Australia - Footscray Community Arts Centre is widely acknowledged as one of Australia's leading centres for contemporary arts and community engagement. October last year saw the opening of a new 250-seat performance space plus a new gallery, computer lab, and other multi-use spaces for meeting, seeing, creating and talking about art.

With the new venue came some new gear including four 53 cm ETC Selador Vivid-R LED fixtures and an ETC Element console.

"The Seladors perform really well, deliver strong saturated colours and have great optics," remarked Darren Gee, venue & operations manager. "We don't have a lot of power in the building so the more LED fixtures we can put in the roof, the better. It also means we don't have to get up and down all the time to change

USA - Over the past year, Neon Trees has cemented its reputation as one of the top up-and-coming indie rock acts in the US, with a chart topping single, a featured performance at this year's SXSW festival, and a tour with My Chemical Romance. With a number of one-off fly dates punctuating the tour, stage manager and monitor engineer Mike Bangs and FOH engineer Neal Duffy selected a pair of Allen & Heath iLive T112 consoles to meet the band's needs.

Neon Trees is a straightforward rock band, with two guitars, bass, keyboard and drums along with four vocals. "We are using 24 inputs," Bangs notes. "We are sharing preamps between monitors and FOH and doing a digital split from the monitor console's iDR-32, so our FOH snake is just one Cat 5 cable.

"The second iDR-32 MixRack is currently being used for the FOH console's DSP. That will change when we start headli

USA - Merging Technologies' Pyramix digital audio workstation and VCube video playback system played keyroles in the recording and post-production of the 120th anniversary concert for the internationally renowned New York venue Carnegie Hall, which was televised in the USA at the end of May.

One hundred and twenty years to the day since the opening of the classical music venue on 5 May 1891, a gala concert was held at Carnegie Hall to celebrate its on-going position as one of the world's foremost cultural centres. The New York Philharmonic, conducted by Alan Gilbert, performed an evening of music with a strong historical connection to the Hall, the city of New York, or both: Dvo?ák, Beethoven, Ellington and Gershwin. Guest performers included cellist Yo Yo Ma, pianist Emmanuel Ax, violinist Gil Shaham, and vocalist Audra McDonald.

The concert was filmed live by flagship New Y

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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

USA - The Screen Actors Guild Foundation will soon celebrate the third anniversary of the Actors Centre, a one-of-a kind resource centre located in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles.

Theatre designer Allen Pellerin of Systems Integration Group designed the 125-seat screening room's digital audio and video systems, including a pair of Community iBOX i2W8 two-way loudspeaker systems. The system is used during professional seminars, workshops and celebrity interviews, as well as for a wide range of one-off performances.

"The i2W8 loudspeakers sound incredible," reports the Centre's Director, Casey Lewis. "They are so amazingly crisp, clean and clear. I am really impressed by their performance."

For Los Angeles, a city that is home to more than 70,000 actors, the SAG Foundation Actors Centre is the first facility of its kind where actors can network, p

Israel - Wireless Solution Sweden AB was a key participant in the grand opening of Ariel Sharon Park on 18 May in Tel Aviv. The opening is the first in a series of phases that once complete, will result in a landmark area larger than Central Park in New York.

The park is on the site of Israel's biggest garbage dump, the Hiriya Landfill, a mountain of garbage that was used from 1952 until 1998. The government has now transformed the site and the area around it into one of the largest parks in the country, named after Israel's ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The ongoing restoration project will transform Hiriya from a waste landfill into a flourishing, green park which will attract thousands of visitors each year, providing recreational opportunities, walking paths, a 50,000-seat amphitheater and a large recycling facility, designed to symbolise the potential of recycling. The p

UK / USA - Tannoy has announced it is to debut a new range of 'open ceiling' hanging-pendant loudspeakers at InfoComm 2011 in Orlando. Entitled OCV Series, Tannoy's new pendant loudspeaker promises to "deliver the renowned acoustic performance and exceptional value of the ubiquitous CVS Series in-ceiling products but in an architecturally sensitive, self-contained, lightweight cylindrical enclosure".

The series is engineered specifically for applications where predictable high quality audio coverage is required in high or open-ceilinged spaces - such as airports, railway stations, malls or large double or triple height commercial floors - without compromising clarity, intelligibility and SPL.

The cylindrical form-factor has been conceived to meet the exacting demands of the architectural sector, minimising the impact on aesthetics and allowing the systems designer to

UK - Musicians and budding record producers turned out in force for the creative audio production workshops that took place at Liverpool Sound City 2011.

Hosted by Prism Sound and Metropolis Group, the workshops were delivered by producer/engineer Josh Blair, who has worked with numerous top artists including Duran Duran, Mark Ronson, Beyonce and Mos Def. Joining him was Metropolis mastering engineer Mazen Murad, whose mastering credits include Muse, Duffy, John Williams and Bjork.

"When Prism Sound asked me to get involved, I jumped at the opportunity to share my knowledge with other people," says Blair. "It was great to see that so many people are still interested in recording real people, with real instruments, in real rooms, with real top-end gear."

A wide range of recording and mixing techniques were covered during the course of the two days. With th

The Netherlands - The award for fastest TiMax system sale ever made has gone to Martijn Verkerk of Dutch distributor TM Audio, for a four-day turnaround from initial enquiry to curtain-up of a complete TiMax Tracker and TiMax2 SoundHub system for Dutch theatre group De Utrechtse Spelen.

Faced with a fast-paced contemporary performance of Hamlet staged in-the-round at the company's very own De Paardenkathedraal theatre space, sound designer and engineer Danny Hoogveld realised he needed help with panning the cavorting and battling actors voices across his highly original omnidirectional sound system design, comprising four Bloomline Omniwave speakers suspended over an oval stage located between the two opposite ranks of tiered audience seating.

Conceived by Dutch composer and producer Leo De Klerk, the Omniwaves were originally aimed at high-end hi-fi. Danny Hoogveld not

UK - At this year's ABTT show, The First Night Riders (FNRs), will once more be shaking their money raising buckets in aid of theatre charity, The Theatrical Guild.

On the 15-16 June, at the Royal Horticultural Halls, London, the money raising motorcyclists will be showcasing photo highlights from last year's charity ride. However this year they will be looking to top last year's total of £12,000.

This photo slideshow, which features backstage images of number of historically important UK venues, will be displayed on a large screen, generously provided by Blitz Video and positioned in the Lawrence Hall Foyer.

FNR organisers will be on hand on both show days to sign up any motorbike-riding volunteers looking for adventure! The ride will depart on 18 June from outside of the National Theatre, London, escorted by London police motorbike outriders.

FNR organiser David Ed

UK / USA - Adele, has just completed a tour of Europe and is currently on tour in the US with an Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system managing both FOH and monitor sound. Requested by the sound engineers, the system comprises two iLive-112 Control Surfaces with an iDR10 modular MixRack and iDR0 mini Rack, connected via ACE and input sharing over MADI.

"iLive stands apart from other consoles because of its ease of use. Like painting, you want to be creating when you mix, not reading a manual. You can do that with this desk - you stand in front of it and it's logical. It's also reliable, you know that you can get up in the morning, turn it on, and it does exactly what it's meant to do every day," comments FOH engineer, Dave McDonald who has previously used iLive on tour with Florence and The Machine and AIR.

"I'm using iLive differently on this tour as there

UK - At 10.15am on Monday 23rd May 2011, BBC Radio 1 broadcast a special live-to-air performance by Leona Lewis, performing a cover of Labrynth's Let the Sun Shine and an amalgamation of Leona's Better In Time and Rihanna's Man Down, with two very different backing bands. This Live Lounge broadcast from London's Hackney Empire, hosted by the station's Trevor Nelson, helped launch Hackney Weekend 2012, where Leona and Plan B, both from the area, will play at a free music event to celebrate the London 2012 Olympics.

This one-off performance, utilised 24 Neumann digital microphones - a mix of seven TLM 103Ds, four KMS 105Ds and 13 KM 184Ds. The digital microphone set up was augmented with a few analogue evolution models, comprising two e904s, an e905, an e901 and two classic MD421's, demonstrating that the deployment of digital and analogue microphones t

USA - Penn-Elcom has announced a new US distribution deal with Fane Acoustics which sees a relaunch of the entire Fane professional speaker driver range in North America - including all Fane's pro audio loudspeakers and guitar speaker lines.

This follows a recent global distribution deal between the companies which gives both access to the other's international distribution networks.

Penn-Elcom Inc is headquartered in the US in Garden Grove, California and has offices and extensive warehouses facilities in New Jersey and Houston, Texas, providing distribution hubs all across the US.

"It was essential for us to find a company with the right mix of dynamics, enthusiasm and commitment to represent our brand correctly, as well as to make all the products available in the US," says Fane director Mark Barnes, "Penn-Elcom is the perfect match."

"Fane's pr

UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light will play host to a London stop of Engineered for the Eye a travelling roadshow organised by Martin Professional to give lighting professionals the opportunity to get hands-on experience with the company's latest products.

The tour will visit White Light's base in Wimbledon, south-west London, on Thursday 30 June. Martin's aim is to let those working in every area of lighting, including the live-entertainment, commercial and architectural sectors, see Martin's gear in action, receive hands-on training, and talk to Martin's staff about the products and their many possible applications.

In addition, visitors will be able to see the facilities and comprehensive range of equipment offered by White Light. The company's rental stock includes a wide range of Martin equipment. The stock has recently been expanded with the addit

USA - Lakewood Church, located in Houston, Texas and one of the largest churches in the United States, has outfitted each of its two main audio control rooms with a pair of KK audio labs DS-8 eight-inch, two-way powered audio monitors. The two identical rooms, designed by the Russ Berger Design Group and featuring Euphonix 5-B digital mixing consoles, both handle on-air broadcast duties as well as audio post production, and are additionally tied to a music recording studio.

"We've been longstanding with our old cabinets and it was time to update," says Reed Hall, director of audio and technical production at the church, a former sports arena and home of Joel Osteen Ministries. "Everybody felt that there was something a lot better out there. We took a listen to the DS-8s and they sounded great. We never mix off just one reference, but these have become our primary

UK - Dance trio Faithless has called time after 15 years on the music scene, playing their final show at London's O2 Academy Brixton at the beginning of April. Their Front of House engineer Mark Kennedy had worked with the band since 1996 and throughout his tenure has relied on products and support from Sennheiser UK.

"It's been wonderful to work with Faithless," declares Kennedy. "The back -up I received from Mark Saunders at Sennheiser UK has been amazing and the mics have been fabulous - in all the years I've been using them, I've always set up the spare radio mic, but I've never had to use it. The original SKM 3072 we used were customized somewhat because Faithless stage shows are very loud. More recently, we moved to SKM 500-945, which have been wonderful and are a vast improvement."

Kennedy employed a combination of the aforementioned SKM 500-945 G3 h

Ireland - Sound Productions, a Dublin based Intellivox dealer, has recently supplied AXYS Intellivox units as part of the public address system at the new T2 building, Dublin Airport.

Dublin Airport's Terminal 2 is a €600m project which included a new terminal building, a new boarding gate pier, a new combined heat and power facility, 19 new aircraft parking stands, and an upgraded airport road network.

Terminal 2, which has already won a major design award for its use of structural steel, was built by a consortium comprising of Arup, Mace, Pascall+Watson and Davis Langdon PKS. With its steel and glass facade, the new terminal makes use of natural light to create a modern and comfortable space for both departing and arriving passengers. However, for Arup Acoustics, the acoustic and electro-acoustic designers on the project, all these hard surfaces posed several challenges.

Chile - ChileVision TV continues to invest in Robe moving lights for their HQ in Santiago, which has seven studios. The commercial channel is owned by Turner Media and broadcasts nationwide, primarily specialising in producing light entertainment programmes which need exciting eye-catching lighting and scenic elements.

Robe was first introduced to ChileVision by the station's chief lighting technician Mario Navarrete and chief engineer Luis Silva. They made their first Robe purchase in 2007 and currently have over 60 Robe fixtures, including ColorSpot and ColorWash 575 and 1200E AT moving lights, Scan 1200 XTs and LEDBlinders.

They chose Robe because of its "reliability, quality, good prices and also because of the excellent after-sales service offered by Robe's Chilean distributor explains Navarrete.

The purchase coincided with the opening of a new studio at the comple

UK - Le Maitre created a spectacular finale to the 2011 UEFA Champions League final at Wembley. As Eric Abidal lifted the cup for Barcelona, the skies above the arch lit up as a host of gold and silver mines and comets were fired some 220m into the air above the 90,000 capacity stadium below. This was the first time pyrotechnics have ever been fired from the famous arch and Le Maitre were "delighted to have been chosen".

The pyro display was the culmination of months of hard work for Karen Haddon, events director at Le Maitre and her team.

"The size of the task cannot be underestimated. The arch itself is the longest unsupported roof structure in the world, and at 133m high and with a 7m diameter lattice arch, we knew this was never going to be straightforward. Add to that the wind and British weather in general and you have a pyrotechnician's worst nightmare. T

UK - Contracted by production manager Richard Bullimore and Playful Productions, Creative Technology (CT) has been chosen to provide full video solutions for the London West End production of Shrek The Musical.

CT's Barco 20K FLM R20 projector is located on the front of the Circle and positioned side on to ensure the audience's view is not restricted. With the beam deflected 90° via a mirror, the images are projected onto various stage elements providing life and texture to the set components and props. A 13m2 10mm LED screen, also provided by CT, is flown upstage to add to the visual elements of the show representing the passage of the sun and the moon, an integral part of Shrek and Princess Fiona's story.

The entire video system is based around a pair of CT's Hippotizer HDs and ultimately controlled from the show's lighting desk.

Working with creative partner La

USA - Audio-Technica has announced the appointment of Michael Edwards to the position of vice-president professional markets. The announcement was made by Audio-Technica US president and CEO Philip Cajka.

Following the start of his audio career as a successful recording engineer, Edwards joined Audio-Technica in 1994, and has served the company since then in a variety of key roles in sales, marketing, and most recently as director of product management. He is a member of the Audio-Technica Taiwan board of directors.

As leader of the company's professional division, Edwards will have considerable responsibility for the way Audio-Technica develops and positions its professional products. He will oversee A-T sales, marketing and product development efforts in the pro audio, M.I., broadcast and installed sound markets, says the company.

Cajka stated, "As part of Audio-Techn

USA - The explosive growth of computer networking technology (IT) has produced huge benefits for many industries, and the AV market is no exception. The advantages of digital media networking have been clear for some time, but until now many felt that there were too many limitations and too much to learn in order to make the switch.

Peavey Commercial Audio, and Audinate along with Allen and Heath, Lab.gruppen, and media partner Sound & Communications, will be presenting "a morning of insightful and real world presentations by the industries top A/V manufacturers" on Tuesday 14 June at the Rosen Centre in Orlando.

The seminar also includes AV design consultant Stefan Mathias of the Hartmann + Mathais Partnership. Mathias will also be speaking about their Goethe University AV installation in Frankfurt, which recently won a Sinus Award at this year's PL+S. In add

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