Canada - When the City of Edmonton Community Service Department wanted to enhance the night time appearance of the Muttart Conservatory they wanted to utilise the energy efficiencies of LED, so contacted ElektoLED's Canadian distributor Optilume Engineered Light Corporation for a solution. Elektor-FLEX RGB System was chosen, enabling the operators to choose from a palette of 16.8 million colours.

The Muttart Conservatory is Edmonton's premier horticultural attraction, featuring four glass pyramids filled with rare and exotic plants from all over the world, therefore the lighting needed to be equally as stunning.

The installation of the Elektor-FLEX was carried out by specialist contractors, assisted by Optilume, with commissioning carried out by ElektoLED Technicians from the UK.

Comprising of nearly 400m of RGB Elektor-FLEX and utilising over 30,000 LED's, the total install

USA - The city of Albany, Georgia has given a nod to its best-known native son with the opening of a park in his honour. Ray Charles Plaza includes a fountain featuring a life-sized revolving, lighted bronze sculpture of the famed musician seated at a grand piano. The sculpture, commissioned by artist Andy Davis, is the centrepiece of a five-acre park featuring piano-key studded sidewalks and loudspeakers playing the master's music.

The sound system, designed by Atlanta-based Lee Sound Design, features a series of Community WET loudspeakers, including eleven WET-218T two-way systems and four WET-112 subwoofers. The system is powered by Crown CTS-Series amplifiers, with Biamp Nexia DSP.

"This monument was designed to be a tribute to Ray that would last a lifetime, and the Community WET Series loudspeakers were the logical choice," said Lee Sound principal consultant

France - A Butterfly Outline array was used at the Cité de la Musique, in the heart of Paris, on the occasion of two concerts - Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg and L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches by Jean-Claude Vannier.

Outline's French distributor, AUDIO, installed a system made up of 24 Butterfly CDH 483 Hi-Packs and eight CDL 1815 Low-Packs (respectively 12 and four per side); all powered by Outline T7 digital power amplifiers. DVS 10 multi-purpose enclosures were used for the front rows of the audience and four Subtech 218 for the very low frequencies.

Bruno Morain, head sound engineer at Cité de la Musique comments, "I found the Butterfly system's performance in the theatre exceptional; I was particularly struck by the total absence of 'aggressiveness' and the aptitude to naturalness of its acoustic reproduction - practically s

Qatar - The Qatar Equestrian Federation centre has installed Meyer Sound systems as part of a major refurbishment.

The premier venue in the complex is the main outdoor arena, where the 120m diameter circular show grounds are flanked on one side by a covered grandstand with seating for 1,500 spectators. To project uniform, high-fidelity sound into the seating area, AV-TECH installed eight clusters of two M1D line array loudspeakers each along the front wall. The VIP area is served by a pair of the compact UPM-1P loudspeakers, while the vast expanse of the arena grounds - about 120m in diameter - is covered by three ground-stacked arrays of three M2D line array loudspeakers each.

"The old 100 volt distributed system had very harsh sound quality and poor intelligibility," says Hadi Arzouni, general manager of AV-TECH, the Doha, Qatar-based designer and installer of the

UK - The biggest and best All Star Lanes - the UK's original boutique bowling concept - opened this month in London's East End. Situated on 22,000sq.ft of prime real estate at the Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, the third ASL, from co-founders Mark von Westenholz and Adam Breeden, has built on the same successful formula as its predecessors - including the multimedia infrastructure.

The public and private bowling lanes, cocktail bar and authentic '50's-style, 200-cover diner/luncheonette are all served by audio visual systems designed by The Sound Division Group. Their integrated system is based around Harman Pro sound reinforcement products.

In Brick Lane there is a total of nine lanes (six on the ground floor, the remaining three forming a 1950's penthouse-style private lounge on the first floor), with a stylish drinking den specialising in classic American cocktails, pitc

France - DPA Microphones' French distributor Audio² has provided DPA MSS6000 microphone summation systems and DPA 4060 miniature omnidirectional microphones to the Cité de la Musique in Paris for two Serge Gainsbourg tribute concerts.

The concerts covered the French singer's concept album Histoire de Mélody Nelson and Jean-Claude Vannier's L'Enfant Assassin des Mouches and featured vocalists such as actor Mathieu Amalric, Placebo vocalist Brian Molko, French singers Daniel Darc, Alain Chamfort, Brigitte Fontaine, and British singer Martina Topley Bird; the Orchestre Lamoureux; a rhythm section comprising drummer Pierre-Alain Dahan, bassist Herbie Flowers, guitarists Claude Engel and Thomas Coeuriot; and a young Parisian choir.

This provided a challenge to the sound engineers, who had to manage a huge input count, including more than 70 voices. This

USA - Audio-Technica reports that its SpectraPulse technology has been selected for the newly-remodelled boardroom for a high-profile Menlo Park, California-based venture capital group. California corporate system integrator Anderson Audio Visual chose SpectraPulse to provide clear, secure wireless audio for the boardroom's teleconferencing system.

"In boardroom settings, clients often have problems with group conference calls, in which the parties on both ends of the call have difficulty hearing the audio," said Andrew Hancox, Anderson Audio Visual representative. "So we had to design a system that would help them make the calls more effective. In addition, security was a concern, as these calls are often confidential and they need to be certain that no one else has access to the frequency, and also that no other devices can interfere with the clear signal.

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USA - ESP New York and Wizard Studios recently deployed a Vi6 for the Veterans Day Celebration on the USS Intrepid. The Vi6 was used to simultaneously broadcast the live feed directly to the White House Communications Agency while maintaining 32 inputs from the celebration that provided countless obstacles.

ESP New York audio engineer Glenn Davis, who provided audio support for the event, comments, "The Veteran's Day celebration was a tremendous opportunity to showcase the capabilities of the Vi6 on a worldwide scale. A lot of technical requirements from the White House required us to pre-programme a majority of the presets, however there were a few vocal obstacles that required us to subgroup vocalist and insert graphic and sound via the console on the fly."

The Vistonics provided ESP New York engineers with an intuitive interface that is conducive for live sound ev

UK - Over 50 I-Pix BB4s and BB7s were used to great effect for lighting the ITV's new prime time games show, The Colour of Money, presented by Chris Tarrant.

The lighting was designed by Tom Kinane and Svend Pedersen, who made the bold creative move of not including a single moving light or any smoke in the rig. They wanted to introduce a completely new style of illumination for the show, utilising a substantial quantity of digital light sources to match Patrick Doherty's heavily LED based set.

Recorded in Studio 1 of the London Weekend Television HQ, space also restricted which lighting instruments could go where, and budget was also a consideration.

Around the top level of the multi-layered set were 22 BB4s, rigged just above three G-LEC LED screens, defining the top line of the set. They were used to add punch and brightness for accenting stings, and for snaps-to-s

Mexico - Sound production company Serpro Producciones (Monterrey, Mexico) recently provided Electro-Voice sound reinforcement for the first Zero-Fest music festival, which attracted a crowd of nearly 30,000 to Parque Fundidora in Monterrey.

The show local acts Zoe, Kinky, and Jaguares, along with international artists Thievery Corporation, The Mars Volta, and Junkie XL. Renowned Latin American bands Calle 13 (Puerto Rico) and Fabulosos Cadillacs (Argentina) also appeared, with Fabulosos Cadillacs headlining the event.

Zero-Fest required two stages to accommodate its long line-up of performers. The festival's Red Stage featured an EV X-Line system with two main hangs of 10 Xvls and two Xvlt per side, with low-end support via 12 ground-stacked Xsubs. The system was powered by P3000 amps and processed through a NetMax N8000 with FIR filters.

The Black Stage also featured

Germany - Dortmund's Domicil Jazz Club opted to replace its existing sound system with Adamson SpekTrix Series. The fairly new Domicil was recently voted one of the top 100 Jazz clubs in the world by Downbeat Magazine.

The entire club's footprint is about 1500sq.m and includes a café, a clubroom for smaller concerts for up to 100 people, and the main concert hall with 300 seats and standing room for 500. Hamburg based Adamson European Tour Support Jochen Sommer executed the sound design using Shooter v.2.7.0. The new P.A. in the main venue consists of L and R flown arrays of two Spektrix (5 degree) with a two-box Adamson SpekTrix W (15 degree) under-hang.

Two SpekTrix double 18" Subs per side are placed on the floor. The previous system was made up entirely of GAE Panorama speakers and some still remain as near fills and as a delay line for a balcony, as wel

UK - Promoted by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO), the closing event of the Edinburgh Festival sees a performance from the gardens beneath Princes Street, culminating in a spectacular fireworks display. The concert is broadcast through to several parts of the city, not least the length of Princes Street itself, where thousands of revellers congregate. In terms of audio it has always been an ambitious finale, and as the event has grown in stature, this was SCO's 26th year, so the expectations placed upon the PA system provider have grown with them.

"We've always seen the need for a PA system to deliver to the crowds up on Princes Street," said Cameron Crosby of Edinburgh-based Warehouse Sound Services Ltd, the company contracted to fulfil all audio requirements for the night.

"From the gardens the orchestra faces uphill and across the street, rather than down

UK - No.1 Leicester Square is recognised as one of the most famous clubbing sites in London. The place where Home launched, (prior to the Penthouse moving into the sixth, seventh and eight floors), it has now reopened as the 750-capacity Vertigo, under the new ownership of Alan Dugard's Interguide London.

With Sound Too trading further down the building, the new management team quickly realised that the inherited hybrid sound system was something of a mismatch.

One of the club's experienced DJ's, Southend-based Andy Smith, told marketing and promotions manager Arron Curtis that the seaside town was awash with high-octane KV2 systems, installed by local integrators, Essex Sound & Light - and soon ESL's MD, Mike Glover, was up in Leicester Square measuring up.

The first stage of a phased upgrade has seen him install a KV2 ES system in the main sixth floor clubbing area and the

UK - Storm Lighting used a City Theatrical SHoW DMX wireless system to help them achieve their design for the annual switching on ceremony of London's Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree lights.

They recognised the advantage of having a wireless DMX link from the control position, situated on the terrace level of Trafalgar Square, to a dimmer location situated under the tree itself.

Martin Chisnall of City Theatrical London commented: "This is a classic use of wireless DMX. To bridge a physical barrier which otherwise would have taken a long and time consuming cable run through a public area. SHoW DMX was able to offer a fast, secure and reliable wireless link to replace this cable run. SHoW DMX's patented frequency hopping technology ensured the system worked flawlessly, even though several other WiFi networks were also present in the square."

Dave Knapp of Storm Ligh

UK - United Visual Artists' Constellation is a light-based sculptural intervention which has been designed especially for the London's Covent Garden Market Halls.

For this project, Tarmled supplied a total of 578 2m long, double-sided, LED-strips, and 37 DPDUs (Data Power Distribution Units), to power the installation.

Tarmled's engineers developed double-sided, video-compatible LED-strips based on its Tarmled Strip 25-modules that were premiered at PLASA 2008. The LED strips were incorporated into polycarbonate tubes coated with a semitransparent reflective film, in accordance with UVA's design.

Together with customised Tarmled DPDUs, the tubes are allowed to hang elegantly in the space, as the DPDU's allow for cable runs of maximum 20m from the fixture using a single Cat 5e cable carrying data and power to each fixture. The 25mm pixel spacing of the strips and UVA'

UK - WindowGain, the UK based outdoor media contractor and technology company, which recently launched its Hi Max (High Definition - Maximum Impact) network of strategically located large format digital projection screens in flagship UK shopping malls, has commenced its roll-out of iconic London sites network at the easyInternetcafé on London's Oxford Street.

Supported by AV distributor and custom engineering company, Paradigm AV, they evolved a solution in which two large format HD rear projection screens have been installed - measuring up to 40ft on the ground floor and up to 80ft on the first floor - with full audio capability.

The dual screen site (situated in the heart of Oxford Street, close to Bond Street tube station) has been created in association with Eyeconic Outdoor (the outdoor division of London based Media 7, who specialise in media sales at prominent ci

UK - XL Video UK worked with artist Martin Firrell on a special installation art work to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the 'topping out' of London's iconic St. Paul's Cathedral.

The Question Mark Inside was commissioned by the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's, and involved projecting video texts onto three separate locations at the Cathedral. Outside, this was onto the south elevation of the dome and the West Front at Ludgate Hill, and inside, around the famous Whispering Gallery.

Firrell's text included blog postings from the public plus comments from interviews he conducted with some of the UK's foremost thinkers and his own observations. All were based on the question: "What are the things that make life meaningful and what does St Paul's mean in contemporary contexts to us in 2008?"

XL has worked with Firrell on previous projection projects at the Roya

UK - Curve, the new performing arts centre for Leicester chose White Light to supply the complete lighting rig for the new building, which opened last month.

The new building, designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects and intended to replace the Leicester Haymarket and form the centrepiece of the city's new Cultural Quarter, will provide a versatile series of performance spaces: a principal 750 seat theatre and smaller 350-seat studio theatre with back to back stage, but with the ability to remove the divide between the two stages to create one traverse performance space, or even open the stages up to the spectacular glass foyers and to the world outside if required by a particular production.

Such a building needs a versatile stock of lighting equipment to expand upon the range of equipment which will be moved to the new venue from the Haymarket. Curve's 'wish list' was arrived a

UK - From the production and distribution of live pictures and real time data to operating the largest fleet of satellite uplink fleets in Europe, Satellite information Services (SIS) is constantly reviewing its facilities based on the changing requirements of its customers.

The company recently commissioned two new dual antenna HD trucks, equipping each with 20-channel Soundcraft BB100 production/on-air mixing consoles.

Designed to offer complete diversity and unparalleled transmission resilience, each vehicle contains two fully-isolated/fully redundant SD/HD transmission chains, and comprehensive audio/video test and monitoring.

Dave George, project manager for SIS Live, says, "We looked into the marketplace and found the BB100 to be a high specification desk at a competitive price. It offered an excellent featureset, such as the mix minus facility, and we use the sub

UK - Brilliant Stages once again takes to the high seas designing, building and installing sections of set for the Bill Dudley designed show Once Upon A Dream aboard the Princess Cruises' Ruby Princess.

Once Upon A Dream is one of a number of shows which play in repertoire during the liner's cruise schedule. Brilliant Stages' components for the set comprise of huge moving walls which frame the stage to the side and rear. The side walls each measure 6m wide x 4.1m high, and the back wall a staggering 9m wide x 4.1m high - and all are designed to move at speeds up to 0.5m per second.

The moving walls are used to transform the set into an ever-changing series of different shapes and sizes. The side walls are attached to the proscenium by hinges on which they can pivot, whilst the back wall can be tracked up and down stage to meet with the sides. Side wall ang

Germany - One of Bremen's most popular late night lounges has been equipped from the ground up with Monacor International's IMG Stage Line sound reinforcement systems.

Situated right in the heart of the city, The Loft plays host to a wide international audience and regularly welcomes players from local Bundesliga football club, Werder Bremen.

The venue is owned by Canadian Steve McMinn, who had earlier developed the 450-capacity Paddy's Pit - an Irish Bar situated underneath.

"But Paddy's became so busy that we needed a new place upstairs, with a different concept," says general manager Phil Seling. Thus the Loft was born, specialising in a friendly atmosphere, relaxed lounge music and waitress service.

Opening from 4pm-2am daily, the owners realised that such a long duty cycle would require sound reinforcement components that were not only reliable, but also ver

Korea - The Main Hall of a Korean high school has been equipped with an ILA Installation Line Array system from QSC Audio, who have also supplied all the amplification and network processing.

The rectangular, multipurpose hall at the Daesung High School in Seoul needed a versatile system that could cater for the diverse range of school activities - ranging from its use as a gymnasium/basketball court, to hosting entrance and graduation ceremonies.

The old system had deteriorated badly and Sama ProSound, QSC Audio's Korean distributors, were brought in to respecify the system.

Sama ProSound felt not only that the ILA's compact footprint and attractive external design complemented the interior design of the main hall, but that its vertical array attributes would allow an optimum dispersion pattern from the tightly spaced speaker arrangement. Furthermore, by excluding some of t

Austria - High quality in speech and music, especially optimal speech intelligibility at all seats of the theatre and an inartificial support of dialogues were some of the main demands for the new public-address system in the theatre of St. Pölten in lower Austria.

The theatre includes a large hall for 360 visitors and a smaller studio stage with 120 seats. As music and sound effects are now part of a contemporary play, a flexible, multifunctional sound system is essential. Besides drama, the theatre also presents live concerts and the theatre's premises can be rented; the sound system had to be highly adequate for all these applications.

The new sound system with Alcons loudspeakers fulfils all these requirement profiles. Additionally it was possible to fit the components into the tight budget, which was available for the new sound system. This now includes a DiGiCo D1 mixin

Ireland - The inaugural evenTech Ireland (18-19 November, 2008) has prompted a satisfied response from exhibitors and visitors alike, according to the organisers.

The show included networking events and education in the form of seminars, spread across two-days, enabling key regional decision-makers a chance to see, feel and hear the latest technologies and solutions for the first time in Ireland.

Buoyed by the success of the third regional networking exhibition in the evenTech series, show organiser, Darren Brechin, comments: "Our initial ideas for the format of the show have now been realised through the positive response from our exhibitors and the calibre of the visitors. We reached both our exhibitor and visitor targets and this is a direct reflection of the need for a dedicated show for Ireland."

(Jim Evans)

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