UK - The Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh is more than just an Olympic swimming pool. It contains multiple gyms, dry dive training facilities, cafeteria, kids party zones, diving pool and much more. This grade A listed centre piece of Scottish sport requires sound systems of extremely high calibre to match the level and quantities of events that are staged at the facility. Audio Light Systems Ltd was picked to design and install the building wide PA and music systems.

The main all important pool area, which is being used for the up and coming Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games required clarity in an extremely reverberant space. A pair of Tannoy QFlex 48 intelligent columns produced the best solution by having excellent sound reproduction at the same time as being discreet in appe

UK- In addition to inspHire's easy to use Hire Management Solutions, dedicated to continual product development, inspHire will be demonstrating new features including inspHire's new user-friendly Hire Management Dashboards at this years PSE Expo.

inspHire Dashboards provide key, real time, information in a simple, easy to read, graphical format for all areas of the business - whether it's live hire and analytical information for the Hire Manager or a snapshot of items due for preventative maintenance or breakdown for the workshop. inspHire Dashboards can also be accessed whilst on the move via inspHire-iX, inspHire's mobile application, which was demonstrated at last years exhibition.

inspHire's easy to use software solution is tailored to meet the specific needs of the portable sanitation market and is used by industry specialists such as Elliotts, D-Tox and Simply Loos.

Ke

South Africa - The Avolites Titan Training Course, comprising of two two-day sessions in Johannesburg (DWR Distribution Offices), and a one two-day session in Cape Town (The Arena Crew Lounge at the GrandWest Casino), was well attended by delegates fromacross South Africa and Namibia.

The course, presented by Avolites' Emma Thompson and assisted by DWR's Nick Britz, was fully booked with an estimated 20 enthusiastic delegates per day who brought along their own consoles and laptops for visualisers.

"It was really good," said Emma Thompson, who was visiting South Africa for the first time. "At times it was difficult having two different levels of students, some complete beginners to lighting, and some really advanced programmers, but I found I could show even the more experienced users some new tricks. Because I love the software it's great to train on, and it's

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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

UK - IOEX, the International Outdoor Event Expo delivered a diverse audience of live event companies in its inaugural year from the worlds of sport, music, festivals, brand and corporate events.

The exhibition featured a well received seminar programme across the three days. Popular speakers and topics included Lord Shaftesbury talking about transforming his estate into an event space, Mumsnet co-founder Carrie Longton and Lollibop organisers Continental Drifts giving tips on how to engage families at events in 'The F Factor' and experiential agency RPM sharing the Five Rules of Engagement that should be considered for all experiential activity.

Rory Sloan, head of production at RPM and IOEX speaker commented, "I enjoyed visiting and speaking at this year's IOEX. Events cover such a broad range of disciplines and as an agency we operate in a number of these differe

UAE - A Midas PRO2, deployed by leading Dubai AV production company Artes Middle East, delivered a first-class debut performance FOH at this year's 10th Dubai International Jazz Festival despite the onset of strong winds and sandstorms during the week-long event.

"The console stood its ground through everything," reports a delighted Karl Da Costa, FOH engineer and technical production manager at Artes, who was using a Midas digital desk for the first time following a product demo by Chicco Hiranandani of Dubai-based NMK Electronics.

The PRO2 was installed at the festival's open-air Jazz Garden which saw some 19 acts perform over nine days, including headline bands fronted by Ruby Turner, Deborah Coleman, Shakura S'Aida and Sharrie Williams.

Da Costa, an experienced user of Midas Verona and Heritage 3000 analogue consoles, quickly familiarised himself with the Midas

UK - Respected UK lighting designer Johanna Town used Philips Selecon PL1 LED luminaires to great effect on Wiki play, Man in the Middle by Ron Elisha.

Staged at Theatre 503 in London, the play is a fast paced journey through the key events of Julian Assange's turbulent life. Each Wiki style scene moves dynamically to the next to arrive at a totally different time or place in his life. From boardrooms to bedrooms, offices to torture chambers, and student flats to hotel rooms, no scene is set for very long.

This presents Town with a tough job - to set a convincing environment for each scene, and to ensure they flow seamlessly from one to the next.

A back and front-lit rear projection screen is the key vehicle by which the time, mood and atmosphere of each busy scene was set. Everything else on the stage - the scenery, the props and even the actors - generally had more

UK - Triple E's Unibeam track System is ensuring the National Theatre's stage scenery travels right this spring for its production of Travelling Light. Since the show opened in January 2012 it has been broadcast to Cinemas worldwide and embarked on a tour of UK theatres, which opened at The Lowry, Salford, on 13 March.

Triple E specified and installed a custom curved Unibeam System that would work equally smoothly in the repertory as well as on tour.

"I was asked to recommend a track system that could be hung with the minimum of pickups, work smoothly and be capable of touring to different sized stages," says David Edelstein, managing director of the Triple E. "The solution was a hand winch rope driven Unibeam track."

Travelling Light, by Nicholas Wright, is a 'love-letter to the movies and an appealingly intelligent evocation of the Jewish

UK - Cue Media has taken advantage of the 0% finance deal that is currently available through A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET's audio division on equipment purchases of leading brands Nexo, Yamaha and Sennheiser.

Cue Media, a busy technical production and solutions provider, required a compact, highly versatile and fully digital sound solution to cover many different types and scales of event - from straight conferences to rock and pop bands, theatre style cabaret shows and lively motivational speaker events.

Nexo's successful PS-R2 Series speakers were the solution for their multitude of diverse events and shows. The package includes four sets of Nexo PS10-R2 speaker cabinets and two Nexo powered digital TD controllers.

Concurrently, Cue Media also invested in their second Yamaha LS9 32-channel digital mixing console, along with other Yamaha accessories.

Stuart Moo

China - In one of the largest technology rollouts the Swedish-based company has delivered, Dataton supplied its Watchout multimedia content playback solution for a multi-faceted228 m screen in an extraordinary new Chinese exhibition titled Old Beijing Gets Moving.

Located in the Chinese capital's National Conference Centre, adjacent to globally renowned Olympic venues such as the Bird's Nest stadium and Water Cube, Old Beijing Gets Moving takes as its inspiration A Glance Round Old Beijing - a celebrated panorama of the city as it was in the 1930s, originally created as an extended scrolled image by the painter Wang Daguan.

Thanks to Watchout's ability to seamlessly blend and synchronise the images of 56 digital video projectors, Daguan's original painting has been brought to life as a spectacular animated video in which up to a thousand ancient buildings

UK - New at PLASA Focus: Leeds 2012 from Sennheiser UK is the XS Wireless Series, an entry-level series of wireless microphone package designed for users who want to go wireless effortlessly, but still have the guarantee of great quality sound.

These robust units are simple to operate, feature transmitters that have a battery life of up to 10 hours, while a switching bandwidth of up to 24 MHz allows for flexibility in the choice of frequencies. The series is comprised of two vocal sets, an instrument set and presentation sets with lavalier microphone or a headmic.

eRack, meanwhile, is an all-in-one, cost effective solution from Sennheiser UK that provides users with a fully assembled, ready to use, four channel evolution G3 wireless system, which includes the 19" rack, an ASA 1 antenna, power supply, plus all other accessories required, and is custom prepared with four ev

UK - Internationally respected lighting designer Richard Pilbrow has called the annual Knight of Illumination Awards "the most valuable gift to the entire lighting profession".

British-born Pilbrow, who now lives in America, is joint founder of the Association of British Theatre Technicians, Society of Theatre Consultants, The Society of British Theatre Designers, and the Association of Lighting Designers.

He has won countless awards, including the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award in Lighting Design from the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Association of British Theatre Technicians Technician of the Year (2000), Lighting Designer of the Year by Lighting Dimensions Magazine (2005), The Wally Russell Foundation Wally Russell Lifetime Achievement Award (2008), and was honoured at last year's Knight of Illumination Awards with a Lifetime Achieveme

USA / Denmark - Phish lighting designer Chris Kuroda (Aerosmith, The Black Crowes, R. Kelly) has a couple of associations to Denmark. One is that he happened to be in Copenhagen on that June day in 1992 when Denmark won the UEFA European Football Championship.

Another is the fact that he is an admirer of Martin Professional lighting gear and has used Martin's 1500-watt MAC III Profile on Phish shows since 2009 - the second Phish tour using the fixture having wrapped up in December.

"It's the perfect fixture for Phish," says Kuroda, who has been with the band for so long - 24 years - that he is considered the fifth member of the group. "Upstaging pointed us to the MAC III Profile and it was a good decision. Brad Haynes at Martin has also been incredibly helpful."

Kuroda has 45 MAC III Profiles placed liberally across the set and uses them for different pur

UK - Newly launched entertainment technology installation company Push the Button Ltd has installed a new ETC dimming and control system into London's famous Royal Court Theatre, with no disruption to the venues busy programme of shows and events.

Push the Button - or PTB - came onto the scene in January 2012 with a mission to provide "an intelligent and sympathetic technical approach to all of its projects and clients". With an inaugural job at what the New York Times calls 'the most important theatre in Europe', PTBs managing director Nick Ewins and his team certainly didn't waste any time making their mark.

Matt Drury, head of lighting for The Royal Court concurs: "The Royal Court receives and considers an extraordinary quantity of new work and each year presents an ambitious programme across its two venues. It's therefore of paramount importance to us that o

Germany - Aside from its range of lighting equipment for theatre, opera and corporate event markets, Robert Juliat will be previewing two new profile ranges at Prolight + Sound 2012 in readiness for their launch later in the year.

On the stand will be the Lancelot 4000W HTI stadium effects projector, the successful 1800W MSR Victor followspot and, just to show that LED has not completely replaced tungsten, the Cink 325LF 2000W tungsten Fresnel which adds the 'traditional touch' to any lighting design. And, one year after the first occasion, the Robert Juliat stand will be lit using the low power, high output, award-winning Aledin fixtures.

After successfully introducing the first framing spotlight with integrated LED light engine in 2010, Robert Juliat is now previewing two innovative ranges of profile spots that combine excellent dimming with homogenous projection quality.

Germany - In the new ilumo range of LED Spotlights the way in which the colour engine handles colour palettes has solved the old problem of intermediate colour being outputted by the LED Fixture during the fade when changing between colours, says Lumonic.

Lumonic, based in Manchester UK, believe they may well be the first company to offer the professional lighting engineer a virtually 'seamless fade' when moving from colour to colour.

This technological breakthrough affords a new level of control and creativity, says the company.

The ilumo ZOOM LED Spot is now in production and will be featured at ProLight+Sound on the Sonoss Stand F45, Hall 9.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - ArKaos will bring two new innovations at this year's Prolight+Sound - the ArKaos Hub, an intelligent network monitor software for media servers running MediaMaster Pro and a new revolutionary Video Mapping Software making its first public appearance at the show.

ArKaos Hub is an application specifically designed to monitor the state of multiple servers running MediaMaster in Fixture Mode. It can also send configurable commands to any video switchers connected to Ethernet using a TCP/IP address.

However, ArKaos Hub's key function is as a real-time backup system that gives instantaneous protection against server failure.

Currently, a backup system requires two servers running ArKaos MediaMaster simultaneously with the same set of visuals and receiving the same DMX commands to produce the same video stream. Any failure of a server necessitates a physical rewiring of t

Sweden - LumenRadio reports that all Robe's Robin 1200 LEDWash product will come with the award-winning CRMX technology as standard.

Robe's track record as a constant innovator also influenced their choice of a wireless technology partner. Not only did they demand the most reliable and best performing wireless system, but their R&D team also wanted to the stretch the envelope by finding a partner that was at the forefront of developing such emerging technologies as RDM (Remote Device Management), RDM over Art-Net and Streaming ACN. An exclusive development program with LumenRadio based on a customized version of the CRMX technology platform became the obvious choice.

"We have collaborated with Robe for over two years and the partnership was a natural step for both companies. The Robin fixtures have truly established themselves as market leading products in their category.

USA - This March, Total Structures' hosted its first ever Outdoor Stage Roof Workshop focusing on aluminium temporary stage roof systems. The primary objectives for this event were safety, education, and to promote discussion within the industry on the correct use of such structures.

This invitation only workshop, targeted solely toward owners and users of Total Structures outdoor stage roof systems, covered topics including system design and engineering, rigging fundamentals, fall protection concerns, equipment inspection and maintenance, and wind and weather hazard preparations.

Held near the company's headquarters and factory in Ventura, California, this workshop was attended by 45 industry veterans representing 22 companies, from countries as far away as Columbia, all working in the outdoor event field.

The three-day workshop offered an all-star cast of presenters includ

USA - EAW has appointed pro audio veteran Alex Schloesser to the position of EAW Asia-Pacific sales director. The announcement was made by Jeff Rocha, EAW president, and reflects EAW's ongoing commitment to growth in the Asia-Pacific region. In his new capacity, Schloesser will report to and work closely with Davwinder Sheena, LOUD Technologies' Asia & Pacific-Rim managing director.

With more than 20 years in pro audio in and out of his native Germany, Schloesser has a wealth of experience from his past positions. He is fully versed in audio technology, including acoustical simulation and treatment, audio consulting, sound design and studio/control room specifications. He has worked as an engineer and consultant for 24 years, working in R&D as well as in all levels of live performance - system tech, P.A., front-of-house mixing, system design etc.

Schloesser has been a part of

Germany - Out Board will be exhibiting at Frankfurt ProLight&Sound with TiMax distributor Pro Audio-Technik in Hall 8, Stand A01, and will demonstrate the TiMax SoundHub S-Version's "unparalleled combination of sound effects editing and management and wide range of showcontrol trigger and event interfaces".

Aimed at theatre and live events sound designers as well as museum and attraction integrators, the new S-Version features include multitrack Timeline cue programming, clip editing, looping, timeslip, volume-profiling and archiving, plus the object-based delay-pan programming pioneered by TiMax.

Also presented will be the new Touring Version TiMax Tracker configuration, what has recently been purchased by premier German event production company Neumann & Muller. This market-leading performer-tracking system follows actors, presenters, attraction visitors and confer

Germany - Version 2.14 is the next major release of the powerful LED control software MADRIX. The update includes four new prime features as well as various other improvements. All of which users can get for free. MADRIX 2.14 is now available for download at www.madrix.com and will be officially introduced at Prolight+Sound this week ( booth A08 in Hall 11.0)

SCE Graph - Showtime, a new stock effect has been added to the built-in graphics and render engine. "The possibilities of this effect alone and in combination with other effects are simply staggering," says the company."Users can expect dozens of customizable options to create stunning new visuals. Graphs never looked so good."

CITP is a widely-known way of communication between media servers and lighting desks or visualizers. When supported by the device, users can now use CITP v1.0 to display preview

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