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UK - Lighting designer Rob Sinclair is using a Jands Vista system running the new Vista v2 software for the current Pulp reunion tour.

So far, the European leg of the tour has seen the band play a string of high profile festival slots including the Isle of Wight Festival and headlining Sunday at the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, London - with future UK summer dates including T in The Park and Reading / Leeds Festival - as well as a host of other European dates.

Sinclair is a long term fan of the Vista platform. He purchased his first Vista S1 control surface in 2008 shortly after the model's launch, and now owns three identical systems - comprising of a laptop running the Vista software, with a Vista S1 and two Vista M1 wings - to service his own shows. Currently the other two

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Denmark - Visual Productions is expanding its distribution network with the addition of Light Partner in Denmark.

This new partnership developed after company director Stig Meyer Jensen visited the Visual Productions' stand for a product catch-up at Prolight&Sound. Jensen comments, "The way your company is so dedicated to your products really impresses me."

Visual Productions' sales manager, Zoe Castle says: "Stig had made it clear to me that they would only take on new distribution if the product and market where right for Light Partner to make it a successful venture."

Castle continues, says: "Light Partner has done everything to live up to my expectations and better them. The Din-Rail Hardware and Cuelux stock is in place, sales started and technical knowledge acquired to support our products well on the Danish market. In particular Stig's enthusi

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UK - A specialist team from XL Video was dispatched to the 2011 Glastonbury Festival to coordinate the first ever 'mapped projection' onto three sides of the Pyramid Stage structure. The visual spectacular took place whilst Coldplay performed their latest release, Every Teardrop is a Waterfall as the finale to their Saturday night headline set.

The feat of technical engineering was project managed by XL Events' Robin Evans working with technical director David Mulcahy and XL's IT expert Ian Woodall.

The story began with a discussion between Coldplay's production manager Wob Roberts and XL Video director Des Fallon some months previously. Roberts comments: "The initial inspiration came from Coldplay's creative director Phil Harvey after seeing XL's mapping of the Ralph Lauren building in London. Once the team had demo'd the concept to all of us, the band confirmed 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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France / Russia - APG has announced the shipment of the first Uniline compact line array system to Russia, courtesy of APG's distributor in southern Russia, Yugdoka, based in Krasnodar. Yugdoka has just taken delivery of eight UL210 and six UL115B cabinets along with an inventory of eight x DX12 multi-purpose monitor speakers.

In addition to their distribution activities, Yugdoka also runs a thriving rental and installation business. As long-standing APG customers and distributor, Yugdoka already owns a significant APG Matrix system complete with TB subs which forms part of their rental inventory. As a distributor, they have also sold numerous APG systems of varying types into Russian clubs and theatres throughout the territory. However, this is their very first Uniline order.

"The team at Yugdoka is already very familiar with many APG products, and the Matrix system in p

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UK - The new £18.5m apex multi-purpose venue in Bury St Edmunds, owned and operated by St Edmundsbury Borough Council, now has a Martin Audio W8LM Mini Line Array system as part of its permanent technical infrastructure.

After the original fit out had been completed last year by Northern Light, new incumbent technical manager Tim Carr noticed that with an increasing number of amplified rock and folk events starting to appear on the upcoming programme of events, a conventional left/right proscenium line array hang was required to bolster the existing speech system.

Although the work went out to tender, and several sound systems were put forward as potential solutions, Tim Carr already had prior experience of Martin Audio's Mini Line Array - brought in by locally based W1 Productions when they were sponsoring a local band night. Thus the apex technical man was soon talking

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China - Hong Kong-based technical supply company Ten Thousand Things has been appointed as Green Hippo's latest distributor in the company's Asian market expansion.

Ten Thousand Things has been newly created under the helm of Hong Kong's longstanding integrator Ptarmigan Integration. Providing sales and support for an extensive product range, Ten Thousand Things is a specialist company supplying goods required by Ptarmigan's project clients.

"We are delighted to be working with Ten Thousand Things as our distributor in Hong Kong. They are able to provide technical expertise and a real enthusiasm for Hippotizer products in this market," stated Samantha Bailey, sales manager for Green Hippo.

With its eight year history, Ptarmigan has worked on some of the most high-profile projects providing lighting and video integration services, including Macau's Bubble Theatre wh

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Mandarin Musical - Mamma Mia! opened in a new Chinese version in Shanghai on Monday, marking the musical's 14th different language production. Producers say it marks the first time a major West End or Broadway musical has been translated into Mandarin for a Chinese audience. It is produced in China by United Asia Live Entertainment Co for China Arts And Entertainment Group by arrangement with Judy Craymer, Richard East and Bjorn Ulvaeus for Littlestar in association with Universal.

Craymer commented: "The challenges have been immense because what we're doing here is genuinely pioneering. There's virtually no infrastructure for commercial musical theatre in China, so finding the talent we needed - actors, technicians, stage crew and musicians - proved extremely difficult, locating a theatre to accommodate us took a long time and even translating the lyrics into a tona

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UK - Following on from previous successful courses, Avitas is hosting another seminar on temporary power systems for events on 3 August at White Light in London. The one day course focuses on how - and why - the IET Wiring regulations and BS 7909 apply to temporary events and delves a little into why they are relevant and more importantly how compliance is not necessarily difficult.

As well as looking at how to implement them correctly it also examples where current practice is not always best practice, showing where potential dangers exist in a typical event. It will also be of particular use to rental companies as the course gives the delegate a sound understanding of the importance of portable appliance testing.

The content is aimed at those with a reasonable appreciation of electrical systems and covers areas such as multiple sources of supply, RCDs, earthing and bonding,

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UK - West Midlands-based Stage Audio Services (SAS) has purchased a Midas PRO9 live audio system, which is making its debut at FOH on Slipknot's worldwide festival tour this summer, joining SAS' existing Midas PRO6 on monitors.

The PRO9 was specified by long-time Slipknot engineer Dave 'Shirt' Nicholls, who was won over to Midas digital by a PRO6 which he used on tour with Stone Sour in the US. "I loved the sound of the desk and I loved the feel of it," he says. "The EQ is smooth and the preamps seem to be bullet proof. When the Slipknot tour came up, it was a no brainer to stay with Midas digital."

A Klark Teknik DN9696 high resolution audio recorder and Klark Teknik DN9331Rapide graphic EQ controller complete the set up. "Both have worked flawlessly and are extremely easy to use," says Nicholls who pays tribute to Rob Hughes at Midas and SAS man

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UK - The Arena Group supplied comprehensive temporary events overlay to the 125th Wimbledon Championship.Having successfully installed all temporary public grandstand seating around the outer courts and a wide range of design led hospitality facilities to house sponsors and guests, Arena experienced their own winning moment at this year's championships, when IMG Media awarded Arena Group an exclusive five year contract to install event infrastructure at all of their golf events in Europe and the Middle East.Ross Hallett, vice-president of IMG Golf states: "The Arena Group has consistently delivered high standards in all key areas of structures and seating engineering, safety, service and creative design that have allowed us to raise the standard of our international golf tournaments year on year. This five year deal underpins IMG's commitment to continue to deliver a truly me

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Brunei - To mark 80 years of presence in the Sultanate since the discovery of oil in 1929, the Brunei Shell Petroleum Company (BSP) unveiled plans in 2008 to build its largest community development in the region. The Pusat Insani project is a multi-million dollar community centre that will serve as a link between the Oil and Gas Discovery Centre and Seria Town.

The development features function rooms, a gymnasium, a VIP lounge, a learning centre, and other modern amenities; however the key facility will be the centre's Multipurpose Hall which has the capacity to accommodate 1,500people in a lavish banquet style seating and will be used to host royal, government, community, and corporate events.

The centre's many facilities had to be equipped with reliable audio-visual solutions. Outline's distributor Synergy AVL, a Singapore based audio-visual consultant and systems integrator

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UK - The XPar 390 from PR Lighting is brighter than the earlier XPar 348, while the XPar 390-W, which broadens the width of the beam, offers greater white light.

The key features of the new DMX-controllable XPar 390 are the 90 x 3W high quality LEDs (24 each of RGB and 18 white) rated at 50,000 hours. This offers full colour mixing and linear CTO, with 0-100% linearly adjustable dimmer; 1-20 fps strobe; Beam Angle of 14° (Field Angle 28°) and IP67 waterproof rating. Power Consumption is 300W@220V and the weight is just 14kg.

Contained in the same housing, the XPar 390-W offers 66 x white 3W LEDs and 24 amber, with full colour mixing and linear CTO. It comes with standard 14° lens (8° and 45° optional) and beam angle of 32° (24° and 55° optional), with 0-100% linearly adjustable dimmer. Other features include: 0.3-20 fps strobe; IP 67 waterproof

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USA - Bill Sapsis has announced the dates and location of the next North American Theatre Engineering and Architecture Conference (NATEAC). The conference will be held at the Hilton Hotel in mid-town New York City on 22 and 23 July 2012.

"I can think of no better place to hold a theatre conference", noted Sapsis, "than in the heart of the theatre district in New York City. In addition to two days of excellent panels and discussions, the attendees will have access to the best of what New York City has to offer."

Sapsis, who is reprising his role as conference director, continued: "The need for continuing discussion regarding venue design is very real and I felt it extremely important to once again offer a forum for industry professionals to hold these discussions. The fact that NATEAC 2008 was a wonderful success doesn't hurt either."

Hugh Hardy

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USA - Public Broadcasting station WHYY has recently completed the construction of their new, high-tech media annex. The Dorrance H. Hamilton Public Media Commons is a venue, designed to educate the regional community on utilising digital technology for self-expression. The multifunctional space can fulfil multiple roles, from broadcast facility to lecture hall, classroom, or movie theatre.

Designed by Philadelphia's KSS Architects, the venue adds 8,000sq.ft to WHYY's existing 60,000sq.ft headquarters. The centrepiece of the project is the Lincoln Financial Digital Education Studio. This flexible studio space can host up to 300 participants, and has been designed to allow reconfiguration and relocation of major components within the various systems.

The studio's audio and technology systems were designed by RJC Designs of Glen Burnie, Maryland, who recently won the ProAV 201

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UK - GDS recently exhibited at the ABTT show for its fifth consecutive year. The event saw GDS win the ABTT Lighting Award of the Year, become the sponsor of the new Student of the Year Award for The Stage Managers Association and collect its Theatres Trust People's Choice Award which was won at PLASA 2010.

Richard Cuthbert, director of engineering comments: "This is our fifth year of exhibiting at ABTT, it is a fantastic show for us and a great opportunity to meet end users, customers and most importantly theatre consultants who have valuable input in to our product development."

The ABTT Lighting Product of the Year Award was given to GDS for ArcSystem, its new LED house-light system. The award was presented to Richard Cuthbert, director of engineering for GDS. The judges were impressed by the wireless dimming performance of ArcSystem, a bespoke fitting manufacture

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Italy - Creating a celebration of light, lighting designer Paul Cocksedge has used 80 ETC Selador Classic Ice fixtures in an exhibition space as part of the Salone del Mobile home furnishing exhibition in Milan.

The project involved projecting light from the blue part of the colour spectrum from concealed Selador fixtures onto a the 25m long, curved, white wall extension of a lighting showroom in the heart of Milan's design district; when visitors viewed the wall through a red light shade, a previously hidden video of a car appeared to the viewer.

Cocksedge says: "I was very ambitious about what I was proposing; we were really pushing the boundaries of what is achievable. I wanted a lot of light, and a very certain, precise light. Only the Selador Ice unit gave that precision. When I first came up with the idea to use light in this way, I was put in touch with Adam Bennet

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Kuwait - The first specialist centre for autism in the Middle East, the Kuwait Centre for Autism last year took the decision to refurbish its theatre, until then used solely for internal purposes, in order to host independent productions and so act as a revenue stream for the centre.

Although only five years old, the theatre had limited amenities and required a major upgrade to tempt the music, theatre, drama and conference productions, from both Kuwait and the rest of the world, that the directors hoped for.

Dubai-based Unusual Rigging & Engineering was contracted by the project's integrators, Solutech, to design and build a grid that would provide the infrastructure for a lighting system plus the drapes, borders and legs which have been supplied by ShowTex Middle East.

Although lighting existed, Leon Ingram, project manager at Unusual Rigging, realised that a completely ne

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Nigeria - At the Eko Le Meridien Hotel on Victoria Island in Lagos Fela!, the stage musical about Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, made its triumphant homeland debut during the recent Nigerian presidential elections.

Once again the Tony Award winning sound designer Rob Kaplowitz chose a TiMax2 SoundHub delay matrix as a central element of his immersive sound design to help bring out the drama and impact in this emotional story of afrobeat's inception and the political struggles of its founder.

Following its critically acclaimed Broadway debut, Fela! did a sell-out three-month run at London's National Theatre. Rob Kaplowitz employed a TiMax2 SoundHub matrix and TiMax Tracker performer tracking system to "create various 'zones' in the house which allowed us to fulfill the director's request to localise the voices to their sources, while simultaneously allowing me

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Turkey - Rental company Fashion Art has turned to Robert Juliat for its lighting solutions. Fashion Art focuses mainly on fashion shows, parties, launches and premiers to which it presents creative light and sound services.

Their preferred lighting system is composed of Robert Juliat 329HF 2500W and 310HF 1200W Fresnels plus 614SX 1200W and 613SX 1200W profile spots. These give broad, even coverage, precise control over direction of light and warm tungsten colour temperature that flatters the models' skin tone.

"The importance of top quality lighting on events of this calibre should not be underestimated," says Robert Juliat's sales director, Lionel Garraud. "A lot of responsibility rests on showing the work of the designers, choreographers and models to their best advantage. We are very proud that Robert Juliat lighting products have been chosen to perform this

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France - A multi-purpose stage was created by Stageco in the Stade de France, Paris for a series of three live events during June, 2011.

The 30m x 22m stage was initially built and installed in the open air stadium for Nuit Africaine, an African music concert on 11 June. It remained in the stadium for use by the Black Eyed Peas on 22-25 June, and, with only a few weeks' notice, Prince on 30 June. Stageco made adjustments to the stage to suit each act, changing the configuration to meet different requirements.

The Black Eyed Peas played to 75,000 people during each of the three sell out nights, for which Stageco altered the floor level of the stage and adjusted the lighting and sound arrangement to maximise the audience's view.

Aaron Cass, the Black Eyed Peas tour manager comments: "I have been working with Stageco since 1996. They are always so prepared. We just

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USA - TNDV has introduced Aspiration, its new 40ft expanding-side mobile production truck. Aspiration is built to support premium remote video production services for broadcast TV, worship events and corporate video projects; as well as concerts, ceremonies and other live events.

Aspiration will cross the country with its advanced SD/HD/3D production workflow featuring up to 12 cameras, a large routing system, a feature-rich production switcher and a comprehensive audio suite among other capabilities.

Nic Dugger, president of TNDV and four-time Emmy Award winner comments, "The shows and the budgets are getting bigger, but our first truck has been maximised. Aspiration allows us to double the amount of production work we do across the country, and more than double the crew positions for big events, allowing us to employ additional tape operators, shaders and audio personne

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