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World - Elton John is once again out on the road, supported by his full band and, this time, additional musicians. His links with Yamaha go much further than his piano, with the company's mixing consoles a long-term fixture on his live shows.

The Rocket Man's 2011 touring schedule is taking in the UK, Europe, Asia, Canada and the US, before settling in Las Vegas for a month-long residency, after which it's off to Russia, the Ukraine, Australia, New Zealand and Asia again.

The shows feature Elton's five-piece backing band plus backing vocalists. In addition, a pair of cellists - Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser - have been added for the current run of dates and percussionist Ray Cooper joins the ensemble for the Vegas shows.

One thing that has not changed from previous tours is th

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UK - Studiospares have been appointed as a UK Distributor of Ohm. The partnership brings together two family-run UK businesses that have been trading for over 50 years between them. Ohm offers a large selection of premium quality speakers suited for portable use and club installation, as well as stadia.

Gary Maguire of StudioSpares commented: "Studiospares deals with a large number of installation companies on a daily basis. We wanted a premium speaker line to complement our value range, so we can offer our installer base a solution based on budget. Having looked at many different brands, the Ohm speaker range ticked all the right boxes". Gareth Coleman of Ohm, who has been instrumental in setting up the partnership, said: "Studiospares has a long-standing reputation in the industry for providing great customer service as well as having a great team of technically

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Italy - In a few months the Sunandbass festival will return. For a week, international DJs and artists will perform in several locations in the beach resort of San Teodoro, Sardinia.

The spotlight of last year's event was focused on the Ambra Night location in San Teodoro, whose technical setup was designed by Quadra Luce & Design, the same company that installed its resident sound reinforcement system featuring Proel Edge speakers.

Sunandbass confirmed the quality and the versatility of Ambra Night's sound systems which adjusted well to the percussive musical genre. Quadra Luce & Design were asked by the festival's organizers and influential to provide an additional, higher SPL sound system for a second dance floor and decided to specify a Turbosound Aspect system.

The system features four Turbosound Aspect TA-500tpoint source 3-way tri-amped full range loudspeakers, four T

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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 - The 27th annual WrestleMania, the Super Bowl of sports entertainment, took place on 3 April at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta and featured an immense Martin Professional package of LED video and dynamic lighting gear supplied by production company Upstaging.

With a pay-per-view broadcast to 35 countries and an in house audience of over 70,000, WrestleMania is serious sports entertainment. Produced by WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), the yearly show has become the pinnacle event in sports entertainment.

Long time production designer for WWE is Jason Robinson who taps into his years of experience to light WWE events year long. Robinson works with WWE executive producer Kevin Dunn on design and themes for WrestleMania events with this year's look less thematic and more from the world of high tech.

Playing a major role in this year's set design were Martin Professional LC

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USA - With numerous Grammy, Dove and Billboard awards and nominations, Newsboys have proven to be some of Christian rock's most enduring performers. Since the band's founding in Australia in 1985, Newsboys have released 14 studio albums and have been one of the most popular Christian music artists of the past two decades. Newsboys have now chosen to partner with microphones and wireless systems from Audio-Technica.

Newsboys FOH mixer John O'Neal comments: "We are pretty particular about sound, right down to the microphones in our workbox. [Monitor engineer] Jeff Nolte and I began discussing our desire for some new microphones. Primarily, we wanted to go in a different direction with our drum kit - we had been using the same cardioid dynamic instrument mics on our toms and snare drum for the last six or seven years. The old mics weren't broken, so it wasn't like we had to ma

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UK - The 2011 festival season kicked off for Sennheiser UK with a huge amount of equipment and the company's technical support team heading to Carlisle for the BBC's One Big Weekend. With the two days headlined by the contrasting styles of the Foo Fighters no-nonsense rock and Lady Gaga's theatrics, it also saw the debut of the company's latest Channel 38 equipment.

One Big Weekend saw 51 live bands and 25 DJ sets play across four stages to 40,000 people on each day. Sennheiser UK's support team of Andy Lillywhite and Mark Saunders - a familiar sight at festivals throughout the UK - were on hand to lend technical assistance and expertise to Britannia Row and Adlib Audio, who respectively provided the audio equipment for the Main and In New Music We Trust (INMWT) stages.

The event saw a key milestone in the run up to the Channel 69 to 38 frequency switchover - the

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Spain - The new d&b audiotechnik office in Barcelona is the centre for the Spanish distribution of their sound reinforcement systems, and which oversees the carefully chosen partner network throughout the country. This move to a fresh location in the city will allow the d&b team to address a higher level of activity to satisfy current and future requirements as well as offering a greater capacity for logistics, says the company.

It will become a meeting place where educational and training programs can be held on a regular basis, complementing the existing workshops, seminars and training courses that the d&b partners frequently run throughout the country.

Gaelle Poullavec who runs the office, Juanma da Cassus who is in charge of the support and service and manager David Roselló say they are looking forward to having this new facility where they can not only extend a bigger w

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UK - PLASA Events has announced half-price visitor registration is now available online for this year's PLASA 2011, which is already 90% sold out, three months ahead of the show opening at Earls Court on 11-14 September 2011.

Half-price online registration offers visitors the chance to not only save money but to avoid the registration queues and receive regular updates from PLASA Events about new product launches, the expanding seminar programme and new show features.

With 50% of all PLASA 2011 exhibitors based internationally, it's the best opportunity to see all the industry's big names under one roof - plus several names that are new or returning for PLASA 2011 - including Batmink, Capture Sweden, Eclipse Iluminación y Sonido, S., Focusrite, Lydrommet, RGGLED and State Automation.

In addition to new products, an expanded seminar programme and interactive feature areas, t

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USA / Low Earth Orbit - Tait Towers scenic and motion control solutions are often praised for being "out of this World," - but this was literally the case this summer when they helped U2's 360 Tour achieve universal appeal.

When Willie Williams, lighting designer for U2's 360 Tour, wanted to incorporate the space shuttle Endeavour's Mission Commander Mark Kelly singing "A Beautiful Day" lyrics into U2 concert footage for their show in Seattle, Washington on 5 June, he called James 'Winky' Fairorth at Tait Towers, in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Tait Towers, who provided the staging for the ground?breaking 360 Tour, has been collaborating with U2 on projects since the mid?1980s. In terms of knowledge and speed, Williams knew Tait was a great ally.

Fairorth, upon agreeing to be a part of this one?of?a?kind opportunity, told Williams, "Only if we can talk to roc

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UK - Al Murray - aka The Pub Landlord - is hosting his own pub quiz on UK comedy channel Dave. Compete For The Meat - a parody in which contestants compete for the grand prize of a £3.99 frozen chicken - features lighting designed by lighting director Chris Kempton and supplied by Richard Martin Lighting (RML).

Chris Kempton's lighting specification relies on a wide and varied selection of equipment including a range of Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700s, Alpha Wash 1200s and Alpha Wash 700s.

In use for the first time was a new chrome version of the Alpha Beam 700. Developed for TV sets and interiors, the shiny chrome finish is designed to help the luminaire become less visible to the eye by reflecting light and blending into its surrounding environment.

The Alpha Beam 700 has become one of the most popular tools for television lighting work in the UK and abroad.

(Jim

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USA - Clay Paky's new spotlight, the Sharpy, has been named Product of the Year by US entertainment technology magazine, Live Design. The award earned plaudits from the jury of professional lighting designers.

"You'd be extremely hard-pressed to find another fixture on the market right now that produces this much raw output from a head this compact," said one of the judges. "The Sharpy's speed comes close to rivalling that of its moving mirror predecessors."

Another judge said that the Sharpy's output "can stand up in outdoor venues against much larger-scale fixtures."

The awards were presented at a ceremony in New York on 24 May 2011, following the Broadway Lighting Master Classes, held annually by Live Design magazine.

Clay Paky's Francesco Romagnoli and A.C.T. Lighting's Bob Gordon were on hand to receive the prize from Liv

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France - While St Patrick is naturally associated most closely with Ireland, he is celebrated by Celtic people across the globe. Although the French city of Rennes may not be the first place that comes to mind, the annual Nuit de la Saint-Patrick concerts are a suitable way for anyone who wants to celebrate the Irish saint somewhere. Here Yamaha digital consoles help to ensure that the fiddles, pipes and shamrock'n'roll all sound their best.

Held for the past few years at the Bercy in Paris, this year the Nuit de la Saint-Patrick show moved to the Musikhall in Rennes. The5000-capacity venue witnessed performances by over 100 artists in a show that lasted for over three hours, the concert being so popular that the Saturday evening show was repeated the following afternoon.

Combining traditional and contemporary performers, both amateur and professional, changeover

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Australia - Since releasing their album All Kinds of Tough last year, the country music duo of McAlister Kemp have gone from strength to strength.

"In July we record our new album and then after that we will tour solidly until the end of the year on trains, buses and planes," said Troy Kemp. "Whatever we have to do to get our band all over Australia - it never stops. So we're really stoked that Jands are helping us out with our audio gear, in fact we couldn't be happier."

The duo was delighted to receive Shure ULX wireless guitar systems which have allowed them much more freedom onstage - something that is a huge benefit for such dynamic and active performers.

"The freedom to move onstage is amazing as you're not stuck with a 20ft guitar lead," commented Kemp. "We jump around quite a bit and I spin around every now and then so if I h

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France - PA company On-Off, supported by Midas distributor EVI Audio France, has used a Midas digital network consisting of three PRO6s together with three DL431 mic splitters for La Nuite Africaine at the 80,000-capacity Stade de France, Paris. The event featured 18 bands including Alpha Blondy, Manu Dibango, Mory Kanté and Magic Systems.

On-Off, a long time Midas analogue customer, was chosen to provide both the sound system and the engineers. The18 bands played for just five and half hours, making the timing of the whole evening crucial, and this was a large factor in selecting the Midas digital technology. The setup was manned by On-Off's team of professionals, who managed to achieve an impressive changeover time of just three minutes between acts.

"It was an obvious choice to use our PRO6s as in addition to being able to cope with an event of this complexity,

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UK - Pharos is introducing its latest RIO, providing distributed DALI control over an Ethernet network. The Pharos RIO D is a Power over Ethernet-based remote device, delivering the DALI protocol to where it is needed.

Pharos LPCs can send DALI ballast configuration and control signals via multiple RIO Ds, each connected to a local DALI bus with up to 64 ballasts. RIO Ds acting in Slave mode listen to all commands on the local DALI bus and transmit them back over Ethernet to the lighting controller to be used as triggers for the Pharos system.

With the convenience of single-cable installation using PoE, drag-and-drop DALI patching and timeline programming in Designer software, the Pharos RIO D is a ground-breaking new solution for DALI installations, says the company.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - In 2010, Sennheiser UK hosted its first Seminar Roadshow in Edinburgh, which addressed a wide range of audio issues and product demonstrations. So successful was the event that this year it was presented in two new locations, with enhanced and updated content, plus the world debut of a Rane audio system and UK 'firsts' for systems from DAS and K-Array.

This year's seminars took place in early June at Ashton Court, near Bristol and (most appropriately for the live music industry) Knebworth House in Hertfordshire. With a bare minimum of advertising, news of the events was so well-received that Sennheiser UK had to freeze the online registration site several days before the first one.

"Hosting last year's event at an attractive venue which people would remember worked very well," says Ken Morrison, business area manager at Sennheiser UK. "We wanted to reach a

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UK - Charcoalblue has appointed Alex Wardle as head of project management, effective immediately.

For the past six years Wardle has worked as a theatre consultant for Arup. During that time he was responsible for the design and commissioning of lighting systems for projects including: Kings Place in London, Glasgow City Halls, Royal College of Music, London and Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin.

"I'm delighted to have the opportunity to work for such a dynamic and forward looking company," comments Wardle. "I relish the idea of contributing towards Charcoalblue's diverse range of exciting projects and at the same time I'm planning to keep my hand in the live theatre world as a lighting designer."

Wardle will next be lighting Marcello Magni and Kathryn Hunter at the Arcola Theatre in September. He also brings ten years touring experience, including five years as

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UK - MHA Lighting has been recognised for its outstanding performance by scooping two awards at the recent Energy Innovation Awards 2011.

The Manchester company collected both the Existing Performance Improvement award and best of the best Energy Innovation Grand Prix award. The Grand Prix Award is given to the company judges believed to have shown the greatest overall innovation.

MHA Lighting impressed the judges with "its unique use of LEDs for low level lighting, which use 70-80% less electricity than conventional lamps". MHA's patented LED technology shines light sideways into an encapsulation and reflects outwards to avoid direct contact with eyes. Further features include zero maintenance, safe close proximity applications, no flicker, their application for workplaces such as hospitals, and significant annual savings.

The awards ceremony was held at the Hilto

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Kazakhstan - Wireless Solution Sweden and Kvant Ltd. of Bratislava, Slovakia recently played a part in the Opening Ceremonies of the 7th Asian Winter Games in Astana, Kazakhstan at Astana Arena. The Games began on 30 January 2011 and continued in Astana and sister city Almaty through 6 February 2011. This was the first time that Kazakhstan hosted such a large event since its independence from the Soviet Union. The event hosted 26 nations that competed in 69 events in 11 sports.

For the Opening Ceremonies, Kvant provided a spectacular laser show using 34 8W output green lasers and 34 Flashbacks, with effects update on Flashback via LiveQuick. Martin Vozar created the design.

Shelly Li, sales manager for Wireless Solution said, "Kvant did a beautiful laser display for the Asian Olympics. I spoke with them during testing and they were very pleased with the stability of the W

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USA - Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Bruno Mars is taking grandMA2 and on the road for his international tour in support of his debut album, Doo-Wops & Hooligans. According to lighting designer/operator Cory FitzGerald, almost two trucks full of lights are accompanying Mars.

"We have two grandMA2 full-size running the latest version software - the first time we've taken the grandMA2 on tour," says Fitzgerald. "We're using overhead and double-hung diagonal trusses and have a pretty well-rounded lighting inventory."

FitzGerald has been "working with grandMA for a while" and has teamed with A.C.T "to tweak and get it perfect. It's been a good process - grandMA2 is different from grandMA, and I'm very pleased with it and like where it's going. The macros make things go much faster, I have three times as many playbacks for more flexibilit

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Denmark - Opened in 2009, the Denmark Radio Koncerthuset is one of the country's top live performance venues, staging symphony concerts, chamber music, choral, jazz, rock and pop events in its four halls. Recently an SD7, supplied by DiGiCo's Danish distributor Soundware, was added to its inventory of DiGiCo consoles.

The 5000m2 Copenhagen venue has been a focus of Denmark's quest to become one of the leading lights in Scandinavian music, the 1800-capacity main hall playing host to some of the city's highest profile concerts, with the smaller three allowing a wide range of performances.

Already equipped with three DiGiCo D5s, the addition of an SD7 to the Koncerthuset has allowed more complex productions to be staged.

"Although the D5s have been performing very well, we needed a console with a lot more outputs for in-ear monitors, Aviom systems and Roland M-48 personal

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