Singapore - Singapore's mythical mascot the 'Merlion' just celebrated its 40th anniversary. For this reason the show Merlion & I: An Inspiring Journeywas designed to trace how the Merlion has evolved into a well-loved Singaporean icon over the past four decades. The Merlion is a mythical creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish.

Lighting designer Andrew Gardner and programmer Fares Aljunied chose a grandMA2 light to control the lighting equipment that was supplied by Showtec Singapore.

Aljunied explained,"The grandMA2 is my console of choice - especially in projects like this, were the range of fixtures could only be made available last minute. So with the preset flexibility of the grandMA2, very fast programming was possible. Also key was that the gra

UK - Orbital Sound has opened a new programming suite, providing sound designers, producers and engineers with a relaxed programming environment. The new room is part of Orbital's expanding studio complex, located at the company's extensive London headquarters.

Investing in new facilities is central to Orbital's philosophy, as MD Chris Headlam explains, "We originally created our studio complex with the aim of providing a fully equipped working environment for creating sound effects, click track and voiceovers, and it has been hugely popular since it opened. The new programming suite is a natural extension of this, designed as a welcoming and comfortable space, with the added bonus that it is furnished with some of our latest mixing consoles to give users a chance to try them out at their leisure. It's all about providing an enhanced service that supports the creative proce

Kenya - Land Mawe Limited in Nairobi, Kenya, is a transport and logistics company specialising in transforming trucks into musical road show vehicles for brands such as Coca Cola and Vodafone. Each vehicle is installed with high quality stage, screen and sound system equipment, including an Allen & Heath ZED-10FX multi-purpose mixer.

The ZED mixers are supplied by Sound Creations, the Paxt Ltd appointed distributor for Allen & Heath in Kenya.

Amit Poonj Sharma, managing director of Land Mawe Ltd said, "The ZED-10FX mixers have stood up to the rigours of the tough roads and sometimes heavy-handed DJs and have consistently delivered, without a single repair to date. Many of our clients are blue chip corporations so it is imperative to supply equipment that matches expectations and the ZEDs look and perform professionally."

(Jim Evans)

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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

France - Adamson Europe GmbH and DV2, Adamson's exclusive distribution for France, joined forces to host a two-day Energia seminar for the French market. Additional guests travelled from the UK and technical presentations were provided by Guy Vignet, MD at DV2, Didier Dal Fitto, chief engineer at DV2, Jochen Sommer, MD of Adamson Europe GmbH and Jesse Adamson, director of marketing and sales at Adamson headquarters.

Guy Vignet, comments, "The Yaxis series was very successful in France and our network of users is strong. This seminar was designed to show existing and new clients that Energia and the E15 are not just a repackaged system of the past. Our team is looking to the future in every way. And the E15 is winning over engineers at a very fast pace."

The event was split into two separate days with the first day focused on touring FOH and Systems engineers and the

Switzerland - Vegas Dance Club is the newest destination for clubbers in Lucerne Switzerland, featuring a regular line up of hot international DJs, a capacity of 1000 and a Robe moving light rig as specified by lighting designer Frank Alofs from Audiotech KST AG.

Alofs was asked by the venue's owners to come up with an exciting lighting scheme to match the vibes and exclusive feel of the venue.

His winning concept was based on LED moving lights as both he and the client wanted a rig that - in addition to looking amazing - was as sustainable as possible and offered excellent value for money and low on-going running costs.

A keen user and specifier of Robe products for the last two years, Alofs made the decision to use 12 Robin LEDBeam 100s, eight DLX Spots and four LEDWash 300s at the centre of the lighting rig.

These are rigged on circular trussing in the roof and around t

Sweden - Lady Gaga is taking the globe by storm in her current world tour, Born This Way Ball. The show clocks in at two and a half hours with 23 songs split into five acts. The stage is modelled on a medieval Gothic castle featuring viewing towers, intricate carvings and a large catwalk allowing audience interaction.

When the tour arrived in Stockholm, Sweden at the Ericsson Globe Arena, Wireless Solution was asked for equipment immediately for the show. Within hours, W-DMX BlackBox MK2 equipment was sent from Uddevalla in a special urgent delivery with directional antennas directly to the Globe in time for Lady Gaga's performance. The equipment has continued on the rest of the world tour under the supervision of promoter Live Nation.

The lighting design is by Patrick Woodroffe with Mac Mosier as lighting director. The rig is a self-contained Upstaging production that

Germany - At this year's InnoTrans exhibition in Berlin, transportation company Bombardier integrated Martin Professional's new VC-Dot 1 LED strings into an aluminium art structure used to simulate train traffic across the globe. The globe structure incorporated some 2000 of the individually controllable pixel dots and had the undeniable effect of attracting visitors to their booth throughout the course of the show.

"We asked visitors why they had stopped at our booth and most of them mentioned the globe installation," stated Daniela Schäfer of Bombardier's exhibition staff. "Within the first few hours of the exhibition, it was a great success story."

VC-Dots are lightweight strings of individually controllable LEDs available with one, four or nine LEDs per pixel. They come in an RGB colour mixing version or cool, medium, or warm white single-color version

Spain - This month, Duran Audio is holding two training events designed specifically for consultants, installers, integrators and AXYS business partners.

They will offer a thorough grounding not only on the AXYS products but also system design within difficult acoustic environments. This is your opportunity to learn more about the principals and techniques of probably the most profound audio technology of the 21st Century. It's also an opportunity to meet with and discuss issues arising from projects you are currently working on with the Duran Audio team.

Day one will start with a product overview and the focus will then move onto our highly successful AXYS Intellivox range. The Intellivox range, first introduced in 1996, was the pioneer of beam steering. AXYS Intellivox units have since been installed in Airports, Atriums, Railway Stations, Shopping Malls, Theatres, Concert H

Denmark - As specialists in providing optimised conference room displays, dnp denmark have published a new 13-page step-by-step guide on their website, in the form of a sub-page in its Conference Room section.

The Guide answers the questions that any meeting convener, onsite AV/IT manager, systems integrator and supplier should be asking in order to get the maximum impact from each and every AV presentation. This includes type of screen, size and format (whether plain white or optical), the required projector brightness and lens - and image sources/presentation software.

The brochure takes as its premise the belief that most presenters today prefer a well-lit meeting room, where they can see their audience and read facial expressions and body language. However, this requires ambient room lighting, and thus a badly advised projector/screen combination can wash out even the best

Germany - Fibre network specialists Optocore GmbH, have provided shirt sponsorship for a local Munich youth team.

The new kit will be worn by SV Waldeck's Under 13's, coached by Bernd Hochrein. The team, who play in Division 3 of the local youth league, have made a sensational start to the season, and presently sit in top position.

This is much to the delight of Optocore directors, Marc Brunke and Tine Helmle, whose son, Yorick Brunke, has played for the club for the past six years.

By way of thanks, club executive Herbert Bueser, presented Tine Helmle, with a jersey in the same new design - but with the addition of No.9 (the traditional striker's number) and her name on the back.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Philadelphia's former Egypt Nightclub has been reincarnated as SoundGarden Hall, the newest addition to the city's concert and live music scene, with help from Ian Hoffer using an MA onPC command wing. SoundGarden opened this fall and will host electronic dance, alternative, rock, pop and R&B artists for an all-ages live music experience.

Hoffer, SoundGarden's technical designer and contractor, is a long-time fan of grandMA consoles and specs them exclusively for his projects. "The MA onPC command wing provided the perfect solution for this venue," he says. "Everything is controlled by it," including over 100 lighting fixtures, and all three onboard universes are fully utilised.

MA onPC command wing is designed to be deployed wherever it is physically difficult to use a grandMA2 console. Used in conjunction with free of charge grandMA2 onPC software,

USA - Less than an hour south of downtown Phoenix lies the Casa Grande Ruins, one of America's oldest prehistoric and cultural preserves. Built by the native peoples who farmed the Gila Valley in the early 13th century, the ruins include the remains of several ancient Hohokam structures, as well as elaborate irrigation systems. The largest of these structures is a massive four-story edifice whose adobe walls have withstood the harsh desert climate for more than 700 years.

Designated a national monument in 1918, the grounds are protected and preserved by the National Parks Service. In the late 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corps built a handful of administrative buildings adjacent to the ruins, using local soils for adobe block construction.

Little has changed since 1940, until now. Designed and built by Phoenix firm Nagaki Design Build Associates, the newly expanded Visitors

USA - Lee Rose, of Design Partners, Burbank, California, has specified Source Four LEDs for a popular American cable TV chat show's move to Universal Studios in Hollywood. As the lighting designer, he was charged with updating the lighting for the show to include green technology. After a long process of testing on various fixtures, Rose's design for the new studio includes more than 80 ETC Source Four LED Tungsten fixtures and two dozen Source Four LED Lustr+ fixtures.

"The show is a mix of hard and soft lighting," says Rose, "and I knew from experience with the original Source Four products that I would get the look that I needed from the Source Four optics. The various lens options have always made them a flexible product to fill various needs. Testing proved that I could get the best combination of intensity and colour temperature from the Source Four LED Tung

France - France's natural history museum has renovated its lighting system to include SeaChanger's Light Emitting Plasma (LEP) Colour Engines, citing the product's incredible colour palette and high-energy efficiency.

The Grande Galerie de l'Evolution of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris has origins dating back more than 375 years. Its previous lighting system had extremely high maintenance and daily use costs, said Pierre de Cazenove, the museum's head of operations and planning for exhibits. The move to SeaChanger LEP is part of the museum's effort to conserve energy and use long-lasting light sources that won't harm delicate museum pieces.

SeaChanger's colour engine, designed to be utilised with ETC Source Four optical components, provides professional lighting for theatres, museums and architectural installations around the world. The LEP can crisply

Serbia - The success of Yamaha's CL series digital mixing consoles has seen the company invited to provide a series of interactive training seminars in many European countries. The latest was at Belgrade-based Light and Sound Design (LSD).

Run by Andy Cooper, manager at Yamaha Commercial Audio's European Support Centre, the seminars took place at the city's Dom Sindikata venue on the 10-11 October and proved extremely popular. A wide range of audio engineers attended, including studio, theatre and television technicians, front of house and monitor engineers who work with Serbia's highest profile performers.

Sessions included a comprehensive overview of the CL series facilities, the flexibility of the system's Dante networking and the many advantages provided by features like Auto Gain Compensation, Premium Rack effects and seamless integration with the Nuendo Live DAW. Partici

UK - The build-up to PLASA Focus: Leeds 2013 launches today with free registration and a brand new website. The only event for entertainment technology in the north of England, PLASA Focus takes place on Tuesday 30 April and Wednesday 1 May 2013 at the Royal Armouries at Clarence Dock, only a short distance from the centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire.

The fifth annual event looks set to continue its success story with over 91% of exhibition space already taken and only 15 stands available to book between now and December. PLASA members and previous exhibitors receive discounts on stand space, but exhibitors are advised to move quickly to secure a spot.

Long-standing exhibitors who will be returning to the show include Shure Distribution, Elation, AC Entertainment Technologies, Adam Hall, Hall Stage, Electro-Voice, Sound Technology, Batmink, Chauvet, J&C Joel, Polar Audio, Avolite

Record Royalties - Big hits from the likes of Adele and Calvin Harris helped British artists earn £188m in overseas royalties last year, according to PRS for Music. The organisation collects royalties from 150 countries on behalf of 90,000 UK songwriters, composers and music publishers.

During a "particularly strong" 2011, UK songwriters and composers earned £187.7m globally - up 10% on 2010. Income earned abroad has doubled in the last decade, the PRS added. Royalties are generated any time a song is played - whether it is on TV, radio, online or at a live event - and distributed between composers and performers.

PRS said that revenues had jumped from £88m in 2002 for two reasons: The popularity of British music abroad and "improved licensing". Live music incomes saw substantial growth from £2.2m to £21m since 2002, due to sel

UK - Essex-based event production company Event Sound and Light is renowned for the variety of shows, concerts, parties, conventions, conferences and product launches it services. Very careful consideration has to be given to the quality, usability and reliability of all equipment the company invests in, which is why its recent purchase of an Apex Intelli-X2 processor has been an unqualified success.

Event Sound and Light has been successfully using one of Apex's original Intelli-X processors for a number of years, so when director Paul Galley was looking for a similar unit for a new audio system, he naturally decided to look at Apex processors again.

"We purchased the Apex Intelli-X after doing a shoot out with a different manufacturer's unit of a similar specification," says Galley. "The Apex unit not only made the other one sound dull, but it was a lot simple

South Africa - Fan Base is a hi-energy new TV game show series being recorded in South Africa for SABC 1, where the public get to compete with a variety of celebrities by engaging in assorted games.

The show is being recorded in Q-Studios, Kew, Johannesburg and lighting includes a number of Robe moving lights which have been supplied by Centurion-based Blond Productions - one of SA's leading rental companies.

Blond's key lighting designer Peter Reick and director Christiaan Ballot created the show's production lighting design, which is operated and directed on site by Hein Stroh.

Fan Base replaces the very well established Jam Alley show, which ran for 18 years, so the pressure was on to create something equally as unique and special with a big emphasis on having the right production values on-board.

The look is based around a colourful set designed by Wayne Sproule from P

South Africa - A dynamic duo of networked digital Midas PRO2 and PRO9 live audio consoles, supplied by Johannesburg based Prosound, has handled both monitor and and FOH for the debut of Johannesburg's freshest new concert, 'In The City'.

More than 10,000 fans gathered in the city's beautiful and historic Mary Fitzgerald Square to hear headliners, British Indie rock band BLOC Party, supported by top South African acts - Die Antwoord, Tumi featuring Yesterday's Pupil, and Shadowclub.

BLOC Party captivated fans with an 80-minute set that included plenty of old favourites and some new songs. "I've got to say the PRO9 console blew me away," comments BLOC Party's FOH engineer Dan Macbean. "We didn't have long to set up so it was kind of a chuck up mix and I can safely say that the desk saved the show for me! Everything had that lovely Midas analogue sound straight awa

Germany - Following the growing demands and success in the according markets, Riedel Communications has announced that Rik Hoerée has joined the Riedel team as key account manager cruise ship engineering.

Rik Hoerée joins Riedel Communications GmbH & Co. KG. to spearhead the sales efforts in the cruise ship market for the entire Riedel range including intercom, fibre and audio solutions.

"I'm looking forward to developing new business opportunities for Riedel here in this market. From my past experience with Apex in Belgium and France, I'm already familiar with the Riedel product portfolio for a long time. Riedel is one of the most forward thinking manufacturers in this industry. I'm excited to be on-board", says Hoerée.

Hoerée has 19 years sales experience in the pro audio and broadcast industry. He has spent the last 14 years as sales

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