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Serbia - Rental company Studio Berar supplied over 100 Robe moving light fixtures for lighting the main and dance stages at the 2008 Exit Festival, held in the picturesque Petrovaradin fortress of Novi Sad, Serbia.

The production design for the 35,000 capacity main stage was created by Studio Berar's Marko Maleševi?. It was based on the need to have a flexible rig that would work for all artists including those bringing their own LDs. Maleševi? also lit several bands playing at the event including Gogol Bordelo, Juliet & The Licks, Manu Chao and others.

The Studio Berar team installed a trussing grid, below the 25m wide, 14m deep roof which offered an impressive 18m of headroom. The moving lights - 20 Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs and 50 Robe ColorWash 575E ATs - were arranged acros

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UK - Vanguardia Consulting, the Surrey-based acousticians, sound system designers and noise control specialists, have been working hard this summer with the country's leading promoters to simplify their compliance with event licence requirements for environmental noise.

Using the latest purpose-designed wireless monitoring systems, Vanguardia's teams have been monitoring sound levels at multiple points of events accurately and cost-effectively, from the iconic Nelson Mandela show in Hyde Park for Live Nation to the UK's newest concert venue, Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands, Surrey, for Marshall Arts.

Vanguardia, whose teams, headed by John Staunton and Jim Griffiths, act as the liaison between promoters and local authorities over the control of environmental noise. "Both Jim Griffiths and myself founded Vanguardia to bring to promoters and venues a 'can do' attitude - w

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UK - Following extensive testing and evaluation of L-Acoustics new Kudo speaker system, SSE Audio Group has taken delivery of 32 cabinets powered by 24 LA8 amps, plus associated control, which have already been utilised at live events this summer.

SSE operations director Spencer Beard comments, "Kudo is much more compact than V-DOSC and we have been impressed with its power and flexibility. The interesting aspect of this system is that the horizontal dispersion of the array can be changed and therefore optimized to suit each environment by using the inbuilt louvers to tailor the dispersion.

"The ability to ground stack or fly the system also adds to its versatility and gives us the opportunity to use it in a range of applications. So far it's been out with Mark Ronson as PA, and has been used as out- hangs at festivals, including Download and T4."

System tech

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

Details
USA - Technomad Associates has added brown to its library of custom colours for its range of weatherproof loudspeakers. The company now offers a total of 14 UV-stabilized colours that do not fade in sunlight outdoors, and remain protected from indoor contact due to the loudspeakers' rugged, durable structures, says the company.

The brown colour was added to the library by request from Technomad contractors and end users looking for loudspeaker colours to blend in with wood and earthen environments. The rich brown colour is intended for zoos, hotels, public walks and other tourist attractions for background music, entertainment and public safety applications.

(Jim Evans)

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Switzerland - The sixth Annual Shure/Montreux Jazz Voice Competition concluded on 9 July with German singer Sabine Kuehlich receiving first prize. The second and third place winners were Americans Liela Avila and Amy Crawford.

Jazz vocalist Patti Austin headed the competition jury, which judged the quality of the singers' vocals, the originality of the interpretations of their songs, their improvisational skills, and their stage presence. Kuehlich scored highly in all areas and impressed the audience with her dynamic performance of Chick Corea's,You're Everything and two of her own original compositions.

The three finalists were chosen from a group of 13 semi-finalists. Each singer was accompanied for their performance by Swiss musicians Jean-Pierre Schaller (bass), Cyril Regamey (drums), and Peter Wagner (piano).

The three finalists each received a Shure ULX Wireless

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Germany - On 20 July, the biggest LED video screen ever used at a major motor racing event - and one of the largest systems ever supplied by G-LEC - was installed at Hockenheim Ring.

In cooperation with Hockenheim Ring, host of Formula 1 Santander Grand Prix, the massive 300sq.m screen provided spectators in the Innen Tribüne - the long stand inside the track, where spectators were up to 400m from the screen - with a television view of the race, something that would have been impossible with a standard high resolution screen.

Using 299 Phantom30 frames, the 23m wide x 13m deep screen is thought to be the largest LED screen ever used at such a major motor racing event. Built specifically for the occasion, the screen needed to be easy to construct and de-rig, but also needed to present extremely low wind resistance. Indeed the pre-race days saw strong winds and torrential rain,

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The Netherlands / UK - Under the leadership of Mecanoo Architects from Delft, the Netherlands, a Dutch design team has won the international competition for the prestigious new Birmingham Library project, which includes a theatre.

The building is slated to be the "best public library in the world" and will have an area of about 31,000sq.m. The new library and theatre will be connected to the existing Birmingham Repertory Theatre, with which it will begin an extensive collaboration, making the site an international centre for knowledge, education and culture.

theateradvies bv is one of the team members and will work on the new theatre as well as the renovation of the existing Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2013.

(Lee Baldock)

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Australia - ARX Systems has confirmed the appointment of Starlike Oy as its new distributor for Finland.

ARX managing director Colin Park says: "The Finnish market has always been an important one for ARX, especially for our signal distribution and interface products, which have always been very popular with audio professionals. We're looking forward to working with Pauli Molnár and his team at Starlike Oy to develop the market for ARX products further."

Starlike's sales manager Pauli Molnár adds: "ARX's excellent range of products complement our comprehensive line up perfectly. In addition to the superb audio quality I'm very impressed by the strong build quality, brilliant features and the intuitive user interfaces of these tools. Speaking of which there's one for every job in the ARX line."

"ARX has a number of innovative new products slated for

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UK - System integration specialist Sysco has completed an extensive audio-visual installation in a new visitor attraction, the Root Zone at RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey.

Housed in the spectacular surroundings of the award-winning, world-class Wisley Glasshouse, developed by the Royal Horticultural Society, the new Root Zone - the UK's first - is an innovative interactive area where visitors can learn about roots and the vital role they play.

Located in a cavern within the Glasshouse, the Root Zone's displays help all visitors learn about the interrelation between plants, plant health and what takes place underground.

The Root Zone's exhibit co-ordinator, Nicky Evans, the Society's first principal science education officer says, "You really do feel as if you are underground here, with technology re-creating and explaining roots and their functions. The lighting is low, an

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UK - Heavy rockers Def Leppard and Whitesnake specified Mojo Barriers crowd safety facilities for their latest UK tour. Mojo Barriers supplied 50m of its aluminium barrier system as well as barrier corner units which allowed the barrier to entirely surround the bespoke stage shape.

Leon van der Velden was Mojo Barriers' project manager, responsible for planning and installing the barrier system at the bands' 10 UK shows.

He said: "Def Leppard and Whitesnake are obviously two big artists for one line-up. So, with enthusiastic arena crowds, they were keen to work to the highest possible safety standards. This was a very well organised tour, with production manager Rocko Reedy switching between the UK tour indoor venues and outdoor European festivals. At this busy time of year, logistics were all spot on."

(Jim Evans)

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The Netherlands - Amsterdam's Olympic Stadium was the venue for the SPAR athletics championships in July. To provide complete, consistent audio coverage across the venue, PB Events, which specialises in sporting venues -supported here by Electro-Voice partner E-Audio Benelux - deployed a large number of EV XLC-127DVX line-array loudspeaker systems.

"For large-scale sporting events," says Axel Nagtegaal, MD, E-Audio Benelux, "this is a typical setup that has proved highly effective. The level of intelligibility achieved by the Electro-Voice XLC-127 DVX systems here was simply unparalleled. Spectators could literally make out every word of the commentary. Despite the cold and drizzle, the event was an enormous success."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Held in London's ExCel at the end of May, Toyota Motor Europe's recent European Retailer Meeting attracted around 3,000 delegates at each show on 29 and 31 May from Toyota's European retailer network and taking over the majority of ExCel - the North Hall of which alone spans 32,250sq.m - it was divided into three areas, straddling the main Boulevard and running from Halls 9 to 16.

On arrival, the delegates entered a plenary area, which was configured as an arena. Along one side, two, two- column MiTRIX screens flanked three projection screens and two, four- column sections of MiTRIX, the latter tracking sideways to reveal the vehicles. These showed a combination of still and moving images, produced by software producer Sharon Stansfield, to complement and augment video imagery provided by Toyota, including an opening sequence featuring a swimmer being chased from one screen

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UK - PLASA Media has revealed this year's short-listed nominees for the prestigious Gottelier Award, and opened up the online voting form at the PLASA Show website.

The voting is open to industry professionals worldwide, and will remain open until 12.00 midday (UK time) on Friday 29 August 2008. The winner will be announced at the PLASA Show on Monday 8 September.

Named in honour of the late designer, developer and commentator Tony Gottelier, this award aims to recognise the tireless product developers who have made a significant contribution to the development of the equipment and tools that enable our entertainment technology practitioners to continually push the boundaries of event production, presentation and installation.

Last year's inaugural Award was won by Tony Andrews of Funktion One for his decades of dedi

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China - To ensure optimal communications during the Olympic Games in Beijing, China, RTS has hand-configured a huge rackmount array, or "RIB", with the latest intercom equipment. The RIB will serve as the worldwide communications centre for one of RTS' major broadcast clients at the Olympic Games, thus allowing instant contact between the customer's Olympic broadcast operations, headquarters, and any number of remote locations.

RVON VoIP technology and RTS Intelligent Trunking Components make it possible for the RIB's 600 potential users in Beijing to seamlessly connect with over 30 of the broadcaster's matrix frames worldwide.

RTS Intercom systems are designed to scale for even the largest of system requirements. From simple two-wire partylines to trans-global RVON VoIP-based digital matrices, RTS has a customized system for the job. The communications RIB for the B

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UK - Alpha Beam 1500 is a new 1500W concept beam moving light that produces a super-concentrated and super-powerful parallel light beam for use with a "very long throw aircraft landing light effect", an ever- present at all the great shows in stadiums and arenas, but with new graphic, chromatic and movement features.

Alpha Beam 1500 is ultra bright and eco-friendly; thanks to the new special Clay Paky optical group, it produces a much greater brightness than lights of the same power, achieving projection distances reached only by lights of thousands of watts, but with the energy consumption of a 1500W light bulb. This enables it to be used instead of considerably larger projectors, with enormous savings in energy, says the company.

Alpha Beam 300 is the only 300W beam moving light on the market able to release an aircraft landing light effect from a powerful, light a

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USA - Prototype 'White Spaces' devices will be tested by engineers from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Saturday 9 August at FedExField near Washington, D.C., at a preseason exhibition game between the National Football League's Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills.

Starting at 10:00am and continuing through 8:00pm ET, the period of observation and analysis will assess the ability of the proposed devices to detect the presence of television signals, wireless microphones, and other existing wireless technologies.

Seating 91,704 people, FedExField is the largest stadium in the NFL. Of specific interest to the FCC, during this real-world test the stadium will become a very complex and large venue for wireless RF activity including microphones, two-way radios, communication systems used by the coaching staff of each team, and interruptible foldback (IFB) intercoms

Details
Denmark - DPA Microphones is giving visitors to its stand at IBC 2008 the opportunity to win a 4017 shotgun mic. The mic can be won by simply showing up at stand number 8.D90 and getting your visitors' badge scanned.

The DPA 4017 was launched at last year's IBC, when there was an initial competition to win one of the mics. German cameraman Thomas Ebner was the lucky winner, and has been using his 4017 for the past year for projects including ENG work and some classical music productions in HD."

And DPA giveaways at IBC don't stop with the 4017. The company's new mobile surround sound solution is being put through its paces in a table football game to emulate a sports environment, with all players entered into a draw to win one of the new mobile surround sound systems.

(Jim Evans)

Details
UK - Following its acquisition of the SADiE brand, Prism Sound has completed its purchase of SADiE's former headquarters, where it is now consolidating its entire operation.

Based in the Cambridgeshire village of Stretham, The Old School House began life as a Victorian village school but in recent years it has been transformed into an award-winning building, specifically designed to meet the needs of a modern high-tech organisation while retaining much of its original character.

The Old School House has a fully equipped demo facility where customers can test both Prism Sound and SADiE products. It also houses offices and R&D facilities for both brands.

Graham Boswell, sales director of Prism Sound, says: "When we acquired SADiE we also began negotiations to buy The Old School House because we saw this as the perfect base for both brands. The facilities are ideal and hav

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UK - After being on tour for six months, Foo Fighters performed three UK stadium shows - two at Wembley and one at The City of Manchester to a combined audience of 230,000.

Production designer, Nathan Wilson, was tasked with the duty of simultaneously designing, programming and building the two separate stadium shows while still nailing the touring version nightly.

A joint effort by XL Touring Video Los Angeles, XL Touring Video London and XL Video Belgium was launched to produce not only the fabrication, but the extensive LED requirements and labour to execute the massive shows in support of Nathan Wilson. The Wembley show incorporated over 5000 individual MiTrix panels divided up into three different screen configurations. 3000 MiTrix were in a circular screen above the stage, above that was a roof surround screen with 300 MiTrix and 750 MiTrix were configured into four zipp

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USA - YLS Lasers of Los Alamitos, California was awarded the contract to provide a substantial amount of laser equipment for The Who's performance at the recent VH1 Rock Honors at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles.

YLS creative team Marty Canavan, Steve Campbell and Scott Cunningham worked closely with The Who's lighting designer, Tom Kenny, to deliver a myriad of hall filling laser effects from the first note of the band's signature piece, Baba O'Riley.

"We utilized three high power YAG laser projectors, five fiber optic-fed remote scanners, three table scanners and over thirty stage mirror placements to give Tom and The Who what they were looking for, which was a big old school laser effect," explains Canavan. "The most challenging thing in an environment like this with several band and set changes leading up to The Who's performance is keeping eve

Details
UK - Avistar's C3 desktop videoconferencing solutions are now available through UK distributor Touchline Video.

Darren Innes, general manager, worldwide sales, Avistar, said: "Interest in the UK is high for videoconferencing in general and desktop solutions in particular. The costs of time, travel, and fuel, along with an overall demand to reduce environmental impact, are driving the demand. Touchline, already a well-known name and large distributor for quality brands such as LifeSize, has opened a new avenue to get Avistar's proven desktop technology into the hands of customers."

Barry Cross, managing director for Touchline Video, said: "Savvy users want a proven solution with the bells and whistles needed for videoconferencing on the desktop and connection to their larger room installations."

(Jim Evans)

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