Details
A Man from the Future - The Pet Shop Boys unveiled their latest work, a tribute to wartime codebreaker Alan Turing, at the first of this year's Late Night Proms. The 50-minute 'musical biography' featured an excerpt from Gordon Brown's public 2009 apology for Turing's 1952 conviction for homosexual activity. Narrated by Juliet Stevenson, A Man from the Future received a standing ovation at London's Royal Albert Hall. Chrissie Hynde also performed alongside Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe themselves.

Back to the Future - Further shows of Secret Cinema's Back to the Future extravaganza in London were cancelled at the weekend. The organisation stated, Secret Cinema Presents Back to the Future, is our most ambitious production to date out of the 45 large scale

Details
Germany - The newest member in the SPL Phonitor family, the Phonitor mini, is now available in stores. The Phonitor mini features at its core the exact same 120-volt technology as the Phonitor2, the brand's flagship headphones amplifier, which provides for superior technical specifications and a premium-quality sound. At the same time, the unique Phonitor Matrix enables an authentic music reproduction with headphones.

According to SPL, the Phonitor mini can be used in any situation and environment where there is a need for professional sound quality, from home and project studios to big orchestra recordings and live applications, besides being ideally suited for hi-fi and audio enthusiasts.

(Jim Evans)

Details
Germany - An impressive array of Clay Paky fixtures recently took centre stage, or rather nine stages, on the new interactive talent show, Keep Your Light Shining, which claims, "You should never hide your talent in the dark". The show debuted on German Pro7 television with lighting designer Jerry Appelt using lighting as one of the main components of this clever show.

The programme showcases talented young contestants who take turns singing a song in brief intervals. It uses dramatic lighting to emphasize the importance of each singer's brief chance to impress the viewing audience. With only 15-20 seconds to sing in the spotlight, they have to do their best to have an impact before the light moves onto the next performer. At the end of the song, the audience votes to eliminate one contestant. The rounds continue until the last two face-off in a duet and a winne

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

Details
Brazil - If one country has been defined by the celebration of 2014 then it has been Brazil. Already famous for its carnivals this summer it exploded into life by hosting the FIFA World Cup.

With the potential requirement for sophisticated point-to-point communication systems, broadcast service companies like Tele-Ponto started casting the net for solutions, and it was not long before Optocore came under their radar.

"Tele-Ponto had been looking for a solution to integrate with our RTS intercom systems and [RTS senior support engineer] Chuck Roberts suggested Optocore," stated Milena Ranalle, from the company's Import department. "In Brazil some companies are already using fibre with audio, video and data, so that's the reason we were searching for a complementary system."

Based in Santo André City at São Paulo, it did not take the company long to

Details
Denmark - NorthSide Festival held its fifth consecutive summer event in Aarhus, maintaining its successful growth with a record music budget, more square feet than ever before and new activities for the 35,000 visitors.

Another newcomer to NorthSide this year was SGM's G-Spot moving head, proudly striking its beams high, and painting the city sky. Four of these new moving heads were placed as centrepieces on top of the highest containers in the area to draw the attention. This particular area is the festival's recreational site, situated between Blue Stage and Green Stage with 6m-high containers placed in the shape of a horseshoe, which enclose food shops and relaxation facilities with a view of the entire site.

The purpose for the G-Spot was to create soft moving light for this recreational area and sporadically illuminate the shops, but the fixtures also provided additional

Details
South Africa - With a start in November 2013 in Amsterdam, Armin Only Intense will continue its journey to over 20 destinations to all corners of the world, from America to Australia to Africa and to Moscow.

The concept and vision of this world tour is inspired by Armin's latest album, Intense. Armin Only is a concept that started in the early days of Armin's career. Since the first editions in the early millennium years, the show has grown and come to life. Armin explains, "Unlike today, now that it's all based on short sets and quick highlights, it used to be all about the long sets, the musical trips. That's what Armin Only is based on - to take the clubbers on a six- hour journey into music. Through the Armin Only - Intense shows, I can tell them the full story of my Intense album - in fact of everything I'd like to say."

The second week into June 2

Details
UK - As Britain basks in the soaring temperatures of a sizzling two-week heat-wave, draping and rigging specialist Blackout is also on a high following a jam-packed summer of live music events.

Warming things up, Blackout was commissioned to deliver a special show opening for Kasabian's headline slots at Glastonbury festival and homecoming gig Summer Solstice. The company utilised its new 12m roller screens which were specially adapted to allow them to be installed horizontally in the roof of both the 40m Summer Solstice stage and Pyramid stage, with additional screens hung stage right and left. Each screen was precisely automated to track into position, carefully timed with the opening track 'Shiva'. There was just 1m 8s to get the screens into place, creating a solid 'white box' environment for the lighting and screen projections.

Barely 24 hours later and the team were call

Details
Scandinavia - Supporting heavy metal festivals STHLM Fields and Sonisphere not only took tremendous sonic power, but also an intelligently designed loudspeaker rigging system built for mission-critical circumstances. For the festivals' headliners Metallica, Slayer, and Mastodon, Starlight built a massive Meyer Sound Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system with close to 200 loudspeakers. Within 24 hours, the system was flown and tuned for action for the two productions located 500 km from each other.

Both produced by Live Nation, the STHLM Fields welcomed a sold-out crowd of 50,000 in Stockholm's vast Gardet Royal Park, while Sonisphere drew 40,000 metal fans to Oslo's Valle Hovin stadium.

"Although the shows were two days apart, Metallica preferred to have the system ready for a 6:00 pm check in Oslo the day after the first show," says Fredrik Arwidson, sys

Details
UK - The Grosvenor House hotel Great Room in London, one of the largest ballrooms in Europe, has hosted so many high-profile events that it's become a familiar sight on BBC news reports. Standing out in such a glitzy venue is no easy task, but that's exactly what a recent awards ceremony did thanks to some inspired pixel mapping by Storm Events using the EPIX 2.0 strip and EPIX 2.0 bar from Chauvet Professional.

"Everyone wants an event at Grosvenor House to be special, because there is such a rich tradition here," said Andy White, production director at Storm Events. "This was a prestigious event hosted by Claudia Winkleman a well-known BBC presenter and journalist and attended by many key publishing people, so our client asked us to do something to make the set stand out."

Creating a stand out design is precisely what Storm Events did using the EPIX 2.0 p

Details
Germany - Robert Juliat's Lancelot followspots have been chosen to illuminate yet another prestigious international venue. The Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany has acquired four of these titans of the Robert Juliat followspot portfolio.

The 20,000-seat Lanxess Arena offers top class facilities as one of Europe's largest and most modern multi-functional indoor arenas and is equipped with the latest technology which now includes the 4000W HTI Lancelot long-throw followspots.

"We chose the RJ Lancelot products because we were not completely satisfied with the American manufacturer we worked with before and therefore preferred to use a European product," says Lanxess Arena's technical manager, Martin Rebiszewski.

Lanxess Arena has played host to a string of top international performers that include Paul McCartney, Sting, Whitney Houston, Eric Clapton and Luciano Pavar

Details
Germany - The Design Zentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen in Essen, Germany, has been recognising design innovation since 1955. This was rebranded the Red Dot Award: Product Design at the start of the new millennium. Function, environmental impact and the degree of innovation are just some of the evaluation criteria.

As the years ticked by it has evolved into a leading international product award: for 2014 no less than 400 international experts discussed and evaluated 4815 submissions from 53 countries. The jury only bestows the award on the design that captures the imagination through the standard of workmanship and sheer innovation.

"If nothing else, this is reflected by the actual number of designs that win the Red Dot Award," states Professor Dr Peter Zec, initiator and CEO of Red Dot, "compared to other international design competitions, it's far fewer."

This

Details
UK - The Entertainment Technician Certification Program (ETCP) will launch a new version of the practice exams for the Rigger - Arena and Rigger - Theatre Certifications this summer. Both new practice exams will be accessible beginning 31 July, 2014.

These versions are an entirely new set of questions and are available in addition to the practice exams that were created in 2009. Riggers preparing to take the ETCP exams have found the practice versions an extremely valuable tool for self-assessment. The web-based practice exams consist of fifty questions each and include score reports that mirror the actual exams. Both versions of each exam are $35 and can be found at http://etcp.plasa.org.practiceexams.

There is no application process with the practice exams; so any interested candidates will be able to take the exams privately at home, at the office, or on the road whenever i

Details
France - Amadeus, based in France, manufacturer of high-end sound reinforcement systems and custom studio speakers, collaborated with Solid State Logic consoles and Sonic Emotion, with their '3D sound' Wave 1 processor, on a special outdoor event 28 - 29 June - Palais en Jazz located at the Imperial Palace Compiegne, a royal residence built for Louis XV and restored by Napoleon located in northern France.

The event featured Amadeus' PMX, Diva and Maestro speaker systems, delivering a Hi-Fi sound to the outdoor audience who enjoyed internationally renowned jazz artists Kelvin Jones, Thomas Dutronc and Michel Legrand. This is the third year for the Palais en Jazz event and the sold out crowd enjoyed every minute of the music performances, responding with enthusiastic applause throughout the evening. The event was co-sponsored by Amadeus, Solid State Logic and Sonic Emotion and pro

Details
USA - Diggerland is a construction-themed adventure park with four locations in the UK and a new Diggerland USA park in West Berlin, New Jersey which opened in June, 2014. Visitors can ride on and operate construction machinery, play arcade games and hold birthday parties at the park.

Diggerland USA's large 14-acre site, with varying ambient noise levels and its combination of outdoor, indoor and covered open-air areas, presented challenges to Spellcaster Productions of Hammonton, New Jersey who designed and installed the park's audio systems. Spellcaster met these challenges with a design based on Community R Series loudspeakers for the outdoor areas and D Series pendant and ceiling loudspeakers for the indoor and open-air areas.

Spellcaster's Mike Shafer says, "Looking at the vast areas I had to cover outdoors, I immediately thought of Community's R Series." He cho

Details
UK - Brilliant Stages continues its long-standing relationship Robbie Williams and the ever-inventive Ray Winkler and Ric Lipson of Stufish by its collaboration on the design and fabrication of the stage set for Williams' Swing Both Ways tour. The dazzling arena tour has seen Williams promote his new album across Europe from April to July, culminating in four dates at London's O2 arena, before it travels to Australia in September.

The Stufish stage is lavish and multi-layered, transforming in appearance from an Art-Deco hotel, to a 20's style club and a luxurious ocean liner, and is surrounded by a massive, curved Austrian drape, all of which set the tone for Williams' sumptuous Swing Era extravaganza and big band sounds.

Brilliant Stages' Tony Bowern and its CAD team were instrumental in bringing Stufish's vision to fruition, providing the multiple staging elements of

Details
Germany - Nexo's new M28 compact line array modules, recently added to the STM Series, have made a debut appearance in Munich with new owner Limelight GmbH.

Limelight joins an existing and busy network of Nexo STM users in Germany with an order for 24x STM M28 modules, together with six STM B112 bass cabinets and six STM S118 subbass cabinets, plus Nexo Universal Amp Racks (NUARs) featuring NXAMP4x4s to power the system.

M28's first public performance was at the annual party for all employees of Munich Airport, an entertainment for 4000 people which featured high production values. On either side of the 12m-wide stage, Limelight set up left and right STM arrays, each with three B112 bass and nine M28 main cabinets, with four S118 subs groundstacked below each array. Additional out-fill was provided by a total of 14x Geo S12 cabinets. Completing the Nexo story was a PS15-R2 sta

Details
UK - Bristol based lighting and visuals rental specialist Fineline supplied lighting, LED side screens complete with new bespoke supporting structures and an IMAG camera package for Warwick Castle's 1100th Anniversary Summer Proms Spectacular - a music, fireworks and pyro extravaganza to celebrate the founding of the Castle.

The Medieval castle standing today was developed from an original built by William the Conqueror in 1068.

The two day Summer Proms event saw 8500 people enjoy Paul Weller rocking the house on the Friday night supported by White Room and The Gramotones, and a programme of popular classics performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) on the Saturday, conducted by Jae Alexander, plus special guests.

Fineline's Rob Sangwell comments, "We have been involved in this event for many years and it was a great pleasure to be doing it again thi

Details
Australia - #THEARTHUNTER was an 'offline' temporary art gallery experience from iconic website The Cool Hunter, created and produced by The Artistry.

The Earth Hunter was a collaboration with Jaguar to launch the brand's first AWD concept car, the C-X17. The space was 'found', designed and the creative concept executed, complete with delicate artworks, in less than three weeks.

Showtime Productions were called upon to design and install the gallery lighting, deciding to purchase 36 ETC Source Four Mini fixtures for the project.

"Aesthetically, the client wanted everything to look very neat and minimize anything that could be obstructive," commented Arian Yeganeh, production manager at Showtime. "It's a compact fixture that's bright enough for this type of application. For a 50 watt fixture, they're pretty amazing. We also had 20 ETC Source Four Jnr Zooms for

Details
India - Just steps from Calangute beach, Café Mambo holds one of the top spots on Goa's world-famous club scene. Located on the bustling Tito's Lane, Café Mambo has made a name for itself by playing host to a variety of national and international DJs with a different theme -from hip hop and house to techno and retro- every night of the week.

Café Mambo is one of a clutch of venues owned by brothers David and Ricardo De Sousa, who are no strangers to quality sound: Café Mambo has relied on D.A.S. professional sound systems for over nine years and the owners religiously update the club's sound with new D.A.S. products every three years.

The first D.A.S. products installed at Café Mambo were Rf-15.85 systems paired with Rf-218 subwoofers. Pleased with their performance the owners augmented the system three years after it was installed, investing

Details
USA - Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the unconventional rock musical that recently captured four Tony Awards, may not be your grandma's Broadway show, but its use of grandMA2 lighting consoles keeps the edgy production on track at the Belasco Theatre.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's gender-bending musical tale of life, love and a botched operation. It won Tonys for its star, Neil Patrick Harris; co-star Lena Hall; and lighting designer Kevin Adams - Adams's fourth win. The play also received top honours as Best Musical Revival.

The lighting and video for Hedwig were programmed on two grandMA2 full-size consoles. During rehearsals Kevin Adams, video designer Ben Pearcy, associate lighting designer Paul Toben and second assistant lighting designer Jimmy Lawlor used grandMA onPC stations to monitor the production. Now, both

Details
South Africa - Clear-Com has announced that Tadco, the South African audio distribution company, will offer the entire range of Clear-Com communications systems to the House of Worship, live entertainment and AV sectors in the Sub-Saharan African region.

Clear-Com's intercom solutions, including partyline, digital matrix, wireless intercoms, and intercom-over-IP conferencing software, will provide the live production industry in the region of Sub-Saharan Africa with the dependable communication solution that it has been missing in the past few years, says the company. Tadco offers quality equipment and support for live production and commercial communications.

Josh Oates, marketing manager at Tadco, said, "Here at Tadco, we pride ourselves on the quality of audio products that we represent, bringing the world's best to our market. Clear-Com's reputation of manufacturing r

Page 3194 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .