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Sweden - Late in September, six international lighting designers came to the small city of Alingsås in Sweden to participate in the traditional PLDA workshop, Lights in Alingsås, which has grown over the past decade to become the largest exhibition of lighting design in public spaces in Northern Europe.

Together with more than 50 participants from 17 different nations, the workshop heads created unique examples of urban lighting design and light art, as dark evenings and outdoor environments in and around Alingsås were transformed into exciting lighting design installations.

The six lighting workshops were presented in various locations throughout the town from 24 September until the end of October. Martin Professional sponsored two of the workshops.

The pedestrian underpas

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China - The Shenzhen Grand Theatre has just completed a major AV refurbishment to upgrade their systems from analogue to digital, installing Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system at FOH.

Built in 1984, the modern multi-purpose theatre is famous throughout China as one of the country's top cultural venues, hosting a demanding schedule of prestigious performances visited by state dignitaries and more than 2m foreign visitors.

Purchased through distributor Sanecore Group, the theatre selected two modular iDR10 MixRacks with control provided via the modular large scale iLive-176 Control Surface.

One iDR10 is installed in the equipment room at the side of the stage with 48 inputs to manage stage inputs and 24 outputs for the speaker system, while the second iDR10 has 32 inputs and is positioned in the audio control room alongside the surface to manage wireless microphones,

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USA - The Christian University Azusa Pacific University has installed a MediorNet fibre backbone solution from Riedel Communications to provide signal transport and routing of HD video signals on their Campus. California-based system integrator Enders & Associates supplied the equipment that was installed by the Azusa Pacific University.

The Azusa Pacific University is one of the largest Christian universities located just outside Los Angeles. To provide routing and distribution of HD video signals between their two campus chapels for the daily services, the Azusa University furnished a MediorNet mainframe in each of the two buildings. Both mainframes are linked via dual fibre link to provide bi-directional transport.

The integrated CWDM multiplexing of MediorNet allows transport of up to 36 HD 1080i signals per direction via one single fibre link. Due to MediorNet's multi-poi

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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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Poland - A Community sound system has been installed in the new Cracovia Stadium, the home ground of Poland's oldest football club located in the old Polish capital city of Kraków. Designed by a consortium of Spanish and Polish firms, Estudio Lamela and Sener Ingeniera y Sistemas, construction on the new 16,000 capacity facility commenced in July 2009 and incorporates underground parking, restaurants, bars, and retail space. It sits on the site of the former stadium and is the longest running active venue of Poland's premier league, the Ekstraklasa.

In addition to being the home ground of Cracovia Football Club and hosting Ekstraklasa league matches, the facility will be one of the training stadiums for teams in the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine. Under a section of one of the stands is also a hidden stage, which is revealed when t

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China - As part of a week-long visit to China to provide training for their distributor BVCAM, and visit a number of important clients, loudspeaker manufacturer APG took over the Haidian Christian Church in west Beijing for a full day of demos of their new-generation products. The ultra-modern HCC, now the largest Christian church in China, provided an imposing backdrop for the event which was attended by around 50 sound engineers and consultants from a variety of professional audio backgrounds.

BVCAM's managing director, Danny Huen, was pleased to note that the event was a great success. "It was very well attended," he stated. "We had delegates from rental companies, TV stations, theatres, nightclubs, and stadia. It has to be said that some of them were sceptical about doing a demo like this in a church because even a modern church like this one is a notoriously

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Sweden - Wireless Solution Sweden AB was also involved with Alingsås. W-DMX was used on two of the six project sites, helping to make the event greener than ever, much to the delight of the designers and organizers of the event, which saw approximately 75,000 visitors.

The team working on first of the two sites using W-DMX was headed by German lighting designer Karl M. Reger. His team developed and realized a concept for Kabomhuset's façade and car park. He used a WE-EF gobo projector (WE-EF FLC254 CC-BL) that was controlled via W-DMX.

Says Reger, "The majority of our installation was indoors and the control signal was fed through cables. However, there was one DMX-controlled luminaire outside the building, and it would have been near to impossible to do without the wireless DMX system here because we could not run cables through the windows. This is where Wireless Solu

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UK - Southbank Centre is adopting a more flexible approach to digital sound mixing through its three flagship venues, the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room - thanks to the acquisition of several Soundcraft Vi1's from Richard Nowell Sound Services (RNSS).

Based at London's Southbank Centre, the experienced rental company has been servicing the audio requirements of the concert halls for many years.

Technical director, Eddy Smith, decided that a more flexible platform was needed for incoming sound engineers than was offered by their existing digital desks. "We didn't feel the sound of the preamps was as good as we wanted, nor were the configurations particularly user friendly - which was important when shows needed to be set up quickly."

He asked Richard Nowell to arrange a three-desk shoot-out and the Vi1 came out on top in terms of usabilit

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Italy - Billy Cobham played to an excited large crowd cramming St Peter Square in Galatina, on the latest stop on his Palindrome Tour. It was one of the highlights of the 12th season of the Cloister Concerts.

For the occasion GM Music Service chose Proel Axiom for sound reinforcement and used the new KPTAX3222I coupling bar for the first time in its set-up.

The audience was enthusiastic, as Giampaolo Tarantini, one of the owners of GM Music, reports, "We had no choice but to opt for a system that could guarantee very high quality and power for a talented artist such as Billy Cobham. Axiom, as usual, did the business. The audience was absolutely pleased and excited by the quality of the sound Proel equipment provided for this musician and his band, whose performance included a full range of tunes ranging from jazz to funk, and from rock to soul."

(Jim

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UK - Broadcasters, sound engineers and RF engineers can now download a new version of the Wireless Systems Manager (WSM) from the Sennheiser website. The new, upgraded version of the control software for Sennheiser radio microphone and monitoring systems includes a 'professional set-up' function. Its most important features: the Manager automatically calculates the interference-free frequency set for the required number of radio channels, while a 'lifebelt' icon keeps a number of back-up frequencies in reserve in case there are any RF problems on the day, says the company.

"With the new 'professional set-up' function, the Wireless Systems Manager is an indispensable aid for sound engineers and RF engineers," says Sven Boetcher, Sennheiser product manager for professional wireless microphones. "The user simply enters the required number of channels, including back-

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UK - The 2011 edition of HHB's renowned pro audio catalogue, available in both print and digital versions, is available now and details over 1750 products from all sectors of audio production.

The Essential Guide to Professional Audio Technology has been expanded to 188 pages which makes it the biggest ever produced by the company.

This year's Catalogue is not only a top-level technical reference to all the latest pro audio products, it also includes editorial feature content by Hugh Robjohns. The Technology Focus sections cover the hottest topics in pro audio, with a mix of practical and informative information on a number of subjects including loudspeaker placement, loudness monitoring and surround acquisition for HD Broadcast.

To complement the printed and digital offering, the HHB Catalogue 2011 is also available in a convenient and searchable form online.

(Jim

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Denmark - Now representing the Calibre UK ProAV and Broadcast product range in Denmark is Imago Sonas Distribution.

"Our decision to appoint Imago Sonas was an easy one," says Peter Bellis ProAV & broadcast sales manager at Calibre UK. "They are such a focused distributor and their sales and technical support is unmatched. We're thrilled to have them on board to distribute our ProAV range of HQView and PremierViewPro units and the VideoExcel models for the broadcast sector."

Mads N°rstrov, Imago Sonas sales manager comments, "We're delighted to have the Calibre UK product on board and have already sold the product to partners working on numerous installations. We are continuing to support the sales with any necessary technical and sales support. Calibre UK is also the perfect complement to our product portfolio which includes Chief mounts and acces

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France - On the eve of this year's Mondial de l'Automobile, the brands represented by the Volkswagen Group introduced a fleet with a difference. Allez les Marques! was the title of the spectacular Volkswagen Group Night.

For the four weeks leading up to the event, the team of Leyendecker - Lightvision Sound & Service, and technical supervisor Martin Kuhn had reconstructed a former freight railway station near Paris into a show stage for each single premiere of the fleet.

Responsible for the lighting design was Nik Evers. Amongst other fixtures, he specified a total of 120 GLP impression RZ heads for this event, which were used for the illumination of the architecture, the lounge and the after-show area, as well as for the show itself.

In the past, Evers has used the impression 90 but now focused on the zoom effect. "Due to its low weight and low power cons

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Mexico - Mexico City's famous El Zócalo (Plaza of the Constitution) was lit up for 15 days between 14-21 November as YO Mexico formed part of celebrations marking the centenary of the beginning of the country's revolution and the Bicentennial of its independence.

This 75-minute-long nightly multimedia spectacular featured 86 high-powered XLED 590 heads from PR Lighting over the three big stages (and catwalk) as more than 300 artists performed through five acts, depicting Mexico's colourful history. This showed the country's cultural wealth and moments that shaped the nation through music, dance, vocals, pyrotechnics, lighting and image projection.

This was one of several events that have taken place in the famous plaza recently, but Sebastian Corkidi of Simply Professional - who again provided all the PR Lighting effects, stated, "This was both bigger and better t

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Japan - Matsuda Trading Corporation (MTC Japan) has struck a deal with Adamson for exclusive distribution in the Japanese market. MTC, well known for representing Lab.gruppen, Turbosound and Tannoy, currently lists Adamson as their exclusive pro speaker brand.

MTC first took interest in Adamson after meeting at a series of tradeshows. "I was introduced to MTC by a mutual friend. It was clear from our first meeting that there was a great connection between Adamson and MTC. We have a similar vision of the marketplace and how to put Adamson where it belongs in Japan. To start, we plan to offer an introduction seminar in Japan in the new year. We are looking forward to a strong future with a strong partner like MTC," stated Jesse Adamson, Adamson's director of marketing and sales.

MTC's first order of business is to get the product out to the public, and Interbee, which

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Europe - In an effort to increase support for its European distributors, Philips Vari-Lite has launched a new European technical training initiative. With the addition of Coral Cooper, the 2010 Knights of Illumination Lifetime Achievement Award-winner, Philips Vari-Lite recently held technical training seminars in the UK and Spain with more planned in Germany, Austria and throughout the continent.

"As we move forward with expanding our training programmes for our European customers, it is crucial that we have the infrastructure in place to support our distributors and their technicians," said Julie Smith, Philips Vari-Lite support services director. "When we had the opportunity to ask Coral to join us for this initiative we were extremely excited. It is not often that a person of her expertise and industry reputation becomes available. All of our distributors thro

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UK - In an ongoing bid to strengthen regional representation, QSC has announced the new team that will be responsible for Europe, Africa & Middle East (EAME).

QSC VP global sales, Greg McLagan, has confirmed that former JBL man Mark Bailey will take over as sales manager for the territory, supported by new product applications specialist (for engineered systems), Martin Barbour, while existing product specialist, Santiago Alcala will take on a more general support role.

The move fits with the organizational changes taking place within QSC's corporate structure, and the setting up of the new Engineered Systems Group under the direction of Scott Kalarchik.

"We now have the nucleus of one of the strongest teams in pro audio, bringing a wealth of experience across sales and product application," stated McLagan.

"These appointments will bring us closer to our cus

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Netherlands Protest - Dutch singers, painters and TV presenters have demonstrated in the Netherlands against government plans to slash arts funding. The Dutch government has pledged to cut 200m euros (£171m) from its arts budget over the next five years. It has also approved plans to raise sales tax on theatre, cinema and concert tickets from 6% to 19%.

Organisers said the cuts had been justified by lawmakers who argued the arts were only for the "wealthy elite". "A 13% rise in sales tax hits all of the public because tickets get more expensive," organisers said in a manifesto published online. "By cutting culture budgets and raising tax on tickets, culture will become an elitist pastime and less accessible for people with less money."

In Amsterdam, around 20,000 people gathered on Saturday afternoon on the Leidseplein to listen to music and

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UK - Visual production specialists Bluman Associates brought Pottermania to the heart of London, working with Lucy Smail of West Design & Production on the premiere for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

With the Empire and the Odeon, Leicester Square's two largest cinemas, screening the film, the event attracted one of the biggest crowds for a London movie premiere. Fencing was removed from the Square's gardens to allow the TV crews and fans to gather, as the Harry Potter stars moved through a predetermined layout to sign autographs and give interviews.

On behalf of West Design, which was masterminding all technical production including lighting and sound, Bluman Associates erected two 9m x 4m high video screens, set up in cinemascope format, to show a specially edited trailer for the film, interspersed with interview footage relayed live from the Square.

"As

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UK - Truss rarely enjoys a celebration of form over function, but there's always the exception . . . The set of the National Theatre's current production of Hamlet, staged at the Olivier Theatre, on London's South Bank.

In plain sight on the stage sits a framework of truss comprising three six-metre towers per side, supporting 12.5 metre stretches of Thomas 30.5cm box truss. Set designer Vicki Mortimer wanted to create a stark and oppressive space for the production's media-driven surveillance state of Elsinore, where the themes of duplicity and the paranoia of always being watched are brought to the fore.

She explains: "We were looking for a containing structure which would communicate layers of meaning to the audience including an acknowledgment of the theatrical metaphors in Hamlet, and establish most particularly the constraints of a society designed to

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UK - Roland Systems Group has released the Roland VR-5, a fully integrated audio mixer and video switcher with built-in recorder/player for live production and web streaming. This product combines the power of Roland's audio and video technology into one unit, says the company.

Typical live events today, whether large or small, all require a wide variety of production equipment. There are audio inputs from mics, audio mixing, video sources to a video mixer, computer inputs, video playback, video monitors, capturing the event in some form, and also streaming it live online. The VR-5's 'all-in-one' solution greatly simplifies production, recording and streaming of these live events.

The VR-5's design incorporates a video switcher, audio mixer, video playback, recorder, preview monitors and output for web streaming, all in a single unit.

(Jim Evans)

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Sweden - Lake has announced the release of a significant update to the company's Lake Controller software. This latest version (v5.6) includes several critical developments to both the Lake Controller software and included firmware for both LM 26 Digital Audio Loudspeaker Processor and Lab.gruppen PLM Series Powered Loudspeaker Management products, says the company.

Lake Controller software provides a unified interface for control and monitoring of PLM Series systems and Lake LM 26 Digital Audio Loudspeaker Processors. In addition to controlling all parameters of Lake Processing, the Controller also provides control and monitoring of exclusive PLM Series features: digital input gain and attenuation, and comprehensive load verification and monitoring via LoadSmart™ and SpeakerSafe.

One of the most significant benefits delivered by this major update is the provision of Brid

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