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Hong Kong - Built in the 1960s, the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall is the largest interior venue within the Hong Kong City Hall complex, which also houses a theatre, an exhibition hall, gallery and numerous restaurants.

Administered by the Hong Kong Leisure & Cultural Services Department, the 1434-seat Concert Hall is a multi-functional space capable of adapting to performances of symphony, chamber, recital, jazz, opera and chorus music, in addition to other forms of performing art, such as dance, drama and Chinese opera.

The Hong Kong Leisure & Cultural Services Department approached Robert Juliat dealer, Pacific Lighting, seeking to replace the venue's existing, aging lighting fixtures - a move which came about following the successful installation, in January 2008, by Pacific Lighting of 22 RJ 710SX 2K profiles into the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall.

Pacific Li

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Germany - System designers hartmann+mathias partnerschaft and acoustic consultants Peutz have unveiled a new audio system for the auditorium of Cologne University. Four Renkus-Heinz Iconyx IC 24 digitally steerable array loudspeakers, supplied by German distributor Atlantic Audio, deliver the sound, with installation by Light Tec Medientechnik.

Karl-Heinz Brenig, head of event and media technology at Cologne University, specified the University's requirements for the auditorium, which serves six faculties and 42,039 students, 10 per cent of whom are from other countries.

The auditorium in the landmark main building is the central location for lectures, speeches, live concerts and music performances, and also for events such as scientific symposia and international congresses.

This multi-purpose use motivated the university to specify both high speech intelligibility and exce

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Japan - Abercrombie & Fitch, the successful American fashion retailer, opened its doors in Tokyo on 15 December, 2009 in the prestigious Ginza shopping district. It is the brand's first flagship store in Asia. Similar in design to its New York store, the Ginza branch is 820sq.m and boasts one of the largest hand painted murals in the world.

The store's façade design, featuring louver frames filling both sides of the building and leaving no space for windows, raised the need for not only a remote control system but a system monitoring solution. Martin Cyclo 02 color temperature changers equipped with dual control ballasts and two T5 28W 2700K fluorescent tubes were chosen to illuminate the louvers.

A custom made touch screen based control and monitoring system was developed. From the touch screen system it is possible to execute regular lighting scenes, run maintenance orienta

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UK - Nike chose the dramatic setting of Battersea Power Station for their 2010 Innovation Summit and Stage One was chosen - as the event's scenic supplier. Brought in by experiential and event management agency, Slice Events, Stage One were asked to provide the internal fit out for The Boiler House, a temporary venue installed within the power station.

This high profile event, launching Nike's new Mercurial Vapor Superfly II boot and the new National Team jerseys, required Stage One to work very closely with Slice, Patrick Donohue, Slice Events' design co-ordinator and the Nike design team, to deliver a themed environment in keeping with Nike's iconic brand.

"This project evolved greatly during the design and build process and we worked closely with the design team to accommodate any changes and offer practical construction solutions - demonstrating our can-do attitude an

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USA - A Cirque du Soleil production touring America under the Grand Chapiteau tent, OVO presents another acrobatic spectacle - this time choreographed around a storyline of romance and conflict in the micro-world of bugs. To complement the visuals, OVO envelops the audience with insect sounds blended into Brazilian-inflected music, all dynamically mixed through a Meyer Sound Matrix3 audio show control and self-powered loudspeaker system.

A 2,600-seat circus tent made of hard-stretched vinyl presents complex acoustical challenges for the sound designer, and further complications are introduced by a full-thrust stage and 270-degree seating layout. Principal sound designer Jonathan Deans and assistant designer Jean-Michel Caron implemented a M'elodie line array configuration that had worked well on an earlier Cirque production, KOOZA .

"The M'elodie arrays were used because

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USA - When Claudia Winkleman presented the Oscars Show on Sky Movies, lighting designer Malcolm Reed opted for Chroma Flood TCs and Alpha Beam 300s, provided by Richard Martin Lighting, to help create a late night ambiance to the chic retro set. Assisting the chosen specification were Pixeline 1044 which Reed had previously purchased from the company, giving him the opportunity to play with a painted sky line 'back drop' mixing up colours to get the desired look.

Reed reports: "The Oscars set replicates an apartment overlooking LA from the Hollywood Hills, so my main reason for using the Alpha Beam 300 was that I needed an exceptionally bright and narrow beam animated light source to imitate Oscars night sky dancing lights with a little bit of atmospheric 'haze' The cameras would see very powerful beams of light dancing across the Sky Line giving the impression that

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USA - For live sound engineers, touring without carrying a mixing console can be like working without a net. But for hard-touring artists like country music's Chris Young, it is a critical aspect of getting their music in front of their fans. "Every night is different, and that's not always a good thing," says Brian Tapley, who handles both house and monitor mixes for Young. "You're at the mercy of the venue, so it's always nice to find something that's easy to work with."

When Tapley walked into The Block, a large nightclub in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, he was presented with a new Allen & Heath iLive-144 digital mixing console from the venue's audio supplier, Brendon Grimes of TSC Productions. "Before the band arrived, I set up the surface according to Chris Young's input list with the routing set up to the main PA," says Grimes. "Brian (Taple

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USA - Designing a sound system for a motor speedway is not an exercise in subtle nuance. To compete with the chest-compressing roar of these powerful engines, and the cheers of a few thousand of their closest friends, it's all about brute force decibels.

When California Speedway became Auto Club Speedway in 2008, the new owners began a long-term project of making improvements to the venue's infrastructure. This year, Bay Area-based Pacific Satellite upgraded the Speedway's sound system, bringing in 104 of Community's powerful R.5HPT three-way loudspeaker systems.

"Previously, the stands were covered by Community M4 loudspeakers mounted on the wheel fence," explains Pacific Satellite's Jerry Coté. "The M4 is still a good speaker, but one of the reasons we chose the R-Series is that it delivers exceptional intelligibility, along with great coverage."

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USA - The Village Church's Flower Mound Campus Worship Centre is located just North of Dallas, Texas. One of three Village Church locations, the flower mound campus is the newest, and was opened barely a month ago, at a vacated Albertson's grocery store. The large space needed a complete re-design, and Shanks Architects were contacted to re-model the building's interior, whereas the exterior facade remained practically untouched.

Most of the work was done inside where the new main campus, including office space, is accommodated. The main sanctuary is a 1,400 seat worship centre. As an open and contemporary environment, it is an ideal and welcoming space for worship, concerts and child education activities alike. The worship centre's versatile stage design caters to many musical styles of various sizes and the sound system needed to be designed more as a theatrical venue rather t

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The Netherlands - Highlite International BV announced that it joined Philips' LED luminaires and retrofit bulbs license program. Highlite produces and distributes worldwide a range of show equipment including professional audio products and lighting equipment for rental companies, production companies, retail chains and large scale amusement facilities dealers.

Huub De la Haije, president and founder of Highlite International BV, says: "As a licensee under the license program we get access to a large portfolio of Philips' patented LED control technology. This allows us to offer our customers LED luminaires with state-of-the-art technology at an attractive price. Both our lighting brands Showtec for special light equipment for events, live acts and stage installations and Artecta for architectural lighting products will benefit from the agreement with Philips."

Frank

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UAE - Al Laith Events Services - the new division of Dubai based Al Laith Scaffolding - supplied a stage and bespoke roof system for Sting's show at the newly re-launched Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.

This was the new division's first major event and involved several technical challenges, the first of which was that the roof had to be built over the top of a 100m wide by 11m high permanently installed Mitsubishi LED screen.

The roof was made primarily out of Serious Stages' Space truss to Atlantic Enterprises' and structural engineer Dragan Kuzamanov's method statement.

The cantilevered roof elevation measured 25m wide and overhung the stage just in front of the screen by 19m, with 16m protruding at the back supported by a scaffolding 'bird-cage', cable stays to a seven king poles at the top and 84 tonnes of concrete ballast down below stored in seven stillages at the bottom o

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USA - The initial group of ETCP Certified Riggers are due to recertify this year with electricians following in 2011. To maintain their certification all ETCP Certified Technicians must accumulate renewal credits which include continued training and professional development.

ETCP's Training Recognition Programmes are designed to assist certifcants in finding quality training opportunities. ETCP has just implemented a new designation, ETCP Recognised Training Provider, to accommodate organisations which offer multiple courses. The total fee for all submitted programmes is $2500. Organisations interested in having only a single course recognized may apply to have their course become a Recognised Training Programme for a fee of $1000. Recognition and fees are valid for two years for either designation.

There are several benefits to having courses recognised by ETCP. Certified Tec

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UK - Sennheiser UK will showing a large selection of products at PLASA Focus. The company's wireless microphone and monitoring products are the industry standard and these are well-represented by a wide range of evolution G3 series and 2000 series transmitters and receivers. Complementing these are the EM 3732-II twin receiver and SK 5212-II bodypack transmitter, which feature switching bandwidths respectively twice and five times as wide as before.Also on show are the EK 2020-D portable tour guide receiver and the DDA Kit, a unique infra-red solution for the hearing impaired which has already met with tremendous success at London's O2 Arena.Alongside Sennheiser's own products will be an array of those that the company distributes in the UK. APart products on show include the new Mask2 loudspeaker, a tiny (94 x 82 x 108mm), aesthetically pleasing full-range loudspeaker that delive

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UK - Hawthorn has supplied over 70 linear metres of its new LED video cloth, Media Surge, to the BBC for its Eurovision: Your Country Needs You 2010 heats; working with set designer Alex Craig and LD Mark Kenyon on yet another TV production.

Six acts competed for the honour of representing the UK at this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo in May, singing a song written by Pete Waterman.

Your Country Needs You featured a stunning set with a backdrop of 72 linear metres of Hawthorn's LED video cloth, 4m high. The programming was supplied by the show's production team and Hawthorn's engineers operated the Media Surge.

Alex Craig, commented, "I was delighted to find an LED cloth product that gave me the large scale coverage that I needed at a price I could afford, and with a soft pixillation that looked fabulous on close up shots."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Turbosound has announced that it has partnered with Fuzion PLC to further expand the distribution of its professional loudspeaker lines in the UK.

As a result of a series of discussions between the two companies over the last few months, Turbosound and Fuzion have reached agreement to work together to further expand Turbosound's sales channels, alongside the West Sussex-based company's existing sales network in the UK market.

Effective from 2 April 2010, Fuzion will complement the current distribution of Turbosound's fixed installation and concert touring loudspeaker products.

Turbosound has undergone a radical transformation of its product lines over the last couple of years, resulting with the imminent introduction of its newly structured vertical market approach at the Frankfurt Messe this week.

Fuzion's managing director Tony Oates comments, "Having spent som

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Frankfurt 2010 - The lighting and sound industries head for Frankfurt this week for what promises to be an interesting and well attended ProLight&Sound. Judging by the number of press releases and product launch invitations received, the LSI team will be kept busy.

On The Left - Musician Billy Bragg is to curate his own stage at this summer's Glastonbury Festival, organisers have announced. Bragg will book the bill for the Leftfield tent, which returns this year after being axed in 2009. Bragg said his role would be "a bit of everything - curator, MC, performer, guitar roadie [and] juggler." The stage will aim to bring a political dimension to the event, described as "the original activist festival" by the Barking-born veteran. Glastonbury, said Bragg, "has always had that political edge since its rebirth in the 1980s as a gathering for dissidents

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World - The Killers concluded a year of live dates by playing shows on three separate continents in just five days. In order to achieve it, no less than six DiGiCo consoles were required.

After playing many dates across Europe, Australia, the USA and South America throughout 2009, The Killers finished the tour by playing shows in South Africa on 6 December, the United Arab Emirates (8) and the USA (11). This was a major logistical exercise and meant no less than three separate audio rigs were required for the shows.

Capital Sound Hire provides the band's sound equipment in the UK, Europe and Africa, while Delicate provides systems for them in the Americas and Australia. With the main ('A') touring system, provided by Capital, being used for shows in Johannesburg on 3/4 December and then the final Cape Town gig, logistics meant that the company had to provide an identical 'B' s

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Trinidad - When Beyoncé performed a spectacular concert in Trinidad recently, her lighting team, headed by LD, Pat Brannon, used over 60 truss-mounted moving heads from PR Lighting to dominate the lavish stage production.

Attended by around 40,000 people, the concert featured a total of 30 x XL 1200 Spot, 12 x Pilot 1200 Wash, 10 x Pilot 575 Wash and 10 x Pilot 575 Spot.

Programmed into the grand MA lighting desk by Brannon, the moving heads were supplied by PR Lighting distributors, All Events Lighting Systems.

The event took place in the Queen's Park Savannah, in the island's capital of Port of Spain. Four truss rigs were set at various points from front to back of the stage in descending size (the front being the highest). Suspended from this were 12 Pilot 1200 Wash and six XL 1200 Spot lights, along with ten 8-light Molefays. The second rig included eight XL 1200

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UK - The Society of London Theatres announced the winners of the 34th Laurence Olivier Awards last Sunday, at a star-studded ceremony broadcast on BBC Radio 2, streamed live on the internet, and featuring performances from many of the nominated musicals. White Light would like to congratulate the winners and all of the nominees in this thrilling year of theatre.

The first award presented at the ceremony was for Best Lighting Design, the category won by Mark Henderson for Burnt By The Sun at the National's Lyttelton Theatre. Henderson received a second nomination for Enron; this is the fifth time he has received this award. He also won a Tony Award in 2006 for The History Boys in New York. His fellow nominees in the category were Kevin Adams for Spring Awakening and Jon Clark for Three Days of Rain.

The other design awards went to Ultz for his

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USA - Located in an affluent 'main line' suburb of Philadelphia, St. David's Episcopal Church, which celebrates its 300th Anniversary in 2015, was first settled at end of 17th Century by Welsh colonists in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

St. David's distinguished history goes back to the original settlers who, while waiting for approval of their church from London, "heartily engaged themselves to build a handsome stone church" to be named after patron saint of Wales. Cornerstone laid on May 9. 1715.

With the passing years, the church complex has grown along with the parish and in 1965 the parish celebrated its 250th anniversary at a service attended by the Bishop of St. David's in Wales. Today it is the largest of the 157 parishes in the Diocese of Pennsylvania it and continues to grow and flourish, adding a new chapel to its 40-acre campus in 2006.

The chapel's original aud

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UK - Allen & Heath has announced a partnership with music software company, IK Multimedia, to bundle its Amplitube X-Gear software with the newly launched ZED-10 and ZED-10FX mini USB mixers.

Effective from April 2010, Allen & Heath will ship the new ZED models with a full version of Amplitube X-Gear, the first fully modular, customisable and expandable amp and FX modelling software system, which can operate as a plug-in or a stand-alone application.

The software is a good companion for the ZED-10 and ZED-10FX models, which feature two innovative ultra high impedance discrete Class A FET (Field Effect Transistor) inputs, allowing an instrument to be plugged directly into the mixer, emulating the valve/tube input circuitry commonly found on instrument combos or amplifiers.

"The modelling capability of X-Gear, and the guitar and bass specific Class A FET pre-amps on the Z

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UAE - Once again, the Skywards Dubai International Jazz Festival took place in Dubai's Media City Amphitheatre. It was the eighth edition of the festival which featured artists including The Brand New Heavies, David Gray and James Morrison.

For lighting control, the show's lighting designer and operator Paul Smith relied on a grandMA system solution consisting of one grandMA full-size console, one grandMA light as a backup, one MA NSP (Network Signal Processor) and a laptop running grandMA 3D for pre-programming and show adjustment.

"The requirement was to create a dynamic environment for the wide variety of artists who were performing, ranging from classical Arabic Jazz to R&B to Acid Jazz to Soul", explains Smith, "I needed a versatile desk that was familiar to the two visiting LD's - Tom Lesh and Bill Adie, with Liz Berry programming and operating for Bill -

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UK - The most prestigious of acting talent came together for the 2010 Laurence Olivier Awards. The awards were presented by Anthony Head and the ceremony was hosted by The Society of London Theatres to honour London's best stage productions.

Stage Electrics supported this event by supplying all the lighting for the fifth year running, working closely with lighting designer Matt Evered to produce a visually stunning event.

Adam Blaxill, head of marketing for Stage Electrics commenting on the nominations said, "We would like to congratulate all the nominees and winners from last night. We are particularly proud to have provided the lighting equipment for multiple nominee Oliver! the musical."

This year's event saw the leading lights of London theatre come together with the largest ever performance in the awards' history. Over 53 performers from the London and

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UK - In order to promote the Honey Monster family of food Stage One was asked by experiential marketing agency, Hotcow, to create a themed 'Monster' truck to both raise brand awareness and reinforce the public's latent fondness of the Honey Monster.

"The conversion of the original truck, an iconic 1970's ex-army Land Rover 101, was a huge challenge," said Neil Franklin, head of interpretation for Stage One. "But by forming a close working partnership with Hotcow we were able to provide a solution to meet the aspirations of the client."

The process was, however, far more complex than it appears and throughout the conversion the design of the truck was constantly evolving, requiring Stage One to draw on their extensive experience to offer and incorporate design solutions. The conversion included extra lighting, panelling, graphics and a roof hatch, and drew o

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