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UK - The Jands Vista lighting & media control system again proved its flexibility and power when it provided control for this year's out of this world Ultimate Fireworks Spectacular - an annual end-of-season event at popular theme park, Alton Towers Resort.

To celebrate the launch of the resort's new rollercoaster fully dedicated to virtual reality, Galactica, the intergalactic show featured an interstellar fireworks display, striking visual effects and lasers that lit up the universe's sky - set to space themed music and the backdrop of the towers.

Alton Towers Resort specified the Jands Vista system to provide lighting and media control for the event, for the fifth consecutive year.

The resort's technical team are experienced Jands Vista users, with a fleet of consoles

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Norway - As part of a multi-year renovation project, the Grieghallen Performing Arts and Conference Centre in Bergen has outfitted the Peer Gynt Hall, its principal multi-use venue, with a Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system.

Constellation's power to optimize the room's acoustic signature for any use - from conferences and banquets to amplified and acoustic concerts spanning all musical genres - has expanded utilization of the venue to encompass a broader spectrum of events.

"With the addition of Constellation, Peer Gynt Hall has become an extraordinary room for any type of acoustical music performance, including chamber music, brass ensembles, piano recitals and a cappella choral music," says Rolf Skogstrand, event manager for the Grieghallen complex. "In addition, Constellation has presets for acoustical environments to enhance many types of amplified music as well

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USA - As a leading event lighting designer in the Washington DC area, John Farr has seen more than his share of spectacular celebrations. However, even he was surprised at a recent 50th wedding anniversary celebration in a home outside Baltimore, when TV Hall of Famer and former Tonight Show host Jay Leno made a surprise appearance to provide entertainment.

Farr's event rig, which consisted of 16 Ovation E-910FC ellipsoidals and 24 WELL Fit uplighting fixtures from Chauvet Professional, as well a collection of pin spots, was more than ready to light the legendary comic.

"We created a nice look by using a lot of blues when Jay Leno appeared," said Farr, the owner of John Farr Lighting Design. "The Ovation ellipsoidals create some deep rich blues, which gave the area an intimate feeling to draw everyone in closer to the surprise guest on the small stage."

The "are

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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 - Rapper Pitbull hit the road recently with his Bad Man tour in the US which featured a production design by Gabriel Fraboni and Michael Smalley of creative practice Twin Design, complete with 46 x Robe BMFL Spots on the rig which were the main profile fixtures.

Twin Designs has worked with the artist for two years, although this was the first full production design they had essentially created specifically for Pitbull, as the previous tour had been a co-headliner with Enrique Iglesias.

Their brief included creating all the playback video content as well as designing the lighting and video systems and the set. Having control over all these visual elements enabled them to create a streamlined and harmonious show which Michael operated and directed on the road.

Having worked with Pitbull for two years, they had a good idea of the style and aesthetics he and his team

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Argentina - Argentina's national theatre Cervantes National Theatre (also known as National Theatre of Buenos Aires) has recently invested in a grandMA2 ultra-light. Declared a National Historic Monument in 1995, the theatre is located on C

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The Netherlands - Baldwin Boxall is looking forward to welcoming visitors to ISE in February stand number 3-C87, which they are sharing with their Dutch distributor TAU Audio Solutions. The company will be demonstrating their exciting new products at the show and staff are anticipating a lot of interest.

The new products are: the stand-alone voice alarm/public address system (VIGIL Eclipse4), VIGIL3 transformerless amplifiers, VIGIL3 charger module and last, but not least, is the touch screen microphone.

The new VIGIL Eclipse4 uses Baldwin Boxall's latest transformerless voice alarm amplifiers. In common with its predecessors, the VIGIL Eclipse4 is a wall mountable, stand-alone voice alarm/public address system, providing a highly-efficient solution to the market.

The Eclipse4 uses proven EVAS routeing technology and has the ability to include up to four of the company

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USA - The Gray Mare is a new pub in the trendy East Village neighbourhood of Manhattan that caters to the vibe and tastes - both gustatory and spirituous - of that neighbourhood's young clientele.

"It was formerly Demsey's, a neighbourhood tavern that, after 24 years, had run its course," explained Rich Trombitas, regional sales & product manager with A/V manufacturer's rep firm Cardone, Solomon & Associates (CS&A). "It's the same owner, and he did a great job of ripping out the old and building in the new. It's in a young part of the city, and it now hits all of the high points for that group."

Trombitas drew on his own expertise and CS&A's representation of Ashly Audio and other manufacturers to assist NYC's local integration firm, Starview Satellite, with the Gray Mare's killer sound system.

"Starview Satellite's John Paturno and Hector Martinez needed a system that

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India - PA company Stagecraft recently employed its new dLive digital mixing system at the huge Dildar Dandiya dance festival, held in the city of Gujarat in Surat, known as Land of the Festivals.

Organised by Coconut Events, the 10-day festival was staged in the Golden Memories Dome, and attracted 12,000 guests. Renowned Indian folk singers, Kirtidan Gadhvi, Nisha Barot and Jetal Soni, performed every day.

The organisers appointed pro rental company, Stagecraft, to manage the challenging brief. Stagecraft had recently purchased a second dLive system from Allen & Heath's distributor, Sun Infonet, comprising the flagship S7000 Surface with DM64 MixRack, to join its existing S3000/DM48 system. The S7000/DM64 system was selected as the FOH and monitor mixer for the festival, managing a spectrum of instruments such as 8 dhols, 6 drums, 5 floor drums, 1 kick drum, Indian acoust

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UK - Founded in 1999 by Nick Ratcliffe, Yes Events is an events production company that prides itself on being able to produce anything from a private party or a wedding to a corporate event or a rock concert. The Yes Events team manages all aspects of a production: developing initial concepts through to staging, crewing, tech management and execution of the events. As Ratcliffe maintains, "We never aim to be the cheapest, but we always strive to be the best."

With this in mind, the team has invested in a new grandMA2 Light console and an MA Command Wing control console, which were purchased from Ambersphere Solutions.

Tom Chennells, director of production for Yes Events, explains why they chose the MA kit: "The Command Wing and grandMA2 Light are our first investments in MA Lighting control. Both were chosen after a rigorous selection process, informed both by our knowled

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UK - Sunny Afternoon is the multi-Olivier Award winning musical based on the rise of one of the most influential bands of the 1960's British Invasion - The Kinks.

In true rock n' roll style, the production is currently out on tour following this award winning West End residency. With a philosophy based around live music, the ultimate source, KV2 Audio products were the choice for sound designer Matt McKenzie when considering which sound system to tour.

Autograph Sound once again provided a complete KV2 solution for the eight-month UK tour. Top reviews follow many other recent collaborations between KV2 and Autograph such as Mamma Mia!, Annie, Kinky Boots and Bend it Like Beckham.

The tour takes in a wide variety of venues across the UK of various sizes. To tackle these, Autograph provided a range of products from KV2's ES, ESR and EX

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Belgium - Hardcore metal can blend harmoniously with green thinking. A case in point is the Ieper Hardcore Fest, Europe's largest death metal and hardcore punk festival, which attracts fans with a line- up that includes the likes of Jello Biafra, UK Subs and Atari Teenage Riot, while at the same time leaving a gentle footprint on the environment.

In recognition of its efforts, the festival has won the Groenevent Award 2015 for greenest festival in Flanders and the Groene Pluim award of Ieper.

This year, lighting designer Alexander Coppenolle continued the festival's tradition of blending punchy hardcore looks with planet-friendly green thinking by specifying Chauvet Professional Mavericks and Rogues for its indoor and outdoor stages.

"When it comes to lighting the Ieper Hardcore Fest, we're faced with a pretty impossible task each year," commented Coppenolle, who has b

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UK - The new Boiler Shop has been created to provide Newcastle-upon-Tyne with a vibrant multidisciplinary arts and music centre. Part of an ambitious regeneration project carried out by the Clouston Group, it sits on the site that was originally home to the Robert Stephenson and Co. Locomotive Works, where the revolutionary Rocket was built in 1829.

Among the fine contemporary architecture, restored listed buildings, three acres of contemporary art and culture, restaurant and bars, it is fitting that the new 500-capacity urban events space should occupy the original Grade II*-listed Boiler Shop itself, rich in engineering history.

It is today able to host a wide range of corporate, cultural and arts events as well as live performance and exhibitions - thanks to the versatility of an integrated Harman sound reinforcement network featuring mission-critical JBL loudspeaker sy

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Israel - When two of Israel's biggest singing stars - Yehuda Poliker and Shlomi Shabat - get together and play onstage live, It's a big deal and a hugely exciting performance spectacle that's always well received.

For the occasion, lighting designer Eyal Tavory chose a large Robe orientated rig - including 35 x BMFL spots to give the impact that everyone was anticipating at a recent show at the Rishon Lezion Amphitheatre

The two artists played a major tour last summer for which the demand for tickets was so overwhelming they decided to add a series of extra shows this summer. The Robe reporting team caught up with Eyal and the team and asked a few leading questions.

Eyal has been working on Yehuda Polker's lightshow for 30 years which is a remarkable achievement in its own right. He started off as the lighting operator and became the stage and lighting designer two yea

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UK - In amongst the blizzard of important one off events that have peppered the autumn schedule of London venues, the Children in Need Rocks Show at the RAH on 1 November stands out as one of the worthiest. It also ran to the tightest of schedules.

"The Royal Albert Hall is always busy," commented Britannia Row's project manager Lez Dwight, "but this was exceptional. It saw a Britrow crew load in just after midnight for rehearsals commencing at 2pm that Monday afternoon, with the show on the Tuesday, 1 November."

The show was in part a tribute to Sir Terry Wogan, the BBC Radio 2 presenter who was one of Children in Need's staunchest advocates. Stars willing to offer their talents for such an event were not in short supply: the show featured Olly Murs, Ellie Goulding, Rick Astley, Beverley Knight, Alfie Boe & Michael Ball, Take That and Gregory Porter.

"It was a tricky

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USA - Rational Acoustics has announced the release of the first major version update for the Smaart v8 measurement platform - Smaart v8.1. This release includes many significant feature additions, interface modifications and bug fixes. This free update is recommended for all Smaart v8 users.

The primary feature additions include a re-work of data handling, the addition of a multi-spectrum plot view, a built-in program updater, automatic broadband meter configuration based on selected inputs, password protection for the API and the ability to run measurement engines in the background when switching between tabs.

A major new component within data handling is the Session Folder for improved day-to-day and gig-to-gig data management. Pinned to the top of the data bar, the Session Folder serves as the target location for all new captured data. Automatically named with the curre

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UK - Colour Sound Experiment is supplying lighting for the current Tom Odell tour, a lively and eclectic mix of dynamics and style created by Jonny Gaskell who has been on-board with the popular singer / songwriter since April this year. The current touring campaign follows the launch of his second studio album, Wrong Crowd.

The tour started earlier in the year and included a festival run, with this leg being the first full on production design tour carrying a full lighting rig for which west London based Colour Sound made some new investments.

The design process started with Tom - who actively contributes ideas - requesting some frames onstage to give a basic form, so three - outlined with Martin Sceptrons - were the starting point of the design. The largest one in the centre is covered in gauze enabling the cheetah head from the album artwork to be projected - ach

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UK - Blitz|GES is increasingly making exclusive use of Shure digital wireless microphone technology for its corporate clients, installations and events. Peter Russell, project manager at Blitz|GES, explains, "We do a mix of corporate and theatre work; in our theatre work we're obviously led by our clients' preferences. But when the Channel 69 switchover happened, we went over to the Shure UHF-R, with UR1M and the UR4D receivers as our stock wireless systems, and then when ULX-D came out, we bought a lot of those."

Amongst the company's corporate clients, regular use of wireless microphones is rapidly becoming widespread, and with channel counts that would have seemed unthinkable a few years ago. By way of recent example, Peter Russell has recently returned from Barcelona, where Blitz|GES supplied the audio infrastructure during a large corporate event for a major computing sof

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USA - Southern rock band Widespread Panic returned to the road for their annual Halloween extravaganza with a lighting package provided by Bandit Lites. The 10-day tour treated the jam band's diehard fan base with both Widespread Panic's own psychedelic songs and covers including Black Sabbath's Paranoid (complete with a confetti cannon) that hadn't been played by the band since 1987.

Each show, long time lighting designer Paul Hoffman faces the daunting task of creating different looks for a band whose set list is famously decided at the last minute, while still putting out recognizable looks that jive with the music and theme of the show.

"I really do it pulling from a decade of experience lighting them - knowing the music beat-by-beat and note-by-note," Hoffman said. "I can use the equipment to compliment the mood of the music, being it hard and heavy or smooth a

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The Netherlands - This year's MTV EMA Awards, held at Rotterdam's Ahoy Arena on 6 November, marked the 20th year that Britannia Row Productions has supplied the event's audio requirements.

In these two decades the show has presented them with any number of audio challenges, but the team, formerly led by the late Derrick Zieba and more recently by Colin Pink, has always delivered on all audio fronts. For the past 14 of those years, they have had the support of Sennheiser, both in terms of equipment and technical assistance.

With increasingly RF-heavy environments, the use of Sennheiser equipment, particularly products such as its flagship Digital 9000 Series, which was used by the presenters including US singer Bebe Reixa, has proved increasingly important.

Eight channels of Digital 9000 were on hand for the guest presenters and award acceptance speeches ("On top of the

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USA - Music fans across the country continue to discover the sounds of R&B-tinged indie band Wet, who played dates across North America this fall using effects from Elation Professional colour-changing ACL 360 Bar battens as powerful visual accompaniment. Touring in support of their debut album Don't You, released earlier in the year, the Brooklyn-based trio plays an engaging and increasingly popular brand of music that mixes the genres of R&B, electronic, rock, and pop.

Wet's fall Don't You tour confirmed their increasing popularity with enthusiastic crowds and a string of sold out shows. Lighting design for the tour was by Erich Meitzner and James Bailey, who used the ACL 360 Bars to stunning effect by creating dense, seemingly impenetrable walls of light that fully complemented the band's special sound.

Their first outing with the band, Meitzner and Bailey, creat

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Europe - Sennheiser is a member of Crestron's Integrated Partner Programme: Both vendors' products can be integrated seamlessly into a single ombined solution. Among the compatible products are the TeamConnect Wireless family of products, SpeechLine DW and ADN.

Data can be exchanged easily between systems, such as Sennheiser's conference solution ADN - here, because control commands are transmitted via TCP/IP, the audio conferencing system's central unit, the ADN CU1, can be connected effortlessly to one of Cestron's media controllers. For example, when the talk button on a docking station is pressed, the media controller interprets the transferred information and triggers functions, such as aligning a camera with a speaker.

This device communication naturally works in both directions, meaning that Sennheiser communication stations can accessed remotely via Crestron touch

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