USA - The new Art SSC from Elation Professional is billed as a total solution for controlling lighting in permanent installations. A 1024-channel DMX command-line controller, the Art SSC offers a complete array of features and capabilities that "let you programme, operate, record, playback and schedule light shows, in one low-maintenance solid-state unit that has no moving parts - without requiring a computer".

Suitable for architectural lighting, outdoor applications, nightclubs, hotels, museums, cruise ships, theme parks and other permanent installations, the Art SSC features two 512-DMX channel universes, as well as one DMX Input. The DMX Outputs and Input are optically isolated from each other to ensure secure, interference-free performance. The Art SSC also includes

The Netherlands - Prolyte Group has just launched a new initiative - Prolyte Campus which aims to support customers and users.

Keeping customers and users up-to-date with product information and in-depth knowledge of how to best apply Prolyte products always has been a vital part of the Prolyte Group philosophy, says the company. In order to create awareness on the safe use of Prolyte products, Prolyte Campus brings together all elements in a complete programme of learning activities.

"Transferring knowledge and creating a dialogue with technicians worldwide is one of the goals for creating the Prolyte Campus - finding their needs and sharing experiences is a valuable base for creating solutions that work and help you grow your business," says Prolyte. "Creating the awareness that safe working practices are key to responsible ownership is another."

The Pr

USA - Toby Keith continued his sold out touring tradition in 2011 with yet another production from show producer Seth Jackson. Jackson, manager TK Kimbro, tour manager David Milam, production manager Ashley Swan and lighting director Eddie 'Bones' Connell have worked with Bandit Lites and VP Michael Golden for many years. The partnership between the parties is more like family than a traditional relationship.

The current Locked and Loaded Tour has performed around the globe sold out audiences everywhere and the tour continues into 2012.

Jackson cooked up a heavy metal look for Keith this year, with the heart of the stage being a 60ft wide wall of Bandit 5 x 5 Blinders that is 8ft tall. The base washes are provided compliments of Infinity Wash XL's along with the popular GRNLite Moving Wash, which provides limitless, deep, saturated colours. There are also GRNLite PARs 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

New Zealand - The past couple of months have been extremely busy for Oceania Audio & Lighting in New Zealand with the Rugby World Cup and its associated events. There is no let up for the Oceania crew as many corporate and touring events deferred until after the World Cup are now underway.

"For the past few months my turnover has been up 150% for this time of year," commented Simon Garrett, Oceania's general manager lighting. "And of course no one would commit 100% to what they wanted - they just assume we can pull something out of a hat."

Garrett took measures well in advance to prepare for the onslaught, purchasing new Jands HPC12 series dimmers (with contactor bypass) as well as additional Jands power distribution units and HPX dimmers. The HPC12 "continues the Jands tradition of building rugged and reliable dimmers and provides an innovative soluti

UK - One of the north of England's leading installation, hire and sales companies, Pro Audio Systems has announced the addition of Vangelis Satrazanidis to its technical staff.

A 24-year veteran of audio manufacturer AMS Neve, Vangelis' many skills include hardware and software testing, audio installation and service engineering. He has worked on digital audio mixing consoles for film, music and television all over the world, including projects for the BBC, Warner Brothers & Widget Post USA, International Recordings in Italy, Sound Dub in Barcelona, APU in Japan, De Lane Lea and Abbey Road Studios in London.

A fluent Greek speaker, he also installed three consoles for ERT Greek Television at the 2004 Olympic Games.

PAS Managing Director Brian Lumb said: "We're delighted to welcome Vangelis aboard and we're all ready to apply his knowledge and experience to our work. The

Germany - In the wake of a lengthy restructuring process, the French company Innovason SAS has been dissolved. The Innovason brand has been saved by Lawo AG who now owns all the product and trademark rights. The move, which follows Lawo's acquisition of the majority shareholding back in April 2008, marks the end of a juridical process which resulted in the liquidation of Innovason SAS on 2 November 2011. The Innovason brand will henceforth be managed from Lawo's HQ in Rastatt, Germany.

Marcel Babazadeh, Innovason international sales director, comments, "It's the best of both worlds. Now that the Innovason products have become part of the range offered by Lawo in Rastatt, it means that the continuity of the brand is guaranteed. At the same time it benefits from everything that Lawo has to offer with its more than 40 years of experience in professional audio technology.

&qu

UK - Millions of people across the UK observed a two-minute silence tomark Armistice Day, 11 November 2011.

Star Events Group was once again in Trafalgar Square, this time for The Royal British Legion - which is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year. The 11m mobile stage featured musical performances by singing trio The Soldiers and readings by Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens, before the two-minute silence.

The mobile stage built in under three hours ensured production had the maximum time available for the overnight load-in the day before with the added advantage of being off site within two hours after the event.

Project manager, Charles Ellery of Capital Productions said, "it was great to have such an experienced supplier on Trafalgar square, it really helped me out as a first timer at the site, we'll certainly be coming to Star Events again for a stage."

(Ji

Spain - The village of Niebla is located roughly 30km of the southeast of Huelva city and 60km from Seville on the shores of the Río Tinto. Niebla literally means "fog" in Spanish, a name that might relate to its relative proximity to the Atlantic coast.

Niebla has been a pivotal enclave in the history of Southern Spain, and the castle bears eloquent witness of this.

At this year Festival Flamenco Condado de Niebla, dB Sound supplied an RCF audio system in the courtyard of the Niebla Castle. Several flamenco artists performed at the festival alongside pop artist Kiko Gavin.

The main stage was inside the walled enclosure with a capacity of about a thousand people. To ensure the correct acoustic sound and coverage, the system comprised two clusters of six RCF TTL 33-A, and six RCF TTS 28-A distributed to the front of stage every 1.5m.

To ensure sound covera

UK - In a career spanning over half a century, blues legend John Mayall has helped to define an entire genre of British music. October/November 2011 has seen the tireless 78-year old undertake a 25 date UK tour, with a pair of Yamaha digital mixing consoles on board.

Arguably most famous for the 1966 album Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton - or, as most refer to it, the Beano album - Mayall has worked with many of the biggest names in the business. His distinctive vocals, harmonica, guitar and keyboard-playing continue to inspire new generations of musicians such as Oli Brown, a young blues guitarist / vocalist whose band is the support act on this tour.

Supplied by Weymouth-based Atlantic Audio, the front of house sound for both bands is mixed on a Yamaha M7CL-48, with an LS9-32 at the monitor position. In between his duties of being Mayall's manager, tour manage

UK - Following the launch of the M-Waves option module for the iLive digital mixing system at PLASA 2011, Allen & Heath and Waves are staging interactive online seminars to provide information and technical understanding about the card and the Waves SoundGrid protocol in general.

The sessions will be held on Thursday 1 December 2011 and are aimed at engineers, audio consultants, rental companies and installation firms. There will be two webinars to suit different time zones. Additional sessions may be offered to meet demand.

These sessions will start by giving an overview of the iLive series, followed by a detailed discussion on installing the M-Waves module and configuring the Waves software. Also covered will be how SoundGrid can help with multi-track audio recording and playback during virtual soundcheck applications. Experts from both Allen & Heath and Waves will also be o

UK - Monacor International has announced the launch of its 2012 catalogue Electronics for Specialists. Featuring over 100 new additions to the existing 5,500 products, the catalogue covers everything from stage equipment to PA installation, lighting to security, and cables & plugs to speaker technology.

Neil Clayton, managing director of Monacor UK Ltd commented, "The new 2012 catalogue really does have something for everyone. Our extensive range of quality products at affordable prices enables us to offer various solutions, from a small installation project to a large stage application. To further promote the release of the Monacor - Electronics for Specialists 2012 Catalogue, we commissioned design agency Hatch to create an online animated campaign, currently running across Audio Pro International & MiPro's sites."

(Jim Evans)

The Netherlands - Two lucky sound engineers, who each won a DPA d:fine single earpiece headset mic in a prize draw during the IBC 2011 show, have been putting the mics through their paces.

d:fine headsets have gone to Mark Graves, a member of the sound engineering team at his London church, and to Andrea Purchiaroni, chief engineer at Roman TV production company Etabeta.

"I was very pleased indeed to win a microphone," says Graves. "At St Pauls, Ealing, a large Anglican church in the New Wine network, we have a comprehensive PA rig manned by an enthusiastic volunteer team of PA operators. Our worship style is modern, with a full band in place for every service.

"On its first outing, the d:fine was used straight out of the box to mic the speaker, with no time ahead of the service for set up," says Graves. "The operator was immediately able to get

Spain - Christie has announced the opening of a Spanish branch in Madrid. Christie's new office is located in Boadilla del Monte, a town just 14.5 kilometres outside Madrid, and right next to Ciudad de la Imagen, an office and audiovisual leisure complex which is home to many TV channels, audiovisual producers, multiplexes, postproduction companies, film schools, audiovisual industry associations and film archives.

With a total surface area of 500sq.m, the new branch hosts a large showroom displaying Christie's latest technologies and products, including projectors and videowalls. It also has several rooms set aside for staging live demos, commercial meetings, seminars and training courses, plus a space dedicated to technical services. The new facility is also available to Christie's clients and partners for their own use.

Christie's Iberic branch will be headed by Marcos Fern

USA - A large complement of Clay Paky Sharpy moving heads welcomed the start of the pro football season at the NFL Kick Off 2011 Presented by EA Sports, the high-energy, pre-game concert which aired live on NBC from the parking lot at Lambeau Field, home of the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers.

"The tradition of the NFL Kick Off started in Times Square in 2001 as a pre-game public event tying entertainment and sports together," says Spike Lloyd, the show's lighting designer. "This year the concert in Green Bay featured Kid Rock, Maroon 5 and Lady Antebellum. It started at 3pm and went until 6:30."

Lloyd deployed 36 Sharpy moving heads, which he acquired from Atomic Lighting in Lititz, Pennsylvania. "We used them at the back of the stage as floor lights very tightly packed and directed upstage of the band on a scenic piece shaped like a skat

UK - Earlier this year, Lighthouse LED screens were chosen by Carphone Warehouse Group (CPW), Europe's largest independent mobile phone retailer, for its building at Portal Way in London. The building faces in-bound London traffic on the busy A40 and the screen is being utilised by the company as an advertising medium.

The installation comprises 24 x 5 panels of Lighthouse's new Impact 12 and measures 18.5 m (w) x 5.8m (h). This innovative solution has 6000 nits of brightness, which makes it suitable for viewing behind glass and in direct sunlight, as at Portal Way, and the large panel size (each one measures 768mm (h) x 1152mm (h)) made installation a quick and easy process.

"CPW has owned the building for a number of years," explains head of finance, Rob Murray. "It was originally occupied by TalkTalk, which was part of our group at the time, and they had a su

UK - Adlib's specialist installation division has designed and installed a complete new CODA Audio system - the first fixed install of its type in the UK utilising CODA's LA8 (compact) and LA4 (ultra compact) line array speakers at The Manchester Velodrome, the country's National Cycling Centre.

Adlib's sales and installations team, headed by John Hughes and Roger Kirby, was approached by ISG Regions, who were managing the building development works for Manchester City Council, about a fixed solution for the Velodrome track.

Once the plans for the system design were approved, the installation schedule was gruelling. It involved Adlib's crews working at height, in confined spaces and using a variety of mobile high level access platforms during five weeks of overnight shifts.

Adlib believed that a line array would deliver optimum unified audio coverage that was required. Havin

UK - Drum 'n Bass DJ, Andy C, is currently on tour in the UK with a new show, based around the Allen & Heath Xone:DB4 digital FX mixer.

The concept of the ALIVE tour is to "take DJ'ing to a new dimension, incorporating visual and audio clips, which are controlled by the latest technology".

"ALIVE was not possible until the DB4 arrived - it is the piece of kit that cemented the fact I could do it," explains Andy. "The ergonomics and layout of the mixer was a culture shock at first, as the DB4 is different to every other mixer but I soon realised it was a new step, which would become a central point for control, as it's too complicated to flip between keyboards, controllers and computers - everything is controlled from the hub."

The Xone:DB4 controls various MIDI devices, computers loaded with Traktor and Ableton, three turntables, a

South Africa - The musical quiz South African television show, Noot vir Noot (Note for Note), is as popular as ever 20 years down the line. Blond Productions were approached four years ago to give the show an edge by adding a modern technical twist, and this season they included their new 12 Robe MMX fixtures to the production. The show is programmed on a grandMA ultra-light and incorporates a further 12 Robe 250s.

Blond were originally called in by Stemmburg Television to give the show a 'wow' factor. Noot vir Noot is produced and run by its original team, camera men included, and for Blond it has involved working with Alasdair Richards, who does the generic lighting.

"Every second season (comprising 24 episodes shot over a two week period), we've tried to give them something new," said Christian Ballot of Blond Productions. Ryan Lombard from Blond was

UK - POLARaudio has recently launched its new dealer portal. The online resource permits all account customers to log in and manage their entire account profile. Users have access to a full range of accounts, sales and technical support tools.

The dealer portal is a secure website designed to allow customers to get fast accurate information, place orders or view their account 24 hours a day. The ergonomically designed and easy to use portal includes a host of tools designed to make it as easy as possible to do business, says the company.

The 'Your Account' tab enables registered users to view their balance, account status, order history and to print copy invoices and statements. The 'Return and Repair' tab allow users to arrange a repair or replacement of a faulty item, whilst the 'Spare Parts' tab gives customers access to detailed descriptions, images, prices and data sheets

Germany - t&m Systems, based in Ibbenbüren, is launching the ProjectMix818, a flexible and competitively-priced eight-zone mixer with paging functions for installed public address and music applications.

The ProjectMix818 features four line and four mic/line inputs that can selectively be switched as the source for any of the output zones. Easy to read LCD displays for each zone show which input source is in use and a similar LCD display is also used on the remote control panels.

A further mic input can also be sent, with level control, to any or all zones in addition to their selected source. The ProjectMix818 also has 2 inputs for t&m paging mics. These paging mics have selection switches for each zone or all-zones and an expansion module can be used to expand the paging mic by another 8 zones if two or more ProjectMix818 units are linked together.

Each zone features an a

UK - LED screen brand Pixled has significantly expanded its range of portable, lightweight screen surfaces.

The P-6 is a high resolution lightweight dynamic tile, offering 2000 Nits of brightness, available with either white or black faced SMD's, and a true 6 mm, budget friendly product, suitable for rental and staging companies and fixed installations.

Flex-10 is a newly developed ultra-thin flexible display module, currently available in 6 and 10 mm resolutions for convex and concave fixed installations. The bendable Flex-10 LED display opens many new possibilities for LED usage, says the company. It can be bent and flexed to fit curved surfaces of almost any shape or form, both convex and concave as well as horizontally and vertically.

The F-50C/F-75C/F-150C Soft Curtain LED "makes ideal stage backdrops and has great imaginative potential including for the cladding o

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