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Denmark - Optical projection pioneers, dnp, recently hosted a two-day seminar attended by 50 leading A/V dealers, consultants and integrators from Germany and Austria.

The delegation was co-ordinated by Rainer Sprinzl, managing director sales and marketing at COMM-TEC, dnp's German distributors.

dnp's Anker Haldan comments, "Our products need to be seen and experienced in order to truly understand the benefits they provide in terms of the viewer experience."

The two-day course set out to prove the concept Seeing is Believing, and was divided into theoretical and workshop sessions.

dnp used their showroom facilities to demonstrate the different rear and front projection screen types while the company's product management team elaborated on (and tested) the theoretical background, using the concept of 'eyegonomics'. "This gave participants an in depth u

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UK - TAO Group, through sister company TAO Fire, provided river rescue for the installation of a temporary bridge over the River Thames for the Reading Festival 2009.

The bridge, designed and installed by Serious Stages, was erected to allow visitors to get from north car parks situated on the other side of River Thames, to the festival site. The team from TAO, managed by fire director Chris Harvey, supplied river rescue personnel stationed on Jet Skis whilst the bridge was moved into position by a 250 tonne crane.

Management of the positioning was undertaken by Serious Stages' Kenny Falconer, under the watchful eye of site manager Dick Tee.

TAO's Chris Harvey said, "Our brief was to provide rapid water rescue for the crews assembling and positioning the structure. Due to the width of the river at that point we needed to station Jet Skis with water rescue personn

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Norway - Eivind H. Solberg AS, also known as EHS Proshop, has recently been appointed as the exclusive Proel distributor for the Norwegian market. EHS is among one of the leading audio companies in Norway with many years of experience.

EHS is celebrating their 40th birthday this year. Its services include turnkey projects, rental, commercial audio installation and distribution. Today the company has 15 employees with five departments in-house. It is based in Oslo and has an office in Kristiansand.

Over the last couple of years EHS has invested in its distribution business and its dealer network has been expanded to cover the all types of retail business, from smaller MI stores, chains to pro audio dealers.

"We have been very selective in our product portfolio," says Pål Gulbrandsen, sales manager at EHS. "We don't want to work with too many lines, but will fo

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Download Update - People who download music illegally also spend an average of £77 a year buying it legitimately, a survey has found. Those who claimed not to use peer-to-peer filesharing sites such as The Pirate Bay spent a yearly average of just £44. Almost one in 10 of those questioned aged between 16 and 50 said they downloaded music illegally. However, eight out of 10 of that group also bought CDs, vinyl and as MP3s. A total of 1008 people in the UK took part in the online poll commissioned by researchers Demos.

"Politicians and music companies need to recognise that the nature of music consumption has changed and consumers are demanding lower prices and easier access to music," said Demos researcher Peter Bradwell.

"The scale of unlawful file-sharing poses a real threat to the long-term sustainability of our creative industries," said a sp

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Italy - From 29 October to 1 November, RCF will be providing the sound for the 16th annual Skipass, the most important Italian exhibition for winter sports and freestyle, staged in Modena Feira.

New Light Service chose RCF to supply the sound for all the events that will taking place in the main outdoor arena, such as snowboarding and ski contests, as well as in the main exhibiting hall B, where they are planning to hold the award ceremonies for the winners and also an entertainment area with music.

Several ART 310-A have been installed on the indoor perimeter of the hall B for background music and paging purposes while TT+ High Definition Touring and Theatre Series has been installed outside.

TTL33-A Line Array systems coupled with TTS28-A high power subwoofers have been installed in the main outdoor arena (20000sq.m) where contests and demonstrations will be held by

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The Netherlands - Club Aces recently opened its doors in the city of Hoogeven. This stylish club with an elegant and carefully designed interior - typical of the area's modern nightlife - offers contemporary music on weekends. Apart from welcoming current names on the music scene, Club Aces also offers salsa classes and rents the venue for parties or private events.

Local rental company P.G.T. (Pekel Geluids Techniek) was in charge of the venue's audiovisual installations. After a number of positive experiences with the Aero 28A systems PGT director Gerald Pekel drew up a proposal for the club that included D.A.S. sound systems. After consulting with Iemke Roos Audio B.V, D.A.S. distributor in Holland, he presented his project for the installation of Variant 112A powered line array systems to the club owners.

The main equipment installed around the dance floor is composed of t

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Australia - The 15th annual Deadlys awards at Sydney Opera House contained all the glamour, emotion, pride and excitement that has come to be expected from Indigenous Australia's night of nights.

Production specialists Coastal Lighting rigged a spectacular display incorporating four of PR Lighting's XL590 LED moving head washlights into the stage floor, as specified by LD, Aldo Fabrizio.

The light output of this fixture closely resembles that of a conventional wash light containing a 1200W discharge lamp, since it uses Osram's Diamond Dragon LED, one of the world's brightest single-chip SMT LEDs. Each head contains 90 high power 5W LED's (30 x Red, 30 x Green, 30 x Blue) with the added advantage of excellent colour mixing and high uniformity of the white beam.

The clients were particularly impressed by these attributes, commenting on their surprising brightness and ov

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USA - When Southlands Church in Brea, California moved from temporary to permanent premises, they realised that they would need help in making smart choices. To guide them through the process, they hired Paul Dexter of 7k Audio. Dexter is a Grammy-nominated studio mixer who has designed systems for many churches in Orange County.

"While I'm a record producer first, I've done a few successful rock and roll churches in the area, and word gets around," notes Dexter. "My job was to give them the sound they wanted and the knowledge they needed, while working within a pretty modest budget. One of the keys to making that happen was choosing an Allen & Heath iLive-112 as the mixing console."

Dudley Rogers, the primary sound engineer at Southlands, was involved throughout the project. "My job was to represent the church's needs to Paul Dexter - what kind of sou

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UK - American football fever took over Wembley Stadium when the NFL came to town, bringing with it the NFL Tailgate Party. Visitors enjoyed an all American experience before the big game with Mojo Barriers installing the crowd control solutions across the site.

As a warm up for the only NFL game of the series to visit the UK, the New England Patriots versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, the Tailgate Party celebrated all things NFL. For the third year running, the free of charge, outdoor event attracted 23,000 people to the Palace of Industry, outside Wembley Stadium.

For the third year running, Mojo Barriers worked closely with Tailgate International Series' site manager Dave Walton to devise and install the crowd control and barrier system for the event. The site has developed with each event, this year introducing new elements such as the Hall of Fame and a 3D

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China - Beijing has celebrated the first anniversary of the Olympic Games with a large-scale performance entitled Blue Fantasy. The performance debuted at the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Centre, where stunning sea views rivalled the sound courtesy of the L-Acoustics Kudo line source system, supplied to the venue by Chinese distributor Rightway Audio.

The system was deployed in left and right hangs of six Kudo cabinets and two SB28 high-power subwoofers each side, with a centre cluster of six dV-Dosc modular line source cabinets. A further four dV-Dosc cabinets were used for down-fill. Meanwhile, 12 8XT compact coaxials were used for left, right and rear surround, with eight 12XT high performance coaxials as stage monitor. The whole system was powered by four LA4 and eight LA8 amplified controllers.

"I'm very familiar with L-Acoustics cabinets as I have used them many t

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Australia - With Australia's World War One aviation heroics now almost the stuff of folklore, the Australian War Memorial (AWM) in Canberra recently embarked on a major exhibit, recording and reproducing the very-real exploits of Australian pilots in the skies over the Western Front in France and in the Middle East.

In a collaborative trans-Tasman effort, Over The Front brought artefacts and visuals from these campaigns to visitors.

Bruce Brown, project manager with Mental Media in Sydney, oversaw the AV installation which included consulting on the hardware design, specification, and documentation in collaboration with Alex Smythe, AV manager at the Memorial.

The technical infrastructure drew heavily on cinema loudspeakers from Martin Audio.

The exhibit itself featured five aircraft - three Allied types and two rare German fighter planes - along with other artefact

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UK - Chris Kempton, lighting director of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and a Knights of Illumination winner at PLASA09 has designed well over 200 shows for Jonathan Ross and cites "trying to create a different atmosphere for each band performance" as a chief goal.

The set uses a core rig and occasionally brings in additional fixtures to help create the different looks. Kempton described the challenging schedule: "Jonathan is very involved with the choice of music, always involved in choosing the band himself. It's a one day stand, so a very quick rig in the morning, minimal rehearsal in the afternoon and a record in the evening.

"For the lighting style we keep a basic standard rig based on wash lights to give a distinctive house style. We go for a very live look, high intensity, that leans more towards the looks of a live concert than a TV presenta

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USA - Audio-Technica is an integral part of the stage setup of rockers Daughtry, led by frontman Chris Daughtry. The group's 2006 self-titled RCA debut was the fastest selling debut rock album in Soundscan history, and their 2009 follow-up Leave This Town debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 in its first week in the US, scoring Daughtry two consecutive #1 albums.

Daughtry's Audio-Technica microphone list is extensive. Chris Daughtry uses an Artist Elite 5000 Series UHF Wireless System with the AE6100 Hypercardioid Dynamic Handheld Microphone and AEW-T6100 Transmitter for his lead vocals. The band also uses a wide array of A-T wired mics.

Front-of-House (FOH) engineer Morgan Russell states, "When you have a world-class performer on stage, a world class mic is the only thing that will do. I consider the AE6100 the best vocal mic on the market."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Zero 88's theatrical lighting console ORB is continuing to make waves in London's theatre scene; lighting two productions at the intimate Arcola and Landor theatres.

At the Arcola Theatre the ORB was in control of the acclaimed production of Elder Latimer is in Love directed by Sebastian Michael. After using the ORB recently on What's Wrong with Angry, lighting designer MJ Urbanek was happy to specify it again for Elder Latimer. He says, "The ORB is an easy desk to learn and has all the features needed for controlling moving lights and LED fixtures. With the two screens, it is easy to see exactly what is going on. I love using the ORB as its intuitive and simple to use yet boasts all the features of a more complicated console."

With sustainability projects part of its core business, the Arcola Theatre aims to be the world's first carbon neut

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UK - Global communications services company BT has installed a giant electronic information screen at the top of the iconic BT Tower in London. The 360 degree LED screen - made up of Martin Professional LC Plus Series LED panels and believed to be the highest of its kind in Europe and the Americas - will be used as an information band, showing messages and providing visual content that will be visible from various locations across the city. The information band was switched on for the first time on Saturday 31 October.

BT has again selected Martin Professional product to illuminate the landmark Tower. The Tower's previous lighting scheme, which featured Martin Exterior 200 fixtures to highlight the BT logo and brand signage, was a successful scheme that ran for five years. The company has now decided to upgrade with the next level of lighting technology.

The LC Plus screen is

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USA - Austin City Limits Music Festival, one of the premier music festivals in the US, recently capped-off another successful year of musical festivities. Held from 3-5 October, 130 bands gathered in the Texan capital to give three full days of performances across eight stages. Robert Ausmus of LD Systems (Houston, TX) and his crew relied on an Electro-Voice X-Line line array loudspeaker system to provide sound reinforcement for the Xbox 360 stage.

The Xbox stage saw crowds of up to 35,000, and featured a diverse range of headliners, including Them Crooked Vultures - a supergroup featuring John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) - Girl Talk, STS9 and Raphael Saadiq among many others.

LD Systems deployed a main FOH rig comprising two arrays of eight full-range X-Line elements. Xn boxes were used for out-fills.

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Germany - Norway's projectiondesign is jointly sponsoring the first Virtual Efficiency Congress being held at SpOrt Stuttgart in Germany between 5-6 November, 2009.

The event will see the first ever demonstration of the company's flagship three-chip F80 1080 DLP projectors in a stereo visualization configuration, using embedded INFITEC wavelength multiplex imaging filter technology. This type of configuration is designed for bright, large-screen viewing in a range of environments such as VR analysis, museums and large room presentations.

The F80 incorporates projectiondesign's new Advanced Colour Optical Processing (ACOP) technology, offering sophisticated optical calibration for superior projected images. It combines individual optical filters in the red, green and blue channels, an infinitely adjustable optical iris, and DynamicBlack functionality from Texas Instruments to g

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UK - HSL continues its touring relationship with Bristol-based Massive Attack, supplying all lighting equipment and crew to the current UK and European tour, working with lighting designer Robin Haddow.

HSL project manager Mike Oates says: "It's great to be working with Robin and production manager James Baseley and tour manager Dave Lawrence and their team again. Massive Attack have been one of the UK's most influential and creative bands over the last two decades, and their live productions are always inventive and interesting. This one is no exception."

Robin Haddow worked closely with the band's video and show designers United Visual Artists (UVA) on developing the look and feel of the show, for which they did a week of technical production rehearsals at HSL's new space next door to their warehouse facility in Blackburn. They also received considerable input from

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USA - Tomcat reports that space is still available for the workshop that will take place on 18 & 19 November 2009 in conjunction with the LDI Show in Orlando, Florida.

During the course of the ETCP recognised workshop, participants will receive training from industry experts. Day one consists of a full day of motor instruction taught by Herb Hart of Columbus McKinnon. During this, participants will disassemble and reassemble a one ton CM Lodestar and receive instruction on troubleshooting and maintenance.

Day two includes a half-day course on truss design, use and theory taught by Will Todd, product support manager for Tomcat USA plus a half-day course on fall protection led by Bill Sapsis, president and founder of Sapsis Rigging.

This is the first time Sapsis has taught a session in conjunction with the Tomcat workshops. He is an ETCP recognized trainer and recognised indus

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Sweden - Tannoy's VQ Series has been establishing an impressive reputation as a loudspeaker system of choice in the sports arena sector over the last year or so since making its debut at 2008's Frankfurt prolight+sound show.

The most recent company to deploy VQ in this type of environment is AV integrated solutions provider Impact Europe, as part of a significant upgrade to the Coop Arena in the northern Swedish city of Luleå.

Located just 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle, the 6000 capacity Coop Arena is a major sports and community facility for the city and surrounding area, and has undergone a major programme of building works to upgrade and enhance the venue - with new raised roof, new restaurant, pub, lodges and conference rooms in addition to a comprehensive overhaul of the AV systems.

A significant part of this upgrade was in specifying and installing a vers

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UK - Yamaha Music has unveiled a new content rich, artist led website offering "a combination of invaluable information, knowledge and advice for anyone serious about playing and producing music".

Artist interviews and topical and constantly updated news and reviews form the heartbeat of www.yamahadownload.com according to Yamaha's Felicity Gregory. "All the ingredients and elements that are important to musicians at all levels come together on Download, it will prove invaluable to songwriters, bands, teachers and there's also much in there for beginners too, it's a great place for musicians to get closer to their music and learn from top professionals, the site will change from week to week ensuring it is always fresh and relevant."

Artists involved in the launch include The Editors, Paolo Nutini, Elbow, Dave Weckl, Troy Miller and Jamie Cullum. The

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UK - Multiform Lighting were recently contacted by Environetics, suppliers of 'Magic Fountain' systems, who were intending to use the company's MultiPac 4-channel DMX dimmer to control fountain pumps and lighting in their new 'Solo Mio' sound activated interactive fountain systems.

Multifoem says that Environetics chose the MultiPac because of its unique range of facilities including Soft Patch, Multiple Curves, Manual Presets, Programable Preheat, Limiter and Inbuilt Crossfades plus Multiform's renowned rugged serviceability.

Magic Fountain systems range from a single pump to 18-pump fountains with multi-coloured underwater lighting. They are supplied to public authorities, theme parks, special needs schools and also lottery winners! Unlike simpler sequentially programmed systems, Magic Fountains analyse the music signal electronically, converting this into DMX data which is

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Denmark - On 5 December, the largest cruise liner ever built, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's Oasis of the Seas, will set sail on its maiden voyage adorned in a multitude of Martin Professional dynamic lighting and smoke solutions.

The RCCL Oasis, built at the STX shipyard in Finland, surpasses anything that has come before it in nearly every way. Sailing from its home port of Port Everglades, Florida the Oasis is 360m long with room for 5,400 passengers and a crew of 3,000.

Martin secured delivery of the majority of the entertainment lighting and smoke package for the vessel: the company's solutions can be found in the majority of the ship's entertainment areas from the Promenade, ice rink and multiple theatres to a variety of bars, lounges and dance areas.

In addition, Martin is supplying an identical equipment package to the Oasis' upcoming sister ship, the R

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UK - Currently playing a remarkable 54 mainly sold-out dates in arenas from Aberdeen and Belfast to Bournemouth and London, comedian Michael McIntyre's current tour is one of the biggest grossing UK tours for several years. Yamaha's LS9 small format digital mixing console is on duty throughout.

The tour is one of striking contrasts. On the one hand the stage is completely bare, there are no gimmicks or props - not even a microphone stand. The entire show comprises 90 minutes of one man wearing a headset mic. The channel count is minimal and the front-of-house and monitor consoles are the babies of Yamaha's digital range.

On the other hand, the size of venues dictates huge hangs of Martin Audio line array, while ticket demand means multiple dates at many of the UK's biggest arenas - six at Cardiff International Arena, six at Wembley Arena, six at the Brighton Centre, seven at t

  1. PSI services the Belfast Festival
  2. Philips Vari-Lite in pole position at F1 Rocks
  3. High Proel profile at X-Fighters Exhibition
  4. EPMD points the way with Nokia
  5. Tori Amos on the road with dual Midas systems
  6. Chroma-Q Color Block 2 wins at poker
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