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Hong Kong - As part of its ongoing programme of education in automation, Stage Technologies recently worked with the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) to deliver a five day course to its students. The course combines a number of theoretical lectures and practical site visits and presents the students with an overview of theatre engineering and automation systems.

Mark Ager, Stage Technologies' managing director, lead discussions on how automation is used in entertainment venues, including the practical advantages, cost implications and safety issues, as well as giving a technical overview of the equipment used. This information was then augmented with visits to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and the Wynn and Venetian hotel complexes in Macau, where Stage Technologies ha

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UK - When NME decided to move their award ceremony to the O2 arena last month, they wanted it to be an event that would herald it as the music award ceremony. Staged at the Indigo and O2 Arena in London and broadcast on Channel 4 the following night, the event saw the likes of the Manic Street Preachers, Klaxons and Bloc Party take to the stage.

Winners included The Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, Muse and, er, George W Bush for 'Villain of the Year'. (Unfortunately he was not able to collect his award personally). Organisers for the event turned to Remedy Productions and veteran LD Vince Foster to make it a show to remember. In the last year Vince has been working on Kylie, George Michael, Peter Gabriel, Duran Duran and Janet Jackson to name but a few.

Within the nanoseconds he had free between shows, Vince said of the NME gig: "We had to design a lighting show that could w

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Russia - For sound reinforcement at the Balashikha, the home arena of the MVD MO ice hockey team, located in the Russian town of the same name, almost a hundred Outline loudspeaker systems have been permanently installed. The units are a combination of line-array, point source and stage monitor systems. This is just the latest of numerous notable references for the Brescia (Italy) manufacturer, which has been on the Russian market for over twenty years.

The main rig at the Balashikha comprises 32 Outline Doppia II A 9075 enclosures (2x12", 1x10"; 1x3"), flown in pairs round the perimeter of the hockey rink and aimed at the tiered spectator seating, in order to amplify the music and any announcements with sufficient SPL and high intelligibility.

As far as reinforcement on the actual rink is concerned, four more Outline Doppia II A 9075 are flown in a single clust

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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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Canada - Telex is delighted to announce that SF Marketing, Inc. is its new intercom product distributor in Canada. Continuing to grow on top of a solid 30 year foundation, SF Marketing's annual sales volume makes them one of the largest pro audio distributors in Canada. In addition to their main office in Montreal, SF covers Canada with regional offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and Halifax.

"SF Marketing is honoured to have been chosen as the Canadian Distributor for Telex Communications Headsets, Radiocom, Telex Legacy, and Audiocom product groups," says company founder Sol Fleising. "The Telex product mix fits in perfectly with our professional audio portfolio, and our company cultures are very similar, which will make our goal of achieving total customer satisfaction an easy one."

"SF Marketing has a superlative record of customer service and

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UK - Keith Sykes, for 11 years Works Director of one of the UK's most proactive flightcase manufacturers, 5 Star, has purchased the majority shareholding of the company, whilst MD Jim Willis has retired from the Wisbech-based business after a quarter of a century.

Sykes and Willis have worked together for many years, building the company from small beginnings, when it initially made its mark as a quality guitar and keyboard case manufacturer. Sykes joined in June 1991 when 5 Star acquired Pro-Tect Cases, an Ipswich-based case making operation that he'd managed for some years. The merger with Pro-Tect forged the way ahead for 5 Star's future development, seeing it become a leading European case manufacturer, enjoying steady growth and attaining a leading market position.

Sykes was made a director and shareholder of 5 Star Cases in 1997.

In the immediate future, Jim Willis wil

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UK - Some of London's most acclaimed restaurants have been installing Electro-Voice loudspeakers of late, via installer CGA Integration. Most recently, the new Alain Ducasse restaurant at the Dorchester Hotel, China Tang (also at the Dorchester) and Mayfair restaurant Tamarind have all commissioned CGA Integration to apply its audio expertise.

Chris Gunton of CGA Integration observes a distinct trend in the city's fine dining rooms: "We've recently worked at several venues where the traditionally high standards applied to cuisine, service and décor have now been transferred to audio-visual aspirations: AV is no longer the poor relation in a prestige hotel or restaurant project, but has come of age with the benefits it offers both the finished venue and its bottom line."

After successfully installing EV-based background music systems in China Tang and The Cryst

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Spain - At the beginning of 2008, DC Audio Products SL took over the distribution of Dynacord audio systems within Spain. The seven-man team led by MD Jordi Alemany is based in Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, a small town near Barcelona.

(Jim Evans)

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South Korea - The Daedeok Presbyterian Church was established 50 years ago, and construction on a new building was completed in October of 2007. Located in Daedeok, a special district of Seoul designed for science and engineering research, the Church's congregation is made up of students and faculty from the surrounding scientific colleges and laboratories, which devoted their talent and knowledge in the building of the architectural sanctuary.

The sanctuary rejects both rectangular organisation and symmetry, similar to the Berlin Philharmonic hall. Its concrete finished wall was influenced by the Opera house in Sidney. This abstract design makes achieving crisp, clear sound very difficult.

The church's staff closely reviewed proposals with the top 5 industry leading sound companies designs for matching its architecture and decided that Adamson's SpekTrix line source array sys

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UK - Shure Distribution UK (SDUK), a leading multibrand distributor of professional audio equipment, has teamed up with Primacoustics, a high-end sound and studio acoustic manufacturer, tobe their exclusive representative in the UK.

Primacoustics offers comparatively priced acoustic-treatment solutions in packages designed around common room sizes and audio applications. Their acoustic treatments have taken various factors that are often overlooked - expense, room logistics and the perception of acoustic design, say the company.

Dennis Harburn, managing director of Shure Distribution commented: "We are delighted to be working with Primacoustics. They make an excellent addition to our studio portfolio which already includes products from Shure, Phonic and Radial. They have over 30 years experience in studio and live sound equipment and are a perfect match for the Shure bra

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Denmark - Martin Professional has given its www.martin.com website a thorough makeover. The new look site, optimised for bigger bandwidths and wider screens, features an enlarged format with bigger images, expanded segment pages and a brighter appearance for greater clarity and visual impact, says the company.

The site includes project references, product information, technical specifications, photometric data and marketing material, as well as company and Martin Partner info, global support access and online service.

(Jim Evans)

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Denmark - For the first few months of this year Friday nights in Denmark were reserved for X Factor, a televised talent competition that approximately 2.0 million Danes - nearly 40% of the population - tuned in to watch each week. The show aired on Denmark's DR1 network and commanded some of the country's best television rating ever.

Lighting designer for the series was Kasper Steen-Lange, who coloured the set using Martin's Stagebar 54 LED luminaire and rig of Martin Professional MAC moving heads that included MAC TW1 tungsten wash lights, MAC 700 Profiles and MAC 250 Washes as well as Atomic 3000 strobes. Other automateds and an LED video display were also used. Supply of the Martin gear was by rental company Litecom A/S of Copenhagen.

"We needed to find a small color changing fixture that would fit inside the set," stated Kasper Steen-Lange. "We were l

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UK - Allen & Heath will be exhibiting a cross section of its new digital and analogue mixers at the forthcoming ABTT show in London this June.

New to the show is the iDR0 2U rack processing unit, which provides all the processing features of the company's iLive digital mixing system for networked audio. It is billed as a cost effective and compact solution for users who wish to mix common sources for different applications such as FOH and Monitor, or need an additional mix for broadcast or recording that allows full processing and mix capability with the source material.

The unit will be shown as part of a comprehensive iLive system, comprising an iDR10 mixrack and iLive-112 control surface. Also on show will be an iDR DSP system for installed audio distribution.

Allen & Heath will also be demonstrating the 4 bus ZED-428 from the new ZED range of compact USB-equipped mixers

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USA - The University of Tennessee Women's Basketball Team recently celebrated its 64-48 win over Stanford University in the women's NCAA tournament championship game. The hometown party took place at Thompson-Boling Arena and served as both a celebration of the win and a thank you to the local fans for all their support.

Lighting Designer Will Twork said that the primary objective for this event was to light the stage and the podium. He used Martin MAC 600s to wash the stage. Twork also staggered six Martin MAC 500s with custom glass gobos to project the Lady Vols logo onto a 50ft filled white cyc. Lighting was controlled by a Whole Hog II.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - RTS Digital Intercoms have supplied a Cronus Digital Matrix to Glyndebourne Opera House as the centrepiece of a new "state of the art" integrated communications and paging system. The new system provides flexible paging to multiple zones and integrates production communications and 85 radio belt packs covering the site. The entire system is controllable from any PC in the complex via the easy to use software interface AZ Edit.

Simon Yapp, head of audio visual and sound at Glyndebourne and his colleague Keith Benson, head of lighting, needed to find a solution to replace the Glyndebourne's old paging system, which had become unsupportable. The solution was required to not only replace the original paging system with 16 zones but also offer increased flexibility without throwing away the existing cable infra-structure and speaker system, all of which were still serv

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USA - The American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery's 2008 Symposium & Congress, which recently met in Chicago, was one of the first corporate events to use High End Systems' DL.3.

Production supplier and lighting designer Dale Sahlin of Fusion Design LIVE, Las Vegas specified eight DL.3 digital light fixtures and two Road Hog Full Boar consoles for the event's show producer Audio Visual Management Group (AVMG) of Dallas. Intelligent Lighting Creations of Arlington Heights, Ill., supplied the equipment.

Sahlin says: "We were fortunate to use DL.2s with AVMG over the last year on numerous shows and when we talked about this show, they were excited to be the first to use the DL.3s on show site."

DL.3 is a digital lighting fixture equipped with a 6500 lumen three-chip LCD projector and an onboard media server. New features include an SDI input/out for profes

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UK - The Theatres Trust's Annual Conference takes place on 10 June 2008 at the Cottesloe Theatre in London where theatre owners and managers, manufacturers, suppliers and consultant, architects and engineers, will be invited to debate the impact of climate change on theatre buildings and what influence the reduction of our carbon footprint will have on theatre use in the 21st Century.

The implication of new legislation to reduce carbon emissions being introduced through Climate Change, Energy and Planning Bills will be addressed by the Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MBE MP, Minister for Culture, and Peter Head, director, planning and integrated urbanism, Arup in opening and closing contributions.

From the theatre world, the carbon comfort work in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre's Transformation Project will be covered by Peter Wilson, its project director, along with Stephen Jolly of Bur

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UK - Bandit Lites UK supplied lighting for Westlife's recent UK arena tour, which was produced by Production North with Karen Ringland at the helm as production manager. Bandit has been associated with Westlife since 2001.

Bandit Lites UK Chief Executive, Lester Cobrin comments, "It has been a pleasure to watch Westlife mature into an extremely talented group of performers over the last 10 years. It continues to be an honour to be part of their production team."

The 2008 show was designed and directed by William Baker, who also designed the set, with the lighting design created by Baz Halpin.

Halpin went for a very theatrical look with all the structures concealed, apart from a centre stage 'W' shaped truss. Lighting fixtures were all positioned on a series of angled trussing sections, some of which moved.

Starting upstage, there were six moving trusses, all susp

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Japan - The Alios Iwaki Performing Arts Centre is a newly built multipurpose city hall in Iwaki, Japan. The word ALIOS stands for Art, Life, Information, Oasis and Sightseeing. The sound system that was installed in to this new build included 16 XTA DP448 audio management systems.

Situated 300km east of Tokyo, the city of Iwaki is in the southern part of the Hamadori coastal region of Fukushima, Tohoku. Iwaki is the industrial hub for the region, and is also very popular with tourists - around 7.6 million visit each year.

The main hall of Iwaki Alios seats up to 1,700, and although it was mainly designed to stage classical concerts, musicals and classic Japanese theatre productions, careful consideration was given during the design stage so that all types of performances could be staged. The recently opened complex also comprises a 230-seater theatre as well as four band rehea

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Germany - Berlin-based microphone manufacturer Neumann is celebrating its 80th anniversary.

"Each decade has its great stars and big hits," says the company. "The majority were produced using Neumann products". This has inspired the company to bring music history back to life with a special series of illustrations. From the swinging 50s, all through the colourful 70s and into modern times, Neumann has consistently represented innovation, reliability and quality."

Wolfgang Fraissinet, president marketing/sales at Neumann Berlin says, "Those who want to put their knowledge about music history to the test have the opportunity to do so at www.80yearsneumann.com. The main prizes are three brand new TLM 67s."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Through a continuous improvement programme, ID&C continues to work with Impactt, a business advisory organisation to improve ethical business standards in its Chinese factory partner, in line with the Ethical Trading Initiative code of practice.

Creating lanyards, wristbands and laminate solutions for leading sporting events, outdoor events and venue entry, ID&C says it has always been aware of the ethical implications surrounding the industry. Impactt works with worldwide companies to raise the awareness of the business supply chain and support and manage ethical trading programmes to tackle labour standard issues.

Business manager of ID&C, Matt Wilkey comments: "It is important that UK companies be aware of the supply chain they depend on and how their business affects people in the chain. We have worked with the same factory to create our lanyards and event mercha

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Germany - Waxy's Irish Pub opened its doors for the first time on 13 December 2007, in a prime central location right behind the Frankfurt stock exchange. Considerable importance was attached to the sound system installed. The task of planning was entrusted to YourEvent, directed by Mario Klein; Ludwig Becker of The Guitar Place Aschaffenburg handled the installation.

The unusual décor of the venue, which consists of a restaurant and a club, suggests the interior of an Irish church - complete with a mock organ, statues of angels, choir stalls, and a mock pulpit. Klein opted for a decentralized sound reinforcement concept, in accordance with the wishes of the Doyle family, who now run a total of seven Irish Pubs throughout Europe.

After careful testing, Klein opted for a mixture of different VariLine loudspeakers (VL62, VL262 and VL122) from Dynacord, plus FX20 subwoofer

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