Germany - XLNT CyberMotion, billed as the world's first fully integrated mobile motion control system, will be on display at ProLight+Sound in Hall 9.0 on Stand F61. The system is designed "to change the philosophy of motion control with new creative possibilities".

XLNT CyberMotion offers a complete range of mobile motion control products designed specifically for the entertainment industry. Developed by XLNT Advanced Technologies, state of the art technology was used to create a series of SIL3 certified intercompatible road-ready products "for breathtaking shows and cost efficient global concert touring".

Intelligent, variable speed chain hoists, winches, trolley beams and other (custom) motion control mechanics, instantly add movement and velocity to perma

Germany - Hall Stage will be exhibiting at ProLight+Sound in Frankfurt this week on Stand F82, Hall9.0.

Amongst the products on show will be the new Chaindrive system for T60 & T70 track systems, which enables heavy curtain motorisation through tight & complex curves, even in 'rearfold' format - without the need for additional & expensive 'off-stage' storage space.

Also on the stand will be samples of Skydeck wire grid floor systems (Hall Stage has recently completed a 1,200 square metre Skydeck installation in the UK) and the acoustically tested and analysed range of acouStac acoustic banners and rollers.

(Jim Evans)

UK - The world of entertainment technology has been joined by a newly formed installation business, Push the Button Ltd, launched in January 2012.

The brainchild of Nick Ewins, Push The Button - or PTB for short - already has a raft of projects on its books. Ewins, who takes the position of managing director, is delighted. "PTB's full time staff members, alongside our team of skilled specialist electricians and engineers, bring a friendly, expert approach to the demands of entertainment installation projects.

"Whether it's a top West End theatre, a cruise ship or a multipurpose arts venue, PTB understands the client's needs and has the ability to respond productively and positively every time. This philosophy has bought work to our doors from the moment we opened them for business."

Push the Button's mission is to bring an intelligent and sympathetic approach

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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 - West London based lighting and visuals rental company Colour Sound Experiment (CSE) has expanded its current warehouse facility by acquiring the building next door .... and knocking through. This increases the area to over 12,000sq.ft, nearly doubling the previous available space.

The old warehouse was already about to start bursting at the seams last year! When CSE added over 100 moving lights and over 500 tiles of their new proprietary BT12 LED screen to the near capacity stock, things became critical - and something had to give.

By a completely serendipitous stroke of luck, the unit next door came available just at the right time. "It was almost too convenient to be true," declares Colour Sound's Haydn Cruickshank, who jumped at the chance to take it over.

The dividing wall between the two units has been completely removed and CSE is utilising the new area

Iceland - Several Allen & Heath iLive and iDR digital mixers have been installed in the prestigious new Harpa concert hall and conference centre in Reykjavik.

The new venue has four main spaces to manage a busy programme of music and conference events. iLive systems comprising an iDR-16 MixRack and iLive-R72 Control Surface have been installed in the Norourljos recital hall and Kaldalon hall, whilst a combined FOH and monitor system,comprising iDR-16 MixRacks and an iLive-R72 and iLive-T80 surfaces, has been selected for the Silfurberg conference hall.

All systems use A&H's proprietary ACE (audio and control over Ethernet) link, and iDR-4 digital matrix mixers are installed in each venue to manage audio distribution. There is also a portable iLive system, comprising an iDR-48 MixRack and iLive-T80 Control Surface, available for any additional audio requirements around the buil

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies' video division has supplied UK live visuals specialist, Creative Visual Artists with three Green Hippo GrassHopper HD media server systems and related video equipment, to meet growing demand from their client base.

Creative Visual Artists have been involved in providing lighting and video services to numerous high profile TV shows, concert tours and corporate events.

Creative Visual Artists' Russell Grubiak has built up a reputation as one of the leading programmers and operators in this specific field of technical production. He has been working as 'scenic video operator' on one of the UK's most popular TV series for over eight years.

With most show content requirements already being managed by Green Hippo systems, when it came to expanding Creative Visual Artists' inventory to service new and current clients' needs, Green Hippo were th

USA - Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope film studios, located in California's Napa Valley, has installed Meyer Sound EXP cinema sound systems in three new rooms, including an ADR stage, ADR control room, and a screening room. Consistent EXP monitoring will allow seamless translation between the new rooms and Zoetrope's existing re-recording stage, which in 2009 became the first facility of its kind to install a complete EXP system.

Coppola, working alongside re-recording mixers Walter Murch and Pete Horner, relied on Zoetrope's original EXP monitoring system for the final mix of his 2009 release, Tetro. Reflecting on the experience, Coppola says, "With Meyer Sound, there has been a tremendous increase in power, yet with distortion eliminated. If the sound were a picture, you would immediately notice how incredibly focused it is, with no blurring."

Zoetr

Germany - Interal T.C., the Dutch manufacturer of trusses for sale and dry hire, will launch its new heavy duty P100 Protruss at this year's ProLight+Sound tradeshow in Frankfurt, alongside its complete product portfolio of Protruss and Intertruss.

P100 Protruss, the latest product to benefit from the company's new automated fabrication process, is a heavy duty truss for the most demanding applications. The P100 has undergone a battery of tests and stress analysis, and even passed a load test that saw a 4.8m span support a 14 tonne point load with flying colors, to verify the theoretical calculations in real life.

Interal T.C. has taken a huge leap in the area of producing and dry-hiring aluminium trusses since it was established in 2003, and this year sees its automated fabrication system running at full force, bringing an unprecedented level of quality and consistency to the

UK - The nominees for the 2012 Olivier Awards, which reward achievement in London theatre over the last 12 months, were announced on 15 March at a presentation broadcast live online for the first time. Entertainment lighting specialist White Light, lighting supplier to many of the nominated shows, would like to congratulate all of the nominees -in particular those in the Best Lighting Design category.

This year's nominated lighting designers are Howard Harrison for Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse, Bruno Poet for Frankenstein at the National Theatre, and Hugh Vanstone, who received two nominations - for Ghost The Musical at the Piccadilly Theatre and Matilda The Musical at the Cambridge Theatre.

Vanstone's nomination was one of the 10 received by Matilda, the show receiving a nomination in every category for which it was eligible, inclu

UK - Funktion One has announced the launch of their new website. The site has undergone a complete redesign with a much improved graphical interface including an extensive photo gallery and many new features. There are now direct links to every page allowing for speedy access to all Funktion One product information and news and the site is easily accessible via mobile phones.

In addition to the new website Funktion One have also launched the Funktion One (Official) Facebook page which can be directly accessed via a link on the homepage of the new site - http://www.funktion-one.com

In other news from the company, Danny Boyle's production of Frankenstein at the National Theatre, which features a Funktion One loudspeaker system, has been nominated in the Best Sound Design category in this year's Olivier Awards. The sound design for the production, by Ed Clark

South Korea - XTA Electronics has confirmed Midi & Graphics Co Ltd as its new exclusive distributor for South Korea.

The company was originally created 13 years ago to provide solutions for the then embryonic DAW market. Subsequently it began to attract more traditional pro-audio brands and now employs 22 people, including some of Korea's more famous sound reinforcement engineers. The business is located in the bustling Nonhyeon-dong ward of Gangnam-gu in the capital city, Seoul.

Midi & Graphics has built its reputation as a committed and focused company, by dealing with some of the most well-established and highly respected pro-audio companies in the world such as HK Audio, Powersoft, Apogee and Yamaha.

Midi & Graphics is made up of three divisions dealing with the PA, Rentals and Installations sector, the House of Worship sector and the Broadcast sector. Their client base

Germany - LumenRadio will once again showcase the latest product innovations at Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt this week. In Hall 11.0, stand A61 (part of the LMP lounge), the latest releases of the award winning products CRMX Nova and CRMX SuperNova will be displayed and available for demonstration. Also, the new LumenRadio spring 2012 product catalogue will be released with product updates, new installations and new partnerships. Prolight+Sound will also be the first exhibition to feature the new stand featuring typical Swedish elements.

Updated and improved CRMX Nova products and CRMX SuperNova 2.1 brings full CRMX Unity integration for both wireless and wired RDM, DMX and Ethernet merging capabilities and enhanced RDM functionality as well as an improved user interface and stability. The already impressive list of supported Ethernet protocols grows even longer with the latest a

UK - Support for KNX systems has been radically transformed with a recent, major update to Stardraw.com's award-winning system control platform, Stardraw Control. KNX is a standardised (EN 50090, ISO/IEC 14543) network communications protocol for intelligent buildings and the successor to, and convergence of, three previous standards: the European Home Systems Protocol (EHS), BatiBUS, and the European Installation Bus (EIB or Instabus).

Previously, individual KNX devices would be shown in Stardraw Control's topology view: ideal for smaller systems, but more complicated when the system contains perhaps hundreds of devices.

To enhance usability for larger systems, Stardraw Control now includes a compound or 'multi-device' driver for KNX systems so that a single object in the topology view can now represent, control and monitor an unlimited number of physical devices. As a result

USA - Sensaphonics has announced its support for the annual Auction 4 Audiology, a fundraiser for the American Academy of Audiology Foundation (AAAF). The auction features several autographed items of music memorabilia, the proceeds from which will fund research for hearing health in musicians. The Auction 4 Audiology takes place on the BiddingForGood.com website and will be open for bidding from 19-31 March.

The auction items include electric guitars signed by Aerosmith, Lady Antebellum, the Dave Matthews Band, Buddy Guy, and O.A.R., all donated to the cause by Sensaphonics president and founder Dr. Michael Santucci. Additional autographed items include a framed gold record by Coldplay and concert poster from Umphrey's McGee.

"Promoting hearing health among musicians is our mission, and we're thrilled to once again work with the Foundation toward funding additional, much

Germany - K.M.E. will promote the VL 4 ultra-compact column array loudspeaker system at ProLight+Sound this week.

The system comes with top sound quality in the midrange (4 x 4"cone speaker) and fine precise highs coming from a 1" dome tweeter with optimized wave guide for optimal localization performance in stereo and multi-mode setup. A high- grade passive crossover network completes the speaker components.

Its minimal weight of 6 kg and the slim and modest appearance together with outstanding handling features make it a high class product for entertainers, duos and mobile DJs, says the comp[any.

The system is suitable also for theatres, museums, lecture rooms, restaurants and in multi-channel systems in club, cinema and multimedia setups. The K.M.E. specific polyurethane coating is normally black . As installation version the system will be offered as VL 4 i.

Rwanda - Rwanda's nightlife has been the richer in recent weeks for a new attraction: on 3 February, an exclusive new discotheque, the K-Club, opened in Kigali's Brima Business Centre. The new hotspot features two stylishly furnished bars with dance floors, as well as several lounge areas. The aspirations of the new club - as is evident from its decor, ambience, lighting and sound systems - are of the highest order. The sound system was installed by Audio Visual Engineering Kenya Ltd (AVE), the Dynacord distributor in East, West and Central Africa.

Based some 500 miles away in Nairobi, the sound specialists from AVE opted for a Dynacord solution based around the D-Lite series for a number of reasons: "Dynacord enjoys an excellent reputation in the industry based on countless prestige references that include some of the largest and best clubs in the world," explains AVE

USA - Elation Professional has unveiled its new Platinum Wash ZFX Pro RGBW moving head wash.

Equipped with 19 x 10-watt OSRAM Quad-Color RGBW LEDs, the Platinum Wash ZFX Pro has a total 190-watt LED engine, yet its powerful output rivals a 700-watt wash discharge fixture in brightness. This extreme power, combined with the unit's compact size, makes it an ideal fixture for touring, concerts, theatrical productions - even on the largest stages, says the company.

The Platinum Wash ZFX Pro features a wide-range, high speed 9° - 21° beam angle motorized zoom (17° - 43° field angle), which gives it the flexibility of narrow beam or wide coverage. Another innovative feature is the addition of "FX" -- Chase/Zone effects, which are rings of LED array controllable zones, making the Platinum Wash ZFX Pro a much more high-energy visual effect than the typical wa

Jamaica - John Dacosta is fortunate enough to have been the lighting designer for the Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival for the past five years. Not a bad place to spend a late January. For this year's festival, a kick-off celebration as Jamaica celebrates 50 years of independence, Dacosta turned to the design ease of Martin Professional EC-10 LED video panels.

"It was a simple choice to use the EC-10," he states. "I had used the EC-20 panels for last year's show and loved it. When I was presented with the option to use the EC-10, I jumped at it."

A large EC-10 wall upstage centre provided a stunning backdrop while graphics spilled onto surrounding columns of Martin LC Series LED video panels with MAC 101 LED wash lights mounted under each. Dacosta also had EC-10 panels mounted around FOH for IMAG.

"It worked out great. I love the look of the video, th

Denmark - Lighting designer Benjamin la Cour has been using his own Jands Vista T2 lighting console, running the next generation Vista v2 software, on a busy schedule which includes the Musical Silkeborg's production of the Victor Hugo classic, Les Misérables.

Benjamin decided to invest in his own console as he feels that programming shows himself allows him to get the most out of his creative designs. To achieve this he needed to have a desk that he could easily get to know 'inside out'.

To ensure he was making the right choice, Benjamin trialled three major brands of console for one month each. At the end of the period his decision was very clear - Jands Vista.

"I learnt the Vista T2 with incredible ease" he states, "I really love the interface, it makes programming exceptionally fast and enjoyable!"

Benjamin has been running Jands' next

Germany - Roland Systems Group (RSG) will be demonstrating their increasing strength in both the professional audio and the professional video market at ProLight + Sound this week.

On the audio side, the range of V-Mixer digital mixing consoles, M-48 live personal mixers, Digital Snake I/O units and the R-1000 48 track recorder/players will be featured. These products (as well as other audio products in the RSG range) can be configured easily as a flexible, expandable system using REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication), the proprietary technology from Roland for low latency, high quality digital audio transfer, says the company.

REAC has the ability to transfer 40 channels of audio in each direction at 24-bit and up to 96kHz all over a single Cat5e/6 Ethernet cable or optical link avoiding signal quality loss, ground hums and other interference typically found with analog

Germany - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light will be showcasing lighting solutions from their exclusive product line at Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt this week on stand A61 in Hall 9.0.

On display will be the White Light Family of products, which will include those from i-Pix, Core Lighting, Prism Projection, Interactive Technologies, Galaxia and CITC FX.

On show from i-Pix will be the Satellite Mk. II. Building upon the success of its highly successful predecessor, the Mk. II Satellite has been completely redesigned. Eight 10 watt high powered RGB and daylight white light engines provide a high light output, whilst saving energy. It is capable of fitting within a 1' square truss for truss toning, or as a wash device. The newest products in the i-Line range will also be on show, featuring linear battens whose configurations include 6x40 watt and 12x40 RGB & White LE

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