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Switzerland - Celebrating its 40th year-and the 70th birthday of founder Claude Nobs-Montreux Jazz is noted for its diverse line-up and international attendance. In its first year as a festival sponsor, Digidesign collaborated with the audio staff to consolidate and streamline the technology, most notably by bringing its award-winning Venue live sound mixing environment and DigiDelivery high-speed file transmission system to the event.

Comprised of the D-Show digital mixing console, the FOH rack, the Stage rack and a multichannel digital snake system, Venue was used at FOH and monitor positions in three of the major venues of the festival: the Auditorium Stravinski, the Miles Davis Hall and the Casino Barrière. Digidesign also provided a console for the Jazz Café.

Many o

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Canada - Dog Day Afternoon was held at Toronto's Historic Fort York. Headliners Metric performed at the first two Toronto Island festivals in 2004 and 2005, at this year's SXSW in Austin, as well as their recent tour's kick-off dates at the Koolhaus in Toronto and dates across Ontario and Quebec on an Adamson rig.

Engineer Sean Richards is FOH and is a big fan of the Adamson Y-Axis line. Richards, who continues to request the system, says: "Mixing Metric on an Adamson Y10 system, I am getting the clarity, range and focus I need for their inherent subtleties, along with just enough bite to justify a rock band that needs to be heard as a rock band in their increasingly energetic shows."

Toronto's Towers Productions provided full production for the event. The stage was erected directly in front of the Toronto downtown skyline on a wonderfully hidden green space just alo

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India - Laser System Europe, the leading international laser and multi-media sales, rental and event production company, has been appointed laser showcase sponsors for PALA India. In this role, the company will stage a laser display every hour, throughout the duration of the exhibition.

The Belgian based company operates extensively throughout India, the Middle East, Russia, and South East Asia through its branch offices located in those regions, and boasts production credits for major international events such the Vietnam South East Asian Games, Moscow 850 Years, Dubai Shopping Festival, Moscow Youth Olympic Games, and St Petersburg 300 Years.

In India the company is represented by Stagegear, an organisation for designing and executing light, laser and 3D video. The company's credits includes high quality events like KBC-2, Nach Ballye, Film Fare, Femina, Time for Heroes, and

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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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UK - Currently on a major UK and European tour, the Pet Shop Boys are spicing up their stage presence with cleverly-designed 4m x 4m screen props, and a full complement of PSL's newly-acquired Barco R12+ projectors.

Conceived by the show's designer Es Devlin, the unique screens play an integral part in the PSB production. Stretching and elongating from a relatively small 4sq.m to take up the full width of the stage, the screens can be projected on, or lit from inside using Versa Tubes. They have been constructed in such as way as to allow dancers to perform inside them, on two levels. Mounted on wheels, they can be easily moved into several different configurations, including side on to the audience.

"It's the most staged and theatrical concert I've ever worked on," says PSL's Pod Bluman, comparing it to fringe theatre rather than a rock show. "This is very much

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UK - It would appear that business has developed a distinctly oriental flavour for AV installation specialists, Sound Division. Hard on the heels of the installation in the exclusive Just Oriental in London's Picadilly comes a comprehensive AV installation into a brand new bar called the V-Bar which belongs to the adjoining Mandarin Palace Chinese restaurant in Hornchurch in Essex. In this instance the client required a full PA set-up, lighting and plasma screen in addition to a background music system.

Sound Division's David Graham explained that the V-Bar is a new piano bar that is attached to the main restaurant. "It's a very picturesque setting so they wanted to make the most of it with a proper professional set-up." To this end, Sound Division supplied and installed a pair of Martin Audio Blackline F10 2-way passive loudspeaker systems on stands, a Soundcraft Foli

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Thailand - W-DMX was recently used during a two-month tour with the Dino Fantasy Park World Tour 2006 in Thailand. The show thrilled visitors with life-sized dinosaur replicas and a special effects light show, provided by LDS Show of Bangkok. Although the set and props were imported from Japan, the lighting was locally contracted to LDS, with lighting design by Poon Limpapun and Sermsak Boonyhai. The team was faced with a large venue and hard-to-reach areas to light. Wireless Solution's S-1 Transmitter was used with 24 R-512 Receivers to control 24 Wybron Nexera Wash and Profile fixtures in these remote areas. Par cans and colour changers were used for general overhead lighting.

Subtle shades of green, orange and blue wash created the look and feel of changing sunlight patterns that helped tell the story. The audience entered the exhibit, surrounded by blue sky and soft daylight

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Germany - The citizens of Achern, Offenburg and Freiburg were all treated to the recent World Cup action on Lighthouse R19 19mm LED screens courtesy of Modul-Vision, a new division of German rental companies Cassiopeia and Badensound.

Achern, the smallest of the three towns with a population of 25,000, had its screen in the Stadtpark where up to 5,000 people congregated for the matches; Offenburg, with a population of 60,000, saw an average of 7,000 people joined the public viewing at the central marketplace; and Freiburg, a university city with a population of 155,000 which includes young and international students, had more than 10,000 fans watching each game on its screen in one of the city's parks.

"The games were transmitted in 16:9 format, so we had 20 panels of Lighthouse R19 at each site in a five-column by four-row configuration and we used a Lighthouse X-Drive P

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US - John Fogerty is back, loaded with the complete Credence catalogue after years oflegal maneuvers, and Fogerty and his band sing all the classics he penned back in the day. The show has been well received in Europe and the US shows promise to be the same with Willie Nelson signing on for most of the run.

Designer David Davidian has created a very moody environment for the classic Fogerty tunes. The approach is very traditional with a touch of automation. There are PAR cans, lekos, cyc lights, eight-lights and colour changers, Davidian also uses the Martin Mac 2000 spot and wash fixtures. Control is withboth a Whole Hog 2 and an Avo Sapphire 2000.

Bandit Lites works with Nelson every year at Farm Aid but this is the first project for Bandit with Fogerty.

(Chris Henry)

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Norway - Oslo-based PA company Frontlite has made a substantial investment in Nexo's Geo T tangent-array loudspeaker systems, ordering one of the largest rental inventories of the year to date. Used in full, the new 24-a-side Geo T rig will be capable of handling the very largest events in Norway.

Frontlite placed its order for Geo T and a number of Camco amplifiers following a visit to the Monsters of Rock festival in the UK. Frontlite's head of audio Stuart Kerrison had wanted to hear the system at a large event, and, with 85 cabinets of Geo T supplied by SSE Audio Group for artists such as Deep Purple and Alice Cooper, the Milton Keynes show was the ideal audition. On hand to offer advice were Jon Petter Westerlund of PSS and Asle Skårslette of FotoPhono, François Deffarges of Nexo and Mick Anderson of Camco.

"We already had Nexo Alpha cabinets," explains Kerris

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Germany - Traditionally utilities are housed in functional buildings, often outside of town, away from the scrutinous eye of urban dwellers, but not always. Centrally located in the city of Leipzig is the gas and steam cogeneration plant, GuD Heizkraftwerk. Owners Leipziger Stadtwerke GmbH sought to integrate the building with the more aesthetic structures of Leipzig's architectural centre and thereby positively influence the city's night time image. Commercially, the company wanted to visually brand the cogeneration plant with the yellow and blue logo of Stadtwerke Leipzig. In November 2003 the company presented IPRO Leipzig with a draft and implementation plan that called for a unique night time lighting concept that could achieve these goals.

Lighting artist Jürgen Meier was subsequently contracted and worked with Armada Signs, the leading lighting promotion company in centr

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UK - Entec Sound & Light supplied audio and lighting production for three of the seven stages at Guilfest 2006 now in its 15th year. Guilfest is one of the most popular 'new wave' family festivals on the calendar.

It's the fifth year for Entec Lighting and the second year that Entec Sound have been involved at Guilfest. The departments provided sound and Lighting production services to the Radio 2 Main Stage and the Rock Sound Stage. The Lighting Department also installed a system into the Theatre Tent for the Howard Cragg's festival team to service.

Having taken delivery of their new d&b audiotechnik J-Series line array, Entec naturally used this for the main stage, where headliners included Embrace, A-Ha and Billy Idol. The system was designed by Stef Serpagli, and featured eight J8's and two J12 elements per side for the main arrays, neatly tucked in behind some elegant tri

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USA - Continuing its close relationship with the house of worship market, Aviom has signed on as a Gold Sponsor of Fits and Starts Production's popular 'How to' sound workshops church tour. Designed specifically for to raise the audio proficiency and knowledge level of church sound personnel, praise team musicians and ministers of music, the two-day hands-on workshops offer the latest in gear and techniques, and are taught by live sound and recording engineers who have decades of experience in these fields.

As part of the sponsorship, Aviom has provided the workshop tour with its Pro16 personal monitor mixing system. In addition to being covered as part of the instructional portion of the program, workshop participants will experience using the Aviom personal mixers during a live performance of a local praise team during the second day.

"There's no better way for church s

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USA - Sennheiser has sponsored the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, which celebrates the essential contributions made by generations of talented musicians in all genres of music. The company has outfitted the complex with a broad selection of Neumann and Sennheiser microphones for the performance space.

The Museum is the brainchild of Nashville songwriter Joe Chambers, who also owns a chain of guitar stores in the area. The 30,000sq.ft. complex, located in downtown Nashville close by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Gaylord Entertainment Centre and Ryman Auditorium, includes a 5,000sq.ft performance hall, a 1,100sq.ft. screening theatre, music instruction rooms and a state-of-the-art recording studio.

Renowned audio engineer TC Furlong of the Illinois-based professional audio company, TC Furlong Inc. provided system design and supervised the installation of the

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UK - Australian manufacturer Røde has announced the Stereo VideoMic (SVM) which is now available from UK distributor HHB Communications.

Aiming to build on the unprecedented success of Røde's existing shotgun-style VideoMic, the SVM is designed to capture detailed stereo audio.

Based on the company's ultra-low noise microphone technology, the SVM features an X/Y configuration that meets the challenge of professional stereo field recording by imposing a high level of rear noise rejection, whilst retaining the essential ambient sound of the recording environment, says the company.

The SVM attaches to the camera with a standard shoe-fitting, and includes a removable high wind furry windshield and an integral suspension mount, designed to prevent mechanical camera noise bleeding into the captured audio.

The SVM can be used on a stand or a boom pole and features t

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UK - UK mixer manufacturer, Allen & Heath, has introduced a new finance scheme for its UK operation, whereby the company is able to offer finance to UK dealers and customers.

"As technology becomes more sophisticated, many of the small and medium sized PA and installation companies are finding it financially difficult to adopt this new technology," explains sales director, Bob Goleniowski. "We have devised a flexible scheme in partnership with Barclays Asset Finance, which is open to any of our UK dealers or their customers. Barclays can assist companies undertaking large projects, and can help to finance the entire venture, not just the Allen & Heath part."

Customers will be offered competitive rates for projects worth over £5000, and finance packages can be tailored to meet customers' individual requirements. Barclays Asset Finance is already active

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UK - Blitz, the UK's leading technical staging specialist, has aided in the return of the British International Motor Show to London by supplying audio-visual displays for General Motors, BMW and Saab.

Blitz has risen to meet the challenges posed by designing and implementing a distinctive AV display for the General Motors stand that works within the constraints of the Excel Exhibition Centre environment. Other challenges included the constraints posed by the stand itself and sound level restrictions in the vicinity of the stand.

Blitz has worked with General Motors for over seven years and was selected in February as the preferred supplier of audio-visual equipment and display at this year's Motor Show which returns to London for the first time in thirty years. In order to maximise impact while working within the limitations of the stand environment, Blitz specified and provi

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USA - Aviom is announcing several promotions and staff additions that, they say, reflects the company's rapid growth and support the increasing number of markets for the company's technology.

Aviom co-founder Tom Costello has been appointed chief operating officer from his previous role of vice president. His responsibilities include managing the company's day-to-day operations and product development. Also, central regional sales manager Tom Knesel has been promoted to national field sales manager.

Additionally, the company has added six staff members to its growing team. Kim Treanor has joined as executive assistant to president/CEO Carl Bader; Rachael Morris as graphic artist for the marketing department; Mark Gutekunst as field applications engineer; Kaori Nijinsky as sales administrator; Roland Morris as PCB layout designer; and Nick Minnot has been appointed product tes

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USA - Production services provider Big Mo Pro (BMP) of Parsippany, NJ, recently brought out its L-Acoustics Kudo rig for a pair of events at Liberty State Park on Jersey City's waterfront.

With Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan as the spectacular backdrop, BMP provided sound and lighting for the big LibertyJAM concert on Sunday 25June, featuring a line-up of artists, including Cheap Trick, George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic, Los Lobos, Patti Smith, The Smithereens, Fab Faux, John Eddie and Exit 105. Celebrating the park's historic 30th anniversary, the purpose of the event was to raise funds to benefit The Friends of Liberty State Park, a non-profit volunteer organisation dedicated to preserving and improving the park for free public use.

For concert sound reinforcement, BMP chose to fly a twin pair of 15-box Kudo arrays. "Kudo was perfect for Li

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Norway - Oslo-based sound rental company Lyd Partner A/S has purchased a number of Nexo's Geo D tangent-array cabinets as part of a new system, which has made its first appearance in Norway on an outdoor concert featuring Deep Purple.

Lyd Partner already has experience of Nexo products, being a supplier of Geo S, Alpha E and Alpha systems. With confidence in the Nexo brand, it was natural that Marius Ryen and his colleagues would turn to Nexo to meet their requirement for a line array system, and their timing coincided with the launch of Nexo's Geo D cabinets. After demos of the loudspeakers at the Spring AES, the deal was sealed by an irresistible offer from PSS/FotoPhono, Nexo's Norwegian distibutors, to purchase a matching 24-box system for its own inventory, thereby increasing the possibilities for Lyd Partner to assemble larger rigs or several smaller ones.

Lyd Partner ha

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Israel - Since appearing as Israel's entrant to the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest, Rita has established herself as one of Israel's most popular singers ever. She is currently performing in a series of spectacular shows called One staged in Tel-Aviv's Fair Grounds.

One is the largest multi-show production ever produced in Israel, an extravagant performance that showcases Rita's talents. The format of the show was taken from such shows as Cirque Du Soleil and Celine Dion's A New Day in Las Vegas. One features acrobats, high wire acts, fire, water, 70 dancers and a huge 30m x 7m black projection screen. The stage spans over 33m wide by 20m deep with a lighting rig that includes 50 Mac 700 Profiles, 60 Mac 600 washlights, 24 Mac 550 profile spots, eight Mac 2000 Performances and four Atomic 3000 strobes along with 350 dimmers and 42 scrollers. Several DF-5

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Japan - The new Blast II tour of Japan uses customized set electrics engineered by City Theatrical from designs by Mike Baldassari. This all new version of the hit New York show makes use of LED technology controlled by City Theatrical's WDS Wireless Data System.

CTI created custom chasing LED circuits inside of Z shaped twirling batons; gauzy "bed nets" worn and carried by performers while lit by battery operated Color Kinetics iColorCoves with PDS-50 LED power supplies with built in WDS receivers; two drum walls of eight bass drums each filled with Color Kinetics ColorBurst 4s controlled by battery powered City Theatrical PDS-375-TRBs with built in WDS receivers; and a unique gong drum with a perimeter lighted with Neo-Flex LED Tube controlled by a battery powered City Theatrical WDS Personal Dimmer.

City Theatrical's head of engineering Larry Dunn says: "We w

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