Details
Germany - At ProLight+Sound, Mackie will launch two new mid-format analogue consoles, each featuring dual internal FX processors, dedicated compression and 4-track recording via USB - the 24-channel 2404-VLZ3 and 32-channel 3204-VLZ3.

"VLZ is synonymous with high-headroom and low-noise," remarked John Boudreau, Music Gear Group VP, Loud Technologies. "We are psyched to bring VLZ3 performance to mixers with higher channel count and real-world live sound tools like effects processing, channel compression and USB connectivity."

The Mackie 2404-VLZ3 and 3204-VLZ3 feature low-noise, high-headroom XDR2 mic channels (20 and 28, respectively) and two dedicated channels for stereo inputs. Inline compression is available on each of the four subgroups and on four select

Details
UAE - When asked to organise an international conference in Dubai for 2,200 delegates, production company Instinctif took the decision to keep the format tight by running the event over two days. The main conference room was set in the Madinat Jumeirah Resort, with plenary and breakout sessions utilising a further 11 rooms in both the Madinat and the Jumeirah Beach Resort and the Conference Centre.

Although only half the delegates were in the main conference area at any one time, Instinctif wanted to make sure that everyone had a clear view of the proceedings. The answer was to construct a self-contained 360° presentation theatre within the 2,773sq.m Madinat Arena.

Dubai-based Unusual Rigging & Engineering was contracted to build a 39m wide octagon which, with a trim height of 12m, was suspended from the roof of the arena. Project manager for Unusual Rigging & Engineering,

Details
Sondheim Honoured - Stephen Sondheim is to receive the Special Award at the Laurence Olivier Awards later this month. The honour is being presented in recognition of his contribution to London theatre, organisers have said. Previous recipients of the award include Sir Alec Guinness, Dame Judi Dench, Sam Mendes and Sir Peter Hall. Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton are to host this year's ceremony which takes place on 13 March at London's Theatre Royal Drury Lane. The Musical Love Never Dies has seven nominations.

Music Licensing - New Conservative peer and former ITV chairman Michael Grade used his maiden speech in the House of Lords to back Tim Clement-Jones' Live Music Bill, claiming the 2003 Licensing Act which it seeks to amend is a "bad law" that denies up and coming music talent the chance to develop their skills.

The Live Music Bill had its second

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
UK - Andrew Johnson and his company, Pressure Wave Audio's latest project is the sound design and audio equipment supply for Southwark Playhouse's production of the Stephen Sondheim classic, Company. The complexity of the design and restrictions on space dictated the need for a small, yet powerful and versatile mixing console. Andrew looked to DiGiCo's SD9 to fulfil the brief.

"Southwark Playhouse is a very complicated venue with a lot of acoustic challenges, so we've tried to keep the sound system as simple as possible, whilst still dealing with the demands and complexities of the show," says Johnson.

"We're running separate band and vocal systems and the desk is dealing with all the processing and EQ for all outputs. This means that we're not only using the desk to EQ the system, but to time it as well. A lot of people would use external processing for

Details
UK - South London based drapes and soft goods specialist Cover It Up delivered a number of solutions to their client, The Hospital Group, for the launch of Sky Atlantic's new HD entertainment TV channel, staged at the TSO venue in Nine Elms, Vauxhall, London.

The project was managed for Cover It Up by Elliot Stennett, and made use of their extensive stock of different coloured velvets, and was asked onboard after working on many previous projects for the Hospital Group and event producer, Selina Robson.

On this occasion, their brief involved the complete draping of the main room, a gala dinner for 350 VIP guests with two stages hosting speeches, awards, live entertainment, plus a separate casino room and after-party area.

"We had to transform this somewhat prosaic warehouse space into a beautiful and glamorous setting for the occasion," reports Stennett, who create

Details
Czech Republic - The City Club in Rožnov is one of the most popular night destinations in Moravia . Most recently, the time came to upgrade the environmental lighting in the club area.

Independent owner, Pavel Ze? was so pleased with the service and support that he's received from Robe lighting in the past that he asked their sister company, Anolis, via Czech sales manager Petr Kolma?ka, to come up with an interesting, eye-catching eco friendly lighting scheme that would transform the general atmospherics in the club area.

Says Kolma?ka, "It was a great honour to be asked to present ideas as Mr Zed has a high regard for production values, and wants nothing but the best for his venue to keep it as the 'must go' destination in the area."

He adds that the breadth of the Anolis range was a real help in being able to choose the appropriate fixtures for the right areas.

Details
Japan - Onkyo Tokki (OTK) recently carried out a QSC Installation Line Array (ILA) fit-out at Spa Resort Hawaiians in the Fukushima prefecture. The Hawaiian theme park is situated just two hours from Tokyo and is featured in the popular Japanese movie, Hula Girls.

OTK reports that the existing sound rig badly needed upgrading, since the oldest of the original systems had been installed 14 years before, and was beyond repair. It also lacked clarity - and sufficient SPL to provide even coverage across the 1000-capacity space. Furthermore, other design features (such as a 'wrecked ship') had been added, while the peripheral and service areas had also been expanded.

The operators wanted to achieve an even dispersion right to the outermost seats in the wide arc, with a consistent SPL that didn't deviate off axis.

A QSC solution was recommended as being the most cost-effect

Details
The new 45°N-12 monitor loudspeaker will be NEXO's main exhibit at the PLASA Focus show in Leeds this year, with a special seminar given by Technical Director Francois Deffarges to expand upon the technology offered (Tuesday 19 April @ 4pm).

What's so exciting about this new wedge, then? Surprisingly it's the first time that NEXO, for 30 years an elite manufacturer of high-end sound reinforcement for performance, has ever produced a purpose-designed stage monitor. However, it is also a logical progression from their patented line-array design technology, drawing on the Hyperbolic Reflective Wavesource which is used throughout the GEO range of high-performance loudspeakers.

The design works by wavesourcing, creating virtual acoustic sources behind the enclosure itself and below the stage, using reflection rather than coercion to determine the shape of the wavefront. Unlike a conve

Details
Hi-Lights is inviting PLASA Focus visitors to "brave the awesome experience of the big screen with the Wii Mario Kart time trial challenge, exclusive to Hi-Lights" on its stand at PLASA Focus 2011: Leeds.

"We are a proud member of PLASA and delighted to show our support by taking a stand for the second year running at this hugely popular event," said Scott Rowland, general manager at Hi-Lights.

"Last year's event was a great success with some 200 visitors taking part in our Mario Kart time trial challenge. Since announcing our attendance at PLASA Focus 2011 we have received numerous requests to bring back the Wii Challenge and we didn't want to disappoint!".

The Wii Mario Kart challenge will pit stand visitors against the clock, putting them in contention to win the grand prize of a racing experience for real, with second and third place winning a sele

Details
Audio-Technica will host the UK launch of no less than four new products, first seen at ISE in February, at PLASA Focus: Leeds 2011. The ATCS-V60 is a new modular voting unit for Audio-Technica's well-received ATCS-60 infrared conferencing system. Its flexible design allows the unit to be added to existing ATCS-60 installations, while its cover plate and long connecting cable enable hidden voting in secret ballots.

When connected to the ATCS-M60 delegate unit, the ATCS-V60's can be programmed to allow up to five different voting options and up to 150 voters can be handled.

Harvey Roberts, Audio-Technica senior UK marketing manager said, "The ATCS-V60 delivers real benefits both in terms of cost and functionality to users of our ATCS-60 conferencing system. The fact that the module can be added at any time means a system can grow as needs change and budgets allow, and the design

Details
Road Ready Cases (UK) will host the UK launch of its new staging system for indoor and outdoor installations, All Terrain by IntelliStage, at PLASA Focus: Leeds 2011.

All Terrain, which will complement the current IntelliStage system, is designed to be installed on any surface, on uneven ground and slopes, and to cope with any type of weather

A single 1m platform can be adjusted from 24 to 48" high and can handle loads of 260 lbs / 1sq.ft. This all aluminium system is light and durable and comes with a complete set of accessories.

PLASA FOCUS RA-A8

Details
"If you're a painter, you're controlled by the colours you have and the canvas that you're painting on. Your imagination can run wild but the tools impose limits," says veteran sound engineer Dave Swallow. "It's the same for a live sound engineer - your limitations are the room, the band and the equipment that you're using. Once we understand those limitations we can understand how to push those boundaries and get more from them, rather than just seeing them as a limitation."Promising to approach his seminar on the creativity of live sound mixing "from a very artistic point of view", Swallow - whose CV includes mixing FOH for Amy Winehouse, La Roux, Seasick Steve and Corinne Bailey Rae among many others - will explore the essential elements of live mixing.His talk will cover the important ideas behind putting a mix together, and explain how to add a third di

Details
UK - Richard Martin Lighting has announced another new addition to the team. Colin Brooker has joined as RML's business development manager.

Brooker has been working in Canada for the past two years, although he has over 10 years of previous Industry experience. He says, "I have been working closely with RML for well over 10 years and I've seen the company grow to what it is today. I know their business, their markets and their customer base, and I'm hoping my experience will bring new opportunities and new direction for future expansion."

(Jim Evans)

Details
UK - A new venue, reduced load in time and more live music than ever before meant the 2011 BRIT Awards was set to test the mettle of its audio crew. But with a sound design from BRIT Awards veteran Derrick Zieba, audio systems and crew, including RF technician Barry Macleod, via Britannia Row Productions and comprehensive support from Sennheiser UK's team of Mark Saunders, Andy Lilywhite and Tim Sherratt, it proved to be one of the best in BRIT Awards' history.

"Over the many years in which we were in Earl's Court, we had pretty much the same technical team putting the show together and we'd honed set up time to a minimum, thereby maximising what we were doing and giving real value for money," says Zieba.

This year, the Awards moved to The O2, acquired a new designer and many new team members. Also, because The O2 has such a busy show schedule, Derrick and his crew f

Details
UK - Valentines evening 2011 saw 24 members of WiSE (Women in Stage Entertainment), two GrandMA's and some Martin Professional TW1s get together and at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank.

Sarah Rushton-Read, co-founder of WiSE (Women in Stage Entertainment) says: "This was our first WiSE Monthly. WiSE members are hugely grateful for the support we received from technical manager for the Southbank Complex, Roger Hennigan, GrandMA's Philip Norfolk and Chris West and Martin Professional's Matthew Pittman, who provided a number of fixtures, a load of Pret Sandwiches and some delicious Pizza. We would also like to thank Coral Cooper for furnishing us with a flask of gin and a huge box of chocolates.

"We have wanted to get a regular networking and education group for WiSE members going for some time. The event is open to any member of WiSE (we now have over 350) intereste

Details
UK - A.C Entertainment Technologies' lighting division continues its successful working relationship with UK lighting rental company Colour Sound Experiment, which includes the supply of GLP Impression 120 RZ Zoom LED moving lights.

As the exclusive UK and Ireland distributor for GLP products, AC-ET supplied 26 GLP Impression Zooms to the west London based Colour Sound. The fixtures have joined the 14 GLP Impression 90s already in their hire stock and are ready for a busy upcoming 2011 festival and touring season.

Colour Sound's MD and founder, Haydn Cruickshank explains that their original Impression 90s purchased 18 months ago were proving so incredibly popular and increasingly appearing on LD's spec sheets, that they needed more to keep pace with demand! This time they decided to invest in the 120 Zoom fixture, which is every bit as successful as the Impression 90s for them

Details
USA - Studer has appointed Rob Lewis as sales director for the United States. He will be based on Harman's Northridge Campus and joins Adrian Curtis's International Studer sales and customer service team.

"I am very pleased to have someone with Rob's background and experience join Studer and look forward to working with him in the US market," Curtis said. "He has already begun efforts to expand the US team's East Coast sales and support staff."

Reporting to Lewis, Paul Shorter will continue to manage Studer customer service from Northridge in addition to commissioning and sales applications support.

Lewis was previously sales director for Euphonix and also has many credits to his name as a freelance audio engineer.

Speaking of his appointment Lewis said, "Studer has always stood for excellence and highest quality both in the recording and the broad

Details
Belgium - Remo Martufi has been appointed as business development manager at AED Rent. Previously, he has worked with some well known companies within the industry, among which are Yamaha, Ampco-Flashlight and Vitec Group's staging systems . In addition to guiding the commercial activities, he will be responsible for the International business development. He will further develop the corporate brand strategy and Identify and develop business opportunities for the AED companies.

Also at AED, Alex Goemans joins as PR and communications manager. His role will be to develop and implement the company's overall public relations programme, which will include media relations, internal- and new product information. He has previously worked with EML and Showtex and also as a production manager.

(Jim Evans)

Details
USA - Electrosonic has promoted Chris Conte to vice-president of Entertainment, a position from which he will manage the company's Entertainment business worldwide, including the museum, theme park, visitor centre and retail markets. Conte was formerly general manager of systems integration for North America and Asia.

"I'm thrilled for this new opportunity to drive the worldwide Entertainment group," says Conte. "I'm surrounded by very smart and dynamic people, and it is this worldwide group of talented people that motivates me every day. Between the outstanding vision and leadership of our executive management team and our tremendous talent base, Electrosonic will continue to accomplish great things."

Conte has worked for systems integrators and design production companies since 1987 and has more than 15 years' experience in audio-visual technology in the

Details
USA - AVnu Alliance hosted an AVB plugfest last week at Harman Professional's Signal Processing Group in Salt Lake City. The AVnu Alliance is the industry forum dedicated to the advancement of professional-quality audio video by promoting the adoption of the IEEE 802.1 Audio Video Bridging (AVB) standards over various networking link-layers.

The plugfest - an invitation-only gathering of hardware manufacturers with near-market ready products - featured Harman and five other manufacturers testing interoperability and performance of AVB prototype technologies. During the plugfest, engineers from the different companies had a rare hands-on opportunity to test connectivity, interoperability and interfaces.

"The promise of AVB is universal connectivity with no performance compromises," said Rob Urry, Harman Professional CTO, vice president. "But to achieve this, all

Details
France - An historic Parisien landmark, the Hotel de Ville is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. As well as housing all of the administration for the city of Paris - the Hotel de Ville has been the location of the municipality of Paris since 1357 - it is also one of Paris's most important cultural venues. It is the headquarters for all Parisien 'associations' (non-profit social, cultural and sporting organizations) and hosts numerous public meetings and receptions.

When the time came to replace the mixing console in the Hotel de Ville's grandest reception room, the aptly named Salle des Fetes, technical director Dominique Dunesme selected an Eclipse digital console from Innovason.

"We host between 400 - 600 events per year," he says. "That's an average of about three or four per week, and it can be anything from fashion shows to conferences and

Page 2626 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .