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USA - Elation Professional's new lightweight, transparent IP65-rated LED video panels have been designed for creating vibrant video screens, curtains and backdrops. The panels are available in three versions: medium-resolution SMD Tri-Color, EVLED 1024SMD (20mm pixel pitch); medium-resolution RGB Discrete LED, EVLED 1024 (18.75mm pixel pitch); and low-resolution RGB Discrete LED, EVLED 256 (37.5 mm pixel pitch).

Suitable for concerts, stages, touring productions and special events, the EVLED panels feature an integrated rigging/hanging system that allows users to easily assemble any size LED video screen, large or small. Up to 16 pieces can be linked on one AC circuit, and as many as 1,000 pieces can be run from one Ethernet video output using Elation's ELED VSC driver (sold separ

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USA - Rock the Bike, a designer and manufacturer of bicycles with an eye on raising the awareness of the "bike culture," has employed JBL PRX portable loudspeakers at several of its live music events, which are run on human power generated on bicycles.

For its live events, Rock the Bike designed a pedal-powered stage, which enables one or many individuals to ride stationary bicycles in place, which in turn power the audio system as the artists perform. "It's been a steady progression to this - most of our performances used to be primarily in the streets and running off battery power," said Paul Freedman of Rock The Bike. "Then we started hooking up with people interested in human power and over the past year, we've put a lot of energy into creating our own pedal-powered stage."

Rock the Bike employs PRX535 speakers for its main sound reinforceme

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UK - The Greenwich + Docklands International Festival returned during the weekend with a spectacular water-themed programme for 2009. The four-day free event featured performances by UK and international artists using water-based interpretations to reflect the identity of Greenwich and East London.

On Saturday evening, the historic Royal Arsenal in Woolwich on the banks of the Thames was transformed by Dutch company Close Act as they performed their Pi-Leau. Pi-Leau was set in a fictional Woolwich submerged by water, following rising sea levels. Part fairytale and part apocalyptic vision, giant structures and stilt performers combined with pyrotechnics to create an experience in which Waterworld collided with The Little Mermaid.

Stage Electrics provided City Colours outdoor architectural floodlights, six towers of 12 PAR cans which lit the main performance area,

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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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UK - It's already been described by organiser Michael Eavis as the "best ever" Glastonbury and for audio rental company RG Jones Sound Engineering it marked the third year in succession in charge of the Pyramid Stage. This year the London based company, a member of the Synco Europe Network, supplied a full Synco package including Synco by Martin Audio W8L Longbow main PA line arrays and Martin Audio delays, a massive Synco cardioid sub-bass array and a complete Synco stage monitoring and drum-fill system.

Yasha Morgenstern, deputy production manager of Glastonbury Festival, commented, "We asked RG Jones to provide a redesigned arena system for the Pyramid Stage, to give better coverage and less overspill in that notoriously difficult arena. We are more than pleased with the result, with many reports of improved arena sound this year. Control, monitors and stage ra

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USA - Element Labs' Stealth LED technology is playing a prominent role on the current Britney Spears tour.

The Stealth displays, supplied by Solotech, are used in two separate circular screens: one screen above centre stage and a smaller circular screen around the elevator. The main circular Stealth screen totals 1,300 panels with a height of 4m and a circumference of 58m. The rigging for the impressive screens was custom-made by Tait.

The Stealth screen is used to show custom-made content developed by Franco Dragone's team under the guidance of Dirk Decloedt. The screen shows animated and stylized images created specifically for each song, which add brightly colourful content enhancing the Circus experience that themes the tour.

Barbara Nelson of Element Labs says: "Stealth has proven itself to be an absolutely fantastic LED product for the concert touring industry. I

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UK/USA - Brighton-based technology consultants Visual Acuity has received two top industry awards for its role in developing the technology for specific areas of the California Academy of Sciences. The company has received recognition by Archi-Tech in the 'Best project over one million USD' category and the overall Grand Prize and Pro AV 'Best Museum' project category.

"This project saw six years of meticulous planning, design, consulting and 'green' engineering and to have our role recognised by leading US trade awards for the California Academy of Sciences is an outstanding achievement. We're also delighted that many of our key partners and friends were also able to join us in celebrating the award wins at InfoComm," says Blair Parkin, managing director at Visual Acuity.

"These partners included the California Academy of Sciences as well as Thinc

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Russia - Two years ago the city of Ryazan, 180km south-east of Moscow, embarked on a series of major arts venue refurbishments as part of a self-proclaimed Year of Culture. Coinciding with the start of the world's current financial tempest, the fact that these projects have all largely been successfully completed is a matter of some civic pride. That it hasn't all been plain sailing will come as no surprise, but from what quarter these choppy waters emerged was unexpected. "Unfortunately the new sound system was so good we had to re-record all our tracks due to high noise levels that we had previously been unable to hear," commented Semen Grechko, director of the Ryazan Drama Theatre.

Founded in 1787 and originally an Opera House, the theatre converted to drama and musical theatre after a complete rebuild in the early 1960s. The recent refurbishment in the Year of Cult

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China - Software providers Stardraw.com has announced the appointment of Architectural Audio China (AAC) for the exclusive distribution of Stardraw Control throughout China. AAC has its main office in Shanghai with branch offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Shenyang and Nanjing, where each office services 40-50 sales channels (dealers and systems integrators) with a total of 400 channels around China.

AAC is a well-established distributor that already carries a number of pro audio and AV brands, including Peavey's MediaMatrix, Architectural Acoustics, Crest Audio and Opson International.

"AAC is an excellent fit for us," confirmed Stardraw's marketing director, Rob Robinson. "They take a system-based approach and deal with some huge projects: Beijing Airport Olympic terminal; Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport; the Shanghai Railway

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UK - For two days every year, Ravensbourne College in Kent stages its annual broadcasting event, Rave On Air. The college has some notable ex students including Stella McCartney, Bruce Oldfield and Darren Woolfson, now group director of technology at Pinewood Studios.

Adrian Curtis, VP of Sales for Soundcraft Studer said: "We were contacted by the college to help them with a console for a mixture of live and broadcast applications, given the breadth of requirements they had, we loaned them our flagship Vista 5 SR to cope with these demands."

Rave On Air is an entirely student-led event with over five hours of live programming broadcast over the internet and local digital terrestrial television channels (800 and 801). Attended by broadcasting and creative industry professionals including BBC, Endemol and Channel 4, this graduate showcase gives Ravensbour

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Italy - RCF has announced the appointment of Alessandro Barbieri as the new sales area manager for the Far East.

Barbieri is no stranger to travel, having previously worked as area manager for other Italian companies in Asia, Africa, Middle East and Europe.

Commenting on his appointment Barbieri said, "I feel that I'm joining RCF at very pivotal time, both for the group itself and the high level of products that they are manufacturing."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - As well as an extensive PA system, RG Jones Sound Engineering has also installed the Ampetronic induction loop system to meet DDA requirements and ensure the enjoyment of its hard of hearing members and visitors to Wimbledon's All England Club.

"Outside of the two week Championships - when we are continually on site monitoring the courtside PA, umpires microphones and so forth - there are requirements from the Club to use parts of the system throughout the year," explains RG Jones's Jon Berry. "The main areas that are used are the Centre Court facilities, which include a range of bars and restaurants. These are used for private functions and it's in some of these that we've installed the loop systems."

There are seven spaces covered by the loops, and these are situated either next to or on top of each other. "It was quite a mission," says Ber

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Germany - The new Mamba 2.0 laser show software has been released. Mamba 2.0 has been "drastically changed in the internal code, but stays the same in the user interface, for full downwards compatibility". Many code segments have been rewritten and replaced by new and fast code. Many new powerful features have been added, including an entirely new look to the multiple user interface skins. The user has the ability to chose from more than 50 predefined skins, while the basic layout of Mamba stays the same.

The new DMX features allows the user to place unlimited events on the timeline. Each event controls up to 16 DMX channels at the same time, each timeline holds maximum of 512 channels, and can be routed to any MediaLas USB interface that is connected to the computer. This means 512 channels PER interface.

DRC will check your show for any inconsistancy, collisions of

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USA - Mackie has announced the winner of the 20 Years Running Contest. Marking Mackie's 20th anniversary, the contest encouraged Mackie customers worldwide to submit product stories, photos and videos highlighting their jaw-dropping experiences with Mackie gear over the years. Entrants had a chance to win a new Mackie live sound system featuring the new HD High-Definition Powered Loudspeakers.

"We're always stoked to hear about the beatings our gear survives, but some of these contest stories were totally insane," said John Boudreau music gear group VP at Loud Technologies. "We had fun going through all of the entries, but the final decision was tough - especially when you get stories like a VLZ surviving a dishwasher's pots and pans cycle. But we had to give the winning prize to Badger Koon with his 'muddy' disaster story - check it out on our contest page

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UK - Sound engineer Walter Jaquiss recently joined forces with Adlib Audio and Lighting for the latest John Barrowman tour and two Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles were used for the production.

Production used two Soundcraft Vi6 consoles, run in 96-channel V3.0 mode, which Jaquiss filled with around 80 inputs, 56 of which were stage alone, including guest vocals and assorted media. "The Vi6 is a brilliant desk, great sounding and with a very small footprint for this style of tour," he comments. The existing console was upgraded to 96 channels via an additional DSP card, while the sound engineer immediately identified the advantages of the latest software release.

"With both desks upgraded to V3 software, along with the increase in channels, the snapshot and scoping functions had been improved as well. This has now made it a totally usable function of the console

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Belgium - The ADB Svoboda Batten, best known for its role in theatre, opera and live music productions, has had a major role in the production of a new psychological thriller from film director Anthony Waller.

Nine Miles Down, set for release next year, is set in an experimental deep-crust drilling station in a remote and sandstorm-blown region of the Sahara Desert, the movie opens with Thomas 'Jack' Jackman (Adrian Paul), a security patrolman, battling through the storm to discover why all contact with the station has been lost.

A disused champagne factory in Budapest provided a suitably atmospheric location for filming, but wasn't without its challenges, as director of photography Roger Simonsz explains: "We were going to shoot all the interiors in studios in Hungary, but there were a lot of other shoots going on there at the same time, so we settled for the fact

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UK - The prestigious V&A Museum in London has been chosen to host the launch of the first edition of the International Festival of Scenic Arts, an international event celebrating contemporary stage, set and costume design. The world's largest museum of design and decorative arts will play host to a series of talks and presentations by world-class design practitioners of stage design, costume design, video design and 3D animation, scenography and lighting design.

The world's largest museum of design and decorative arts plays host to a series of talks and presentations by world-class design practitioners the calibre of William Dudley, British stage designer, costume designer, video designer and 3D animator, who has most recently designed the sets and costumes for the Broadway musical The Woman in White, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber. He is joined by lighting designer Rick

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UK - In the old days you simply "stuck a strip of white gaffer on the case, wrote on it with your marker pen and loaded the case on the truck"

As often occurs, a chance conversation at a trade show in 1989 between Stuart Gibbons - Le Mark's MD and a Customer led to the invention of the now well travelled, reusable Flight Case or Road Case Label. "Correctly termed a PAL (Plastic Adhesive Laminate) Label, these ultra heavy duty customized 'stick and forget' items have become the label equivalent of a 'sticky work horse" quotes Stuart."Simple yes, underrated perhaps, however they are highly effective at getting specific Entertainment Industry items preped', packed, shipped and arriving on the right (or left) part of a stage," says the company.

"There are now very few Country's that we have not at some time built and shipped our case labels too.

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UK - A grandMA full-size is controlling moving lights and LED elements for the London West End production of Sister Act. The show, produced by Stage Entertainment and Whoopi Goldberg, has just opened at the London Palladium.

Natasha Katz is the lighting designer. When she asked Stuart Porter to programme the show for her - the two have previously worked together on Beauty & The Beast - Porter wanted to use a grandMA system, a decision Katz was happy to support. Porter has increased his specification of the grandMA, and on this show he uses a grandMA full-size, a grandMA light for backup and four MA NSPs. A tablet PC running grandMA remote software is also used to run the lights from stage.

The rig contained over 100 moving lights - a mix of 62 Vari*Lite VL3500Qs, 60 VL2500s and 18 VL500s, all supplied by White Light. The many LED elements are ensconced in the set

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UK - A massive Anolis architectural LED lighting installation has been completed by A.C. Special Projects at London's iconic Somerset House venue. This was designed by Patrick Woodroffe, who was commissioned by Somerset House's director Gwyn Miles.

Woodroffe's brief was to transform the night time ambience of the Edmond J Safra Fountain Court - the hub of the neoclassical building - with a warm white illumination on the facades. Additionally, utilising RGBA fixtures, Woodroffe introduced the potential to bathe the buildings in a rich medley of colours, adding a theatrical dimension for corporate and themed events.

Somerset House hosts a wide variety of special events and a lively programme of public entertainment throughout the year - including live music concerts, ice skating, presentations, product launches and parties.

Once the contract for the supply and installation was

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France - An Outline loudspeaker system made up of Doppia II point source enclosures has been chosen as the sound reinforcement system for Théâtre National de Strasbourg.

A member of the UTE (Union of Theatres of Europe), the TNS has had the status of "National Theatre" since 1972 and is the only one of the five theatres with this classification outside the French capital.

With up to 20 productions per season and approximately 200 performances per year, it offers a busy and varied programme. The TNS hosts a permanent theatre company, the Ecole Supérieure d'Art dramatique drama school and two halls for shows.This set-up is completed by the Studio Kablé, with two supplementary halls, rehearsal and work rooms and administration facilities, as well as scenography and costume workshops.

The TNS hosts four permanently installed Doppia II 9075 systems

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UK - Opened by Queen Victoria in 1859 as a national memorial to the Duke of Wellington, Wellington College in Berkshire is currently celebrating its 150 anniversary. The college has organised a series of commemorative events throughout the year, many of which feature Turbosound equipment supplied by Subfrantic Production Services.

Speech Day and the Summer Prom are always the two most important dates in its yearly calendar and both were reinforced by Subfrantic's Turbosound Aspect rig.

"The system for Speech Day had to cover about 2,000 people, but there was no option to fly the rig so we had to use a ground stacked system," says Subfrantic operations manager Sean Murphy.

"As the audio programme was predominantly speech, plus choral and classical music, it wasn't a bass-heavy production so we put in six TA-890L and 12 TA-890H, rotating the mid-high section of

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