Ireland - Production Services Ireland (PSI) supplied lighting, trussing and rigging for the 2012 Live At The Marquee event in Cork, which ran for a month, offering a diverse line up of international artists - from Justice to Christy Moore, Jedward to Jessie J - and many more to cater for all tastes.

It's one of Cork's largest annual events and the second year that PSI has been the lighting supplier, after delivering such a smooth and successful package last year. It was project managed for them by Ciaran Tallon, with the equipment coming out of the company's Dublin facility.

With the range of artists appearing, an overall production lighting design was created by client Conor Jacob, with the idea that it was as flexible as possible to provide a solid platform for lighting

USA - The Entertainment Technician Certification Program (ETCP) has awarded 36 International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (I.A.T.S.E.) Local One members with its Rigger - Theatre Certification.

"Local One is very excited and proud of our success in the great number of our members who have recently been certified as ETCP Technicians," said Local One I.A.T.S.E. president James J. Claffey, Jr. "We believe that this achievement demonstrates our commitment to educating and training our members to provide the best service possible to our many employers, as well as enforcing, enhancing and protecting the traditional jurisdiction of Local One."

President Claffey added, "Congratulations and thanks are also in order to the Trustees of Local One I.A.T.S.E.'s Training, Education and Technology (TET) Fund and Education Committee Chairman Brother Paul Dean

UK - Allen & Heath has launched the ZED60-14FX, a highly compact analogue mixer that is designed for small bands and venues. ZED60-14FX is a companion to the ZED60-10FX launched earlier this year, employing the same 60mm faders but with the addition of an extra four mono/mic channels.

Two of the eight mono channels have high impedance jack inputs that can take a normal line level or a low level input from a guitar pickup, so guitars can be plugged straight into the mixer without the need for DI boxes. These inputs have been crafted to recreate the sound of a classic tube preamp in a combo or head amp for incredible definition and warmth. Two stereo inputs are provided for MP3/CD players or keyboards.

The ZED60-14FX also comes with configurable USB audio in/out, making it easy to capture a stereo recording at the gig or in the studio. The mixer is equipped with professional XLR

featured content

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 - LS-Live has added Nick Howard into its growing team as head of sales. The stage, set and studio specialist in West Yorkshire has recruited Howard full-time to oversee sales across the business, particularly focusing on its staging equipment rental operation.

With a diverse background in retailing, Howard was previously marketing manager at international sports event management company Byrom Plc, which is responsible for all aspects of logistics, ticketing and accommodation packages for the World Cup and the Ryder Cup events. He has also worked in design and marketing for global marketing communications agency McCann Erickson and the Halstan Printing Group.

Said Howard: "I am excited about joining LS-Live and combining my professional experience and passion for the events industry with a team of dedicated and enthusiastic individuals. I believe that we now have the ri

UK - Wannabe rock stars from schools across West Yorkshire got a taste of stardom at the weekend thanks to an initiative from West Yorkshire Police, in association with Backstage Academy and LS-Live.

The second annual Battle of the Bands event saw nine student bands battle it out in a professional live environment in front of their peers and a judging panel that included Jude Abbott from Chumbawamba, on Sunday 15 July.

Horbury High's group Uneven Symmetry were crowned the winners of 'Best Original Song' and St Wilfrids' group Mongoose in the Pumphouse won 'Best Performance'. The bands won a prize trophy, a tour of the LS-Live rehearsal studios and one of the company's stage hire packages for the school.

Both bands were overjoyed to win the competition, which has now become a coveted annual police and partner lead event. Sgt Alan Studd from Pontefract & Knottingley police sai

USA - Music Group has announced the appointment of Steve Young to the role of vice president, installed sound. In his new role Young takes overall responsibility for Behringer's Eurocom line and will oversee all product, marketing and market development activities aimed at installed applications worldwide.

"Steve comes to us with what I would consider an ideal background in installed sound, spending nearly 16 years as a sound contractor designing and installing systems before serving 12 years at Atlas Sound, most recently as VP sales & marketing," says Costa Lakoumentas, senior VP marketing at Music Group. "I am thrilled to have a person of Steve's experience and integrity take over the management of Eurocom and take it to the next level."

"I am very excited to begin telling the story of Eurocom" says Young, "The commercial audio marketplace

UK- XL Events supplied audio and video equipment for two of the Škoda display areas at the recent 2012 Goodwood Festival of Speed, Chichester, West Sussex.

One was in the Moving Motor Show where approximately 40% of visitors entered the event, and the other was at Škoda's Pavilion stand in the main exhibition area. Commissioned by A1 (Events & Exhibitions), based in Milton Keynes, XL Events was asked to provide video screens for both the inside and outside walls of the main Pavilion.

The main challenge when specifying the LED for the outer wall was to identify a product that was both light enough to hang on the exterior of a temporary structure, and that offered high resolution at short viewing distances.

Pixled's FX-11 was chosen as it is lightweight and suitable for outdoor use.

For the interior of the Pavilion, XL Events supplied two LCD seamless di

France - The Erasme hall at the Congress Centre in Strasbourg, home of the Strasbourg Philharmonique Orchestra, has upgraded its stage lighting to an ADB Lighting LED system, designed to lower power consumption and heat on stage, and provide more uniform and flexible lighting.

By the summer of 2009 it had become clear to the Congress Centre operators that a new solution was urgently needed. The original lighting system, dating from the 1970s, consisted of 14 5kW Fresnel luminaires, suspended from telescopic poles left and right of the orchestra podium. 30 1kW tungsten halogen floodlights were rigged 10 meters above the stage to fill in shadows.

In total, over 100kW of power was used to light an orchestral performance or rehearsal, plus the power drawn by the air-conditioning (HVAC) system. The tungsten halogen light sources raised the stage temperature to around 20°, which

Turkey - Music fans in Turkey have been treated to a series of online 'unplugged' concerts during the first half of 2012, with performances by five of the country's brightest up-and-coming bands broadcast online by promoter Hafifmuzik. Each watched by 8-10,000 people, the sessions were mixed by engineer Cagan Tunali on a DiGiCo SD8.

The bands - Melis Danismend, Malt, Büyük Ev Ablukada, 123 and Multitap - were chosen as the most suitable for the target audience of young Internet users who were looking for quality music. High profile Turkish engineer Cagan was asked by the project's originator, music critic Mehmet Tez, to look after all the technical sound requirements.

"This was the first serious online unplugged project in Turkey," says Cagan. "My responsibilities included advising on the choice of sound equipment, deciding on how to set the bands up and being

Russia - The city of St. Petersburg welcomed the long-awaited premiere of City Lights an original ice show based on the famous 1931 Charlie Chaplin film. Produced by Russian ice dancer Ilya Averbukh, City Lights is a grand production that features Martin lighting effects and no less than seven Olympic and 11 world figure skating champions.

The performance demanded the highest quality lighting and Ilya Averbukh invited Alexey Mastryukov to create the impressive design. "A show by Ilya Averbukh is definitely a terrific and top quality project so of course you expect to see the same level when it comes to the lighting design," said Alexander Blednykh, owner of Euroshow, lighting equipment supplier for the show.

"The task for the lighting designer was really complicated," Alexander explains. "He needed to create something that was not only be

USA - Products from the Bose Professional Systems Division are proving popular with designers, system integrators and contractors. From houses of worship and educational facilities to theatres and other fixed-installation projects, these audio professionals have been responding overwhelmingly positively, and specifying and installing systems using Bose's RoomMatch array module loudspeakers and PowerMatch configurable power amplifiers, and employing Bose's proprietary Modeler sound system design software to aid in the design process, says the company.

Integrator Ron Simonson, president and CEO of Olympia, Washington-based CCI Solutions , stated, "The innovative part of RoomMatch is this ability to select different boxes that have horizontal coverage angles and vertical coverage angles that can be designed in combination with one another to produce a custom solution for each

Germany - HK Audio's has extended its Elements series with the introduction of Elements Plus and Elements Install.

The Elements Plus E 835 is a mid/high unit that "provides even greater flexibility and power than its older brother (the E 435) when you want to set up bigger systems". Loaded with eight speakers, it can handle 300 watts at 8 ohms' impedance. The E 835 and E 435 mid/high units' design and tuning are identical, so combining them is easy.

The new E 210 Sub AS system subwoofer comes with two 1,200-watt amps in its engine room. Power amp number one drives the two internal 10" woofers, with plenty of juice left over to run an external passive type L Sub 1200. The second power amp delivers 900 watts at 2.6 ohms to drive up to three E 835s (or six E 435s).

The E 435 Install Kit: Mid/High Unit is designed to facilitate simple and inconspicuous installatio

UK - Allen & Heath has released a major firmware and driver update for its recording console, the GS-R24. The new firmware includes integrated support of the HUI protocol for direct integration with DAW applications with HUI MIDI control presets, such as ProTools and Reaper, and users also benefit from a range of enhancements to the FireWire interface driver.

HUI, which synchronises DAW software and connected hardware devices, is now emulated by three virtual MIDI ports in the GS-R24's new firmware, tunnelled over the mixer's FireWire connection. This means that for GS-R24M mixers equipped with the FireWire interface, a third party translator is no longer essential.

A new set of DAW Resource Packs is also available online, with step-by-step instructions and template projects to aid the set-up of popular recording software.

To coincide with the release, Allen & Heath will be

USA - Anne Minors of Anne Minors Performance Consultants will be one of four panellists to present a session at NATEAC 2012. Entitled Efficient Design Ideas for Theatres: How To Do More With Less, the session will explore ideas around how to maximise design efficiency in projects with modest budgets.

Minors will bring her knowledge and experience of 27 years of design - during which time she has designed over 100 rooms for concerts, opera and theatre - to the table, lodged in the AMPC quality trademarks which have earned the company its well-deserved reputation and numerous awards.

"At AMPC we take an integrated, holistic approach to design and spend a great deal of time on the details," explains Minors. "We give careful consideration to what each project needs and design for aesthetic effect as well as efficiency, often building features into the archite

UK - Three of the UK's leading rental houses - Stage Electrics, Neg Earth and White Light - have all taken delivery of Martin Professional's new MAC Viper Profile.

The MAC Viper Profile is the first in a new family of 1000 W moving heads from Martin.

The MAC Viper Profile is already seeing service on some of the summer's headline tours including Paul Simon's Graceland 2012 European tour (LD Rich Lochlin; Neg Earth).

(Jim Evans)

UK - South London-based production and audio rental company ARC Sound has recently invested in a package of Coda Audio stage monitors.

Comprising 20 Cue Two and Cue Four monitors, they are the first Coda products that ARC Sound has added to its inventory. Managing director James Dougill was introduced to Coda products by UK technical sales manager Gareth Jones, who says, "I have known James for many years and I know that he is a real stickler for quality and attention to detail. I was sure that he would appreciate both the features and performance of the CUE-Series monitors."

The Cue Two is a three-way, high output, ultra low profile unit, which features a triaxial transducer incorporating a 15" woofer and 1.4" concentrically-mounted coaxial compression driver loaded by a 60° x 90° elliptical waveguide. The Cue Four is a three-way unit, employing tw

UK - West London based Entec Sound & Light's lighting division has supplied an LED stage lighting solution to the Vineyard Church in St Albans, which upgrades their current system and paves the way for future developments.

The Church has around 1000 members and a modern 750 capacity hall in a converted warehouse which more resembles a concert arena. It is in constant use for services and events - involving anything from the spoken word to live music and performance.

Worship Pastor Samuel Lane - also responsible for all the Church's technical elements and presentation of their services and events - approached Entec, among other companies, with a basic brief.

This included making the standard house stage lighting more eco-friendly and versatile and reducing their long term running costs.

Each company was asked to come back with a proposal and a quote for consideration, from

UK - Lift Turn Move has announced the appointment of Dan Holme to director of the Entertainment Division.

Lift Turn Move are a lifting company with two main markets: Industrial & Entertainment and over the past few years Dan Holme has been spearheading the growth of the Entertainment Division. Over these years, LTM have seen a steady increase in the number of enquiries coming from theatres, venues and other fixed-installation projects, which is a change from the touring market that they were used to.

John Jones & David King credit this shift to the introduction of the LoadGuard hoist in 2008 and also, to Dan Holme. Talking about the appointment, David King comments, "The role reflects what Dan has been doing day-in-day-out for a while now at LTM, and will help bring focus to the market as LTM continues to grow in both the entertainment and industrial sectors in which it s

On Tuesday 11 September, Lighting Designer Durham Marenghi and Associate LD, Tim Routledge will present 'A Triumph of Illumination - The Diamond Jubilee Concert' as part of the International & Major Projects sector of the PLASA Professional Development Programme.

Durham first got his hands on a lighting desk whilst still at school back in 1974 - all ten channels of it! Things have moved on a little since then; the range and diversity of his CV is second to none. From Roger Waters' performance of 'The Wall' that celebrated the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the closing ceremony of colonial rule in Hong Kong to a regular slot designing the New Year's Eve Light and Firework Show from the London Eye since 2004 and, of course not forgetting, Her Majesty The Queen's Golden Jubilee Light and Fireworks Extravaganza performed at Buckingham Palace in 2002. No surprise then that, in July of 201

UK - In response to rider requests, rental company SSE Audio Group has recently added a significant quantity of Audix microphones to its hire stock, which will be in use on stages across the UK throughout the summer festival season.

Distributed in the UK by SCV London, Audix microphones are rapidly gaining in popularity. SSE has purchased a number of D6s, OM7s and TM1s, which will be in constant use over the coming months.

"The D6 is becoming a very popular kick drum mic, which many of our clients have been requesting. They are turning up on almost 50% of the channel lists of bands that are appearing at the festivals we are providing equipment for this summer," says SSE assistant warehouse manager Chris Blackburn.

"They are a great alternative to the other kick drum mics that are requested and we're confident that we could use the D6 as a suitable substitute o

Belgium - An army of Clay Paky fixtures brightened up kids' faces across the Benelux region as K3, kicked off their EYO tour at the Sportpaleis in Antwerp and the Ahoy, Rotterdam.

Prolific lighting designer Luc Peumans employed more than 90 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500s and 24 Clay Paky Sharpys to create a magical and dynamic backdrop, bursting with colour, for Flemish / Dutch girl band K3 - who are currently flying high as one of Europe's biggest pop acts targeted specifically at young children.

The set backdrop was a 600sq.m LED video wall and Peumans was looking for a fixture that would compete with that as he explains: "I needed fixtures with a punchy and powerful beam. The Alpha Beam 1500 and the Sharpys were my first choice. The Alpha Beams were used for various beam looks and as backlight specials for the K3 girls and their dancers. I used the frost function to change

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