to service the professional audio and video industry generally, Danmon will focus on addressing the broadcast video sectors with the German manufacturer’s scalable fibre interfaces, seeing huge potential in these segment

Mexico - Martin Audio has appointed Pro Active Latin America as the company’s sales representative for Latin America and the Caribbean. Based in Mexico City and guided by owner/director Berenice Gutierrez, Pro Active LATAM has already represents Allen & Heath, Ashly Audio and UDG in addition to Martin Audio.
With 20 years of experience and success in live sound, commercial installation and music products, Berenice has developed a well-earned reputation for her knowledge and insights about building brands and sales in Latin America. Asked about the appointment, she said: “Of course, I’ve known about Martin Audio for many years because it’s a well-known brand with a reputation for quality and excellence. It’s an honour for me and our team to work with an important company that has such huge potential in Latin America, both for the live sound and integration marke


USA / Germany - LMP Lichttechnik Vertriebs GmbH, a pioneer in the distribution of moving lights in Europe for over 30 years, will begin to distribute Elation Professional products in Germany effective 15 March. With LMP as its distribution partner, Elation opens a wider market for its products while moving closer to its German customers and guaranteeing swifter, higher-quality service, the company says.
In LMP, Elation has chosen a company that has been well-respected and highly successful in the market for over 37 years. Beyond moving lights, LMP is also well positioned in the field of static LEDs. The company is also known for its systematic brand development and has had success over the years in the positioning of young brands, including its own.
Elation says: “Major German companies such as satis&fy and Amptown System Company (ASC) have been relying


Unlimited Fines - Online touts who bulk buy tickets and sell them for inflated prices will face unlimited fines under government plans. An amendment to the Digital Economy Bill means it will be illegal to use "bots" to bypass limits on the maximum number of tickets that can be bought. Tickets purchased by bots can appear on secondary websites at prices many times greater than their face value.
A Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) spokesman said the profiteering was "simply not fair". High profile artists such as Adele and Ed Sheeran have previously criticised the touts and asked their fans not to buy tickets from secondary sites. Last month, resale site Viagogo was accused of "moral repugnance" for selling tickets to an Ed Sheeran Teenage Cancer Trust gig for up to £5,000. And an £85 ticket to see Adele at the O2 in London last year was reportedly being

USA - MGM Resorts International’s Park Theater is the newest jewel on the Las Vegas Strip as well as the city’s largest and most technologically advanced venue to address the latest trend in theatrical design - immersiveness.
Hosting an audience of 5,200 in its standard configuration, the $90m theatre, which is located adjacent to the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino, can flexibly be expanded to accommodate 5,800 and even up to 6,300 people at peak capacity. However, regardless of the configuration, every seat feels like it’s “fifth row centre” thanks, in large part, to an L-Acoustics K2 loudspeaker system specified by Montréal-based Scéno Plus and integrated by Solotech’s Las Vegas division.
Although the 150,000sq.ft performance space is roughly four times the size of the Lance Burton Theatre, which previously occupied the site, the Park Theatre feels remar

USA - A metal band that’s recorded hits with names like Cry For The Moon doesn’t normally cover music written by the likes of Antonio Vivaldi, Antonín Dvořák and Giuseppe Verdi, but then again, nothing about Dutch act Epica can be described as ‘ordinary’. In addition to performing the works of these and other classical composers, the six-member band has put its own fresh, original and totally captivating metallic symphonic spin on music from films like Star Wars, Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Having risen high on the charts in their native northern Europe, where they perform at large capacity venues, Epica has nevertheless retained a fearless desire to pursue new forms of expression. This was very evident in their latest North American tour, which concluded in early December, not just in their music, but also in their lights

Australia Adele debuts her new stadium show this month on a six-city tour of Australia and New Zealand, to be continued in the UK in June. The opening in Perth broke records with 65,000 in ticket sales for a single night. Anyone fortunate enough to attend one of these sold-out shows cannot miss 285m of Firefly FloppyFlex LED neon lining the star’s surround-walk in the 360˚ in-the-round production.
“This is Adele’s first arena tour and the design is stunning,” says Firefly founding director, Heath Williamson. “Everything is traditionally lit for a warm, classic tungsten look. The FloppyFlex RGB is mixed for warm and cool whites, as well as the occasional red – all done with the greatest taste.
“Double runs of FloppyFlex coupled together render them even more impressive than usual, whether from the upper rows of the stadium or even the news chopper flying

China - Immersive Chinese theatre work Encore Dunhuang debuted at the first Silk Road Dunhuang International Cultural Expo and was directed by Wang Chaoge, co-director of the stunning opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
During the 90-minute performance, audience members can travel through time as they walk through four zones and experience key moments and characters in the 2,000-year history of the city, once an important stop on the Silk Road.
For lighting control LD Wang Yugang used four grandMA2 light consoles, two MA onPC command wing, four MA NPU (Network Processing Unit), two MA VPU plus MK2 (Video Processing Unit) and 10 MA 2Port Nodes.
“An Encore theatre is different from the standard theatre. Depending on the needs of the scene, it is built to be a flexible space that meets all the regular theatre construction specifications whilst

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