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UK - Void Acoustics took over the high-profile Matter venue in London's O2 Arena in mid October, to host a one-day Void Extravaganza. Taking advantage of Matter's impressive space and ambience, Void demonstrated its latest loudspeaker and amplifier products, launched last month at PLASA 09, enabling the invited audience of some 65 venue owners, hire companies, installers and DJs to audition the new systems under real-world conditions.

The Void products demonstrated at Matter ranged from touring line-array to club install systems, and included the Arcline 12 medium-format line-array and Arcline X multiple resonant-chamber sub. Void also demonstrated the Stasys range, across the Stasys Prime ultra-efficient wide-band arrayable point-source, the Stasys X horn-loaded sub, the S

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UK - The UK debut of Electro-Voice's EV-Innovation Series will be one of the highlights of Shuttlesound's Big Day Out, being held at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton on 3 November.

There are three Series in the EV-I loudspeaker family. The EVA Expandable Vertical Array Series for installed sound applications, the EVF Front Load Series of two-way front-loaded full-range system for fixed installs demanding a compact and lightweight package, and the EVH Horn Load Series of 15" full-range cabinets with five different rotatable waveguides. Big Day Outvisitors will be able to experience all three versions.

These new products for the installation market are being launched to UK customers by Guillermo Wabi, product manager for EV fixed install, concert sound, cinema & custom loudspeakers, who is flying over from the USA especially for the occasion.

The Big Day Out<

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Belarus - A number of rock bands passing through Belarus recently have taken advantage of fixtures from PR Lighting - supplied by the Chinese manufacturer's territory distributors, FE Belimlight.

The company's Maxim Yugov confirms that automated fixtures such as the XL1500 are becoming increasingly popular for their output, flexibility, advanced features and superior colour saturation.

FE Belimlight stock more than a hundred of these heads, which utilise a powerful 1500W short arc discharge lamp, optimised by the use of a high quality and efficient optical system. This makes it one of the brightest projectors in the market.

The highlight of the touring season was British rock singer, Chris Norman's appearance at the Mir Castle complex in Belarus - a stunning gothic building (and UNESCO World Heritage site) which dates back to the 15th century.

Norman's lightshow included 4

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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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USA - The ESTA-sponsored Connectivity Pavilion will be on display at LDI 2009 in Orlando, with an expanded array this year of equipment running the latest in entertainment control protocols.

The Pavilion offers a hands-on demonstration of devices interfacing under RDM (ANSI E1.20), ACN (ANSI E1.17), and Lightweight Streaming of DMX512 over ACN (ANSI E1.31).

Members of the Controls Protocols Working Group and the task groups for these standards will be in the Connectivity Pavilion to demonstrate and discuss these ANSI protocols, which can be specified for new lighting systems or for upgrades of old ones. Anyone with an interest in lighting control is invited to stop by and see the reality of these protocols and how transparently they allow the operation of equipment from a variety of manufacturers, says the organisation.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Part of the AT&T Performing Arts Centre in Dallas, Texas, the Winspear Opera House, which opened last week, was designed by Foster + Partners under Pritzker Prize-winning architect Norman Foster. Engineered specifically for performances of opera and musical theatre, its stages are also equipped for performances of ballet and other forms of dance.

A 21st century reinterpretation of the traditional 'horseshoe' opera house, the principal performance space, the 2,200 seat Margaret McDermott Performance Hall, is fitted with variable acoustics in the form of retractable drapes. Behind the design is Triple E's Chaintrack, which enables the drapes to be stacked in pockets hidden within the walls when not in use.

The fact that Chaintrack can navigate corners of just 40mm radius enables it to double back on itself, and this, coupled with the facility to store curtains flat rather

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Kenya - The Gearhouse South Africa Group of companies supplied rigging, lighting, audio, LED screens and power distribution for the 2009 MTV African Music Awards, staged at the Kasarani Gymnasium at the Moi International Sports Centre, Nairobi, Kenya. The project entailed air freighting 55,000 Kgs of equipment from South Africa.

The Gearhouse crew was led by Bill Lawford who collaborated closely with Simon Roche, logistics manager from production company VWV, together with an international production team primarily from the UK, including lighting designer/director Gurdip Mahal, moving light programmer/operator Ross Williams, FOH sound engineer Derrick Zieba and screens director Chris Saunders from XL Video UK.

Gearhouse also asked UK lighting rental company HSL to supply additional lighting equipment and technician Tim Oliver for the event. Gearhouse has a long standing relati

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USA - Bosch Security Systems, Inc. Is to realign its sales, marketing, and customer service and support organisations in a move that will combine the Security Systems and Communications Systems Divisions in the Americas. Effective 1 January, 2010, the changes will result in a fully integrated organisation that makes it easier for customers to do business with Bosch, says the company.

The senior leadership team of the combined organisation will incorporate key executives from both Security Systems and Communications Systems.

Heading the team, Jeremy Hockham, president of sales for the Americas, will lead sales, marketing, business development, technical and project support and customer service for the combined operation in North and South America. Christopher Gerace will continue in his role as president.

Eric Cechak, Franck Fabry, Daniel Nix and Kelly Priest will head the fo

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USA - The new Emulation Control Software from Elation Professional is the next generation in software lighting control. It has all of the functional features that lighting professionals are accustomed to working with, says the company, like cue-lists, fixture groups, playbacks and globals but there is one big difference - they can run it on a Mac OS platform from the start. And, they won't have to spend a king's ransom for this privilege either.

"In the past lighting professionals had limited choices when it came to lighting control software," said Eric Loader, director of sales for Elation Professional. "We have been getting requests for years for a MAC OS lighting software from both Pro Lighting users and Musicians who all own MAC computers. Sure they could run their lighting software on a Windows platform by using a third party software and then go through the

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UK - Tower Productions, which provides a range of services to the live event production industry including lighting hire, rigging, power generation and power distribution, recently completed a heating, lighting and power installation at the O2 Arena in London for the Gymnastics World Championships. The company deployed white 18kW electric heaters as no oil-fired equipment was allowed in the area.

"12 of these units and 40 400W white lo-bays ensured the practice area was warm and bright. The electric heaters are ideal for this type of installation as they are small, smart, reliable, fuel and fume-free and easy for the user to operate without and standby personnel," noted crew chief Andy Sharman.

(Lee Baldock)

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Canada - Looking to provide versatility in a cost-effective manner, systems integrator AV Communications recently installed a Soundcraft Si3 console as the centrepiece for its audio system design at the new Mapleview Community Church in Barrie, Ontario.

Housed in a former sports arena, Mapleview Community Church currently seats up to 900 people, and is part of a much larger campus that eventually will include sports facilities, a daycare centre and other recreational areas. In addition to the requirements for customary SPL, dynamics, and Percentage of Articulation Loss of Consonants, there were two requirements for this installation: It needed to fit within the designated budget and it needed to include a digital console.

The console needed to handle 32 channels of mixing and a dozen auxes, and it had to be flexible enough to handle day-to-day presentations by members of the c

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Germany - Lighting designer Martin Kuhn included 80 Infinity ACL Coemar moving heads in his lighting rig for Nature One 2009. Under the slogan Smile is the answer, a record number of over 60,000 revellers attended this year's Nature One 2009, probably the biggest electronic music festival in Germany, held on the former Pydna missile base, near Kastellaun, Hunsrück.

Since 1995 DJs from all around the world play the event and every year the audience also gets spoiled by the technical side, with powerful audio and a stunning light show. This year the technical service Satis & Fy from Werne, inspired by lighting designer Martin Kuhn included 80 Infinity ACL Coemar Moving Heads.

This spotlight with its extremely tight-emitting characteristics provided an impressive beam show over the heads of the dancers on the main floor.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Baldwin Boxall's Vigil EVAS voice alarm system has been installed in the brand new Caterpillar stand at Leicester Tigers stadium. The new stand completes phase one of the £60m redevelopment at Welford Road.

The voice alarm system, installed by Argus Services Ltd, will ensure safe and controlled evacuation in the event of an emergency. Investing in a well-built voice alarm system enables security and safety staff to feel at ease with the knowledge that the system will activate the instant it is required to do so. In the meantime, for everyday events, the same system provides stadium staff with full public address / DJ facilities and background music creating a great atmosphere for the fans. Other benefits include the ability to record timed messages for announcements such as advertising forthcoming events, venue facilities and closing/opening times total flexibility to

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UK - The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Ltd (LOCOG) is inviting an expression of interest from live events production companies to provide the production services for the Opening and Closing ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

LOCOG is seeking a highly experienced live events production company who have Olympic, Paralympic or large scale events experience to provide administrative and production services to the Creative Directors of the four ceremonies. The Creative Directors will be recruited directly by LOCOG through a separate process and so creative content proposals are not being sought from potential production companies. The chosen production company will manage and execute the production process from conception to delivery.

Bill Morris, LOCOG Director of Culture, Ceremonies & Education said: "The

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Finland - In late 2008 and early 2009, Finnish band Eppu Normaali enjoyed its Klubiotteella tour with a pair of DiGiCo SD8 consoles supplied by Akun Tehdas, the audio production company owned by the band and directed by drummer Aku Syrjä.

So successful was the tour that TomFloor Production, an associate company run by producer and engineer Tomi Pietilä, has since purchased its own console for Location Factory - the world's first SD8-equipped mobile recording facility.

"When it came to choosing a console, there were a few options which I considered, but very soon it became obvious that the SD8 had more preamps, more power, more... everything... compared with other brands," says Tomi of his new acquisition.

"Most importantly I knew the sound quality of the preamps. Having used the SD8 to make live recordings of the Eppu Normaali tour, I already k

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Italy - The ND 850 2.0 from RCF is a driver for professional high performance applications, from high power two-way systems to multiple-way long throw systems.

The ND850 2.0 has a two-inch exit throat featuring several state of the art technologies. The diaphragms are precision formed from made from pure titanium and the suspension is based on a vented and damped design in order to provide low distortion.

Voice coil assembly of the compression driver is designed using high temperature kapton former.

(Jim Evans)

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Dubai - Dubai-based company EPIC Events L.L.C. has just invested heavily with NMK Electronics in equipment from Electro-Voice.

The order includes 12 XLC127 line-array enclosures, 20 active ZXA5 speaker systems, and Tour Grade amplifiers (TG5, TG7) with integrated RCM DSP modules controlled by IRIS-Net software. This is state-of-the-art equipment offering the highest degree of reliability, performance and ease-of-use, says the company

"The inventories of three rental companies in the United Arab Emirates now boast Electro-Voice line arrays with remote amplifiers," says Chicco Hiranandani, business development manager, NMK Electronics. "Another thing customers appreciate is the quality of Electro-Voice (after-sales) service. The regular software updates are extremely popular here. They create trust. That's why investing in Electro-Voice is always a sound decision

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Israel - Compulite has released the latest version of its Vector software, 3.17.R04, which features performance and usability enhancements, as well as fixes which resolve issues with the GUI.

Performance enhancements include Improved redraw of views when 'File Attachment' is visible in the Master PB Cue sheet; 'Update dialog' now opens faster for large show files on VxWorks consoles; 'Graphic Time-line Editing' is now faster, while the CPU requirement of the Graphic Time Line itself has been reduced by two-thirds.

Among the bug fixes, system settings are loaded correctly on Compulite mode in VxWorks Consoles, enhancements to the Hippo v3 thumbnail integration, plus fixes to the highlight/lowlight palette and fixture cloning.

New features include the ability to load ASCII show files (in the USITT Standard Protocol only) directly to the Vector via the Vector 'Open' menu, and t

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Greece - Clay Paky's Alpha Profile 1200 fixtures were used during a National Theatre production of Phèdre at the famed Epidaurus theatre in Greece, as part of the Athens Festival.

The 15,000-seat Epidaurus theatre, designed in the 4th century BC, is known for its symmetry and beauty and marvelled for its exceptional acoustics, which allow the entire audience, regardless of their seat, to clearly hear a performer's unamplified voice from the stage. Although most ambient noise is absorbed by the limestone construction, it is still important to use equipment that can operate quietly.

Lighting designer Paule Constable explained, "Clay Paky Alpha Profile 1200 were used as front light specials placed amongst the crowd, so the low noise was a major consideration. We used the shuttering to pick out elements on the stage with great accuracy. They also proved reliabl

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UK - Plaster is a new look creative communications company, formally known as Resource PR. With nearly 10 years providing b2b and b2c communications, specialising in the event, exhibition, technology and audio visual sectors, the agency has rebranded to encompass its broader communications mix and reflect the company's creative new team.

The new company brand (Plaster) has been unveiled this October through a viral video, which saw the team donning plasterer's outfits and plastering their new logo onto the wall of their office.

Managing Director Graham Brown explained: "We have grown in many ways since moving to Bristol three years ago and it feels like a natural progression to have arrived at this rebrand. Kellie became a director last year reflecting her input and commitment, Lisa has a great portfolio of PR and marketing campaigns as an account manager, while Andrew, E

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Germany - With an impressive five-year growth rate of 289%, Coolux, the creator of the Pandoras Box media server system, has reached 42nd place as part of this year's Deloitte's Fast 50 list, a ranking of Germany's 50 fastest growing technology companies.

Deloitte has honoured business growth, technological innovation and entrepreneurial spirit this way for the seventh year in a row. The listed companies' performance highlights the fact that they were able to surpass expectations even in times of economic crisis.

Coolux founder and CEO Jan Hüwel comments on his company's success: "We are now reaping the benefits of our sticking to triple A quality standards, no matter what the economic situation. Pushing our ability to come up with innovative new ideas to the utmost limit and beyond has always been one of our main goals. More than 1500 licences sold since the inception o

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Japan - Cirque du Soleil's ZED is playing Tokyo Disney Resort's purpose-built 2,150-seat theatre. The dynamic soundscape created by sound designers François Bergeron and Vikram Kirby helps entice the guests into a world of imagination, giving the show a heightened emotional texture using Meyer Sound's Constellation electroacoustic architecture.

As applied in ZED, Constellation utilizes 97 compact loudspeakers, 32 microphones, and five dedicated VRAS processors to afford the liberty of creating fully adaptable acoustics.

"Constellation can sound absolutely natural, if that's what you want," says principal sound designer François Bergeron, who is also CFO of Burbank-based Thinkwell Design and Production and designer for six prior Cirque du Soleil shows, "but in pure sound design it also lets you play with the laws of physics. You can create acousti

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