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USA - It was Nashville's turn to host the 2016 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend, and the four-day event in Music City was packed with enough star power on and off the ice to excite thousands of hockey fans. Morris, formerly known as Morris Light and Sound, was charged with conceptualizing and executing the audio and lighting installations and providing 24/7 production management at five venues during the weekend. Morris deployed grandMA2 consoles at three of the locations.

Matt Geasey, visuals department manager at Morris, and his team oversaw the lighting design, 3D rendering and equipment specifications for multiple activities. For the free IntelliCentrics Outdoor Concert Series, part of the Bridgestone Winter Park venue in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, he sele

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Ukraine - More than 200 Clay Paky fixtures have delivered an extraordinary light show at one of the Ukraine's biggest televised events of 2015, The M1 Music Awards.

The event, which took place at the Palais des Sports in Kiev and was produced by the M1 Music Channel, saw a large gala-style concert with performances from the country's biggest pop stars.

Lighting designer Maksym Balashov of leading rental operation ALIGHT specified an extensive package of Clay Paky fixtures for the show and awards ceremony, including 162 x Sharpys and 24 x A.leda B-EYE K20s.

"The Clay Paky Sharpy, which has already become a legend for me thanks to its intense brightness and speed, remains a staple fixture for me in the creation of any light show," says Balashov. "When it comes to the B-EYE K20, the overall design and fantastic technical features allow me to achieve looks that would be im

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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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USA - In celebration of World Hearing Day 2016, hearing wellness expert Sensaphonics reached out to a star-studded array of musicians to help raise awareness of the importance of hearing health among online fans. Participating artists included Coldplay, Maroon 5, Dave Matthews Band, Lisa Loeb, OK Go, The Lumineers, and Umphrey's McGee. Their social media posts on Twitter and Facebook used #HearingDay and #RespectYourEars hashtags along with hearing-related messages.

Building momentum from Sensaphonics' artist outreach, World Hearing Day messages went out to an audience estimated at over 60m people. Tracking activity throughout the day, Sensaphonics documented over 15,000 likes and 2,000 shares/re-tweets from artist posts alone. Additional musicians, sound engineers, audiologists, and organizations like Audio Engineering Society joined in, with fans liking and sharing, thus ext

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Russia - Nestled in the central square of Izhevsk, Russia, the Tchaikovsky State Theatre of Opera and Ballet recently underwent a massive renovation in preparation for the 175th anniversary of Tchaikovsky's birth. For nearly two years, the theatre was closed for the upgrade, which included a modern makeover of its stage technology, conducted by ETC dealer Imlight. Last year, the theatre reopened with a new ETC lighting system.

A large portion of the theatre's repertoire consists of iconic Tchaikovsky works, such as Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Eugene Onegin, Iolanta and The Queen of Spades. Just before the grand reopening of the theatre, the facility was renamed in honour of Tchaikovsky, who was born in what is now the Udmurt Republic, where Izhevsk is located. "It would have been a shame to have given the old theatre th

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UK - PLASA is pleased to announce the launch of its new National Event Lifting Certificate (NELC), with the support of the National Rigging Advisory Group (NRAG) and key industry sponsors including the BBC, White Light and Britannia Row.

The official NELC launch took place on Thursday 3 March at the International Live Music Conference Production Meeting at the Copthorne Hotel, Kensington, London, with PLASA's NRC Manager Paul Riddiford introducing the new certification scheme to those present.

NELC has been created to meet the needs of those who already work in the industry in disciplines other than Rigging, such as Lighting, Sound, Video or Scenery etc, who are called upon to carry out occasional Rigging tasks including lifting operations as part of their duties. It is also suitable for individuals wishing to be assessed for their skills within Rigging, without undertakin

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Talent Search - Arts Council England chief executive Darren Henley has spoken out about the need for the arts and culture sector to attract talent from all backgrounds if it is to thrive in the long-term. Giving the keynote speech at the Creative and Cultural Skills National Conference 2016, at the Backstage Centre in Thurrock, Henley said he embraced apprenticeships as a way of opening up routes into the arts.

"We need an emphasis on diversity in its widest sense, across barriers of race, diversity and socio-economic disadvantage. We need greater diversity because it will create a just, fair and strong society and because a society that's equipped for the future makes use of all of its talent, wherever it emerges."

He credited the Creative Employment Programme, a £15 million fund delivered by the National Skills Academy to support the creation of traineeships, forma

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UK - Adrian Searle, former technical director at Stage Electrics, has joined technical production expert, Hawthorn to drive forward the ongoing development of its successful equipment hire service.

Adrian is based at Hawthorn's headquarters in Old Dalby, Leicestershire, and has been appointed to head up the company's seven day a week hire service. Working together with Hawthorn's head of hire, David Slater, Adrian will ensure the smooth running of the operation, identifying opportunities for continuous improvement and development, in line with Hawthorn's commitment to delivering an excellent customer experience.

Adrian joins Hawthorn at an exciting time for the hire service which has recently seen significant growth in commissions to supply equipment to the touring productions. Hawthorn has recently worked with renowned lighting designers, Mark Henderson on the Mark Knopfl

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USA - In the world of high-powered laser, users often must choose whether they want to produce vibrant aerial beams or be able to create crisp custom graphics. The new Mobile Beat MAX MK2 removes that decision entirely, and allows mobile entertainers to craft both aerial beam shows and graphics displays without sacrificing brightness or precision - and without any compromising, says the company.

"It's no question that DJs, nightclubs and entertainment venues have loved our Mobile Beat series, and we wanted to make sure that continues into the future," Dan Goldsmith, president of X-Laser USA, said. "With the MAX MK2, we made this simple by combining the brightness of the traditional Mobile Beat MAX and the graphical precision of the Mobile Beat MAX IE that came out last year. The response we've gotten on the MAX MK2 so far has been awesome, and we think it'll be popular for a l

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UK - BroaMan has announced a new version of its Route66 video router, now offering AutoRouter and smart fibre patch bay. This additional functionality is powered by sister brand Optocore, making it suitable not only for Installation (where there are multiple connection points, including mobile devices) but equally for live events or broadcast.

The AutoRouter is compatible with Optocore and DiGiCo fibre loops, creating a redundant 'star' out of the advanced ring topology.

It was developed based on customer's needs, especially in the installation market, where mixed ring/star or star topology is more desirable due to a star based fibre cable layout.

The Route66 AutoRouter automatically finds mobile and remote devices and closes the Optocore loop even when unconnected wall boxes are found. It always switches the links automatically to establish redundancy. New I/O units o

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UK - Martin Audio has announced that its Coaxial Differential Dispersion technology, that lies at the heart of its best-selling CDD installation range, has been awarded a UK Patent, GB2525407.

Coaxial Differential Dispersion technology combines the true 'point-source' benefits of coaxial designs with the consistent coverage Differential Dispersion technology, and in the process overcomes the weaknesses of both classic coaxial systems and systems with fixed dispersion X° x Y° horns.

Significantly, until now one disadvantage of conventional coaxial devices has been high frequency beaming, where the high frequency dispersion reduces as the frequency increases. This is primarily because conventional coaxial devices channel high frequencies through a narrow tube in the pole-piece of the magnet system. CDD Series coaxial devices overcome this by incorporating an innovati

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Italy - After Le voci di dentro, the Servillo brothers have chosen the Teatro Bellini to bring their latest creation, La Parola Canta, to Naples. It is a concert, a recital and a festival - skilfully illuminated by Clay Paky - made up of music, poetry and songs which celebrate Naples: the eternal magic of its living tradition, and the importance of the fusion of different epochs and the widest possible participation in culture.

The show reveals an inexhaustible imagination and poetic richness, which generates and feeds Peppe and Toni Servillo's extraordinary theatrical creativity.

Toni and Peppe Servillo reinterpret tradition with a jazz, folk and pop slant, also thanks to the valuable and charming musical support of the Solis String Quartet. They take the audience on an extraordinary voyage through Neapolitan theatrical culture: a journey made up of imagination and creati

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Germany - Full-service production company satis&fy and lighting manufacturer Elation Professional will be holding an Innovation Day on 31 March at the satis&fy facility in Karben, Germany, just outside Frankfurt. This will an opportunity for lighting professionals to demo Elation's latest lighting innovations, including the award-winning Platinum FLX and Emotion digital light, as well as preview upcoming Prolight & Sound launch products.

satis&fy recently added Elation's multi-functional Platinum FLX hybrid moving head and Emotion moving head digital light to its inventory and Innovation Day will give local rental companies, lighting designers and other interested lighting professionals the chance to demo these two exciting lighting innovations. Innovation Day attendees will also be the first anywhere to get a sneak peek at some of Elation's upcoming Prolight+Sound launch prod

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France - Nexo fielded a stellar team of different loudspeaker models for one of the most prestigious sporting trophies in France, the Leaders Cup, which is organised by the LNB (Ligue Nationale de Basketball) and staged at the Disney Events Arena at Disneyland Paris.

In an arena packed with nearly 5000 spectators, the final eight teams of France's premier basketball league competed for the Leaders Cup in a high-octane environment, complete with dazzling lighting effects, high SPL concert sound and half-time entertainment from dancers and cheerleaders.

To mark this highlight of their calendar, the Ligue Nationale has announced the signing of a technical sponsorship deal with Nexo, which will see Nexo systems widely used in professional basketball throughout France. As explained by Alain Beral, president of the LNB, "sound is an integral part of the experience offered to our

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UK - The new £4.5m Leicester Community Sports Arena - a joint venture project between Britain's oldest professional basketball club (Leicester Riders), Leicester City Council and Leicester College - opened at the end of January, with the 2,400-capacity audience treated to quality sound exclusively from Martin Audio's new CDD installation series.

Twelve of the CDD15 (15") loudspeakers were specified and installed by local sound and lighting integrators, MBSL.

Mark Broadhead's technical company was brought in just two weeks before the venue's inauguration when it was discovered that while the six 100V line speakers, specified by another party, might have been sufficient for voice evacuation, it was certainly not up to delivering American style razzmatazz, complete with cheerleaders, in the arena on match days.

With nearly 30 years' experience under their belts, and

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Europe - Mojo Barriers supplied a variety of barrier products for the front of stage and front of house production areas, for the European leg and two Asian tour dates of Madonna's Rebel Heart World Tour.

Rebel Heart is the tenth worldwide tour from Madonna and supports the release of her 13th studio album of the same name. The tour kicked off on 9 September in Montreal, Canada and ran for six months, visiting 22 countries worldwide.

Mojo Barriers was contracted to ensure audience and artist safety for all of Madonna's 25 European tour dates, as well as at her shows in Taipei and Macau, which both took place in February 2016. The European leg of Madonna's tour began with the Lanxess Arena in Cologne on 4 November 2015 and visited 12 European countries.

Mojo Barriers supplied almost 200 pieces of kit, including vario corner sections, snake gates and flex corner sections

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UK - Following a long break from the live scene, The Corrs returned to touring in the UK with arena dates in January 2016. The tour supported the release of their latest album, White Light.

For the tour, Henry McGroggan and Ian Calder contacted PRG XL Video to supply lighting and video, having worked with both teams separately in the past. Both worked with the band's new lighting and video designer, Steven Douglas, to satisfy his design brief.

Steven's design was a multi-layer design which featured a shimmering semi-opaque metallic drape forming the backdrop to an array of Orbis-Fly LED spheres. These were used to great effect throughout the show - starting from a flown position above the stage, and then lowering to create a variety of multi-coloured effects including wave patterns.

"The brief from management was very simple, 'clean and theatrical'," said Steven

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UK - When famous climber Jimmy Chin made an appearance on Good Morning Britain last month, the show's production team tasked host Ben Shephard with the challenge of interviewing his guest while abseiling down the side of the ITV tower. With just five days in which to put the segment together, production manager Malika Keswani and the programme's line producer Viviana White asked Unusual Rigging to provide rigging gear for the abseil along with competent manned crew to manage the rig.

"ITV has worked with Unusual on various other productions and so we knew we were dealing with a team that knew its stuff," said Malika. "We scheduled a recce with Unusual's Robin Elias, explaining the nature of the slot and Robin ran with it. One of the key aspects of this job, as a live event, was to ensure the rig was set to perfection from the word go. On live TV, there are no opportunit

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Belgium - Robe's new Square LED fixture made its European live TV debut on the three shows produced by Flanders' public broadcaster VRT which selected the song to represent Belgium at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Stockholm. The shows featured an intricate and interesting lighting design by Ignace D'Haese from Arf & Yes.

The 24 active Square fixtures were central to Ignace's scheme and concept for the shows which were staged at AED Studios in Lint, Belgium, in front of a live audience and a huge TV following who tuned in to watched the five final contestants perform their songs before voting on the winner.

Ignace has an architectural background and is known for his intelligent and thoughtful approach to lighting high profile, blockbuster music television shows. He unties all the drama and emotion of the music and the 'moments' on screen and for the live audienc

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German artist Andreas Bourani recently toured his Hey tour through Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Bourani's success story started with his song Auf uns (On Us) during the 2014 football World Cup. Timo Martens, Philip Hillers and Nik Evers created the stage, video content and lighting design for the tour.

They chose three grandMA2 light, four MA Network Switch, four MA NPU (Network Processing Unit), two MA 8Port Nodes and 11 x MA Digital Dimmer 12 x 2,3kVA5 for lighting control.

Nik Evers explained the lighting design he realized together with Timo Martens and Philip Hillers. "One task was to light Andreas Bourani and his band perfectly. Besides this we had other considerations. For example, the musicians shouldn't be disturbed by the lighting, and the lighting had to 'complete' and emphasize the stage design. Each lighting system should stand for itself. It was a

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Australia - Community Professional Loudspeakers has appointed Hills Limited as its exclusive distributor for Australia and New Zealand. Hills is a leading ANZ pro AV distributor for commercial installations across the enterprise, hospitality and entertainment, health, sports education and security sectors.

"We are delighted to partner with Community Professional Loudspeakers as their exciting product range of commercial loudspeakers complements our range of industry leading audio technologies and provides our customers with complete end to end solutions for their commercial audio and video needs," said Dan Fletcher, Head of Hills AV. "Community are well known for high-performance outdoor loudspeakers as well as indoor products designed to be attractive yet unobtrusive. They offer great musical sound quality and clear voice intelligibility, with many Community products ETL cert

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