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Serbia - Operacija Trijumf is one of Serbia's most popular television shows, combining a singing talent contest with Big Brother-style behind-the-scenes footage of the contestants in their shared house. Forming the backdrop on the stage during the contestants' performances, Lighthouse R10i/o 10mm LED panels are deployed.

66 panels of R10i/o LED panels, purchased by Operacija Trijumf production company Emotion Production, formed four screens on the stage.

"We choose the R10 panels partly on recommendation and partly because the only other LED screens currently in the region are 19mm pixel pitch," says Aleksandar Miljus of Emotion Production.

"We want to offer more versatile LED panels to the region and, after this series of Operacija Trijumf, we will be able to use the 10mm panels on a wide range of indoor and outdoor events. We will

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UK - The Script, the band from Dublin that hit number one with their self-titled debut album and toured with N*E*R*D, The Hoosiers and Newton Faulkner, became household names in Britain in 2008. And the band did it with a range of Sennheiser microphones in their audio arsenal - including SKM 935s and wireless e 935s for lead and backing vocals.

"I've been using the 935s for a long time now," says the band's front of house engineer John Delf. "I first bought some when I was touring with a band called The Departure. These mics give you so much level you never need to worry that you won't be able get the vocal over the rest of the band. They sound clear and crisp, with bite. I'd been using the wireless version with Lily Allen with great success. I'd always been happy with the results when using the 935s at her shows, so it was always going to be my first choice for T

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Europe & Middle East - GearSource Europe has been appointed as the official Christie Digital Partner to sell their B stock products in the EMEA region.

Garry Nelsson of GearSource said: "GearSource Europe has quickly established itself as the premier web site for industry insiders wishing to buy or sell pre-owned lighting, sound, staging and video equipment. The association with Christie will enable us to offer even more video related products to our many users in the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa".

Dale Miller, vice-president EMEA, Christie explains: "Our business in the region has expanded dramatically over the last three years. As a direct result we have needed to enlarge our demonstration fleet to meet the opportunities we have to develop new business. The agreement with GearSource Europe will allow Christie to refresh its demo fleet more frequently and

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Germany - With a set created by Brian Edmonds and lighting by Pink Floyd's designer Marc Brickman, Sony's massive booth at the IFA 2008 exhibition was a formidable production. Limelight Veranstaltungstechnik from Gilching-Munich was responsible for orchestrating the smooth performance of extensive lighting, sound and video technology, and deployed more than 40 of Nexo's new Geo S12 compact cabinets in a combination of vertical and horizontal line arrays.

The IFA in Berlin is deemed to be the world's largest consumer electronics fair. The biggest showcase by a single exhibitor is that of Sony, which takes up a whole hall, an area of 6,000sq.m, this year developing an enchanted forest concept, with thick white floors to absorb sound, soft round shapes and bare white trees.

Under the direction of technical director Peter Mader, Limelight Veranstaltungstechnik was responsible for

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UK - An estimated 500,000 people turned out to watch London's annual New Year's Day Parade, one of the city's biggest charity fund-raising events. Marching bands, 1000 cheerleaders, Chelsea pensioners and car clubs were among the performers who wound their way from Parliament Square to Green Park.

Lining the 2.2 mile route, scores of Electro-Voice SX Series loudspeakers were deployed to provide live-to-air commentary, announcements and general sound reinforcement for the biggest crowd ever seen in the event's 23-year history, squeezed into grandstands and along crowded pavements.

Watford-based PA company NSR Communications have provided PA for this event since it started in 1986. By choice and experience, they favour "the workhorse speakers" from EV's SX range for the task, spaced along the route and beside the large grandstands which demark the six 'sites' of the pa

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UK / USA - Award-winning UK manufacturer Global Design Solutions has announced its expansion into the US with the opening of a New York office overlooking Manhattan. This coincides with an enlarging portfolio of products as well as increased demand, as installations the world over are using one or more of the company's solutions.

GDS, now in its fifth year, has been through some important changes during 2008 - focusing the business on product development and manufacture only, and increasing its product range to five main lines - Blues System, MOBAL, Motor Control, Stage Manager's consoles and its new RGB LED Wireless DMX Up-lighter.

The new operation will be in operation from 1 February 2009, with Scott Vontobel (previously with GDS's US distributor, TMB) at the helm as GDS-US Director. Vontobel has been in the industry for over eight years with significant success in brand de

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Germany - An extensive programme of renovation and refitting has required the Deutsches Theater in Munich to temporarily bid farewell to its permanent home in the city centre. For the next three years, the company will continue its theatrical tradition in temporary accommodations at a four-marquee, 3,750sq.m facility within a colony of marquees in the suburb of Fröttmaning, north of Munich.

Sound reinforcement in the temporary venue was installed by minos Sicherheitstechnik who opted for a Dynacord ProMatrix 4000 system complemented by Electro-Voice loudspeakers. Comprehensive 3D simulations were conducted using the programme Ulysses to ensure adequate intelligibility in all the requisite areas.

Thomas Sterling of EVI Audio comments: "To create our 3D model, we had to enter not only the room's dimensions, but also the nature of every material in the room, from the tarpau

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UK - White Light has recently provided new Ethernet lighting infrastructures at a number of leading London venues.

At the Royal Albert Hall, White Light was tasked with providing reliable DMX distribution to the dimmer room and lighting trusses to make life easier for the Hall's staff and for visiting companies. White Light's Roger Hennigan notes that: "the Hall has a Jands Vista console which outputs lighting data as ArtNet. We therefore designed a system that used Ethernet to distribute ArtNet around the building, and then ArtNet to DMX nodes to convert the ArtNet back to standard DMX locally wherever it was required."

The final system uses products from network specialists ELC: truss-mount dmXLAN Node 1 power-over-Ethernet ArtNet nodes for each of the six main lighting trusses, a dmXLAN node 4 in the dimmer room for dimmer DMX output, dmXLAN Node 2s for DMX output

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UK - Twickenham Stadium has undergone an audio upgrade using D.A.S sound systems installed by Sysco, led by Hugo Roche. They were advised by audio consultant and job project manager, Roland Hemming who also works for D.A.S. Audio's distributor for the United Kingdom, Sennheiser UK.

The RFU (Rugby Football Union) contracted an independent consultant firm, Vanguardia Consulting, directed by Jim Griffiths, to supervise the install. On site consultants working for Vanguardia were Mark Murphy, John Staunton and Mike Bedford. To complete the install Sysco used 22 kilometres of cable and seven different delays to ensure that the whole system was synchronised to perfection.

"There were acoustic shadows in the rows of seats below the balcony where live sound could not be heard and this problem really needed to be solved," says Eva Argandona. "So we decided on systems fro

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Australia - ARX has added the ISO-Combiner transformer isolated combiner to its established Audibox range of pro audio tools and problem solvers.

The ISO Combiner is a totally passive device with no power requirements making it suitable for use in applications where two sources need to be combined into one output silently and easily, says the company.

A pair of transformer balanced female XLR inputs combine to deliver a single transformer isolated male XLR output. The ISO-Combiner is available in single channel or double header format.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Supporting their 9th studio album, Death Magnetic, Metallica is hitting arenas across the US and Canada in a monster sized in-the-round production which includes Apogee X-Series converters for both A/D and D/A conversion. Building the production from head to toe, Thunder Audio of Taylor, Michigan chose an all-digital drive system setup for unprecedented sound quality with eight Apogee converters for 64 channels of I/O.

"When designing this system we had a criteria set forth for achieving the highest quality in uncompromised audio," states Thomas Hejnicki, project manager for Thunder Audio. "Based upon reputation and experience, we needed to look no further than Apogee for our AD/DA solution. In fact, we tried. With Apogee as our reference, we found no acceptable alternative."

Four Apogee AD-16X converters are placed shortly after the FOH console as th

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USA - Leonard Cohen and his nine-piece band, led by bassist Roscoe Beck, kicked off their first tour in 15 years with dates across Canada and Europe. Montreal-based Solotech is providing support for the tour, using a Meyer Sound system featuring Milo and Mica line array loudspeakers.

As FOH Engineer Mark Vreeken explains, the Meyer Sound system was chosen for flexibility in the face of an assortment of venue sizes and shapes, from London's O2 Arena to the Olympia, the oldest music hall in Paris. "We brought a number of different Meyer speakers along, so we can interchange and still maintain consistent tone everywhere. And the Galileo loudspeaker management system and SIM 3 audio analyzer are both excellent tools."

Solotech systems technician Étienne Lapré typically configures the rig with 16 Milo and 12 Mica line array loudspeakers per side, with each a

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UK - Strand Lighting have confirmed their presence at evenTech Scotland 2009 in partnership with their Scottish distributor Audio Light Systems.

Audio Light Systems provide sales, installation project management and consultation for a wide variety of spaces that require audio, lighting, AV and specialist systems throughout the UK. The company says it is "set to make a serious impact on their debut at the second instalment of the exhibition - having booked the largest stand space by far on the show floor".

As well as Strand control desks and dimmers, Audio Light Systems will be exhibiting equipment from Crestron, EAW, QSC, NEC, Sennheiser, Tecpro, TOA and more for theatre, corporate and education markets.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Lighting designer/director Ali Bale specified an Avolites Pearl Expert console to control lighting for the current Kings of Leon Only By The Night tour.

Bale worked for KOL for the last four and a half years, since he was originally asked onboard by co-LD and the show's creative designer Paul Normandale. This latest tour is a co-lighting design between the two of them, on which Bale is also working closely with video director Phil Woodhead and live visuals director & Catalyst (digital media server) programmer/operator, Phil Haynes.

The lighting rig is based on 10 trusses, all moved into different positions throughout the set via a Kinesys automation system. This is operated by Yose Lawson and Andy Beller.

Each truss has a cluster of Element Labs VersaTUBE LED fixtures attached to the front of it which are driven by Hayne's Catalyst. The front trusses form a chevr

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UK - LD Mark Kenyon wanted some new and extra special effects for the hugely anticipated final of the BBC's latest Strictly Come Dancing series and decided it was an opportunity to try Robe DigitalSpot 7000DTs.

Kenyon first saw the units in action at one of Robe's The Future is Digital roadshows in London, which he attended along with moving light operator and Catalyst (digital media server) programmer Roger Williams at the behest of Lee House from AC Video.

After this, Kenyon decided that he could make good use of six DigitalSpot 7000DTs to illuminate and add extra treatments to the dancefloor of Studio TC1 at the BBC's Wood Lane HQ in West London.

The DT7000s were rigged 12m up in the roof of the studio and run via ArtNet protocol back to a CompuLite Vector console in the control room, operated by Roger Williams (for the Final) and Dave Bishop (the Xmas Speci

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UK - Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, was celebrated from 22-29 December with a giant Menorah (9-candle candelabra) standing 9.5m high in London's Trafalgar Square. Designed in 2007 by Mendy Levy and built by Metallica, the Menorah had been lit last year with a temporary LED installation for the first night only.

This year, the Star Events Group had been tasked with modifying the structure for an easier install and removal, and to create a new base which would house permanently installed, upward-facing LED lighting. Their main lighting supplier, Paul Jones of Ethix Management, approached Ambient for an LED lighting solution. Ambient's Tony Kingsley proposed the relatively new AVR Osiris 48, which due to its compact size would just fit into the new Menorah base, and following a trial at Star Events, six of the Osiris units were ordered from Ambient. These were the IP65 48

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USA - When Nissan unveiled its all-new 370Z sports car at the LA Auto Show, the company wanted to create a roar, since this marked the first major overhaul of the 'Z' since 2003. The revamped roadster was given centre stage in the company's booth, featured on a turntable under a circular canopy of bright, colour-changing lights.

Lightswitch, which designed the lighting in the Nissan booth, used Elation Professional's Impression RGB LED compact moving head fixture to spotlight the 370Z. Additionally, Lightswitch chose another Elation light to illuminate the rest of the booth, the Design Par 575D, a DMX-compatible discharge moving head fixture with a par reflector.

According to Lightswitch principal Chris Medvitz, auto shows present unique lighting challenges. The Elation products, he said, helped his company meet the design and technical requirements of its client George P. Joh

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Sweden - Lab.gruppen has announced its acquisition of the Lake trademarks and the exclusive rights for use of Dolby Lake Processor (DLP) technology for both touring and permanent sound reinforcement markets, from Dolby Laboratories.

The technology currently referred to as 'DLP technology' as used in the PLM Series will, in the future, be called 'Lake technology or Lake Processing'. The Dolby Lake Controller (DLC) PLM Edition software will be forthwith known as 'Lake Controller software' as new versions of the software are expected to be compatible with both the stand alone DLPs as well as the PLM Series products.

Lake technology is used in several successful products including the original Lake products, Mesa Quad EQ and Contour; the Dolby Lake Processor from Dolby Laboratories and the PLM Series Powered Loudspeaker Management systems. Specifically, this agreement allows Lab.

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USA - For the fifth time in as many years, Texas-based LD Systems travelled to Las Vegas in December for the 49th annual Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (WNFR), a 10-day event many consider the Super Bowl of rodeo. LD has partnered with the WNFR since 2004 as the event's exclusive light and stage producer. 2007 marked the first year that LD also supplied sound reinforcement for the event.

Last year, LD used an Electro-Voice XLC rig to provide coverage at the 18,500-seat Thomas and Mack Centre on the campus of the University of Nevada Las Vegas. This year the WNFR returned to the Thomas and Mack Centre, and so did LD Systems' XLC rig.

The system, comprising XLC127DVX cabinets and XLC215 subs in two-over-six combinations, was deployed in four arrays surrounding the arena's central scoreboard and video wall.

Robert Ausmus, director of production services, LD Systems, reports, &q

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UK - City Theatrical has announced three training days for January and February in the UK. They are: Wednesday 21 January at White Light in Wimbledon, London SW19; Wednesday 28 January at White Light's West End office on Shaftesbury Avenue, London., and Friday 20 February at AC Entertainment Technologies North in Leeds.

The training will focus on the use of SHoW DMX, City Theatrical's wireless DMX system. The sessions will be 'hands on' and topics covered will include: Setting up a wireless DMX system, Advantages (and disadvantages) of wireless DMX, Avoiding other wireless users to reduce interference, Use of directional antenna to improve range and reception, Art-Net and SHoW DMX and Remote Device Management (RDM) using SHoW DMX.

There will also be a first chance to see other new products launched for 2009, and other existing City Theatrical products.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Elton John kicked off his Red Piano tour in the UK at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena, with lighting designer Kevin Bye operating the show using a grandMA console. Tim Routledge of grandPA - a new programming, training and control supply house dedicated to the MA Lighting platform - was brought in to assist Bye in programming the desk during the very short rehearsal period at Lite Structures' facility in Wakefield.

The tour is carrying two grandMA full-size consoles - one live and one for backup - and four MA NSPs, with the whole control system run on PRG's new fibre optic looms.

PRG's control systems engineer Gordon Torrington is overseeing all the FOH elements of the tour. All lighting kit is being supplied to the tour by PRG,

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Two Catalyst digital media servers are being used to great effect on the Kings of Leon Only By The Night tour in an integrated visuals show created by live visuals director Phil Haynes, lighting co-designer/director Ali Bale, creative designer & co-LD Paul Normandale and live video director Phil Woodhead.

The Catalysts - running a pre-release version of the latest V4.2 software which gives 10 submixes on 16 layers - are outputting the nine-camera IMAG mix and assorted playback content to 1000 tiles of Barco MiTrix screen and 270 Element Labs VersaTube HDs.

These latest spec Catalyst machines were supplied by Catalyst's UK distributors Projected Image Digital (PID) to the tour's UK & European lighting contractors Lite Alternative. They are fitted with two Apple MAC 3.2 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon processors, 4GB RAM, an 8800 Graphics card, 128GB Solid State Drives and

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Dubai - IIR Exhibitions has pledged greater focus on the Install market - in both the Commercial and Residential sectors - for PALME Middle East 2009.Exhibition director, Alex Heuff, has confirmed that a dedicated Install Middle East vertical show will provide the hub of this year's show on April 26-28 2009 at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre. As part of the continuing evolution of the PALME brand, Install Middle East will have its own dedicated space and entrances, and will host more than 150 exhibitors. The show will also feature for the first time an Integrator Pavilion, which will allow up to seven of the region's major project consultants and installers to show their portfolios.

Heuff states: "The Pavilion is specifically for regional systems integrators and is aimed at attracting the property developers and consultants who work with them.

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UK - Set up by the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), the Digital Lab is a new £50 million facility at the University of Warwick in Coventry, designed as a high-quality research environment.

Its mission is to become the world's first multi-disciplinary centre, enabling leading digital experts to come together and deliver research, which can impact on all sectors of the economy. The Lab will initially focus on Digital Healthcare, Digital Manufacturing and Service, promoting innovation and boosting research opportunities between academics and user organisations.

The facility provides end-to-end hi-definition quality using native HD projectors from Christie, while site wide AV distribution through an access grid is central to the design of system integrators, Pure AV.

"The fact that we already had a good working relationship with WMG probably helped," said direc

  1. Asnières gears up with Innovason
  2. Martin Minis in sync at the Dorchester
  3. The Week in Lighting & Sound
  4. South Africa hosts first ETC Ion training
  5. QSC provides dream sound for Korean musical
  6. Butteflies in action with Will Young
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