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UAE - Leading Abu Dhabi events consultancy Flash enjoyed a sweeping victory at the recent Middle East Event Awards 2009.

The Abu Dhabi home-grown company fought off competition from a number of global event companies, to win two of the evening's most prestigious awards: Best Fair/Festival/Concert category for the George Michael and Alicia Keys Live in Abu Dhabi concert held in December last year, in addition to the Best Sporting Event for the Capital World Tennis Championship, Abu Dhabi's first international tennis tournament held in January this year.

The two Middle East Event Awards wins come in addition to a recent slew of awards Flash celebrated winning including the Event Organizer of the Year title from Sound and Stage Magazine Middle East. In addition, the company's New Years Eve spectacular Shakira Live in Abu Dhabi won the Favouri

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USA - Since arriving in Stockton, CA in 2005-06, the Thunder hockey team has captured the passion of Central Valley sports fans, leading the ECHL league in attendance for four consecutive seasons. The team plays every game before a packed house at Stockton Arena, a 10,000-seat facility located along the city's downtown waterfront.

This year, the Thunder wanted to light up their home ice with as much excitement as they light up the crowd. So the team's management called on Stockton-based Illuminate Production Services (IPS) to design and install a new lighting rig around the scoreboard and video screens at Stockton Arena.

"Previously, the Thunder had rented a lighting rig each season," said Rick Franke of IPS. "But this wasn't efficient, so they were looking to purchase their own lighting." According to Franke, the team needed lighting that was affordable, e

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USA - When Allen & Heath announced the availability of the lower priced iLive-T digital mixing system at January's NAMM Show, president Dan Redman of Spinnaker Multimedia Solutions in Malvern, PA, was ready. The day after the announcement, Redman placed the first order. "Our churches had been waiting for a console with these features, at this price point, for a very long time. So we were ready to go with it."

The needs of Victory Christian Fellowship in Audubon, PA were matched perfectly by the new iLive-T112 mixing surface with iDR48 MixRack. "This was the fastest project I've ever worked on. We started in early December and opened on 29 March. It's a testament to the builder, the architects, our manufacturer partners, and especially the church. They knew what they wanted to accomplish and made smart decisions quickly." Victory Christian has become among the

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UK - Northern Light, in conjunction with Just FX and Festival City Theatres Trust, are hosting two pyrotechnic safety awareness and information courses in Scotland during June 2009.

These courses follow on from the success of Northern Light's inaugural lighting and sound masterclass - hosted with ETC, Martin Audio and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama - in February of this year.

The pyro courses will be held on consecutive days on the stage of the King's Theatre in Edinburgh and will cover all aspects of storing and operating pyrotechnic stage effects. Delegates will enjoy demonstrations and practical experience of the different pyro types and their uses, as well as learning how to test the effects, store them and manage them safely. Additional modules will include the law, health and safety and risk assessments.

Gordon Blackburn, hire manager with Northern Light

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UK - ETC has appointed London Light Production Services as a console dealer. The move, which means that London Light can now promote, sell and provide training for ETC's range of control desks, including Eos, Ion, Congo and SmartFade, as well as ETC's newest desk, Element, shown for the first time in the UK at PLASA Focus in Leeds.

Sam Crook, director at London Light, says: "We have been given the opportunity to focus on selling what we know best, which suits us well. As lighting designers, fellow director David Buffham and I have worked extensively on ETC Eos and Ion desks, and are able to provide full training and support from a user's point of view."

London Light has already sold an Eos and Ion system to English National Ballet, providing the ballet company's technicians with a demonstration and a day of training at ETC's office in west London before they went on

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USA - The Joint Training Initiative of The ESTA Foundation and USITT has announced a Rigging Safety Training Session to be held at Highline Performing Arts Centre, Burien, WA. The event will be hosted and co-produced by Highline PAC in association with Highline Public Schools.

This session is a three-day event designed for entertainment technicians at a basic to intermediate level and will be held Friday 24 July to Sunday, 26 July 2009.

The Rigging Safety course will be taught by ETCP recognised trainer, Jay Glerum. His programme, The 4 K's of Stage Rigging, will cover Liability, Forces and Reactions (The Physics of Rigging), Types and Designs of Hardware, Proper Operation, and Inspection/Maintenance Issues. Also included will be discussions of Motorised Rigging, Fire Curtain Rigging, and Rigging Math.

This session will count towards Renewal Credits for ETCP Certified

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UK - Hand Held Audio supplied 160 channels of Shure UHF-R wireless microphones for the latest T Mobile flash-mob advert. The karaoke style event was fully supported by Shure Distribution UK (SDUK).

Lead by international pop/rock star Pink, over 13,000 people descended on London's Trafalgar Square to sing hits including Hey Jude and Is This The Way to Amarillo?. Members of the crowd were supplied with 160 Shure microphones, including the Beta 58 and SM58 models, each transmitting on independent RF channels. Footage from the event will be used to produce a series of television advertisements for T-Mobile.

Hand Held Audio was responsible for deploying the wireless technology for the event and determined that 160 wireless channels were required to meet the project brief. With such a challenge on their hands, HHA called upon SDUK to assist during planning and to provi

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UK - XL Video UK is supplying cameras, PPU, LED surfaces, media servers and projection for Pink on the latest European leg of her hi-energy Funhouse world tour.

With a set designed by Mark Fisher and show direction / lighting by Baz Halpin, the show is action packed with visual extravaganza from start to finish. Video was always going to be an integral design component, for which they wanted the contrast of both high and low resolution surfaces.

Upstage, a central section of 7mm F-LED flanked by two Barco MiTrix panels are masked by a scenic interface congruous with the overall edgy, off-kilter, carnival ambience of the set and show. This creates an approximately 40 ft wide by 15ft deep six part surface.

The light weight and high resolution pitch of the F-LED make it an appropriate choice. This is the first show worldwide that the 7mm has been used on. The MiTrix sect

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UK This year's ABTT (Association of British Theatre Technicians) Show will have everything for staging a production, from the brightest lighting effects to stage machinery, seating and flooring. Among the companies that will be exhibiting are White Light, Stand Lighting Europe, Electronic Theatre Controls, Stage Electrics and Hoist UK.

Joining these stalwart supporters of the show are several newcomers, including Rigging Projects, a specialist in rope, cord and twine, French LED lighting and digital signage company Naotek, light and sound equipment supplier Terralec and LSC Lighting Systems. The Australian lighting console and dimmer manufacturer will be showing a full range of products, including the Redback 12 and RDM DMX splitters.

LSC will be sharing a stand with White Light. During the show White Light will display the Fusion 672 LED lighting effect.

Lighting control de

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UK - A North East based audio equipment specialist has received endorsement for the quality of its products from the organisation which looks after Britain's rail system.

Network Rail, which runs, develop and maintains rail tracks, signalling and other infrastructure such as tunnels and bridges - together with18 of the country's biggest and busiest stations - has chosen fire telephones and induction loop systems produced by Current Thinking for inclusion in its St Pancras Thameslink Box project.

Many rail stations on the East Coast Main line are already equipped with fire telephones and induction loop systems produced at Current Thinking's Sunderland factory and managing director Tony Smith says Network Rail's (PADS) endorsement follows installation of its products at St Pancras International, as well as Stratford, Ebsfleet and Ashford International stations.

He comments: &q

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UK - For Lionel Richie's extensive European arena tour to promote his latest studio album, Just Go, front of house engineer Lars Brogaard is mixing on a DiGiCo SD7.

Brogaard's relationship with DiGiCo is a long one - he was the first engineer to take a D5 console on tour and was involved from the early days of the SD7's development, helping with BETA testing of the new console to ensure it delivered everything that leading live sound engineers need.

"I'm also Lionel's production manager and my sound company, Major Tom, was awarded the contract to provide sound for the tour," says Brogaard. "We needed to buy a console for this tour and so the SD7 was the obvious choice. Having been involved in helping to road test the console, I felt it was about time I actually owned one."

For more on Lionel Richie's tour, see the May issue of

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Germany - For the final of Deutschland sucht den Superstar (DSDS), the German equivalent of the talent show American Idol, which was screened last Saturday on RTL, a number of the impression luminaires from GLP used in the programme were sporting an elegant chrome-look finish.

The lighting design for the show was the responsibility of mo2 design's Manfred Olma and Manuel da Costa. mo2 design has been providing the lighting design for the show since its first season; the season that ended last weekend was in fact DSDS's fifth.

In all, some thirty impression XL luminaires were used in the course of the show; as a special feature for the final, six of them were coated with an elegant chrome finish. In addition to these, sixty-eight impression 90 units were deployed, of which twenty wore the same chrome finish and were mounted on impression Flower stands.

(Jim Evan

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UK - Electrosonic, the AV systems integrator and products manufacturer, has launched a newly redesigned website, located at www.electrosonic.com. The new website provides online visitors with "dramatic improvements" in navigation, content and appearance.

The new website's top page directs users to Electrosonic's products division's global website or regional websites for Electrosonic's Solutions businesses. This new design reflects the products division's recent separation from Electrosonic's AV Systems Integration and Service business.

(Jim Evans)

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China - The Bank of China (BOC) chose a Varizone system for its premises in Wuhan, Hubei. A VAB-Line system has been installed by Wincomn Technology, Klotz Digital's Chinese sales and service partner in the form of a hybrid application.

This means, digital technology has been combined with conventional analogue 100V technology. The system consists of a VAB1 controller and matrix, line managers, amplifiers, and speakers to form a simple but secure and stable PA application. BOC uses the new PA system mainly to supply background music to the corridors at the Governor's office, but also for voice evacuation purposes. Therefore, the VAB1 controller is equipped with an EVAC expansion card to fulfil evacuation requirements, and to ensure highest security in the facility.

The existing fire detection system has been linked into the Varizone VAB-Line. Additionally, it offers interfaces

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UK - Savage Marine, one of the UK's leading suppliers of lighting to the yacht market has halved the energy consumption of its ultra bright interior and exterior downlighters by adopting state of the art 10W LED technology from Marl to replace halogen lights.

According to Jon Freeman, research technician at Savage Marine: "The new 10W LED fittings offer the same warm glow as halogen, and don't have the 'ghosting' effect created by some LED lights - yet they use just half the energy of our halogen products. The LEDs last much longer too - up to 50,000 hours as against 1,000 hours for incandescent lights and 1,500 hours for halogen. That is over five years continuous use."

"Energy consumption is a significant focus for Savage Marine. Marine craft run their lighting from batteries, which are recharged from the engine, in consequence generating CO2 emissions very di

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UK - The former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, will be the guest speaker at this year's PLASA AGM and Members Lunch, which takes place on Tuesday 2 June at Kings Place in London.Livingstone is one of UK politics more colourful figures: he was a member of the Greater London Council from 1976, its leader from 1981, and was largely responsible for The GLC's popular 'Fares Fair' policy which significantly cut the price of travel on London Transport.

After Margaret Thatcher abolished the GLC, Livingstone went on to become an MP for the Labour Party. In 1999, he stood for nomination as the Labour Party candidate in the London mayoral elections, but despite popular support, the Blairite Frank Dobson was selected. Not one to take things lying down, Livingstone chose to stand as an independent candidate and, as a consequence, was expelled from the Labour Party in 2000. However, he bea

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Belgium - Vieta's Do Line loudspeakers are playing a key role at the Vorst Nationaal, one of the largest concert buildings in Belgium, where an impressively plush private suite is being heavily marketed as the VIP place to be.

Located in Brussels,the Vorst Nationaal is a 7,000-capacity multipurpose venue that is a principal stop on the European touring circuit. Over the next few months, Bob Dylan, Jean Michel Jarre, Johnny Hallyday, Eros Ramazotti and Steely Dan will all play dates there, and a number of high-profile sporting events will also be staged in the main arena.

Steven Bontinck from Ampco Belgium has just completed an acoustic installation in the new VIP facility. "Our design had to complement the architectural concept of the suite, which is intended to serve visiting artists and music industry events, as well as hosting VIP concert packages for the corporate mar

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Qatar - ES Group has created the "world's largest large spanned temporary dome" to host royal families and high level dignitaries to mark an historic moment for the United Kingdom and the State of Qatar.

The Qatar dome, a perfect spherical shape, was inspired by the circular event logo of Qatargas and was surrounded by and reflected in a purpose built lake. ES Group created the dome structure in response to a creative brief for the event developed by WRG Creative Communications to mark the launch of the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the UK by Qatargas. His Royal Highness The Duke of York, Prince Andrew witnessed the official inauguration by HH the Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani in the dome.

The construction and technology used to create the dome for this commemorative event was innovative; a 42m diameter dome was created using standard ES rental eq

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Rehearsal Space - Aspiring British bands are being offered the chance to pursue their musical dreams in new rehearsal spaces opened by the government. The first has been unveiled in Knotty Ash Youth Centre in Liverpool, where The Beatles played in 1962. Others will follow in Bristol, Norfolk, Hastings, St Austell in Cornwall and Washington in Tyne and Wear. A total of 10 new rehearsal spaces are due to open by the end of the year using £500,000 of government money. Locations are also being sought in Manchester, Nottingham and Leicester.

Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said they were located in deprived areas that had few other youth facilities. "These fully-equipped spaces will make a big difference for young people who are looking for somewhere to practise, spend time and find an outlet for their creative skills," he said.

The scheme is being co-ordinated by fo

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Switzerland - The KKL in Lucerne stages approximately 400 events each year, visited by over 400.000 guests, offering a wide variety of entertainment from classical to pop/rock concerts, plus award ceremonies, product launches and conventions. To replace the 10-year old lighting rig, a new grandMA2 system has been installed, consisting of three grandMA2 light and two grandMA replay-units. This was one of the first grandMA2 theatre installation worldwide.

The new system was installed during a maintenance period at the KKL Luzern in February. The grandMA2 replay units are used as back-up for the grandMA2 light. The third console was bought for mobile productions. All parts of the MA system are connected via the MA-Net2 with 1Gbit/s. The DMX-output is realised via ELC Ethernet-nodes which are triggered via Art-Net.

"Our first impression was fantastic", says head of light

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UK - The Barbican Centre in London has recently purchased 16 PixelPar 90s. Technical manager Bob Allen explains, "We first saw the PixelPars in action when a production company brought them in to light an event. We were really impressed with their light output, smooth colour mixing and controllability. They are also engineered to a high standard making them robust - which is important for us as they are continuously in and out of flight-cases being rigged."

The PixelPars are in constant use around the Barbican Centre - lighting receptions, functions, parties and branding for conferences. The diversity of the fixtures creates more of an impact on smaller events and reduces the need for hiring in alternative lighting.

Allen continues: "We mostly use them in standalone mode as it saves on cabling in our reception and function areas, although there are occasions whe

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Switzerland - Phonak Communications has supplied its guide-U wireless tour guiding system to BMW Welt for use at the company's global headquarters in Munich, Germany.

Produced in Switzerland by the miniaturized device specialist, guide-U now guides groups of tourists, corporate guests and VIPs around the company's huge on-site education centre.

guide-U allows BMW Welt tour visitors to listen to a transmitter-wearing speaker via comfortable receiver headphone sets, ensuring that guides are heard and understood by every guest (including those who wear hearing aid devices).

To date, 180 guide-U receiver sets have been introduced and employed at BMW's Munich site, with these systems being used for both scheduled daily tours and one-off group and VIP visits.

"We are delighted to be associated with such a globally recognised brand as BMW," added Evert Dijkstra, managin

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USA - Marking the 11th anniversary of his late wife Linda's passing to the day with dedications of Long and Winding Road and My Love Does it Good, Paul McCartney opened this year's Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival on an emotional and energy-charged note. In a two- hour plus set including two encores, Sir Paul enthralled the crowd from behind his regular microphone of choice, a hardwired Shure Beta 58.

"Paul McCartney has been using a Beta 58 for a long time and this year's opening night at Coachella was no exception," noted Shure West Coast artist relations manager Bill Oakley. "He put on a great show, as did several other Shure endorsers like Henry Rollins, The Presets and Thievery Corporation."

(Jim Evans)

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South Africa - Northwind Recording appointed Gearhouse South Africa to team up, design and supply the largest ever line array PA system to date to be used in the country, for the three-day 2009 Mighty Men Conference (MMC 09), staged at the Shalom Farm, Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal.

Comprising 172 L-Acoustics speaker enclosures - a mix of VDOSC, dV-DOSC, Kudo and SB28 subs - the in-the-round show featured a main stage system and two delay rings at 100 and 180m respectively from the centre, calculated to cover a sound-field radius of 300m/600mdiameter.

The event has become an annual pilgrimage drawing people from all denominations and cultural groups within South Africa as well as Australia, UK and USA.

The goal of the weekend is to gather men to pray, to worship and unite and heal broken families. The ministry and teaching is headed up by evangelist preacher Angus Buchan. The even

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