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UK - To promote their latest album, March saw Irish pop-rock trio The Script undertake its biggest UK headline tour so far, taking in 12 shows in most of the major arenas in England, Scotland and Wales. Sennheiser UK supported audio provider Adlib Audio for the band's microphone and monitoring requirements.

The tour took in arenas at Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Plymouth. A highlight was the two London shows - one at Wembley Arena, the other at The O2.

"As the band's first tour of big venues, the first thing we discussed was in-ear monitors," says Richy Nicholson, the band's front of house engineer. "We contacted two of the major manufacturers and Phil Cummings from Sennheiser got str

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Germany - Eurovision Song Contest lighting designer Jerry Appelt specified a serious arsenal of lighting for the massive Arena in Düsseldorf. More than 2,100 DMX controlled moving lights (5,638 fixtures total) with almost 42,000 parameters allowed 43 countries plus three interval acts and an over-the-top opening performance to have a completely unique look during the three-hour broadcast.

Total control for all lighting and video came from MA Lighting. Four grandMA2 full-size consoles, each with a full backup, as well as five grandMA2 faderwings ran all lighting and video, triggered via timecode. Eleven MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) devices handled all traffic in one session on the MA-Net2.

"It's not even practical to do a show like this without timecode and grandMA2 is the best," said Appelt, "Absolutely every millisecond is cued and then rehearsed again and

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UK - Over 300 guests and sponsors were entertained to a spectacular gala dinner at Birmingham's Hippodrome Theatre on Saturday 14 May 2011. The event raised £40,000 towards the one million pound refurbishment cost to improve the weight loading capacity of the Hippodrome's stage, which will enable the theatre to host bigger and heavier touring productions.

The event brought together the well established working partnership of prolific UK lighting designer Adrian Barnes and Matt Clutterham of specialist lighting and event service provider MattLX. All under the careful control of the Hippodrome's technical manager and former MattLX project manager, Barry Hope.

The Theatre was turned on its head with the audience seated on the stage immersed in the performance technology, whilst the spectacular evening's entertainment performed over and around them. Hosted by the glittering

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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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USA - Sensaphonics recently held the first of three scheduled 2011 Golden Circle seminars, educating audiologists with the specific skills and knowledge needed to work with musicians, audio technicians, and in-ear monitors.

The two-day Golden Circle seminar uses personalised, small-group instruction and includes a tour of the Sensaphonics custom manufacturing lab in Chicago. Another highlight is a trip to a local recording for a live music session, which is used to demonstrate the basics of PA systems, stage monitoring and in-ear systems from the artist's perspective.

"Musicians are totally different from any other client an audiologist is likely to see," notes Michael Santucci, AuD, Sensaphonics president and founder. "The Sensaphonics Golden Circle members are among the few who have the specialised knowledge to serve these clients properly, whether in the offi

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USA - Subaru of America launched its all-new fourth-generation 2012 Impreza models in 3D using 3D R4 LED Display as the medium.

The glitz and glamour were centred in the middle of Manhattan at the Jacob Javits Center from 22 April 2011 to 1 May at New York Auto Show, the last car show of the season.

This is the first time that 3D LED Display technology has been customised for automotive events, in this case specifically for the company's media conference. During the show, members of the international automotive media went along for the ride with 3D glasses, to watch a video presentation demonstrating the diverse, active lifestyles of Subaru owners, who are heralded as the most active consumers in the automobile market.

Earlier this year, Creative Technology introduced 3D R4 LED Display to their clients, with impressive results.

Subaru of America Inc. agreed to create a 3D

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UK - Mojo Barriers' York based northern office is already enjoying a successful start to the summer festival circuit. The new office which opened in April 2011 has already provided services for Radio 1's Big Weekend and is preparing for new contract win Newcastle's Evolution Festival.

The Mojo Barrier team led by managing director, Jim Gaffney supplied over 300m of aluminium crowd barrier to Radio 1's Big Weekend in Carlisle, to secure all four stages. Gaffney directed a crew of three skilled professionals during the build, which also included half a day ensuring the ground was level for the safe installation of the barrier systems. The Mojo Barriers' equipment was loaded in the Friday before the festival and removed immediately after the event finished.

Following this successful event, Mojo Barriers supplied 107m of stage barrier to last weekend's Evol

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Switzerland - A recent rebuilding and upgrading project to a regional Swiss venue has effectively provided a new entertainment and exhibition facility in the town of Thun, just south of Bern. An integral part of the project was installing new induction loops, with Ampetronic chosen for the job.

The project cost 24m Swiss francs and saw the main Schadausaal hall at the Kultur und Kongresszentrum Thun (KKThun) completely revamped while an additional hall, the Lachensaal, was added along with a large new foyer.

"We have installed a lot of induction loops before, every time using Ampetronic products, and have had nothing but good experiences with them," says Rolf Aegerter, technical project manager at Kilchenmann.

The existing induction loops in the Schadausaal's two small balconies were re-used, driven by a newly-installed Ampetronic ILD500 loop amplifier. Meanwhile,

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Germany / UAE - The beginning of June will see a reassignment of responsibilities at Bosch Communications Systems. To date, as sales director pro audio export, Klaus Seitz has been responsible for the pro sound sector (Electro-Voice, Dynacord) in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), whilst Kamil Swobodzinski has been responsible for the marketing of broadcast and intercom equipment (RTS, Telex) in the same three regions. Henceforth, responsibility for both the brands and the sales regions will be differently assigned between the two. The duties of the existing export sales managers, however, will remain unchanged.

From 1 June, Klaus Seitz, as sales director MEA, will be responsible for the marketing of both pro sound and CCS products in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. To be closer to the customers, Seitz will relocate from Straubing to the Robert Bosch subsidiary in Du

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UK - The 12th annual Classic Brit Awards took place on 12 May at London's Royal Albert Hall. Hosted by Myleene Klass and in the presence of the Duchess Of Cornwall, the award presentations were interspersed with performances by Il Divo, Katherine Jenkins and the cast of Les Misérables.

Despite the extensive technical demands of a complex and sometimes unpredictable event, the production proved the capabilities of the design and engineering crew. The audio side was handled exclusively by Britannia Row Productions who deployed a 30-element Outline GTO system flown in three 10-deep columns, each with three Outline Mantas under-hung for near-fills. The two side-hangs comprised 10 Outline Butterfly elements each, and the whole system was driven by Outline T-Series amplifiers run from Dolby Lake system controllers.

The Midas XL8 at FOH was operated by engineer Colin Pi

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UK - Sennheiser UK is to host two seminars, which have been developed from last year's successful event in the stunning environment of Hopetoun House, near Edinburgh. This year's venues are no less impressive, with the first of the two days taking place on 7 June at Ashton Court near Bristol and the second, two days later at Knebworth House in the Hertfordshire countryside.

"The seminar will be along the same lines as last year, although the content has been refreshed and updated," explains Ken Morrison, business area manager at Sennheiser UK. "The accent is still on providing information, education - and a little entertainment - for our installed sound, AV and live sound colleagues in the industry."

The choice of venues reflects Sennheiser's desire for the seminars to make a lasting impression, says the company.

"Last year, we decided that, rather t

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UK - Lighting designer Rob Mills used a grandMA2 light as his control platform for a recent production of Verdi's Aida at the Epsom Playhouse in Surrey. The week-long production by Riverside Opera was directed by James Hurley who is a regular client of Mills, a busy theatre and opera LD, who also lights corporate and live events.

It was the first time that the opportunity had arisen for him to specify and use a grandMA2 on one of his shows, a chance he had been waiting for since working on the Floating Finale section of the Lord Mayor of London's show, on the River Thames last year. It was here he saw a grandMA 'series 1' properly in action being programmed by David Miller.

"Once I'd mastered the fundamentals, I found it incredibly fast to move on to more advanced programming," states Mills. "Whilst it needs a bit of time at the beginning to set up and le

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Recycling Sets - Theatre companies can now advertise and recycle old sets and costumes on a new Freecycle-style website specifically designed for the sector. With the tag line "giving your unwanted set a new home", Set-exchange.co.uk has been launched with the aim of encouraging production companies to share unwanted sets, costumes and props with other theatre organisations across the UK for free. Companies including the Royal Court, Glyndebourne and the Lyric Hammersmith have already pledged their support to the website.

Set-exchange was set up by lighting designer and production electrician Peter Harrison. He told The Stage, "The idea came from me working with some of the small companies as well as the big companies and seeing waste in one and scrimping and saving from the other, so it came out of trying to share resources."

Set-exchange is structu

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World - PLASA has released a draft voluntary code of practice on Artificial Optical Radiation (AOR) for comments or observations from the global professional lighting industry.

The background to the document lies in the introduction of new EU Directive and national legislation regarding AOR, and the subsequent agreement, by manufacturers attending a presentation that PLASA's Ron Bonner and the Health Protection Agency gave at the PLASA 2010, that guidance should be created.

In short, the new legislation requires employers to assess the exposure to the workforce of AOR and if the exposure is believed to be above permitted levels, the employer will need to measure the levels and take action to reduce the exposure. Manufacturers will also have a duty to supply relevant safety information. In the UK this is enshrined in health and safety law, but will also be part of the conformit

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Benelux - Over 100 axes of Kinesys automation were utilised to move a host of scenic and visual elements for Dutch megastar Marco Borsato's recent all-action 3Dimensies (3Dimensions) shows. He played to over 210,000 people during a two- week period across multiple nights at the Gelredome stadium in Arnhem, The Netherlands, and the Sportpalais in Antwerp, Belgium.

The total count of 107 Kinesys motion controlled elements on this production beats the previously held record of 80 by the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest final in Oslo.

Borsato's set and lighting was designed by Ignace D'haese from Arf & Yes who worked closely with show producers John Mulder and Flip Van Ommeren from Mojo Concerts who also did the production management.

WImotion - part of the Belgium based WIcreations Group - were asked onboard to co-ordinate and engineer all the automation design and specify t

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UK - London-based sound rental company, Capital Sound Hire has invested in an Optocore optical fibre system for the first time to maximise signal transport and flexibility on the current Take That Progress Live 2011 stadium tour.

Project manager Martin Connolly confirmed that in order to eliminate sight-line issues caused by traditional loudspeaker delay masts, this tour would feature a distributed 'ring' delay system with loudspeaker arrays hanging directly from the stadia structure.

"We will be placing clusters of amp racks around the stadiums, picking up AC power locally," he states. "We considered a copper based signal distribution system, perhaps using AES3, but because of the distances involved and the need for electrical isolation we soon realised that an optical system was the correct solution.

"With a project of this magnitude we felt that

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UK - Liverpool based Adlib kicked off the 2011 music festival season in style - supplying sound systems to three stages and lighting to Radio One's Big Weekend at Carlisle Airport in Cumbria.

It was the fifth consecutive year that Adlib has supplied equipment and crew to the event, and their team was headed by James Neale on site and co-ordinated by Dave Jones in the office.

The stages were In New Music We Trust (stage 2), unashamedly rocked on Saturday night by headliners the Swedish House Mafia, ahead of their upcoming tour for which Adlib is also providing sound; and stage 4, The BBC Introducing Stage which showcased some of the hottest new talent.

On INMWT, Adlib's new CODA Audio system made its Big Weekend debut, configured as two flown left and right main hangs each comprising 10 CODA LA12 speakers, together with 16 LA8s for front- fills and 16 ground stacked SC

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Denmark - Martin Professional's headquarter building in Aarhus has taken on a life of its own thanks to a new media facade made up of Martin LED display panels with graphical content from Danish design office Kollision.

The 180m2 facade, mounted on the inside front of the building, is made up of Martin Professional LC Plus Series LED display panels and presents a wide variety of dynamic graphical content that reacts to visitor interaction in the form of activities and movement in and outside the building.

The dynamic graphics do more than mesmerize and entertain; the media facade can be affected by motion sensors and user input for a truly unique, personal experience. The media facade allows a static building to come alive through an ever-changing lighting design, a constantly evolving expression that engages visitors and passers-by.

Rune Nielsen of Kollision stated, "A

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UK - Capital Sound has carried out a complete overhaul of its Martin Audio W8L Longbow inventory in preparation for the Take That Progress Live 2011 tour, which opened at Sunderland's Stadium of Light on 27 May.

Once Martin Audio's line array system had been chosen by the band's FOH sound engineer, Gary Bradshaw, the rental company took the unusual step of having its entire W8L Longbow fleet (including complementary WS218X subs) finished in black, to create stage uniformity; at the same time they purchased eight further enclosures.

All of which received unconditional approval from Gary Bradshaw. Two days into the show, the sound engineer reported, "It is still early days but I'm very pleased with the results we have been getting with the Martin Longbow system, which is very smooth but very powerful."

Since Production decided to dispense with large delay towers in f

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UK - The weekend of 20 - 22 May saw the inaugural edition of the Friends Of Mine festival held against the stunning backdrop of Capesthorne Hall near Manchester. FOM Fest boasted an impressive line-up for a first-time festival. Organisers had no hesitation in drawing from the rich pickings of the Mancunian music scene over the years with acts such as Kid British, Badly Drawn Boy, The Buzzcocks, The Fall, Dutch Uncles, Bad Lieutenant, Wakefield's The Cribs and of course the inimitable Charlatans amongst many others.

The weather might not have been too kind, but it didn't dampen the spirits of festival goers who braved the elements to support the cream of the crop of 'local' bands who, for once, were all playing in their own back garden. Paul Nicholson from Red Square Audio / Midas ProSound handled the audio requirements across the festival's four main stages, including a fleet of

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Africa - For the 4th consecutive season, Blond Productions were commissioned to cater for the sound, lighting and AV requirements of Big Brother Africa.

When their client, Endemol South Africa, wanted a new set for Big Brother Africa Amplified, aired on DSTV, Blond approached Sean Hoey of Dream Sets. Together they came up with fresh ideas that have "pleasantly surprised the client".

Lighting designer Peter Rieck (Blond) and Sean Hoey (Dream Sets) put their heads together from the inset with the assistance of Vector Works. Their aim was to create a set that would bring out as many technical and visual aspects as possible. "Robe fixtures added mood, beams of light and eye candy, while the real 'show stealer' were the graphics on screens and plasmas, all running via a grandMA Media Server," say Blond.

Christian Ballot, MD from Blond comments: "Five to t

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Greece - Robe lighting was invited by the Czech Consulate in Athens to create a special lighting scheme for the official launch of La Grace, a replica of the 17th century corsair (pirate) ship captained by Czech seafarer Augustin He?man, which took place in the exclusive and picturesque harbour at Flisvos Marina, Athens.

The vessel has been recreated by a group of Czech enthusiasts in a shipyard in Suez, Egypt, which still uses historic and traditional building methods. The pre-planning and research for the project took three years and the actual construction process another two years. The new La Grace will serve a multi-functional international role as a sea cadet training facility and as a tourist attraction worldwide.

A team of enthusiastic individuals from Robe, all with an eye for design and aesthetics - Josef Valchar (MD) Petr Kolmaka (Anolis sales manager)

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