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UK - A spiritual event was probably the perfect setting for the type of 'baptism of fire' that awaited FOH engineer Dave Hopkinson at the NEC Arena, where Christ for all Nations (CfaN) held its two-day Full Flame Fire conference and UK launch of its new DVD series.

The evangelistic movement, founded by Reinhard Bonnke in 1974, generally stages events in Africa, where audiences ranging in size from 100,000-1.6 million gather.

A long-time live sound veteran, Hopkinson can generally be found behind an analogue mixing board. But when CfaN's technical manager Derek Murray suggested using one of Wigwam's five Digidesign Venue systems, the FOH man needed to reshape his thinking.

"Christian events are not like a normal rock show when you know there's a set list and set tim

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UK - Gobo manufacturer Projected Image has invested in new metal etching machinery. This is designed to make the process even quicker and more efficient whilst allowing an increase in output. It is also in response to a massive growth in the demand for gobos in general which has been experienced by PI over the last year, says the company.

The centerpiece of the new kit is the spray etch machine, which has been specifically designed for PI's requirements. It is a fully conveyorised system. The exposed and developed metal plates pass through a double-sided spray-etching chamber where the required images are etched through the metal surfaces. The plates are then washed, stripped of photo resist and cleaned.

PI's Jim Douglas says: "We are best known for our glass gobo work, in particular our expertise in custom colour gobos. However, the general increase in business over the

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UK - Stage Electrics' Technical Training courses are proving so popular the company are receiving international interest and due to demand the company has scheduled a series of public open courses in Cork.

The Cork Opera House has recently used Stage Electrics' expertise to train its staff and now will be hosting the open courses at the end of August.

Course schedules include: Moving Light Masterclass and Advanced Strand Desk Programming. The Cork Opera House is also the first venue to host the newly developed Stage Flying & Rigging course. This course covers counterweight flying, single & double purchase, traditional hemp flying and rope craft together with LOLER principles and legislation, rigging, truss and motors.

Sara Alarabi, training manager for Stage Electrics, says: "I am delighted that we are expanding beyond the UK and are now running our popular technical th

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

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Portugal - Duran Audio has announced the opening of Duran Audio Iberia. The Iberia office will be responsible for sales and support of AXYS products in both Spain and Portugal from its base in Porto.

Sandra Serrano, formerly sales manager for Caius Technologies, has been responsible for the setting up of the company in partnership with Duran Audio BV and will taken on the role of managing director of Duran Audio Iberia.

"Previously there had been an AXYS presence in Portugal with many high profile projects having been completed," says Serrano. "However, Spain was a completely new market for AYXS products and technologies which presented many exciting opportunities. So, my idea was to create a structure that was 100% dedicated to AXYS products; offering the highest level of pre and post sales support, which is essential when distributing such high technology prod

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France - Nexo has reversed the audio industry's widespread trend for off-shore manufacturing and opened a new purpose-built corporate headquarters, which will house all its management and manufacturing operations, in Plailly, just 15km NE of the Charles de Gaulle international airport in Paris.

For the last 27 years, Nexo has been located in a facility in nearby Roissy, a campus-style operation which was the result of two decades of expansion across a large section of a suburban North Paris industrial park. In 2004, plans were prepared for the construction of a new facility, which began in late 2005.

Nexo's Plailly headquarters has taken its design criteria from industrial ergonomics, placing special emphasis on manufacturing process and quality control. Nexo founders Eric Vincenot and Micky Johnson have expressed total satisfaction with the new premises, and director general

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Romania - Kristal Glam Club in Bucharest, recently voted Rumania's best club for the fourth year running, has extended its 20,000-watt Dynacord alpha concept sound system (originally installed at the end of 2004).

The alpha system and spectacular optical attractions - including a state-of-the-art laser show and no fewer than 17 video screens prompted DJ Luciano, in a recent interview with the scene magazine De Bug, to credit the club, which can accommodate up to 1,500 guests at a time, with leading the world-wide techno revival.

(Jim Evans)

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Canada - Color Kinetics has announced that its LED lighting technology will dynamically transform the world's tallest freestanding tower, the CN Tower in Toronto. The installation will be unveiled to the public in a lighting ceremony beginning at sunset on June 28.

CN Tower stands 1,815ft tall and is considered an engineering wonder of the modern world. For nearly a decade the Tower was minimally lit in an effort to conserve energy while awaiting a better long-term lighting solution.

Following extensive evaluation, a Color Kinetics system was chosen to visually transform the Tower's appearance while reducing energy consumption and maintenance requirements at the same time. According to preliminary operation, the Tower will consume less energy when fully illuminated by LED fixtures than it did when only partially illuminated by conventional sources.

"The CN Tower is wide

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UK - Bandit Lites UK supplied full lighting production, video projection package and touring crew for INXS' recent UK tour. Working closely with lighting designer, Sean 'Motley' Hackett, Bandit Lites' Lester Cobrin was asked on board to support Hackett's design.

Cobrin comments, "It's the first time I have worked with Motley and production manager, Paul 'Kenno' Kennedy. It has been a breath of fresh air to work with two people that are so efficient and good at communicating. It has been a pleasure to work with them on this project."

Lighting technicians, Nigel Julian and Martin Garnish were hired to look after the system while on the road.

Hackett is based in Australia and has worked on and off with INXS for the last 14 years, fairly constantly for the last 11. He describes the current tour (ongoing since the start of 2006) as "an evolution" in terms of l

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USA - To help commercial audio consultants, integrators, and installers to more easily manage the installation of CobraNet networks, Cirrus Logic has launched CobraNet Discovery. A software tool that runs on Microsoft Windows operating systems, CobraNet Discovery identifies and displays all CobraNet devices on a network, allowing for real-time monitoring and display of useful data to maintain the health and status of CobraNet devices.

CobraNet technology is the global de facto standard for transporting uncompressed, high-definition audio through standard Ethernet networks. Built upon the effective use of standard Ethernet network infrastructure by CobraNet networks, the Discovery software operates from any authorised PC connected to a CobraNet network, eliminating the need to be physically located with the networked audio gear that can often be spread across rooms, buildings or

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USA - Element Labs released its new line of flexible LED video screens, Helix at the InfoComm exhibition in Anaheim, California.Helix products can bend, wrap, drape, and fold to conform to even the most unusual designs, says the company. Both of the debuting Helix products, Helix G75 and Helix H75, offer a pixel pitch of 75mm and carry significant IP ratings.

"Our customers have been telling us they need more flexible, IP-rated products for both touring and installations," says Rich Pierceall, sales and marketing director. "We feel the Helix product line answers that need with a wide variety of features at attractive price points."

Helix G75's ultra-thin grid construction provides the flexibility of a curtain-like screen with the geometric stability of a rigid product. Modules, each four pixels wide by 32 pixels long, can link together to create large displ

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UK - Dave Ball, technical sales manager of LMC Audio Systems' Birmingham branch, had the unusual task of fulfilling a long-established client's request - having been instructed by the client's accountant to go out and spend his profits from a very successful previous years touring the UK.

Rob McCulloch leader of the four-piece band Magic Bullitz, who tour the UK regularly providing live entertainment for private events and productions, decided to improve the quality and ability of his already impressive PA system.

McCulloch comments, "I was not dissatisfied with the performance of my existing system and did not imagine that much improvement was possible, I thought I already had the best, what I was really looking for was to reduce size, weight and even other things like AC power consumption as well as saving time on set-up and sound checking.

"Having a long establi

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Germany - ETC's new Eos lighting control system has won the Showtech 2007 trade show's Product Award for Lighting and Projection. This award is the second such honour for the Eos, which took the Product of the Year Award for debuting product when the desk was introduced last autumn at LDI. But the Showtech award is the first ever European award for an ETC desk and marks ETC's strong presence in the European entertainment lighting market, says the company.

ETC's CEO Fred Foster, who accepted the trophy at the Showtech ceremony, says, "We are extremely proud to have Eos recognised in the German market by this award. Eos will be a very powerful tool for the lighting designers and lighting programmers in theatres, television studios and events."

(JIm Evans)

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UK - Leading theatre figures have been eager to endorse the first Performing Arts Technical Training Handbook, published by Entertainment Technology Press working in conjunction with the Association of British Theatre Technicians.

As an Association, the ABTT is supporting current national initiatives for training and participating in the consultative process with Creative & Cultural Skills, the Sector Skills Council for Advertising, Crafts, Cultural Heritage, Design, Music, Performing, Literary and Visual Arts.

With recent stories in the press of a predicted shortfall of trained technicians in the future, the ABTT sees this book as "the perfect tool to encourage and inspire a new generation to enter the profession. It will also help those already working in the industry to identify how they will continue their professional development."

The Performing Art

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USA - Kino Flo, the manufacturer of lighting for film and television has announced a strategic partnership with Element Labs. The partnership is designed to bring intelligent LED lighting into the professional lighting industry.

Element Labs' Kelvin Technology Series LED-based lighting system will be available for rent through Kino Flo in September 2007.

"By combining Element Labs' advancement in LED technology with Kino Flo's industry experience we look forward to developing tools that will further advance the art of filmmaking," says Kino Flo president and founder, Frieder Hochheim.

The Kelvin Technology Series represents a major advancement in the application of LEDs to create intelligent, controllable lighting, says the company. It provides variable colour temperature and maintains a colour rendering index (CRI) of 95 between 3200 K and 6500 K. It also offers d

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SPain - Following the successful installations of d&b audiotechnik Q-Series PA systems at the Teatre Auditori in Granollers, and Auditorium de Palma in Palma de Mallorca, another local auditorium has chosen to install a d&b Qi-Series loudspeaker system.

The Auditori Winterthur is a convention centre in the heart of the business complex of L'Illa in Barcelona. The Auditori was planned by architect Rafael Moneo, incorporating acoustics designed byIgini Arau and was originally built to present music concerts without the aid of amplification for up to six hundred and fifty listeners.

In due course, with an expansion into new activities such as conferences and corporate events, the need for a sound system became increasingly apparent. The original installation however, proved less than perfect as all the sound amplified through it was reflected back by a curved wall at the rear of

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UK - DMi D&M Installation is showing a wealth of new products at CEDIA Expo 2007 in London this week. The new dedicated CI division of D&M Europe is exhibiting products from its five distributed brands - Denon, Marantz, Escient, Opus and Boston Acoustics.

Major new products are being launched from Denon and Escient. These include the Denon ASD-3W dock for iPod, the Denon AVR-4308 AV Surround Receiver, Denon RC-7000 pre-programmed and programmable IR remote control, and the Denon RC-7001 IR to RF Base Station.From Escient there is the FireBall FP-1 Music Manager is equipped with a universal dock for iPod, and Fireball SE500 Digital Music Server.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Christie Digital unveiled a new single lamp 3LCD projector on the opening day of InfoComm 2007 in Anaheim, CA. The new Christie LX650 is the brightest, low-profile, single-lamp 3LCD projector available,says the company, offering a combination of high brightness, high contrast, low cost of ownership and reduced maintenance, due to its advanced light engine design.

Drawing on new LCD technology in a long-life, single-lamp optical engine, the compact Christie LX650 outputs 6,500 ANSI lumens, with a contrast ratio of 2000:1, and has been purpose-designed to meet the needs of small- to medium-sized conference rooms, houses of worship and education (serving audiences up to 250). With its flexibility to display high-impact graphics, computer data and 10-bit video processing for high definition sources from 6ft to 20ft wide, it will appeal equally to project consultants and rental

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Belgium - Christie Digital reports that it has installed more than 3,000 Digital Cinema systems worldwide. The company claims that nearly 80% of all installations around the world are using Christie DLP Cinema projectors.

More than 2600 systems are installed throughout the USA as part of the groundbreaking AccessIT software & funding vehicle introduced in 2005. Christie installations also span Africa, Asia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Christie installations outside North America have begun to accelerate, positioning the company as the leading player in the global deployment of DLP Cinema systems worldwide.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Robe ColorSpot 1200E ATs took centre stage at Glastonbury's Jazz World arena, supplied by Essex based rental company DPL who were making their first Glastonbury appearance as a lighting supplier.

Jazz World featured a strong line-up including Amy Winehouse, Corrine Bailey Rae, the Guillemots, John Fogerty, Mr Hudson and the Library, Rodrigo y Gabriela and many more.

DPL's Darren Parker says, "It was a great honour to win the pitch to supply Jazz World. We had to design a flexible rig that would accommodate a wide variety of top quality international artists and the creative requirements of an array of visiting LDs. We chose the best equipment for the job which was Robe moving lights."

He adds that with the notoriously unpredictable nature of the Glastonbury weather, they also wanted really robust and reliable lights that would withstand the elements.

Pete Wa

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USA - Crown International reports that it recently made several changes and additions to its marketing personnel lineup. The announcement comes from Marc Kellom, Crown vice president of marketing.

Brian Divine, who previously served as market director for portable PA, has now transitioned into the role of market director for engineered sound/touring sound.

Andy Flint, formerly a business developer in the portable PA market, now moves into his new position as vertical market manager for portable PA.

Phil McPhee has taken on the title of vertical market manager, commercial sound. McPhee previously served on Crown's engineering team.

Lastly, new hire Kristin Howard has been appointed to the post of marketing coordinator.

(Jim Evans)

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China - In the first week of June, China International Entertainment Technology Forum was held in CTS Plaza Beijing. The seminar's subject was The Application of Entertainment Technology in Stadiums. It was attended by the Chinese Ministry of Art and Culture and the organising committee of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Outline's exclusive distributor for China, Guangzhou ACME invited Outline's Sales & Marketing Director Giorgio Biffi to talk about Outline's experience with large sound systems in Stadiums.

Biffi spoke about the recent experience gained by Britannia Row Productions who have had experience with not only the Barcelona Olympics but also the newly built Wembley Stadium where they carried out the initial sound tests.

These tests resulted in their decision to combine the use of a temporary concert or 'touring' PA system with the permanently installed 'house

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