Details
UK - XL Video renewed its long and productive working relationship with Robbie Williams, supplying a custom video solution and crew to his current and massively popular Swings Both Ways tour.

XL's project manager was Phil Mercer with Nilkanth Patel overseeing the technical aspects and, for the first time on a Robbie Williams tour, Jon Shrimpton was live camera director.

Once again the stage set and visuals took on a completely new and different dimension and the aesthetic was carefully crafted by show producers Lee Lodge and Willie Williams, both also involved in commissioning the video playback content, mostly created by Shop Studios in Bristol.

A large part of the look and feel of the show was established by the time Shrimpton joined the team, including an impressive

Details
Spain - Lighting designer Edu Valverde and Madrid-based AV group Geometrica Studio have created an urban-inspired lighting design using the exact beams of the Clay Paky Sharpy for a show celebrating Spanish jewellery brand Aristocrazy at this year's Mercedes Benz Fashion Week (MBFW) Madrid.

Taking inspiration from the 80s cult classic film Blade Runner, the design comprised of a clever mix of architectural, video mapped and lighting elements that combined to create an urban set reminiscent of the gritty architecture featured in the science-fiction blockbuster.

"The lighting acted as the unifying core between the audience and the set," explains Valverde. "The idea was that with the long reach of the Sharpy beams the nocturnal, urban mood of the show would be extended out from the set and into the audience to create a really immersive atmosphere."

Va

Details
Italy - Based just outside of Milan, the latest addition to Audient's global distribution network is Leading Technologies. Responsible for Audient's compact product range, including the USB interface, iD22 and the 8-channel mic pre and ADC, ASP880, the company takes on the mantle of distribution throughout Italy, this month.

"We are very excited to start this adventure with such a high quality brand that perfectly fit into our portfolio complementing and completing our offer," says Leading Technologies' CEO Marco Porro. "The addition of Audient products will help expand our reach into high tech audio across the country," he adds, citing the fact that the majority of the British manufacturer's products feature the renowned mic preamps designed by industry heavyweight, David Dearden.

With nearly 40 years of experience in the pro audio industry, Leading Techno

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
UK - Allen & Heath's new Qu-24 compact digital mixer has been installed in the prestigious Cambridge Union Society.

Founded in 1815, the Cambridge Union can claim to be the oldest continually operating debating society in the world, with participants including heads of state, business leaders, actors, academics and politicians.

Having extensive experience in the university, cathedral and heritage sectors, installer About Sound was appointed to specify and install a new audio system as part of an AV refurbishment. The brief was to provide a digital console that inexperienced users would be able to walk up to and operate.

"Qu-24 fitted the brief perfectly, and has lots of fantastic additional features. The mixer is housed on a balcony over the chamber, so the Qu-Pad app is a great benefit, allowing the engineer to judge levels and mute and unmute channels from within the

Details
UK - Rosco has launched a line of four new fog machines designed to meet the demands of a wide variety of applications, from theatrical productions and film sets to photo shoots and training exercises.

The Mini-V is easy to use as well as being the most affordable and compact machine in the series. The Vapour is the workhorse of the new line with features and performance suited to the most demanding professional environments. Designed specifically to fill large venues and outdoor spaces with dense fog and smoke, the Vapour Plus produces a massive amount of fog in a short time. The V-Hazer is a rock solid, quiet and reliable haze generator.

Rosco's Vapour Series has been carefully engineered to provide professional quality fog and haze while also offering ease of use, reliable performance, and simple maintenance. The Vapour, Vapour Plus, and V-Hazer models have been designed wi

Details
UK - With BPM: DJ and Electronic Music Production Event co-locating with the newly formed PRO: Audio and Lighting Technology Show at Birmingham's NEC (13-15 September) RCF has opted to increase its presence in order to feature a wider representation from the Italian company's extensive portfolio.

Exhibiting on stand #G1, RCF UK's Phil Price states, "We have traditionally fared well at BPM among the DJ community; but we welcome the addition of PRO as it exposes our new portable/touring and install portfolio to an entirely new segment. This will give us the best of both worlds."

Among the popular series on display in the LIVE range will be the evergreen ART, D-Line and NX series. But visitors will be especially keen to hear the new Evox portable column speakers, which will be on demonstration in the PA Experience, along with the stunning new ART745A.

The former are r

Details
Chile - W-DMX by Wireless Solution Sweden is heating up the airwaves in Chile on Channel 13, one of the most prestigious television stations in the country. W-DMX distributor Iluminacion Profesional Valook SA, based in Santiago, is currently using W-DMX for the station's productions to great success and is looking to expand the use and knowledge of the product through educational seminars.

Francisco Yanez Valdivia, trainer & product manager for Valook explains, "Channel 13 works with a very high standard of quality. At present they use the W-DMX F-2 model linked with some integrated receivers on the fixtures and R512 receiver. I had the opportunity to talk with one of the lighting technicians and he said that this wireless system is very reliable and stable."

In an interview with Channel 13 lighting designer Luis Quiroz said of W-DMX, "With W-DMX I solve timing

Details
The Netherlands - AVL has a solid track record of selling and supporting ChamSys in Belgium and Luxembourg with the highest standards of customer training and support which will be expanded to the Netherlands.

"We are confident that with AVL's skills and experience there will be a high standard of customer service, support and training in the Netherlands," says ChamSys.

(Jim Evans)

Details
UK - The Live Event Hire Programme is a new initiative from Roland that has been established to promote the growing network of UK rental companies supplying Roland professional audio and video products for hire. The Roland Systems Group website (www.rolandsystemsgroup.co.uk) provides the hub of the programme, creating an online resource for customers wishing to source Roland products for hire and get in touch with suppliers directly.

"The aim of the Live Event Hire Programme is primarily to help raise market awareness of the service providers in the rental market by giving prospective clients a clear picture of which companies have which products available for immediate hire - and of course making it easy to for them to get in contact by following a link from the Roland Systems Group website," says Chris Webster, RSG business development manager.

"We are looking

Details
USA - A hotdog eating contest might not sound like much of a sound production challenge, but when one of the Fourth of July's more unusual celebration events attracts over 30,000 people to a three hour show, featuring an MC, rock band, loads of playback and the actual contest, on a Coney Island street corner, providing professional sound reinforcement across the impromptu "venue" is no walk in the park. Add the seasonal steamy humidity and an edge of a hurricane downpour, and things get pretty sticky.

This year's - the 98th - Annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest saw the event's regular sound production company and FOH engineer since 2005 - Audio Production Services (Amawalk, NY) and Mark Fiore - take their first 'test flight' with the Cadac CDC eight-32 digital production console. "The Cadac was available from the company's new US division

Details
Germany - Astera LED Technology has released the AsteraApp for free on the Google Play Store. The AsteraApp can be downloaded and then installed on any Bluetooth-enabled Android device (optimized for Android phones and 7" tablets).

Users should link their Android device to an AsteraBox to initiate control. Acting as the middleman, the AsteraBox receives commands from the app (using Bluetooth), and these commands are processed inside the AsteraBox, then sent to all Astera lights within a 300m range.

With the AsteraApp, users can easily send programmes and effects to lights, create programmes and customize effects, store these programmes for quick use at an event, change the colours, brightness, speed, and fade of programs, target individual lights or groups of lights, as well as many other advanced features for event lighting professionals.

Simon Canins, R&D director at

Details
USA - Production Resource Group has announced that Jeremiah J Harris, chairman and CEO, has promoted Stephan Paridaen to the role of president and chief operating officer. Paridaen has served as PRG's chief executive officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa since 2009.

In his new role, Paridaen will apply his management expertise and services to supervising the global operations of the company, the delivery of new technologies and services offerings, and the further development of PRG's efforts in the corporate and global special events markets.

"Along with attracting world-class talent to the company, one of my top priorities is recognizing and developing PRG's existing leadership team," said Harris. "Stephan has demonstrated exceptional operational leadership in Europe. He has earned the respect of the entire PRG team, our customers and our partners. This

Details
Portugal - Among the things that have made The Voice such a runaway international hit is that every country seems to find its own different way of enhancing the show, adding a local feeling to what has become a global phenomenon. This is very evident looking at A Voz de Portugal. In 2011, it introduced a rule change that allowed viewers to vote back losers of battle rounds for live shows. This year the Lisbon-based show raised its game again, by taking pixel mapping on its set to a new level with the Nexus 4x4 LED panel from Chauvet Professional.

Marco Silva, LD and programmer for A Voz de Portugal, used 28 Nexus 4 x 4 panels to create a stunning front stage façade, which he had pixel mapped by João Canoso of FX - Road Lights. Working with an Mbox Studio media server, Canoso created a stunning design that coordinated with the 6 mm LED upstage video wall.

"

Details
Belarus - Clay Paky's multi-zone A.leda B-EYE was the star of the show at the recent Belarusian TV Awards beaming complex aerial effects as part of a lighting design by Kirell Zelenko.

TV LD Zelenko worked with assistant lighting designer Ilya Piatrouski of Minsk-based production house Blackout Studios to design a rich, glittering light show for the popular annual event - now in its tenth year - which celebrates the best in Belarusian television.

"We needed to create a balanced design that actually enriched the video mapped elements occurring on stage," explains Piatrouski. "The lighting needed to be effects based as well as practical to create the sumptuous, detailed look we were after."

Zelenko and Piatrouski specified a host of Clay Paky fixtures for the ceremony, including 24 x A.leda B-EYE K20, 12 x A.leda Wash K10, 24 x Sharpy, 20 x Sharpy Wash 330

Details
USA - When two of music's long established bands prepared to embark on their 38-city North American co-headlining tour, the design teams behind Journey and Steve Miller Band had to find the best way to support the style of each group. With the challenge of sharing the same rig, lighting designer Kevin 'Deuce' Christopher had to decide which automated luminaires would provide the most flexibility as the main lighting instruments for both show designs. Working with Tour Tech East, he chose 38 VL3500 Wash and 25 VL3000 Spot luminaires from Philips Vari-Lite to be the lighting backbone for the complete tour.

"In the design for the Journey tour, we have a large video wall that we treat as a surface for I-MAG, so I knew we needed automated lighting that could punch through the intensity of the video wall," began Christopher. "During the design process, we looked at seve

Details
USA - One hundred and forty Robe Pointes were at the core of the production lighting design for the 2014 Essence Festival in New Orleans, which was created by Matt Foucheux of Solomon Group, production designers and equipment suppliers for the Main Stage in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Musical acts included Prince, Erykah Badu, Mary J. Blige and Jill Scott.

The Solomon Group has worked for the vibrant and diverse "party with a purpose" - which started in 1995 - for the last three years, and for the last two has also been responsible for producing the 60,000 capacity Main Stage at the four day event.

This was the first time that Foucheux and Solomon Group have used Pointes and actually the first time they have ever worked with Robe products. The fixtures were supplied by VER, and it underlined a real confidence in the brand and its reputation to commit to so many Poin

Details
USA - A virtual plethora of Elation Professional lighting and video gear was used this year to light up Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) in Las Vegas, North America's largest dance music festival. Produced by Insomniac Events and held the weekend of 20-22 June at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, more than 400,000 attendees danced and raved their way to the latest EDM beats in front of eight stages, seven of which featured Elation products.

EDC is a spectacular scene, a multi-sensory testament to the popularity of electronic dance music with some of the biggest names in the genre performing, including Avicii, Diplo, Afrojack, Carl Cox and Tiesto, many helicoptered in from the Vegas strip 20 minutes away to play to tens of thousands at each stage. Ferris wheels, fireworks, glowing sculptures, desert heat and beams of pulsating light all make up the EDC Las Vegas experience.

Lighting s

Details
UK - The 4HM MADI-MON and ASBO were deployed right through this summer's comprehensive BBC coverage of the Glastonbury festival. Held over three days and featuring artists as diverse as Dolly Parton, Kasabian and Metallica, the BBC provided comprehensive coverage of the festival across multiple media platforms.

Renowned UK OB specialist, Arena, implemented the MADI-MON to monitor and convert all channels of the primary incoming MADI stream being supplied from their VT truck at the festival. The MADI-MON was used across all three days of transmission and also during the rigging and testing process prior to broadcast. Much of the BBC's coverage from Glastonbury was routed through 4HM's equipment, including the One Show, news and the dedicated live festival coverage itself.

MADI-MON simultaneously converts the selected incoming MADI stream to AES/EBU and AES3-id, and it wa

Details
Switzerland - The 12th Shure Montreux Jazz Voice Competition concluded on 12 July following a close finish in the Petit Théâtre at Montreux Palace, Switzerland, during the middle weekend of internationally renowned Montreux Jazz Festival.

As ever, there were excellent performances by all three finalists, but in the end, after much debate steered by the 2014 leader of the competition jury Sweet Georgia Brown, 20-year-old Alita Moses from Connecticut, USA was announced as the 2014 winner of the competition's first prize, following compelling renditions of Miles Davis's Four, Gershwin's Someone To Watch Over Me and Magda Giannikou's Amour T'es Lá?.

Laura Perrudin and Myriam Bouk Moun, both from France, won the second and third prizes respectively. This year's contest was notable for its collaborative atmosphere: at one point during rehearsals for the

Details
Belgium - Amongst the myriad of events across Europe this year commemorating the Great War centennial, few can be more epic and ambitious than 14-18 Spektakel Musical staged in the vast Nekkerhal venue in Mechelen, Belgium.

Among the many technical challenges this production presented, making the audio work was a significant one, leading sound designer Guido Olischlager to specify a TiMax SoundHub audio showcontrol system. It had been decided that the entire 1800-strong audience block would move up and down the length of the 130m long arena, so it was essential to deploy a multi-channel distributed sound system and fully automated dynamic delay-matrix processing that is a TiMax speciality.

The show's designers had been tasked with making the staging work consistently across the whole length of the venue, with the director requiring soldiers and cavalry to move cinematic

Details
UK - Chester Cathedral has seen a 300% increase in visitor numbers following an innovative, £1.3 million project called 'Cathedral at Height'. The project primarily consisted of building a multi-sensory audio visual presentation in the chamber to help attract a greater family audience.

A combined team of architecture and heritage experts including Pure AV, a leader in AV solutions, were called on to deliver the results and overcome specific challenges.

The chamber's louvre windows, for example, meant that the technology would need to cope with damp, wind and cold, while the cathedral's Grade 1 listing severely limited the type of work that could be done. Consequently this meant that nothing could be attached to the stone, and the dark sandstone walls were a difficult backdrop for displaying projected images.

Responding to this, Pure AV recommended Epson's EB-G6350 proj

Page 3196 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .