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Japan - A new purpose-built musical theatre has opened in Japan - situated between the eleventh and sixteenth floors of the new 1.27 billion dollar 34-storey Shibuya Hikarie glass tower in Tokyo.

Connected to the Shibuya Station, Tokyu Theatre Orb's first production was of West Side Story, with signal distribution via an Optocore fibre backbone provided by the German company's Japanese representatives, Acoustic Technical Laboratory Inc (ATL).

This ambitious project was floated by owners, the Tokyu Corporation back in 2008, and ATL became involved after Yamaha Sound Systems Inc (Yamaha SS), the biggest sound system construction company for theatres and auditoria in Japan, had specified an Optocore solution in their proposal.

According to Tetsushi Hirai of Yamaha SS, the

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Olympic Success - Friday night's hotly anticipated Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games was a huge success for all involved and, as well as kick-starting the Games in spectacular style, provided a worldwide platform to showcase Britain's incredible flare for putting on one hell of a show! Huge congratulations go to all involved. We hope our upcoming coverage in the combined August / September issue of LSi goes some way to documenting your incredible achievement . . .

The World Responds - The UK's TV audience for the opening ceremony peaked at 26.9m, the BBC has said. The average viewing figure for Friday's four-hour show was 22.4m, making it the UK's 13th most watched programme ever. The programme also had an 82% share - almost twice that of the previous high for an Olympic opening ceremony, in Barcelona in 1992. UK viewing figures for the opening ceremony of

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UK - France TV Sport, a division of France Television, has rented 48 ETC Source Four LED Lustr+ Zoom 25-50° luminaires from Dushow, fitting out a temporary TV studio on the north bank of the River Thames for the duration of the London Olympic Games.

Florian Allain, Dushow's technical director, explains, "We needed to use LED as we wanted to keep an eye on our power usage - we only have a limited amount available, and we wanted to get the most out of it. So with that in mind, we did a shoot out with a number of fixtures, concluding that ETC's Source Four LED, which was demonstrated to us by ETC distributor Avab Transtechnik France, was the most suitable for us.

"The presenters sit in front of a window with Tower Bridge in the background, which could have been our biggest challenge - we need enough lighting to avoid them being silhouetted, even with the bright ligh

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

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UK - Syncrolite has three major systems in action at the Olympic Games in London.

(The first system - Olympic Ceremonies - features curved lighting poles that extend over the edge of the playing field. They hold the Syncrolites, FOP lights and some smaller moving heads). Patrick Woodroffe is the LD.

Forty SXL (four each on 10 of the 14 'paddles') are flown head down to light the Opening Ceremonies stages and action doing many jobs from long-throw, cross-fading washes to our big beams, motion FX and ballyhoos. This system replacies the work of over 400 regular moving heads. "Due to the extraordinary output (350,000 lumens) of our Syncrolite SXL fixtures, the efficiency and powerful looks are unparalleled. We believe the combination of our Syncrolite and ArenaColor is the future of major stadium permanent installations," says the company.

Fifty-four ArenaColors are f

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UK - HHB Communications has supplied OB provider NEP Visions with 26 Wohler AMP1-16-M audio monitoring units (AMU) for high-profile sporting events, including the London 2012 Olympics, the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and Premier League football.

After their first deployment in flyaway systems at Wimbledon to broadcast matches for ESPN in America, the AMP1-16-MAMUs were installed into two triple expander HD OB vehicles to cover the London 2012 Olympics for US broadcaster NBC before moving on to Sky's coverage of the next season's Premier League football.

The AMP1-16-M AMUs enable NEP Visions engineers to select, monitor and meter up to 16 channels of embedded audio from either of two 3G/HD/SD-SDI streams. With a stereo analogue output on XLRs, adjustable volume and balance controls, the AMP1-16-M also features level metering and phase on two bright 2.4-inch LED backlit displ

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UK - SGM Lighting has expanded its distribution arrangements in the UK, appointing A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd (AC-ET) to work in parallel with existing distributor, LED Projects.

"We see nothing but positives in this decision," said SGM CEO Peter Johansen. "These will be the only official dealers for SGM products in the UK and Ireland, and between them they will be able to increase penetration in all SGM's core markets."

AC-ET managing director Phill Capstick and UK sales director, Jonathan Walters, were impressed when LED Projects MD Ian Kirby introduced them to SGM's new generation of LED products at this year's Frankfurt Prolight+Sound Show.

"We were very excited, particularly by the X-5 and XC-5 LED strobes, and could see enormous potential in the Six Pack [SP-6] and P5 LED Wash, which with its IP65 rating, will be well suited to the arc

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UK - London museums, event producers, and firms working in music, digital and gaming industries are today urged to play their part in building a lasting Olympic legacy, by helping transform the long-term career opportunities of young people from the capital's most deprived boroughs.

CREATE Jobs - which aims to tackle youth unemployment and provide new routes into the arts and creative industries - wants creative industry employers to provide eight-week traineeships for talented young people from the six Olympic Host Boroughs (Barking & Dagenham, Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest), where youth unemployment is at its highest.

The initiative has already won support from the Whitechapel Gallery, Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, and Shoreditch Trust, and has successfully placed 100 young people. With a booming creative economy, where 1:6 jobs in London are pr

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UK - Le Maitre has announced the addition of seven new products to their ProStage II professional range of pyrotechnics.

Falling Star is billed as "an incredibly bright star" and is available in 10 different colour versions, that falls under gravity over 30ft.

8' Ice Gerb is a dazzling spray of silver sparks with a bright white flame, projecting upwards to 8ft high.

Saxon offers a 20ft spray of projected rotating silver sparks - similar to a Catherine Wheel effect.

Gold Glitter Waterfall gives a 12 second stream of gold glittering stars falling 16ft.

13mm & 23mm Flashpots feature red, green or white -with rolling smoke, flame and a report.

SPD#1 is a 'robotics' effect - also known as an Electric Fault Simulator, producing a small flash and a spray of directional silver sparks to 10ft.

"We are really excited about the new additions to the PSII range as

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Spain - Mojo Barriers has expanded its European capabilities, providing its crowd barriers and consultation services to support touring and local promoters across Spain.

Marking its presence with a series of the region's most well known festivals Mojo is working with promoter Last Tour International, supplying Sonisphere (25 - 26 May), BBK Bilbao Live (12 - 14 July) and En Vivo (27 - 29 September) where it will be installing its Barrier Load Monitoring System (BLMS), which includes sensors to monitor crowd pressure.

Mojo Barrier's extensive product range and stock inventory has enabled them to work closely with production manager Eneko Gurrutxaga to create custom configurations for each site. For BBK Bilbao Live Mojo design and install a barrier layout for the main stage utilising 240 units of standard barriers, specials and corners incorporating two mega exits to aid the flow

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If, like the rest of the world, you were completely blown away by the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, you won't want to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to find out how the technical teams turned Danny Boyle's vision into a reality.

PLASA 2012 organisers have revealed that the first session to take place as part of The Olympics Uncovered programme at the PLASA Show, taking place at Earls Court between 9-12 September 2012, is 'Behind the scenes at the London 2012 Ceremonies', chaired by technical director, Piers Shepperd, the full team will present an overview of the mega staging, flying, audio, AV and special effects behind the London 2012 Olympic Ceremonies. The panel line-up includes:

Piers Shepperd - Technical Director

Jeremy Lloyd - Technical Manager - Technical Design and Staging

James Lee - Technical

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USA - Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures are hitting the road with the North American summer tour of iconic rock band Motley Crue, which is co-headlining tour dates across the country with Kiss. A complement of approximately 90 Sharpys have joined the Motley Crue /Kiss lighting inventory.

"I first saw Sharpys at the Ultra Music Fest almost two years ago," says lighting director Mike Cooper. "The lighting designer had a huge Clay Paky rig and a row of Sharpys on the stage, and I was blown away. I thought I had to use them."

Since then Cooper has deployed Sharpys on the Godsmack/Staind tour and Motley Crue appearances in Europe. "I love them: Their speed is awesome, and they can cut through anything," he reports. "We have a full rig of 1500-watt lights, but the Sharpys just cut through everything."

Lighting and production designer Sooner Routhier

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USA - Arguably the most recognizable landmark of the US's West coast, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge recently celebrated its 75th birthday. Thanks to wysiwyg, from CAST Software of Toronto, Canada, tens of thousands of spectators experienced the light show and pyro celebration as a complete surprise.

Event producer Don Richards of Foghorn Creative brought in San Francisco-based Lightswitch with lighting designer Norm Schwab to help organise the event, along with Prelite of San Francisco to design the lighting concept. Working with Syncrolite for lighting the bridge, Schwab and Prelite created a moving tribute with historical significance. The final effect was reminiscent of the Scintillator, a vintage lighting technique that was introduced to the city at the Pan Pacific Exposition in 1915.

The show culminated in a blaze of 75 Syncrolite light beams - the only lights used o

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USA - The PBS National Memorial Day Concert, honouring the service and sacrifice of service personnel, has become an American tradition. Co-hosts Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds) and Gary Sinise (CSI:New York) were joined this year by an all-star line-up on the West Lawn of the US Capitol, including dignitaries, celebrated actors and renowned musical artists, for a night of remembrance.

Staged by Capital Concerts, the nation's leading producer of live patriotic television shows, in order to produce these large-scale live outdoor television events its staff are joined by a dedicated crew of hundreds of professionals. On the technical side these included lighting designer Bob Barnhart, of Full Flood Inc, and lighting director, David Grill, who chose large quantities of GLP impression LED fixtures in their armoury of effects. These were all supplied by Martee Nuruddin at PRG's Orlando

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UK - At this year's T in the Park one of the hottest acts to see was Professor Green on the NME stage. Twenty LEDHead Par144Q luminaries were used as part of a matrix to provide back lighting and visual effects. The 144Q is fitted with 18x 8W quadcolour LEDs in a rugged parcan housing, available in black and chrome.

The units were supplied by SM Lighting Ltd of Glasgow. Scott Munro, MD of SM Lighting commented, "We were very happy to use the LEDhead 144Qs on the outdoor NME stage at T in the Park for the Professor Green set. The brightness is ideal for day time shows and came across well on television. They had just returned from The Proclaimers' Scottish tour, where power was an issue in some venues. Since buying them we have been very happy with the brightness and reliability and also, of course, the price."

(Jim Evans)

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USA - The evening of 28 June 2012 saw a one night art installation in the form of a 3D mapping projection. This and other events were paying tribute to and celebrating the artistic legacy of art icon Keith Haring and were sponsored by Tenga of Japan. What makes this different from other similar events in NYC is that this was a fully permitted projection and not a 'guerrilla' execution.

The building selected for this spectacular show was The Maritime Hotel in New York's Meatpacking District (South Manhattan). Pearl Media Productions, a subsidiary of Pearl Media, managed and produced the entire project from concept to completion, including media content, installation and operation. Pearl Media's real estate division negotiated with the residential landlord of / and the hotel on which the projection and control area was placed, taking great pains to ensure the integrity of the even

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UK - At PLASA2012 in London a new breed of moving head and much more will be on display at Martin Professional's Stand 1-F44. Martin invites lighting professionals to get an up close look at the new MAC Viper series of 1000 W moving heads along with a host of other innovative products like the new AirFX version in the MAC III family, an all-new VC series of creative LED video solutions, new portable lighting controllers in the M-Series, and a new compact hazer in Martin's Jem family.

MAC Viper Profile features a highly efficient optical system that outperforms market-leading profiles in the 1200-watt range. With over 26000 lumens of power from a 1000-watt HID source, it is convincingly brighter than 1200-watt fixtures and also outperforms them in terms of speed and compactness.

The MAC Viper AirFX a highly versatile beam, effects and wash luminaire in one and a whole new categ

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UK - Hammersmith Academy is a new school designed for the 21st century. Opened in September 2011 the Academy is all-ability, non-denominational, co-educational secondary school for 11-18 year olds. With specialisms in Creative-and-Digital Media and IT and an emphasis on technology, the school's mission is to develop the talents of all students to the full and to raise educational standards.

Integrator Saville Audio Visual was appointed alongside POLARaudio to provide a flexible PA system for Hammersmith Academy's multi-purpose performance space. The space is utilised as a lecture theatre, assembly hall, drama studio and general performance area.

The brief was to provide a high quality PA system that could be employed for each function of the multi-purpose auditorium. Three Bi-amp Audia Flex mainframe DSP's with Cobranet are at the heart of the system and are fed via a variety

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UK - The two companies that made event history by developing the digital artistry and technology behind the London 2012 Opening Ceremonies 'human-powered' video screen signed a global partnership agreement on Saturday 28 July. The partners are both behind the digital magic that enveloped the audience at Friday night's performance and plan to build on their joint offering to create immersive experiences for events worldwide.

Tait Technologies specialises in combining video and scenic technologies and provided the technology behind the largest ever video screen at the Opening Ceremony, which literally engulfed the audience. The screen is composed of 70,500 individual, full colour Pixel Tablets with a resolution five times that of HDTV and a height of 413ft.

Crystal is a creative agency which specialises in digital imaging and 3D animation. Crystal London created the stunning ani

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UK - Set in the courtyard of one of London's most celebrated historic buildings, Summer Series at Somerset House featured a programme of diverse music acts playing a series of special shows between 7 and 19 July.

Working with production managers Ronnie Lee for Metropolis Music and Jon Howes for Somerset House, PRG's senior account manager Loz Wilcox provided a lighting system for the temporary stage at Somerset House. Jon Howes said: "Nothing but praise for the kit supplied to Somerset House once again. PRG's service and back up was excellent."

PRG supplied house lighting designer, Petter Skramstad, with a core lighting package of Clay Paky Alpha Spot 700 HPE, i-Pix BB4 LED Battens, Martin Atomic Strobes and GLP Impression 120 Zoom LED Washlights, combining to provide a flexible house rig suitable for the broad range of performers and visiting LDs.

Petter commented

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South Africa - Fashion by the Sea was held over two evenings on the Moyo Pier at the Durban beachfront recently. The show ran off a grandMA 2 and also utilised four Avolites Cubes. The weather played along for this trendy event which could not have been hosted at a more beautiful setting.

Black Coffee supplied the full technical. The dimmers were at the beginning of the 120m ramp (pier), and there was a socopex run to each of the 24 5m long truss totems erected and reinforced along the pier. Each totem was topped with six PAR 64s. Set up was two days prior to the event.

Simon Hampton was the lighting designer and operated the grandMA2. Also part of the team was Brandon Bunyan and Llewellyn Pieters.

.(Jim Evans)

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UK - RCF will provide a platform for its new Media Series at this year's PLASA 2012, following its successful launch last year. When the Media series was announced, it plugged the last remaining gap in the Italian company's portfolio, which now enables systems engineers to treat RCF as a single source for all their loudspeaker requirements.

The Media Series features five models, from the smallest 5" to the larger 2 x 6" - all purpose designed for small to medium sized projects requiring distributed systems.

The Series is designed to offer RCF's signature sound quality, with the customary controlled bass response, incredible vocal clarity and high frequency definition.

The design and look of the Media Series is consistent with the higher power Compact and H Series models, while various installation options - from an elegant swivel bracket to easy-to-install wall mou

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