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UK - Following a relationship with the 02 Arena extending back a decade (to its days as the Millennium Dome) experienced sound consultant and project manager, Eddie Thomas, has now extended his expertise to full-blown concert sound - with help from the Harman Pro brands.

Thomas's company ETA Sound remains under contract to 02 Arena management AEG, not only to provide auxiliary sound reinforcement for shows taking place in the Docklands complex's premier venues - such as the NHL and NBA events - but site-wide system maintenance and coverage for a raft of smaller events such as press conferences.

The original Millennium Dome and now both 02 Arena and the smaller Indigo2 have end-to-end Harman Pro systems (including JBL Vertec loudspeakers) operating on a CobraNet backbone running HiQnet. The latest addition to ETA's rental fleet has seen further investment both in JBL's premium

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UK - Summer 2008 has been a busy time for programming house grandPA. Following its launch in the spring, the company reports that its programmers have been involved in some major shows over the past months.

Marcus Kromer was seconded to PRG for Madonna's Sweet and Stickytour, responsible for grandMA support for the M-box Extreme video programming.

Tim Routledge spent his summer in Beijing as programmer to LD Durham Marenghi for the London 2012 Handover Ceremony at the closing ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympics and Paralympics whilst business partner Pryderi Baskeville had a busy summer between setting up the Bill Bailey tour in Australia, the Charlotte Church Show and Ronan Keating dates.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Elation Professional has announced the winners of its 2008 Elation Education Experience Award (E3) for young lighting designers who focus on the House of Worship (HOW) market.

Josh Johnston of Sheffield, Alabama; Frank Meyer of Scottsdale, Arizona; and Yoshihito Takahashi of Brooklyn, New York were selected because of their dedication and talent in the field of lighting design. They will be attending the upcoming Worship Facilities Conference & Expo (WFX) in Houston for a hands-on education in House of Worship Lighting.

Josh Johnston was nominated by Lane Sutherland, general manager of Sutherland Sight & Sound, where Johnston currently works in light sales. Sutherland says: "Josh has a great desire to learn how to put together light systems. He takes the extra time and effort to make each show better than the last."

Frank Meyer was nominated by Thomas Casem,

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Australia - During their recent seven-stop Australian tour, Goldfrapp stopped at the Sydney Opera House on for a side show. Best known for their visual theatrics and contribution to the popularisation of electronic dance music, the show at the celebrated venue attracted upward of 2500 people. In the grand setting of the Sydney Opera House, Goldfrapp emerged as a six-piece band dressed entirely in white, and were fittingly accompanied by a 14-piece string section including two harps, on a stage set consisting of bunting and a maypole.

Sydney's own Norwest productions provided the PA system for the stop, as well as for Parklife Sydney and Parklife Brisbane festivals, where a 5000 strong audience respectively, came to hear headliners Goldfrapp among other international and home grown performers.

The Sydney sound design was executed by Justin Arthur, using Adamson's

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Austria - Located on the site of an original 16th century monastery in Wiener Neustadt, Backstage Musicbar went through many changes until in 1994 it opened as a bar. By 2006 new proprietor Christian Pinkernell had established the venue as a live music bar near the Austrian capital.

Sensing the need to upgrade the sound system earlier this year, he contacted Roman Wieser at eXact, the Austrian QSC Audio distributor. "I had known Roman for a long time - but was not familiar with QSC," he said. "At that time I had my eyes set on another brand until he persuaded me otherwise."

The 80sq.m room has been equipped with a pair of powered HPR122i flown above the stage, with an HPR151i providing the bass extension. These were installed by Rautschka AVL and ELA Trading.

"Both musicians and sound engineers are delighted with the quality of the new speakers,&quo

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Ireland - D.A.S. Audio continues its worldwide seminar series, and Ireland recently received a visit from D.A.S. Audio engineer Joan La Roda.

The two-day seminar took at the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlon, an hour away from Dublin. The event was organized by D.A.S. distributor Reynolds of Raphoe and was attended by some 25 D.A.S. customers and prospective clients.

The seminar's main focus was Line Arrays: How they work, detailing 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. The theoretical section was followed by Arco, DR, Reference, Artec, Variant112A and Variant 18A product demos. Brian McGrath of Reynolds of Raphoe personally took charge of the demos and the D.A.S. systems presentation.

(Jim Evans)

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Ukraine - To celebrate the 17th anniversary of the country's independence, the Ukraine organised a major event in the capital city of (Kiev). Ukrainian rental company Sendi saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate the powers of the company's newly-purchased DiGiCo D5 console.

Taking place in Independence Square, the open air event attracted over 150,000 people to formal celebrations and a military parade in the morning, followed by an afternoon and evening of live music. This consisted of three parts - traditional Ukrainian folk music performed by eight folk groups, a set by local ten-piece pop act Minus One and sets by five different Ukrainian rock bands.

Sendi's DiGiCo D5 Live 112EX console was used to mix both Front of House and monitors and was the first time a D5 has been used in the country. Configured with 68 inputs, these included nine channels of playback for the pop

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UK - The Electric Light Orchestra's extensive autumn UK tour sees a Yamaha PM5D at front of house, with an M7CL on monitors - supplied, together with the rest of the audio specification, by Knutsford-based VME.

The nature of The Orchestra's music means that mixing both monitors and the front of house sound is fairly complex, so the onboard effects and the saving / instant recall of scenes are proving extremely useful.

"I've got six main stereo in-ear mixes for the band members, a mono feed for drummer Gordon Townsend's subs and shaker, plus another stereo in-ear mix for him," says monitor engineer Happy Anders. "This is because, at the beginning of the second half, they do acoustic songs from their solo projects and Gordon comes down the front to sing. So he's got wired in-ears when he's playing drums, but a radio pack for when he comes down the front."

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Ireland - Specialist installation company Northern Light has fitted sound, lighting and communication systems at the new opera house in Wexford, south-east Ireland.

Built on the slightly extended footprint of its predecessor, the initial scheme for the new Wexford Opera House was developed by architects and building service engineers from the Office of Public Works (OPW), acoustic consultant Arup Acoustics and theatre consultant Carr & Angier. In 2005, the design team was completed through competitive tendering, with the appointment of Arup Consulting Engineers, Nolan Ryan QS and Keith Williams Architects.

Colin Cuthbert, Northern Light's managing director, said: "I was delighted that Northern Light was selected for the technical installation in this €33m (£25.6m) new build venue. Professionally, the project demonstrates the team's expertise and abilities extremely

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UK - The historic old church of St John, Smith Square, situated near Westminster Abbey in London, is one of the UK's latest venues to benefit from Robert Juliat lighting equipment.

Now a long-standing and well-respected classical music venue, St John's, Smith Square plays host to a varied programme of classical music throughout its concert season, ranging from choirs and symphony orchestras to solo instrumental recitals.

However, the existing fixed lighting grid and its rig of 25-year old CCT Starlet 1.2K fresnels - installed as state of the art in the early 80s - has long been due an upgrade to accommodate the increasing demands put upon them by the expanding remit of performances.

It was August 2002 when Roger Hennigan, technical sales manager of Robert Juliat's exclusive UK dealer, White Light, first met with Lighting Designer Mark Henderson to discuss the redesigning of

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Italy - Sound designer Andrea Taglia has specified and designed an L-Acoustics ARCS system which has been installed at the Parco della Musica in Rome, in the venue's 2,800-capacity Sala Santa Cecilia.

Acoustically, this project posed some major challenges. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the building took 20 years to construct, and by completion the function of the different rooms had changed. Originally intended to provide stunning acoustics for large orchestras, the Sala Santa Cecilia has been drafted into service as a multifunction concert/convention venue due to Rome's lack of suitably-sized halls.

However its acoustic design, with orchestral use in mind, leaves Sala Santa Cecilia with a 2.5/2.8 reverb - perfect for symphonic music but impossible in a multipurpose room. It was this dilemma that Taglia undertook when contacted by Sonus Audio Services of Rome, a s

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UK - Entec Sound & Light supplied lighting and sound equipment with technicians for leading hair brand Toni & Guy's Mainstage 2008 Awards show staged at London Olympia Grand Hall.

Entec was working for JLP Events headed by Guy Kersey who handled all the technical production for end client, ESA Live.

The show was divided into two sections. The first saw the presentation of a series of Toni & Guy Achievers Awards, and the second part was a highly theatrical catwalk show, designed to illustrate the trends in creative hair design. Special guest appearances by LA based band Iglu & Hartly and hip-hop dance troupe Frank2louise also upped the excitement of the evening.

Entec pulled-in fashion lighting design impresario Simon Tutchener as lighting director. The rig had to light a double tiered set at the stage end, flanked by two sweeping staircases, with a revolve entrance in

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Awards News - Bandit Lites was named as 'Lighting Company of the Year' at the 2008 Parnelli Awards Ceremony. The annual awards event took place at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino on 24 October in conjunction with LDI. Rock & Roll legend, Alice Cooper hosted the event. Bandit president, Pete Heffernan, vice-presidents Richard Willis and Mike Golden and San Francisco general manager, Dizzy Gosnell were among Bandit employees to attend the awards ceremony and accepted the award on Bandit's behalf.

Comeback News - Led Zeppelin are planning to tour and record but without frontman Robert Plant. Bassist John Paul Jones told BBC Radio Devon that a new singer was being sought after Plant ruled himself out. The last time the band performed together was at the O2 arena in London in December 2007. Speculation has since been rife that the surviving members of the band, with Jason Bonham, son of

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UK - PRG has announced that it has strengthened its specialist brand strategy in the UK by acquiring Essential Lighting Group from the Staging Connections Group.

PRG CEO Jere Harris said: "We are very excited about the acquisition of Essential Lighting which underscores our commitment to a specialist brand strategy in the UK. The EL business has been driven by an engaged and committed leadership team that will strengthen the management of our UK businesses"

Essential's managing director, Martin Locket commented: "We are looking forward to becoming a member of PRG's group of companies. The resources available to us from a global organisation will help us provide a wider range of products and services within our offer to our customers."

Essential Lighting will be keeping their name, logo and identity, continuing as an independent brand, focussed on the mark

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USA - When the Theatre Arts department at American River College began making plans for its new performance space, an up-to-date rigging system was one of the department's top priorities.

"The old theatre had no fly loft," said Kathy Burleson, department chair and technical director at American River, a two-year community college with 30,000 students. "We're a teaching institution, and for most of our students, this is their first experience with lighting or rigging. We wanted a system that would enable our training process so the students could learn lighting, and experience both manual and automated rigging in a very safe manner."

The new 360-seat proscenium theatre has a 20 x 40ft proscenium and a rigging system with 42 line sets, Burleson said. "We have music events and lectures as well as full productions, so we have lots of fast changeovers. Our

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USA - City Theatrical announced its first eight SHoW DMX technology partners at the Lighting Dimensions International (LDI) show in Las Vegas.

CTI's OEM partners have committed to using SHoW DMX technology inside their products and many examples of their work were seen around the show floor at LDI, including wireless dimmers, wireless distributed dimming, wireless DMX transmitters and receivers, wireless lighting controllers, and wireless remote circuit breaker panels.

The newly announced partners include: Applied Technology (USA), Easily LED (UK) , Electronics Diversified Inc. (EDI) (USA), Johnson Systems (Canada), Lex Products (USA) , LynTec (USA), LSC (Australia) and Zero 88 (UK).

(Jim Evans)

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Australia - EAW recently provided Melbourne-based Crossway Baptist Church with EAW's flagship UMX.96 digital console for use as the church's Front-of-House mixing console. With regular cumulative Sunday attendance of upwards of 4,000 people and up to 1,100 at each service, Crossway is one of Australia's largest churches.

Crossway required a particularly powerful and versatile FOH mixing console, which is what the UMX.96 delivered. Graeme Stevenson and the rest of the team at Production Audio Services (Mitcham, Victoria) handled the sale and worked very closely with Crossway personnel in the choice and design of the system.

"The UMX.96 is very intuitive and easy to operate, which is important for us, as most of our operators are volunteers," stated Peter MacLean, Crossway Baptist Church media pastor. "Adding to that, it has comprehensive features and lots of outp

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Russia - During this year's Music Moscow the Dean Day took place at forum hall on the 10th of October. Rock musicians Michael Angelo Batio with his band Hands Without Shadows, Sergey Mavrin and the band Black Obelisk were the main acts of this event.

The Russian K.M.E. sales partner MixArt Distribution organised the exclusive festival and used as main PA the K.M.E. line array system PANO consisting of eight line array subs QLB 118, plus four line source units QL 906 and two QL 1215 as down-fill per side. The monitoring was made by CLP 320. The CA 7 served as side-fill.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - After a 13-year run in the West End, the show Buddy continues to play to full houses throughout its current UK tour. This musical is a biography of Buddy Holly, from his struggling teenage days in Texas, his climb to national success, and to his tragic death in a plane crash. Over 20 of Buddy Holly's signature songs feature throughout the show.

And ensuring Peggy Sue gets married every night without a hitch are 16 channels of Trantec S5.5 wireless. The system was recently purchased by one of London theatre hire company, Thames Audio, who have had over 17 years experience of providing a custom sound system for this show.

Sound designer and director of Thames Audio, Peter Cox says: "I am very happy Buddy has had another thriving year on tour. The combination of a good crew and first class equipment has proven itself, we get very positive comments about th

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USA - NSCA members who have shown exceptional achievements can share their expertise with peers and customers through NSCA's Excellence in Business Awards. The awards will be presented at the 2009 NSCA Business and Leadership Conference, sponsored by InfoComm International, 26-28 February in Phoenix, AZ.

Systems integrators are encouraged to nominate themselves or their industry peers who have demonstrated outstanding success in the past year in various categories.

Submissions are due 31 December 2008. The NSCA Business and Leadership Conference Committee will announce the winners on 15 January 2009.

"Creativity, vision, flexibility, economic security - these are key to the success of today's integrators," said Chuck Wilson, NSCA executive director. "NSCA is pleased to promote and recognise integrators who excel in their day-to-day activities."

Four com

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UK - Bandit Lites is currently supplying full lighting production for the Queen & Paul Rodgers tour, which features a lighting design by Baz Halpin.

The rig features over 100 moving lights from Coemar, Martin, Clay Paky, Syncrolite and Vari*Lite, a 49-way Kinesys automation system and some specially fabricated custom trussing commissioned by Bandit. Baz Halpin and lighting director, Trent O'Connor used Bandit's MSD pre-programming suite for one week prior to rehearsals. There were two weeks of production rehearsals at Elstree Studios prior to the first show.

Seven variable length raked 'finger' trusses run upstage/downstage forming an architectural 'roof' over the main performance area. All of the truss moves on Kinesys motors and the centre three have hinge-down sections at the front. Bandit purchased the Lo Pro trussing & custom hinges from Total Solutions with some modifica

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UK - Stage Electrics has announced the addition of Safex-Flamejett to its portfolio of hire and sales products.

This device produces large flame effects without on stage propane bottles. It produces safe, effective and impressive bright tongues of flame and fireballs up to 4m and is practically smokeless, says the company. Unlike the majority of fire-effect devices the Safex-Flamejett works with an aerosol containing the propellant / fuel mixture.

The 380g aerosol contains enough propellant to produce large numbers of flames and fireballs, ensuring that only a small amount of flammable substance is on stage. For professional use the device is equipped with DMX 512 connections. To operate, three channels are necessary: an arming channel, a firing channel and a flame duration channel. It is equipped with pre-selectable effect programmes and can produce rhythmic tongues of flames

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UK - The Mighty Boosh are currently on the first leg of their four-month tour of the UK. And a vital part of British comedy's brightest stars' armoury, in addition to a multitude of costume changes, on-stage effects and ridiculous jokes, are the Sennheiser in-ear monitors that allow the musical sections of the show to flow seamlessly.

For the two-hour show's many musical numbers all five members of the comedy team - Julian Barratt (Howard Moon), Noel Fielding (Vince Noir), Michael Fielding (Naboo The Enigma), Dave Brown (Bollo) and Rich Fulcher (Bob Fossil) - are fitted with Sennheiser ew 300 IEM G2 monitors, as are the two-man backing band.

"There are two full-time musicians in the band on drums and bass," explains FOH engineer Ashley Jones, part of the team from sound and lighting specialists Sonalyst. "And at the climax of the show Noel sings, Julian plays gu

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Italy - Aethra has announced that it has signed a new agreement with CVS Hightech for the distribution of its video communications product range throughout Central America.

Based in Guatemala and serving the Central American region, CVS Hightech, develops video and audio projects using state-of-the-art technology to create new opportunities in underserved markets.

CVS Hightech has significant experience in the Central American market and covers the surrounding states of El Salvador, Panama, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, as well as Guatemala itself.

Juan Ramón Echeverría, of CVS Hightech comments: "The Aethra products were selected over other brands for distribution in Central America because of the built-in-streaming capabilities that allow remote areas to participate in distance learning projects, broad compatibility with any other endpoints devices and th

  1. OHM DSP amplifier with Internet monitoring
  2. Small businesses to get £350m funding for training
  3. grandMA assists Audi launch
  4. Stagecraft reforms after liquidation; SPS in administration
  5. Protec buys extra Camco for Kylie in Dubai
  6. Record attendance at Prolight Shanghai
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