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USA - Manhattan clubbing is a little more upscale at The Manor, where the approach to nightlife is truly luxurious. Those who are lucky enough to make it inside experience an exclusive environment where proscenium arches, dioramas and dark leather set the scene, and the clean power of a Danley Sound Labs loudspeaker system sets the pace.

According to Steve Petrik, systems designer of D&A (NYC), his decision to design the sound system around eight Danley Sound Labs SH-100 full-range loudspeakers, six SH-50 three-way loudspeakers, and six TH-112 subwoofers, has enabled the 5,000 sq.ft. bi-level Manor to deliver a premium sonic experience to its selective patrons.

"This is one of the best-sounding systems that I've heard in NYC in several years," Petrik states. "It has to be able to handle almost every genre of music, including hip-hop, rock, dance and even jazzier

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UK - The Glade stage at Glastonbury Festival was the forum for cutting edge electronic and dance music. In 2004 the team behind Glade started their own event and continued running the stage at Glastonbury. The Glade Festival provides a platform for electronic music from around the world.

The atmosphere combined with the range of dance music and live acts with top live acts and DJsperforming back to back throughout the day is unique. Running late into the night things switch over to a more chilled and laid back pace, but it is the blend of stages and areas that make the festival so enjoyable, notably the Overkill and Breaksday tents.

The Breaksday stage is a mix of break and psy trance. Live acts include Hybrid, Krafty Kuts, Meat Katie and many DJs from Canada, Australia and Italy. Breaksday featured an arch of AC Lighting Colour Block as a centre-piece over the stage with each

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USA - System Of A Down, supported by David Benveniste of Velvet Hammer Management, tour manager Ken Denson and production manager Janet Taylor, recently wrapped up a tour as part of Ozzfest- a touring festival with two stages and approximately 15 bands. In its eleventh year, Ozzfest kicked off on 29 June, in Seattle, Washington and wrapped up on 13 August in West Palm Beach, Florida. System Of A Down shared time with Ozzfest's very own Ozzy Osbourne headlining the show. This is the eighth year Bandit has provided lighting for System Of A Down.

System Of A Down's lighting designer, Chaz Martin chose to incorporate four 36 lamp pods with 600w ACLs, 20 atomic strobes, 12 Martin 2k washes and 12 Martin 2k profiles (six moving lights on each pod). Martin used a Martin Maxxyz console with a Martin Maxedia linked to the console.

Martin said that the general idea was to create somethi

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UK - Sony-BMG recording artist Eros Ramazzotti recently finished the second leg of his 2006 World Tour, which closed with three nights at Montecarlo's famous Sporting Club. Sound was mixed by Jon Lemon (Oasis, Nine Inch Nails, Beck, The Cure, and Depeche Mode, amongst many others), and on stage by Stevan Martinovic, each using a DiGiCo D5 Live desk. Audio and lighting were supplied by top Italian rental firm Agorà of L'Aquila.

Lemon said: "In 2004 with Eros, we used basically the same PA, but ran it in analogue. This year, to make the most of the digital desk's features, I convinced Agorà to run the whole system as digitally as possible, as staying in the digital domain obviously gives you more separation and edge, which is the whole idea behind using the desk."

Regarding the choice of an all-digital chain from desks to amp racks, Lemon, who used the same idea on t

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UK - Northern Light has recently won the tender to install state-of-the-art AV equipment in 12 of the University of Stirling's teaching rooms. Working directly for the main contactor, Hadden Construction, Northern Light's AV team will complete the installation in mid-September 2006.

Stephen Dishon, AV manager at Northern Light, said: "Northern Light has had a long working partnership with the University of Stirling. As well as carrying out this current project, we were previously responsible for kitting out 20 other lecture theatres, including the Pathfoot and Logie, with capacity for 210 and 350 respectively."

This project utilises the most up to date technology. Each teaching room, which can hold up to 50 students or corporate delegates, will be equipped with a data projector, sound system and IR system. These will be controlled via a Crestron system which interfac

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UK - Wireless transmission is a fast-growing technological phenomenon which is already being widely used in the entertainment industry, and the technical team at Navigator Systems, computer specialists in the entertainment industry since 1995, have put together a free information website to assist people when they're designing and building wireless networks, whether it be for shows or community projects.

"As visitors make their way through the free information pages, it will soon become apparent that the wealth of hands-on experience in projects such as Wireless FOH control, Wireless DMX distribution and conference delegate hot spots as well as an understanding of the physics makes the Navigator Systems Wireless website one to add to your Favourites list," says the company.

(Lee Baldock)

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Europe - Paul Oakenfold is returning to the stage with Madonna for her phenomenal sell-out Confessions tour. Oakenfold, the opening act on the 2006 European leg of the tour, will be travelling with his instrument of choice, a Rane MP 2016a mixer and XP 2016a expander, of which he comments: "Rane mixers are made to a very high quality; I have been using them for years. I would highly recommend anyone to use one."

Rane products are distributed in the UK by Sennheiser UK.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Baldwin Boxall's CommuniCare Advance disabled refuge communication system has been installed in one of London's largest universities - London South Bank University. Installed by Trinity Protection Systems, the system comprises 12 networked buildings and is the largest CommuniCare Advance installation to date.

Each of the 12 buildings has its own local control panel, there is also a single point master unit for site-wide control, allowing fire officers/building management to communicate with any refuge area. Due to the nature and size of the project, Baldwin Boxall produced bespoke software to enable the multiple control panels to be networked. One of the key benefits of CommuniCare Advance is that it is linked to the building's fire panel and, therefore, remains 'dormant' whilst not required - avoiding misuse by a building's occupiers - in this case some 20,000 students!

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UK - Prolyte Products Group of the Netherlands, a manufacturer of aluminium truss systems and rigging products has, this week, appointed Hawthorn to be a Prolyft Service Partner, following an extensive training session at Hawthorn's base in Old Dalby, Leicestershire.

Hawthorn's operations manager, John McAlonan and three of the technical team: Nick Key, Drew Lane and Steve Simons were trained by Conrad Vegter, operations manager for Prolyft and his colleague Jeroen G. Doeve.

Hawthorn now join only 15 accredited Service Partners in Europe and they are now licensed to maintain, service and repair the Prolyft product range as well as certify installations with a lifetime guarantee from the Prolyte Product Group.

"We are delighted to have Hawthorn on board as a Service Partner for our Prolyft product range; they are an extremely professional organisation and a pleasure to w

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UK - Regent's Park in central London hosted the free Fruitstock Festival in August, with a headline appearance from the celebrated London Community Gospel Choir (LCGC), using its newly-acquired battery of Electro-Voice vocal microphones.

Dressed in pure white, 40 members of the LCGC performed a one-hour set on the Main Stage, giving the 100,000-strong Fruitstock crowd a taste of gospel. Set up two to a mic, the Choir was using the EV RE510 super-cardioid vocal mics which it has recently purchased from Shuttlesound, prior to setting off on a tour of European festivals.

Front-of-house engineer Schon Emmanuel is largely responsible for the Choir's investment in 20x RE510s, two of which are wireless, packaged with EV's RE1 receivers. Emmanuel first discovered the potential of the RE510s when working with jazz saxophonist Courtney Pine, and more recently has introduced them to Brit

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Taiwan - As part of its mission to stay in touch with its partners, Mipro recently held a seminar for invited Southeast Asian distributors at the conference room of its Taiwan headquarters. The presentation showcased many of Mipro's latest product ranges, with a focus on its portable wireless PA systems - MA-101, MA-705, MA-707, and MA-808.

International sales manager Gina Lee, who presented the first session, commented: "My heartfelt appreciation goes out to all who had attended the presentation and making it a success: my hope is that everyone got a better insight to the range of Mipro products available."

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Bandit Lites would like to recognise the fourth annual recipient of their Bandit Lites Excellence in Lighting Award. The award was given to a promising student at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA). The school opened in 1996 with the help of Former Beatles' legend, Sir Paul McCartney and former actor, Mark Featherstone- Witty. Dedicated to people interested in pursing a career in arts and entertainment, LIPAoffers diploma, degree and postgraduate courses.

The awards ceremony took place on 29 July, 2006 at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts' graduation. Kathy Sandys, a lecturer in Theatre and Performance Technology, presented the award.

The Bandit Lites Excellence in Lighting Award went to Miriam Evans, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Theatre and Performance Technology. Her citation read, "in recognition of her

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UK & Europe - Midas has once again been hitting the great outdoors this summer, providing a huge range of international sound engineers with their control surfaces. SSE provided its standard festival package of two Midas Heritage 3000s at front-of-house and two XL3s on monitors across a wide range of UK festivals, including Hi:Fi, Monsters of Rock, Download, T in the Park, Oxegen, Summer Sundae and Cropredy.

At V2006, SSE's standard package was used for the main V stages at both sites - Hylands Park in Chelmsford, Essex, and Weston Park in Staffordshire - with the Channel 4 (second) stage at both sites featuring two XL4s at FOH and and two XL3s on monitors. Meanwhile, Capital Sound Hire used XL4s and H3000s at FOH and monitors respectively at the JJB/Puma Arena at both sites.

Skan PA Hire had Midas consoles out across the country, including a Heritage 3000 at FOH for the Eden

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UK - Technical staging specialist Blitz, part of the Blitz Charter Group, was recently commissioned by fashion label Lacoste to provide AV design, equipment and support at the showcase event for the launch of its Spring 2007 shoe collection, which took place at the Science Museum in London.

Blitz, which has a long-standing relationship with the Science Museum and is a preferred supplier, designed and implemented a total AV solution on behalf of Lacoste. Using a combination of Encore - a multi-layered video display system, and Watchout - a multi-display production and presentation system, alongside its full graphics suite, Blitz provided "a presentation with maximum impact for the whole audience", the company says.

Carol Gibbs, director of Blitz Graphics, explains: "Lacoste had given us a beautiful product to work with and it was therefore imperative that we tran

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UK - During the summer an interactive campaign - 'Join the Party with Bacardi' - was launched in Dutch cinemas to promote the Bacardi drink. The advertisement was filmed in the Now & Wow Club in Rotterdam. The recognisable theme of girls and boys partying with Bacardi was used to accompany the additional storyline of the DJ wowing the girl.

VisualDMX was specified as controller for the DJ Booth which boasted an LED wall and thus the necessity of a Matrix controller with the versatility and strengths that are offered by Matrix Mania, the specialised Matrix controller within VisualDMX. Matrix Mania's ability to quickly adapt all inbuilt matrix patterns to the red, Bacardi-style colour theme proved very useful and saved the crew valuable time when programming on site, say the company. The LED and VisualDMX equipment was supplied by Amsterdam-based rental company, PartyTime.

(Lee

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UK - The largest ever V Festival took place at Chelmsford's Hylands Park this August , with a capacity crowd of 77,500 enjoying a great and varied weekend of music featuring Morrisey, Faithless, Radiohead, Paul Weller and Fatboy Slim.

Power Logistics has fulfilled all of the temporary power requirements on the festival for 11 years, and this year worked well in advance with production manager Claire Sampson to plan an increased capacity of the site. Sampson says: "Power Logistics has been integral in the success of the event and in creating a relaxed atmosphere at the V Festival site. It's very reassuring knowing they're on site."

With an additional 10,000 people on site compared to previous years, the demands on the Power Logistics team also increased. This year there were more entertainment areas, more concessions, more corporate hospitality areas and the current t

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USA - XL Touring Video was chosen as video contactor for Kelly Clarkson's U.S. Tour. Production designer Ray Woodbury worked with XL to create a design which utilised 10 Barco O-lite screens that tracked horizontally and vertically across the stage, allowing the design to achieve as many as eight different looks or one converged look.

Woodbury says: "This design was integrated with motion control to allow for a unique video design and capability. The possibilities were limitless with creative ideas and I was very happy with the outcome. XL worked directly with myself and Christian Lamb, Chris Kantrowitz and Petro Papahadipoulos of Frank the Plumber, who provided the video content, to facilitate everything to accomplish the end result."

Touring on behalf of XL Video was lead led tech Robert "Bo" Crowell and led tech George Keim.

(Chris Henry)

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UK - This year's Download Festival, held at Donnington race track, attracted 70,000 fans over its three days. For the first time, all the sound stages were supplied by companies using L-Acoustics systems. SSE took care of the main stage with their new V-Dosc system, Skan the second stage, and Stage Audio Services supplied five other stages, all with L-Acoustics loudspeakers and amplifiers.

Paul Nicholson from L-Acoustics UK was heavily involved with the main stage design and was on site along with Paul Bauman, the head of technical support, to assist SSE with the installation of the system. Utilising L-Acoustics' Soundvision software, the site mapping was completed many weeks before the load-in and all that was required on the day were a few minor trim adjustments once the undulating nature of the field had been taken into consideration.

L-Acoustics also supplied their Kudo de

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UK - When Manchester's Mint Lounge found they were utilizing their Turbosound speaker system for live performance more than they originally envisaged, they needed a flexible arrangement to help them achieve their goal - and called on Kelco to design and install a quick and easy method of repositioning their TQ loudspeakers for 'live mode' that could be just as easily re-set for dancing.

After an extensive site survey and discussions with the client, Kelco's Dave Kelland proposed a custom fixing arrangement that perfectly fitted the brief. The transition is made by a clever utilization of Turbosound's standard stirrup bracket attached to a superstructure of custom made pre-fabricated steelwork; the innovative solution is interconnected with standard half couplers to further speed up the process, say Kelco.

Mint Lounge is well situated in Manchester's busy Northern Quarter, oper

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UK - The Robin Hood Foundation is a New York City based organisation that fights poverty. This year, the group's gala benefit focussed on children.

As the 4,000 guests entered the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on 14 June they were encompassed in a meticulously designed décor reflecting Robin Hood's New York City base and the evening's theme of children and education. High-definition video content was created by Idyll Hands Imagery, whose principals include Patrick Dierson and Rodd McLaughlin. Lighting design for the entire event was done by Doug 'Spike' Brant of Artfag.

Dierson wore two hats, not only providing content creation but also as the video content director for Artfag. The 400+ dinner tables were surrounded by 20 high-definition screens in a 360° configuration. "We had four quadrants, each with five screens," says Dierson. "Each of the sc

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UK - beyerdynamic microphones were chosen for the celebration of the Queens 80th birthday concert held at the Queen's private estate of Balmoral Castle. This event was the first of its kind ever held at the venue, and featured world renowned classical singer Katherine Jenkins, accompanied by the Aberdeen Sinfonietta symphony orchestra. This 'Truly Scottish Evening' featured many top artists such as the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra, singer/songwriter and broadcaster Fiona Kennedy, Celtic Scottish dancers, Massed Pipes and Drums, the Graham Geddes Scottish Dance Band and the Bon Accord Silver Brass Band.

Presented by BBC Radio 2's Ken Bruce, the live performance took place on 30 June in the beautiful grounds of Balmoral Castle, located in Royal Deeside in the shadows of Lochnagar. This beautiful estate has been a private residence to the British Royal Family since 1848.

FOH operati

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UK - The world famous Bull's Head Jazz Venue and pub, located on the banks of the Thames at Barnes has a recorded history dating back to 1684 and is one of the oldest hostelries in the country. Rebuilt in 1845 by Queens Messenger John Waring, it then became a well-known staging post where travellers making their way to Hampton Court would rest, eat and drink whilst the post horses where changed.

Since 1959 however, the Bull's Head has gained a global reputation for modern Jazz, boasting regular performances from internationally acclaimed artists including Stan Tracey, George Coleman, Humphrey Lyttelton, Bud Shank and Art Theman. Throughout this time Musicians from all over the world could be heard playing every night of the week in the Jazz Room. The venue also has an enviable reputation for showcasing new and emerging talent and support of local music education programmes.

Bu

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UK - XL Video's specialist theatre and arts department is supplying Grass Valley Turbo media servers, three Sony broadcast cameras, vision mixing and video integration facilities for Michael Grandage's acclaimed production of Frost Nixon at the Donmar Warehouse.

XL is again collaborating with cinematographer/projection designer Jon Driscoll who created the show's film footage design in conjunction with scenic designer Christopher Oram and LD Neil Austin. It evokes a classic 1970s retro look, based around a large video monitor-wall backdrop - made up from 36 'near antique' Barco 2850 video monitors - hanging behind the two main characters sitting in the TV studio.

From an A/V point of view says XL's Malcolm Mellows, Frost Nixon is "completely different to any other recent stage production because of the aged nature of much of the specified equipment." Th

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UK / USA - On Broadway, the runaway hit Avenue Q has already won the Tony awards for Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book. If this wasn't accolade enough, its lighting designer, Howell Binkley, this year scooped the prestigious Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for the musical Jersey Boys. Both musicals were programmed using a grandMA lighting control system.

Lighting designer Ken Posner for the Broadway musicals Hairspray and Wicked has also used grandMA control systems. Now, with Sinatra and Avenue Q already running on grandMA in the West End, Wicked is the next to move over from Broadway to the West End, scheduled to open on 27 September, 2006. Interestingly, the Apollo Victoria Theatre, home to Wicked, already has a fixed installation of a grandMA ultra controlling its LED house light system.

The consoles have alr

  1. Beau Rivage re-opens with HES
  2. Classical debut at Eden Project
  3. Jazz on the Danube
  4. DPA appoints new distributor
  5. 'I Want To Live In A City' with XL Video
  6. Zurich raves with K.M.E. at Street Parade
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