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UK - In June this year the screen-to-stage musical Sister Act - premièred at the London Palladium. The original 1992 film grossed over $200 million worldwide. The theatre adaptation transfers the story to 1970s Philadelphia and the cast includes Patina Miller as Deloris Van Cartier, Sheila Hancock as the Mother Superior and Ian Lavender as Monsignor Howard.

Delstar Engineering kitted out the Palladium with a modular floor 15 years ago and was invited back again to enhance the engineering capabilities of the theatre for this fresh and exuberant show.

The installation includes a walkway and an arrangement of over 40 dedicated working winches that drive a variety of effects ranging from small flown pieces to heavy scenic walls. Delstar also installed a complex show deck, in

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UK - With little more than a month to go until the PLASA Show, organiser PLASA Events has confirmed over 40 exhibitors new to this year's event, as pre-registrations look set to match 2008's record levels. Pre-registration for PLASA09 is still open, with a 50% discount for online bookings (see website below).

New & Returning Exhibitors
Exhibitors new or returning to the show include Adam Hall, A.T. Industries, All Access Staging & Productions, Ambient Lighting, Artistic Licence, Avid Technology, Bestlight, Bison Produkter, Coemar S.p.A, Entertainment Equipment Supplies, Flying by Foy, Gerriets, Indu-Electric Gerber, Klotz Audio Interface Systems, Laserworld (Switzerland), LumenRadio, MediaLas Laserproducts, NEXO, Picturall, Prism Media Products, Promoberg, Pyrotechnology, R K Sound Engineering, ShowCAD Control S

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Sweden - Docked at Skeppsbron in Malmö harbour in Sweden, the M/S Prins Bernhard is the after-hours place to be in this southern port city. The 70m long ship, which serves as a leisure and entertainment gathering place for up to 600, houses two top-end restaurants, several bars, a sun deck, a VIP lounge and the popular nightclub Under, outfitted by local company Informationsteknik with a dynamic lighting package that includes a customised LED wall made up of Martin Professional's new flexible LED string, FlexDOT.

Informationsteknik, the main contractor for lighting and sound which handled design and installation for the entire ship, was contacted last May by Prins Bernhard's owner who sought to do something 'really special' in order to put Malmö on the map for nightclub installations.

"We came up with the idea to design a nightclub concept with an LED wall as the

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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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Downloads Down - There has been a slight drop - from 63% last year to 61% this year - in the number of young people illegally downloading music, a survey suggests. The UK Music-commissioned study, now in its second year, also found that 85% of those who downloaded illegally would pay for an unlimited download service. UK Music is an umbrella body that represents the British music industry.

Some 1,808 14 to 24-year-olds from across the UK were surveyed this spring by the University of Hertfordshire. Of the 61% of respondents who said they illegally downloaded music, 83% said they did so on a daily or weekly basis. Last year's survey research was based on 773 respondents. Of those who said they would pay for an unlimited MP3 download service, 77% said they would continue to buy CDs.And 78% of respondents said they would not pay for a streaming service, such as Spotify.

UK Music

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UK - English Heritage and IMG have again been promoting their successful summer Picnic Concert series at London's Kenwood House and Audley End in Essex, retaining RG Jones to provide all the sound reinforcement and control throughout the festival season.

For the final weekend in Saffron Walden, featuring Back to the 80's, with an all-star line-up, followed by The Last Night of the Audley End Proms (headlined by Katherine Jenkins and featuring a Spitfire display) RG Jones assembled their own 'strictly '80s' technical line-up.

For acts like The Human League, Belinda Carlisle, ABC, Go West and Heaven 17, they had their own 'old boys' Jim Lambert project/production managing and Al Woods (both ex RG Jones employees from the 1980's) mixing all the bands on a Yamaha PM5D (with the exception of The Human League).

With the spectacular Audley End House providing a

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UK - Tannoy's VQ Series has recently benefited from a welcome expansion to the range, maximising the potential of the product and making it a truly capable and modular high SPL sound reinforcement loudspeaker system. The newly expanded range will be given its first UK unveiling at the forthcoming PLASA show, within the innovative Red Square Audio Pavilion (more details on that to be released soon).

Initially launched last year, VQ Series is a range of loudspeakers designed for any application where precise directional control, outstanding sonic performance, and high SPLs are critical issues; such as large corporate AV systems, stadiums, large dance clubs, live concert halls, theatres, houses of worship and open-air venues. "Utilising precision engineering and design, the VQ series can produce enough power and clarity to be used individually, maintaining your building's aest

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USA - American rock band 311 has been using GLP Impressions to help boost its stage presence on this summer's Unity tour.

The Nebraska-based outfit was formed 20 years ago and for the last four of those their LD Joe Paradise has been designing increasingly innovative stage sets to enable a band that has sold over eight million units in the US, and had five Top 10 albums on the Billboard charts, to reproduce the dynamic in a live context.

At last year's LDI Show in Las Vegas he saw the Impressions for the first time and was impressed both by the quality of the construction and rich array of features.

He immediately decided to integrate eight fixtures into the stage design - mounted atop a 40ft vertical arch truss upstage. This was one of three arch trusses that formed the set, along with Main Light 2.5 scrims. "The Impressions were used as intense 'e

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Italy - On Sunday 21 June, Pope Benedict XVI made a special visit to San Giovanni Rotondo, in southern Italy to pray in the Sanctuary of Saint Pio da Pietralcina.

The Pope celebrated Mass and recited the Angelus in the churchyard of San Pio da Pietralcina Church, which was packed with more than 50,000 worshippers coming from all over the world.

RCF's TT+ Touring and Theatre system had been chosen to amplify the sound for the event. Local rental company Sonika, which had organised the technical aspects of the celebrations and had also looked after many such events in past years, chose again to use the TT+ Series from RCF for this important day.

Apart from giving vast coverage, the system had to be flexible enough to amplify both the speech and the music, which was played by the Symphonic Orchestra of the Niccolò Piccinini Conservatoire in Bari. TT22-A and TT08-A were

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Japan - Atsunori Abe, former general manager of Audio-Technica Corporation International Department (Japan) died on 10 July, 2009. Abe passed away in his native Japan and is survived by two brothers, a sister, his wife and their three daughters. Atsunori Abe (pronounced AH-bay) joined A-T in 1978, and in addition to holding the position of the general manager of Audio-Technica Corp. International Department, he also served on the company's board of directors. He retired in 2005.

During his tenure at the Audio-Technica Corporation, Abe helped the company grow internationally and was instrumental in launching groundbreaking products including the AT4033 Cardioid Condenser Microphone, the microphone that is credited as being the first high-quality, studio-grade microphone available at a price within the reach of the home and project studio market.

He was one of the key people who

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Israel - Compulite has announced that Burple UK is its new exclusive UK distributor. Compulite's Vector & Dlite lighting consoles and the wide range of products are now available to the UK market via Burple UK.

"We have been working with the Burple's team for some time and were impressed by their demonstrating knowledge with our products and with their technical skills to serve the products. They have adopted our products and formed excellent relationships with our UK customers and users. We are confident that this partnership will be very valuable to our strong presence in this important market," said Compulite's CEO Yehuda Shukrun.

Agustin Arocha, director of Burple UK said, " We have been providing technical support to Compulite's end-users for some time now and taking on the distribution in the UK Market seemed like the logical next step. With our sound know

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UK - The new Clay Paky Alpha 1500 Series offers lighting designers the most powerful spot and wash luminaires available, says the company. The series include five top level luminaires, each one designed, with no compromise, to the requirements of specific applications:

Alpha 1500 Spot Profile, the most powerful moving head spotlight featuring a unique framing system that allows the most accurate and versatile beam shape control (patented), making this luminaire suitable to the most demanding lighting sets.

Alpha Spot HPE 1500, a powerful graphic effect moving head, with a wide array of imagery devices, including the innovative "automated star gobo", all fully combinable with limitless rotation and morphing possibilities.

Alpha Wash 1500, the wash luminaire generating "an astounding beam", fully sizeable thanks to the extra-wide zoom range, clean from cent

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Italy - Tenor Andrea Bocelli, conductor Marcello Rota, and the Symphonic Orchestra of Abruzzo came together for a benefit concert held in Rome on May 25 in one of the most fascinating locations in Italy's capital: the Colosseum. The important benefit concert was allowed to take place in the historic venue due to "exceptional circumstances".

Lighting for the event was designed to exploit the charm of one of the best known monuments in the world. To create an unforgettable backdrop to the performance, it was necessary to use techniques that were compatible with the strict technical restrictions in place to protect the historical site.

Using SGM Giotto Spot 1500 and Giotto Beam 1500 moving head projectors with Wireless control, lighting designer Nicola-Manuel Tallino set up an unobtrusive lighting system without the need for wires and cables, which were expressly forbid

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UK - The two-site packaged acts festival is an embedded feature of the UK summer scene; take that model to extremes - as is only right and proper for metal music - and you get Sonisphere. Six sites across Europe saw a truly muscular line-up of bands visit Holland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Finland, and culminated with a massive thrash at Knebworth Park in the UK.

The festival has learned well from its forebears: this is not a 'cram them all in a big field and gouge the wallet' event; two main stages, and two lesser venues give fans the chance to sample a broad cross section of world class acts as well as some up-and-coming bands.

For Britannia Row Productions Ltd (Britrow), charged with servicing three of the four stages, the demands were clear. "They needed the controlled release of power," said Bryan Grant of Britrow. "That's what these bands are all abou

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South Africa - Lighting sales company DWR Distribution enjoyed an extremely busy Mediatech 2009, with the added bonus of winning the Gold Stand Award for its impressive booth.

The three-day biennial exhibition for production, broadcast, entertainment and leisure industry technology took place at The Coca-Cola Dome, Northgate, Johannesburg at the end of July, with record visitor figures and massive interest being shown in all sectors of the market. There was also a leap in international awareness of the show.

DWR showed products from all its premium ranges, including Robe, MA Lighting, Vari*Lite, Avolites, CM Lodestar, Arkaos, Strong and many others. Eight international visitors representing various brands joined the DWR team for the exhibition.

It was the first time that MA Lighting's new grandMA2 console, the new Robin range of moving lights from Robe, and Vari*Lite'

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UK - Sales, rental and production company London Light Production Services is set to exhibit for the first time at this year's PLASA show in London's Earls Court. Taking a stand in the new exhibitors area, London Light will be talking to visitors about its range of lighting equipment as well as its production services for theatre and special events.

In addition to showing examples of many of their productions and equipment, London Light will be holding a free daily draw to win a bottle of Champagne, and also giving a week's free hire of an ETC Eos and Ion lighting console as part of a grand draw on the final day of the show. The draw will be done by ETC's regional manager for UK and Ireland, Mark White.

London Light's business development manager Andy Vere says: "We're very excited about the prospect of exhibiting at PLASA, and looking forward to meeting lots of new peopl

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Ireland - Following an investment of nearly €5 million, the Asian-themed Mantra Garden Bar & Club has opened in Maynooth, Co. Kildare - introducing a new concept to the university town, situated just 30 minutes from Dublin.

Sound and lighting installation specialists Audiotek were tasked with equipping the technical infrastructure, and proprietor Frank Murray again turned to PR Lighting's catalogue as his primary source.

In the upstairs Mantra nightclub, which opens at the weekends until 2am, he has used eight of PR Lighting's Solo 250 moving heads on a circular truss that surrounds an LED centrepiece. The Solo 250's are expected to punch their weight as they are up against lasers, scanners and an ever changing LED peripheral landscape.

Murray comments: "I must have used these in over 50 venues now. I use them everywhere as the colour is consistent and for an entry lev

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Brunei The Jerudong Park Amphitheatre in Brunei has purchased an Allen & Heath digital iLive system, comprising an iDR10 MixRack and iLive-176 Control Surface.

The venue is part of the largest amusement park in South East Asia. In addition to various community services and events, the venue has hosted a long line of premier international artists and theatrical productions including Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Seal, Janet Jackson, Ronan Keating and Spirit of the Dance, as well as artists and prestigious Asian performers.

The venue wanted to migrate its FOH set up from an analogue to a digital system and approached Singapore installation firm, BCI. They recommended the Allen & Heath iLive system due to its distributed audio design and flexible architecture, making it an ideal choice for the large size of the venue and the variety of major productions hosted there.

"

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UK - JR Clancy, the US-based manufacturer of theatre rigging systems, is gearing up to exhibit at the PLASA Show at London's Earls Court for the first time this year, providing information on the company's range of products, including SceneControl and the newly enhanced PowerLift.

SceneControl is an automated control system which comes in three models - anything from a simple push button controller with start/stop, to a wall or pedestal mounted computer providing top of the range motion control, complete with a 3D visualisation of your performance space.

The new PowerLift hoist comes with electric braking - replacing the Weston style brake previously fitted - and the entry level model now comes with SceneControl 50 as standard. This means that even the most budget-conscious can afford a system which incorporates four user programmable and changeable presets.

Charles Shatzkin

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Germany - The Stadttheater Am Hagen, as the municipal theatre in Straubing is known, is an affiliate of the Landestheater Niederbayern (Lower Bavarian State Theatre). In 2003, the theatre was thoroughly renovated and now seats 330. To make it possible to stage lavish musicals and other musical productions in future, it was necessary to reequip the auditorium with new sound equipment. TRE Professionelle Audiotechnik, which is based in Parkstetten, was entrusted with the installation. It was supported in this task by Thomas Sterling, PI sales manager at Bosch Communications Systems' Support Centre (South).

The centrepiece of the theatre's new sound system comprises - for the first time in Europe, Africa and the Middle East - the new Electro-Voice Expandable Vertical Array (EVA) system. This system, which was specially designed for fixed installation. The full-range, passive system

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UK - ETC's Selador series of LED fixtures will be making its PLASA debut, proving that superior colour rendering and qualities for theatrical lighting can come from an energy efficient source. A candidate for PLASA's Innovation Award 2009 and featuring the patented x7 Colour System, the three Selador models produce a light and colour quality that conventional LED systems cannot duplicate, says the company. This system produces bright broad-spectrum whites and intense colours equally well, rendering pigments and skin tones in a far more natural way.

Also showing for the first time will be ETC's Unison Mosaic show control - a system which allows you to add entertainment style control into your architectural lighting system. Based on award winning Pharos show control technologies, Mosaic comprises a range of accessories and can control between 500 and 100,000 channels.

Also on th

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USA - Located outside the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, the National Infantry Museum honours the oldest and largest branch of the US Army. The signature attraction at the new museum, called The Last 100 Yards relies on Renkus-Heinz Iconyx steerable array loudspeakers in its portrayal of 234 years of infantry history.

The exhibit, which acts as an entryway to the rest of the museum, is a gently sloping, 100-yard ramp featuring a chronological multimedia journey through eight key battles from the Revolutionary War up through the current War on Terrorism. According to Major General Jerry White (ret.), president of the private National Infantry Foundation, which operates the museum, "The Infantryman's mission is best portrayed by having visitors fight with those soldiers over the last 100 yards of major wars from the Revolutionary War to the present. The music, the gun

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