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France - One of the leading full service production companies in the south of France, Sound and Light Systems (SLS), has recently taken delivery of two Sy80 digital mixing consoles from InnovaSon. SLS is based in Alès near Nîmes and has recently opened offices in Longjumeau, south of Paris.

Established in 2001, the company has rapidly grown to become one of the biggest rental companies in the south of France, offering a wide range of sound, lighting, video and staging equipment. SLS proprietor Léon van Empel comments: "It's not just about spending money. It's also about making sure we stay up-to-date with what's going on in the market so that when we do spend the money, we spend it wisely on products that will both satisfy our clients and offer us a good return on ou

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UK - Christie has introduced the Christie HD405 - the first native HD model in the company's single-chip DLP portfolio. The new projector combines DLP image quality with full 1080p resolution, making it a solution for small-to-medium sized conference rooms, boardrooms, training rooms, home theatre and 24/7 applications where single chip DLP reliability is paramount, says the company.

The HD405 presents dynamic, high definition images with 4100 ANSI lumens brightness and a 1000-7500:1 contrast ratio. "The Christie HD405 is the first 1080p single-chip DLP projector in the Christie line, and the first to market with on-board 10-bit image processing and the capability to deliver 4100 lumens," notes Neil Wittering, director of product management, business products, Christie. "The combination of brightness, high resolution and advanced image processing single this out a

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Germany - As well as the productions in New York, London and Los Angeles the production of Wicked at Stuttgart's Palladium Theatre is controlled via grandMA consoles. One grandMA full-size and one grandMA light are used. They control the show in connection with three MA NSPs (Network System Processors), one dimMA rack and 13 MA DMX booster/splitter.

During the pre-programming overall three grandMA full-size, two grandMA light as well as one grandMA replay-unit, all in a multi-user session, were used.

Each new production of Wicked is based on the original lighting design by Kenneth Posner.

(Jim Evans)

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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UK - With two highly successful 'Digital Video Workshops' staged by Projected Image Digital this year - presenting the power and versatility of the Catalyst V4 digital media server in a hands-on situation - the system is proving more popular and dynamic than ever, says the company.

Leading UK rental company Lite Alternative has now invested in three Catalyst v4 systems (run on Mac Pro G5 machines). Lite Alt's Catalyst systems have been on many live shows and concert tours throughout the year, from Radio One's Big Weekend to Arcade Fire's Neon Bible world tour, featuring lighting and set design by Paul Normandale with visual design and video direction by Richard Stembridge.

Others include Maximo Park (LD Stevie Marr), Interpol (LD Lucas Cotterham), and Paul McCartney and Kings of Leon (LD for both, Paul Normandale). Normandale also used PixelMAD - the pixel-mappin

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UK - The R&B Group utilised their latest investments to stage the BBC Sports Awards North East. Continued success for The R&B Group has seen them double their turnover in less than four years.

The company recently invested in two Panasonic PT10000 HD ready projectors, a 12-channel Shure UHFR radio microphone system and additional Martin MAC 700 profile and wash fixtures.

All of these new additions were put to good use in producing a bold, striking new look for the Sports Awards. Project manager Richard Goodaire said, "Having the latest technology is great, it allows us to keep a competitive edge in the market, whilst always adding extra value and added wow factor for our clients."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Pufferfish, a specialist in 360° spherical display systems, has announced a new partnership with Green Hippo, creator of the Hippotizer media server. Until now, content for the PufferSphere had to be pre-rendered in AfterFX in order to appear geometrically correct on the display. The Hippotizer essentially operates like a realtime version of AfterFX, with an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) and "plenty of clever extras thrown in for good measure". By developing a free 'Pufferizer' plug-in, Green Hippo has opened up a second route to spherical content production, allowing for realtime 'spherising' of any type of content, in addition to our existing pre-rendering option, says the company.

The Pufferizer plug-in completes Pufferfish's content offering, providing total flexibility in the development and integration of all types of media. With this in mind,

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UK - The 14 November opening event for High Speed 1 at London St Pancras International station - one of the biggest corporate events of the year - saw PRG Europe supply some seven 45ft truck loads of lighting equipment, including searchlights, smoke machines and over 250 moving lights. The event was produced by Flux Events for London & Continental Railways (LCR) under the technical direction of John Farquhar-Smith, with lighting design by Durham Marenghi.

Durham initially began work in January, having been brought in by John Teeman, executive producer for LCR, who had seen his work on The Queen's Golden Jubilee and the recent Winter Olympics in Turin. "My brief," continues Durham, "was for a theatrical reveal of the station. The main challenge was that it's been beautifully restored and architecturally is already very well lit. Having decided that an orchestral an

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South Africa - The New Lyric Theatre at the Gold Reef City Casino in Johannesburg, is the new home to a grandMA full-size and four MA NSPs (Network Signal Processors).This striking venue recently opened its doors to the acclaimed production of Hairspray.

One of South Africa's most renown lighting designers, Denis Hutchinson was nominated as both the consultant and the LD for the theatre. "The intention of being both consultant and LD was two-fold," said Hutchinson. "Firstly, I had to see to the completion of the theatre and be on hand for trouble-shooting. The second motive was purely selfish; I chose the new toys for the theatre and I wanted to be the first to play with them."

With Hutchinson being very particular about what equipment he wanted, he finally selected DWR Distribution, who supplied the automated lighting and control, Prosound, T&A Ligh

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UK - For the fifth consecutive year, the Urban Music Awards took place in London. Once again the event was staged at the Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden in front of an invited audience of more than 600 VIPs from the music industry and corporate world. Associated with the Awards for the first time, event production company PSL was taking responsibility for the whole show, the budget for which has grown by 500% since its first year.

Now sponsored by Kickers, the UMA covers the broad umbrella of urban music forms, a spectrum extending from Gospel, Neo Soul to HipHop, and more. This year's awards were presented again by Radio 1 DJ Ras Kwame and neo-soul heavyweight Terri Walker, and featured numerous live performances from established as well as up-and-coming artists, UB40, Nate James and Keisha White amongst others.

This year, PSL took on responsibility for design and implementa

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USA - Nexxus Lighting has announced that its SV Lighting business unit has sold over 600 linear feet of interior solid-state LED products for the new Capitol Visitor Center in Washington D.C.

The Capitol Visitor Center has been conceived as an extension of the Capitol building to welcome visitors to the seat of American government. At nearly 580,000sq.ft, the CVC is the largest project in the Capitol's 212-year history and is approximately three quarters the size of the Capitol building itself. When it opens, the Capital Visitor Center will provide a variety of amenities, including an exhibition gallery, orientation theatres, a 550-seat cafeteria, and gift shops all within a secure public environment.

SV Lighting's Savi LED Flood Strips and low voltage power supplies are being used to light over 600ft of cove and step lighting in the main exhibition gallery where significant C

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UK - Blitz Communications was recently commissioned to provide a sophisticated AV solution for Jessops, the UK's leading photographic retailer. Jessops revealed its brand advertising and Christmas campaign to suppliers and managers during a three day event which took place at the Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon, Warwickshire. The conference comprised a suppliers' welcome dinner, team building activities, an awards ceremony and dinner. Blitz and Jessops worked in close partnership to bring Christmas to life using spectacular imagery which ensured that all of the 600 delegates over three days, were captivated not only by the Christmas campaign and supplier exhibition of products, but also by the complete conference experience.

Peter Riordan, Jessops' stores director comments: "The entire team at Blitz contributed to the phenomenal success of our conference. As it was a one-st

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USA - The new EAW NTL720 is a self-powered line array loudspeaker system featuring a true three-way design and numerous other EAW patented and proprietary technologies housed in a compact (9.4" x 24" x 14.3") and low-weight (less than 50lb/22.68kg) package. The entire enclosure face of each NTL720 module is filled by a full-sized mid/high horn providing 110° (horizontal) by 12° (vertical) dispersion. The extreme horn size insures broadband pattern control throughout the entire MF/HF pass-band.

High frequencies are produced by six 1" dome tweeters, configured in two vertical columns (each with three tweeters) mounted on a manifold that feeds a single slot in the centre of the horn, highly effective in controlling vertical dispersion. Flanking the HF section, dual 6" cone woofers handle the MF range, also loading on to the horn, with minimal space

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UK - Bringing many years of product management and technical knowledge, Neal Tomlinson joins the 11 business development managers who make up the business development team at Stage Electrics. Tomlinson will be based in Wales, working closely with customers in the area.

Hailing originally from a retail background, Tomlinson spent 12 years at Roland, latterly as product manager for the RSS division, part of the successful Sound Snake launch.

(Jim Evans)

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Ireland - Big Bear Sound has supplied Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) - the Dublin-based independent state broadcaster - with two Digidesign Venue live digital mixing systems for use in their outside broadcast vans (OBVs).

The broadcaster's main OB radio truck is equipped with an integrated Venue D-Show console, Stage Rack, and FOH rack. RTÉ also has the more portable D-Show Profile console, which will be used both as a backup system for smaller venues where carry-ins are required, and for additional redundancy and channel capacity at larger classical events and festivals for which the broadcasters provide coverage. To enable multitrack recordings of its broadcasts, RTÉ also purchased a Digidesign Pro Tools|HD system, which is connected to the D-Show mainframe and Sidecar combination through HDx cards.

The search for a new digital console began 18 mont

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USA - At the 2007 LDI Show, Tomcat offered attendees the chance to register to win a scholarship to one of Tomcat USA's workshops in 2008. Out of a random drawing, one lucky winner was selected, and that person is Bobbie Duncan of Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.

In response to the ever-changing demands of the entertainment industry, Tomcat has announced that in 2008 the workshops will feature a new and improved curriculum. For the first time, participants will be able to choose their focus: Rigging & Truss or Chain Motors & Truss - with beginning and advanced training in that area of focus: all in one workshop.

Tomcat also reports that these workshops will be offered twice in 2008. Both of these sessions will be offered 20-23 February as well as 4-7 June, 2008 in Midland, Texas.

(Jim Evans)

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The Netherlands - Earlier this year Visual Productions' customer SLR Productions was approached by the U-Bar, a new club opening in Utrecht, to provide them with a creative yet practical sound and light system. The customer wanted his bar staff to have control of modern LED lighting, creating a cool and trendy atmosphere in the underground venue coupled with fun party disco lights for on the dance floor.

Robert van Hees, owner of SLR, knew that he could easily satisfy his customers' demands, but for SLR the most important issue would be smart lighting control. Van Hees felt the best solution would be to use VisualDMX lighting control software triggered with the Frontier interface.

When Visual Productions provided the on-site programming of the Frontier, the U-Bar staff were so taken with the easy user interface and opportunities offered by VisualDMX that they chose to finalise

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USA - Featuring headliners Hinder, Papa Roach and Buckcherry, the Bad Boys of Rock tour recently wrapped its summer run, having delivered the goods in arenas around America with an EV PA deployed by LD Systems of Houston, TX.

"Once again, X-Line proved itself without peer for loud, heavy, rock 'n' roll," says Robert Ausmus of LD Systems. "This system has the warmth and sonic finesse for all genres of music, from country to pop, but it also has the power handling, punch and reliability tours like this need to deliver the full-bore rock experience. X-Line simply sounds good, whatever the SPL.

Add the remote control RL amps (running IRIS-Net control and supervision software) to the equation and you have a PA that is as streamlined - in terms of system setup time and centralized control - as it is seriously rocking."

(Jim Evans)

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The Netherlands - Two of the Netherland's hardest-working touring bands have both purchased WideLine-8 line array systems from QSC Audio Products. Feeling and Trainband are not only popular Top 40 acts, but they also play the circuit of weddings, town fairs and corporate functions. Since each band works more than 100 shows each year, they not only needed to provide top-quality, evenly-dispersed sound reinforcement to those on-axis, but also to audiences out in the wings.

QSC Audio distributor Holland Audio Import had first demonstrated the 140° wide dispersion advantages of the manufacturer's larger WL10 system to Feeling, who they say immediately became converts to line array technology. But when they were informed that QSC's ultra-compact WideLine-8 would shortly be in production it seemed a better fit for both their road truck and their budget.

Feeling purchased a compl

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UK - Show Presentation Services (SPS) is supporting the Samaritans to raise awareness for Stress Down Day on 1 February 2008. Samaritans, a confidential emotional support service, run the important yearly event to draw attention to the increasing problem of stress in the workplace.

Research by the Samaritans has indicated that a third of UK workforce cannot sleep at night through anxiety, and a staggering three-quarters cannot switch off when they leave the office at the end of the day. This problem can be particularly relevant in the live events industry, where there are constant pressures to keep to increasingly tight deadlines and budgets.

SPS hopes to raise awareness of Stress Down Day in the industry to prevent any more people falling into those frightening statistics. Robin Coles, managing director at SPS commented: "I have been a Samaritan listening volunteer for s

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UK - Kramer Electronics has announced the availability of the VP-26 presentation switcher. The VP-26 offers four independent routing switchers as well as a master audio switcher all in one box, and is capable of passing computer graphics video, s-Video, component, composite or SDI signals at high bandwidth. Its multi-functionality, full feature set, and compact size make the VP-26 ideal in robust presentation and multimedia environments, says the company.

The VP-26 is a high performance switcher that includes three independent 4x2 audio/video matrix switchers and one independent 2x2 audio/video matrix switcher, all in a compact two rack unit frame for a standard 19" professional rack enclosure. It combines the functions of a 4x2 matrix switcher for computer graphics signals with audio, composite video and audio, and s-Video and audio, as well as a 2x2 matrix switcher for co

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USA - Technomad Associates has announced that the ABC-TV Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team has completed installation of a Technomad Turnkey PA System at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Technomad donated the system, featuring two weatherproof outdoor loudspeakers and a complete PA rack to power the loudspeakers, to the popular ABC series last week for a two-hour special scheduled to air in February 2008.

On 7 November Patricia and Patrick John Hughes of Louisville, Kentucky, received word that Ty Pennington and the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team would renovate their home into a safer and more accessible home for their blind and disabled son, Patrick Henry, age 19. The storyline also includes the renovation of a practice field at the University of Louisville, where Patrick Henry marches in the University of Louisville School of Music Marching and Pe

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