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The Netherlands - A total of 432sq.m of B10 10mm enhanced resolution LED banner and 60m2 of S10 10mm virtual resolution digital signage screens from LED screen manufacturer, Lighthouse Technologies are currently enhancing Dutch supporters' football experience at a number of locations across the country.

Sold by Dutch systems integrator and Lighthouse's distributor in The Netherlands, Hecla Professional Audio & Video Systems BV, one system resides at FC Utrecht, the football club that has its home in Holland's fourth largest city, whilst the other is co-owned by two rental companies and two advertising agencies which have signed deals with several separate clubs.

"The first system we sold was 216m2 of Lighthouse's new B10 LED banner system," says Jos den Hartog, new business manager for Hecla. "This was purchased by a combination of two rental companies and two a

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Chile - Estadio German Becker in Temuco is the latest in a long list of large Latin American sports venues to install sound systems from Electro-Voice. Prosound Ltda. of Viña del Mar, Chile completed the system design and installation of EV Sx600 dual element/single enclosure line-array loudspeakers at Estadio Germán Becker. Designed specifically for stadium-type environments, and proven around the world in Olympic and World Cup soccer stadiums, this marks the first major Sx600 installation in Chile.

The new stadium was officially inaugurated on 5 November 2008 with a Women's World Cup soccer warm-up match between Chile and Brazil. The first official match of the Women's Soccer World Cup was played on 10 November. The President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, visited the site to check on the work progress, and congratulated Prosound for the job.

"This installation raises t

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UK - Yamaha Commercial Audio UK has initiated a series of training seminars to introduce theatre audio professionals and students alike to the key digital audio protocols, while raising awareness of the possibilities that are now available to mid- and small-scale productions.

Presented by deputy general manager Karl Christmas and installation manager Scott Fraser, the first of these seminars took place at London's Central School of Speech and Drama in late November.

"As a company, we have extremely broad knowledge of audio networking technology," says Christmas. "The half-day course is intended to be a thought-provoking introduction to the subject, covering a range of digital protocols and examining which is best for any given situation."

Although using Yamaha equipment for demonstration purposes, the course is designed to be as 'non-partisan' as possible

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UK - Five dealers have been appointed by DiGiCo to handle sales for its new entry level SD8 digital mixing console: Autograph Sales in London, Hawthorns in the Midlands, Stage Electrics in the South West, Wigwam in the North of England and Ireland's Rea Sound.

"Being a lower cost, higher volume product with a slightly different market emphasis to DiGiCo's existing consoles, it requires a different route to market," says Mick Anderson, whose company, Mick Anderson Consulting was brought onboard in July 2008 to help put in place the commercial template necessary to capitalise on the SD8's exceptional take up since its launch at PLASA in September.

"We are delighted to be chosen as one of the key dealers for the new SD8 console," says Autograph director, Duncan Bell. "It continues the close association that we have built with DiGiCo.over the last five yea

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UK - Leeds-based UK MI distributor John Hornby Skewes & Co, recently appointed exclusive England, Scotland & Wales distributor for Allen & Heath's PA and ZED Series of small format mixers has taken over sales and distribution of these product ranges in Northern Ireland and Eire, effective 1 Januasry 2009.

"As predicted, Allen & Heath has proved to be a perfect complement to our other hi-end pro audio brands - HK Audio, LA Audio and LAB.Gruppen," comments JHS MD, Dennis Drumm. "As such, adding Northern Ireland and Eire to our A&H sales territory is the perfect way to capitalise on our work with the brand. We look forward to generating similarly successful results with the additional expansion of these areas to the JHS sales map."

A&H sales manager, Martin Daley adds, "The transfer of PA and ZED distribution to JHS has proved very successful and the sale

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UK - The nominees for the 2009 What's On Stage Theatregoers' Choice Awards, which cover productions that have opened in London's West End and beyond over the last 12 months, have now been announced.

The 2009 awards mark the introduction of a new Best Lighting Designer category to the awards. This category is sponsored by White Light.

As with all of the other categories, nominations for the Best Lighting Designer award came from members of the public. The lighting nominees are Chahine Yavroyan for Relocated at the Royal Court Upstairs and Wig Out! at the Royal Court Downstairs; Jean Kalman for The Year of Magical Thinking at the NT Lyttelton and In The Red and Brown Water at the Young Vic; Malcolm Rippeth for Brief Encounter at The Cinema, Haymarket and Six Characters In Search Of An Author at the Gielgud; Mark Henderson for U

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Portugal - Since opening its doors in April 2005, the Casa da Música concert venue has transformed the cultural life of Portugal's second city, Porto. While architect Rem Koolhaas' multifaceted building has charmed architecture critics worldwide, musicians of many genres and nationalities have been drawn to the Casa's special interior design and enjoyed the warm reception offered them by local audiences.

Until this year, however, the Casa lacked its own permanent sound reinforcement system - a situation now remedied by the installation of Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers in both the main 1,300-seat venue, Sala Suggia, and the Casa's auxiliary hall, Sala 2.

The permanent systems are supplied by Meyer Sound Portugal, and installed by the Casa's own engineering department under the direction of in-house technical production manager, Ernesto Costa. Explaining the time lag be

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Australia - ARX Systems has announced the appointment of Barcelona based Check Audio as its new distributor for Spain.

ARX managing director Colin Park commented, "I have been discussing the possibilities of working together with Check Audio in Spain for some time, Their sales team felt our range of signal processing products was a very complementary fit with the other lines they currently represent, especially our newer USB and Analogue interface and dynamics products.

"Spain has always been important for ARX, along with the UK and Germany it's one of Europe's trend setting markets. We're looking forward to working with Jon Ivory and his team at Check Audio to consolidate ARX's position in the Spanish market and to reinforce to their customers the state of the art performance that ARX products can offer them."

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Kanbar Hall at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (JCCSF), one of the city's newer performing arts venues, recently upgraded its sound system with the installation of an L-Acoustics ARCS and dV-SUB loudspeaker setup.

The 468-seat theatre now benefits from twin horizontal arrays each comprised of two ARCS enclosures flown above the left and right sides of the stage accompanied by a single dV-SUB enclosure per side down on the deck. L-Acoustics LA Series amplifiers power each of the loudspeakers.

According to Michael J Graphix, production manager and technical director for Kanbar Hall, "We've wanted to upgrade our system since we opened in 2004. We present many European and Israeli performing artists, and L-Acoustics equipment is usually their first request on the tech riders."

In addition to the new ARCS/dV-SUB system, Kanbar Hall has also utilised L

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UK - MC2 Audio has announced the appointment of CMI Music & Audio as its sole distributor for Australia. Established in 1978 as a musical instrument distributor, the company successfully expanded into the pro audio market representing such products as HK Audio, dB Technologies & Wharfedale Pro and more recently, has entered into the software/hi-tech market.

While CMI's head office and national distribution warehouse are located in Melbourne, the company maintains a national presence through sales offices and territory managers who service an extensive dealership network across all Australian states and territories. CMI Music & Audio's product ranges are supported by the company's extensive experience in sales, service, marketing and distribution, all of which is underpinned by local market knowledge.

CMI's managing director, Peter Trojkovic, states, "We have worked hard t

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UK - Last year saw specialist sound rental company, Audio Alliance, move to larger premises and increase both its stock and staffing levels. This year has seen the company's expansion continue, with further increases in stock and more new members of the team,

Additions to its product portfolio include ten UPJ-1P compact VariO loudspeakers and a number of UMS subs from the Meyer Sound range as well as a Cadac S-Type mixing console, which has already seen service on a new concept in corporate entertaining and creative business development, The Great Northern Cook Off.

Pete Stanbank has joined tghe company as warehouse manager and a new association struck with sound engineer Steve Phillips.

"Audio Alliance concentrates on the corporate sector," says director, Oliver Driver. "Demand for our services is high, with regular work coming from a selection of Euro

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UK - Nottingham-based E-luminate were contacted by Architainment Lighting, Philips SSL Value Added Resellers (VAR), to work with the developers of TRMNL, a new dance club located in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham.

They planned to redevelop a partially derelict, old Victorian factory into a top dance venue. The plan was to keep as many of the existing features as possible and combine this with an LED-based lighting system to create something special.

The brief for the LED lighting was to recreate the lighting system and atmosphere of the Watergate Club in Berlin.

The lighting system created consists of a 14m x 2.7m light box which runs 12m along the ceiling and 2m down the wall at the back of the DJ booth. The lighting is provided by 910 Philips icolor Flex SLX nodes supplied by Architainment Lighting. These nodes were mounted onto panels which were then suspended from t

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Monaco - Moods nightclub boasts an audio system that includes a DiGiCo D1 Live and XTA DP448 digital signal processing. It is a multi-layered venue which, despite having acoustics that were carefully taken in to consideration during its construction, has proved challenging to provide full audio coverage for.

Philippe Barguirdjian of French sales and rental company Arpège Son Lumiere carried out the specification and installation of the system. "We specified the D1 because it is a great sounding console, because the space it has to fit into is very tight so the small footprint of the D1 is good and because of the price," says Barguirdjian.

Another factor in Barguirdjian's console decision was that the engineers at Monaco SBM (Société des Bains de Mer) were already familiar with DiGiCo consoles.

"During the summer, an SD7 and a D5 were used at Mon

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USA - Shure endorser Juanes was the big winner at this year's Latin Grammy Awards, bowing five times as the recipient of awards for Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Male Pop Vocal Album, and Short Form Music Video. Joined by R&B singer John Legend, the Colombian rocker additionally opened the ninth annual gala with Legend's If You're Out There. Both sang completely in Spanish, using Shure UR2/KSM9 wireless.

Another Shure endorser, Julieta Venegas, also took to the stage with UR2/KSM9 wireless and her accordion to perform El Presente. Making la noche that much more complete, the Mexican singer/songwriter bagged two trophies as well, one for Best Alternative Music Album, and the other for Best Music Video - Expanded Version.

Coming to the event with the Grammys and Latin Billboards already under his belt, Eric Schilling of Norfolk Music

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UK - An L-Acoustics V-Dosc line source array system was used by Britannia Row for the MTV Europe Music Awards featuring Beyonce, Duffy, Kid Rock, Pink, The Killers, Take That, Kanye West and The Wombats, held at the Liverpool Echo Arena.

As the show was being broadcast on MTV, the system needed to be concealed as far as possible, so it couldn't be too large or obtrusive. Despite these constraints, it also needed to be powerful, provide good dispersion and be able to work with different types of rock and pop music.

Ten V-Dosc line source and three dV-Dosc compact line source cabinets were used per side for the main hangs, with eight SB218 subwoofers per side, 12 dV-Doscs per side as side-hangs, three dV-SUB compact subwoofer hangs per side, four SB218s per side as side sub-hangs, six V-DOSC per side for rear-hangs, a rear sub stack of four SB218s and 12 MTD108s around the stage

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South Africa - Gearhouse South Africa supplied rigging, lighting, sound and video equipment and crew for Rod Stewart's recent South African tour, plus staging for the Cape Town and Durban stadium shows.

LD Mark Payne supplied two different plots for the tour - one for the outdoor shows in Durban's Absa Stadium and Cape Town's Newlands Cricket Ground and one for the indoor show at the Dome in Johannesburg, where the tour concluded in two sold out nights.

The Dome show consisted of three trusses, with a total of 24 Martin Professional MAC 2K Profiles and 24 MAC 2K wash fixtures spread between them, plus four Robe 700w fixtures on the floor for band illumination. The front truss also featured seven 4-lite Molefays for audience lighting.

Gearhouse supplied a total of 10 follow spots - eight front-of-house (new 2K Supertroupers) and two on the upstage truss. Three scenic trusses

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UK - Three dual output Catalyst G5 HD digital media servers formed a fast, flexible control hub driving all the digital lightsources and video surfaces on the set of the new ITV prime time games show, The Colour of Money, presented by Chris Tarrant.

The lighting design developed for the show by Tom Kinane and Svend Pedersen didn't contain a single moving light, and was styled to compliment Patrick Doherty's media-based stage set, and to offer a dramatic presentation departure from previous Chris Tarrant shows.

The Catalysts were supplied by Ross Williams and operated by Pedersen using a WholeHog 3 console, running 16 DMX universes and controlling up to 2060 individual fixtures around Studio 1 at the London Weekend Television HQ on London's South Bank.

Pedersen created approximately 200 custom video clips for the show, many of them involving turning the set into the id

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Germany - All preparations for the second international Professional Lighting Design Convention (from 28. to 31 October 2009) in Berlin are going according to plan. The organisers are more than satisfied with the results and response to date, and are already predicting that the number of attendees will surpass the 1100 who registered for PLDC in London.

A number of organisations have confirmed their support as Partner Associations now one year in advance and many universities will once again be represented at the international event. The organisers are especially delighted to announce that Lighting Urban Community International, LUCI will be using the time and space around PLDC to promote bringing public clients together with professional lighting designers with the goal of developing concrete contacts between the interested parties.

In the last few weeks more than 160 entries

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Spain - Dreams 2, Reflections of the Soul, brought together 12,000 people at the Palacio de los Deportes of the Madrid Autonomous Community. The sound reinforcement featured D.A.S. Aero line array powered systems. This spectacle of water, light and sound, produced by Global Dreams, was entirely designed and produced in Spain.

A team of professionals from the scenic arts field designed this ambitious project under the direction of Fermín Pérez. The sound reinforcement needed to cover the requirements of quantity as well as those of quality. Global Dreams relied on D.A.S. Audio systems under the direction of Jesús Puerto, of Jesús Puerto Audioprofesional who was in charge of the sound design and operation, supported by Víctor Catalá, D.A.S. Audio Systems engineer, as technical advisor.

Puerto deployed six Aero line array clusters along the main pavilion's per

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The Netherlands - Martin Professional's Dutch distributor, Fairlight, took delivery of some of the first MAC III Profiles to roll off the production line in northern Denmark and promptly delivered them to Rent-All BV, one of the largest rental companies in Holland.

Rent-All in turn delivered the units via Chain, a Dutch lighting services company for television, film and entertainment events, to the set of So You Think You Can Dance reality show.

Produced by Kanakna Produkties and broadcast on RTL5 from Studio Baarn, a total of 19 MAC III Profiles are used to light the dance spectacle. Lighting Designer for the show is HenkJan van Beek of Light-H-Art who has placed the majority of the MAC III units in a truss above the set with two units located on the floor. Also used on the show are 23 Martin MAC 250 Washes and several conventional lighting units.

"It's a powerf

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USA - The LA Coliseum has installed a Meyer Sound point-source system featuring the first permanent installation of the SB-3F sound field synthesis loudspeaker, a technology designed to address the common challenge of intelligibility in large-scale sound reinforcement.

Over the past 85 years, the LA Coliseum has hosted the Olympics games twice, and is the only venue to stage both a World Series and two Super Bowls, as well as countless sports games, concerts and other events. Jon Lee, director of marketing of the LA Coliseum, reports that the Meyer Sound installation has made a dramatic improvement on the audience experience at the stadium.

"It's hard to overstate what a difference this new sound system makes," says Lee. "Spoken announcements are more intelligible; music is more powerful. The fans in the seats have a feeling of really being in touch with what's

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Russia - Sir Elton John, performed recently in a new concert hall opened in Barvikha Luxury Village outside Moscow The concert was presented by Chopard Company.

Belgrade-based theatre specialists Svetlost Teatar was closely involved with stage, lighting and sound systems design and integration during the Concert Hall Project. Alexandr Vorosilo, concert hall general manager said; ""We are very proud to introduce to the public a very interesting multipurpose venue, ingenious seating arrangements and associated facilities."

(Jim Evans)

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China - d&b audiotechnik has been represented in China since 2004 when the first d&b audiotechnik China office was established in Hong Kong by Freddie To and Daniel Chan. While the headquarters still remain in Hong Kong, the operation has gradually expanded to include satellite representative offices in Beijing, Guang Zhou and Nanjing with staff numbers of around sixteen. The next stop planned being Shanghai.

Following these developments and with the Chinese now being the World's leading country in terms of broadband connections, d&b audiotechnik has responded to this voracious appetite for knowledge by adding simplified Chinese to the languages on the menu of its website.

Ralf Sauter, d&b's webmaster, worked closely with marketing manager Megan Li from d&b's Guang Zhou office to create and translate the website into a Chinese version. This was no easy matter, as many of the t

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May the force be with you - Star Wars fans are to feel the force of the seminal sci-fi films and their iconic soundtracks on stage in a major new show, which will launch next year. In Star Wars: A Musical Journey, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will play a live score as excerpts from the six films are shown on a cinema screen.

The show has been put together by director George Lucas' company Lucasfilm and composer John Williams. It will premiere at the O2 Arena in London in April before a European tour. It will not be a traditional musical with actors playing characters from the films, but will feature live narrators. The six Star Wars films have been edited down to two hours for the show, and Williams has "painstakingly rewritten" the music he wrote for the movies, a statement said.

The Royal Philharmonic will use an 86-piece orchestra and an a

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