Chile - Stampede Presentation Products, Inc. recently helped Lumina Motion construct a stunning 10,000sq.ft video display on the facade of a round building in Santiago, Chile by providing the ideal equipment and precise development insight needed.

The AV team at Lumina Motion was tasked with creating an exciting and memorable product launch for Nokia's new Lumia 800 smartphone, and succeeded by working with Stampede to utilize "the best technology, share industry know-how and ensure patient attention to every technical detail".

According to Lumina Motion owner Gonzalo de la Barra: "We at Lumina Motion know that when you're producing a live event, everything has to be perfect. Stampede knows this too, which is why they recommended the eight Christie Full HD project

UK - PR Lighting has launched its first compact moving head LED Spot and Beam fixtures. The LED Spot 400 comes equipped with a 16°-38° wide zoom, while the LED Beam emits an intense 6° beam. Both run extremely quietly, outputting less heat than other fixtures on the market, says the company.

Other features common to both fixtures include 50,000 hours LED life (6,800-7500K), seven dichroic colour filters (plus white); seven rotating gobos and seven fixed gobos (all easily interchangeable); DMX controllable focus; 5-100% linearly adjustable iris and macros; electronic strobe (0-20 fps); 540° (pan) and 270° (tilt), with auto position correction; and 14 channels (short mode), 18 (standard) and 22 (extended mode). The LED Spot weighs 14.5kg and the LED Beam 14.2kg. Both fixtures are shipping now.

(Jim Evans)

Russia - The historic Theatre of Nations in Moscow, which has re-opened after a lengthy reconstruction, has been equipped by DOKA Center with a large ADB Lighting installation, including the first ADM Eurodim Twin Tech dimmer installation in Russia.

The Theatre of Nations was established in 1987 under the name of Theatre of Friendship of Nations and in 1991 was renamed the State Theatre of Nations.

Its intensive production activities include developing and producing a variety of theatre projects, organising international and national festivals, presenting the best Russian and international productions, representing many different genres and styles. The theatre also stages its own productions, with the ultimate goal of becoming the centre for nurturing a new generation of theatre practitioners.

The State Theatre of Nations' historical building had been occupied since 1885 by

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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 - As part of the celebrations for the Bishop of London's The2012 service, St.Paul's Cathedral hosted an inspiring evening service with over 2000 followers. Music was provided by The Psalm Drummers and Twyford High School Gospel Choir of the Year, withspecial effects by MTFX.

During the choir's rendition of Spirit of the Living God the congregation were showered by thousands of white rose petals, scattered from the Whispering Gallery in the dome of the Cathedral.

Organisers of the service were delighted with the effect and the collective gasp of surprise from 2000 worshipers was described as "breath-taking; a moment to remember for years".

(Jim Evans)

USA - As any die-hard fan will tell you, hockey is the Rodney Dangerfield of American sports. Despite a long history and legions of fans, the game has never quite garnered the respect it deserves.

But the folks behind the Anaheim Ducks are working to change that perception with The Rinks, a fast-growing chain of ice and inline hockey venues in southern California designed to promote the game in a kid- and teen-friendly environment.

"Particularly in Southern California, hockey's always been a pretty underrated sport," says Jason Voorhees of Costa Mesa-based Cantara Design, the company behind the audio systems at The Rinks. "It's gotten a bad rap as a rough game, and in the past, many of the available places to play have been rather run down and neglected."

The Ducks have been working to combat that image, purchasing and renovating older rinks to create cle

USA / Europe - Flightcase and speaker cabinet solutions specialist Penn Elcom has developed a new software programme - CaseDesigner - instigating "a new fully-flexible era in the world of flightcase construction".

Penn Elcom has developed this software to offer its distributors, dealers and their clients the best and most efficient possible design, order and build service.

The fully visual graphical interface enables Penn Elcom customers to plan and visualise potential new case designs in both 2D and 3D, and view in full 360 degree rotation.

CaseDesigner enables Penn clients to generate a quote for themselves, and within literally a couple of minutes, have all the facts available to produce that case at their fingertips.

Thomas Mostert, CEO of Penn Elcom GmbH, the distribution arm of the Penn Elcom Group in Continental Europe and programmer Klaus Koppenhoe

UK - Electrosonic has announced the appointment of Paul Kent as senior consultant to the cultural entertainment and leisure (CEL) team for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Kent originally joined Electrosonic in 1996. During his 12 years of employment, he worked with major theme park clients and designers in Europe, USA and the Middle East as a Project Consultant.

Prior to re-joining Electrosonic, Kent worked as a consultant for attraction design and operation companies, working on internationally renowned projects such as Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi.

"Kent brings with him 25 years of production and technical experience working within the entertainment industry", commented Rob Smith, sales manager of the CEL team. "He is well known within the industry and possesses the skills and knowledge to drive Electrosonic's theme park and attractions business forward w

USA - Audio-Technica officially kicked off its 50th Anniversary Year in the US with a special gala event held 19 January 2012, during the Winter NAMM Show in Anaheim, California. The event featured an all-star music revue produced by Phil Ramone.

Among the featured all-star cast of performers were saxophonist and longtime Audio-Technica endorser Mindi Abair, R&B/jazz vocalist Patti Austin, new age/adult-contemporary superstar and Audio-Technica endorser Jim Brickman, smooth jazz saxophonist Dave Koz, vocalist Monica Mancini, trumpeter/pianist/composer Arturo Sandoval, gospel/R&B music legend BeBe Winans and Canadian jazz-pop vocalist Nikki Yanofsky.

In commemoration of the event, all eight performers have decided to donate their performance honoraria to different music education programmes and institutions, helping promote the importance of music education and assisting studen

South Africa - MJ Event Gear provided the full technical including stage, sets, video, lighting and sound for a Transnet breakfast event held on 10 April 2012 at the Hilton Ballroom in Sandton. Transnet Group CEO, Brian Molefe, provided detail on a R300bn, seven-year investment programme aimed at transforming the country's ports and railways, and changing the state-owned ports and rail company's financial performance.

Much pre-planning and production management by MJ's Otto De Kock saw the team loading in Sunday morning, rehearsals on Monday and everyone set to go on Tuesday at 7am.

"The client, Overend Outsource, wanted a clean, corporate look, " commented Johnny Scholtz, lighting designer, from MJ Event Gear.

The Robins and MMXs were mostly used to create a warm mood incorporating the Transnet colours. "I used the MMX to light the podium and used some animat

South Africa - Gearhouse South Africa, has recently reinvested in more L-Acoustics components to complete its existing inventory of Kudo, V-Dosc, dV-Dosc and Arcs. The new equipment comprises of 48 Kara, 12 ArcsII and 12 Kudo WST line source cabinets, eight SB28 and 24 SB18 woofers and 22 LA-RAK touring racks installed with LA8 amplified controllers.

South Africa is increasingly becoming a regular fixture on the international touring circuit. Combined with an increase in the domestic market, Gearhouse felt the extra investment in L-Acoustics was necessary to service the largest of these events. The company also wanted to update its amplifier platform with the LA-RAK and LA8 platform.

Gearhouse feels the new ArcsII is a perfect extension for the L-Acoustics range it already owns. "The small footprint and options in stacking and flying make it an extremely versatile product

UK - Two leading names in professional audio, QSC and Denon, have got together with UK distributor Batmink to showcase their latest products. This trade only event will take place on Wednesday 9 May, from 4 - 8pm at Komedia in Bath city centre.

Hosted by Batmink Distribution, demonstrations of the QSC K, KW and KLA Series loudspeakers, including a live band performance through the systems, will be followed by an A list DJ putting the new Denon DN-SC3900 through its paces.

Batmink sales director, Grant Thomas comments, "We are fortunate to have live demo rooms at our offices and were all so impressed with both the House of K series and the new DN-SC3900 that we had to find a way to get these in front of our customers. Due to sound restrictions, manufacturers are unable to really showcase their audio products at trade shows and so this is a superb opportunity to put these p

Germany - The Bosch Group expects global economic growth to slow. Accordingly, the technology and services company expects to see comparatively modest sales growth of between three and five percent in the current year. This was announced by Franz Fehrenbach, the chairman of the Bosch board of management, at the annual press conference held at company headquarters near Stuttgart.

"There is still a great deal of uncertainty with regard to future economic developments, even though the sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone has been defused slightly," Fehrenbach said. In the first quarter of 2012, sales increased year on year by some five percent, despite the cooling of the global economy and difficult developments in a number of European markets. The greatest relative growth was achieved in Industrial Technology, followed by Automotive Technology. Developments in the Cons

Germany - AFMG, German-based pro-audio software developers, release the new version of their widely recognised real-time audio analysis software SysTune on 1 May. Once again, this update will be free for the large community of existing users. Beyond that, AFMG has changed prices and licensing to make SysTune even more affordable to a larger group of users. To celebrate the release, AFMG has launched a dedicated SysTune Facebook page with a special lottery in May and June.

A large amount of research and work has gone into one of the new plug-ins called 'Delay Analysis'. From a set of captured individual measurements, SysTune automatically calculates optimal delay times between mains and subs or between main and delay loudspeakers, giving precise information on polarity and predicted overall system performance.

"Never before has it been easier to solve the polarity question

UK - Devon-based drapes, starcloth, LED and visual effects specialists S+H Technical Support provided a massive 238m wide by 9m drop of their ShowLED RGB Chameleon Starcloth, which was used on the high profile 2012 Olivier Awards.

The annual event was staged in the main auditorium of the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden. S+H were contacted by Lee Batty, head of production for event organisers, the Society of London Theatre.

He was looking for a striking backdrop and a full leg and border dressing solution for the stage, and had previously used S+H's products, most recently their LED Animation Cloth, on a show for Rolf Harris that he production managed.

Batty also assisted in the visual design and look of the Oliviers, and says, "We wanted something different from last year that would bring a dynamic and special feel. I knew the quality and reliability of the

Germany - The conversion of Britz Castle in Berlin-Neukölln into a new cultural centre, was recently completed, and includes a 300-capacity concert and theatre hall, installed with Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system.

The spec was for a future-proof digital system that could easily be used by sound engineers of guest productions. It also needed to be portable to service not just the hall but other areas in the venue, and flexible and simple to configure, with the option to have wireless control for smaller events.

The iLive system comprises a Dante-enabled iDR-32 MixRack with iLive-T80 Control Surface, plus a PL-10 rotary panel for remote control. iLive's competitive price, built in compressor and EQ, as well as the possibility of the live recording of events via a laptop through the Dante interface, were the main reasons it was selected.

Dirk Förster from inst

India - Any concert dedicated to multi-instrumentalist and record producer AR Rahman - described as the world's most prominent and prolific film composer - requires a sound quality nearing perfection.

Meeting this audio challenge at the recent Classic Incantations concerts - presented by the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg across five Indian cities - were Sound.Com.

The Orchestra, conducted by Matt Dunkley, performed original scores and film music written by the Indian maestro - accompanied by the choir and soloists from his own KM Music Conservatory in Chennai.

Once again the sound crew relied on their Optocore network to transmit pristine signals. Sound.Com's Sunil Karanjikar and Joel Dcruz toured the country with FOH mixing engineer Holger Schwark (on a DiGiCo SD10), playing back to back shows, while Sound.Com's MD, Warren Dsouza acted as stand-in systems engineer for th

USA - Clay Paky fixtures lit up the ice and turned on the glamour when production and lighting designer Christien Methot of Design One employed a complement of Sharpy and Alpha Spot HPE 1500s on Caesars Tribute II: A Salute to the Ladies of the Ice which aired on NBC on New Year's Day.

The figure skating extravaganza features a roster of American Olympic medalists, including Nancy Kerrigan, Tara Lipinksi and Sarah Hughes as well as an international contingent, among them current world champion Miki Ando. The event, held at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, comes on the heels of last year's figure skating tribute for which Methot handled production design.

Methot devised a circular motif for the show using three circular video screens and a circular main stage with clean, simple lines. He mounted a circular truss above the ice with 16 Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures suspended o

UK - When Russian artist Dashi Namdakov wanted an air of mystery for the unveiling of his celebrated statue, MTFX was on hand to provide the effect. The five metre statue was covered by a thick black shroud that held an enveloping fog cloud.

When the veil was removed, the fog gently dissipated to unveil Genghis Khan seated pensively on his horse. The figure celebrated 850 years since the legendary warrior was born, and the artist wanted to portray his spirituality as part of the London City of Sculpture festival.

The statue will remain in place at Marble Arch for six months and has been reported worldwide across countries linked to the Mongolian warrior and Russian artist.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Almost 100 Chauvet Professional fixtures brought a multi-coloured ambience during the opening of Technicolor at Paramount's post-production sound facility at the Paramount Pictures studio lot in Hollywood.

Stage façades came to life under the vivid colours of 58 Chauvet Professional COLORado 1-Tri Tour static wash lights and 40 COLORdash Batten Tri linear wash lights.

"Technicolor at Paramount wanted something very colourful and vibrant, and naturally, COLORdash Batten Tri and COLORado 1-Tri Tour lights were the perfect choice to complement the opening of the building, with smooth colourful splashes of colour," said Foxton Lewyn, lighting designer for the temporary installation and employee of Blue Haze Entertainment rental company that specified the lights.

Aligned along a low artesian fountain delineating the street from a terrace, the COLORado 1-Tri Tour

UAE - Wireless Solution Sweden is showing new products and some advancements to their product range during PALME Middle East, 1-3 May 2012 at Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre.

Wireless Solution has been working on a completely new software platform since October 2011 that is prepared for future hardware functions as well as many new features and updated functions. The W-DMX G4S software platform includes improved adaptive frequency hopping; new Invisi-Wire MK2 with support for wireless software updates; improved Data-Safe MK2 that now supports up to 4 times redundancy of all the wireless data; RDM MK2 with custom made features for W-DMX as well as all standard RDM commands. This new platform is available for a software update on all existing Micro F-1, BlackBox, WhiteBox and ProBox units already shipped via the USB dongle.

Niclas Arvidsson, CEO of Wireless So

South Africa - From 1 May onwards, DWR Distribution will represent Prolyte Group and its full range of products as distributor for South Africa.

DWR is not entirely new to the Prolyte network, over the last years they have gained much knowledge of both Prolyte products and the working philosophy of the Prolyte organisation, re-selling the products in South Africa.

"It's the people who make our industry happen and investing in long-term professional relations builds a fruitful business" states Paul-Erik Haseloop, director group sales for Prolyte Group. "Prolyte Group is delighted to have DWR Distribution on board as distributors, the combination of a great drive, enthusiasm and professionalism makes this team a pleasure to work with."

"DWR Distribution is privileged to be given this opportunity," commentsDuncan Riley, founder of DWR. "Robert

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