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UK - For this summer's Royal Ascot race meeting, D.A.S. Aero and Arco systems provided the sound reinforcement.

Installation Company Sysco specified the D.A.S. line arrays and speakers after consultant Roland Hemming recommended that the hire company rented the Aero and use it as the sole PA system for Royal Ascot. After experiencing D.A.S. installations first hand, Sysco director Hugo Roche and associate director Glyn Hughes were impressed and had little hesitation in acting on Hemming's recommendation, finally settling on the Aero 38A powered line array systems.

14 powered D.A.S. Aero 38A modules were flown at Royal Ascot's Silver Ring public enclosure and provided sound to the entire area. The line array modules were accompanied by D.A.S. DSP-26 digital signal processors that provided crossover, equaliser, limiter and delay unit functions, enabling Sysco's engineers to make

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UK - Shayne Ward has just finished his tour around some of the UK's largest arenas in support of his platinum-selling second album, Breathleess. And two important pieces of equipment accompanying the winner of the 2005 series of The X Factor were his Sennheiser SKM 935 wireless microphone and ew 300 IEM G2 in ear monitoring system.

Nick Warren has been front of house engineer for Ward since the singer won Britain's highest profile talent show two and a half years ago. "I've used the SKM 935 since it came out," he explained. "Sennheiser have always given me things to try out, and the 935 is a great sounding mic with good feedback rejection. I use them all the time. I always give them to people who've never tried them before and I haven't had a disappointed person yet. They're great mics."

Ward also became a fan of his new ew 300 IEM G2 in ear s

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Denmark - In addition to the varied musical offerings at Roskilde 2008, the colourful fringe programme offered variety of its own as well as a welcome change of pace. One of the most popular highlights this year was a mobile cinema. Equipped with the most modern components and a 60sq.m screen, the cinema was housed in a marquee with seats for over 700 movie-goers.

Danish rental company Jespers Rejsebiograf and the Herlev-based cinema sound specialist Kinovox. Ib Sigismund, a product specialist with Kinovox, reports: "We were not dealing with a normal cinema auditorium here but with a tent, and yet we needed total coverage and optimal intelligibility. Clearly the equipment used had a crucial role to play."

After careful analysis, the team came down in favour of Electro-Voice systems, specifically 15 Electro-Voice XLE line-array tops (five each left, centre and right),

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Germany - Set to become one of the biggest music festivals in Berlin, the Citadel Music Festival is due to welcome well over 100,000 visitors throughout the course of the summer. Over 30 concerts from artists as diverse as Diana Krall and Motorhead will take place from 29 May - 1 September against the spectacular backdrop of the old Renaissance fortress on the banks of the Havel river. Full service production company, Complete Audio Berlin, is supplying all the sound and lighting equipment for the duration of the festival including a powerful Crest-driven Martin Audio PA system.

According to Complete Audio Berlin's general manager, André Rauhut, while the Spandau Citadel is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful outdoor locations in Berlin, it is also one of the most technically and logistically challenging. "The first issue was getting all of our gear onto the site -

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UK - HSL is supplying stage lighting - including 16 new Robe ColorWash 750 AT Tungsten moving light fixtures purchased specially for this event - together with a stage sound system, site-wide lighting and electrics, comms, power distribution and full public address and announcement audio - to the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea's 2008 Opera Holland Park season.

For the first time in six years of HSL supplying the event, the moving light elements of the rig have been expanded substantially, including the ColorWash 750 AT Tungstens together with eight Robe ColorWash 1200E ATs rigged on the box truss and two ColorSpot 1200E ATs rigged on the first advanced bar in the auditorium.

London Borough of Kensington & Chelsea's operations manager Michael Harth says: "HSL always offer us a very competitive and comprehensive package covering all technical aspects of the pr

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UK - The Edinburgh Festival is fast approaching. By 8 August visitors will be migrating from all over the globe to participate in this year's spectacular festival. The Stage Electrics' dedicated 'Edinburgh Support Team' will be moving up to Edinburgh from 21 July for the duration of the festival to be on hand to provide a rapid response to all technical needs that may arise.

This year Stage Electrics will have a 24-hour helpline available which gives anyone the ability to reach one of its technicians anytime day or night on 0131 522 2251. The team will be permanently stationed in Edinburgh for the duration of the festival, alongside a dedicated support vehicle available to ensure any spare equipment needed reaches the client immediately. All equipment will be ready for immediate dispatch, says the company.

(Jim Evans)

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Thailand - Allen & Heath's Russian distributor, MixArt, has been involved in the design and installation of a comprehensive sound system for the new B-52 night club in Pattaya, Thailand.

B-52's sound system manages two floors, comprising 230sq.m of space on each floor. The ground floor houses a restaurant with an area for live performances, while the first floor contains a dance floor and chill-out area.

A 24-channel Allen & Heath GL2800 multi-purpose mixing console is the core element of the sound system on the ground floor, with a PA12 compact live stereo mixer coupled with a Xone:92 DJ mixer installed on the first floor. The mixers were complemented with amplification and digital control from K.M.E.

"B-52 has a Russian owner, that's why a Russian installation company was selected to perform the installation," explains Dmitry Modin, general director of MixArt Dis

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Italy - Back in April, at the 2008 SIB lighting and sound trade show, Diego Stefani of Dea Service won an ETC SmartFade ML lighting control desk. Dea Service, which is based in the province of Vicenza, rents entertainment technology equipment and solutions, mainly in the mid-eastern regions of Italy. The company supplies many live events including concerts, outdoor events and meetings, recently supplying the Italian leg of the Ferrari F430 Challenge.

Stefani comments: "I was at the ETC stand looking at Source Fours, which I'm an aficionado of and was given a demonstration on the SmartFade ML as I had never used one before. I was familiar with the bigger ETC consoles, but found the SmartFade ML to be very intuitive for such a small desk. I was really surprised to have won it and it will be a great addition to our stock."

The desk was presented to Stefani by Fabio Anse

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Belgium - Barco reports that its CLM R10+ compact DLP projector was selected for use at Expo Zaragoza 2008. More than 30 CLM R10+ projectors are installed at different locations, across five pavilions. Running from 14 June to 14 September in the city of Zaragoza, Spain, the international exposition expects to attract over six million visitors.

This year's Expo theme is Water and Sustainable Development and Zaragoza has made enormous efforts to construct the exposition site completely in line with its environmental theme.

Expo Zaragoza 2008, labeled the biggest water festival on earth, features 140 pavilions and presents 5,000 shows in 13 different venues including a daily parade by Cirque du Soleil called The Awakening of the Serpent. Its most emblematic buildings are the Water Tower, an 80m high transparent building designed by Enrique de Teresa to

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USA - John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival fame is touring in support of his latest album, Revival. The tour includes stops all over the USA, Australia and Europe and features Fogerty's return to London's Royal Albert Hall after 37 years.

"John is very involved in the way the band sounds to the audience," remarks the tour's front-of-house main-man Felix Brenner. "He'll actually walk around the arena during sound check and make sure it's just how he wants it."

The centerpiece of the FOH mixing set up is a Digidesign Venue console, clocked by an Apogee Big Ben. "When the tour began we were not using the Apogee [Big Ben] clock and the board sounded pretty good on its own," says Brenner. "Then I heard that Big Ben was making a huge difference when used to clock the Venue. So we decided to try it out.

"The Big Ben arrived at

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UK - The atrium of the Blue Fin Building, part of the Bankside development in London, has become home to a LPC X controller from Pharos Architectural Controls. The media wall had special control requirements to be considered - not the least of which was the near-30,000 channels of control needed to support the Color Kinetic's iColor Flex SL fixtures that make up the media wall in the reception area for IPC Media. This is one of many landmark projects specified by Speirs & Major Associates, supplied by Architainment, installed by Lighting Technology Projects and featuring Pharos controllers.

Orri Petursson of Speirs and Major Associates says: "The media screen is 40m long x 3m high and is made up of 9,500 RGB LED nodes spanning the entire length of an atrium. The obvious way to deliver and manage the content for this LED installation was to use a media server, however, due t

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UK - Orbital Sales is continuing to meet the increasingly versatile audio requirements of the BBC Radio Theatre at London's Broadcasting House, by supplying d&b audiotechnik components.

After meeting the specification for a major upgrade in 2007, Orbital recently provided theatre manager Mark Diamond with new E8 and E12 enclosures for portable use.

The events team already operates a portable d&b Q7 rig, provided by Orbital Sales, powered by d&b D6 dual-channel amplifier - which serves their needs where high gain before feedback is required.

For the permanent sound installation, overseen by IVC, Orbital Sales met the specification for a flown, décor-matched stereo system, based around two tops and three subs per side, designed by d&b audiotechnik's John Taylor. This combination of Q1 speakers (with rotatable waveguide) is augmented with Q-SUBS.

The theatre also has a

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Germany - The presentation of the Duftstars awards (known internationally as the FiFi awards) is one of the most glittering lifestyle events of the year. This year presenter Kai Pflaume played host to some 1,500 celebrities from the fashion and cosmetics industries and the worlds of politics, culture, and show business, including Elizabeth Hurley, model Eva Padberg, fashion designer Wolfgang Joop, and designer Vera Wang. Live music was provided by Monrose.

As in previous years, Berlin events service provider TSE AG was charged with the production, the centrepiece of its sound reinforcement design being an XLD system from Electro-Voice. Project manager Adrian Carlin comments: "The XLD has a number of very clear advantages over other line array systems. It is compact, it weighs very little, and it combines excellent intelligibility - which was particularly important he

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UK - In 2000, the Forestry Commission organised its inaugural forest tour, launched with the intention of bringing new audiences into the UK's forests and encouraging them to see the country's woodlands in a new an exciting way.

In the intervening years throughout the months of June and July, the forest tour has attracted an array of top class acts to a variety of locations, giving audiences the opportunity to enjoy both the music and the environment in which it is performed. The atmosphere is invariably as relaxed and friendly as one could wish to experience and, with crowd management company AP Security on hand, it is sure to remain that way.

"AP has been working on a number of the Forestry Commission's sites for the last five years," says AP's national sales manager, John Phillips. "Our initial contract was for Westonbirt, The National Arboretum in the Cotswo

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UK - Judas Priest have just embarked on an extensive world tour to promote their latest album, a concept work based on the life of the French apothecary and reputed seer - Nostradamus. And with a DiGiCo D5 console mixing the sound.

Despite having worked with DiGiCo consoles for several years in his capacity as system tech with the Foo Fighters, this is the first time that Judas Priest's front of house engineer (and production manager) Martin Walker has taken a DiGiCo board out on tour himself.

"With Judas Priest I've always felt that an analogue console is best," he says. "I've tried digital consoles with them before, but somehow they just weren't 'right' for the band. However the difficulty in finding my favoured analogue console prompted me to give the D5 a try this time out."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Adlib Audio supplied sound for two stages at the T In the Park 2008 festival, staged at Kinross, Scotland; the King Tuts Wah Wah Stage and Slam Stage.

For the Slam Stage, Adlib crew chief Hassane Essiahi and his team worked closely with sound engineer Dave Pringle to ensure that all the bands and DJs had the requisite levels of energy and volume to make it rock.

They chose to use a JBL VerTec system, all ground-stacked, with the main stage stacks containing six VT4889 elements a side, augmented with two 4889s per side at the edges of the stage, plus AA FD2 in-fills along the stage lip. For subs, there were eight VT 4880As per side. The four delays comprised three Nexo Alpha S2 subs, three B1 bass and six M3 tops per stack.

The FOH console was a Soundcraft Series 5. The system was controlled via Dolby Lake processors. Compression included dbx 160As and Avalon 737s, the l

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UK - To celebrate London's flagship championship tennis tournament, official banking partner HSBC transformed Wimbledon tube station into a virtual tennis court, with Nintendo Wii activities played on an Aquivo screen.

HSBC decided to transform London's Wimbledon tube station into a fully interactive mini tennis court for the duration of the tournament. Enlisting the expertise of Red Door Events, the station's outdoor concourse was immersed in tennis fever.

The area was creatively tennis themed with false grass and adorned with a range of tennis accessories to welcome both local and international visitors. The centre of the station's entrance featured an HSBC backdrop, which incorporated a 55" Aquivo and a Nintendo Wii which were both built into the set, on which commuters were encouraged to challenge each others tennis skills.

Insight AV sourced and specified the outdo

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Poland - A UFO was seen hovering in the skies over Gdansk on the 4 July. Flying up the coast, and then circling the town and dock areas, its dramatic lighting display of geometric colour patterns drew immediate attention.

It turned out not to be little green men from Mars, but an ambitious collaboration by New York artist Peter Coffin with London-based Cinimod Studios, and their design director Dominic Harris. Harris, who has worked with Pharos Architectural Controls on other projects, approached the control manufacturer for the Untitled (UFO) project, knowing that the Pharos LPC X could handle the requirements both in terms of the channel count and in realising the design brief for the playback of effects, but also - because the unit is entirely solid state - it would cope with all the vibration and movement being suspended from a helicopter travelling on sweeping and er

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USA - With 6,137 performances on its original 1975-1990 Broadway run, A Chorus Line is one of the most successful musicals in American history. The 2006-2008 Broadway revival has been another major success, with a DiGiCo D5T console at front of house.

The D5T was supplied by New York-based Autograph A2D to PRG Audio, who leased the console to the show's production company. They, in turn, brought in theatrical sound design specialists Acme Sound Design Partners to design the audio production.

"We've been using DiGiCo D5Ts since the summer of 2004, when it was on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at The Old Globe Theatre in LA Jolla, California," says Acme's Tom Clark. "Since then the D5T has become our default console for Broadway productions due to its audio quality, flexibility and high input/output count."

Lew Mead, managing director of Autograph A2

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UK - Based on the 2006 West End production at the London Palladium, Karl Sydow's Sinatra, directed by David Leveaux, is currently enjoying a successful tour of the UK.

Echoing the original West End design, the art deco-influenced set was designed by Tom Pye with significant input from his associate, Tim McQuillen-Wright. Bespoke staging company, Brilliant Stages, has constructed specialist components within the set.

The main band rostra, which carry the 16-strong Big Band, was the first section to receive the Brilliant Stages treatment. This three-tiered structure maintains the art deco look with a retro silver and black finish to each fascia, complete with soft black leather trim and brushed silver 'corrugated' risers. Each fascia incorporates concealed, clear, non-neon lighting acting as down-lighters on the corrugated risers, whilst the bottom fascia conceals a line

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Local News: Ever wondered why pubs turn music up so loud that you have to shout to the person next to you to be heard? The answer, says a report in The Guardian, may be that canny landlords are using loud music to make you drink up faster. A study by French scientists suggests that loud music in a bar is good for the bottom line. They found that when the volume goes up, punters drink faster and consume more. Mark Hastings, director of communications at the British Beer and Pub Association said, "At last we have the solution to Britain's record rate of pub closures. Thank goodness for French academics coming to our rescue, as long as they don't insist it has to be wall-to-wall Edith Piaf and Johnny Halliday."

Old News: Ageing rock stars and session musicians will keep receiving royalties for their old recordings for the rest of their lives under a European Union plan.Performer

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UK - The UK CCTV sales office at JVC Professional Europe has put in place a sales incentive scheme aimed directly at UK security installers.

The scheme enables installers to be rewarded with either a handheld consumer JVC Everio camcorder or a portable iPod stereo system with the purchase of a certain amount of CCTV products from an approved JVC UK supplier.

Phil Wring, UK CCTV sales manager at JVC Professional Europe states: "This sales promotion has been put in place to offer our partners a fun product to go with their CCTV purchases, and should make an ideal accompaniment for the rest of the summer months ahead."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - The two-day Hard Rock Calling Festival took place in London's Hyde Park on the last weekend of June. The Police headlined the Sunday with Sting using a Sennheiser e 865 wireless mic for his vocals.

"It's always good to turn up to a major televised or festival show and see that Sennheiser are there to support you," said Ian Newton, monitor engineer for The Police, "especially in such a potentially difficult RF environment as Hyde Park. Even though the equipment behaved smoothly, the added support, if and when it's required, is invaluable."

The following week Sennheiser and Britannia Row were back in Hyde Park for a special concert by Jack Johnson, immediately followed by the first of four days of the O2 Wireless Festival. Johnson chose a Neumann KMS 105 for his vocal duties, while at the O2 Wireless festival artists like Mark Ronson and Th

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USA - Creative Technology has recently invested in a total of 40 PLM 1000Q four-channel amplifier units for use in the North American market. "We offer the highest quality of equipment available for events around the world," states William Nealie, director of audio services for Creative Technology North America. "When the time came to increase our inventory of amp racks, we realised that the new Lab.gruppen system would be a perfect choice for us."

Creative Technology's new PLM amplifiers have been loaded into 10 amplifier racks that each handle eight bi-amp or 16 full-range mixes. "We first used the new PLM-equipped racks in late June with Herbalife [nutrition and weight-management company]," Nealie continues. "For an event within a 16,000-seat venue in Rio De Janeiro.

"We sent three racks for the event. Normally, we would need to send

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