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Argentina - Roger Hodgson, one of the founding members and voice of Supertramp, recently completed the first leg of his Breakfast in America Tour 2012 in South America. A total of 16 concerts were offered across the continent, and in Rosario, Argentina, where Hodgson played to a full-house at the city's Salón Metropolitano, D.A.S. Aero Series 2 sound systems provided sound for the event.

Local company Marti Audio, with Ariel Marti at the helm, rolled out the big guns for the concert. A comprehensive D.A.S. sound system was set up, which included Aero Series 2 line arrays, specifically 12 units of the large D.A.S. Aero 50 for the PA, set up in two arrays of six units each on either side of the stage in a traditional left-right configuration.

Another 12 units of the powerf

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UK - Some of live music's leading audio professionals have been inspiring the next generation of talent at Backstage Academy, the West Yorkshire based training centre for careers in the entertainment industry.

The Prodigy's drummer Leo Crabtree, P!nk and Sade FOH Engineer Chris Madden, and audio mixing author Dave Swallow delivered a variety of masterclasses for the students on the new Foundation Degree in Live Events Production, as part of their month-long Live Sound module.

Leo Crabtree talked to the students about the importance of protecting your hearing when working at live music gigs, a topic recently brought to the spotlight by the Chris Martin and Plan B backed Loud Music charity campaign.

Veteran audio engineer Chris Madden, whose credentials include mixing audio for P!nk and Sade on their worldwide tours, spoke about his experience on tour, how he got into the indu

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PLASA 2012 is now accepting entries from all exhibiting manufacturers and their representatives for the 2012 PLASA Awards for Innovation and the PLASA Sustainability Award. Do you have a new product that you think deserves special recognition?

With a total of eight Awards for Innovation to judge, and with the option of bestowing a 'Gold' Award on one or more really outstanding entries, PLASA's panel of experts from across the industry are looking for products which "advance the industry by demonstrating a new style of thinking, improving technical practice or taking a key step forward in terms of safety." Entries will be judged on new and original thinking; novel ways of harnessing new technologies, materials or techniques; showing fresh perspectives and improvements in technical practices; original concepts that qualify for new patents or unique intellectual property or any

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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

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Israel - Spain-based live engineer Fabrizio Piazzini, a veteran of concert tours and venues throughout Europe, has recently been appointed as a live product specialist for Waves Audio, the industry-leading developer of professional audio digital signal processing technologies. Piazzini's credits include such acts as Patrick Wolf, Tindersticks, Delorentos, Kula Shaker, Amy MacDonald and many others.

In his new capacity, Piazzini will communicate with other live sound engineers across the continent, demonstrating Waves plugins and typical workflows. "They become engrossed. Once they see how they can integrate plugins in their live workflow, they are hooked. It's a simple job, really," he notes.

Piazzini is currently finishing off a stint of promotional gigs with Amy MacDonald, where he has been using a Waves MultiRack Native setup, as most of the gigs are on analogue c

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Germany - GLP German Light Products has announced a closer partnership with its German distributor and neighbour, B&K Braun, based in Karlsbad.

In addition to being the German distributor for GLP, Green Hippo and Global Truss, B&K Braun has also been manufacturing and distributing a full range of architectural and entertainment lighting fixtures for many years themselves. The new partnership will see the B&K Braun range of products being made available to all of GLP's customers with immediate effect.

GLP and B&K Braun are located next to each other in the southern German town of Karlsbad and product distribution will take place from a brand new headquarters in the town where sales administration and logistics will be located.

As with the GLP products, such as the impression range, which includes the new X4 and compact Volkslicht series, all fixtures pass through a rigorous q

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USA - PLASA Events has confirmed details of its third regional event in North America, PLASA Focus: Stamford 2012, to be held 12-13 November, 2012 at the Stamford Marriott in Stamford, CT.

Stamford will be a landmark first event for the entertainment technology communities in New York and the Tri-State area and the first show to cover pro-audio, lighting, AV and stage technologies under one roof. The show follows in the wake of the popular PLASA Focus: Austin, held February, and the highly successful PLASA Focus: Nashville, held earlier this month.

Interest in PLASA Focus: Stamford has already attracted several prominent companies to sign up for exhibition space at the show; they include: Rosco, Drape Kings, Lyntec, Navigator Systems, Production Advantage, and Robert Juliat, with many other applications currently being processed.

Alongside an exhibition of the latest innovat

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Recognition for the People Behind the Products

Named in honour of Tony Gottelier, the designer, innovator and industry commentator who died in 2006, this prestigious annual presentation aims to recognise "the product designers and developers who have made a significant and sustained contribution to the development of the equipment and tools that enable our entertainment technology practitioners to continually push the boundaries of event production, presentation and installation".

This year, a panel of 20 people, all with links to the PLASA organisation or its Media divisions, was invited to put forward their suggestions for the most deserving individuals or teams according to this criteria. From there, the final shortlist of six nominees was reached.

The nominees for the 2012 Gottelier Award are:

Nick Archdale

Nick A

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USA - Designed as a grandiose and captivating live performance, Luminosity, Powered by Pepsi lights up the massive set and stage in Celebration Plaza at Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio, the second-oldest operating amusement park in the United States.

The 35-minute interactive experience is billed as the perfect way for visitors to end a day of excitement at the park this summer. Hundreds of Chauvet fixtures are part of this show that features displays of lights, music and dance performances, special effects, fireworks, pyrotechnics and live DJ action.

Luminosity, Powered by Pepsi concentrates about 700 Chauvet lights, making it the focal point of Cedar Point come nightfall. More Chauvet fixtures light up Millennium Force and Power Tower attraction rides, and the Midway show that takes the visitor on a colourful experience from the entrance of the

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Two more sessions are now confirmed - adding to the already busy programme of seminars and debates at the Earls Court Conference Centre on Monday 10 and Tuesday 11 September.

Now firmly established as the seminal event for all rigging practitioners and professionals across the global entertainment sector, the PLASA Rigging Conference is proud to confirm the speakers for two more presentations added to the schedule.

Adding to the international profile of the Conference are Rinus Bakker and Roy Schilderman from the Association of Riggers and Grounders in Holland (ARGH). Their presentation, 'Common Practice?' complements one of the central objectives of the Conference: to develop and establish common practices across Europe. All touring personnel will be familiar with the sometimes erratic variations in terminology, safe working practices and standards as they cross borders on

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Italy - Lighting designer Aldo Visentin is using his own Jands Vista S1 lighting console running the next generation Vista v2 software, plus two Vista M1 Wings, to control lighting for tenor Andrea Bocelli.

Visentin's creative relationship with Bocelli started in 2006 and this tour's natural innovative design contains lots of subtleties, with slow colour changes and no visible movement. It is operated completely 'live' every night using the Vista's powerful visual interface and just a few pre-programmed presets. This allows Aldo the creative freedom to reflect the spirit of the evening in the lighting, and flow organically with the mood of the set.

Rather non-conventionally, a typical Bocelli tour will feature two or three shows a week over a three week period - often on different continents. Instead of touring a production lighting system, lighting equipment is normally hired

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UK - Green Hippo has appointed Suzy Casserley as a new member of the technical support and product testing team. Suzy began interning at Green Hippo as part of the technical support team when she was studying a BA Hons Degree in Lighting Programming at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance.

"Suzy finished her studies at the end of July 2012 and 'really enjoyed her time as an intern' so was excited for the opportunity to work at Green Hippo once she had finished her course. Suzy's previous experience made her ideal for the position and is already experienced within the technical support area. She enjoys rock climbing and often works as a lighting programmer for shows, therefore truly embracing the whole live entertainment industry," says the company.

Another new recruit is Ryan Bye, who joins the development team. Ryan studied at Warwick University and recen

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UK - coolux Pandoras Box 5.1 software release is now available and will be highlighted by its UK distributor TMB at the PLASA Show (9-12 September, Earls Court).

Building on the success of Pandoras Box Version 5.0 launched at PLASA last fall, over 50 distinct improvements and upgrades have been added, including Media Encryption, 3D Warping, and a new Matrix Patcher.

"The new user-friendly Version 5.1 software package makes Pandoras Box a yet more powerful creative tool, uniting state-of-the-art rendering technology with intuitive live media and show control," says the company.

Features and improvements include:

New Matrix Patcher: Relocate individual pixels for creative setups when working with conventional LED processors, e.g. Barco, Daktronics, Galaxia/Winvision etc. A time-saver for repositioning pixels, even with unconventional LED fixture shapes.

Timeline

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UK - DPA Microphones played an important part in delivering an evening of classical music to over 10,000 people who attended a summer concert organised by Heritage Events at Leeds Castle in Kent.

This beautiful Castle provided a dramatic backdrop to a spectacular concert that featured the Royal Philharmonic orchestra conducted by John Rigby, the Central Band of the Royal Air Force and the Military Wives Choir. There were also solo performances from tenor James Edwards and soprano Claire Rutter.

Sound, lighting and PA specialists SRD Group provided all of the equipment for the concert, including a large selection of DPA microphones, which it leased from sound engineer Ian Barfoot.

"DPA microphones were ideal for this project because they always deliver fantastic audio quality and are very rugged, which means you can put them through the mill without having to worry about

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Azerbaijan - German L-Acoustics certified provider and rental network agent Toneheads, Cologne provided the entire PA system for the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest produced by Brainpool TV GmbH. This year's contest took place in the newly-built Crystal Hall in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Florian Kessler, head of audio at Toneheads, Cologne, relied entirely on L-Acoustics systems, deploying a grand total of 180 Kara WST compact line source loudspeakers, 96 SB18 subs and 80 Kiva ultra-compact line source speakers with 30 Kilo low frequency extensions, powered by 30 LA RAKs and flown from the ceiling of the venue. Six arrays of Kiva line source elements driven by LA8 amplified controllers were used as nearfield monitors.

L-Acoustics' proprietary acoustic simulation software, Soundvision, was used to design the sound for the new and unfamiliar arena.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Featuring a full electric praise band regularly augmented by strings and other acoustic instruments, services at the Living Hope Church's new permanent facility in Piperton, Tennessee are extremely contemporary. When Memphis-based designer/integrator, Elite Multimedia Inc. set out to provide a highly flexible system to meet the needs of Living Hope's growing congregation, they chose Lake's LM 26 signal processor.

"There's a substantial difference in the quality of this system compared to the one they used when they operated as a portable church," explains Wade Russell, lead systems integrator at Elite. "One of the main reasons we selected the Lake LM 26 was the fact that it did 96k AES. We're running AES from a Midas PRO2C console to the LM 26 and the amps, and integrating the Midas and Lake processing was key to creating a very dynamic system that was power

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Singapore - Production company Showtec Communications has added three units ofARX MSX 48 16 channel mic / line splitter to their existing ARX inventory, bringing their total MSX 48 channel count up to 112.

Showtec's audio production manager Chandra Mohan confirmed that the first outing for Showtec's expanded MSX 48 Splitter Racks will be the feature celebrations for Singapore's 47th National Day to be held at The Float @Marina Bay, Singapore.

This year Showtec's audio system will feature 32 replay tracks from a ProTools HD system and 36 channels of Shure UHF-R radio mics mixed for FOHon an Avid Venue D-Show console feeding a d&b FOH System consisting of 64 x J-8s and 32 J-SUBs powered by D-12Amplifiers.

Monitors Mixer duties are to be provided by an Avid Venue Profile console feeding 40 Sennheiser IEMs from 12transmitters.

Mohan reports that all ProTools tracks, radio mics

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Belgium - Crestron International has continued to grow its global presence with the expansion of its Belgium office. The new building next to the Crestron offices in Rijmenam, will allow Crestron to provide a better service for customers, including extra space for training and technical support. The expansion comes as a result of Crestron's considerable success in growing business with key integrators in the region.

"Our customers in Belgium are recognising the great value that working with Crestron can bring to their businesses", says Frank van Meeuwen, CEO Crestron International. "Our technical support departments needed to grow to support this success so we have added 11,000sq.ft of extra floor space to the department. We are really excited to be opening the new office, as it represents the fruits of the hard work and dedication of our staff in growing our busi

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Lebanon - Lebanon has a growing economy and the pro audio industry is benefitting from this trend. FBT has been present in this market in the past, and the Italian manufacturer has now secured a fresh distribution partnership.

Following a meeting at NAMM and another at the Frankfurt Prolight & Sound 2012, FBT and Boujikian Bros. Co. Ltd. have recently agreed a new distribution agreement for Lebanon. Boujikian Bros. Will handle the professional audio and installed sound lines of the Italian company.

"We were very pleased to meet with Mr. Gary Boujikian during his recent visit to our factory in Recanati where he received information about our work processes and our products, as well as a complete demonstration of our different product families," says FBT's export manager Roberto Mataloni. "Of course, this interaction has been also important for us to understand be

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UK - Right Structures has launched across the UK and Europe offering bespoke staging and structures to the event market.

The event service's modular system, Geo Structure, consists of identical, reconfigurable steel components which provide structural integrity and creative flexibility far beyond other scaffolding-based systems currently on the market, claims the company.

The result of 20 years of research, it has been developed by a team of event specialists and engineers. Rebranded after a major external investment, it has launched a new website (www.rightstructures.com) and expanded its stock inventory, product range and capabilities to work across Europe.

Ruben Caruana, Right Structures' business development director, said, "We offer a design-led alternative for events looking for structures, complete with full structural calculations and engineered to the highest E

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UAE - The demand for professional audio training in the Middle East is constantly on the rise. The most recent event, a three-day training on the theory and use of EASE acoustic simulation and measurement software took place from 15-17 July in Dubai.

It was organized by the regional office of Bosch Communications Systems in conjunction with Ahnert Feistel Media Group (AFMG).

Attended by 13 participants ranging from Egypt over Lebanon to Oman, the training was the first of its kind in the region for Electro-Voice and Dynacord partners. The three-day courses, hosted by AFMG's trainer Paul Malpas, took place at the Robert Bosch Middle East's training facilities in Dubai. The detailed workshops covered EASE, the worldwide standard for acoustic simulation both inside rooms and in open areas.

"The demand for training in the Middle East is generally very high", says Tony

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UK - On 19 July the Olympic torch arrived at Leeds Castle, ready to start the next morning in Maidstone. A concert and film show was staged in Mote Park, Maidstone, attended by thousands of local people who were eager to take part in the celebrations.

SRD Group of Tonbridge, Kent used six of MilTec's LEDHead 324W moving head washes for main stage. Stuart Roberts, MD of SRD Group commented, "We chose the MTM-324W to replace our ageing discharge lamp moving head wash lights and are delighted with the purchase. They are lighter and probably brighter than the units they are replacing, and yet consume a fraction of the electricity, which saves on cabling as well. The built in programs work well and are useful when time is short to get a good looking show up and running.

"We used them for the first time on our 12m trailer stage at the Maidstone Torch Relay celebrations in

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