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Denmark - While top diplomats and leaders negotiated at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, the DR Concert Hall projected climate messages from around the world onto its Martin-animated facade for the world to see.

Danmarks Radio (DR), Denmark's national public service broadcaster, in cooperation with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, invited people from across the globe to make their voices heard during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

"The climate is a common concern, so we thought it was natural to use the Concert Hall's big blue screen to give everyone a chance to express their attitudes, hopes and expectations to the climate summit participants," says Lars Silberbauer Andersen, the man behind the initiative along with Web editor Casper

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France - La Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie is one of the largest and most visited science museums in the world. Located on an impressive modern site in north-east Paris which includes the distinctive and futuristic geodesic dome, the Géode, it is also home to a large international convention centre. As part of a recent facility upgrade, the main 910-capacity Gaston Berger amphitheatre was equipped with an Eclipse digital mixing console from Innovason supplied by Studio Sextan in Paris. Best known for its recording studio, Sextan also offers AV rental and installation services.

The theatre hosts everything from seminars, AV presentations, one-man shows and Christmas pantomimes to full-blown rock concerts, so the console had to be both flexible and easily configurable. Sliman Maouchi, the convention centre's technical coordinator who was responsible for the refu

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UK - Built at a cost of £13 million, the new Middleton Arena, a civic and leisure centre located near Rochdale in northern England, features a flexible 500-seat auditorium which has been equipped with a M-400 digital audio front-of-house console from RSS.

Designed by architects BDP for two clients, Tesco and Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, the new civic centre has rejuvenated this run-down area of town, offering two swimming pools, a sports hall, private gym and dance studio. Its curved roof wraps tightly over the building, and the stylish modern design is carried through into the large theatre at the heart of the building.

Equipped by Stage Electrics, the auditorium has a dedicated control room housing the 48-channel RSS M-400 V-Mixing console, which offers the house and visiting engineers a toolkit of 16 busses, channel and bus DSP, four stereo FX processors, fo

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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 - Entertainment lighting supplier White Light reports that it is enjoying a busy Christmas and New Year season, supplying lighting to over 30 pantomimes as well as new musicals, comedy shows, corporate events and more across all of the areas of the entertainment and events industries.

The pantomime season has been building up since early December, with White Light dispatching a wide range of equipment as specified by a variety of lighting designers to theatres around the UK. The show tally includes five Aladdins, seven Cinderellas, two Dick Whittingtons, one Humpty Dumpty, two Jack and the Beanstalks, seven Peter Pans, one Pied Piper, three Sleeping Beautys and four Snow Whites. The show's producers include First Family Entertainment, Evolution and UK Productions as well as independent productions in Camberley, Ha

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UK - Funding for 200 new jobs helping young unemployed people break into the creative and cultural sector has been secured by Creative & Cultural Skills. Culture Secretary, Ben Bradshaw, has pledged £1.3 million from the Future Jobs Fund for the new jobs, many of which will help people from the nation's most deprived communities establish a career.

From February 2010, Creative & Cultural Skills will work with Job Centre Plus and regional partners throughout England and Wales to secure employment in creative and cultural venues and organisations which are members of the National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural Skills. The jobs will be open to people aged 18-24 who have been claiming benefits. The jobs on offer will include theatre technician, costume and wardrobe assistant, community arts officer and business administrator. All will include a level of accredited trai

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Italy - Chiambretti Night - Solo per numeri uno (Only for number ones) is the variety show conducted by Piero Chiambretti, aired late night on Italia 1 channel. Interviews with celebrities and figures in entertainment, sport, culture and politics are its strength. The show features a talented cast composed mainly of comedians who interact with the conductor during the transmission.

In addition to its contents, the show has distinguished itself for the exquisite set assembled in Mediaset's studio 11, the result of intense teamwork between photography director Franco Buso and set designer Dario Cavalletti. It all takes place inside a studio that has been outfitted as a real night club down to the smallest details with mood lighting, dancers, show girls, piano players and an audience seated at cocktail tables.

Franco Buso comments on the light design, "The goal was to

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Major Merger - The merger of ticket agent Ticketmaster and concert promoter Live Nation has been cleared by the UK regulator. The Competition Commission said that the merger would "not result in a substantial lessening of competition in the market" in the UK. The decision is a reversal of its provisional ruling. It had been concerned the deal would lead to higher prices and lower quality of service. The US Justice Department is also investigating the proposed merger.

The UK Competition Commission revised its opinion that the deal could lead to music fans paying more for tickets to see live performances. The regulator found that it would not be in the new merged company's interest to shut out competition. The new company "would suffer significant and immediate losses, with very uncertain prospects for long-term gain," the Competition Commission said.

The reg

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UK - The Watermill Theatre's latest production is Hot Mikado by Strictly Come Dancing judge, Craig Revell Horwood and Tony award-winning orchestrator Sarah Travis. The production uses big band, swing and gospel at its musical core and the cast of 15 are also the orchestra.

Delivering these musical styles with a modern sound was the challenge that sound designer Chris Full, Andy Pink (associate) and FOH mixer Matt McCarthy took on. The show started life at the Watermill where it played for two weeks before a UK tour. Due to the diversity of the theatres on tour, Full used Axys Scope loudspeakers as key elements to deliver the required punch and excitement at all levels from the smaller orchestral arrangements through big band to rock/ gospel whilst providing a consistent sound character through the full dynamic range of the show and across all of the individual venu

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UK - Initially supplying the cruise ship, Saga Ruby, with lighting equipment to Richard Horley Lighting's specification during its £17million refit in 2005, Point Source Productions' maintenance department has been involved in a concerted maintenance and repair programme during 2009.

Focusing on two areas, the large Main Ballroom and the more intimate View Bar and Restaurant, the Point Source Productions team carried out necessary ad hoc repairs to the venues' lighting and control equipment whilst the ship was taking passengers on board at Southampton. The team's organisation and sympathetic approach ensured they completed the work without affecting the smooth workings of the ship. This was followed by a complete service of lighting equipment in both venues and the installation of architectural systems in the shop and Lido Restaurant when the Saga Ruby went into dry dock i

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UK - The Scots Trad Music Awards is a significant annual event, highlighting the very best of traditional Scottish music. Recorded for transmission by BBC Alba, a major Yamaha and Nexo rig provided the audio for the large invited audience.

Taking place at the DG1 in Dumfries, a modern multipurpose venue, the awards took place on 28 November and were broadcast two days later on BBC television. Sound provider for the event was Midlothian-based event production company A&R Martin, which has a long and successful history of using the Yamaha / Nexo combination.

"I've been using the Yamaha M7CL and LS9 for several years and we've found them powerful, flexible and easy to use," says the company's Dougie Martin. "We first bought into Nexo about a decade ago, gradually increasing our inventory of PS and LS series loudspeakers and adding the GeoS12 system shortly after it

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UK - Lighting designer Tim Routledge used his new grandMA2 light console to control lighting for The Stereophonics' high profile 'homecoming' gig at Cardiff Castle last month. The event - which saw the 10,000 tickets pegged at 1998 prices, the last time the band played the venue - celebrated the launch of their new album Keep Calm & Carry On.

Routledge a founder of grandPA, the UK's only programming house for the grandMA control platform, was asked to light this show plus a warm-up at London's Electric Ballroom, following a TV special he did for the band at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium - for which his lighting design won a Welsh BAFTA Award.

grandPA was among the first UK companies to invest in the new grandMA2 consoles when it was released. "It's a beautifully comfortable desk to use," says Routledge, "with ergonomics and design carefully and intelligent

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UK - Blackburn-based lighting rental company HSL supplied lighting equipment and crew to the latest UK White Lies tour, which featured a high-impact, lighting design - based primarily on white and near white light - by Chris Megginson.

HSL was brought in to work with White Lies by Darren Snape of Vertical Management right at the start of their meteoric career two years ago, which has since experienced a steep upwards trajectory. This was their largest production tour to date and included two sold out nights at London's Brixton Academy. HSL's project manager Mike Oates says: "It's extremely rewarding seeing a talented band grow, and Chris's designs, which are always exciting and innovative, evolve."

Megginson began the creative process for this one by presenting some ideas to the band to get them energised about the lighting. They wanted a massive wall of PAR cans to

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Europe - An L-Acoustics K1/Kudo system has been used on Rammstein's European tour. "L-Acoustics' PA systems have consistently been the best available ever since they first launched," says K System engineer Ulf Oeckel. "Having used the K1, in my opinion there is no competitor which can guarantee the same performance."

Playing to an average audience of 15,000, Oeckel was using the system in an arena configuration consisting of 24 K1 units with 12 K1 subs, 24 Kudo boxes plus 24 SB28 and 16 SB218 subwoofers.

"This provided high SPLs in all audience positions and a balanced frequency response," he says. "We were getting an SPL of 110dB at FOH and 103dB at the back row, with the same clear sound. It has brilliant rigging and quick handling, and its exact acoustic imaging provides a good starting point from the beginning. We've been getting a great

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UK - For the current Muse tour, which opened with dates in Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen on three consecutive nights, production manager Chris Vaughan reports that packaging the PA was all important. "Actually Skan [Skan PA Hire] make it incredibly easy for me. Before the tour started we focussed on how the PA would be packaged," says Vaughan. "We knew in advance that we'd overnight between three to four hundred miles of back-to-back shows." There wasn't even time to work up efficiencies.

"We have 17 trucks in all, two and a half truck-loads of PA. Our first 'out' took just over two hours, now we regularly load out in one and three quarter hours." That might not sound too impressive until Vaughan points out, "That's in-the-round lights and LED system, with the main stereo PA, flown subs, side-hangs, and rear PA system. While playing 360° h

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China - Following its success in Asia, French lighting manufacturer, Robert Juliat, has now formed a new branch, Robert Juliat Asia (based in Beijing), and appointed Jamie Boey as dedicated branch manager for the region. Boey joins the company from Total Solution Marketing Pte where he spent six years as sales and product manager.

Boey brings his experience to Robert Juliat, overseeing the Asia region where he will be further developing Robert Juliat presence in this fast growing market.

"Jamie has great knowledge and understanding of operating in this region," says Robert Juliat sales director, Lionel Garraud. "Initially he will be concentrating on establishing a network across China, Taiwan, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and India. He will also be supporting our current distributors and partners in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong

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USA - With the boundless possibilities of multimedia integration, Canadian production giant Solotech has inspired audiences through its work with Cirque du Soleil, Leonard Cohen, Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Diana Krall, Michael Buble, Pacific Symphony, and Star Wars: In Concert, using Meyer Sound systems. To lay the groundwork for further growth in the AV installation and touring markets, the 35-year-old company opened a new facility in Las Vegas in 2009 to support and advance the use of multimedia directly from the international capital of live entertainment.

Solotech has maintained an active presence in Las Vegas since 2003. "We worked on the opening of some of Las Vegas's major showroom projects such as the Colosseum at Caesars Palace and the KÀ,/i> theatre at MGM Grand," says Pierre Leduc, vice president and general manager of Solotech US Corp. &

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USA - Frank Dwyer's latest New York City venture, Legends 33 upscale sports bar and restaurant is right across the street from the Empire State Building, and customers dine to music from a discretely distributed Renkus-Heinz loudspeaker system.

Legends 33 - named for both its featured sporting icons and its West 33rd Street location - is pitched at both the local office lunch / dinner market and tourists looking for a top quality all-American dining experience. It combines three floors of finely detailed old-world ambience with the sports bar mix of screens showing every available sports channel, along with background music to accompany gourmet burgers, steaks, pasta and traditional Irish fish'n'chips. Meanwhile, a VJ booth on a balcony level sets the party scene for Friday and Saturday nights.

The systems integrators were Starview Satellite, which has been designing and insta

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UAE - The 38th National Day celebrations in the UAE saw Dubai distributor, Venuetech accommodate a special request from production company Dubai Artistic.

Venuetech were asked to supply a Sennheiser SKM-5200 microphone for the regionally acclaimed artist Hussain Al Jassmi to use on a string of concerts arranged across the country for the 2 December celebration. When Venuetech approached Sennheiser with the request and advised on what the microphone was to be used, they came up with the idea of having it customised by Crystal-Roc. Crystal-Roc then emblazoned the microphones with coloured Swarovski Crystal in the style of a UAE flag.

"When we were asked to come up with something special for this event I immediately got in touch with Mig Cardamone, Middle East business area manager for Sennheiser, and asked him if we could come up with something unique and from there we agre

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Happy Holidays! - Our online news service is currently taking a break for the Christmas period, and will begin again on 4 January 2010.

During 2009, the team at LSI Online have delivered over 3,500 news stories to an audience of entertainment technology professionals in no fewer than 177 countries across the world. It's been a record year for online traffic.

This was also the year we passed our first decade of delivering online news to the industry: Lighting&Sound International's first online news feed, via the PLASA website, appeared on 10 September 1999. On that day, we reported that Britannia Row Productions had invested in 48 stacks of Turbosound Flashlight at the PLASA Show, and that Martin Professional had opened a new UK-based manufacturing facility in Louth, Lincolnshire.

Since then, we have added more than 27,000 news stories to our online database - which remains f

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USA - Community Professional Loudspeakers has released new pole mount brackets for convenient mounting of their smaller sized R-Series and WET Series loudspeakers to poles, posts or columns. The brackets can be used to attach Community's R.25, R.5 and RMG, and WET W2-218, W2-228, W2-2V8 and W2-2W8 loudspeaker models to poles or columns greater than six inches in diameter.

Designed with Community's weather-resistant construction, the easily-assembled PMB mounting kits bolt together using clamps and 3/4-inch stainless steel banding.

The PMB-1RR bracket is designed to accommodate a single loudspeaker of up to 50lb with vertical down-tilt capability, while the PMB-2RR bracket can be used to mount dual loudspeakers weighing up to 100 lbs in an upper-lower configuration with vertical down-tilt and left-right panning.

(Jim Evans)

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The Netherlands - When the 2010 edition of Integrated Systems Europe opens its doors on 2 February, over 20% of its 500-plus exhibitors will be new to the show, organiser Integrated Systems Events reports.

Mike Blackman, managing director, Integrated Systems Events comments: "No tradeshow can thrive without bringing new customers and new markets to its exhibitors. Right from its first showing in Geneva in 2004, this is something ISE has proved it can do. AV manufacturers are turning to ISE as a platform from which to launch their products and services into new and emerging sectors, and that is one reason why we are hosting so many new exhibitors in Amsterdam in February."

The pro audio sector is a prime example of this trend, with the likes of L-Acoustics, HK Audio, Sonus, Ateïs, Out Board/TiMax, Baldwin Boxall, Seeburg, Cloud Electronics, and XTA/MC2 Audio all show

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