Germany - The STM Series modular line array has impressed the classical music audience at one of Germany's best-established concert seasons, the Audi Art Experience. Sound rental company SHOWEM Veranstaltungstechnik GmbH presented a design of the modular system, featuring the largest single deployment of STM M28 compact main modules - 48 in total.

More than 20,000 people gathered together in the Klenzepark, the green heart of the city of Ingolstadt for this year's Classic Open Air concert. For more than 25 years, these popular events have been sponsored by Audi, which manufactures its cars in the region, as well as being a huge international supporter of classical music festivals.

The main event featured the KlangVerwaltung Orchestra, conducted by Kent Nagano, and supported

USA - A good fog machine effect not only evokes strong moods among the audience, it can also fire up members of the band. Tim Creedon, lighting director for chart-topping country star Canaan Smith, knows this first hand. Not long ago, he was running the board at one of the crooner's shows when, just before the band played the platinum No. 1 single Love You Like That, one of the guitarists came over the talk-back mic and said, "Tim, I want you to go nuts with the Vesuvios for this song!"

The LD happily obliged. Turning up the Chauvet Professional Vesuvio RGBA foggers in the rig, he shot plumes of LED coloured fog high in the air over and all around the stage. "Audiences really love this effect," said Creedon. "Screams of joy, wide eyes, and open mouths are very common in the crowd when we turn them on, but the band gets just as caught up in the excitement."

Creedon a

USA - The best-selling and award-winning Behringer X32 digital mixing console is the mixer of choice for mainstream pop-phenom, Daya, who is currently on tour in support of her eponymous EP. The 17-year old rising star took the music world by storm when she provided the vocals that propelled The Chainsmoker's hit, Don't Let Me Down to the No.3 spot on the U.S. Charts. The song has enjoyed similar success worldwide.

With 40-input channels, 25 buses, 32 fully programmable Midas-designed mic preamps, 32-channel bidirectional USB interface and Virtual FX rack with 8 high-end true-stereo FX slots - the X32 provides considerable versatility.

In addition to the X32 FOH console, the Daya tour uses an X32 Compact, X32 Rack and S16 Stage Boxes, which are all interconnected via the built-in AES50.

Audio engineer Corey Lynn Carter commented, "I needed something that would p

featured content

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

Argentina - Midas and Klark Teknik rental company, Perrone Sonido, has been conducting in-depth training with sound engineers to build on Midas' presence in the country. The rental company, led by Carlos Maria Perrone, has recently hosted a two-month series of training seminars in the country's capital of Buenos Aires.

Perrone, also known locally as 'The Dog', is no newcomer to the Midas brand, having been a brand ambassador since first coming into contact with the Venice 320, which he has utilized for countless live shows.

"When first using MIDAS, I felt something inexplicable, it reached beyond good audio. The consoles provide a feeling of sweetness, warmth and power at the same time. The preamps are incredible, as are the equalizers. From that moment I realized I was on the path of audio excellence," comments Perrone.

The revelation led to Perrone founding the Perro

Italy - Vasco Rossi is back. He kicked off his new summer tour with a zero date at the Lignano Sabbiadoro stadium on 18 June. The "unauthorized exclusive preview" announcement arrived in a post on Vasco's Facebook page. After the long 2015 tour that stopped off in Bari, Milan, Bologna, Padua, Messina, Florence, Turin and Naples, Live Kom 2016 arrived in Rome with a new, powerful, exciting show, a new line-up, and new stars on the stage: Clay Paky Spheriscans.

The four unmissable evenings on 22, 23, 26 and 27 June 2016 were lit by lighting designer Giovanni Pinna. "The stage and most of the set-up are the same as those used for the 2015 tour: totally unconventional scenic solutions with elegant, simple, clean lines and materials. They were designed and developed by Gi

Germany - Disney's first European rollout of their Broadway smash hit Aladdin won the LEA Show of the Year award for 2016. Sponsored by PRG, the award ceremony took place at the Frankfurt Festhalle in April, with other nominees including the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Austria.

Sound design was by Ken Travis who designed the Tony Award-winning Broadway show now approaching its third year, supported by associate Alex Hawthorn, and once again exploited the ground-breaking vocal localisation and effects spatialisation prowess of TiMax SoundHub with TiMax Tracker radar-based realtime automation.

Aladdin is playing at Hamburg's Neue Flora Theatre whose producer-owners, Stage Entertainment BV, purchased two TiMax2 SoundHub-S32 audio showcontrol processors and a seven-Sensor/20-Tag TiMax Tracker system, which was commissioned on-site by Out Board's Dave Haydon in late

Singapore - Mic to Monitor, Prism Sound's popular educational seminar tour, is heading to Singapore in August as part of an extensive programme that takes place in Europe, the USA, Australia and now the Far East.

Aimed at music production students, hobbyists and professionals, these free seminars aim to dispel the many myths surrounding the recording process. The events answer those all-important questions such as what makes great gear great, what does it take to become a successful and in demand audio engineer, how do recording professionals tackle different aspects of their productions and how is a hit sound achieved?

The Singapore date will take place on 18 August 2016 at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, which is part of the National University of Singapore. For this event Prism Sound is partnering with its local distributor Control Devices (CDA Pro Audio); loudspea

Indonesia - Jakarta-based Lemmon Productions has purchased 54 x Robe Pointe multipurpose moving lights, which started work immediately for broadcaster Trans7 on their popular live improvised comedy show, Opera van Java (OVJ)'s Sahur Lagi show, which aired every night during Ramadan, drawing massive ratings.

The OVJ show is based on the concept of 'wayang orang' dance performances in a modern setting, with sketches inspired by a wide range of narrative concepts from Indonesian folklore, celebrity biographies to different genres of fiction or popular culture. The 'Sahur' edition aired in the small hours of the morning, just prior to the pre-fasting breakfast.

Lemmon Productions - founded by Lemmy Ibrahim - run a studio complex in Jakarta and the company is focussed on providing the complete facility for rental with all the technical packages in place, so TV production

USA - Tomcat, the largest truss and support structure manufacturer in the Americas, has established a new office in Miami, Florida responsible for Central and South America - Tomcat / James Thomas Engineering Latin America. The office will be led by 27- year entertainment industry veteran Jose Luis Rosche, president / owner of Roc-Off Productions.

Tomcat is now able to offer its old and new Latin American customers convenient access to high quality Tomcat products with industry-leading durability and working strength. Through its education and training programs, customers will fully benefit from Tomcat's deep well of experience and acquire valuable information on how to work safely and effectively with its high quality products.

Says the company, Tomcat looks forward to creating a strong partnership with its Central and South American customers, and providing them with inn

New Zealand - Lexair Entertainment has announced a joint venture with New Zealand based Entertainment Lighting Solutions. The new venture, Lexair New Zealand, combines the strength of Lexair's Australian-based distribution operation with ELS's established and well-respected business as a value-added distributor and integration specialist in New Zealand, providing local customers with proven sales, service, support and training for products from leading manufacturers High End Systems, Elation Professional and TMB.

Alex Mair, managing director of Lexair commented, "Nick Abel and I have worked closely together for years and he shares our vision of creating a truly value added distribution business that keeps prices internationally competitive while providing unparalleled service and support. We now have the opportunity to bundle the strengths of both companies and to offer New Ze

Slovakia - The Slovakian government holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union from July to December 2016, a role which rotates between member states every six months. Yamaha TF1 digital mixing consoles have been chosen for the vital role of mixing the local and broadcast audio for ministerial meetings, leader summits and press conferences.

The historic Reduta building in Bratislava has been especially renovated to host the Council during the Slovak presidency. Originally a Baroque granary built in 1773, the building has been the home of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra since the 1950s. Leading Slovakian AV company MediaTech Central Europe was invited to install the necessary technical equipment for the building's new role and chose Yamaha equipment for the audio infrastructure.

"Designing an audio system for such an important role is a huge amount of work,

USA - Every two years in Madison, Wisconsin, ETC hosts Workshop, an educational event used to train and share new information with industry dealers, reps, and distributors. This summer, for the first time, the event was opened internationally. The week-long event started 12 July, and brought 313 dealers, reps, and distributors from 34 countries to the ETC headquarters.

"Workshop is ETC's best opportunity to bring our sales family together. This was definitely ETC's most successful Workshop ever," says Patti Tuttrup, ETC marketing events specialist.

A day of international sales meetings and tours of ETC's Wisconsin-based manufacturing facilities in Middleton and Mazomanie kicked off the event. For many of the international attendees, this was the first time they had seen the ETC factories in person. They were able to see where the products they sell come from and meet the p

France - Loudspeaker manufacturer APG has hired two new engineers, thus reinforcing its core business. The announcement is in line with the objectives set by the company when it joined forces with Active Audio in April 2016.

The company's R&D department welcomes Charlotte Gegout. Charlotte brings 10 years of experience as a sound technician in the entertainment industry, before she completed her degree at the prominent Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM) and graduated as an acoustical engineer. Since joining APG in June, Charlotte has taken on a research project on the development of new technologies in acoustic loads.

APG's sales department has also expanded with the addition of Maxence Castelain, the company's new client support engineer. Maxence graduated as an engineer in 2015, and has already spent a year at APG in the R&D department to work on th

UK - Isolate by Flare Audio is a new, patent-pending ear protector, a solution for any music and events professional who works in loud sound environments. The ear protectors rival traditional foam or flanged ear plugs and are also ideal for home and other commercial uses, says the company.

Launching through crowd-funding site Kickstarter, worldwide call for the product has been proved with the campaign achieving its £25,000 target within 44 hours. Isolate is currently rated number one in the UK and number eight in the world on Kickstarter's project popularity list. The campaign runs until 15 August 2016.

Projected to achieve 1240% of its funding goal at time of press, Isolate's technology will now be available worldwide, with KS backers being able to secure pairs ahead of general release at an introductory price.

Traditional earplugs rely on absorption to attenua

Germany - Focon Showtechnic, the German distributors for PR Lighting, believe the Chinese manufacturer's products have come of age following their successful outing at the recent Electro-Magnetic EDM festival in V

UK - Alan Ayckbourn's marital comedy How the Other Half Loves recently stormed back into the West End at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Revived by renowned producer Bill Kenwright, the play received rave reviews during its limited run at the venue. Such was its success that it immediately transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre where it is currently running until 1 October. White Light was approached to provide the lighting for both productions.

How the Other Half Loves first premiered in 1970 and was Alan Ayckbourn's first play to be seen on Broadway. The show is set in the Swinging Sixties and focuses on three couples at two disastrous dinner parties all bounded by one secret love affair. It stars Olivier Award nominated actor Nicholas le Prevost along with Jenny Seagrove, Jason Merrells and Gillian Wright.

The lighting designer for the show is Jason Taylor

UK / USA - Globally-renowned trance group, Above & Beyond, has embarked on a worldwide tour specifying Allen & Heath dLive and ME systems to manage monitors. dLive was requested by monitor engineer, Tom Howat, who has toured with the likes of Paolo Nutini, Morrissey and Franz Ferdinand.

"Above & Beyond's tour is an acoustic reworking of the group's popular hits, and involves 17 artists and 80 inputs on stage. The musical director describes the tour as "widescreen", and dLive is well suited to this, giving a broad, wide open, expansive sound," explains Tom Howat.

"What I love most about the fader layout is the opportunity to create your working environment - it's a powerful picture of the A&H way of doing things. I am enjoying using the touchscreens, and I've really taken to the different compressor flavours built into the channels. I am using a number of lovely sounding re

UK - Bristolian trip-hop band, Massive Attack headlined the opening night of the Barclaycard presents British Summer Time Hyde Park festival on Friday 1 July. PRG XL Video continued their established relationship supplying lighting and rigging services to the festival, as well as working with video director Icarus Wilson-Wright to deliver a show fizzing with topical content and a novel use of their video screen technology.

Barclaycard presents British Summer Time has taken place in Hyde Park since 2013, when organisers, AEG Live, acquired the rights to hold concerts there. PRG XL Video have been major suppliers to the event since its inception. Account Director Yvonne Donnelly Smith takes care of the project for PRG XL. "BST Hyde Park is an amazing event right in the heart of London, with fantastic artists playing every day, on one of the most beautiful stages of any festival.

Italy - For the first time ever a band of 1,200 musicians performed before an enthusiastic audience in a concert and made it into the Guinness Book of Records.

On the lawn of the Manuzzi stadium in Cesena, Italy, the 1200 musicians played a live concert before an audience of 13,000.

The concert featured music from The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Bowie, concluding with a Led Zeppelin medley.

DTS was there with over 400 moving lights, at the very centre of the impressive light show created by LD Claudio Tappi, who transformed this event into an extraordinary visual feast, in the best traditions of the great rock concerts.

The EVOs were arranged in backlight on a large matrix; The Raptors were positioned along the perimeter around the musicians and on the trusses; The NRG 1201 units coloured the audience.

The DTS moving heads were supplied through AMG Inter

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