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Belgium - After experimenting with a number of different microphones, Belgian folk group Skratt has opted for DPA’s d:vote Instrument Microphones to capture the sound of a variety of unusual instruments, including accordion, bagpipes and nyckelharpa.
All seven members of the band have very different musical backgrounds covering a diverse range of styles, from heavy metal and pop to folk and classical. This allows their music to branch out from traditional folk and incorporate influences from all over the world and many different genres.
Skratt founder Mathias Van de Vliet says it was the search for a microphone that could truly capture the sound of an accordion that led the band to DPA.
“To begin with we tried other microphones but they sounded thin and were

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Sweden - The contrast between the volume demands of clubbers and the desire of near neighbours for peace and quiet always makes for a difficult balancing act. At Stockholm’s Underbara, a Yamaha system is providing high quality audio all the way from the front door to the DJ booth, but the neighbours can still enjoy a good night’s sleep.
SoFo is one of the more bohemian areas of the Swedish capital, where cafes and restaurants rub shoulders with a range of shops dealing in clothes, jewellery, design, furniture, vintage gear and other fashionable items. Located in a former cinema in the basement of a block of apartments, Underbara combines the ambience of an exclusive night club and urban lounge.
In the past, it was subject to regular complaints about noise levels, but a comprehensive renovation has seen Swedish AV specialists Watt & Volt undertake a high quality

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USA – In the Texas tradition of going big, Houston welcomed Super Bowl LI with a number of exciting attractions, including the Houston Skylight high atop the George R. Brown Convention Centre(GRB). Houston First Corporation, which maintains GRB, asked Nimblist to conceive and execute the Houston Skylight, a rooftop beacon that marks the centre of the city’s cultural activities.
Nimblist designer and creative consultant Spike Brant devised an array of 36 Claypaky Supersharpy fixtures, mounted on staging on the GRB roof overlooking Discovery Green park. The Supersharpys swept the sky with powerful searchlight-style beams and created numerous lighting effects as well.
“We have an ongoing conversation with Mike Waterman with Houston First about using light as a beacon to connect all of Houston,” says Spike Brant. “The Houston Skylight would symbolize ener
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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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China - PR Lighting has announced the release of the XPar 150 Zoom – a compact and lightweight fixture. With its IP67 rating it is designed for extreme outdoor conditions such as building façades, landscaping and so on.
Featuring multi-chip (4-in-1) multichip 150W COB (chips-on-board) LED and linear zoom, it is ideal for applications requiring superb RGBW colour mixing or high quality white light, and comes as part of a fully-featured package.
This includes Strobe (0.5-33 fps); Dimmer (0-100% linearly adjustable); RGBW colour mix, with macro; Beam Angle (1/2 peak) of 22°-55°; Zoom (DMX linear zooming); Colour temperature (2700K-10000K linear correction).
In terms of construction, the fixture is housed in a rugged, high-strength die-casting alloy capable of operating in ambient temperatures ranging from -20°C to 40°C. With a net weight of just 7.5kg, it mea

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UK - Glantre Engineering has become ASM’s UK, Republic of Ireland, & Middle East approved distribution partner. Glantre announced the partnership with ASM having recently installed 29 HCWA Junior Hoists and control in a provincial theatre in Leamington Spa, UK.
Germany-based ASM is a manufacturer of hoists and controls for use in performance productions. All hoists are BGV-C1 and control is SIL 3. The ASM range of hoists includes point-hoists, stage and scenery hoists, chain hoists and control. These systems offer silent operation, and flexibility for load and speed to fit all types of venues and budgets.
Maurycy Sowka, CEO at ASM, added: “Partnering with ASM was a natural choice for Glantre and we are certain that our partnership will be of great mutual benefit. Glantre offers a complete service under one roof, for a convenient and efficient service to

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UK – A piece of distro equipment stolen from a site in East London recently is being sought by its owner, The Technical Department Ltd. The item is a DT12 - Type 12, 63A/3-phase to 2x32A/3-phase box (pictured). As the photograph shows, the item is clearly marked on the top with ‘TYPE 12’.
It is believed that the item was stolen by an opportunist thief, and that it will reappear for sale on the market. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the equipment is asked to contact Jerry Singleton at The Technical Department jerry@thetechnicaldepartment.com.
(LSiOnline)

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Sweden - An orchestral arrangement of David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy has completed a series of sold-out concerts in Gothenburg Concert Hall and Stockholm’s Berwald Hall, with Allen & Heath’s dLive S Class and ME mixing systems managing FOH and monitors.
Arranged by renowned Swedish conductor and composer, Hans Ek, and performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and choir Zero 8, the technical production was managed by FOH engineer Hans ‘Surte’ Norin from Musikalisk Ljudteknink with Peter Fredriksson from PF Ljuddesign on monitors.
Mixing a total of 126 channels, the dLive system comprised two MADI-enabled S5000 Surfaces and DM64 MixRacks connected by GigaAce, with an additional DX32 Expander for monitors, an IP8 Controller for FOH remote control, and ME-1 personal monitoring mixers for the orchestra. A Waves V3 network card was also fitted at F

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South Africa - The Market Theatre have invested in 8 Robin DL4S Profiles for their busy venue in Newtown Johannesburg.
The theatre was looking at an LED solution to save on costs and maintenance, a common factor these days. DWR Distribution was awarded the tender to supply the DL4S fixtures which will be used in the main theatre.
Nomvula Molepo, head of lighting at the Market Theatre, comments, “While we are yet to hang the fixtures on the lighting grid, I know that once they have been programmed they will work wonders and bring magic to our stage.”
“The gobo set and the framing shutters makes this an extremely versatile fixture for theatre,” said Kevin Stannett of DWR Distribution. “Because of the RGBW chip you get extremely rich and high-intensity colours. We are finding that this particular fixture is receiving positive feedback from theatres world

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USA - Officially, the theme of this year’s Portland Winter Light Festival was ‘Between the River and the Stars’. In reality, though, it could also have been described as ‘connecting people to light’. Held at the beginning of February on Portland’s beautiful Willamette River waterfront, the free four-day festival engaged visitors with an abundance of immersive lighting displays and interactive events like Illuminate Bike Rides and a Glow Jam circus show.
Among the festival’s most engaging attractions was Harmony Park, an interactive exhibit created by Justin Metras, the founder of Portland-based Ellumiglow. Setting an appropriately immersive backdrop for this one-of-a-kind participatory exhibit was a celestial display created with six Iluminarc Colorist Line 6Qa fixtures.
Metras used the RGBA linear fixtures to create a starry night sk

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South Africa - The twelfth season of Idols South Africa wrapped up with a stunning finale at Carnival City Big Top Arena in Johannesburg, broadcast live on the Mzansi Magic network with a highly vocal audience of 3,500 packing into the venue - and lighting designer Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier choosing nearly 200 Robe fixtures to be at the core of his rig.
As always, the challenge was to make this final season look better and different than before, and with over 80m votes cast across Series 12, a lot of eyes are on it and production values have been honed accordingly to reflect the intense public interest and impress fans. A skilled and imaginative creative team once again united to produce amazing results.
Technical production – lighting, sound, video, set and rigging - was delivered by Dream Sets for producers SIC Entertainment and the series, which also

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UK - Mobile Technik, specialist in event trailers and pop-up structures, has been appointed as the sole UK distributor for the German-made mobile event space, Promocube. The Promocube is a versatile mobile event space that “heralds a dramatic new design”, opening to create an innovative 36m² pop-up environment. From high-end VIP hospitality suites, experiential brand zones, TV studios and broadcast hubs to pop-up retail units for UK touring roadshows, this new temporary event space helps to create environments to meet a range of budgets and creative briefs.
The Promocube is designed for both indoor and outdoor use with an open structure for an airy feel, or with easy-to-assemble Plexiglass panels providing a weather resistant, temperature controlled, enclosed environment. This space is fully customisable to suit any requirement from wrapping the whole structure with bra

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UK - Originally performed at the Chichester Festival Theatre before transferring to Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Running Wild is now back and embarking on a UK tour. The show is based on Michael Morpurgo’s best-selling novel and uses live-action puppetry to tell the story of Will, whose visit to Indonesia sees her and elephant Oona having to ride deep into the jungle in order to escape a tsunami. White Light was called upon to provide the lighting equipment.
Running Wild is being produced by the Children’s Touring Partnership, which is a collaboration between producers Fiery Angel, CFT and a consortium of regional theatres.
The lighting design for the tour is by James Whiteside. He comments, “This is an extremely busy show, with the setting ranging from the Indonesian rainforest to a rural part of England to the tsunami itself. The high

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UK - National League football club Dover Athletic has substantially invested in the facilities at its 6,500-capacity Crabble ground in Kent, both to meet the Football League criteria, and also provide a better match-day experience for its supporters. The centrepiece is the new £1.3m cantilevered Family Stand, which aside from providing a further 500-seats and improved facilities for players, officials and disabled supporters alike, required a state-of-the-art public address system.
Old Barn Audio (OBA) were awarded the contract, and as they have on so many occasions recommended a Martin Audio CDD (Coaxial Differential Dispersion) solution - in this case dipping into the ‘WR’ series. “The weatherised CDD-WR was the perfect choice,” stated director Phil Clark. “And with 32 enclosures installed it is the largest CDD-WR install yet in the UK.”
The compa

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UK - Reading-based SFL Group has announced three new training sessions for Yamaha CL and QL series digital mixing consoles, aimed at sound engineers and potential console purchasers. Taking place on 29 March, 28 June and 11 October 2017, the sessions include comprehensive, hands-on tuition on designing, configuring and mixing with CL and QL-based audio systems.
“Yamaha has arguably contributed more to our appreciation and expectations of the workflow of a modern digital mixing console than any other manufacturer, with the Centralogic interface forming one of the most established and widely recognised benchmarks of the industry,” says SFL project manager Pat Smith.
“During these seminars we will simulate an event environment with live multi-track recordings. Once the basic console functionality has been explained, participants will be mixing live shows in

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Poland - Cadac’s Polish distributor, Tommex Żebrowscy has been working hard to keep pace with demand to supply Cadac’s CDC six compact live production console, as it was being spec’d on events across the country. Throughout November and December, and moving into the new year, Tommex has supplied CDC six consoles, with CDC I/O 6448 or CDC I/O 3216 stage boxes, to local sound companies for a diversity of events, including gala performances, cabarets, church carol concerts and numerous concert performances.
Notable applications throughout the closing months of 2016, saw the CDC six / CDC I/O 6448 deployed FOH at the Final Gala of the Screen and Sound Festival on 29 October at the Kino Kijów.Centrum (Kijów.Centrum Cinema) in Krakow. Screen & Sound Festival - Let’s See The Music! is a project produced by the Bielecki Art Foundation as “a platform integrating arti

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Belgium - International creative design practice Painting with Light was commissioned to design lighting and a video system, plus produce video content for the recent staging of Disney’s Beauty & the Beast musical by Marmalade in Hall 8 at Ghent Expo in Belgium.
The Belgium based company’s Luc Peumans also seized the opportunity to use their new BlackTrax real-time motion tracking system for the first time on a major production . . . to ensure that all the principal cast members were perfectly illuminated as they moved around the performance space.
When Luc came on-board, the set designed by Stefaan Haudenhuyse - under licence to Disney with the producers having to meet certain criteria – was already initiated. Spectacular and dynamic, it was based around a 50m long performance area in the shape of a rose in the centre of the hall with audience seated

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UK - Claypaky Spheriscans were selected to deliver a display of spectacular lighting effects that merged architectural and entertainment lighting during Edinburgh's famous Hogmanay torchlight procession. The award-winning fixtures were supplied and installed on The National Monument of Scotland at Calton Hill by Edinburgh-based production and rental outfit Black Light.
Project manager James Gow from Black Light worked alongside lighting designer Grant Anderson and production manager of the torchlight procession John Robb, to create a lighting plan that offered maximum impact and versatility for the event.
Gow explains: "We chose to use the Claypaky Spheriscan thanks to its 360-degree pan with an IP54 rating, which makes it a unique fixture on the market. With no need to add extra weather proofing, the unit has a sleek and discreet design."
One Spheriscan was plac

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UK - For a band named after Bastille Day (so named because lead vocalist Dan Smith’s birthday falls on 14 July), it seems somewhat appropriate that their Front of House engineer, Paul ‘Coop’ Cooper, has chosen to use a French loudspeaker brand for their Wild World tour. But his choice of L-Acoustics has nothing to do with a nod to any Gallic connection. It is simply because whenever he encounters L-Acoustics, he knows exactly what to expect and he knows it will be good.
The K1 and K2 system Coop is currently using is supplied by SSE Audio, who have been working with Bastille since 2013. “As Coop is a local lad to SSE one of the guys that works in our fabrications department knew him from the club scene in Birmingham. They said he was working with a band that just might have something about them,” explains SSE’s Dan Bennett. “At SSE we have a policy of supportin

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Off The Wall - Roger Waters has said he would consider performing on the border between the US and Mexico as an act of defiance. The veteran Pink Floyd frontman and bassist has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump's plans to build a security barrier along the Mexico border. In a rare public appearance alongside drummer Nick Mason, promoting the forthcoming Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains exhibition at the V&A Museum, the two former Pink Floyd members discussed their new exhibition as well as what would happen when Donald Trump visits the UK. "I'm quite sure if President Trump comes to this country there will be an enormous taking to the streets," Waters said. "I think we would see demonstrations in London bigger than any demonstrations than have ever been seen."
Profiteering - Secondary ticketing website Viagogo has been criticised for "profiteering

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UK – Triple E, the exclusive European distributor of the ‘universal construction system’ ModTruss, is showcasing the award-winning product at this year’s Event Production Show in London. The company will exhibit the lightweight aluminium truss system, which offers practically limitless configurations and applications, on Stand F58E at London’s Olympia on 1-2 March.
Often described as 'full-size Meccano' by its users, ModTruss won Engineering Product of the Year at the ABTT Theatre Awards in 2015. It has been gaining prominence in the UK and European markets after being exclusively distributed by Triple E.
ModTruss was once again utilised at the SuperBowl, this time at the SuperBowl LI in Houston in February, where it was used to build 12 structures throughout the SuperBowl City, Practice Facility and inside the NRG Stadium.
In Europe, it has already bee

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USA - NBC’s World of Dance is currently in production for a 10-episode rollout this spring. Tasked with painting the stage for The Biggest Dance Competition in the World, lighting designer Oscar Dominguez of Darkfire Lighting Design brought his signature kinetic energy and a palette that included 24 Solaris Flare Q+ LR linear fixtures.
“I’m in love with these new Flare LRs,” says Oscar, “they’re a versatile, violent, shootable weapon! Brighter than the original Flare (which says a lot!), we put a few fixtures in the aisles and the rest in the air. They’re the ultimate in accent lighting, as a wash, strobe, or blinder, and pixel-mapped for special effects.
“The technology of these Solaris fixtures never ceases to amaze me: they keep outdoing themselves, improving on perfection. They’re very nicely designed and of the highest quality. The
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