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USA - The North Dakota State Fair in Minot is one of the largest events in the state, held in late July every year since 1922. Attendance has consistently increased since 2000, attracting more than 300,000 people in 2010.

Dubbed "the entertainment capital of North Dakota," the State Fair Centre complex is home to the nine-day annual event that includes agricultural and livestock competitions, carnival rides and concessions, and concerts. Acts featured in 2010 included Brooks & Dunn, Kiss, and Darius Rucker. Other events are held at the facility over the course of the year, including demolition derbies, drag races, and a collectors car show. And during the summer months, weekly stock car races are run on an oval dirt track on the fairgrounds.

In August 2009, after fundi

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India - tarm Showlaser was engaged to put on a laser show in conjunction with the closing ceremony at the 2010 Commonwealth Games 2010 in Delhi - literally at the last minute.

Exactly seven days before the closing ceremony to be held in the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on 14 October, the laser specialists from Bochum, Germany, received the go-ahead, and within a matter of hours around 7,000 kg of equipment had been packed and transported to Düsseldorf Airport.

The next day, six of its employees were on their way to India in order to install the 10 high-power, full-colour laser systems and forty fog/wind generators that had been shipped. The Indian production team delayed choosing the music for the laser closing until three days before the event, which represented yet another challenge to the company's laser specialists.

The raft of difficulties involved was crowned by the fact

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UK - Euro-Crate is 5 Star Cases' new solution for transporting irregular shaped items safely and securely.

The concept is simple - the item requiring transportation is placed in the centre of the Euro-Crate base section, and then ratchet strapped to the inbuilt, aircraft grade alloy tie-down points. The required number of intermediate sections are placed on top to ensure the item is solidly packed before the lid is fastened on top.

"We spotted a gap in the market," explains 5 Star's head of technical design, Simon Edwards. "All manner of odd shaped and non-standard objects need transporting constantly, and this is a highly efficient, tough and cost-effective answer that's extremely quick and easy to pack."

The 12mm birch ply carcass features a high pressure laminate (HPL) exterior finish, combined with a 30mm aluminium angle to all the leading edges, ensu

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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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Europe - Santana embarked on the European leg of their Universal Tone tour throughout late September and October with an L-Acoustics K1 line source system provided by L-Acoustics rental network agent Satis&Fy. Setting off in Dublin and ending in Hamburg, the 21-date tour did the rounds of Europe's leading arenas, covering hits from Santana's four-decade career.

"The K1 system has met and exceeded all of my expectations," says Robert Mailman, Santana's front of house engineer. "The system's features, combined with excellent tour support from the staff at Satis&Fy, have made the Santana 2010 European leg a great success."

The main system consisted of 14 K1 large format line source cabinets and three dV-DOSCs as down-fill per side, with six K1-SB low frequency extensions flown beside both arrays. The system was driven by LA-RAKs housing LA8 amplified co

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UK - Located on the top floor of London's Millbank Tower, venue Altitude London offers panoramic views of the city and beyond, adding an extra dimension to corporate and private events. With four separate spaces able to host a variety of functions, keeping noise levels down is a priority. This has been solved by the installation of four Apex Audio Argos units.

"We host a wide range of events, which often involve DJs, bands and presentations," says Altitude audio visual manager Jonjo Glynn. "Of course, these have the capacity to create large amounts of noise, so keeping levels under control is very important to ensure that both the adjacent rooms and floors below are not disturbed by both our own and visiting PA systems."

The Apex Argos prevents audio systems from producing excessive sound levels, but without producing unwanted sound degradation.

Using a (

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Denmark - Film location recorder Allan Holmberg has been using a DPA 4017 shotgun mic for Susanne Bier's new film, The Revenge (Haevnen)

"I'd used the 4017 on a documentary I'd worked on, called Blekingegadebanden," explains Holmberg. "The clarity and natural sound of the 4017 was a huge success on the documentary, so I decided to try the mic on this feature film.

"My only concern was that the mic pattern may be too wide, resulting in extra background noise and ambience, but after a short talk with Eddie M°ller, the film's supervising sound designer, we both agreed to give it a try. The film contains some improvisation, and we wanted to avoid dubbing as much as was possible, so that was another good reason for using a wider mic."

Once on set, any misgivings Holmberg had were quickly dispelled. "The 4017 performed excellently, a

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USA - At the 2010 AES Conference, Rupert Neve Designs is launching the new Portico 5024 Quad Mic Amp. With four channels of renowned Portico Series preamplification, independent Silk controls, two channels of DI inputs, and an M-S decoder, the 5024 is a workhorse equipped to enhance the front-end performance of any digital or analogue recording system, says the company.

RND's founder and head designer Mr. Rupert Neve comments, "Transformers have always been a signature component of my designs, and the implementation of custom transformers with the class-A circuit topologies developed for the Portico Series have drawn on countless years of knowledge. As the result of countless hours of experimentation, these preamplifier designs greatly enhance sonic performance, and make listening a more enjoyable experience."

In addition to 72 dB of gain, the 5024's mic pres include

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USA - Aviom, the developer of A-Net, has announced the addition of the FK6 and SK6 mounting accessories to the new AllFrame Multi-Modular I/O System at WFX 2010.

With the FK6 and SK6, AllFrame I/O boxes can be installed in existing floor pockets or used as drop-boxes on stage. At the centre of the AllFrame Multi-Modular I/O System is the F6 Modular I/O Frame, a multi-purpose network frame with six field-configurable I/O card slots and integrated Cat-5e and fibre optic connectivity.

The F6 can be outfitted to meet the audio I/O requirements of nearly any application. Additional mounting options for the F6 include on-wall or in-wall mounting using a standard NEMA Type 1 enclosure or rack-mounting, with connectors facing the front or rear, using the RK6 rack mounting kit.

Designed for permanent installations such as houses of worship, theatres, schools and conference centres, a

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USA - GDS reports that it received an overwhelming response recently, when it exhibited at the LDI show in Las Vegas alongside its US distributor ACT Lighting who distribute LiteWare, Cue SystemNet, SMConsole and MOBAL for North America market.

The company showcased a host of new and existing products whilst introducing for the first time to the US market, the innovative CueSystem NET, a networked cue light system which launched earlier in the year and the SMConsole. Since its launch in 2006 GDS has designed and manufactured SM Consoles for venues around the world including, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, LAMDA, Hong Kong Performing Arts Centre, Theatre Chatelet Paris and several colleges in Australia and many more.

Matthew Lloyd, managing director GDS commented, "LDI was a really busy show for us this year, we have worked extremely hard over the past 12 months t

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USA - Renkus-Heinz will present a full schedule of informative presentations during the upcoming Audio Engineering Society Convention at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Centre.

The presentations will cover a wide range of subject matter, ranging from alignment of subwoofers and full-range line array systems, audio measurement tools, advances in modelling and measurement, to practical uses of EASE Auralisation, and a summary of an award winning White Paper on line array simulation.

Presenters will include Bruce Olson of Olson Sound Design, Stefan Feistel of Ahnert Feistel Media Group, and John Murray of Optimum System Solutions, as well as Renkus-Heinz VP of sales and marketing Rik Kirby, national sales manager David Rahn and application engineer Jonas Domkus.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - DM Audio played a key role in the sound and light show The Enchanted Forest: Force of Nature in Faskally Wood near Pitlochry in Scotland. The show brings together the talents of sound designer / composer RJ McConnell and lighting designer Simon Wilkinson to create a site-specific son et lumière promenade. The audio system was supplied and installed by DM Audio, who were appointed as a sub-contractor by main technical contractor Northern Light.

The technical requirements of the project were challenging as they involved the distribution of 24 channels of audio around a kilometre-long promenade for a month of Scottish autumn weather, making reliability as important as sound quality.

The audio system had been programmed and thoroughly tested before travelling to site, minimising the labour required in the forest. The show runs on a continuous loop, with set pieces at

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Italy - Club Zen in Porto San Giorgio, in the Marche region, is changing its look for the 2011 season.

Calling on the experience gained in working with some of the most exclusive clubs in Italy, like Pineta in Milano Marittima and Tocqueville in Milan, the team that worked on this project at Merli Entertainment designed an exclusive venue for a demanding and fashion-conscious public: Club Zen Royal Suite.

This year, Club Zen opened with a new architectural look. During the summer the interior of the club was renovated and made even more chic with elegant furnishings built around a gold color-theme.

A strong point of this popular venue is the innovative Proel Lighting system. The owners of the club and the Merli Entertainment team brought in installation contractor Gianluca Ponzanetti's Orione Contract, a company based in Porto San Giorgio that designs and installs audio, vid

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UK - Providing education for the audio professionals of the future is one of Sennheiser UK's core policies. Early Autumn saw that commitment bringing benefits to 200 first year students at Bucks New Uni, as they enjoyed a Sennheiser-run education day at the British Music Experience, the interactive museum of rock and pop within London's The O2.

Sennheiser UK has a close working relationship with the British Music Experience, which benefits students from a number of educational establishments. This, however, was the biggest session the company had hosted so far, with no less than six coach loads of eager new students on the Music Management and Audio & Music Production courses at Bucks New Uni attending.

As the number of students was so high, the party was split into two halves. The first half of the students toured the museum and its many iconic exhibits, while the other half

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UK - Production North principle Iain Whitehead and lighting designer Dan Hardiman worked with Bandit UK CE Lester Cobrin for the latest McFly UK tour, and took the show in a green direction. The I-Pix BB7's were called into play as the heart of the system by Hardiman and they were supplemented by Pixel Range Pixilines.

This green beginning was augmented with Martin MAC 2000 Washes and Profiles, as well as Atomic Strobes with colour changers. Thomas 4 and 8 lights with changers were also employed to produce power washes. Lycian Starklites were Hardimans' truss spot of choice and the entire show is controlled by a Whole Hog 3 Console, operated by Paul van den Heijkant. Crew Chief Steve Rusling and staff member Neil Scrivener kept the system runningfrom day to day.

McFly's current tour is in support of the release of McFly'sAbove The Noise. Their first album in 2004, Ro

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UK - Liverpool-based Adlib is supplying a complete sound, lighting and AV package for the current John Barrowman UK Tour, with Steve Rayment tour managing the operation and Paul Crockford as tour director.

It's Adlib's third tour with Barrowman and a full Adlib crew and sees the debut of Adlib's new Coda Audio sound system.

FOH is being mixed by Walter Jaquiss. The main left and right hangs are 24 Coda Airline LA12s, with 24 LA8s for side hangs (10 a side) and in-fills. There are eight SC8 subs ground stacked in four columns of two across the front of the stage and all of it is powered by Coda C10 amps.

They are using the Coda DNC 260 processors across the system which are very high resolution, and systems tech Kenny Perrin is using the standard Adlib Dolby Lake processing set up for EQ and time alignment.

The FOH console is a 96 channel Soundcraft Vi6, on which Jaquiss is

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USA - For three weekends every autumn, smooth jazz drifts from the Avalon Ballroom overlooking the Pacific Ocean, when this legendary venue hosts the Catalina Island JazzTrax Festival.

Constructed in 1929, the Casino in Avalon Harbor was an iconic entertainment spot during the golden era of jazz, when some of the most famous big bands were broadcast nationally from the ballroom. Hollywood celebrities and tourists from around the world visited the Casino during its heyday in the 1930s and '40s to dance to the sounds of Jan Gerber, Kay Kyser, Bob Crosby, Dick Jurgens and Jimmy Grier.

JazzTrax producer Art Good has chosen to hold his festival at this historic Catalina Island landmark for the past 24 years. With its rich music tradition and breathtaking scenery, there could be no more magical venue for jazz.

The ballroom is on the second floor of the Catalina Casin

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USA - The National Association of Music Merchants has announced plans for its Hands-On Training (H.O.T) Zone at the 2011 NAMM Show, offering the broadest educational experience for professionals in the recording, live sound, DJ, house of worship, and stage and lighting industries in the history of the show.

The H.O.T. Zone will offer attendees free one-hour classes on more than 85 educational topics over four days, including Basic Live Mixing Techniques PROTools 101, Social Marketing for Your Music Business and DJ Equipment Integration. On 13 January 2011, the opening day of the NAMM Show, the H.O.T. Zone will be offering Boot Camp Day with an array of basic courses designed to provide foundation-level instruction in music technology and business.

The H.O.T. Zone will be located on Level 2 of the Anaheim Convention Centre and is being held fo

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USA - From its rural beginnings in 1922, Los Angeles County's Fairplex has grown to become the fourth largest fairground in North America. At 543 acres the facility is twice the size of Disneyland and hosts a year-round variety of concerts, conventions, shows and sporting events.

The Fairplex grounds are home to more than 325,000sq.ft of indoor exhibit space, including a 12,000sq.ft fine arts educational centre affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution. The complex also houses carnival grounds, parks, plazas and picnic areas, as well as a 250-suite Sheraton Hotel and a 185-space KOA RV park. Also calling the Fairplex home is NHRA-rated Pomona Raceway and Fairplex Park horse racing facility. Both racetracks also host numerous concerts and performance events.

The Fairplex is constantly evolving, growing and modernizing its infrastructure, currently including a high-end revampi

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Denmark - David Guetta lighting designer Mikeyray Harkins designed a high impact look for the French DJ's 8 October show at Tap 1 in Copenhagen using Martin Professional's new MAC 101 LED wash light.

"What an amazing little fixture. I absolutely loved the 101's. They stood up against my rig of MAC 700 wash and spots - really fast, good colour and a fantastic beam with great throw distance. I am really impressed," he stated.

Mikeyray says that he and Pilot Vision (video screen software designers and co-designers on the show) had been looking for a small, fast and bright LED fixture to mount behind the onstage video screen, something with a tight beam that emulates a big pixel to match the look of the show. The MAC 101 fits the bill. "It added that extra element to our visual content."

Mikeyray mounted 20 MAC 101s behind the video screen in four columns of

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Sweden / Cyprus - Wireless Solution Sweden has announced the appointment of lighting specialists ArchiLX to supply W-DMX to Cyprus and surrounding areas, effective immediately.

Located in Limassol, ArchiLX offers consultancy, sales, design and support services to clients in the hospitality, entertainment, education, government, retail and private sectors.

"ArchiLX has proven to be the strongest contender in Cyprus, representing some of the best brands in entertainment lighting products", said Lotta Schiefer, business development manager for Wireless Solution. "Our products fit in very naturally with the ArchiLX portfolio, and we look forward to a long and successful relationship with them."

Ben Rogers, design consultant and designer added, "We are focused on high quality brands and equipment with which we can be confident we are offering the best pro

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USA - Along with a new Panasonic Live 4HD scoreboard, Los Angeles' Staples Centre has added a significant inventory of 44 Vari*Lite automated luminaires supplied by Epic Production Technologies.

Looking to add to the 12 VL3000 Spot luminaires Epic supplied a few years ago, Staples Centre wanted to replace the 48 Par Can fixtures that were previously mounted under the scoreboard and they chose 16 of the LED-based VLX Wash luminaires. To round out the new rig, 16 VL3500 Wash fixtures and 12 additional VL3000 Spot fixtures were also added.

"The VLX Wash fixtures read extremely well. Along with great output and tremendous colour temperature control, they work incredible for the 120 televised sporting events that Staples Centre hosts each year," said Lee Zeidman, Staples general manager. "The low power consumption was also a big deciding factor. By replacing 48,000 w

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