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UK - London-based design house Renegade produced and supplied all the technical design and equipment - lighting, video and visuals, set and scenic elements plus sound - for the SHINE 2010 Benefit Dinner, staged at The Boiler House, a new temporary structure located inside the shell of London's Battersea Power Station building.

The event featured a 'greatest hits' performance by Bryan Ferry, and raised large sums of money for the charity, which supports additional educational initiatives encouraging children and young people to raise their achievement levels.

Renegade has worked closely with SHINE for the last seven years, producing all their live events. The high profile 2010 Benefit Dinner was project managed for Renegade by Mike Fidler working closely with Nick Gray as lighting designer. Andy Cobb filled in with conceptual designs along with technical production manager, Cha

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UK - For the BBC's annual charity fundraising appeal show Children In Need, Richard Martin Lighting (RML) supplied the lighting and crew for the ninth year running, whilst the event, filmed live at BBC Television Centre (TVC), was celebrating its 31st anniversary.

This year the show had a new set and a new lighting designer. Mark Kenyon stepped up to light the star-studded Friday night. David Bishop assisted as moving light operator.

The live show from TC1, hosted by Terry Wogan, Tess Daly and Fearne Cotton, featured Alpha Beam 700s, Chroma Banks, VL1000TS, Nova Flowers, Pixel Brick kits, VL3500s and LC2140 panels plus P3 Controller.

TC6 again played host to the hospitality area where the VIPs and event organisers were entertained with a live performance Heaven 17. Lighting designer Lee Allen used MAC 600s, MAC 500s and LED 12 Lights.

(Jim Evans)

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UAE - Midas' newly-appointed UAE distributor Melody House has supplied four DPA 4080 miniature cardioid lavalier mics to Almoe Digital AV Systems, for installation in the Shiek Zayed Mosque, Abu Dhabi. The mics are being used by the mullahs of the mosque for prayers.

"When comparing DPA microphones in a blindfold test, the DPA's were clear leaders of the pack," says Almoe's Jason Rouzaire. "This was a perfect microphone to use in such a high profile job."

Almoe was founded in 1994 to offer a one-stop solution for audio visual and office automation products in the UAE.

(Jim Evans)

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Ireland - Production Services Ireland (PSI) supplied lighting and video equipment for the An Appointment With Mr Yeats show by The Waterboys - a concept musical performance set to the poetry of the Irish poet and dramatist, WB Yeats - which has just finished its first Irish tour.

PSI's Sean Pagel was asked to create a lighting and visuals design following on from Belfast based PSI's supply of equipment to An Appointment show earlier in the year, a one off at Dublin's Abbey Theatre,

Say's Pagel, "It is a great honour for us to be involved something as original, interesting and special as this show. Mike Scott knows exactly what he wants and his attention to absolutely every detail is impressive."

Pagel's brief was to design a complimentary theatre show for the performance that was practical to tour in a rock 'n' style, and fitted nicely into all the ve

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China - The Shanghai World Expo opened with one of the most ambitious live events ever undertaken - a spectacular display of lights, lasers, fountains, boats, music and fireworks along a 3.4km stretch of the Huangpu River in central Shanghai.

The event was designed to cement Shanghai's status as one of the world's great cities, by showcasing the latest technology in outdoor spectacular events. Clay Paky formed a core part of the event, with over 300 Alpha 1500 spotlights supplied through its Chinese partner ACE Professional Sound and Lighting.

Production was by David Atkins Enterprises; outdoor lighting was designed by Bob Dickinson and Ted Wells. Paul Collison was project lighting manager and Sha Xiao Lan was lighting designer for the indoor show.

The outdoor performance spanned both sides of the 300m-wide Huangpu River, extending along a 2.7km stretch of the river. The eno

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UK - The Arena Group supported the tournament organisers in transforming the O2 Arena into a tennis heaven this November providing a range of temporary events overlay and interior design, including a new Fan Zone, hospitality and media structures and courtside bespoke media boxes for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.

This was the second year of a five year contract for which Arena Structures project manager Daniel Bluff and Arena Seating special structures commercial director Martin Clark worked alongside clients ATP, drawing on their experience from last year and expanding the events temporary overlay and hospitality offering.

The Group extended the facilities to include a Fan Zone which comprised of a 40m x 50m TFS structure housing two practice tennis courts and 400 tiered seats to expand the visitor experience and enhance the value of the sought after tickets.This led in

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France - Wireless Solution Sweden has announced the appointment of CSI as the new distributor of W-DMX for entertainment in France. The agreement was made official during the JTSE trade show in Paris on 24 November 2010.

Paris based CSI-France has been established for over 43 years, representing brands such as Vari*Lite, High End Systems, About Show and Green Hippo, in addition to managing many projects around the world.

"CSI is clearly the team to join," says Lotta Schiefer, business development manager for Wireless Solution, "Our products fit in very naturally with the CSI portfolio and we highly respect the company's strong presence in France with both sales relationships and special projects. We consider this a very successful step forward."

Arnaud Leschemelle, CEO for CSI adds: "In addition to our goal of supplying some of the best brands on the

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UK - 5 Star Cases is mid-way through the supply of a large amount of cases - currently around the 1000 mark and set to double - to AV rental and staging company, Central Presentations (CPL), with bases in Birmingham and Bristol.

CPL has been using 5 Star for its case requirements since late 2006, and is currently in the process of replacing all its existing road cases for both locations with new cases and ensuring that every piece of equipment - from the largest, including Barco FLM projectors, Sony HXC100 camera channels and Grass Valley HD PPU to single hand-bag sized microphones - has a new case.

All the new cases are finished in a striking red high pressure laminate and range from lightweight briefcase styles right up to large tour grade trunks.

Over 1000 cases have already been delivered by 5 Star to CPL which has nearly completed the re-casing project for the Birmingha

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The Netherlands / UK - Acoustic Control Systems, based in the Netherlands, has appointed HD Pro Audio as its new UK partner.

HD Pro Audio sales director Andy Huffer will be leading this new partnership, expanding on an existing relationship between RK Sound and ACS. Huffer commented: "By adding the ACS product line to our portfolio, I see the addition of a top-of-the-line technology which is a step forward in positioning HD Pro Audio at the highest level of the pro audio market."

HD Pro Audio will continue to have links with Jon Raper of RK Sound. At van den Heuvel, technical director of ACS, said, "The management of ACS wishes to express our gratitude to Jon Raper and his colleagues for many years of positive support. Over those years a number of ACS systems have been sold and installed by RK Sound. We value Jon as a very knowledgeable and experienced engineer,

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Germany - Since the mid-1600s, the Oberammergau Passionsfestspiele (passion play) has been performed every 10 years in the German village of the same name. The 2010 performances used sound reinforcement for the first time in its history, with a Yamaha PM5D front of house console chosen for the occasion.

2010 marked the 41st season of the play, with 2000 villagers dedicating a year of their lives to the project - none of whom are professional thespians - culminating in 105 performances (plus five public previews) between May and October. Each performance lasted for eight hours, including a three-hour interval.

"In the past, the audience had to resort to reading along in a text book to follow the dialogue," says Michael Kennedy, the 2010 play's sound engineer. "A number of those involved in were sceptical about using sound reinforcement for the first time,

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UK - Lighting designer Paula Trounce is a firm fan of the Avolites Tiger Touch and Pearl Expert consoles and the latest Avolites TITAN software, having used both Avo products on tour with UK singer/songwriter Kate Nash.

Trounce is also the house LD at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire venue, where the house desk is an Avo Diamond 4.

The first show that she designed and programmed for Nash was done on a Pearl Expert running TITAN after which they asked her to tour with them. So she had a show everyone was really happy with, but an expedient budget meant the decision was taken to utilize house rigs rather than tour a production.

The opportunity arose for Trounce to try out the Tiger Touch whilst on the European leg of the tour. Above all, the ability to pluck her original design straight from the Pearl Expert and plug it directly into the Tiger Touch proved a great solution. Por

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Switzerland - Due to unprecedented demand from Switzerland's classical outdoor festival circuit, TiMax distributor Bleuel Electronics AG has invested in additional TiMax Tracker and TiMax2 SoundHub systems from UK developer Out Board. With its existing rental stock already fully committed to other shows, Bleuel purchased a further TiMax SoundHub-R32 delay matrix and four-sensor TiMax Tracker (TT) performer tracking system to service a spectacular in-the-round production of Carmen being staged outdoors in Schintznach Dorf.

TiMax was specified by sound designer Renee Zulauf, who was assisted on-site by Robin Whittaker of TiMax developers Out Board. Renee's associate Dominic Schilt mixed the show on a SoundCraft Vi6, feeding radio-mic channel direct outs plus orchestra and reverb submixes to the TiMax Soundhub via optical MADI. The radio-mic handler backstage was Rigobert Sc

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USA - ETC lighting and control products are key to illuminating the diverse exhibits, offices and architecture in the California Science Centre's new 15,300sq.m Ecosystems wing.

Nearly 10 years in the making, the new permanent exhibition in Los Angeles allows visitors to experience a blend of live animals and hands-on science experiments in 11 distinct ecosystems - each illustrating an ecological principle. The wing nearly doubles the exhibition space at the California Science Centre and is expected to raise visits above the average annual attendance of 1.4m that the facility had previously welcomed.

ETC's Unison Paradigm control system, Sensor+ dimming, SmartSwitch relays and Source Four luminaires were all part of the lighting and control package for Ecosystems. The Paradigm system provides simultaneous control of all the architectural lighting in the public areas, including

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Norway - Martin Audio has announced its first Scandinavian customer for the Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array, (MLA). Norwegian rental company, Rubicon AS, has purchased an MLA rig consisting of 20 MLA top boxes, 12 MLX subs, and four MLD down-fill enclosures, from their local distributor, em nordic AS.

The move follows major system purchases by launch customers Complete Audio of Germany and North Carolina-based Special Event Services (SES) - who last month added a second system to their existing MLA arsenal.

By purchasing 36 enclosures, Rubicon, who specialise in a wide range of work from festivals to corporate events and one-off club gigs, will be able to divide the rig into two separate systems where necessary, having doubled up on the power distribution and control.

Based in Oslo, Rubicon has been a regular customer of em nordic since the early 1990s. They were the first

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Egypt - Mobinil, Egypt's leading mobile service provider, invited over 6,000 of its employees with their families to a concert at Cairo's Smart Village, to celebrate their 12th anniversary.

Top Lebanese superstars in the Middle East and North Africa, Elisa and Fadl Shaker headlined, along with soft rock band, Wust El-Balad - all performing under 24 PR Lighting XL Beams, supplied by the company's local distributors, Hi-Lights Egypt.

CEO Hamed Arafa confirms that lighting designer Mohamed Fathy selected these as the main moving heads, suspended from the overhead truss.

These 300W moving heads offer three beam angle options while the fixture itself uses the Phillips Fast Fit MSR Gold lamp and superior optics to provide an output of 22000 lumens. The result is a versatile, variable speed projector, producing a bi-directional rainbow effect - keeping the atmosphere changing spect

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India - The Commonwealth Games Opening & Closing Ceremonies in Delhi turned out to be a slap in the face to the media who were expecting an event of epic failure. Despite inconsistent power, organisational issues, rampant Dengue fever and alleged terrorist threats, the ceremonies were a resounding success.

For audio production company Norwest Productions, it was all par for the course. The company first came to international attention a decade ago when they supplied the audio requirements for the Sydney Olympic Games ceremonies. Since then they have earned the reputation as a world leader in successfully tackling the audio requirements of large scale stadium shows racking up successful events such as two of the three Summer Olympics, both Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games in Doha. This year alone they have serviced the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Singapore Youth Olympics and

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Arena News - The Royal Ballet is to perform a series of shows at London's O2 Arena in June. It is the first time the ballet company has performed in a UK arena. Carlos Acosta, Tamara Rojo, Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg will dance the principal roles in the production of Romeo and Juliet. A filmed introduction will be shown on giant screens in the venue at the beginning of each act.

Director of the ballet company, Dame Monica Mason, said she was "thrilled" about the production being shown in such a huge venue as it would "introduce our work to so many new people". The 17-19 June performances are being staged in association with impresario Raymond Gubbay, who staged the first opera at the London arena earlier this year.

Half Time - The Black Eyed Peas are to perform during the interval at the Super Bowl next year, organisers have said. The Gr

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USA - Sovereign Grace Church in Marlton, NJ is the latest in a growing list of houses of worship to be equipped with loudspeakers from the new installation-dedicated Electro-Voice EV-Innovation family - EVA (Expandable Vertical Array), EVF (front-loaded), and EVH (horn-loaded).

Creative Technologies Consulting (Edmond, Oklahoma) recently designed a system based around EVH-1152S/43 (15" two-way 40° H x 30° V) and EVF-1122S/94 (12" two-way 90° H x 40° V) loudspeakers for the church's new 1100-seat worship centre at their new campus location. Summit Integrated Systems (Denver, Colorado) installed the system.

Dale Alexander, principal consultant with Creative Technologies Consulting reports, "From day one we worked alongside the architect, project management team, and our acoustician to reshape the church's worship centre, preparing the space for a n

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Australia - For over 16 years Austage has built a reputation as one of Australia's premier corporate event companies. Managing director Joe De Abreu knows it is important to be able to offer his clients the best in lighting technology.

With this in mind, Joe began scouring the market for a new LED cyc light and when he came across the Chroma-Q Color Force LED batten he knew he had found what he was looking for.

The new Color Force LED batten is super bright and can easily wash up to eight metres. In addition, it's advanced ColorSure RGBA colour and control management technologies deliver a radically increased colour palette, enhanced colour consistency, a high CRI of 92 and theatrical grade dimming.

"They are so powerful they can turn black drapes into any colour you want," says De Abreu. "After having a good look at what is available in LED cyc lighting, I ha

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Australia - The Docklands exclusive Peninsula Room in Melbourne played host to the Tertiary Education Management Conference Gala Dinner. Alive Technologies handled the AV requirements on the night, designing a system that included a DiGiCo SD8, supplied to them by DiGiCo's Australian distributor, Group Technologies, to provide audio for a full range of requirements, including presentations and a variety of performances from a diverse array of artists.

Alive Technologies FOH Engineer Caleb Doherty was a big fan of the system, which included a substantial Nexo rig for the main stage.

The SD8 was used to handle the various MCs, presenters and bands that performed. Caleb is a long-time user of the SD8 and was very pleased with its performance on the night.

"The SD8 is quite amazing when considering power versus space," he says. "It gave us very clear output and fu

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China - At Shanghai's Prolight + Sound last month, Proel staged a seminar on professional audio and, in particular, on its Axiom and EDGE Systems.

Remo Orsoni, Proel's sound reinforcement product manager reports: "We were in Shanghai to support our new Chinese distributor, AHM, and we were pleased to hold a seminar that would give us the opportunity to go into depth on several technical aspects concerning our professional systems in front of an audience that was attentive to the tiniest detail."

(Jim Evans)

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Singapore - Located with magnificent panoramic views, 71 floors up on top of the luxury Swissotel The Stamford in Singapore, the New Asia Bar is one of the most exclusive club and night venues in town.

Two years ago when it re-opened after a two-month renovation, the 500 capacity venue was kitted out with Robe ClubScan 250 CTs, ColorSpot 250 ATs and ColorWash 575 ATs, to add all the necessary glitter, glamour and excitement needed for guests to fully enjoy the ongoing top DJ line up, which includes regular international artists as well as slots by the best local talent.

The moving lights were specified by Steve Rawlings of Intelligent Lighting Design, and supplied by Louis Teo from Lighting & Sound Distribution (LSD), Robe's Singaporean distributor. New Asia's manager Steve Ignatiadis was also involved in formulating a brief for what he wanted to achieve and see in the lightin

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USA - For more than three decades, the Meadowlands has been a part of life for New York area football fans. When plans were begun to replace the aging arena, some fans were surprised to learn that, rather than a modern domed structure, the new stadium would be built in much the same traditional open-bowl style as the old one.

But while the aerial view of the New Meadowlands Stadium is reminiscent of the original Meadowlands, the similarities stop there. The new stadium is bigger and better in every way, including a host of powerful new A/V and broadcast technologies.

One of the more challenging areas in the stadium is the concession zone, covered by a series of Community R.5 two-way full-range loudspeakers. As Mark Graham, associate with sound design firm WJHW explains, the R.5s were chosen as much for their performance as for their durability.

"The concession areas are

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UAE - Christie MicroTiles featured at the launch of the Armani/Pavilion - an open air event facility of The Armani Hotel, located at the foot of The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest building. This open-air terrace also overlooks the spectacular Dubai fountains, the world's largest water display.

Eclipse Staging Services LLC were commissioned by The Armani Hotel to provide audio-visual support for the Pavilion extravaganza which was attended by 650 guests; the event was produced by Eclipse's Richard Scott and Armani's Geraldine Wong . .

Eclipse deployed a range of new additions to their inventory - not only the MicroTiles but also All White Quest Audio speakers.

The visual elements were supervised by Eclipse's lighting designer Frank Schotman and included a selection of inteliigent spots and moving LED fixtures on truss towers, as well as video screens, displaying

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