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UK - Meyer Sound Leo Family reinforcement systems lay down a rock-solid sonic foundation for two of the hottest musicals playing on London's West End, Andrew Lloyd Webber's brash and energetic School of Rock and the soulfully scintillating Motown: The Musical. Both systems were provided by London-based Autograph Sound with logistical coordination by Scott Arnold.

The sound design for School Of Rock was by Mick Potter, whose credits include Les Miserables, The Phantom Of The Opera, Evita, Cats, Miss Saigon and Sunset Boulevard among many other notable productions. For the London design, Potter tweaked the system template he created in 2015 for the still-running Broadway production, with both systems anchored by main l

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South Africa - CODA Audio's South African distributors Tadco have sold the first AiRAY system on the African continent to leading rental company Virtual Productions. Virtual were already enthusiastic users of a CODA ViRAY system, which they have owned since 2013 and felt that the purchase of an AiRAY system was a natural progression. The South African market differs in many respects from that found in the UK, Europe and the US, in that there is no real established scheduled touring circuit. As a consequence, the challenges presented to Virtual Productions are highly diverse and demand a high degree of flexibility and adaptability.

Victor Van Graan, Production Manager Virtual Productions comments: "We provide every technical service to a very wide range of events and in terms of staging and lighting provision we felt able to cover every base. In terms of audio, we felt a little

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UK - Hull UK City of Culture 2017 kicked off on 1 January with Made in Hull - a seven-day event that told the story of the city and its people over almost a century, brought to life with projection mapping across buildings and other sites around the city centre. Bluman Associates provided the technical production and projection mapping expertise to tell the story of Hull and its important contribution to UK culture.

Made in Hull took place over seven evenings and attracted over 340,000 people. The large-scale project included five sites throughout the city, including Queen Victoria Square and the Aquarium, The Deep. Bluman Associates collaborated with Ground Control and Hull 2017 throughout the feasibility and tender process. Working closely with the production and creative teams, an international team of 20 projectionists provided the technical expertise to project the conten

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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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Europe - British metalcore outfit Architects have stormed through Europe in support of their critically acclaimed new album All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, with Claypaky fixtures providing blast-beat perfect strobing and high-impact gobo projection to complement the band's exhilaratingly relentless sound.

The Brighton-based juggernauts, who were this year described by Rocksound magazine as 'one of the world's most exciting, vital bands', rounded off the tour by playing a sold-out show at Brixton's O2 academy for the first time.

Tour lighting designer Paul McAdams selected Claypaky Stormy CC strobes and an Alpha Spot HPE 1500, supplied by Colour Sound Experiment, to execute his high-impact concept, which is based around the band's stark album artwork depicting a lunar eclipse.

"The music itself is quite aggressive and the stage show reflects that," explains McAda

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UK - OHM (UK) has named Kaushal Garg as its new director of sales for Middle East and Africa. In his position, Mr Garg will be responsible for overseeing all sales activities in the regions, supporting OHM UK's existing legacy and expansion in these markets.

Mr Garg brings more than 20 years of experience in the professional audio industry, having begun his career with Bose in 1998 growing through the ranks from technical manager, national sales manager, to divisional manager. Kaushal has also worked with Harman Pro where he managed sales at a national level, developing strategy that grew business to new heights, before moving up to the position of divisional manager-Middle East and Africa at Bose Professional.

"OHM (UK) has a reputation for quality, British manufactured products with innovative design, clearly understanding the evolving requirements of the pro audio marke

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The Netherlands - Powersoft is set to plug an important gap in its multi-channel installation series. A new series will make its debut at ISE 2017 on the stand of its Dutch distribution partner, Ampco Flashlight Sales (# 7-K180).

Powersoft will throw a party on the opening day to toast the new arrival, inviting media, integrators and partners to join in the celebration. The party will start from 4pm onwards and is based on the key concept: 4 Human Integration, which will be spread over a video, graphics and T-shirt.

Full details will be announced nearer the time, but suffice it to say that Powersoft's trademark technology - including switch-mode power supply with power factor correction, smart rail management and bridgeable switch mode fixed frequency Class D output circuit topology - will all be in evidence.

Not content with this, Powersoft will also occupy an

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USA - At NAMM 2017, Sennheiser and Neumann will expand their live performance and monitoring portfolios with the introduction of several new products.

Visitors to Hall A, Booth No. 6577, will be the first to see the Sennheiser XS Wireless 1 and XS Wireless 2 radio microphone series, as well as the Neumann KH 80 DSP monitoring loudspeaker. Sennheiser will also be launching the new HD 200 Pro headphones, alongside new frequency variants for the evolution wireless 300 G3 and 500 G3 series for the USA and Canada.

While exploring the latest tools for the stage and the (mobile) studio, visitors will be able to enjoy a wealth of live performances at the booth.

NAMM 2017 will see Sennheiser launch XS Wireless 1, a series of six wireless microphone sets for the budget-conscious user looking for exceptional ease of use and fast set-up. The audio specialist will also preview XS W

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The Netherlands - With a continued emphasis on providing intelligent and innovative AV solutions for commercial applications, Atlona will introduce the AT-UHD-SW-510W, the latest member of its five-input SW Series of 4K/UHD integration solutions for AV signal switching and extension, at the forthcoming ISE 2017 show.

The SW-510W is the first product of its kind to integrate switching for both wired and wireless AV sources, as well as the first AV switcher to include a USB-C input alongside HDMI and DisplayPort. The main benefit is a single, compact solution for universal BYOD compatibility - together with value-added features including automatic display control, automatic input selection, and mirrored HDMI and HDBaseT outputs.

The SW-510W simplifies AV system design, integration, and operation by combining traditional wired plus wireless AV connectivity in a single box. It

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The Netherlands - Martin Audio will take its new BlacklineX passive series to ISE 2017 - its first journey to mainland Europe.

It will form not only the main focus of the static stand display but will also be a central cog in the now familiar demo room experience.

The manufacturer will host hour-long product showcases daily in the E104 Audio Demo Room, close to Hall 10, with two on the final day. These will run at 11am, 1pm, 2pm and 5pm, 7-9 February and 11am and 1pm on the 10 February.

Originally announced back in October last year, BlacklineX represents a reinvention of the original multi-purpose Blackline Series, launched in 1999. This immediately found favour not only as installation boxes in nightclubs, bars, commercial spaces and Houses of Worship, but also as portable sound reinforcement and stage monitoring solutions for live bands, DJ's and corporate events.

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USA - In support of fostering the creative processes of young entertainment designers, global design software developer Vectorworks, Inc. is sponsoring awards at the Kennedy Centre American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). Started in 1969, KCACTF is a national programme designed to celebrate college theatre in the United States, and help students develop their creative and technical skills.

Each year, KCACTF hosts eight regional festivals for college theatre students across the United States. Festival activities include workshops, discussions, regional-level scholarships and award programs, giving students the opportunity to showcase their best productions and receive feedback from professionals.

"The Kennedy Centre American College Theatre Festival provides a fantastic opportunity to showcase the diverse, emerging talent from around the country," said Frank Brault, prod

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The Netherlands - Ampco Flashlight Rental, has employed the Allen & Heath dLive S Class digital mixing system from its hire stock for two major TV production series, Holland's Got Talent and Idols Holland.

For both programmes, the dLive system, comprising the flagship S7000 Surface and DM64 MixRack, was running the complete FOH setup. This included all of the contestant live acts and vocalists, as well as the shows' bands, which involved up to 40 channels. Commentary from the presenters and celebrity jury is also mixed through dLive.

Both programmes were produced by Blue Circle at the Mediarena TV studio in Amsterdam.

"The Ampco team involved in the shows are very happy with dLive's transparent preamps and sonic quality," comments Rogier van Ganzewinkel, project manager at Ampco Flashlight Rental. "The engineers particularly like the interface and flexibl

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USA - The Entertainment Technician Certification Programme (ETCP) has announced the programme has now certified 1000 arena riggers throughout North America.

Since 2006, ETCP has issued a total of 2,350 certifications held by 1,978 individuals in the areas of Rigger - Arena, Rigger - Theatre, Entertainment Electrician and the newly developed Portable Power Distribution Technician. ETCP has provided an easy to use search function to find one of our Certified Technicians within your area. You can search by Name, Certification, City, State, or Union Affiliation: http://etcp.esta.org/cert_technicians/search.php

Bill Sapsis, ETCP Arena - Rigging SME chair says, "Congratulations to ETCP on certifying its 1000th arena rigger. Not only does this mean that all of our hard work writing the exam is being put to good use, but also having that many qualified riggers in the work force me

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The Netherlands - Audinate is running its popular Certification Programme as part of this year's Dante AV Networking World for ISE 2017. Now in its seventh year, AV Networking World is the one of the most popular education events at ISE, showcasing the benefits of audio networking for commercial installation.

The programme includes training for new and advanced Dante users, a general session covering emerging trends pertinent to the future of Audio over IP networking for professional audio systems, and Level 1 and Level 2 Dante Certification.

The all-day event, which takes place on 6 February in Rooms G104 and G105 at the Amsterdam RAI, will adopt the two-track format successfully introduced this past year at InfoComm, ensuring valuable training and education benefits for both novices and experienced Dante customers.

Upon conclusion, all attendees are invited to reconv

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USA - Jonathan Huff is accustomed to dealing with harsh winter weather. As CEO of Alaska Universal Productions in Fairbanks, which was ranked by USA Today as "the coldest city in America", he has had to contend with more than his share of frigid temperatures and blinding snowstorms. However, even by Fairbanks standards, conditions were extreme when he installed three Ovation E-260WW IP fixtures from Chauvet Professional outdoors for the University of Alaska Fairbanks Centennial Celebration.

Huff and his team had to contend with gusty winds, temperatures that fell to more than 10 degrees below zero, and swirling snow when they positioned the outdoor LED fixtures at sites around campus, including the roof of the gleaming new 6-story engineering school building. Soon after they completed the installation, a second more severe storm hit, dumping 16 inches of snow on Fairbanks.

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Ecuador - The statue of Panecillo's Virgin, World Heritage site, is located on the Panecillo hill, just outside the city centre of Quito and represents the city from the 18th century. Last October the municipality, according to the MTE (Empresa Mantenimiento Técnico Especializado) and the electrical enterprise of the city required a dedicated lighting project.

Monica Velasco and Miguel Salom

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UK - Award-winning technical event production company Hawthorn has recorded a 25% increase in turnover to £18m in its last financial year (July 2015-June 2016).

Since the acquisition of technical production house Anagram in 2013, the company has embarked upon an ambitious five-year growth plan to increase its turnover from £11.3m to £20m by July 2018. Hawthorn is on track to achieve this in 2017 - its 30th anniversary year - one year ahead of target.

To support this growth, the company has seen a significant investment in its people and training, with a 16% increase in employees, rising from 129 in June 2013 to 162 in June 2016; by 7 December 2016, the employee count had already risen to 187.

Key factors contributing to the company's continued expansion since 2013, says the company, include:

Investment in the in-house sales and marketing team and

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USA - The start of the New Year heralded Bandit Lites Annual General Meeting, where Bandits came together to discuss future company goals, honour those who displayed excellence in service and banner anniversaries, in addition to celebrating the previous award-winning year for the company. Bandit won Pollstar Lighting Company of the Year Award for 2016 along with the Parnelli Award for Lighting Company of the Year in November.

During the meeting, Bandits who had landmark years with the company were bestowed with service awards including Jeremy Sinicki, Cody Cheatham, Jonathan Houle and Michael Stanley for five years, Aaron Swetland, Jacob Tickle and Rick Herndon for 10 years, Chris Barbee and Jeff Vogt for 15 years and Cori Link celebrated 20 years with Bandit Lites.

Performance awards were presented and included Bandit's prestigious Rock Award, gifted to those who went abo

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Belgium - PRG Belgium has recently received a large batch of ProLyft Pro controllers, which will instantly be deployed on productions. After a thorough selection procedure, Prolyte was selected to supply PRG Belgium with its high-end control systems. Investing in 30 12-way control units is the first step in further professionalizing and renewing their rigging department.

PRG's segment advisor rigging, Stef De Raet and Michiel van der Zijde, product manager ProLyft, met during the STEPP contact days, with the leading leitmotiv of "Lifting above the public". Both entirely dedicated to making rigging as safe as possible, discussing about rigging, regulations, and how the market will develop towards the future, they shared their common vision on how safer products can contribute to improve work floor safety, an obvious concern for all involved in rigging. "Whenever you're ready -

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UK - Damon Crisp has been appointed as Orbital Sound's new Field Sales Representative to expand the reach of Orbital's busy sales department into new markets around the UK.

As Nexo's main UK dealer, Damon will be concentrating on maximising the potential this exciting brand offers, says Orbital. With new product launches scheduled for later this year, Damon will be at the forefront of promoting these new and existing products UK wide.

Orbital's Andy Simmons commented: "Damon has a wealth of experience in the industry and his contact list is equally as impressive. He also brings experience of new markets to Orbital which will only go to enhance our overall performance within various sectors. With our status as Nexo's Main UK Dealer we needed someone of Damon's calibre to support our goals for this product and I can only see this going in one direction. His enthusiasm is inf

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China - Nexo has a new face in the Far East, as Michel Brouard steps into the new role of business development manager for East Asia.

Industry veteran Brouard joined Nexo 18 months ago with responsibility for Greater China. His remit has been increased to include Japan, South Korea and Mongolia, as well as China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

"Michel will play a critical role in increasing the presence and success of Nexo in Japan and south Korea," says Nexo CEO Jean Mullor. "Keeping his responsibility for China, he will now be active in other Asian territories that he knows well, working closely with Denis Baudier, sales director of Nexo."

(Jim Evans)

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Finland - Genelec has welcomed two highly respected industry figures to its sales team in the shape of new international sales director Ole Jensen, and sales manager Jonas Olsen. The two men arrive with more than 50 years of combined experience across the professional monitor and AV markets.

Jensen is a well-recognised figure within the professional audio market, having most recently led the worldwide distribution of Dynaudio Pro. Over the course of more than three decades he has held a succession of high profile sales and distribution roles including an early post at Yamaha, followed by a long period of service with TC Group, during which he became VP of sales for broadcast and production. He was also responsible for the development of the company's European pro audio distribution network. In his new role, Jensen will develop and support Genelec's international network of sal

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