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UK - White Light marked its recent appointment as an approved supplier to London's Natural History Museum by creating a scheme for the venue, showing the possibilities of some of the latest visual technology, transforming a space in support of corporate events, awards ceremonies and corporate hospitality.

White Light's creative designer for this event Jason Larcombe explains: "The Natural History Museum's interior is very responsive to light, and the architecture gives it a great sense of presence. With this in mind guests will feel that they are an important part of a dramatic event."

For this event, the design made use of the new flat Fusion 672 panel in conjunction with other LED products from White Light's inventory. "While the theatrical look created by our v

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Russia - From its aspiring beginnings 54 years ago, the Eurovision Song Contest has become a modern entertainment phenomenon. In May this year, a prime-time television audience in excess of 122 million (a record viewership with an increase of 16% on last year's figures) tuned in to see 42 countries participate.

Stage Technologies provided rental equipment for the spirited opening show, semi-finals and the live final in Moscow's gigantic Olimpiskiy Indoor Arena, which was built for the 1980 Summer Olympics. A combination of point hoist winches and an Illusionist control desk were used to create a number of performer flying effects to captivate a live audience of thousands and a worldwide audience of millions.

Four winches were used for the opening sequence: one winch was rigged in the arena above the audience to fly a performer in a net, two were rigged above the front of the s

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UK - A network cabling system supplied by the AMP NetConnect Business Unit of Tyco Electronics is at the heart of a major infrastructure project at the London headquarters of Sony Music.

The AMP NetConnect XG cabling system forms part of a large-scale project managed and installed by infrastructure specialists Matrix IP, which also encompasses areas such as VoIP, access control, CCTV, video conferencing, wireless networking, IPTV, and uninterruptible power supplies.

Following a reorganisation which involved the integration of the Columbia, RCA and Epic labels among others, Sony Music Entertainment UK has moved from its previous offices in Fulham and Hammersmith, respectively, into new headquarters just off Kensington High Street in London.

Although the Derry Street building, in which Sony Music now occupies two floors out of six, had previously been used for office accommoda

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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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Norway - Every year, a series of events are held in Oslo and its surrounding areas for Norwegian students to celebrate the end of their high school studies. The main meeting point is the town of Tryvann, the region's top ski resort, which is located only 20 kilometres from Oslo city centre.

Tryvann is noted for hosting the music festival named after it, as well as for being the most popular meeting point for the Russ, the name given to students who have finished their last year of Videregående skole and hold massive graduation celebrations during the months of April and May.

This year, Tryvann Festival welcomed around 10,000 people, and included sets by DJs including DJ Klaas, Xzibit, Adam Tensta, DJ Antoine and MC Roby Rob. About 35 large buses - rented by the various student groups - decked out with sound and lights stationed themselves on a gigantic esplanade spanning an a

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Poland - The city of Wroclaw in south west Poland is now home to one of the most ambitious and sophisticated multimedia fountain projects in Europe. Inaugurated on 4 June, the centerpiece of the 20m PLN (4.6 million euro) project is a powerful geyser capable of shooting a water column of up to 30m into the air. Three smaller geysers and a range of dynamic nozzles complete with a water screen, (the first in Poland) are accompanied by a complex lighting, laser and multimedia projection system. The final piece of the puzzle is a powerful PA system driven exclusively by Lab.gruppen's PLM Powered Loudspeaker Management systems supplied by Lab.gruppen's Polish distributor, Music Info.

All audio design, specification and installation were handled by Polish systems integrators, Gorycki and Sznyterman. They specified a total of 13, 4-channel, two rack space PLM 10000Q systems with Lake P

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UK - Allen & Heath's iLive-T digital mixing system has just completed a sell out European tour, managing monitors for PJ Harvey. The system was chosen by monitor engineer, Ben Booker.

In collaboration with John Parish to promote their jointly-credited album, A Woman A Man Walked By, the PJ Harvey tour started in the UK at venues including Brighton's Corn Exchange, the Ritz in Manchester and the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, followed by dates in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and France.

After successfully using Allen & Heath's modular iLive system with Danish pop act, Alphabeat, Booker selected the compact iLive-T system, comprising an iDR-48 MixRack and iLive-T80 Control Surface.

"The small footprint and convenience of iLive-T has made life easy on this tour because we're mostly playing quite small venues. The entire system takes up a mere

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UK - PRG Europe has invested in eight of the new Novalight Nova-Flower 2K flower effects for its rental stock, which have been supplied to the Birmingham and London, UK based company by Lightfactor Sales, Novalight's exclusive UK distributor.

The deal was completed between PRG's Paul Weaver and Lightfactor's Peter Coles. It builds on PRG's previous purchases of Novalight High Grounds in 2006, for the Robbie Williams Close Encounters world tour, followed by their original 1.2K Nova-Flowers, supplied by Lightfactor in 2007.

The Nova-Flower 2K offers all the features and functionality of the 1.2K version with substantially more power and punch, says the company.

Nova-Flower is the first fully programmable moving yoke 'flower effect' with DMX controllable pan, tilt, colour and shutter, plus other standard features. It has CMY mixing, a rotating reflector (in both directio

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China - APG France and its distributor BV Cam used PALM EXPO in Beijing to make a special presentation of the new APG UL210 line array. Ground stacked for the occasion on its new multipurpose bumper, the Line Array was exhibited, allowing visitors to take a close look at it, prior to its installation for a comprehensive presentation with listening tests.

Later, the listening session took place at the Beijing Workers Stadium which has a seating capacity of 70,000, in the presence of a selected panel of 40 sound engineers, system designers, sound hire contractors and installers.

The programme included a theoretical presentation of the UL210, its Isotop technology issues, followed by an outdoor listening session. The system configuration was composed of two clusters with six UL210 each, with low frequency reinforcement managed by the TB218S subs.

(Jim Evans)

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Germany - SPL has updated the look of the channel strips Track One and Channel One. Both units are now available and join the Frontliner, SPL's flagship channel strip, to form the new family of SPL designed products.

The new design features include a horizontally brushed aluminium front panel with the controls seated into new smooth milled rounded openings, the brushed aluminium also has the practical advantage of retaining its classic look for longer as it will repel marks such as finger prints, says the company.

According to SPL, technically nothing has changed, "Over the years, thousands of users have created and experienced amazing results using the Channel One and Track One. So, we see no reason to change these SPL classics, especially as they have been so successfully tried and tested." says SPL's CEO, Hermann Gier.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Despite being less than a year old, the Midas PRO6 live audio system made multiple debuts across the Glastonbury festival this year, joining the XL4 and Heritage packages which retain a familiar and much-requested presence at festivals across the summer.

APR Audio deployed two PRO6s at front of house for the Jazz/World Stage, alongside an H3000 for engineers preferring to use an analogue console. One PRO6 was used for mixing the bands while the second was connected to the stage via AES50 tie-lines. This allowed engineers to practice mixing the live band on headphones prior to moving to the 'hot' PRO6 for their own show, and for APR and Midas staff to demo the console to interested parties.

"We thought the usability and the audio quality of the PRO6 were second to none," says Andy Reed from APR. "Nearly half of the visiting engineers of the acts playing on

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Michael Jackson - Concert promoter Randy Phillips says Michael Jackson's death will not spell the end of his company, AEG Live. "People have speculated that this is going to bankrupt our company," the businessman told Billboard magazine. "The truth is, it isn't." Phillips said insurance was in place to cover Jackson's advance, although insurers may not pay out if the star's death turns out to be drug-related. He added that money could be recouped from footage of the tour rehearsals.

AEG will have to refund up to $85m (£52m) to fans who purchased tickets for Jackson's 50-date residency at London's O2 arena. It is also believed to have spent $23-25m (£14-15m) on production costs. Phillips said those "hard costs" were covered by insurance, although profits were not. Phillips admitted the biggest problem facing AEG at the moment was w

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USA - Shure Incorporated reports that the X2u XLR-to-USB signal adapter is now shipping and is available by itself or in bundles with either the SM57 or SM58 microphones.

"Over the past several years, more and more musicians, both professional and amateur, have taken recording into their own hands at home, on the road, in their bedroom, basement, tour bus, wherever," said Chad Wiggins, Shure's category manager for Wired Microphones. "With this new product, we're bringing the legendary heritage of Shure microphones to every level of performer and home recording artist as the proliferation of digital recording continues."

The X2u adapter is a modular accessory that connects any XLR microphone to a computer to create "better-than-CD quality recordings". As home recording flourishes, the X2u redefines what musicians and podcasters can do in their home

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Spain - In the city of Tudela, in northern Spain, all the talk is about the new Discoteca Botanic, a 1500sq.m nightclub with two different club rooms to maximise its attraction to customers of different ages and musical tastes.

What the two individual environments of Magnolia and Dalia have in common are high-SPL Vieta sound systems, powered by Powersoft. Installers Kiko Sound liaised closely on the system design with Vieta pro products supplier SeeSound.

Local stars and celebrities came out for opening night, including Ivan, the latest Big Brother winner in Spain, and Paola Santoni, the MC for the night. Manager Isidro Navarro Bea explains that the Botanic is more than just a nightclub two nights a week - "During the week, we will host special events like product presentations and private/corporate parties. We don't want to simply offer music, but to create a space which

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UK - Digital media and music agency Kaleidovision has acquired Music Concierge, a boutique luxury brand music profiling consultancy.

Kaleidovision already works with mainstream leisure and retail brands such as Pitcher & Piano, Gala Casinos, Varsity and London Clubs, providing digital media network content and technology services, while Music Concierge has built up an international portfolio of retailers such as Dunhill and Mulberry, and hotels including The Connaught in London, One&Only Cape Town, and Huvafen Fushi in the Maldives.

Explaining the rationale, Kaleidovision MD Andy Pitman said: "We will be positioning Music Concierge as our in-house boutique music profiling brand for clients who need the very highest levels of site-specific music consultancy. Music Concierge will retain full creative control of the music profiling."

Rob Wood, founder and creative dir

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USA - Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia have recently experienced a swell of AV installation activity, thanks to Ashland, Kentucky-based Newtech Systems. A key component of these installs has been a wide range of loudspeaker products from EAW, sold by Erie, Pennsylvania-based North Coast Marketing.

"Our installations take on all number of shapes and sizes, and EAW has the best solutions for just about every application we encounter," stated Newtech's Bill Banfield. "Ashland, Kentucky's Christ United Methodist Church's install was short and sweet: two EAW VR62 compact full-range loudspeakers.

"However, working with Mercer County High School in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, was a different story. There, we installed a multi-zoned system in the gymnasium, featuring six MK5396 two-way full range installation loudspeakers and 10 MK2366 two-way full range installation

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UK - Rigging specialist Summit Steel continued its association with Take That, supplying motors, rigging and a Kinesys K2 automation system for the band's summer Circus stadium tour.

Summit also provided specialist rigging consultancy, and custom designed and developed a lifting system for one of the show's most spectacular movement cues that involves moving a large set piece weighing 6.5 tonnes.

Summit's senior project manager Chris Walker worked closely with production manager Chris Vaughan from The Production Office and with the tour's head rigger Phil Broad. "This element was easily the biggest challenge for us," says Walker who was involved right from the early design and concept stages, and worked on it since last September.

The band started the show on the B stage, whilst a large circus tent set piece was in-situ on the main stage. Built by Brilliant

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UK - Due to popular demand and the increasing quantities of impression and impression XL fixtures appearing in the British market, GLP recently held a service seminar at the Richard Martin Lighting facilities in London.

Since the original training day became fully booked almost as soon as it was announced, Michael Müller, GLP director of customer support, decided to extend the seminar to a second day.

Around 30 technicians from some of the UK's leading sales and rental companies attended the event. During some relaxed training sessions, conducted by Joachim Kraft, Head of the GLP workshop department, they received detailed knowledge about the impression range and also gained new perspectives on LED lighting technology in general.

"The information gained was very valuable and is now being shared with all our employees globally," said James Prince of Bandit Lites.

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South Africa - Gearhouse Power - a Gearhouse South Africa company - supplied power distribution throughout the hospitality suites in all four stadiums involved in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup - Ellis Park, Johannesburg, Loftus Versveld in Pretoria, Royal Bafokeng in Rustenberg and Mangaung Stadium in Bloemfontein.

The process began two years ago, when Gearhouse Power (GHP) was approached by The Power Company(TPC) - an Austrian based power distribution company who specialise in sporting events - to create a partnership for the FIFA 2010 World Cup and German-based Match Hospitality, the organisation responsible for all official FIFA hospitality areas.

GHP and TPC supplied technicians and stage hands at all four of the stadiums , while GHP's Antony Sackstein and TPC project manager Mike Knezevic spent a hectic two weeks floating between all four venues taking care of last min

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UK - Rodgers and Hammerstein's timeless classic, The King & I was given a 20-date, in-the-round season at the Royal Albert Hall recently, courtesy of Raymond Gubbay.

Starring Maria Friedman and Daniel Dae Kim, the songs were perfectly matched to Bobby Aitken's carefully designed sound system based around a Martin Audio W8LC/W8LM orchestra system. 10 Martin Audio W8LM out-fills per side complemented 10 W8LC's in L/R front facing hangs, with four WLX subs forming the top of each cluster.

"I always enjoy using the Martin Audio line arrays for big musical productions such as this. I am particularly drawn to the detailed midrange of those speakers," remarked Aitken.

"The Albert Hall is a tricky room - tight around the sides - and the W8LM's cover that particularly well; traditionally other loudspeakers we have used for that purpose have not had the vertical

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Germany - dBTechnologies' distributor convention, Prosonic was reported to have been a "roaring success" by organisers and visitors alike. With attendees totalling 70, last month's two-day event in Cologne showcased the Italian loudspeaker manufacturer's newest ranges: Flexsys, DVA, DVX andOpera Digital.

"It was a big - and some would say brave - undertaking," admits Michael Herweg, sales & marketing director. "Especially pitching ourselves against our competitors in live sound demonstrations."

"We wanted to highlight the fact that we can stand up against the big names of the industry. Really there is nothing out there with the amount of features we offer (be it power, weight or sound quality) at such a good price. Judging by the feedback we've received from some of our attendees, we've got our message across. So it was definitely worth it.&q

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USA - Christ's Church of the Valley in San Dimas, CA, has been growing steadily in recent years, making a switch to digital audio mixing a virtual necessity. With multiple locations, six weekend services, and a broadcast component that includes live streaming and re-broadcast in New Zealand and Australia, the number of audio paths has increased far beyond the capabilities of conventional analogue. To meet these needs, this evangelical contemporary church selected two Allen & Heath iLive consoles - an iLive-176 for the main sanctuary and an iLive-80 for the broadcast centre, located in a separate building.

Patrick Gourley, technical director for the church, worked with Anaheim-based Sound Bridge during the console selection process. "All our engineers are volunteers," he says. "So in addition to all the technical requirements, we had to find something with a fast l

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