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Australia - Gold-Coast-based Con-Sol has recently boosted its audio rental inventory with the purchase of a L-Acoustics' Kiva line source array system from Australian and New Zealand distributor Random Audio.

Con-Sol managing director, Bill Karaitiana said the company had been seeking a system with flexibility and versatility to suit the corporate market.

"We chose to go with the Kiva and Kilo LF extension system because of its incredibly high 'power to weight ratio' without compromising audio quality. We were also sold on the new LA4 amplifier with inbuilt amp and processing power - which takes away the opportunity for curious 'little fingers'.

"Our new Kiva system debuted at the Cairns Convention Centre with an event for one of our national clients. It was a great success and our client was over the moon with the clarity and quality of sound."

(Jim Evans)

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China - Lighting designer Durham Marenghi specified individual i-Pix BB4 LED cells to up-light the performers onboard the special double decker London bus in the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics 'Handover' sections of the 2008 Beijing Olympics & Paralympics Closing Ceremonies.

The two Handover events took place three weeks apart in the Birds Nest stadium, and were integral elements of both Games' Closing Ceremonies.

Marenghi chose BB4 cells - high power homogenized 20 degree RGB lightsources - because they were "efficient, bright and low power". There were 24 individual units bordering each of the two scissor lift platforms either end of the bus, and 20 on the central hydraulic ram lift.

The bus was designed by Stufish, and the BB4s - along with other lighting elements - were integrated into it by Stage One, who customised the whole vehicle for the shows.

(Ji

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South Africa - DWR Distribution has been appointed as the official Vari*Lite distributor for South Africa.

Vari*Lite had been scouting South Africa for some time, and Bob Schacherl, VP of sales visited earlier in the year with the objective of identifying a suitable partner company. Whilst there, he consulted with many industry professionals and "the company most frequently mentioned was DWR," he reports.

He was also familiar with Duncan Riley's history in the industry, and the passion and enthusiasm that drives the company and has carved out its reputation for delivering world class customer service and support - a goal shared by Vari*Lite.

Riley and Schacherl met recently at PLASA 2008 in London and came to a verbal agreement which has now been formalised. Schacherl says he is "very excited" to be entering the South African market.

Riley comments: &qu

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Spain - For the first time in three years DJ Tiësto returned to the Spanish island of Ibiza to host his own weekly residency at Privilege, the world's largest nightclub. Playing accompaniment to the four-hour DJ sets in the form of a dynamic backdrop was a high impact 120sq.mMartin LC Series LED wall.

The event ran every Monday night from early July until the closing party on 22 September and featured new production and effects gear including a customized DJ booth and the state-of-the-art LED backdrop.

"The use of lasers was not an option this year so we took a look into the LED screens on the market," says Bart Roelen, production manager for Tiësto. "We couldn't do lots of rigging in the club so lights had to be hung on a steel layer construction placed upstage. Video is a very important element of Tiësto's show so we needed a system that could be placed on

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UK - XTA processors have played a major part in this year's record-breaking summer festival season.

Audile and SSE Audio are two of the most prominent audio companies that used XTA equipment on many of the main festivals. Between them, they serviced stages at events including Reading and Leeds, both V2008 venues, the Isle of Wight Festival, Glastonbury, Download, Cropredy, Bestival, Camp Bestival, Creamfields, Global Gathering, Latitude, Oxegen, Gatecrasher Summer Sound System, Escape In The Park and Beach Break Live, along with brand new events like Summer In The Park and The Hop Farm Festival.

Audile's festival rigs comprise Funktion One self-powered Resolution 5s with F-221 subs (the latter featuring Funktion One/XTA A6 amp modules) and passive Resolution-5s/4s with F-218 subs, driven by MC2 amplifiers. Control for the systems is by XTA DP448s and GQ600s, with C2 compressor

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UK - PEL Music & Media has installed a comprehensive professional sound system into the new Boffi kitchens and bathroom Showroom in Chelsea, London.

Opened in March 2008, the Boffi Chelsea showroom is the first Boffi owned showroom in the UK and has been designed by architect Piero Lissoni. It occupies 6,500 sq.ft and displays models of kitchens and bathrooms in an absolute minimalist style.

To aid the ambience in the new store, Boffi wanted a professional sound system and went to manufacturer Bose for a suitable solution. PEL Music & Media is a Bose Pro-Partner and was recommended by Bose for the system design and installation.

PEL based the design of the sound system around a Bose Professional System, featuring a multi zoned Bose FreeSpace 3 system driven by Cloud amplification, including an iPod docking station.

Showroom manager Steven Salt comments, "The system wo

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Festival News - Half the tickets for 2009's Glastonbury festival have been sold already, eight months before the Somerset festival is due to take place. Tickets went on sale on Sunday morning and by early evening more than half the 137,500 places were snapped up. Spokesman John Shearlaw said he was "chuffed" so many tickets had gone for the event at Worthy Farm, Pilton. The early ticket sale comes after last year's event failed to sell out on the first day. Despite that, Shearlaw said he had not expected the tickets to sell out so far in advance. "That would have been extraordinary, without a line-up and eight months before the event," he said. "You can look at it from both sides because if they had all sold out, there would have been eight months of turning people away.

Church News - Guitarist Carlos Santana has said he wants to become a church minister when h

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UK - Sustainable events came a step closer to reality with the announcement of the UK's single largest self-funded programme on implementing the new British Standard, BS 8901 Sustainable Event Management.

The programme, which commenced earlier this year, involves every part of the industry sector, from event clients to organisers, and venues to suppliers and features large corporate companies through to small and medium-sized enterprises.

This programme is managed by the Sustainable Events Group (SEG) and is due to run through until the planned review of the new standard early in 2009. Experiences from the programme will feed directly into the BS 8901 revision process undertaken by the British Standards Institution.

"The programme gives the UK event industry a real chance to lead the world in the application of sustainability principles to their activities and events,&q

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Australia - Swinburne University in Prahran, Victoria, already a client of Coemar De Sisti Australia contacted the company regarding requirements for a lighting and dimming system for a new studio under construction.

They required a dimming system with patch facilities, so Coemar De Sisti Australia specified LSC. The installation was completed in just two days. Michael Ellul Coemar De Sisti's project manager attended on-site and commissioned the system immediately.

The studio is now up and running with a LSC EKO installation dimmer rack, LSC iPatch and Minim lighting console along with De Sisti Giotto over head cyc lights.

(Jim Evans)

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UK Sunbaba was commissioned to provide over 4500m of branded signage for the Sky Sports Freewheel which took place on 21 September. The event was produced by experiential marketing agency RPM, Limelight Sports and the Greater London Authority (GLA).

An estimated 50,000 cyclists were given free rein of the city for a day as a central 12km route between the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace was closed to traffic. Some participants donned unusual costumes whilst others rode vintage penny farthing bicycles alongside the many families with children who were enjoying cycling without the pressure of heavy London traffic. Rest stops were placed around London offering refreshments and entertainment including live music, cycling limbo challenges and jugglers.

Sunbaba supplied 4000m of non woven Polyester which lined the main cycle route and 500m full colour Ultramesh covered

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Germany - More than 50 DPA 4060 and 4061 miniature mics have been used for a production of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen - a piece for three orchestras - performed during the Berliner Festival in late September. The epic piece was performed four times as part of the festival finale by the Berliner Philharmonika with conductors Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Harding and Michael Boder, in a 1930s aircraft hangar at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin.

Gruppen was written for 109 players divided into three orchestral units, each with its own conductor, deployed in a horseshoe shape to the left, front and right of the audience. The spatial separation was designed to keep simultaneously played, musically separate passages distinct from one another, but in some passages a single musical process passes from one orchestra to another. This setup required three discrete sound systems.

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Singapore - D.A.S. Audio continues to host seminars across Asia. Singapore was recently chosen to host a workshop session led by Joan La Roda, D.A.S. sound engineer, attended by around 50 students from the School of Audio Engineering (SAE) of Singapore.

The four-hour session included the presentation Line Arrays: How they work, focusing on the technical features and applications of line array systems, as well as an explanation about subwoofer characteristics and configuration entitled Subwoofer Configurations and Time Alignment.

Eduardo Lopez, sales & marketing for D.A.S. Audio Asia joined Joan La Roda at this international event. With its strong practical flavour, the seminar also featured an explanation about how to take high precision acoustic measurements using two programmes designed specifically for this purpose, namely SATLive and Smaart Live.

(Jim Evans

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UK - Show Presentation Services (SPS) was recently appointed to work with leading creative agency Neighbour to launch the Levi 501 Jeans by House of Holland on 18 September in store at Selfridges, London.

The brief was to provide a window display system visible to pedestrians passing by Oxford Street. The screen incorporated content prior to the launch of abstract images of models on a catwalk with text announcing the countdown to the launch. After the launch, the screen was used to show edited footage of the product being displayed on the catwalk at London Fashion Week.

Using a traditional display system such as plasma or LCD screen in a street-facing shop window would dramatically affect the screen visibility due to the high ambient light conditions. The solution provided by SPS was to use a high brightness indoor/outdoor Barco Dlite 7 LED display with a screen size of 2688m

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Qatar - When the Qatar Equestrian Federation (QEF) decided that a full upgrade of its public address system was necessary, following major improvements to their indoor and training facilities, they turned to AV-TECH, one of Qatar's leading suppliers of high end audio, video, broadcast and lighting equipment. After much deliberation, AV-TECH engineers eventually settled for a custom-designed solution from Meyer Sound and Community with amplification from Lab.gruppen's installation-dedicated C Series range.

The installation covered several areas including the main indoor arena and associated warm-up area as well as the main outdoor arena and its associated warm-up area. The areas to be covered were extensive and there were several logistical difficulties to overcome, but eventually the consultants and engineers agreed to adopt a surface element approach as that which provided opti

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France - The 95th annual Tour de France was followed by hordes of passionate crowds cheering along the road. Covering the event for television with a highlights programme was Belgian national broadcaster VRT. Rosco provided gobos and a gobo rotator to animate the images.

VRT Broadcast presented its programme, which included interviews with cyclists and other TV personalities from France and Belgium, every night, in a different location along the route.

Set locations included places such as the courts of old castles as well as vineyards, with facilities supplied by Videohouse and lighting rented by Lites. Seeking visual interest for its coverage, VRT approached Rosco looking for a "bright and easy to use" visual aid that they could set up.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Fatboy Slim's Big Beach Boutique 4 took place on Saturday 27 September, attractingaround 20,000 people to the show on Madeira Drive, Brighton. The event marked the end of a 38-day world tour of festivals and beach gigs for the DJ.

LM Productions supplied multiple laser systems for the performance these included their powerful 40W emerald green lasers, two high powered full colour whitelight lasers, stage left and right, and a green diode laser positioned behind Fatboy Slim's booth.

LM Productions also supplied lasers for Fatboy Slims headlining slot at the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park this summer.

You can view video footage of the Brighton event at www.lm-productions.com.

There will be more on Fatboy Slim's Big Beach Boutique in November's Lighting&Sound magazine.

(Claire Beeson)

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UK - PLASA has launched a major new initiative on behalf of companies who work in, or supply to, the production and events sectors. In partnership with the Sustainable Events Group, PLASA has put together a programme of workshops designed to take companies through the development and implementation of BS 8901 - the major new event management standard that will influence how all events are delivered in the future.

Attaining compliance with BS 8901 will give businesses a significant market advantage as the new standard is already being specified by major organisations such as London2012 and is a core commitment of the recently-issued DCMS Sustainable Development Action Plan.

The programme, which is open to both members and non-members, is based on a series of five one-day workshops held at 4-5 week intervals, and has been specifically designed to provide a low-cost route to achi

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Sweden - The Europaporten Kongresscenter in the southern Swedish city of Malmö has chosen a Geo S12 line array system to reflect its unusual multipurpose identity; not only is this 820-seater auditorium the home of the Malmö Pentecostal Church, but it also actively markets its facilities as a congress centre and meeting hall.

Malmö's Europaporten is home to one of Sweden's largest Pentacostal congregations, but its spacious modern auditorium is also a popular venue for conferences, live music performances and corporate meetings. Its search for a new and versatile sound reinforcement system led to the consideration of several blue-chip brands, and the contract was awarded to Nexo after a series of on-site demonstrations.

"We prepared very well, studying the room's characteristics carefully and staging a very successful demo which showed off the Geo S12's strengths of au

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UK - Close collaboration between the Barracuda Group and screen media content creation and delivery specialists, Kaleidovision, has provided the cornerstone for a marketing campaign throughout the operators' targeted Varsity Bars estate.

Following a brief from Barracuda, Kaleidovision's creative studio has designed a library of screen media aimed at the Varsity Bars' chain of 41 student bars; the new campaign kicked off this month to coincide with the start of the new 2008-9 academic year.

This year's promotion, titled Crazy Sexy Cool, encompasses a consumer competition to find the Face of Varsity 2009. All the channel content is focused on the VCard loyalty card, 650,000 of which were sold during the last academic year. To give it added currency, Kaleidovision has been tasked with animating the 25% discounts provided by the eight sponsor partners, which this yea

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USA - Lighting manufacturer Elation Professional has announced that Everlast Productions, based in Dania Beach, FL, will serve as its East Coast Service Centre. The move will enable customers on the East Coast to have warranty and non-warranty authorised repairs on Elation products performed at Everlast by factory trained technicians.

"We're confident that this association will result in better service to Elation customers on the East Coast and faster turnaround on repairs," said Eric Loader, director of sales for Elation Professional. "Everlast is a highly regarded production company with experience in a wide range of lighting applications, and they share our strong dedication to quality and service."

Specialising in corporate events, outdoor events, night clubs, trade shows, HOW installations, hotels, stadiums, museums and more, Everlast Productions provi

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USA - Open to university and college students nationwide, the registration for Shure's fifth annual Fantastic Scholasticrecording competition will remain open until 17 October 2008. A random drawing on or about 22 October will determine the 10 competing schools, each of which will receive a standardised 'mic locker' from Shure that must be used to complete every recording project submitted.

The names of registrants chosen as contestants in the random drawing will be posted on Shure's website. Competing teams from each school are required to record and mix an original piece of music. Their submission will be judged by a panel of industry professionals who will evaluate the recordings based upon their overall fidelity, clarity, sonic balance, and creativity in selection and placement of the microphones. Previous judges have included Dave Hewitt, Joe Barresi, Mike Fraser, El

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France - Following the successful PLASA launch of Innovason's new compact digital control surface, Eclipse, Innovason's Czech distributor, Music Data enjoyed a successful Muzika Expo trade show in Prague. In addition to showing the rest of the Innovason range, Music Data dedicated a specially commissioned OB van to showcase Eclipse, and were rewarded for their efforts by taking two preliminary orders at the show.

According to Music Data's Tomas Ourednicek, the show was a great success. "We decided to show Eclipse in an OB van that we had painted with Eclipse graphics especially for the show. It gave us an ideal environment in which to present the console away from the distractions and noise of the show floor. All of our customers loved the new control surface."

Ourednicek also took his first orders for Eclipse at the show: the first from a rental company who already

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Norway Oslo's new National Opera House is one of the most prestigious international pioneers of TTA's Stagetracker FX actor tracking and audio position technology.

Built by the architects Sn°hetta in a waterside location in the Bj°rvika district, this great theatre represents the beginning of a remarkable urban renewal which will transform the city of Oslo. This remarkable building houses a traditional horseshoe-shaped auditorium built around a proscenium stage, accommodating 1400 in its main hall, and another 400 in a secondary performance space. The house is the seat of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, known in Scandinavia for its leaning towards avant-garde and experimental productions, and the artistic programme is also expected to include musical shows alongside the opera repertoire.

Buying local technology, Den Norske Opera has become the first internatio

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UK - In an attempt to boost sound engineering qualifications and improve stagecraft in the theatre industry, Orbital Sound recently revived their two-day Sound Skills for Theatre training course under the tutelage of Theo Holloway.

With a heavy pantomime season in prospect, the company has a major interest in skills investment, and Theo Holloway believes the exercise paid off.

"We had 15 students - which, with such a broad range, is the maximum number we wanted to accommodate," he reports."It is the first time we've run a course in this format and it has attracted a real mix of people - from senior sound students, venue staff, freelancers and even a rock 'n' roll engineer, who is training at a drama school."

What emerged over the two days, he said, was a healthy appetite for learning. "Hopefully these people have seen us as being helpful, as w

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