Details
Germany - The ProLight&Sound Show in Frankfurt saw the world debut of Camco's new V8 Class H amplifier, delivering 8800 Watts of power whether in 2 Ohm or 4 Ohm mode. The first of three planned additions to the Vortex Series, the V8 shows off a new design aesthetic and streamlined user interface.

The most noticeable feature is the absence of any control knobs or switches, front or back. In this new format, the control of all parameters is via screen display and gain sliders. Such a clean and practical approach reduces wear and tear factors on moving parts, not to mention developing a more progressive approach to function and form, says the company.

"The new V8 is much beefier than its distinguished stablemate the Vortex 6, because the industry across-the-board is asking for

Details
UK - New light engines enabling replacements for fluorescent strip lighting and a new range of high quality architectural lighting solutions will be among the highlights on Marl's stand at the euroLED exhibition at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, 9-10 June 2010.

Showcased on the stand will be the new low watt light engines from Citizen which serve as an energy efficient replacement for fluorescent tubes, offering over 25% better efficiency and at least four times longer lifetime. The Citizen CL-824 series can be mounted to form circles, squares and other shapes to deliver directional illumination in a downward cone over a 120° arc creating of a host of innovative lighting effects, whilst eliminating wasted light. An array of five of the chips matches the light output of a 1.2W fluorescent tube whilst providing a more robust lighting solution.

Also on the stand will be the new

Details
UAE - Swedish image processing and show-control specialist Dataton returns to Dubai for PALME Middle East with a new take on its flagship product, Dataton Watchout. Version 4.2 of Watchout, which will be making its regional debut at the show, incorporates a new development, Watchout Systems Manager.

Based on Adobe Flash technology, Watchout Systems Manager allows users to create interactive front ends for their Watchout-driven systems and presentations. It includes two ready-to-run applications for remote control and scheduling of shows, and also features an Application Programming Interface (API) and a Communications Library so that users can create their own applications.

Michael Engström, director of sales at Dataton, comments, "Remote control and scheduling are invaluable aids in larger, more complex multimedia installations. The remote-control application within Wat

featured content

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

Details
Nexo has announced the addition of a new concert sound specialist to the team. Front-of-house engineer and system designer Stuart Kerrison joins the company in the role of international touring manager, tasked with supporting current Geo Series line-array users and encouraging new rental partners into the international network.

Stuart Kerrison will be working primarily in the European territories, but liaising tour sound companies all over the world. He has a long track record in the professional sound engineering business, and will bring real-world expertise and experience to Nexo's activity in the concert and tour sound sector, says the company.

Now resident in Oslo, Kerrison is in fact a Brit who lived in Australia until the mid-1980s. For 26 years, he has been a professional front-of-house engineer, touring the world with INXS, Erasure, Paul Weller, the Utah Saints and, notably,

Details
UK - Following another year of strong growth, leading theatre consultancy Charcoalblue has appointed four new team members: theatre consultant and lighting specialist Paul Franklin, architect and theatre planner Elena Giakoumaki, stage engineer and innovator Giles Favell, and acoustician Byron Harrison.

Paul Franklin brings international theatre consultancy experience to Charcoalblue. Skilled in the design of lighting, dimming and control systems for a wide range of environments and functions, Franklin has contributed to a number of prestigious projects including the critically acclaimed Wexford Opera House, Ireland. Franklin says: "My focus at Charcoalblue will be to design lighting and lighting control systems that enhance our clients' projects and provide flexibility and reliability well into the future".

Trained architect and theatre planner Elena Giakoumaki, pre

Details
Australia - The organisers of Integrate 2010, the Australian entertainment and installation technology exhibition (24-26 August, Sydney), have announced that sound engineer Bruce Jackson, fresh from his role as audio director of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, will headline the event's seminar sessions this year.

Jackson, currently Dolby's Sound Platform Director, has a spectacular audio CV. Some 40 years ago he started a PA hire company in Australia called Jands (Jackson and Storey), before selling his stake to try his luck in The States. Here he became Elvis Presley's right hand 'sound guy' before spending a number of years doing the sound for Bruce Springsteen.

But Bruce's interest in sound always extended further than mixing front of house - the foldaway mixing console he designed for Clair Bros still provokes knowing nods of appreciation. So 30-odd years ago, when Fairligh

Details
Germany - Ateis Europe took a big leap forward in the development of its public address (PA) and voice alarm (VA) loudspeakers at this year's Prolight&Sound show in Frankfurt with the launch of the Messenger G2 and Orbit ranges. These are an extension of Ateis' column array technology and offer greater frequency response, dynamic range and control for improved intelligibility and directionality, says the company.

The new Messenger G2 range is the fourth generation of Ateis' column array loudspeakers, originally introduced on to the market in the early 1990's. Every few years improvements have been made to range to keep up with what is needed in the demanding PA, background music (BGM) and VA markets.

Using that experience, Ateis' designers have produced the Messenger G2, a range of five active arrays to suit any installation. To offer greater choice and flexibility in its rang

Details
UK - Artists in East London and the East of England are being offered an opportunity to become part of a new creative community in the Thames Gateway. A study is underway to assess potential interest in a purpose-built, artists' studio building as part of a new £60million cultural centre in Thurrock, Essex, less than 30 minutes by train from London.

The Production Park will feature a state-of-the-art set production workshop for the Royal Opera House and a new centre of excellence for the National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural Skills, where students from every corner of the UK will be able to train in backstage theatre and live music production. At the heart of the complex a restored group of Tudor farm buildings will form a contemporary visitor and conference centre offering experiences based on creativity and inspiration.

A feasibility study is now looking at t

Details
Canada - CBC has recently upgraded one of its music production remote trucks with a 128-channel, 32 fader Solid State Logic C200 HD Digital Production Console. The C200 HD is used for both live broadcast and recording of concerts and events for radio and television in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

"There are certain important advantages of using a digital console when dealing with the live recording and broadcasting of an event, and those advantages are well expressed on the C200 HD," says Karl Falkenham, music producer and recording engineer for the CBC. "With a live performance situation, the C200's knob per function design approach is very powerful and immediate. With other digital consoles, you have to go to page two, for instance, to change your EQ. By the time you do that, your opportunity to fix a problem with a guitar solo has passed

Details
Uruguay - Internationally renowned Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly's latest masterpiece is one that does his native country of Uruguay proud: the new terminal at Carrasco International Airport, near Montevideo. A combination of Bosch Praesideo public address systems and an extensive distribution of Electro-Voice ceiling speakers provide a balance of safety, sound quality and style at the airport, which is now ranked among the most technically and architecturally advanced in the world.

The main terminal building's large, curved roof stretches 400m over the length of the facility, and uses acres of glass to both bring in natural light and emphasize the impressive scale of the structure, which has become a national symbol in Uruguay. As much attention to detail was given to the technologies at work inside the airport as to the building itself, and design/installation contractors

Details
UK - For further education colleges which offer courses covering the technical production aspects of live music and theatre, it's crucial that student training is done on industry standard equipment which graduates will find in the 'real world' after their studies. For this reason, Kendal College has just invested in a Yamaha M7CL digital mixing console.

More famed for its mint cake and being the eastern gateway to England's popular Lake District, over the past few decades the Cumbrian town of Kendal has rapidly become a hotbed for the performing arts, thanks to its further education college.

Kendal College's Music, Performing Arts and Technical Theatre programmes work closely together to provide resources for students who are seeking careers both on stage and behind the scenes. Combining academic tuition with real productions in real venues, the provision of up-to-date equipm

Details
Germany - The Willow Creek Leitungskongress, a HOW leadership summit and training event held in Karlsruhe, Germany in late January brought together church staff from around the country with the aim of becoming better leaders.

Held in Dm-Arena, the event was put on by US-based ministry Willow Creek Community Church of Chicago and was also broadcast live to a satellite location in Winterthur, Switzerland.

A Martin rig included an impressive display of LC Series LED panels. "The LC panels created an amazing visual experience for the 7000 people attending the conference and the 500 attending in Winterthur," commented Todd Elliott, technical arts director at Willow Creek Community Church.

"They went up without a problem, which speaks to the ease of use of the LC panels and also to having someone like Daniel Kaminski who understands how the product works and how to

Details
Canada - SW Audio Visual deployed a complete outdoor wintertime entertainment audio system to accommodate up to 50,000 people for the Richmond O Zone, one of the official celebration sites of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. The O Zone was open for the duration of the Games from 12-28 February and featured live performances by some of Canada's most successful musical artists across a broad range of genres.

Situated on 60 acres in the heart of the Richmond City Centre, the O Zone featured large high-definition video screens to display the competitions, along with outdoor ice skating, art exhibits, ice sculptures and even a virtual reality bobsled attraction. The O Zone also hosted theme nights celebrating Canada's diverse cultures and regions, including a Chinese New Year Celebration on 14 February.

"There were all kinds of performers throughout the two-and-a-ha

Details
France / Belgium - For its latest fashion show on 9 March, Chanel constructed an iceberg style runway in the Grand Palais in Paris. To prevent the iceberg from melting and flooding the fashionistas a giant fridge was placed over the 240-ton ice sculpture. Just before the show started the fridge was hoisted up in the air.

Wicreations of Tremelo, Belgium furnished all necessary equipment, engineering and people for the construction to take off. The fridge, a giant thermos was lifted by 14 0.5 T Varistar hoists. The two 40m lighting trusses that were mounted inside the box were lifted by 10 0.5 T zero speed lift-champ hoists. The major challenge was to synchronise all these hoists for the lift off to a height of 15m. All went according to plan, thanks to the Kinesys K2 3d software.

"As always we offered a complete motion control service," says Hans Willems, director of

Details
South Africa - Gearhouse South Africa supplied technical production including lighting, video and sound for It's No Joke, the landmark 46664/Real Concerts comedy festival event at Sun City Super Bowl.

This one-off event utilised the universal language of laughter to raise funds for the Nelson Mandela charities by uniting 10 of SA's cutting edge comedians - Trevor Noah, Marc Lottering, John Vlismas, Tumi Morake, Nik Rabinowitz, Ndumiso Lindi, Chris Forrest, David Kau, Riaad Moosa and Barry Hilton - all performing in the same evening.

Gearhouse's Tim Dunn was asked by promoter and show producer, Roddy Quinn, to create a visual concept for this high profile showcase that was enjoyed live by over 4500 people.

Dunn rose to several technical and creative challenges. One was producing a sophisticated, yet uncomplicated stage look that allowed the performers to communicate di

Details
Germany - Yamaha's latest technology - the TLF ( thin, light, flexible) speaker - was shown for the first time outside Japan at ProLight&Sound in Frankfurt. On show was the prototype technology which has produced a revolutionary and highly versatile loudspeaker.

Developed by Yamaha's Centre for Materials and Components Technologies, TLF has remarkable physical characteristics. It is around one millimetre thick and highly flexible, allowing it to be hung and rolled up like a poster. It's also extremely light - just 400g for a speaker measuring one square metre.

The additional attached cloth layer can be printed with any image or design using printing process, such as silk screening or an inkjet printer. On display was an A0 size speaker with a picture of the M7CL48-ES.

It is highly directional, emitting flat audio waves which mean sound can only be heard when the listener is

Details
UK - Entertainment lighting supplier White Light has announced its appointment as the exclusive UK dealer for the RSC Lightlock, the moving light stabilisation device which won a PLASA Gold Award for Innovation when it was first previewed in 2008 and the Best Debuting Product Award when launched at LDI 2009.

Created by the Royal Shakespeare Company and manufactured by Total Structures, Lightlock is designed to open up new lighting and rigging possibilities by automatically damping the unwanted movement that occur when moving lights are rigged from short bars or trusses. Normally, the centrifugal forces caused by the moving light are transferred to the truss, which continues to oscillate long after the light has completed its movement so causing the light beam to sweep wildly around its target focus position.

Rigged between the light and the truss, Lightlock detects the movemen

Details
Germany - ETC's stand at Prolight&Sound this year saw an influx of visitors all looking for demonstrations of the company's latest products. Top of many people's wish list was a viewing of Selador Vivid Ice, one of two new Selador LED fixtures which were released just a few weeks ago. A Vivid Ice, which provides a palette of brilliant deep indigo, blue, cyan, green (and a touch of red), was set up beside a 575W PAR luminaire fitted with a Roscolux 80 Primary Blue gel, in order to compare brightness and accuracy of colour. Visitors were overwhelmingly impressed by the results: the LED fixture was proven to be nearly 15 times as bright as the PAR.

Meanwhile, beside the Vivid Ice, a Vivid Fire - the other of the two new fixtures, which features a warm wash of saturated reds, oranges and ambers - was set up next to a Rosco 026 gelled PAR for comparison. In a typical colour applicati

Details
Germany - Professional loudspeaker systems manufacturer Fohhn Audio AG has won this year's Musikmesse International Press Award (MIPA), in the Pro Audio category of Portable Sound, for its Linea Focus electronically steerable line array systems. The award, chosen by over 100 MI/Pro Audio international publications, was presented at the annual ceremony held during the Frankfurt Musikmesse / Prolight&Sound.

Jochen Schwarz, Fohhn's CEO comments, "We are delighted to have won a prestigious M.I.P.A. award for our Linea Focus systems. It is a great honour for this relatively new product range to receive such an accolade from the international press and we would like to thank everyone for their kind recognition and support."

Launched during 2009, the Linea Focus series is already proving popular for both mobile and fixed installation applications, particularly in environmen

Details
South Africa - MGG Production's ColorBeam 700s had hardly been taken out their boxes when they were set to work at the InniBosVeld 2010 Festival, held on 20 February. The show pulled in a crowd of 25,000 people which really says something about local talent.

Lighting designer was Johan Ferreira who is also the LD and operator for the main stage at the Innibos Festival in Nelspruit, which sees some 100,000 people pass through the gate during the week and well over 45 000 people on the field for the Saturday performance, that usually includes international acts like Boney M (2008) and Smokey (2007).

InniBosVeld (In the bushveld) is a partnership festival between InniBos and Kurt Darren. "This is the second time that we did the Kurt Darren en Jukebox vriende show," said Ferreira. "The first time was last year at InniBos and

Details
USA - Eric McAfee, a member of the sales team at J. R. Clancy, brings his years as a theatre production professional, installer and project manager to bear on his new position as domestic sales manager.

In his new role, McAfee will supervise all US sales of Clancy rigging systems, working closely with specifiers, dealers, and end users to determine the best rigging solution their each projects.

Beginning his career as a technical director, first for a cultural centre on Staten Island and later at the SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Centre, he followed his early experience with more than five years as a rigging installer with BMI Supply. He joined the Clancy staff in 1999 as a dealer project manager and became an ETCP Certified Theatre Rigger with the first offering of the exam.

(Jim Evans)

Page 2470 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .