USA - The School for Creative & Performing Arts (SCPA) in Cincinnati, Ohio has installed four Robert Juliat Topaze followspots in Corbett Hall, its 750-seat auditorium. SCPA offers a comprehensive arts education, with full college-prep curriculum, for students K-12 in the Cincinnati Public School District. It boasts many notable graduates, its students have performed on PBS with the Cincinnati Pops and it served as the setting for a popular MTV reality series.

Corbett Hall typically hosts the school's major musicals, such as last fall's Wizard of Oz, as well as performances by students in the vocal department, orchestra and band. SCPA also offers a career technical programme that trains students for jobs in the field or prepares them to go on to an arts college. Lighting de

Greece - TNM Projects, one of the RCF commercial audio installation partners in Greece has recently installed a RCF Forum 6000 System at the ASEP Supreme Council for Personnel Selection in Athens.

With many years of experience with turnkey solutions TNM Projects is very keen on supplying high quality equipment for all kind of installations.

The ASEP Supreme Council installation is based on the RCF Forum 6000 system that consists of: DMU6100 central unit, a chairman console and several delegate units. TNM Projects did the installation and fine tuning of the conference system at the Plenum Room.

The RCF Forum 6000 System has been designed to manage conference, debates, president desks in auditoriums/conventions and meetings, offering outstanding versatility. The system is simple and quick to wire, to set-up and to use and includes operative functions and modes that are usually

USA - Chester Waterfront, Philadelphia, once a study in urban decay, has been dramatically reborn, thanks in no small part to the opening of the new PPL Park, the city's first major league soccer stadium. The park has been a catalyst for economic growth along the waterfront, the first phase of a long-term development of a Riverwalk district that will include retail, stores, residential buildings and entertainment venues.

Opened in June 2010, the park offers breathtaking views of the Commodore Barry Bridge and Delaware River, and includes more than 30 luxury suites, a full-service restaurant and integrated concert stage. Audio for the venue was designed by Dallas-based Acoustic Dimensions and installed by systems integrators AVI-SPL of Columbia, MD, and features R-Series all-weather systems from the city's own Community Professional Loudspeakers.

As Acoustic Dimension's Brian E

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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

UK - West London based sound & lighting specialist Entec's sound department has completed a specialist d&b sound installation at one of London's most significant historical landmarks, Stationers Hall, a grade one listed building near to St Paul's Cathedral, London.

The building, the home of the Worshipful Company of Stationers & Newspaper Makers formed originally in 1559, dates back to 1763 and is now also one of London's most prestigious corporate event venues. It is owned by The Livery group, which also manages St Paul's Cathedral.

They wanted to upgrade the existing sound system which had been in service for 10 years, and replace it with a modern permanent audio system to facilitate the venue's busy schedule. This needed to cover the many organisational activities of the Stationers like conferences, seminars and meetings as well as to service the myriad of external events s

France - L'Opéra Bastille is a shrine to culture and architecture but it is also a working building that stages some of the biggest, most complicated operatic productions in the world. An ATEÏS International IP-based communications system has been installed at the Paris opera house so stage managers, performers and crew know what is happening and when.

The 2,723-seat venue was designed by Canadian-Uruguayan architect Carlos Ott and opened on 13 July 1989, the day before the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. Updating technical equipment is a continual process at big venues and the Bastille Opera is no exception.

ATEÏS finished work on the building-wide paging and stage monitoring system at the end of 2010 and is now upgrading the public address installation. Unusually ATEÏS France installed the paging and monitoring equipment itself, rather than just supply

USA - With vented side panels and a heavy duty caster base listed among standard items offered with every Installer's Choice ETN Series rack listed within the Liberty AV catalogue, the product group can be tailor-made to the different specifications of any application by selecting from a host of accessories designed to give better organization to AV components, says the company.

With static load ratings of 12,250 pounds, ETN racks are available in six different heights (18RU, 21RU, 27RU, 35RU, 40RU, and 44RU), depths of 20 and 25 inches, and a width of 22 inches.

A pair of ground studs are located within the caster base, all necessary mounting hardware is included, and two removable electrical plates reside in the back to accommodate electrical wiring.

A full line of accessories offered for use with the ETN Series includes top and side panels, front and rear doors, cooling f

UK - Katy Templeman-Holmes has joined Soundcraft Studer as product manager responsible for the Studer OnAir product line and radio broadcast market, plus brand development in the USA and joins the Harman Mixer Group's marketing team, reporting to director Keith Watson.

Templeman-Holmes' experience spans production, operations, engineering, technical sales and creative production. Most recently, she spent the past year working with JBL in Northridge, California.

On her appointment, she said, "This opportunity to contribute to the continued success of Studer in broadcast is incredible. Being in Switzerland and working with some of the world's best engineers and designers has shown me exactly why Studer is the top broadcast console manufacturer. Moving Studer forward with the next generation of systems is extremely exciting for me, the team, and our customers worldwide.

(J

UK - Audio processor manufacturer Drawmer has announced the introduction of the new 4x4R 1U Active Splitter. Aimed at any situation that requires audio signals to be split and fed to multiple destinations, the rackmountable 1U 4x4R has four inputs and 16 balanced outputs, with a transparent mic preamp on each input offering up to 66dB of gain.

The 4x4R's I/O may be flexibly configured in a variety of ways, ranging from a single input routed to all 16 outputs to four different inputs, each with four outputs - and any configuration in between, such as two different inputs, each routed to eight outputs. In addition to the comprehensive input/output linking, the 4x4R features bargraph metering and switchable phantom power on every input channel, and a front-panel headphone jack provides a 'listen' facility to monitor any of the four inputs. The option of transformer isolation is ava

UK - Cooper Controls has announced the launch of an Android version of the ZerOS Remote application. This new app adds to their existing suite of iPhone, iPod, iPad and Windows Mobile applications.

The ZerOS Remote Android app, the first for the entertainment technology industry, allows remote control of any ZerOS console. The app allows users to control their lighting rig from their Android for the first time. From channel levels to playback the ZerOS Remote offers full control of the Leap Frog 48, Leap Frog 96, Frog 2, ORB and ORB XF consoles.

Peter Kirkup, Cooper Controls product manager comments, "Feedback on the iPhone app we launched last year has been tremendous and we wanted to bring this exciting development to even more of our users. Recent investments from Cooper Industries in expanding our engineering resources made this project possible, and we look forward t

South Africa / UK - South African Pay-TV channel Super Sport has installed another SoundField DSF-2/DSF-3 surround-capable digital microphone system in its latest high-definition outside broadcast vehicle, constructed by Sony Broadcast Professional in the UK.

Super Sport and its sister pay-TV channel MNET were early and enthusiastic adopters of the UK microphone manufacturer's digital systems; representatives from MNET first made contact with SoundField at the IBC exhibition in Europe in 2006, the very first year the completed digital microphone systems were shown publicly. The latest installation brings to six the total number of DSF-2 systems in use in MNET's Outside Broadcast vehicles.

"The DSF-2s are great systems, and they and our DSF-3s have done some great work on our HD Rugby, Cricket and Boxing coverage here in South Africa" comments MNET/Super Sport Audio S

USA - The latest in rigging technology - from innovations for a grand opera house to the safest choices for schools - will be showcased in videos at J. R. Clancy's booth at the USITT conference in Charlotte, NC, March 9-12, 2011. The programme includes:

The custom-built, 40ft-high chandelier in the Winspear Opera House in Dallas which features 318 cast acrylic rods that vanish as the house lights dim before a production begins. Clancy technology made it possible for the rods to move in synchronized patterns and retract into the ceiling smoothly and rapidly, powered by 44 custom-design winches with up to eight lines per winch.

Clancy's PowerAssist allows you to motorize new or existing counterweight sets economically. This eliminates handling counterweights, simplifying operations. PowerAssist can be provided with Up / Down pushbuttons, or with the SureTarget preset position co

Croatia - The newly opened Plaza Bar in Zagreb is a lounge bar where modern art and decor meets the latest technology in audio and video.

Music is an important part of the concept of Plaza Bar. The sound system is geared to play music at different levels according to the time of day. The installation is a combination of 24 ceiling speakers and four RCF TT22A that are ceiling mounted. Two RCF 4PRO 8001AS subwoofers are placed on the floor, housed in a customised wooden cabinet to match the decoration of the lounge area. An RCF AM 1122-N integrated amplifier together with four individual amps drive the system.

Croatian RCF distributor Oktava realised the project in collaboration with Dacco. "It was a pleasure to do the installation in the Plaza Bar. The concept is to maintain a high level of visual impression based on the choice of furniture, decoration that fulfils the lou

USA - Completed in 1955, Loyola Marymount University's Sacred Heart Chapel has been a part of the Los Angeles coastline for more than a half century. It's a majestic space, a basilica-style church spanning some 26,000sq.ft and accommodating more than 1,000. Its tall stained glass windows, long hanging chandeliers, terrazzo tile and concrete and marble pillars make for an architectural gem, but create something of an acoustical nightmare.

Given the building's historic status, integrating the new high-tech audio and lighting systems proved to be a challenge for Winnetka, CA-based Simon Productions. Principal designer and engineer Terry Stewart explains the decision to replace the Chapel's existing distributed system with an Iconyx digitally steerable array from Renkus-Heinz.

"We knew we wanted to go with a steerable line-source system, to enable us to aim the source beam di

The Netherlands/USA - XLNT Advanced Technologies has announced a significant addition to its North America XLNT CyberHoist rental network. Chicago based Reed Rigging, the largest show rigging company in the Midwest, has taken delivery of its first rental-ready XLNT CyberHoist motion control system, including two InMotion3D control systems and eight XLNT CyberHoist CH500 half-ton intelligent chain hoist motors.

Michael Reed, president and founder of Reed Rigging, said, "I recognised the potential of XLNT CyberHoist as a special product on its US tour debut, Phil Collins' Last Final Farewell World Tour. As motion control has become an increasingly important tool for artists, designers and producers, I and our production rigging manager, Neil Montour, have compared XLNT CyberHoist with other motion control brands and concluded that nothing matches its combination of acc

Germany - Working under the direction of lighting designer Jerry Appelt, the tarm team put on the laser effects accompanying singer Lena's rendition of the winning song at the nationally televised Our Song for Germany finals.

The winning song, entitled Taken By A Stranger will be Germany's entry in the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Duesseldorf on 14 May.

The event marked the first time that tarm's new, full-colour, AT25-projectors appeared on a television show, and the results were striking. In keeping with the show producer's wishes, Lena was enveloped in glittering, white, laser light.

(Jim Evans)

Canada - RC4 Wireless, manufacturer of wireless lighting and motion technology for theatre, film, and television, has launched a completely redesigned website at www.theatrewireless.com. "If you've been thinking about wireless dimming and DMX, or wireless motion control, for your next theatre, film, or television production, have a look at theatrewireless.com," says the company.

The new site is full of useful information, and not just about RC4 products: "Getting into wireless and making the most of it really demands a bit of general knowledge about different kinds of batteries, about the various rf bands and frequencies being used, about what's involved in getting DMX and other kinds of control information into the air and back again. Without facts it's difficult to make an informed decision about which product is right for a particular application," says Ja

UK - Just three weeks after FRANK Water FreeFill launched at the Event Production Show, the water charity has confirmed WOMAD 2011 as the first festival to sign up to the pioneering initiative this summer, with strong expressions of interest from a number of other major promoters.

On average, a single person will drink 10 bottles of water over a festival weekend and at a festival such as WOMAD which attracts 30,000 people, this means around 300,000 water bottles are used, posing an environmental risk and a costly recycling exercise for organisers.

FreeFill has been developed to tackle this problem and drastically reduce the amount of plastic waste through a scheme that offers festival goers access to unlimited filtered, clean and chilled water by purchasing just one re-useable bottle at a festival and refilling rather than re-buying. This enables a cost-efficient option for fe

Germany - At the Media Systems Congress, the biggest information event to be held at Prolight + Sound from 6 to 9 April 2011, the Association of German Sound Engineers (Verband Deutscher Tonmeister - VDT) and the International Loudspeaker Association (ALMA) will hold a series of lectures and workshops for Prolight + Sound visitors.

The VDT lectures will be held in Room 'Esprit', Hall 9.1, from 10.00 to 18.00 hrs on Friday, 8 April 2011, and are open to all Prolight + Sound visitors free of charge. The Association of German Sound Engineers is a professional association for professionals from all parts of the audio sector. Its members work in film, radio, television, sound studios, record production, theatres, event halls, the equip¬ment manufacturing industry, research and development, and in professions relating to sound-engineering activities.

At its congress, ALMA - The Int

UK A.C. Special Projects is sponsor of the 'Special Projects' category for this year's Lighting Design Awards, to be held at the London Hilton hotel, Park Lane on 10 March.

The category covers projects with restrictions in terms of such factors as budget, planning or English Heritage-listing. Restricted budget schemes would include undertakings where the capital lighting equipment cost was under £20,000. This category also includes temporary lighting projects.

ACSP's managing director, Peter Keiderling states, "We're very proud to be sponsoring this award and the short listed projects from Arup, Designs for Lighting, Midas, Jason Bruges Studio and Sarah Galloway Associates are all excellent schemes."

(Jim Evans)

Australia Linkin Park's latest Australian shows saw Linkin Park's lighting designer, A J Pen, use 41 x Vari*Lite VLX Wash as well as 12 Vari*Lite VL*3500 Wash.

"Every manufacturer has their LED wash light that is slowly evolving and I first heard about the VLX just prior to its release," says Pen. "I was programming a show in the States when a Vari*Lite rep told me all about it so I was excited to see it nearly a year later. I placed one side by side with a couple of other LED wash lights and immediately I could see it was a 'game changer' - an evolution of the wash light. It's definitely a tool and not an effect.

"The approach that Vari*Lite seems to have taken is to replace the guts of what the wash light already is, what we've come to know and love. Wash lights have colour mixing, they generally have a dimmer that's separate from a strobe channel and the

UK - Adlib continues its work with leading comedy acts from around the world, supplying lighting & sound equipment and crew to the current Russell Howard Right Here Right Now UK arena tour - following on from their work with Russell Howard last year. At the helm of the tour, is production manager Neil McDonald and Russell's tour manager - Russell Young, who keeps everything running smoothly on a day-to-day basis.

The tour's lighting has been designed by Adlib's Ian Tomlinson, and is being operated on the road by Andy Rowe, working with technicians Neil Holloway and Mike Summerfield. FOH sound is being engineered by James Neale, monitors by Carlos Herreros, with ADLIB's Kenny Perrin out as audio systems tech.

With just Russell Howard and a single chair as the only prop/stage set - the challenge was on to make the stage an intimate and friendly spatial space for the deliv

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