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UK - The Minotaure complex in Vendôme has bought a new Outline sound reinforcement system, comprising 12 Mini-COM.P.A.S.S. speakers and two SubTech 218 SP subwoofers, controlled by an Outline Genius 26 unit.

Located in the centre of Vendôme, the 'Le Minotaure' complex has a total area of 1,500sq.m. It hosts a 769-seat theatre hall, a multi-purpose hall (holding 400 people seated and 600 standing), several smaller meeting rooms and a naturally illuminated foyer for exhibitions. Le Minotaure was inaugurated in 2002, and has hosted numerous shows since .

The theatre hall suffered from poor acoustics. The coverage was uneven, and the stereo image unbalanced. In 2009, it was decided to replace the front of house reinforcement system.

Several systems were compared - among them, a

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South Africa - Gearhouse South Africa supplied technical production for the first Cape Town Aqua Festival, a lively three-week arts event, presented by MNet and produced by Hunta Live, that featured a series of world class performances by local and international artists. This took place on a purpose-built floating stage moored in the North Wharf area of the busy port's Victoria & Albert harbour.

The 2000 capacity seating stand - supplied by Havaseat (a Gearhouse company) - was on dry land. The three weeks of the event spanned the peak festive holiday season, and included the resident AquaCircus, a special daily performance devised by Zip-Zap, a local circus school dedicated to developing the skills and potential of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Other highlights included the H2Opera, AquaJazz, AquaBallet and concerts by a wide range of artists

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Nigeria - The Experience, a non-denominational gospel music concert in Lagos, has grown to become by far the largest music event in Africa. A Woodstock-sized throng estimated at 450,000 jammed into the Tafawa Balewa Square and spilled over into an adjacent cricket field for a spiritual celebration featuring 14 American and Nigerian gospel artists, including headliners Kirk Franklin, Phil Driscoll, and Bebe and Cece Winans.

The event's ongoing sound system supplier, GQ Acoustics of Lagos, pampered the enlarged crowd this year with an expanded Meyer Sound system that had been boosted with more Milo line array loudspeakers and 700-HP subwoofers, plus a new complement of problem-solving JM-1P arrayable loudspeakers.

"The main venue is an open quadrangle about 170m across, with the stage on one long side, grandstands opposite, and three-story pavilions on the short side

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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 - Allen & Heath has unveiled its smallest format mixers to date, the ZED-10 and ZED-10FX. Part of the ZED range of USB-equipped mixers for live performance, recording and production, the new additions are simple, ultra compact mixers built to a professional standard, which will suit a wide range of applications including solo artists, bands, schools, houses of worship and conference facilities, says the company.

ZED-10 and ZED-10FX feature two ultra high impedance discrete Class A FET (Field Effect Transistor) inputs, which allow an instrument to be plugged directly into the mixer, emulating the valve/tube input circuitry commonly found on instrument combos or amplifiers. There is also a 26dB gain boost switch, which caters for instruments with very low output pickups.

The ZED-10 can also manage up to four microphones and two stereo sources with MP3 player compatibility, pr

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USA - Prism Sound and SADiE and PMC are sponsoring The Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing's third annual Grammy Week event, to be held at the Village Recording Studios in West Los Angeles. Set for Wednesday 27 January 2010, this event honours excellence in music, audio, and the professionals who work behind the scenes to create great recordings.

As part of 2010 Grammy Week, the P&E Wing will be celebrating the music of Island Records and its founder Chris Blackwell, whose vision and commitment brought to the world the music of artists such as Desmond Dekker and the Aces, Nick Drake, Melissa Etheridge, Grace Jones, Bob Marley, Roxy Music, Cat Stevens, Toots and the Maytals, U2, Steve Winwood, and many others.

The event, entitled Catch a Fire is named for Bob Marley's first album, which is a 2010 inductee into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Honorary chairs for the eve

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The Netherlands - Mojo Barriers brought 2009 to a close with three different public events in three cities across Holland, delivering tailored crowd barrier systems to each one.

New Year's Eve celebrations in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and a Christmas charity event in Groningen brought together tens of thousands of people in each city with each presenting different challenges for crowd safety. International barrier company Mojo Barriers worked with production companies on each events to supply tailored barrier systems to ensure each event was safe.

For the double New Year's Eve events Mojo Barriers used two teams to work in both Rotterdam and Amsterdam. In Rotterdam a floating stage on the canal hosted a music concert and The Production Factory commissioned Mojo Barriers to install 750m of barrier along the canal bank. 20,000 people attended and the Mojo team used their experienc

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UAE - On 4 January 2010, the opening ceremony of the tallest tower in the world took place in Dubai. The recently renamed Khalifa tower is 828m and boasts 162 floors. Defying the technical challenges associated with such a construction, EMAAR Group revealed to the world its expertise in building engineering.

With such a building, the associated opening ceremony had to be as impressive as the tower itself. Dubai based Prisme International was selected to organise the complete event. Prisme designed a lighting set based on more than 300 Space Cannon, spread all around the building, and also installed on 17 terraces.

Prisme International has worked for several years with France-based Sonoss, French dealer of Luminex equipment. Following a request from Prisme, Sonoss and Luminex supplied a complete network solution to transport all lighting datas, all over the ground level, and in

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Israel - Waves Audio has announced that noted Front-of-House engineer Ken 'Pooch' Van Druten has joined the Waves Live Division as a product specialist. Most recently on tour with multi-million-selling rockers Linkin Park, Van Druten brings with him decades of experience as a first-call live sound engineer. A graduate of Boston's Berklee College of Music, he has worked with many contemporary musical acts, including Beastie Boys, Jay-Z, Kid Rock, Eminem and Whitney Houston.

As part of his role as a Waves product specialist, Van Druten will be called upon to share his vast knowledge with the Waves customer base, as well as shed light upon the digital revolution now taking place in the live sound arena.

Waves CEO Gilad Keren stated: "Pooch is one of the very best at what he does, and his input is invaluable to both the Waves team and our end users. The Waves Live Division is

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USA - Community Professional Loudspeakers has announced the availability of custom colour paint for their Entasys high-performance column line-array loudspeakers. Entasys, which features a three-way full-range column and a low frequency column in matched enclosures, was released last year and has quickly become one of Community's most popular products.

Designed for permanent installations including auditoria, airports, train stations, conference centres, houses of worship, stadium concourses and museums, its weather-resistant design makes Entasys equally suitable for permanent outdoor installation. Custom colour options include painting of the enclosure, end caps, T-bar and grille, with black or white grille cloth behind the painted grille. Customers can provide a RAL colour matching reference or a colour sample.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - There has been a lot of TV coverage recently concerning the Dallas Cowboys giant video displays at their new stadium in Arlington. The $40m, four-sided, high-definition Diamond Vision video board, which is built by Mitsubishi Electric, uses 22,000 TDK-Lambda ZWS power supplies to light the 25 million Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) needed to create the image on the screen.

As part of the team's move from their previous home in Irving, the recently opened $1.1bn stadium sports a retractable roof from which the world's largest HDTV screens hang. The four panels, which together weigh 600 metric tons (600,000kg), are suspended approximately 30m above midfield. The sideline panel stretches from one 20-yard line to the other and measures 21.76 x 48.32m; it has just been recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest High Definition (HD) video screen.

Alr

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UK - Software developer Stardraw.com has appointed audio visual technology distribution specialists RGB Communications as the exclusive distribution channel for their design/documentation and control products throughout the UK and Eire. The agreement is effective from 1 January 2010.

According to Stardraw.com marketing director Rob Robinson, the move represents an exciting step forward. "RGB Communications is a company that specialises in providing solutions, not just products and, having formerly distributed some very well-known control brands for the best part of two decades, what they don't know about control systems isn't worth knowing.

"We are extremely flattered that, after careful deliberation and extensive product evaluation, RGB Communications has concluded that Stardraw Control 2010 is the right platform on which to provide the next generation of control so

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USA - Peavey has added two new mixers to its long-running PV Series, the PV 6 USB, and PV 8 USB.

The PV 6 USB and PV 8 USB feature effects send on every channel with stereo return, and zero latency record monitoring capabilities, while a USB port allows direct connection to a USB-equipped computer for recording from the mixer or playing back digital audio (compatible with Mac OSX, Windows XP, ME & 2000). Both of these models also include pre-fader monitor sends; inserts on all channels; and dual switchable line inputs on the two stereo channels.

All PV Series mixers include Tape to Control Room and Tape to Mix assigns, which allow the operator to monitor an external stereo signal without using any of the mixer's channels. In addition, the mixers' Control Room output sends a stereo master output signal to an external source for monitoring. Phantom power, effects send and a cont

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UK - Clockaudio has announced two new additions to its distributor network in Europe.

In Sweden, the Karlstad-based Special-Elektronik AB will represent the British microphone manufacturer. A specialist distributor of AV technology for conferencing and auditoria, Special-Elektronik will also handle the line in Denmark.

Clockaudio sales in Belgium will forthwith be handled by M-PRO BeNeLux BVBA. Led by Mario Clabots, the M-PRO team already represents respected audio brands such as MiPro, Symetrix and Australian Monitor. A regular equipment supplier to AV projects like city halls, court rooms and boardrooms, M-PRO is well-known for providing high-quality competitive solutions in Belgium and Luxembourg.

(Jim Evans)

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Norway - The Norsk Film Institute (NFI) features a Yamaha DME installation and is regarded as the axle upon which the Norwegian film industry revolves, with over 2000 screenings a year in its Oslo premises. Around half of these are previews of major international releases for press and cinema owners, so having the best sound and vision is a fundamental requirement.

The rest of the industry has been quick to follow the NFI's example and installing Yamaha-based digital audio systems.

Unique Cinema Systems (UCS) is one of Norway's major suppliers to the country's cinema industry and the company, which introduced the Yamaha DME64N to the Scandinavian cinema market., It has sold more than 50 DME64N and many Yamaha amplifiers and loudspeakers, with over 10% of Norway's cinemas now featuring Yamaha equipment, a figure which is rising monthly.

"Yamaha equipment has been install

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UK / China - London-based AV sales and service company eMerging has reached an exclusive distribution agreement with Chinese recording microphone company MicW for the UK and Ireland. Effective immediately, the entire range of MicW mono and stereo instrument microphones will be available in the UK through eMerging and a network of selected dealers.

A subsidiary of the Beijing-based measurement microphone manufacturer BWSA, the largest such manufacturer of microphones for test and measurement and industrial applications in China, MicW was formed in 2008 to concentrate on the market for high-quality microphones aimed at broadcast, recording and live applications. After being active in the domestic Chinese market for a year, MicW launched its international sales activities in Europe in Spring 2009. The UK distribution agreement is the largest so far signed by the company, which is c

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UK - The PLASA 2010 Show has officially launched with the opening of a free registration month, enabling early bookers to gain admission to this year's show, at Earls Court on 12 - 15 September 2010, at no charge. Registration is now open on the new-look PLASA 2010 website (www.plasashow.com) with free visitor registration available until 11 February.

Following the highly upbeat reaction to PLASA09, with exhibitors expressing delight at the quality of visitors despite the financial climate, expectations for PLASA 2010 are also high.

Early exhibitor news includes confirmation by Martin Professional; a doubling of stand space by Nexo; and the return after a one-year absence of Zero 88.

PLASA's Events manager Sophie Atkinson said, "Last year the free registration offer helped boost exhibitors' confidence in the show's compelling drawing power by attracting thousands of ear

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UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies has been appointed as a dealer for CoolTalk, the microphone and headset solution for two-way communication in windy and noisy environments.

Designed as a plug-in for radios and walkie-talkies, the headset can work in 'Vox mode' for complete hands-free operation and cuts out background noise by up to 90%. When placed around the neck, the user's voice will be picked up by CoolTalk's revolutionary vibration technology. This makes it suitable for production personnel working at heights when communicating with crew on the ground in noisy surroundings.

The CoolTalk headset features a durable, hard-wearing design which is IP66 splash proof rated. A.C. Entertainment Technologies is offering the product as a four-way wireless intercom kit featuring four CoolTalk headsets with four Motorola T5 radios and charger.

(Jim Evans)

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USA / The Netherlands - Intelix has announced the release of the DIGI-SCAL-11X2, a high-definition switcher with built-in scaling and audio/video format conversion. The unit will debut at ISE in Amsterdam.

"The DIGI-SCAL-11X2 handles the processing of three different devices - switching, scaling, and format conversion - in a compact, easy-to-use platform," says Steve Cohan, Intelix CEO.

The DIGI-SCAL-11X2 is designed for integrating legacy, non-HD equipment into a distributed high-definition audio-visual system. It provides switching between 11 different audio-visual sources, upscaling them to 720p or 1080p, and converting them to HDMI.

The unit features five stereo audio inputs, four HDMI inputs, two YPbPr inputs, two composite video inputs, one S-video input, one VGA input, one DVI-I input, and one optical digital audio input. Dual HDMI outputs allow two displays

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Germany / The Netherlands - Optocore has appointed TM Audio as its new exclusive distributor in the Netherlands.

The move is the latest in a continuing strategy to strengthen Optocore's profile in the key broadcast, theatre and touring markets following the launch earlier this year of the SANE (Synchronous Audio Network plus Ethernet) digital audio networking protocol.

Optocore's international sales manager, Mike Case stated: "We are delighted to be teaming up with such a professional company as TM Audio. As part of the Ampco Flashlight Group they are a highly-renowned and respected company, who have been a predominant force in all our key markets over a number of years.

"Given the current economic circumstances it is highly encouraging to receive such a high-level commitment."

The Dutch distributors' sales & marketing manager, Rudolf Nagtzaam, responded: &q

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UK - Hawthorns has launched a new website for 2010 - www.hawthorns.uk.com. The website aims to be as easy to use as it is on the eye and to show the wide array of products and services that Hawthorn provide across its three main divisions of Production Solutions, Hire & Sales and Installations, as well as Rex Howard Drapes.

The new look website contains up to the minute information on Hawthorns' services and hire stock.

Hawthorn's general manager, Simon Wood, commented, "Our new website will be updated with news, blogs, case studies, photographs and additions to our hire stock. In line with the trend towards new media, we want the site to be much more interactive and for it to evolve with us throughout 2010."

(Jim Evans)

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Sweden - On 10 December 2009, CAST Software's wysiwyg and Vivien - Virtual Event Designer played a major role in The Nobel Prize Banquet. Held annually in the Blue Hall of Stockholm City Hall since 1934, the banquet immediately follows the Nobel Prize Awards. The event is attended by the King and Queen of Sweden and the other members of the Royal Family, plus approximately 1300 guests, including Nobel Laureates, politicians, dignitaries and other VIPs, as well as seen by the viewing audience of a High Definition television broadcast by Swedish Television (SVT).

Lighting designer Per Sundin and production manager Ola Melzig collaborated in advance for the Banquet in 2008 using wysiwyg and Vivien. The two have worked together on the event several times in the past, but last year was the first time Vivien was integrated. There was no hesitation to use the software com

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