UAE - April's PALME 2006 exhibition in Dubai saw the second-ever public unveiling of the Midas XL8 Live Performance System, the manufacturer's entry into the digital domain. Key Midas staff, namely sales and marketing director David Cooper, brand development manager Richard Ferriday and R&D specialist Robin Page were on hand throughout PALME, held just three weeks after XL8's worldwide introduction at the Frankfurt ProLight&Sound show in Germany.

Taking centre stage at the booth of Midas Consoles Middle East (MCME), XL8 offers an incomparable design combining exemplary sound quality, flexibility and reliability with an ease and familiarity of use unrivalled by other digital control surfaces. As well as offering classic Midas audio quality and superb reliability, XL8 actually improves upon the performance of the analogue consoles, which have established the brand as the number on

UK - The innovative special effects that are helping the London Palladium bring Frank Sinatra to life on stage owe much of their success to the skill of Gerry Corry, freelance video engineer and project manager, who managed the Sinatra Livetheatrical production on behalf of XL Video UK.

This swinging musical event, which has received rave reviews, is a celebration of the life and songs of one of the world's best-loved crooners. The show features a live orchestra and dancers, plus vintage video footage of 'Old Blue Eyes', which is projected onto huge screens. A number of special guests duet with Frank, singing alongside the man himself in a live performance that incorporates the latest digital film and stage technology.

Corry, who has a long track record of working on video projects in the entertainment industry, was responsible for installing the large number of video p

UK - Liverpool based installation specialists, Mersey Sound Production (MSP) has installed integrated Harman Pro systems throughout the new Alima Centre; a black and racial minorities arts, conference, and learning centre. Developed in conjunction with the Novas Group, the centre, complete with bar and live performance area, is dedicated to engaging and empowering the community.

Sited in the prime Liverpool city centre location of Sefton Street, the Alima Centre features four flexible spaces, comprising three conference rooms and a live music area, in a regenerated Victorian warehouse. MSP chose an all Harman solution, including JBL VRX and SRX speaker systems, when providing audio and AV throughout all four areas. MSP's Colin Reader explains that company continually employs products from across all of the Harman Pro brands as standard inventory for various reasons, "The ma

UK - Marquee Audio has completed the installation of a user-friendly audio-visual system for the students and staff of the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey, in their brand-new performance venue, the Menuhin Concert Hall.

The 315-seat Concert Hall, a chamber music venue, and a daily performance, tuition and rehearsal space for the school's use, is also available for hire for other music events and recording sessions.

Its construction was inspired by the death of the school's mentor Yehudi Menuhin in 1999, and was finally opened in January of this year. Lead Architect Mark Foley of Burrell Foley Fischer worked closely with the School's acoustician Bob Essert of Sound Space Design and theatre consultants Anne Minors Performance Consultants.

Marquee Audio was invited to join Sound Space Design, audio consultant Simon Kahn and the school team in drawing up an optimum AV specificat

UK - Summit Steel has purchased a new Kinesys K2 automation control system for the Take That tour, for which they are overseeing and supplying the bulk of the rigging equipment.

Take That, riding high on one of the most remarkable musical comeback stories so far of the 21st century, have received great critical acclaim for their new show. The tour reunites many of the successful production team that propelled the band to stardom in the 1990s including production manager Chris Vaughan, LD Simon Tutchener, artistic director Kim Gavin and Summit's Jon Bray.

Bray says: "It's really good to be working with so many of the original team again. Take That were the first band to use a large moving bridge over the audience and it's good to see that trick back in the show, plus a host of other ambitious movement and automation effects."

The epic set for the 2006 tour is design

UK - Chart-topping DJ/production/remix team, Gabriel and Dresden, were recently invited by BBC Radio 1 to record a two-hour Essential Mix DJ set. The duo selected an Allen & Heath Xone:V6 rotary mixer for the live recording.

"We'd been on the road constantly since January promoting our debut album," says Josh Gabriel. "We were looking forward to a few days rest at home, then this was sprung on us! We immediately contacted every producer we know asking for their latest material. We absolutely needed a Xone:V6 for this project - there's no other DJ mixer on planet earth that sounds as good."

Dave Dresden says: "The V6 mixer was delivered to our studio within 24 hours. The live mix was recorded 36 hours later, and broadcast around the world about 48 hours after we'd finished it. By that time we were already in Puerto Rico, 3000 miles away from home."

UK - Audio-Technica Ltd announced today it had engaged a new pan-European press contact for its European affairs. As of 15 May 2006, Integrative Concepts will handle public relations on behalf of the major brand for microphones, headphones and other audio technologies.

Based in Leeds, UK, Audio-Technica Ltd handles the distribution of Audio-Technica products into EMEA and the sales and marketing for the UK. Winner of numerous industry awards, Audio-Technica manufactures products that set standards in terms of quality, durability and price/performance for live sound, broadcast and recording studios, corporate and government facilities, house-of-worship venues, and more.

The main contact for any press-related issues is Stephanie Sobey-Jones, Integrative Concepts UK. Integrative Concepts was founded by Thomas Wendt in Germany in 1998. With a background in sound engineering, softw

Germany - For German auto enthusiasts, the definitive driving experience would be zipping along a road through the Bavarian Alps behind the wheel of a new Porsche. It was hardly a surprise, then, that a recent debut party for the 2006 Porsche Cayman S coupe drew an overflow crowd of 800 eager Bavarians to the theatre hall of Haus der Kunst in Munich. For audio enhancement of the video program and other visual effects, which included twin silver Caymans bursting in through paper walls, the event relied on a high-flown system of Meyer Sound M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array loudspeakers.

"The sound from the M1Ds was clear and intelligible throughout the hall, despite the room size and difficult acoustics," says Urs Gammel of MDS PAtec Veranstaltungstechnik, provider of all sound, lighting and video equipment for the event. "The hall is a full 35 meters long, and w

UK - At the recent Lavenham Festival, Jazz singer Clare Teal played a sell out concert at the town's 12th Century church of St Peter and St Paul.

Chelmsford based Event Sound & Light were back for the third year running, looking after the sound. Using a single KV2 ES1.0 flown in the centre of the church and two ES2.5 bass enclosures on the ground, plus two EX12's as side fills and two EX10's as delays further down the church.

Paul Galley explained the system: "We used one ES1.0 to reduce the slap-back which occurs in most churches. Point source is the key for this event. We did the same set up last year and it worked exceptionally well. We get good overall levels with small amounts of natural reverb, but the KV2 system always gives us fantastic controlled dispersion with natural sounds."

Event Sound & Light have also been busy working on a number of high profile to

UK - When it comes to versatility, Turbosound's Aspect series has proved itself second to none and is now using its supreme power and clarity to deliver the pop sensibilities of former Savage Garden frontman Darren Hayes.

Hayes' current UK tour began at Glasgow's Clyde Auditorium on 20 April and plays in theatre-sized venues throughout the UK until early May. Supplied by Britannia Row Productions, the Aspect system was specified by front of house engineer Snake Newton. Having used and been impressed by Aspect at a Sugababes album launch and at the 2005 Roskilde festival, he was keen to explore the system's possibilities further.

The Clyde Auditorium is one of the biggest venues on the tour, for which six TA-890Hs and four TA-890Ls were flown per side, plus six further ground-stacked TA-890Hs and a TQ-425 sub per side, with TQ-308s for infill. Newton is mixing the tour on a Yam

Italy - On 23 April 2006 a prestigious and unusual musical event was staged at the Palasport Olimpico - the 11,500 capacity Olympic ice hockey stadium in Turin, Italy. Volumi all'Idorgeno (Volumes of Hydrogen) was organized by the extremely popular Italian group, Subsonica and sound designer Enrico Fuamsoli created a reinforcement system completely powered by Lab.gruppen fP Series amplifiers.

Big Talu Music Service of Mondovì, Italy (in collaboration with Fumasoli Service, of Aosta, Italy) was awarded the sound and lighting contract. The main sound system utilized one cluster per side of 16 Martin Audio W8L line array loudspeakers with an additional 8 W8Ls being focused on the bleachers. Two clusters of Martin Audio W8LM were in service as side fills. Lab.gruppen fP 6400 and fP 3400 amplifiers drove the whole system, reliably and efficiently. XTA DP226s and DP224s affect

UK - White Light repeats its successful Graduates Open Day for technical theatre students, once again featuring guest speakers, new equipment, careers advice - and food.

Entertainment lighting specialist White Light will be continuing its successful annual Graduates Open Day, holding the 2006 event on Wednesday 7 June at its Wimbledon, south-London base.

Open to anyone contemplating a design or technical career in the entertainment lighting industry, including but by no means limited to students at drama schools and universities, the Open Day will give guests 'hands-on' access to some of the latest lighting products from manufacturers such as MA Lighting, Martin and Selecon, as well as a chance to tour the comprehensive facilities available at White Light. Visitors will also be able to meet and listen to careers advice and other thoughts from a number of leading

Poland - Earlier this year Danish beer and beverage company Carlsberg, with a little help from one of Poland's top lighting supply and design companies, GRODA, organized a party for its Polish employees at Torwar Bowl in Warsaw. The most attractive element of the evening's design was an enormous eight-legged spider truss. The creature was composed of eight legs and round circular truss body surrounding a 5.3m diameter ball.

Four legs, made of transparent tubes, were fixed to the ground. Inside each tube leg GRODA placed a Mac 300 washlight, Atomic strobe, and Jem ZR12-DMX fog machine. The MacC 300s worked to color the tubes while flashing Atomics created the illusion of quick motion. Fog from the ZR12s gave the plastic tubes a more solid appearance.

The spider's remaining four truss limbs (decorated with LED) and the round body were movable, which further enhanced the attracti

UK - Snake Newton got into sound engineering 'by mistake' 20 years ago, as he thought that giving his band of the time a better sound would get them noticed. And to a certain degree his thinking paid off. The band didn't get noticed but Snake's quality sound did and soon his services were in demand the world over.

He says: "Since 1999 I have done two years with the Pet Shop Boys, three years with Craig David and two-and-a-half years with Duran Duran, who exploded back on the live scene having reformed in their original line up. I have also worked, mixing FOH, on many TV Award shows including the MTV Europe awards, the MOBOs and the Brits, and have supervised the band mix at dozens of TV and radio performances around the world."

His latest tour saw him oversee the live sound for the Sugababes, during which time his Focusrite Liquid Channels came in to full effect. &qu

UK - Entec Sound and Light supplied Russian superstar Philip Kirkorov with full lighting and sound production, and also co-ordinated other production elements including video and pyro for his sold out show at Hammersmith Apollo. It was part of an extensive two month European tour.

Entec has experience of working with several leading Russian artists, and for this show, their crew co-ordinated in advance with Kirkorov's touring crew to ensure the busy show day ran smoothly.

Lighting designer Boris Volkov design involved three upstage trussing triangles, constructed from mini-beam and hung off nine points from two rigging trusses, plus two straight A-type front and mid lighting trusses.

His operating style was based on 'beam technology' with lots of dramatic beam and gobo looks from lighting fixtures spread across all of the trussing elements. These included 26 Vari*Lite VL 200

UK - Marquee Audio has recently supplied a KV2 Audio EX 10 active powered loudspeaker system to ITV's London Studios. Marquee's Rob Whitaker explains: "I was initially contacted by Luke Wallace at The London Studios who looks after their AV requirements. Initial discussions were based around a fixed installation but during further investigation, listening to how and what would be expected and taking into account the aesthetics of the room (clean lines, cool steel and lots of glass) it was decided that a highly flexible, but portable system which could be quickly set up and struck down would be the best solution, but without any of the sonic compromises that often occur when taking into account the client's requirements."

The room has to be used in several different ways including, green room, canteen and conference facility. Whitaker says: "The room is used in jus

UK - Orbital has made the regenerated Novello Theatre in London's Aldwych "music-ready" to allow the Tristian Baker / Mark Goucher production of Footloose to take up residency in the West End following its successful provincial tour. In so doing, Orbital have broken new ground being the first to deploy Digidesign's new V2.0 D-Show software for the Venue digital desk.

Orbital had long selected this digital environment for the Footloose tour of duty. Feedback on the desk which the production company provided following last year's production of Annie Get Your Gun has largely been incorporated into the new D-Show operating software, giving it the same cachet in the theatre world as it has been enjoying in the rock 'n' roll environment.

"A lot of minor issues have been addressed, predominantly to do with Snapshots, which now make this desk awesom

USA - Tim Eldridge of dBA Acoustics, a respected consulting and design services firm, recently helped raise the roof of the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum to allow for bigger audiences and better sound throughout. Initially a 10,000-seat indoor stadium, primarily used for events such as hockey games and various traveling shows, the venue's owner felt it was time to fully renovate and increase seating capacity by a third. This required the removal of the venue's roof. It was cut free and raised with cables while upper seating sections and suites were built underneath.

Today, the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum is a 13,000-seat - and far more welcoming - live event destination. It even sounds better than before, thanks to Eldridge and his simple, yet capable acoustic measurement system featuring an Earthworks M30 microphone, SIA SmaartLive software, the TerraSonde Audio Too

USA - Ludacris, one of the top national hip-hop/rap acts, performed at the Erie Civic Center through a hybrid-active powered line array system using forty AL-10 mid/high enclosures and thirty-two LS-218 dual 18" subwoofers.

Raven Sound provided sound and light production, and set up went very smoothly, rolling in the AL-10s four to a wheelboard and rigging them directly. Some modification was needed after installation and, because of the EZAL hardware, it was a simple task to lower the speakers and re-focus the enclosures without taking the enclosures apart.

Phil Papotnik, Raven owner, noted the A-Line system performed flawlessly for the very demanding audio performance. "The LS-218 subs pumped out enough bass to vibrate the FOH position", says Papotnik. "The crowd loved it."

(Chris Henry)

UK - Serious Stages stepped in at short notice to build the decking and substructure required to support the Ice Space venue - the world's first ever five Star Arctic attraction - at London's Tower Bridge.

Serious - one of the UK's leading staging companies - has supplied over 2000sq.m of it's proprietary Red Deck extra heavy duty steel base system which is supporting over 200 tonnes of ice.

The deck is constructed from Universal I beams that span between RMD Shoring System and customised head standards. Infill beams fit between the primary I beams every 600mm to produce an incredibly strong base. The infill beams are capped with timber and then finished with 25mm birch plywood panels to form the deck's surface. Each 'bay' measures 2.4 x 2.4 metres.

Serious has also supplied 12 internal support arches for the structure as well as all the perimeter external steps, wheelchair

USA - BSR E.19, Recommended Practice for the use of Class A Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupters (GFCIs) intended for personnel protection in the Entertainment Industry, is available for public review. The draft standard gives advice on where, when, and how to use GFCIs rated for 100A and less in the entertainment industry. These devices are used for personnel protection in entertainment applications encompassing places of assembly, the production of film, video and broadcast, theatrical productions, carnivals, circuses, fairs and similar events in North America. The official ANSI 45-day public review period starts on May 26, but the draft standard is available now at http://www.esta.org/tsp/documents/public_review_docs.php. The public review runs through until the end of 10 July 2006.

Reviewer

Ireland - An exhibit commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising opened recently in a newly renovated space at the National Museum of Ireland's Collins Barracks site in Dublin. Occupying a central position in The Easter Rising: Understanding 1916 is an original copy of the 1916 Proclamation Of Independence, one of the most important documents in modern Irish history.

The renovated space enables museum experts, who worked with exhibit designers Haley Sharpe Design Ltd of Leicester and lighting designers DJW of Beaulieu, to ensure acceptable levels of light and humidity in order to display such precious documents safely.

Lighting designer David Willrich, of DJW, said that one of the main considerations behind designing the lighting for The Easter Rising: Understanding 1916 was observing conservation light level requirements whilst providing sufficient l

USA - Color Kinetics Inc says that the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts has awarded the company costs and attorneys' fees in its successful patent litigation against Super Vision International Inc, pending documentation of the costs and fees, which Color Kinetics estimates to be approximately $1.4 million.

According to the Judge's ruling: "I conclude without hesitation that this case is 'exceptional,' and that Super Vision has perpetrated a 'gross injustice' by its egregious abuses of the discovery phase and vexatious litigation strategy. An award of attorneys' fees is appropriate to remedy the 'gross injustice' Color Kinetics has suffered at the hands of Super Vision's vexatious and bad faith litigation."

"We are very pleased with the Court's decision, as the order provides satisfying vindication for Super Vision's behavior over the past four

Canary Islands - Loro Parque, located in Tenerife, one of Spain's Canary Islands, has long been a major attraction for the local population and the vast quantity of tourists the island sees each year. The sun-kissed venue plays host to one of the largest wildlife collections in Spain and has recently expanded to accommodate an exciting new attraction - Orca Ocean. The new attraction's 3000 capacity viewing area's reinforcement system is powered exclusively by Lab.gruppen C Series installation-dedicated amplifiers.

Estudio Audio Visual (EAV), a leading designer and supplier of sound and vision systems throughout the Canary Islands, created the extensive distributed sound reinforcement system in association with the world famous SeaWorld of Florida in the United States. EAV worked very closely with audio, video and show producers at SeaWorld in developing the installation. Five C

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