Details
Spain - D.A.S. has launched the Aero 12A compact line array system which joins the Aero Series family of professional sound touring products. The system incorporates an impressive battery of high tech. The latest in Class D power amplification, digital signal processing and optimized D.A.S. components have been combined with enclosures designed for rapid deployment, precise coverage and high acoustic output.

The Aero 12A's 600 W amplifier employs third generation Class D technologies providing extended bandwidth, improved dynamic range and exceptionally low distortion. The impressively compact and lightweight amplifier design requires much less space, reducing the overall cabinet size and in turn, the total cabinet weight.

Signal processing is accomplished by way of a powerful 2

Details
Germany - To mark the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the South-African/British violinist Daniel Hope organised a benefit concert on 9 November 2008 to raise money for the Freya von Moltke Foundation. German and international artists such as Thomas Quasthoff, Hélène Grimaud, Max Raabe, Menahem Pressler and Till Brönner took the stage beneath a banner that read, Do Something!. Klaus Maria Brandauer gave a reading from texts by Goethe and the book Kristallnacht by Martin Gilbertbrought.

The memorial concert, presided over by the German foreign minister Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, took place in the recently closed Tempelhof Airport. Responsibility for the sound reinforcement in the 800-seat Departures Hall, which, due to its sheer size posed a considerable challenge, fell to the Berlin events service provider TSE AG.

FOH engineer Nils Uthoff and monitor

Details
USA - Described by Billboard magazine as 'the thoroughly modern American band,' 3 Doors Down has enjoyed great success after bursting onto the rock music scene in 2000 with their hit single Kryptonite. Since then, the band has toured extensively to a larger audience and is currently on the road across the US beneath a Martin rig.

Handling lighting design for the band for the past seven years is Matt Mills, an industry lighting veteran with years of lighting experience under his belt from large national and international tours, television shows, major corporate events and more.

For their current outing, which sees the Mississippi-based band touring across the US through the summer, Mills has again turned to a Martin lighting rig. "I have used all these fixtures on corporates as well as other tours I have done," he stated. "I have always spec'd Marti

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
Czech Republic - On his historic first visit to Europe, American President Obama made only one public speech - addressing a crowd of 30,000 (and a global TV audience running into many millions) in the striking surroundings of Prague's medieval castle. The White House demanded a sound reinforcement system that would ensure that every single syllable of his speech could be clearly heard - delivered by PA company RentalPro and a main PA of Nexo Geo T, delay systems of Geo S12 and fills of Geo D.

Speaking on the future of mankind, Barack Obama stood on a dramatic stage in the Hrad?anske nám?stí, the area outside Prague's famous castle which overlooks the city. The White House communications team brought along the President's podium and microphones, but everything else for the show - from stage to screens to flower arrangements - was provided by RentalPro, one of the largest rental

Details
South Africa - Gearhouse South Africa's Cape Town branch supplied technical production design, complete technical infrastructure including lighting, sound, AV, staging and power, plus 40 crew for the three main stages at the 2009 Cape Town International Jazz Festival.

GHSA has serviced the event since its inception in 2000. In that time, it's grown in stature and profile to become one of the most important dates on the Jazz calendar today, attracting a live audience of 60,000 plus across the two days.

Staged at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, the event was co-ordinated for GHSA by international sales manager Philip Beardwood in the office, and on site by project manager Theo van As.

Says Beardwood, "Having worked on an event for many years and seeing it evolve has been a great experience and given us real insight into the event and how the production valu

Details
UK - Digital media, lighting and solutions specialist Projected Image Digital hosts two informal open days next week - on 22 and 23 April - at its west London training and demonstration space.

Individuals and companies working in all areas of digital media and lighting are welcome to attend - and the event is particularity relevant to those interested in media servers, lighting consoles, projection systems, LED screens and digital lighting fixtures. The Open Days are a great opportunity for professionals industry-wide to get up to speed with the latest developments in this fast-moving and evolving technology, says the company.

Products on show will include the new Catalyst Lapcat - a fully portable package with all the power of the Catalyst digital media server contained in a 15 inch Mac Book Pro with solid state 128Gb hard drive. This runs Catalyst Lite software and all its f

Details
UK - AV integration and engineering company, Ashdown AV chose two AQUiVO outdoor weatherproof screens to scare and excite riders on Thorpe Park's new rollercoaster, SAW - The Ride.

As theme parks continuously create new white knuckle rides to keep visitors returning for more, the world's first ever horror movie-themed rollercoaster, SAW - The Ride, opened at Thorpe Park this March using the latest technology to transform the idea into a reality.

The novel idea to base a ride on the most popular horror film franchise in history, SAW, and give visitors a spine chilling experience required the expertise of the Ashdown AV team, who were approached to create an integrated sound, video, lighting and effects control system for the ride. Project manager Peter Roe began the planning phase in November 2008, specifying the equipment required and designing the ride's

Details
UK - The CSS installation team has had a busy winter, completing lighting and sound installation at Newent Community School, St Edwards School, University of Gloucestershire's University Chapel and Barnwood Park Arts College.

Newent School wanted to upgrade the dimmer capability to 24 channel, and digital patching unit. A new 63Amp 3-phase mains and a Strand Wall rack 24 to distribute to seven lighting bars, along with four Robe 250AT moving heads was provided.

An extensive sound, lighting and video installation at St Edward's Senior School in Cheltenham. covers two interconnecting drama studios both of which can operate independently, or in conjunction with each other. The equipment included Selecon lanterns, Strand 6-pack dimmer, Zero88 Jester desks, Electro-voice SxA100+, Allen and Heath Mix Wizard desks and BSS FCS-966 graphics and radio microphones. A Christie Digital LX4

Details
UK - Manchester-based rental staging company, A to V, has dipped into its new fleet of Christie Roadster HD10K-M 3-chip DLP projectors to help stage a major product launch for production company Livenet's client, Bosch Home Appliances.

Held at the International Centre, Telford, the event was designed to showcase the company's new 2009 built-in cooking range, with over 300 major appliances on display, along with many smaller items.

The event's producer and MD of Livenet, Peter Lindsey-Jones, was reportedly delighted with the brightness and clarity of the projected images. "The audience were so close to the four screens that initially we had concerns about the image quality, but these concerns proved to be completely unjustified," he said.

A to V fielded four of their six HD10K-M projectors, fitted with 2.6-4.1:1 zoom lenses. "We had been looking for some time t

Details
UK - PixelRange has announced the appointment of Paul Young as business development manager. Young will play an integral role in the commercial direction of both PixelRange and JTE future business development.

Young states: "I am delighted to join PixelRange, and I am convinced that this is the right time and role to take my career to the next level. The current products are market leaders - and quite simply, with the new products they are poised to launch, it was impossible not to jump at the opportunity to take this role. We are all here excited at the immediate and long term future."

Young brings 15 years industry experience to this new position, covering not only a variety of roles, but the entire spectrum of lighting products - from truss to the most sophisticated lighting control systems.

JTE director John Hickinbotham states: "We know Paul very well and

Details
UK - For The Prodigy's Invaders Must Die world tour, lighting and visuals designer Andy Hurst has created one of their most exciting and memorable shows to date, utilising 32 i-Pix BB4 LED fixtures.

A selection of LED lighting products feature in his design, of which the BB4s are prominent. They are mounted in eight custom built floor frames - carefully spaced out between Atomic strobes in the same frames - which form the lower part of Hurst's multi-layered design.

Hurst chose BB4s for their brightness and because he likes the softness of the light output. "A lot of LED sources are harsh and intrusive... And I wanted something refined that was nice and easy to look at." The BB4s blast right into the audience at eye level, reaching out and beaming the vibes and spirit from stage to auditorium.

Hurst test drove the original prototype BB4s (BB16s) at the Isle o

Details
The Netherlands - In early 2007, JVH gaming contacted Dutch systems integrator, Hecla Professional Audio & Video Systems BV, to talk about promotional screens for an outlet of its Jack's Casino brand at the new Dukenburg shopping centre in the Dutch town of Nijmegen. This was to be completed in early 2009 and had to adhere to many stringent requirements.

"The architect designed the building with a number of areas on the exterior walls that the retail outlets in Dukenburg can rent for advertising purposes," explains Hecla's new business manager, Jos den Hartog. "JVH believed that LED screens were the perfect visual medium for two of these areas, with one screen situated next to the main entrance of the centre and opposite the bus and train station, whilst the other is close to the busiest roundabout in Nijmegen. Both are ideal for maximum exposure."

However,

Details
UK - Front of house engineer Robbie McGrath used a Midas PRO6 live audio system for Kasabian's Royal Albert Hall performance in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. The concert, plus three warm up shows, was recorded onto a Klark Teknik DN9696 hard disk recorder. Support band The Hours was also mixed on a PRO6, with a third on stage for monitors. All equipment was provided by Entec Sound and Light.

This was the first time McGrath has used Midas digital, and to reassure himself it could provide all the familiar characteristics of the company's analogue boards, he carried out some A/B testing prior to spec'ing the PRO6.

"I wanted to find out how much of the Midas analogue sound had been captured and transferred into their digital domain, and I was extremely happy to discover that the PRO6 sounds very like the XL4," he says. "The EQ reacts like EQ should - as you choos

Details
USA - Recently designated as an official New York City landmark, Webster Hall has served as one of Manhattan's premier live music venues for well over 120 years. In 2005, the nightclub made a leap forward in terms of production values by installing a full L-Acoustics dV-Dosc loudspeaker system in its 1,400-capacity Grand Ballroom located on the second floor. Based on that system's success, Webster Hall has once again turned to L-Acoustics, this time to outfit its intimate 300-capacity basement venue known as The Studio @ Webster Hall.

Kevin Mignone of Island Park-based KM Productions was brought in to design and install The Studio's system, which now benefits from three ARCS per side flown in a horizontal array and powered by two LA4 amplified controllers. Four SB28 subwoofers, driven by a single LA8, are positioned end-to-end behind a sturdy steel grille under the front lip of

Details
Germany - Marie Antoinette is the latest stage musical by Germany's popular and successful writing team Sylvester Levay and Michael Kunze. The show's spring European premiere at the Musical Theatre Bremen featured a "source-oriented reinforcement" approach by sound designer Athanasios Rovakis', controlled by an automatic actor tracking and panning system: TiMax Tracker and the TiMax delay matrix from Outboard UK.

16 actors wore miniature radar-frequency UWB transmitter TT Tags which were tracked by six TT Sensors installed around the stage and the auditorium. The TiMax Tracker software used an automatic calibration routine to instantaneously map the stage area in three dimensions based on some simple measured Sensors location data. Thereafter the system followed the actors' movements around stage and sent this information via MIDI to the TiMax showcontrol softwa

Details
Norway - projectiondesign has supplied three of its DLP projectors to Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda for use in the major retrospective of his work.

Best-known as Japan's leading composer of electronic music, Ikeda uses both sound and visual imagery to produce intensely physical experiences for his audience. His new retrospective is being hosted by Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, which opened on 2 April and will continue to 21 June 2009, is titled '+/- [the infinite between 0 and 1]', and includes new commissions, sound works and large-scale audio visual projections.

Three F32 series will be used to power 'data.tron [3 SXGA+ version]', an expanded edition of Ikeda's floor-to-ceiling screen of art, which seeks to physically overwhelm visitors with a staggering array of binary data such as the numbers 0 and 1.

Ken Sampei, director of Mix Wave, comments: "In today's

Details
Czech Republic - The twelfth edition of the Prague Quadrennial (PQ) will take place in June 2011. The PQ 2011 organisers hope to attract a large number of performance disciplines from theatre and visual arts. In 2007 almost 30.000 visitors and 5.000 active participants visited the PQ 07.

After more than 40 years of existence, the Prague Quadrennial International Exhibition of Scenography and Theatre Architecture is changing its name to the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, with the goal of breaking down the often imaginary differences between the performance fields. "In the next edition we want to include a wider range of disciplines and genres connected to performance design and to observe current trends in contemporary performance," explains Sodja Lotker, artistic director of the PQ. This is also the reason for widening the international team of cur

Details
UK - Paul Weller rocked the O2 Arena in London last week with a set encompassing tracks from his new album, 22 Dreams as well as classics from his extensive back catalogue.

The show's video design was the work of creative director Justine Catterall, who also produced custom content for 12 songs of the set. All the hardware - including MiTrix LED screen, Catalyst control, 2 camera systems, projection and PPU - plus crew were supplied by XL Video, project managed by Des Fallon. Matt Askem directed the live IMAG mix and Stuart Heaney crew chiefed. The playback content was programmed onto two high spec Catalyst digital media servers, operated by Richard Stembridge.

Catterall's design brought a quirky and fragmented look to the stage using 36 panels of MiTrix LED screen arranged at jaunty angles, suspended on three overstage trusses, providing additional depth and dimension

Details
Sweden - The annual EAU (European Association of Urology) congress was held this year in Stockholm, Sweden. As a curtain raiser to the event, the EAU has a history of providing its visitors with a high class classical concert which forms the spectacular opening ceremony. Last year part of the La Scala Theatre Company produced the concert in Milan, and so the 24th Congress in the Swedish capital had a lot to live up to.

Although the venue at the Stockholm International Fair is not ideally suited for a classical event of this nature, with some subtle amplification and careful design of the QSC WideLine-10 line array configuration by sound production and design company, DM Audio (part of EM Nordic AB), the concert was a big success.

Held in the A-1 hall, the 3,500 seats are spread wide across the auditorium, and thus WideLine-10, with its 140° horizontal dispersion characteri

Details
USA - Production designer Daunte Kenner, recently created an explosive show for Lil Wayne's I Am Music World Tour, a collaboration between Kenner and production manager Maceo Price - the brief was to achieve a concept never seen before in hip-hop.

Kenner explains: "We discussed conventional set styles but we agreed none were edgy enough. I proposed the idea of flying the entire five piece band - I thought a completely empty stage prior to Wayne's appearance - would make for a dramatic intro. Maceo loved it, but still wanted to include a complementary basic static set."

The finished product was five 8'x8' risers with clear plexi bottoms flown by a computer controlled system with a stationary ground set to match. The dramatic moving design fabricated by BRS Rigging, incorporated intense flame effects that demanded an entirely grated stage - a rolling 60' wide x

Details
USA - It's been 20 years since Mackie introduced the CR-1604. The company is now marking its 20 years of production by asking Mackoids to submit their Mackie stories and photos or Mackie video.

"We want to hear about your beer-drenched VLZ Pro that still works; the time you dropped your SRM450 off a building by accident and it powered up for your gig the same night; your original CR-1604 you still use religiously; your world-record for the largest collection of Mackie vintage swag; your Running Man tattoo that you had to get to show your devotion for Mackie," said Shaunna Thompson, Mackie media and pr manager.

"Whatever your story, funny or heartfelt, long or short, old school or new school... we want to hear it. Send in a photo too. If you really want to wow us, create a video on You Tube."

The entrant with the best Mackie story, based on creativity, ori

Page 2325 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .