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Italy - An extensive Anolis architectural lighting scheme has been installed at the Millionaire Lounge Cafe, a new venue in the popular seaside town of Cattolica, Rimini.

The scheme was designed and specified by interior designer Pierpaolo Saioni who was working for independent owners, Magi, Gucciardi & Pipitone, and was supplied direct to the venue by Robe Multimedia, Anolis's Italian distributor.

The double-decked building stands right on the marina waterfront. It is styled with a contemporary deco twist and a distinct oceanic feel - almost like a liner - referencing a strong relationship to the Adriatic Sea. It features indoor dining and lounge rooms surrounded by airy outdoor terraces on both levels. It's open from 7 a.m. until late.

With many changing moods throughout the day Saioni wanted the environment to be able to shift along with the vibes, and good lighting is on

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UK - Organisers praised Showsec following a successful Camp Bestival this July. In the event's second year, audience numbers increased by 50% from 10,000 to 15,000.

Loud Sound's event director Jim King commented: "We were very happy with the operation undertaken by Showsec at Camp Bestival. They had the right staff with the right attitude for the show and helped make it a pleasant and relaxed experience for all concerned."

Showsec supplied over 250 SIA licensed event security professionals to Camp Bestival, a new style of family oriented festival sited at Lulworth Castle on the Dorset coastline. The festival is the brainchild of promoter Rob da Bank, produced in collaboration with Loud Sound, and its standing results from it setting out from the start to cater for families, rather than adding feature areas for children as an afterthought. The sit

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UK - Lighting and video designer for Maximo Park's latest sold-out UK tour is Stevie Marr who uses Martin MAC III Profiles, MAC 250 Washes and Atomic 3000 strobes in his design. Lighting supply is by Lite Alternative.

"I needed a quality laser effect without an actual laser because regulations prevent the crowd scanning effect that I really wanted," Marr says of his decision to eventually turn to the MAC III Profile for the look. Glen Johnson, who ran the show, recommended the MAC III for the job. They did that job and more."

Martin's 1500W MAC III Profile is being used extensively throughout the 2009 summer touring season (Elton John, Billy Joel, Beyonce, the Jonas Brothers to name a few).

"I have never used gobos with Maximo Park and have shied away from gobo looks for quite a few years now," explains Marr. "I'd never really seen a light that

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UK - White Light supported HaHaHammersmith, a fund-raising evening of comedy and music held by the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in aid of the Lyric's creative learning department.

Those giving their time and talent to the evening included comedians Lee Mack, Jan Ravens, Shazia Mirza, Tom Basden and Ed Aczel, with music from the electric string quartet Stringfever and the BRIT-nominated band The Feeling.

To light the wide variety of performers, the Lyric's chief electrician Chris Harris turned to White Light for help. The company immediately offered support, supplying a rig of five Martin Mac250 Spots, five Martin Mac300 Wash, four ColorKinetics ColorBlaze 48 LED battens, and four GLP Impression moving LED washlights.

Harris was delighted by the performance of the lights, particularly when coupled with the theatre's recently-purchased ETC Eos console also supplied by Whi

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USA - In a fixed installation where high performing sound systems are critical, North Shore Cinemas, a Marcus Theatres Cinema in Mequon, Wisconsin has chosen Crown I-Tech HD amplifiers to power its UltraScreen theatres. The theatre is the first to deploy I-Tech HD to power its audio systems.

Mark Collins, director of projection technology for Marcus Theatres comments: "I know that a lot of the technology in the amplifier was built with the tour sound market in mind. However, I think this type of application is even more demanding than having the equipment on the road because the amplifiers are constantly running. For cinemas you need power and reliability. These amps give us a ton of headroom and with Crown you know you are getting a great product,"

The move to I-Tech HD also proved to be cost-effective because the additional power means each theatre needs fewer ampl

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UK - Cooper Controls has announced that MDG Fog Generators has been appointed as the exclusive distributor for the Zero 88 brand of performance theatrical dimmers and consoles in Canada. MDG is known within the entertainment industry as a leading manufacturer of fog and haze generators. MDG also has a distribution division that represents several well established performance lighting brands including Robert Juliat, Ayrton, and Rainbow.

"We are delighted to now have a brand of lighting consoles to offer to the Canadian market that complements our other brands, says Martin Michaud, president of MDG. "We approached Zero 88 a long time ago about becoming its distributor and are delighted that the product line has become available for us to represent. We are looking forward to presenting the range of exciting new consoles like the Orb and Jester TLXtra to Canada's lighting

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UK - Richmond Theatre was built in 1899 as the Theatre Royal and Opera House. In June 2008 Maltbury were invited by Tim Foster architects to submit a proposal for the orchestra pit in-fill. This was part of a bigger project at the theatre and the deadline was very tight.

To simplify the changeover Maltbury strengthened the walls of the pit and created a load-bearing 'shelf' around the inside face. Decks were kept to a maximum of 2ft wide so they were easy to handle as they dropped into place on the ledge. No legs were needed. Maltbury also took on other specialist carpentry work on the site at short notice.

(Jim Evans)

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France - The Stade de Roland Garros, the event grounds for the annual French Open tennis tournament, has recently implemented a major PA and digital audio network upgrade on its centre court. The world-famous arena has installed a Nexo Geo D line array system, complemented by compact full-range PS8 cabinets under the rafters, and powered by NXAMPs via an EtherSound digital audio network.

The stadium grounds are home to 20 courts that include the Court Philippe Chatrier and the Court Suzanne Lenglen, and the Tenniseum, a museum of tennis.

Court Philippe Chatrier is the main court. Built in 1928, it can hold 14,840 spectators. It is named after Philippe Chatrier, who was head of the French Tennis Federation and helped bring back tennis to the Summer Olympics in 1988. Today these grounds are known for hosting one of the four major grand slam titles of the APT tour and for being t

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UK - i-Pix supplied a special package of BB4, BB7 and BB16 LED fixtures to Electric Fly Productions, show and lighting designers for the main stage, four arenas and two outdoor terrace areas at the 2009 Global Gathering dance event. This was staged at Long Marsden Airfield in Staffordshire, UK.

Electric Fly's Nick Jevons wanted to use specific fixtures for certain special effects. "I approached i-Pix because I could think of several areas that were ideal for their very high quality homogenised light output - which doesn't even resemble an LED fixture - and they came to the party with great enthusiasm," he says.

i-Pix Chris Ewington adds: " Nick is one of the most innovative lighting designers and his work is always interesting. Our products have all been developed after careful and considered end-user feedback, so events like this present great opportunit

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UK - In the ten years since opening, London club fabric has been networking audio through its three dance rooms using the BSS Audio SW9088 Soundweb. During that time the venue's sound reinforcement has undergone constant revision to keep it at the cutting edge, but the DSP remained the same - until now.

"The old green boxes gave us great service but we had to own up to the fact that technology has moved on - processing speed has become a lot faster, and there is now greater capacity and more powerful capabilities," says head of technology Sanjeev (Sanj) Bhardwaj. This was something he became aware of last year when he was installing the audio at sister club, matter.

As a result he has just replaced the entire digital network with the new generation BSS Soundweb London BLU solution, using BSS Audio's BLU-Link network transport, endemic to the BLU-160 and BLU-120 devic

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Germany - In July, XL Video equipped the two largest German motorsport events with video walls. The company was engaged as a full service provider for both the formula one racing from the 10-12 July at the Nürburgring and for the motorbike grand prix at the Sachsenring from 17-19 July. Due to the very short interval of time between the two races, most of XL Video's video trucks drove straight from the Nürburgring once the task of dismantling the installation was complete to the Sachsenring to begin setting up for the next event.

For the first event at the Nürburgring XL Video deployed almost 500sq.m of LED equipment. This included two 80-square-metre LED video trucks, five 50sq.m LED video trucks and two Mitsubishi DV 10 modular video walls that were mounted on the roof of the pit lane.

At the Sachsenring, 13 video walls with a combined LED video display area of 420sq.m pro

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Spain - The Face in Valencia achieved legendary status during the 1990s as one of the best underground dance music venues on the Spanish Coast.

Now, the Valencian club has undergone a complete renovation and re-opened much to the delight of both old and new clubbers alike, and it has chosen to install the entire venue with over 35.000W of VMB sound systems.

The Club directors were very specific when specifying how they wanted the club installed - "Constant pressure level throughout all the rooms in the club with the best sound quality possible". With this in mind they chose a Lynx V8 Line Array for the main system, located in the exterior part of the club and the Phase Neo installation series was installed in the rest of the venue.

Electrotech solutions were in charge of the installation. Matt Senna says: "The Lynx V8 was the perfect choice. We had to cover a

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Thailand - JM Rental, one of the largest LED display rental companies in Asia, was chosen to supply the LED screen requirements for four of the world's highest profile motor manufacturers at the 30th Bangkok International Motor Show.

Attracting around 1.6 million visitors, the Bangkok International Motor Show is one of the highest profile motor trade events in Asia. With 130 exhibitors from 111 different countries attending, the event brings together a diverse array of production and concept cars, motorcycles, commercial and rough terrain vehicles, parts and accessories.

Four Japanese motor manufacturers - Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, and Suzuki - commissioned the official contractor of show, PM Center Co (Thailand), to provide lighting and audio equipment including Lighthouse LED screens.

JM Rental operations director Kenneth Yip comments, "The Bangkok Motor Show is a bi

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USA - Nearly 200 attendees packed the International Plaza Resort's Indian-Pacific Ballroom for Renkus-Heinz's 18th Annual Consultants' Breakfast at this year's InfoComm Convention. This year's event held added significance as Renkus-Heinz celebrated its 30th anniversary at the show.

After a breakfast buffet, attendees were treated to a presentation by Mark Dodd, Celestion's head of group research, entitled A New Methodology for the Acoustic Design of Compression Driver Phase-Plugs with Concentric Annular Channels. Dodd's enlightening dissertation helped to shed light on new directions in driver development technology.

"Renkus-Heinz as a company is well known for its passion for innovation," commented Dodd. "I'm honoured to have been invited to speak at this event, which is an ideal opportunity for us all to share our experience with a view to opening up n

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USA - The Juilliard School is an internationally renowned performing arts conservatory located at Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts in New York City. In 2008, the school identified a number of areas to be built or renovated as part of a redevelopment project. One of those newly created spaces included the Rosemary and Meredith Willson Theatre, a multi-use performance and event space. A DiGiCo D5T will serve as the central hub of the control room, connecting the theatre with the Music Technology Programme's new recording room.

Juilliard's Chief Audio Engineer and veteran audio professional, Marc Waithe, specified a DiGiCo D5T system for the theatre. In his 17-year tenure at the school, Waithe designed all of the main performance audio systems, as well as systems for The Museum of Modern Art and The School of American Ballet as a freelance consultant.

Altel Systems, based i

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UK - Somerset PA company, Maltings Audio, recently invested in a new mixer, selecting Allen & Heath's iLive-T digital system, to complement an HK Audio contour line array and complete the company's main FOH system.

"We first evaluated iLive-T at the Anstruther Homegame festival, where we were impressed by the system's capacity, easy load in and set up, and intuitive layout," explains Maltings Audio's Doug Siddons.

Maltings ordered an iLive-T, comprising the iDR-32 MixRack and iLive-T80 Control Surface, and immediately put it to work at the Holt Music Festival, a one day event featuring eight bands, with a headline performance from 14-piece soul band, Soul Destroyers.

"This event would have been impossible for me to manage with my old desk but the new system handled it brilliantly," continues Siddons. "iLive's DCA groups were the pivotal featur

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Hong Kong - Robert Juliat continues to invest in the emerging generation of new lighting designers by supplying profile and Fresnel lanterns to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts this year as part of a sponsorship arrangement for the Academy.

An initial donation was made by the French lantern manufacturers of 1000W RJ Lutin Fresnels with interchangeable PC and pebble lenses, 2000/2500W tungsten RJ329 PC units, and some 1000W RJ 600 Series and 2000W RJ 700 Series profile lanterns. This was then followed by an additional purchase by the Academy itself of 10 RJ 710 SX2 2500W zoom 10° - 25°profiles and 40 RJ 329 HF 2500W Fresnels. All were delivered to the educational establishment by Robert Juliat's Hong Kong distributor, Pacific Lighting (HK).

Hugh Chinnick, director of Pacific Lighting (HK) says, "As a previous senior lecturer and head of theatre lighting fo

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Germany - German superstars Die Ärzte and their way cool lightshow were a major highlight at the 2009 twin festivals of Hurricane and Southside in Scheeßel and Neuhausen ob Eck, north and south Germany.

The band's long standing LD Lui Helmig had designed a specials package that could be integrated with the 'house' lighting system for the band's performance at both sites.

With the shows taking place during the longest days of the year to defy the setting sun and ensure impact even in daylight, Helmig used five of Robe's most powerful moving lights - ColorWash 2500E ATs - along the back of the stage. These were an integral element of their festival lightshow.

Helmig had first used these units at the Tauberntal-Festival in 2008 and was immediately impressed. At Hurricane/Southside, even though there were only five units, their beams blasted straight throu

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Russia - At over 900 years old the city of Ryazan, which is 180km south east of Moscow, has much to be proud of. Two years ago, during its self proclaimed Year of Culture, the city embarked on a series of major arts venue refurbishments. Coinciding with the start of the world's current financial tempest, the fact that these projects have all largely been successfully completed is justifiably a matter of some civic pride. That it hasn't all been plain sailing will come as no surprise, but from what quarter these choppy waters emerged was unexpected.The Ryazan Drama Theatre was founded in 1787. Originally an Opera House, it converted to drama and musical t

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Italy - One of the most popular cabaret shows on Italian TV, Zelig, has enjoyed record ratings since its inception in the mid-1990s. The show is recorded twice weekly in front of an audience of 2,500 in Milan's Arcimboldi Theatre.

Sound reinforcement inside the theatre is the responsibility of Milan-based Backstage PA. Speech intelligibility is paramount to comedy shows, and music plays an important role in creating and steering emotions. To satisfy both requirements, the team from Backstage PA opted for sound systems from Electro-Voice. The PA comprises 24 Electro-Voice XLD281 loudspeakers (12 per side) driven by a single EV CP4000 amplifier with nine CP3000s. The monitor system that delivers foldback to the stage is also from Electro-Voice: six XLE side-fills and two XS212 monitors driven by two CP3000 power amplifiers.

Frederico Farina, the show's sound engineer, com

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South Africa - With a show presence extending from low-SPL demo's, high-SPL outdoor demo's, sound reinforcement for the giant LED screen and a seminar on pro-ribbon technology, Alcons made itself seen and heard at Mediatech Africa through Alcons' South African representative, Matrix Corporate & Theatre Sound.

On the show floor, the LR7 micro pro-ribbon line-array and the new LR7B line-array bass module were on display, as well as the other pro-ribbon line-arrays LR14 and LR16, plus a performing QR36 line-source column. The recently released LR7 caused a stir with a number of audio visual companies directly expressing interest in the compact, lightweight system.

Trevor Peters, CEO of Matrix said: "No doubt, both the LR7 and QR36 were the main ear-catchers; The 1m tall QR36 piqued everyone's interest after Tom's outdoor demo's with its three degree vertical dispersio

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UK - A new Hilton Hotel in Reading, Berkshire is home to two Baldwin Boxall systems - a Mitre public address system and an OmniCare disabled refuge system. The design and installation of both systems was carried out by Trinity Protection Systems, Oxford.

The calm atmosphere of the hotel, which opened in May, is enhanced by the zoned background music facility of the public address (PA) system. The 16 zone PA system includes a total of seven CD/MP3 players, which provide sound to selected areas. This allows the hotel management team to create different ambience in selected areas. With 210 bedrooms, health centre and the largest ground floor conference facilities in the area, this is a useful feature.

The two BDM416 16 zone microphones enable live broadcast to zones selected by the operator, with a BDM401 microphone providing an all call facility for the Maitre dhotel. Additional

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USA - Christ's Church of the Valley in San Dimas, CA, has grown steadily in recent years, making a switch to digital audio mixing a necessity. With multiple locations, six weekend services, and a broadcast function that includes live streaming and broadcast in New Zealand and Australia, requirements had increased beyond the capabilities of conventional analogue.

To meet its needs, the church selected two Allen & Heath iLive systems - an iDR MixRack with iLive-176 Control Surface for the main sanctuary and an iDR10 with iLive-80 for the broadcast centre, located in a separate building.

Patrick Gourley, technical director for the church, worked with Anaheim-based installation firm, Sound Bridge, during the console selection process.

"All our engineers are volunteers," Gourley said. "In addition to all the technical requirements, we had to find something with a f

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Germany - Camco GmbH is redesigning its international export strategy, electing to work with a network of partners in key territories, rather than a single distribution source. The first implementation of the new business model is in Italy, where Joint Rent S.A.S. has been appointed as Camco's new premium partner.

As the premium partner for Italy, Joint Rent, based in Ravenna, will be responsible for the appointment of a network of representatives. Together with these new partners, Joint Rent will seek to enhance and expand business and supply services between Camco and its end-users.

Gianni Fantini of Joint Rent comments: "The new arrangement will allow Camco to be more visible in the Italian market. This is one of the top five amplifier brands in the world, and the new products coming out of the company today have the same hallmarks of quality and value as those of 20 y

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