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On The World Stage - Robbie Williams' comeback concert for the BBC Electric Proms will be broadcast in cinemas around the world. The concert on 20 October will be beamed live to almost 200 screens across Europe. It will also be shown later in Australia and South Africa. Williams said: "It's very exciting to think that a one-off performance I play in London can be seen simultaneously by people all across the world."

The proms concert will be the singer's first major show in three years. It will also be broadcast on Radio 1. The high definition screening is being billed as the largest live music cinematic event of its kind in Europe, and has been put together by BBC Worldwide. The commercial arm of the corporation recently beamed The Last Night of the Proms i

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UK - A collection of artists used Lumacoustics YrWall digital graffiti wall recently to create individual and detailed collaborative works which in turn were beamed onto an entire building using two state-of-the-art projectors. YrWall allows users to create graffiti digitally using a modified spray can on a three metre wide screen.

Central Presentations Ltd (CPL) supported Lumacoustics by providing the hardware to create "the world's largest graffiti wall". CPL supplied technical support as well as Barco FLMHD20 projectors, Barco DVI matrix switching equipment and fibre optic links to ensure top quality signal paths around the outdoor site on the Harbourside in Bristol.

The project involved firing two projectors side by side to cover a 26m x 10m canvas across the Lloyd's headquarters building. The system primarily was driven by Lumacoustics' custom software YrWall wh

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UK - Manchester- based lighting company DBN has completed the installation of the house lighting rig at the iconic Manchester live music venue, Band On The Wall.

The landmark 300-capacity venue on 25 Swan Street in the Northern Quarter of the city centre dates back some 200 years and has been associated with live music for much of its rich cultural heritage. The name comes from the 1930's when musicians used to perform standing on precarious platforms strapped to the wall.

It has been completely renovated, restored and just reopened by operators Inner City Music with the help of a £4m combined award from the Manchester City Council, Arts Council England and the Lottery Heritage Fund, to transform the venue into a 21st century centre of music with strong community ties.

DBN's Nigel Walker completed the design. An important part of the brief was that they wanted a retro

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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 - White Light recently appointed Roger Deane as hire project manager. With a professional career dating back to 1979, his experience spans three decades of development in entertainment lighting.

Deane has worked at the coal face of live events in theatre, music touring, launches, celebrations and corporate shows as both freelance lighting designer and production electrician across Europe and North America. His business experience includes a decade as a company director, building a corporate rental house to become the leading quality brand, and several years with a premium event production house managing the operation and building a full service offer.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Nottingham-based hire company, Merlin PA, recently purchased an Allen & Heath iLive-T system, comprising an iDR-48 MixRack with iLive-T112 Control Surface, to add to its touring inventory.

"The day we received the system I took it straight out on a rock show with only 30 minutes prep time, half of which was spent unboxing everything," reports Merlin PA's Graham White. "I played around with the effects and scenes and got 100% confident with the system within an hour. The show ended too soon, I was enjoying myself."

Since its debut, the iLive-T has mainly been used for the global promos, shows and live appearances of former Destiny's Child star, Kelly Rowland.

White has also taken advantage of iLive's control flexibility. When confronted with limited FOH space in a Nottingham nightclub, he says, "There was no room for a mixing console in the tiny

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Germany - Neumann received "an exceptionally enthusiastic response" to the presentation of the first digital shotgun mic at the recent IBC in Amsterdam. The acoustic properties of the KMR 81 D are based on those of its analogue counterpart, which has been in successful applications worldwide for many years. Thus, it is a short shotgun mic with a pickup angle of 90 degrees and almost frequency-independent damping of sound originating from the side.

The digital version has integrated Solution-D circuit technology which is already familiar from other Neumann microphones. This includes an A/D converter that is specifically adapted to the capsule, and the option of using numerous signal processing features that have proved very helpful, particularly in an electronic news gathering (ENG) environment. The rapidly operating peak/compressor limiter has been found to be especial

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UK - Nine years ago, it was the situation of lighting designer Tom Donnellan, at home caring for his dying wife and caring for his young daughters, which provided the impetus to set up Light Relief. Now, as if to prove that lightning does indeed strike twice, Light Relief is once again helping Tom, as he not only battles with his own cancer, but also copes with effectively being on the 'dole' as the company he worked with closed down.

On hearing that Tom was in need of immediate assistance to cope with day-to-day living, the trustees of Light Relief had no hesitation in stepping forward with a 'no strings attached' grant. Rick Fisher, co-founder of Light Relief, said: "This is exactly the type of situation for which Light Relief was formed. Tom is receiving chemotherapy, which leaves him extremely tired and unable to work and although he received help from social services,

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Austria - In an introduction that couples AKG's studio mic performance with desktop convenience and versatility, AKG has released the Perception 120 USB Microphone. The Perception 120 USB is the first USB-equipped microphone from AKG, promising studio-quality sound performance without requiring any installation or drivers.

The Perception 120 USB is a real plug-and-play device that allows users to do podcasts, voiceovers, and studio-quality rehearsal-recordings quickly and easily, says the company. It is capable of working with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X but also the new Windows 7.

"The new USB-equipped Perception 120 USB microphones will extend AKG's successful Perception range," said Thomas Stubics, AKG's product marketing manager for recording and broadcast. "With the widespread USB standard and its ease of use, this new model allows users without

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UK / USA - PLASA (headquartered in the UK) and ESTA (headquartered in North America), two of the leading bodies worldwide for those working in the live events, entertainment and communications industries, have signed a Letter of Intent to merge.

The announcement comes on the back of long-term strategic reviews conducted by both Associations who believe that uniting as one body will lead to a stronger voice for members, the enhancement of existing initiatives and an expansion of the range of benefits and services.

The proposed merger has the full backing of both the ESTA Board of Directors and the PLASA Executive Committee who voted on the proposal this Summer and who will formally recommend the move to their respective memberships, subject to due diligence being completed successfully, during the Spring/Summer of 2010. If both memberships vote to go ahead, the first stage of t

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USA - Women vocalists considered to be the cream of the crop by the VH1 cable television network inaugurated the newest major event venue outside of Manhattan in late September.

The women, including Miley Cirus, Sheryl Crow, Jennifer Hudson, Melissa Etheridge and others along with host Paula Abdul, performed a three-hour live concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music before attending an after-show party at the neo-Romanesque styled Williamsburgh Savings Bank, a Brooklyn landmark since its completion in 1929.

Standing at 512 feet and renamed One Hanson Place, the structure is the tallest building in Brooklyn and second tallest on Long Island. The tower is fitted with a four-sided clock, the largest in the world until 1962, and is capped by a gilded copper dome. The building was named a historic landmark in 1977.

The upper floors have recently been converted from offices to hig

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The Netherlands Long time Sound Projects dealer Live Music installed the third Sound Projects system based on DreamLines in a year. This time, it was in the totally renovated former iron-factory Drufabriek complex in Ulft. The new complex houses not only the new theatre and a music & dance hall but also a music school, practice rooms for bands, a library, a gallery, meeting rooms and a restaurant.|

The theatre as well as the pop auditorium has been provided with DreamLines. In the Pop&Dance Hall, the DreamLines are augmented by two SP2-10 bass horns per side. Concealed pairs of SP3-15s are also deployed and there is an extra set of SP2-10 at hand for special events.

The other auditorium is built as a traditional theatre. Here also DreamLines are installed, with one SP3-15 on the floor per side. MD live music Bart Smits comments, "All audio elements are interchangeable and

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Australia - Jands Production Services has purchased 62 Crown MA9000i touring power amplifiers. "We were looking for a new, lightweight, high-powered amplifier and we've had a long history with Crown as we've always been happy with their products," remarked Jim Straw, JPS' general manager.

However, JPS still put the Crown MA9000i amplifiers through rigorous testing before deciding upon the purchase: "We did some listening tests and the overall majority picked the 9000i amplifiers over the other amplifiers we were listening to," added Jim. "We decided to replace a number of amplifiers driving some of our boxes with the 9000i's and we've been very happy with them."

Several of the MA9000i amplifiers are installed at Sydney's Luna Park where they run the JBL VertTec 4888 speakers and 4880 subs. More have been placed into JPS's monitor systems powering

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Denmark - DPA Microphones has released The Human Kind, a corporate endeavour to support environmental causes by creating local jobs and improving the climate globally. Working closely with Danish energy company SEAS-NVE, DPA has released The Human Kind to raise money for Greening Your Future, a reforestation project in Durban, South Africa.

The Human Kind, which is only available as a download, can be purchased from all the usual portals. More information about downloading the track, and the project itself, can be found at www.thehumankind.dk. The project is also being sponsored by Danish music distributor Gateway, which has uploaded the song free of charge for global distribution.

The idea of getting involved in environmental concerns and make a commitment to a charity project which can make a difference was inspired by this year's COP15 United Nat

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USA / UAE - Philips Vari-Lite has announced that its newest Middle East distributor, VTI, has successfully sold 100 units of the Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash and VL3000 Spot luminaires to Gearhouse Staging Connections for use throughout future installations in the region.

Gearhouse Staging Connections will put their new luminaires straight to work - first for use by Think Flash in Abu Dhabi, and then as part of the automated lighting package for a series of high profile events at the new Palladium Theatre in Dubai.

"The Middle East market, led by concert activity in the United Arab Emirates, has become more and more sophisticated over the past 10 years and the expectations of the client base have grown significantly," stated Peter McCann, managing director, Gearhouse Staging Connections.

"The operating conditions in this market are extreme with temperatures up to 50

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UK - The Pavilion, one of Glasgow's oldest and best loved variety theatre venues, has recently overhauled its FOH system with a pair of Tannoy VQ 100 full-range loudspeakers. The new VQ 100s add a new level of clarity, definition and presence to the performances within the historic 1449-seat auditorium and have gone down well with both cast and audiences since they were installed during the summer season.

Having first opened on its corner site at the top of Glasgow's Renfield Street in 1904, the Pavilion Theatre is a rare example these days of a privately run performance venue that has carefully retained its period character, having avoided any significant renovations or acoustic treatments that would ruin the décor and atmosphere of the auditorium.

This was an important consideration when the venue management sought to upgrade the audio system. Discretion was key, with

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USA - Theatre Projects is putting final touches on two unparalleled performing arts spaces: the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre and the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, as last-minute preparations continue for the 15 October grand opening of the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas.

As creators with Sasaki Associates of the original plans for the Dallas Arts District and as design consultants for the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Theatre Projects has spent over two decades involved in the planning and building of one of the US's most ambitious new centres for the arts.

"It's been an amazing journey working with the City of Dallas, the opera and theatre companies, and the Foundation since the creation of the Arts District in 1984," said Richard Pilbrow, Theatre Projects' founder and chairman emeritus. "It's been our privilege to guide the theatrical design to c

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UK - When Wembley Stadium decided to transform the VIP guest hospitality room for this summer's biggest concerts, they turned to entertainment lighting supplier White Light.

The challenge was to create a versatile design that could provide a calm but attractive feel to the room for the pre-show dinner and drinks, but then transform the space into an exclusive nightclub for the after show parties.

To achieve this, White Light's Dominic Yates used some of the latest technology from White Light's extensive lighting stock to create a design flexible enough to give the room a different feel for each concert, while dynamic enough to continue the excitement of the gig beyond the end of each show.

The design made use of the new Fusion672 LED panels, which allowed the creation of both dramatically changing lighting backdrops and corporate branding, with the 'Club Wembley' logo presen

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Italy - New Sound Service chose Proel sound reinforcement systems for Tim Cup 2009, a major sports event attended many Italian football fans each summer.

The leading Italian football teams are the protagonists of this competition which is usually also the first opportunity for them to introduce their new players and line-ups before the start of the national championship.

This year, Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan competed for the Tim Cup at the Stadio Adriatico in Pescara, whose sound reinforcement system was complemented by a Proel Axiom system. The system chosen was made up of: 24 AX2265P AXIOM series vertical array compact speakers, 12 AX1115SP AXIOM compact subs, four Edge212P point source array speakers, four Edge121SP subs, six Proel PSW2600 amplifiers, four AXPACKK10 amplifier racks plus DSO digital processors.

"This event," affirmed Marco Lovato of New S

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UK - Parents' attitudes to apprenticeships need to change in order to put young people on a planned, clear career path and help the audio-visual industry enhance its skills base over the coming decade, claims Paul Dougherty, managing director of Tyne & Wear-based Blaydon Communications Ltd.

Paul Dougherty has good experience of apprenticeships: 20 years ago he, along with managing director of Blaydon's sister company UK Time Solutions, Chris Routledge, started out as an apprentice, following in the 70-year tradition of the firm in supporting apprenticeships.

Dougherty says: "Apprenticeship provides a solid, technical career base and as Chris and I have demonstrated, can lead to senior management and the boardroom. One of the bars to young people taking up apprenticeship can be the attitude or parents who see a university education as the best career option for their child

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Norway - Projector manufacturer, projectiondesign has announced a change in ownership to include Norwegian private equity firm Herkules Capital AS. The move follows the purchase of a 54% share in projectiondesign from previous main shareholder, Eker Group AS headed by Norwegian industrial designer Bård Eker.

projectiondesign has emerged as an industry leader in the creation, development, design and manufacture of high-quality projectors for specialist professional, industrial and private sector applications. The company currently has 135 employees, including in-house product testing, research & development in electronic, optical and mechanical system design, and has shown strong growth since being established in 2001.

"projectiondesign is an exciting growth company, and is an attractive opportunity for Herkules. We have been familiar with the company for some time now an

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UK - Fifteen venues across the UK will open their doors to 13- and 14-year-olds from 15 October until 2 December 2009, for The National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural Skills' first interactive Offstage Choices careers events.

These events offer young people aged 13 and above a taste of the job roles available behind the scenes and offstage in technical theatre and live music events.

Pupils from local schools will meet and experience the work of a number of professionals including lighting and sound technicians, marketing and stage managers and designers, in venues from the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, up to the SAGE in Gateshead. Behind the scenes staff will share the tricks of their trade and experiences, working out of the 'spotlight'.

Offstage is produced by The National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural Skills (NSA), a network of industry speciali

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