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USA - Sinsinawa is a Native American term for 'rattlesnake' or 'home of the young eagle'. But Sinsinawa Mound, Wisconsin is better known as the home of the Congregation of Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters. Since 1847, more than 3,200 women have ascended the Hill of Grace to take their vows as Sinsinawa Dominicans. Today the village is still home to their worldwide headquarters, including more than 600 current and retired sisters of the Order.

In 1964 the campus, with its 1850s-vintage fort, was expanded with the construction of an 800-seat crown chapel, replete with massive 45-foot dome and transept wings. The building's marble and plaster interior creates an acoustical environment that works magnificently to enhance the Order's celebrated pipe organ. But as their needs have changed ov

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UK - XL Video, commissioned by Limited Edition Events, recently supplied 300 tiles of their bright and vibrant Pixled F-12 LED for the Royal Premiere of the new James Bond film, Skyfall.

The star-studded red carpet event, held at London's Royal Albert Hall, was attended by HRH Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall and the stars of the film along with a host of other celebrity guests.

After attendees arrived on the red carpet and ascended the stairs towards the Royal Albert Hall they were met with the sight of the classic Aston Martin DB5 with a backdrop of 75 tiles of Pixled F-12.

This stage was used for interviews with the stars of the film hosted by David Walliams and Natasha Kaplinski.

To the right and left of the stage two additional tall LED displays, each with 141 tiles of Pixled F-12 displayed pre-programmed content including movie logo animations, and phot

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UK - Live music events at Epsom Downs, Kempton Park and Sandown Park Racecourses over the summer of 2012 drew collective crowds of over 73,000 people, according to figures released by the three London venues.

All 15 racecourses in the Jockey Club Venues portfolio hosted live music nights between July and October 2012; the format offered entertainment for avid race-goers and keen music fans, with live horse racing preceding music performances.

Over the three-month period, stars including Olly Murs, Will Young and Alfie Boe were the highlight of the racecourses' live music season, with Sir Tom Jones and Jessie J (who both performed at Sandown Park Racecourse) proving to be the most effectual for pulling in the crowds. Total attendance for the Tom Jones Music Night on 18 July 2012 stands at 11,933 fans, while Jessie J drew crowds of 16,057.

Simon Kershaw, commercial director at

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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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UK - Ice Age Live, a new stage adaptation based on the characters of the four hugely successful Ice Age animated movies, features Robe's powerful Robin LEDWash 1200 moving lights which were specified by lighting designer Luc Peumans.

Peumans' creative lighting and visual design practice Painting With Light is based in Genk, Belgium. The show has just premiered in London and embarks on a five year international tour, produced by Netherlands based Stage Entertainment Touring Productions.

Peumans was commissioned to create the lighting design having worked on previous Stage Entertainment projects including Holiday on Ice. He worked closely with others on the visual team including set designer David Shields and video and motion graphics creator, Jean Luc Gason.

Last year, during a lighting upgrade for Holiday on Ice's 'Speed' show, he specified Robe's LEDWash 600s for the

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UK - Key members of the Swedish House Mafia (SHM) crew are moving with the groove and becoming Movember Mo Bros, sprouting creative, wacky and wild selections of facial hair in the process of cultivating of eclectic array of moustaches to raise money for the Movember men's health awareness initiative.

The point of Movember is to have fun, raise money and get people talking about the often overlooked issue of men's health, specifically in relation to prostrate and testicular cancer.

The eight-strong SHM Movember team were energised by tour manager Michael 'Curly' Jobson, whose attention was drawn to the issues when his father in law was diagnosed with prostate cancer - the most common cancer in men in the UK.

Joining Curly as Mo Bros are lighting designer Ian Tomlinson, FOH engineer Wayne 'Rabbit' Sargent, monitor engineer Carlos Herreros, production manager Mark Reuben, adva

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UK - Green Hippo 3.2 recognises a year of hard work from the whole team at Green Hippo, says the company.Expanding in staff and office space as well as reshuffling roles, 3.2 is the fruit of this work. It's the biggest release in terms of features and fixes since V3 first became available, showing that the award winning software just keeps getting bigger and better.

New features include RegionMapper, X-Fade on Layer, Muti-Select, Mackie, Presets2, MaNet, Time Code On-A-Layer and Watch Folders along with a host of smaller features and Bug Fixes.

Hippotizer product manager Lee House says, "3.2 is the result of a new way that Green Hippo are bringing software to the users. We have invested in new processes and team members to make sure that we have taken all the requests from our users and created something special for them. As innovators in the market, again we have pushed

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Sweden - Covering 1080 acres across four adjacent skiing areas, Sweden's Åre ski resort is not just one of the largest in Scandinavia, but in 2009 was judged the best in the world by Conde Nast Traveller magazine. A recently completed major upgrade of the resort included the installation of some 240 luminaires on a 3.5km ski run, enabling longer opening hours in the depths of winter and so boosting revenue.

The lighting is designed to attract more visitors, creating an experience unlike any other ski run and appealing to skiers of all ages and abilities. Controlled via DMX by a network of six Pharos LPC1s and a Touch Panel Controller, the light intensities and colours of the IP-66 rated Lumenbeam family luminaires can be modified along the route of the ski slope. Both the luminaires and the control system had to be rugged enough to withstand the tough weather conditions and fre

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Kuwait - Optocore network units played a key role in Kuwait's 50th Constitution Day celebration which took place recently along nearly 5km of beach in the heart of Kuwait City. The final act of the show lasted almost an hour, with a total of 77,282 fireworks, which broke the Guinness World Record for the largest fireworks display ever.

French-based rental company, Gilles Bouvard Events and Entertainment (GB4D) was contracted by the Kuwaiti government to deliver the audio and lighting system as well as video transport for one of the largest shows ever staged in the Middle East. The biggest challenge facing GB4D was the coverage distance along the beach and the associated problems posed by a sand and water environment.

Since production had stipulated that sound and light needed to be delivered to any point along the beach, the obvious solution was to use an Optocore redundant fi

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Czech Republic - As plans advance for Showlight 2013, more top line companies are signing up as exhibitors and sponsors at Showlight 2013.

With just six months to go before this quadrennial event opens in Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic, manufacturers and distributors alike are looking to take advantage of three days during which they will meet and socialise with many of the world's leading lighting designers.

Showlight is unique in that speakers, delegates and exhibitors mingle throughout the three days of the event - during the paper presentations, at tea and coffee breaks, over meals and during the visits programme - allowing plenty of time for discussion and exchange of ideas.

Durham Marenghi, who is presenting a paper on this year's Diamond Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace, says, "No matter how much you think you know, there's always something to be learned

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UK - Those walking down Store Street in the forthcoming weeks are in for a visual treat. Every year, Imagination demonstrates the agency's creativity and flare by transforming the building's imposing edifice into a tribute to the festive season.

This year, the lighting team looked to the past for inspiration, choosing to create a giant wreath complete with blue ribbon. The classic design is made from a large circular truss packed with real trees adorned with more than 3000 tungsten lights. Behind the design, the red brick Imagination building is lit a deep magenta colour, proving a warm background glow which complements the elegant motif.

Unlike many of the lighting displays that appear at this time of year, Imagination's efforts are always privately funded and created using lights already existing in Imagination's stores. This allows Imagination's lights to be a true manifest

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Rolling On - The Rolling Stones returned to the London stage on Sunday night in the first of five concerts to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Sir Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood were joined by their original bass player Bill Wyman at the 02 Arena. Music critics hailed the rockers' return a success. Reviews of the gig described the band as "still leading the pack" and "at the cutting edge of pop".

"They have a combined age of 273, but the four Stones remain an extraordinary live proposition," John Aizlewood wrote in the Evening Standard.

"Jagger, camp and louche, was a preening but energetic peacock; Richards was as cool as a man sporting a red hairband and turquoise jacket could possibly be; Ronnie Wood was a chirpy mascot and that ocean of serenity Charlie Watts showed the tiniest of drumkits can make the

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Australia - Over 200 Robe moving lights were used on the 2012 Australian International Motor Show (AIMS) staged at the Sydney Exhibition centre in Darling Harbour.

Lighting equipment for 10 of the highest profile stands - including Ford, Holden, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Lexus, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes and Toyota - was supplied by Clifton Productions.

Lighting was designed by Ziggy Ziegler for the Toyota booth and by Mark Hammer for Ford, and for the rest of the stands by the Clifton Productions lighting team.

Robe fixtures were specified by both the LDs and by Cliftons - which has the largest Robe rental stock in Australia - as the best option creatively and because they are robust and reliable.

A wide variety of Robe products were utilised overall - including the Robin LEDWash 600 which was used extensively as it is ideal for automotive applications. The Hyundai stand

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USA - James River Assembly, Ozark, recently upgraded its aging sound system with Outline's GTO line array loudspeaker cabinets as the sonic centrepiece. The new system, designed and installed by Special Event Services (SES), literally blew away the competition by providing the clarity and punch necessary for sermons, a contemporary house band and concerts. The church seats approximately 3,400 congregants and everyone from the pastor to those sitting in the back row can feel the power of the word through the GTO cabinets.

"We needed to put in a system that conveyed the spoken word throughout the auditorium, as well as have enough horsepower to present the music in an effective way," says Jason Farah, vice president of SES. "The church members charged with the upgrade were very diligent about listening to various top-shelf systems to evaluate the sound characteristi

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UK - Stage Electrics have appointed Jon Smith as the company's new service manager. Jon is taking over from Steve Chappell who was the service manager for over 10 years. Chappell is moving into the newly created role of a full time commissioning and design engineer, responsible for lighting control system design and programming. This new challenge is a reflection of the company's busy order book requiring a dedicated full time position.

Jon Smith takes responsibility for the company's field service engineers and maintenance workshop, planning and directing the activities of all service engineers. Smith is a highly experienced engineer; with over 30 years' experience managing multidiscipline teams in specialist engineering environments for the Royal Air Force.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Christian rock band Kutless is playing a variety of venues on its latest tour, from churches and civic auditoriums to an outdoor field and even a Minnesota casino. Regardless of the venue type or size, the band relies on a Meyer Sound MINA line array loudspeaker system supplied by Blackhawk Audio to deliver a consistent-sounding show.

"We pretty much cover the gamut on this tour, which is why I wanted to take the MINA system," says Tim O'Neill, production manager and FOH engineer for Kutless. "It is incredibly versatile."

Room layouts and acoustics vary drastically, though most venues are in the 1,500- to 2,000-seat range. For a typical configuration, main front arrays are 12- or 14-each MINA a side flown from the twin Applied Electronics mini line array towers carried on the tour. The remaining MINA loudspeakers are used for front-fill or out-fill, w

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France - The French distribution company Dimatec has made a substantial investment in a range of Philips Selecon LED luminaires.

Dimatec, which distributes and imports the world's leading lighting equipment brands to service film, television, events and architectural applications, has purchased a considerable palette of luminaires from the Philips Selecon PL range and Studio Panel LED luminaires.

Olivier Bordini of Dimatec says the company made the investment in order to "stay ahead of the game as LED lighting technology progresses."

Bordini praised the Philips Entertainment Group for developing the Philips Selecon brand over the last decade into a renowned specialist for live performance lighting technology, and says that he is particularly impressed that Selecon can build 100% of its products in-house.

The Philips Selecon models currently in stock at Dimatec in

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France - An array of Clay Paky Sharpys helped global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi launch the New Directors' Showcase at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

The Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase is one of the Cannes Lions Festival's most popular events and premieres films by some of the world's best new talent. The event is renowned globally for the ambitious, sometimes outrageous theatrics of its opening events. And this year was no exception.

Sixteen free flying Quadrotor Robots, designed and built by Kmel Robotics, featuring mirrors on their undersides, worked in synchronicity with Clay Paky Sharpy luminaires to perform a surreal ballet of light and reflection. Razor sharp beams of pure white light danced in millisecond sharp time to a chilling electro soundtrack called 'Meet Your Creator'. The swarm of tiny flying machines look

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Europe - A Midas PRO1 proved to be the ideal compact console for Afro beat and Blufunk star Keziah Jones's central European tour.

Monitor sound engineer Mark Portlock says he specified the PRO1 for the tour - visiting Brussels, Geneva and Basel - because, "This is a very short run of dates in small 700-1000 capacity clubs and theatres. We needed a console that was compact enough to go in the bus bay but that would give us the same high sound quality sound as the larger Midas consoles. We recently completed a run of European festivals with a Heritage 2000 on stage and out front and we will be back on a worldwide full production tour schedule with a PRO6 FOH and PRO2 on monitors in the spring."

Portlock is a seasoned freelance engineer who has worked with many well-known and respected artists. He is also a regular feature FOH at Shepherd's Bush Empire, London.

"

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UK - Sandbach School in Cheshire have found that the Roland VR-5 'all in one' AV mixer provides the solution for their streaming and recording requirements in different areas of the school. Supported in their initial training by UCan Play, who supplied the VR-5, the staff have been able to produce, stream and record several recent live events from the school via USTREAM.

UCan Play is part of UCan.tv, a not-for-profit educational consultancy company that works closely with Roland UK and the Roland Systems Group managing the Roland Champion Schools initiative on behalf of Roland UK.

The VR-5's 'all-in-one' solution greatly simplifies production, recording and streaming of any live event as the design incorporates a video switcher, audio mixer, video playback, recorder, RGB input from PC or Mac, preview monitors and output for web streaming all in a single unit. The reduction in

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UK - Lowestoft's Marina Theatre, now a newly formed Charitable Trust, has refurbished its 800 seater Edwardian auditorium, choosing HK Audio's revolutionary Elements install system to provide crystal clear sound throughout the venue.

Marina Theatre technical manager Karl Dunnett said, "As part of the refurbishment process we wanted to replace our 20-year-old, wheelie bin-sized speaker cabinets. We wanted a system that not only sounded great but was small and compact enough that it would go almost unnoticed to the eye so as not to detract from the Edwardian features."

The budget for the system was very tight, amounting to less than £20,000 for a system that would cover both tiers of the auditorium, plus front-fills and delays for the back of the Circle.

The HK Audio Elements install system specified by Jeremy Munns and advised and supplied by Chameleon Pro Aud

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China - TC Group International has appointed Timothy Chan to the team as sales & marketing supervisor in Hong Kong & Macau. He will be working closely with TC in China and will be chiefly responsible for overseeing TC's MI/Audio presence in Hong Kong and Macau.

Chan will act as first point of contact for Tom Lee Music Co., one of TC's newest and largest dealers in Hong Kong. Here he will overlook promotion and marketing activities, in addition to offering technical support. Chan has considerable experience in this field having worked with another Hong Kong TC dealer, Uni•Sound, since 2007.

"We are very happy to be working with Timothy in this new role and extend our warmest welcome to him" says Robin Hu, chief representative of TC China.

(Jim Evans)

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