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France - The legendary Parisian venue, the Bataclan, was packed to the rafters on the night of 17 October as over 1000 people flocked to see their favourite artists take part in a massive charity concert on behalf of the homeless and those forced to live in dwellings unfit for human habitation in Paris.

Organised by the Abbé Pierre Foundation, the line up for the concert, Ne Lâchons Rien read like a Who's Who of the French music scene with performances from the likes of M, Zazie, Alain Souchon, Nolwenn Leroy, Laurent Voulzy and many, many more. In charge of monitors for the event was top French monitor engineer, Christophe Genix, assisted by Geoffroy 'Jeff' Leon and Cedric Pontieux. To handle stage monitoring requirements, Genix specified no less than 12 DX15 wedges

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Germany - Lighting designer Stephan Aue of Ambion GmbH is one of the first LDs worldwide to use Martin Professional's new MAC Aura wash light and placed 42 of the award-winning fixtures on the German rock band Guano Apes' current European tour.

"The Auras came into the design pretty late," says Aue, who handled lighting, stage and set design for the tour. "In late summer, Markus Klüsener of Martin Germany approached me about seeing a new product before its official release at PLASA and as I was more than ready to see something new, I said yes. He showed me the Aura and I fell in love with its features right away."

The MAC Aura is the first compact LED moving head wash light with zoom that uses two independent colour systems to produce new 'eye-candy' effects plus functions as a highly capable single-lens wash with fully pre-mixed colour. It was launched at

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Italy - With catching environment and very stylish decoration the QI Clubbing in Erbusco, Brescia is a popular venue. Several times QI Clubbing has been named as one of the best nightclubs in Italy. In October 2011 the QI Clubbing will be opening their new Restaurant and Private Club facilities.

Opening a new facility gives QI a 360 degrees solution of entertainment of dining, nightclub, dancing and social life comes together under the same establishment.

The key of the success for QI Clubbing is the constant investment into developing a good atmosphere and surroundings. To keep the pace as one of the best club in Italy QI Clubbing is constantly upgrading their facilities and recently a new advanced RCF sound system have been installed both in the restaurant and in the private room.

A total of 20 RCF 88 monitors cover the restaurant area to supply the room with high fidelity

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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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UK - The Czech consortium of Tomato Production, their technical partners AV Media and creative company, The Macula, recently produced a stunning video mapping show on Liverpool's waterfront.

Using exclusively Christie projection, they helped the City's landmark Grade 1-listed Royal Liver Building celebrate its centenary, while marking the opening of the Museum of Liverpool - the largest newly-built national museum in Britain for more than a century. With both buildings sited at the Pier Head the event was fittingly entitled Reflection on the Waterfront.

The showstopper on each of the three nights was the pixel-mapping extravaganza, titled The Macula Spectacular.

The contract required carefully, geometry-aligned projection onto the two buildings - the history of Liverpool onto the Royal Liver Building and a series of modern art projections onto the Museum, which

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UK - The newly completed Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff - Wales' national music and drama conservatoire - opens to a new intake of students this month. Won by BFLS in international competition in 2007, the scheme comprises 450?seat chamber recital hall (the Dora Stoutzker Hall), a 180?seat theatre (the Richard Burton Theatre), four rehearsal studios, an exhibition gallery (the Linbury Gallery) as well as generous foyer areas, a terrace overlooking Bute Park and a new Café Bar.

The £22.5m project is funded by a grant from the Welsh Government, loan finance and £4m of philanthropic donations. The scheme has been designed to be BREEAM 'excellent'. The new buildings are situated within the Grade I listed Bute Park. Directly across the road from the new building is Cathays Park, the civic centre of Cardiff, consisting of a number of important liste

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USA - At LDI this month, Robert Juliat will be showing the 85W Aledin 330LF LED Wash fresnel, a complement to the company's award-winning Aledin 630SX LED Profile Framing Spot. "The popularity of the Aledin wash has grown quickly as good reports spread about TV studios, exhibition halls and theaters taking advantage of its many qualities," says Robert Juliat's Fred Lindauer.

"Customer feedback finds the Aledin wash to be a very powerful LED product which produces an even beam over a spread range of 17 - 96 degrees (field angle), and since it uses a true Fresnel lens, the beam can be efficiently masked with traditional barn doors. The dimming is very smooth with no 'stepping,' its strobe feature is useful for concert lighting and the choice of 3500K or 5800K color temperatures lend itself well to exhibition work. The result is a very versatile fixture that's provin

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UK - Backstage Academy is developing a network of professionals from the live events industry who are keen to get involved in delivering training.

There are various opportunities available, from tutoring modules on the FdA in Live Events Production (a 15-month degree starting this November), or running short courses, to taking students out into a real working environment to gain industry practice, or simply dropping in to spend an hour with the students on the FdA to pass on some of your knowledge and tell them what it's really like in the working world.

So if you'd like to get off the road or do something meaningful with your spare time, get in touch with the Academy at:enquiries@backstage-academy.co.uk.

The Academy is continuing to grow and develop new courses, and is always interested in hearing your ideas for how it can help raise standards in the live events sector.

T

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Spain - When the Headquarters of the Cervantes cultural institute in Madrid needed to update its ageing analogue conference system, the choice for the institute was a new all-digital DCN Next Generation system from Bosch. And to ensure optimum audibility throughout the acoustically-challenging conference chamber with its classic architecture, two Vari-directional arrays were installed, making for a total Bosch conference and communication solution.

The Cervantes Institute is a public institution set up by Spain in 1991 to promote and teach the Spanish language and to spread Spanish culture worldwide. The headquarters building in Madrid dates back to the start of the twentieth century, with a large conference room featuring a magnificent coloured stained glass dome which makes acoustics in this area quite challenging. A large circular table that can accommodate up to 60 people co

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Korea - Recently built, the Blue Square theatre in Seoul relies on a MA Lighting system that combines grandMA2 and grandMA series 1 consoles.

Kim Hong Sik, CEO of Hansam System Co, MA Lighting's exclusive distributor in the Republic of Korea, commented, "MA products are known as the most reliable and popular among lighting designers in Korea so it was an obvious choice to vote for grandMA.

" Furthermore we wanted a future-proof lighting control solution with plenty of headroom for upgradability to incorporate powerful new features and functionality. Also the grandMA2's ability to seamlessly integrate video sources of all types into the visual equation, and making these straightforward to program, were a reason to install these consoles."

Altogether one grandMA2 light, one grandMA2 ultra-light, one grandMA full-size and one grandMA light were installed in the b

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USA - In just the few weeks since PLASA, CAST has prepared two new demonstrations to be seen for the first time during LDI this monbth. Visitors will witness the 3D Cue Paths available in BlackTrax 3D, as well as a Beta version of wysiwyg R28.

BlackTrax 3D is a fully operational, fully integrated, fully realtime tracking system. Using a new proprietary LED-IR Beacon, which is worn or otherwise attached to an object or person, BlackTrax 3D uses special static motion capture cameras to accurately pinpoint and track the movements of the tagged object or person (or multiple objects or people) anywhere in the defined 3D space and then instantly stream dynamic positional data at over 150 frames per second to external devices like lighting, automation, media servers, and for the first time in the world, spatial audio.

CAST will demonstrate BlackTrax and its proprietary 3D Cue Paths f

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Australia - John Farnham is celebrating 25 years of his all-time bestselling Australian album, Whispering Jack, with another return tour. This time he performs an opening unplugged set of familiar hits, followed by a full serve of the 1980s album that really changed it all.

When lighting designer Chris Newman began planning the tour he wandered down to PRG's Melbourne warehouse to check out their latest gear and he came across the Vari*Lite VLX LED wash luminaire.

"I knew PRG had lots of new fixtures but I didn't want to go down the LED track as I didn't think they were a great light source," admitted Newman. "They're a good point source but I've never been that happy with the colour you get from LED fixtures. However, when I saw that they were a Vari*Lite fixture I thought that if anyone was going to get it right it would be them.

"They're a fairl

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UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light helped garage-punk outfit The Horrors with their acclaimed concert at London's Roundhouse Wednesday 12 October.

The company supplied lighting designer Ed Warren from Next Level Lights with a compact but diverse selection of equipment, including six of the powerful, punchy JB A7Zoom LED fixtures, six of the bright Martin MACIII Spotlights, five Martin Atomic strobes and four 5kW Fresnels.

Warren used the fixtures to help create an all-encompassing environment for the show, with reviewers describing 'vibrant green lights washing the crowd' and the 'quintet prowling behind a vibrating wall of light and gas'.

"I've used White Light's rental equipment for quite a few Horrors' shows recently, and you can always be sure of a high quality of service, great communication with their staff and lights that allwork. Smashing."

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UK - Lighting designer Bernie Davis used Martin Professional's new MAC Aura wash light on the BBC's Songs of Praise 50th Birthday Celebration, which aired on Sunday, 25 September from Alexandra Palace in London.

Davis, who saw the MAC Aura on the Martin Professional stand just two weeks earlier at the PLASA trade show, placed the quiet LED fixtures on stage either side of the artists.

"They were very effective as eye candy and we were all impressed with how six small Auras worked so well, even in an enormous venue like this," Davis comments. "They were great. You wouldn't believe how well they fitted the stage - six scallop-shaped black holes in front of the choirs neatly filled with Auras."

The MAC Aura was launched at the PLASA trade show in London, winning a PLASA Award for Innovation. It is the first compact LED moving head wash light with zoom

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Russia - Fast growing Moscow- based lighting design and rental company Light Logic has invested in its first batch of Robe's new MMX Spot moving light fixtures.

MMX was launched this year and has already been a massive success for Robe, with over 1500 units sold and orders being received and processed daily by the factory in the Czech Republic. The units were supplied to Light Logic by Russian distributor Sofitlight, after being specified by Light Logic's primary designer Dmitry Velikanov and technical director Ivan Nassonov.

The deal was co-ordinated for Robe by Russia/CIS regional sales manager Boris Krylov and for Sofitlight by general director, Arkady Shakhidjanoz

Light Logic was also the first Russian rental company to invest in Robe's fastest ever selling product, the Robin 600 LEDWash earlier in 2011, of which they now have about 75. The company works in all sectors o

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Finland - Housed in the Sibelius Hall Congress and Concert Centre, the 1,229-seat Main Hall serves as the home to the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, and a year-round programme of Finnish light music, stand-up comedy, and operettas.

Listed by Sydney Morning Herald and Gramophone magazine amongst the world's best concert venues, the Main Hall's celebrated physical acoustic features were designed by New York-based Artec Consultants in 2000. For presentations that require amplification, the hall has recently upgraded to Meyer Sound M'elodie line array loudspeakers.

Featuring flexible acoustical designs such as corrugated walls to scatter reflected sounds, and moving canopy above the stage, the world-class concert venue chose carefully when it came time to update the sound reinforcement equipment.

"For the sound system upgrade at the Main Hall, we decided early on t

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USA - Yost Ice Arena, home of Michigan Wolverines hockey, is the new home of a spectacular centre-hung Lighthouse video system. Integrated by Lighthouse partner TS Sports, the four-sided system features four main video screens, full-colour corner screens, and a 360-degree lower fascia ring.

The arena was constructed in 1923 and has undergone major renovations four times in its illustrious history. A classic collegiate hockey facility, Yost seats 6,637 and has hosted NCAA tournament games five times, most recently in 2003.

Yost's newest upgrade includes a four-sided board featuring Lighthouse Pi10 screens measuring 3.96m high by 5.12m wide, capable of in-game replays, animations and sponsor messages. Full-colour corner screens and a lower fascia ring constructed of Lighthouse F16 add dazzle to the centre-hung board and help keep Michigan hockey fans fired up.

For the Yost Ice

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Turkey - After a very successful 2011 with Hippotizers attending a host of events and projects in Turkey, Green Hippo has decided to appoint a new distributor for the region.

Phantom Engineering has so far purchased nine HDs for various projects, plus two demonstration HDs for their role as Green Hippo distributor.

Phantom Engineering first contacted Green Hippo at the end of 2010 with a view to buying six HDs for the 25th Winter Universiade in Erzurum earlier this year.

Since then Phantom has not stopped. They have worked continuously on one event after the other and their projects include The World Children's Games Opening in Turkey with seven Hippotizer HDs using a total of 13 outputs for 12 Christie HD18K and one Curved LED display running content of 5Kx3K.

By this year's PLASA it was decided that with the hard work Phantom had put in, their knowledge and experience of

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Korea - International hit musical Mamma Mia! has opened at the D-Cube Art Center, Seoul, which has been equipped by L-Acoustics Korea distributor Dream Sound with a K1 WST line source and XTi coaxial system. This is the first permanent K1 theatre system to be installed worldwide.

Located within Seoul's futuristic D-Cube City, the 1,242 seat venue has been installed with two hangs of eight K1s and two K1-SB subs left and right of the stage, six KARAs as down-fill, and two stacks of four SB28 subs in cardioid mode positioned on stage below the K1 hangs. Additionally there are four under balcony hangs of two KIVA WST enclosures, while 32 8XTi coaxial speakers relay musical surround effects throughout the venue. The system is driven by L-Acoustics LA4 and LA8 amplified controllers.

(Jim Evans)

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Germany - JoeCo has appointed Mega Audio GmbH as its new distributor for Germany and Austria. The Bingen-based distribution company adds the BlackBox Recorder/Player range to an established portfolio of pro audio and live sound products.

This latest addition to JoeCo's international distributor network follows the recent launches of the BlackBox BBR64-MADI and BBR-DANTE Recorder versions, which have increased the product's live multi-channel audio capturing capabilities from 24 channels to up to 64 channels in the compact 1 rack unit format.

"We are delighted to welcome Mega Audio on board," said JoeCo managing director Joe Bull. "Burkhard Elsner and his team have many years of experience in our key market sectors and we are looking forward to building a strong working relationship that will enable us to take the brand forward in Germany and Austria."

&qu

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Singapore - Wireless Solution Sweden is now part of Sentosa, the popular island resort in Singapore which attracts millions of local and foreign visitors every year. Its most famous resident and visitor attraction - The Merlion - a 37m statue formed in the image of the fabled half-lion and half-fish guardian of Singapore recently got a makeover using W-DMX technology.

Sentosa Development Group, which manages the Sentosa Merlion Park had decided to look into enhancing the Merlion Park's environment with the use of creative outdoor lighting. Synergy AVL Pte, a Singapore based audio-visual and lighting system solutions company, was invited to propose a lighting solution for the island's statuesque icon. Synergy's project team, led by senior project engineer Chip Chong earnestly conducted a series of site surveys before deciding on which types of indoor and outdoor luminaires were b

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South Africa - Lira's The Captured Tour is midway, performing to sold out audiences across South Africa.

Kurt du Preez, co-director of Pan Tilt, was honoured when approached to be the touring lighting designer for South African's Afro-jazz star Miss Lira, as she is affectionately known. "It's the work we live for," said du Preez, who operates the show using the Avolites Tiger Touch.

"The Tiger Touch is incredibly fast for its size and mobility. It's user friendly and if you make a mistake, forgiving. Avolites have come a long way in regards to moving lights software and the user interface."

Insane Sound supplement the in-house equipment at each venue with various fixtures including Robe and two Le Maitre units. "We use a lot of haze which makes a huge difference," he added.

(Jim Evans)

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