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Belgium - Servi Scene Rigging (Belgium) is contracted as rigging company for the European leg of the Kylie X tour, which travels Europe from May till August 2008.

The total production consists of 120 rigging points of which 60 are flown from a main grid.

Confronted with a very tight touring schedule, resulting in short load in and load out times, head rigger Dave Rowe, decided that pre-rigging a part of the total production was the best solution. Together with Fabrice Danvou from Servi Scene, he designed the main grid to facilitate pre-rigging the show.

The main grid, named "the advanced rig", consist entirely of Prolyte S52SV and H30V trussing.Servi Scene has sub hired all the Prolyte materials from AED Belgium.

The production team, a combination of English and Au

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USA - Lighting professionals weighed in on Wybron products during a day of focus groups 4 June in New York City. Electricians, designers and other experts critiqued Wybron lighting equipment and offered input on how product designs could be improved. The feedback went straight to Wybron engineers.

"The thing that really got me excited was how fast everyone just plain got the new products, and the great ideas they all had for improvements," says president Keny Whitright.

Tom Ferguson, shop foreman and rental operations manager for Hudson Sound and Light, says he appreciates companies asking for input on their products. "If you're going to shove it down somebody's throat, there's going to be some resentment," Ferguson says.

The event previewed some of Wybron's new products as well as changes to its Infogate software, which uses two-way communication protoco

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Austria - The MEET/BTT trade conference takes place every two years and is hosted by OETHG and DTHG, the professional theatre and TV associations for Germany and Austria. This year the event was in Bregenz, Austria and featured an extensive schedule of conferences and seminars.

Together with RTC, Zero 88's distributor for Austria, Zero 88 showed the Frog 2, Leap Frog 48/96 and Jester series as well as the new Master Touch Screen for the Chilli dimmers. Zero 88's powerful 3D visualisation software Light Converse, which played a big role within the lighting design contest, had a lot of very positive feedback during the show, says the company.

A highlight of the event was the lighting design contest. This was the first time a lighting design competition had been arranged at the show and was accomplished in co-operation with the OETHG, DTHG and RTC.

Applications for the competit

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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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Germany - Following tarmLED 4x4's successful deployment at numerous productions this year, it was most recently the highlight of an event staged by Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart. The system was installed horizontally above the heads of the 400 invited attendees and thus emulated an innovative LED-ceiling. At the finale of an approximately two-minute laser performance, the Mercedes star appeared in breathtaking brightness on the auditorium's 'LED-sky'.

Thanks to tarmLED 4x4's lightweight construction and daisy-chain cabling from module to module using just a single, combined, power and data line, the total weight of the approximately 50sq.m LED-surface, including all power supplies and processors, could be reduced to around 600 kg, which was an essential factor in arranging such a production, due to the limited load-bearing capacities of the existing suspension points. Data transmis

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UK - Bandit Lites recently donated lighting for the fourth annual Pinnacle Business Awards, hosted by the Knoxville Chamber and presented by Regions Bank. Over 650 business people attended the 2008 event, which took place at the KnoxvilleConvention Centre.

Building on the success of the past three galas, this year's awards ceremony featured a reception, a silent auction, followed by dinner and an awards presentation - emceed by John Becker.The Pinnacle Business Awards Gala is an occasion to honor both the nominees and award winners, all of which are outstanding representatives of the greater Knoxville business community.

To light the event, lighting designer, Will Twork, primarily chose to use Martin MAC 2000s, 600s, 500s and ETC Source Fours. Lighting was controlled by a Whole Hog II.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Elation Professional's Opti RGB has switched to using higher-grade Neutrik 3-pin Data Connectors for DMX In/Out, improving the connection durability especially, when used by rental /production companies.

With the upgraded Neutrik connectors, lighting operators can be assured there will always be a strong, seamless flow of DMX data from their controller into the Opti RGB, and out from the fixture to other daisy-chained units, said Eric Loader, director of sales for Elation Professional. This will eliminate the possibility of breakage from heavy use, or of weak or interrupted DMX signals from the older XLR connectors, which can sometimes cause spotty performance.

"We wanted to improve the Opti RGB's control connectivity, and we felt the best way to do this was to switch to Neutrik connectors, which are really tops in the market with their exceptional quality and relia

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USA - ETC has released major new software for its Congo and Congo jr lighting control desks: Congo v5. The new software introduces a new effects package, new graphics and handling, as well as better editing tools, more functions and accessories. Congo users at theatres, TV studios and other entertainment venues worldwide will find a whole package of new solutions for their multimedia lighting rigs, suggests the company.

Congo v5 rethinks the management of lighting effects for theatre and live events, making them as easy to control as a dimmer with a scroller. Using all the tools available for device control, Congo v5 functions create many new effects. The new Chase effect provides a simple editor for creating intensity effects without using up presets and sequences. The new Dynamic effect uses the existing dynamics concept and brings them into the new Effect Playback world.

ET

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UK - London's Tower Hamlets is known as one of the city's less well off areas. Yet one of its schools, Morpeth in the Bethnal Green district, has done particularly well, with a £13.5m grant from the local authority which has led to a complete rebuilding programme. As part of that programme, the school has a new performing arts block, including a theatre which doubles as a school assembly hall, and three drama studios.

Morpeth, which specialises in arts and music, has recently invested in an ETC Congo jr and two SmartFade lighting control desks, as well as SmartPack dimming. Chris Bocking at Redbridge Drama Centre, who was brought in as a consultant for the installation, explains: "We recommend ETC control desks because they are very sophisticated yet user friendly. One of the problems which all schools face is that staff leave and there might be no-one else trained to

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Poland - Midas and Klark Teknik's newly-appointed Polish distributor Audio Plus has made its first XL8 Live Performance System sale in record time - just two minutes after its official appointment to the position.

The sale was confirmed following a training academy which introduced XL8 to Poland, just before the appointment became official. Audio Plus, a long-time Electro-Voice distributor, is regularly supported at its academies by local small-to-medium rental company Legro. Owners Jacek Graczewski and Grzegorz Lesniewski underwent a few hours of XL8 training before the academy, and went on to mix four bands throughout the evening.

"Just after midnight on 17 May - two minutes after Audio Plus became the official Midas and KT distributor for Poland - I received one of the shortest phone calls ever," recounts Pawlak. "It was Jacek from Legro, who said, 'Hi, Sebia

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Finland - The April Jazz Espoo is the largest annual jazz event in the Helsinki area. The five-day event draws thousands of visitors from throughout Europe and beyond. This year marked the Festival's 22nd year, as well as the city of Espoo's 550th anniversary, making the event even more noteworthy.

Performers at this year's festival included singer Angelique Kidjo, jazz legends Ron Carter and Pharoah Sanders with their ensembles, and jazz composer Maria Schneider conducting the Espoo Big Band. Sound engineer Tuomo Matikka handled the event's audio using a Meyer Sound system.

The Festival's largest venue, Tapiola Hall at Espoo Cultural Centre, was outfitted with two arrays of 12 M'elodie line array loudspeakers each. Low end was covered by six 700-HP subwoofers configured in cardioid pairs. The main arrays were augmented by two UPA-2P loudspeakers for in-fills and eight MM-4 mi

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UK - APR Audio has placed an order for Electro-Voice's new XLD and XLE compact line array cabinets to add to its already extensive EV inventory, becoming the first rental company in the UK to offer all five of EV's professional sound reinforcement systems.

Now the largest Electro-Voice systems rental house in the UK, APR first adopted the X-Array concert sound technology in 2000, two years later, buying into EV's line array concepts, first with X-Line and then with XLC systems. With this latest purchase of 24x EV XLD281 and 12x XLE181 compact cabinets, APR is intending to service its growing interest in touring musicals and cabaret-style one-off shows, which play in town theatres where audience sizes are generally less than 1500.

APR's owner Andy Reed is also a partner in new company R2 Digital, which owns the rights to a number of touring productions and supplies production s

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UK - Specialist design and printing company Sunbaba launched their new 'Block Out' material at this year's ABTT theatre show, 10th - 11th June.

Sourcing creative and innovative solutions for the theatres and production teams, Sunbaba's portfolio of materials are used for drapes, scenery and set designs across professional and amateur dramatics.

The new Block Out material allows its users to create two different images, one a printed image and the other a backlit silhouette. The material is first printed with the images that are to be rear blocked, then tested on a light box to ensure the image backlights perfectly, creating silhouette images when night falls.

Sunbaba's technical director, Trevor booth explains: "Block Out is a revolutionary solution that will be ideal to create theatre backdrops. We can use this technique and material to create 'night and day' effect wi

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USA - Renkus-Heinz will show three new products, including a new live sound line and a second generation version of one of its most successful products, at Infocomm 2008.

Details will be revealed on Day 1 of the show, but will include a major expansion of the successful Iconyx digitally steerable array loudspeaker concept, and a new addition to the popular Sygma series of installation loudspeakers, say the company.

"People have been using Iconyx for a wide variety of applications," says Renkus-Heinz president Harro Heinz. "But we've had intense demand both to expand the technologies it features, and to broaden its application horizons. Our research and development team has also been very active on several other fronts. The pace has been fast here, and we think people will be pretty excited by the developments we will be showing at Infocomm 2008."

(Jim Eva

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China - The National Centre for the Performing Arts, formerly known as the National Grand Theater, Beijing, was recently equipped with MA Lighting technology. The Centre, an ellipsoid dome of titanium and glass surrounded by an artificial lake, seats 6,500 people in three halls and is 200,000m² in size. It was designed by French architect Paul Andreu.

Four grandMA full-size and one grandMA ultra-light are used to control three major performance halls: the Opera House for operas, ballet, and dances (seats 2,416) the Concert Hall (seats 2,017) and the Theatre, for plays (1,040 seats). All grandMA consoles are connected via MA-Net which is based on fibre optical. Besides other fixtures the National Centre for the Performing Arts has got 200 moving lights installed.

ACE - Advanced Communication Equipment provided the lighting equipment. Lighting design was a joint effort by NGT,

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UK - Event services specialist PSL enjoyed such a positive response to its recent open days for customers that it has decided to repeat them, staging four Open Days at its Potters Bar HQ at the beginning of July.

A PSL Open Day provides an opportunity to discuss event production at every level in a calm and unhurried environment, says the company. There's a chance to evaluate the latest technology in the AV presentation industry, such as powerful new tools for visual display in widescreen format and HD projection.

PSL specialist John Montague will be showing visitors how to maximize the impact of their presentation material on a full 20' wide screening area, providing accessible explanations of what cutting-edge content generation devices like the Hippotizer media server can bring to the party.

PSL has been investing heavily in new display equipment, many items of which will

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USA - Four southwestern regional rental production and staging companies have each recently chosen JBL's Vertec line array systems for use in their audio rental business operations. The Dallas headquarters for AVW-Telav (a Freeman company), Ford Audio-Visual Services (Oklahoma City), Gemini Sound (Dallas, Texas), and Backward Audio (Salina, Oklahoma) have each recently selected JBL's new VT4888DP-AN midsize powered line array systems with VT4882DP-AN powered arrayable subwoofers.

While each firm serves different markets and has its own approach to rental sound reinforcement, the establishment of a large common inventory of similar loudspeaker systems provides some significant new options for rental customers in Oklahoma, Texas and beyond, says JBL. A total of 72 new powered midsize JBL Vertec line array elements with 36 supporting powered subwoofers will all now be located withi

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USA - The presentation of the International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) is one of the highlights of the annual Winter Music Conference (WMC) in Florida. The awards single out for recognition the movers, shakers, clubs, and systems setting the pace in the international DJ and dance stakes. Dynacord: was nominated for an IDMA in the 'Best Sound System' category but, with the nominated Pacha club in New York and IDMA-winning Space Miami both boasting Dynacord alpha installations, it topped the Best Club category.

Infinite Audio Systems won the 'Best Sound Installation' category; and the founder and CEO of the Miami-based installation company, Lord Toussaint said, "It is an award that perhaps represents the level at which we are installing nationally, and soon internationally. We are designing and integrating more than audio systems. We are installing 'revenue generating equipmen

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USA - Nexxus Lighting has become an Energy Star Partner. Energy Star is a joint programme of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy that helps consumers save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.

"Based on this new partnership, Nexxus will be testing its new Array Lighting LED lamps to achieve Energy Star certification," stated Zdenko Grajcar, chief technology officer for Nexxus Lighting. "This partnership enforces Nexxus Lighting's commitment and initiatives to increase energy savings for our customers and protect the global environment.

"The guidelines for Energy Star Certification as it relates to solid state lighting (SSL) have been established and by utilising our patent pending Selective Heat Sink (SHS) technology we feel we will not only meet the standards, but exceed them.&

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USA Medialon has introduced several new products to its show and media control range.

Medialon Manager V5 can control any audiovisual equipment using any protocol and network. Being software based it integrates perfectly with IT, opening a wide range of new applications, says the company.

Medialon Manager is hardware independent and connects to controlled devices via industrial hardware as well as conventional AV control hardware such as AMX. Medialon Manager can run in hidden mode where only custom designed interface are visible or in user mode allowing live edition. It comes with free Panel software for custom touch screen design.

Medialon Scheduler is a Windows based application to schedule any type of events programmed with Medialon Manager Show & Media Control software.

Show Control Machine PRO has been designed with critical application in mind and every detail has b

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Ireland - Westlife's Croke Park Stadium show in Dublin was enjoyed by a sold-out live audience of 85,000, with Bandit Lites supplying all onstage lighting.

The band's 2008 show was designed and directed by William Baker, who also designed the set, with the lighting design created by Baz Halpin. On tour and for Croke Park, lighting was operated/directed by Dave Lee.The show was produced by Production North.

The design saw Halpin going very theatrical, 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. This ensured the gaps were filled, and that light could be focussed from all angles right across the performance area for even and balanced coverage.

Upstage, there were six moving trusses, all suspended on two points each. Running on Bandit's own fully

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UK - Live event specialist tdc transformed Sheffield City Hall's ballroom for the final of a Dragon's Den-style student business challenge. The Sheffield-based company provided AV support for the BiG Challenge, a competition designed to encourage and generate enterprise in education.

The event, which forms part of BiG - Make It Your Business, provided 180 teams from 18 schools and two colleges in Sheffield with the chance to pitch for a share of £100,000 to support enterprise in their school, as well as a five day trip to the Harvard Business School in Boston, USA.

Each team of budding entrepreneurs received £25 to start and run their business over a six month period and generate as much profit as possible with the most successful teams making the City Hall final.

More than 20 awards were presented at the event with Myers Grove School taking the ove

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