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Syria - Owned by Hamsho Group International, the four star Yafour Hotel & Resort in Syria, located in the nature reserve region of Yafour, outside Damascus, has been built to a high standard - offering a large number of upmarket family facilities and corporate spaces - with Jano For Lighting supplying a technical infrastructure to match.

The company's owner (and lighting designer), Ammar Jano, knew that the white marble façade of the six-storey building would be a suitable projection surface for SGM's IP55-rated Palco 5 architectural LED fixture - and that it would provide a dazzling wash which could clearly be seen from the nearby Damascus-Beirut highway.

In total 18 Palco 5's were mounted - either on the ground, or positioned at roof level - to deliver a stunning crossfade colour wash.

Ammar Jano, who has been working with SGM products for almost a decade, then turned his

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Singapore - Broadcast company, ESPN Star Sports, recently installed iLive systems in each of its three voiceover control rooms as part of an upgrade from analogue to digital. Allen & Heath's distributor, Sindo Exports, supplied three iLive systems, comprising iDR-48 MixRacks with iLive-T112 Control Surfaces.

ESPN Star Sports covers a host of sporting events, which are translated into English, Cantonese, Hindi, Korean and Mandarin and broadcast across Asia. Live feeds come into the voiceover control rooms and certain channels from the original broadcast are muted, programmes are then translated and transmitted with voiceover material to relevant audiences.

"iLive does exactly what we need in terms of routing and it's very user friendly,' says principal engineer, Ratnadeep Bhattacharya. "It's also lightweight and compact, which is an advantage if the consoles need to b

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Australia - Held at North Melbourne Townhall, Black Sequin of Madeleine was written and directed by Jenny Kemp. Madeleine is an exploration of schizophrenia and its effect on a young woman and her family.

The Lighting designer for this sensitive production was Ben Cobham of Bluebottle, a design firm that worked collaboratively to achieve the best results.

"Whilst I was the lead designer I had a whole team of talented people working with me including Tom Rogers as assistant designer and he produced plans, concept drawings and looked after technical bump in," says Cobham. "Jen Hector looked after the design realization plotting the show - she is a long time friend and although not a full time employee, she comes to play from time to time. Frog Peck was production manger and Blair Hart was assistant production manager."

The lighting rig consist

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Columbia - Sound recordist Martin Abell has returned from the Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias in Colombia with an order for two of Roland's R-4 Pro audio field recorders, after a successful recording and teaching mission.

One of the most important literary events in the Hispanic world, this was the sixth edition of the Hay Festival Cartagena, but the first time that a technical specialist from the UK office had attended to train local engineers in the art of archiving. "We were seeing too much material coming back in a variety of different formats, often low quality recordings, which in turn restricted what we could do with it," says Martin Abell.

The Hay Festival organisation currently offers access to an extensive archive of recordings, and is discussing other applications such as commercial podcasts. "The better the quality of the recording, th

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UK - Systems integrator IVC Media, has announced it has supplied and installed new sound and lighting systems in the Savoy Hotel as part of what has been described as 'one of the most ambitious' restoration projects undertaken in the hospitality industry.

The two year refurbishment programme of the top London venue, cost an estimated £220m and saw the hotel re-open to the public in October. IVC Media's sound systems have been installed in the Riverside, Lower Thames and Lincoln rooms, the Riverside Restaurant and Lancaster Ballroom. Some of the rooms have featured in blockbuster films such as Notting Hill in the past.

As well as providing audio for major events such as live stage performances, the sound systems are also set up to provide background music, voice evacuation and audio for corporate conferences and events. IVC also supplied and installed RGB lighting in the

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Senegal - ETC has supplied a range of lighting, dimming and control equipment for the third Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures) in Dakar, Senegal.

Says Jean Louis Pernette, sales director at ETC's French distributor, Avab, "The brief was to supply all the equipment they need, with an emphasis on high spec and ease of use. We were also told that they needed the equipment fast - in fact, we only had a couple of weeks from the time we received the quote request to the delivery date."

Because ETC keeps all its major products in stock in Europe, Pernette was confident the delivery schedule wouldn't be difficult - the entire 42 pallets making up the delivery could come straight out of the warehouse.

"We supplied two Congo and two Congo jr control desks across the three festival venues, to make sure they had enough backup. Ea

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Hong Kong - Lighthouse Technologies has announced that with effect from 1 February 2011, Singapore-based TubeFlexL (Asia) will be its exclusive distributor for Southeast Asia.

"TubeFlexL (Asia) is well-established in the Southeast Asia market and, as such, the company is in the ideal position to help us continue to expand our reach into the region," says Lighthouse's general manager, Mr Peter Chan. "We are extremely pleased to be working with TubeFlexL (Asia). They are a highly experienced and professional company and we are sure that our partnership will help us towards fully implementing our global growth and development strategy for the coming year."

"We are very excited about representing Lighthouse in the Southeast Asia market," says Mr James Lim, managing director of TubeFlexL (Asia). "Lighthouse's reputation precedes it and we know the

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Belgium - Meyer Sound has announced Audio Connect as a new dealer for the company's line of loudspeaker and digital audio solutions for live sound and install applications. Based in the Belgian city of Moeskroen, Audio Connect will provide service and support to the professional AV community in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Spearheaded by managing director François Veys and technical manager Maarten Peeters, Audio Connect will work closely with Meyer Sound to support client projects that demand high-performance sound systems. Veys and Peeters will also team with Meyer Sound's education department to bring its audio expertise and training resources to local professionals. The first Meyer Sound seminar supported by Audio Connect, Fundamentals of System Design, Implementation and Optimizationwill be held in Heist-op-den-Berg on 1-2 March 1 - 2, with Mauricio Ramirez as the instru

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Sydney - For four nights only, the Sydney Festival transformed Sydney Town Hall into a swing-dancing heaven - featuring a huge dance floor and floorshow, with swing music played by Sydney's all-girl Sirens Big Band, just as in the venue's halcyon days - but with plenty of 2011 edge. Sydney's original Trocadero had its heyday in the 1940s and 50s but was demolished in the 70s. Today, its spirit lives on in the re-imagined nightclub named the Trocadero Dance Palace.

The lighting in the venue, designed by Matthew Marshall and including around 50 moving lights and a collection of LED fixtures along with generic theatrical lights, was programmed and operated by Peter Rubie who opted to use a Vista T4 running the V2 Byron software for control. "After beta testing Vista Byron in its early stages I was impressed by its feature set and vast improvements on Vista 1," remarked Pe

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Ballet News - Sir Paul McCartney is to write his first original orchestral score for a ballet performance. The former Beatle is collaborating with the New York City Ballet company (NYCB) on Ocean's Kingdom. "I am always interested in new directions that I haven't worked in before, so I became very excited about the idea," Sir Paul said. The production's world premiere will take place on 22 September. More performances will be announced later. In an interview with The New York Times, Sir Paul said the show was a love story based in two fantastic worlds - the "pure" ocean kingdom, and the earth kingdom with its "sort of baddies". In 1991, Sir Paul wrote the Liverpool Oratorio with Carl Davis for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's 150th anniversary.

Political Moves - A hip hop musical based on Nick Clegg's role in forming

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Russia - The Dynacord Road Show recently visited four Russian cities, the first, the nation's capital, Moscow, being followed by Rostov on Don, Samara and St Petersburg in that order, with some 200 dealers and pro audio professionals participating.

In addition to detailed product demonstrations - featuring, inter alia, the Corus Evolution loudspeaker series and the PowerMate3 - the Russian Dynacord partner Dealer Centre conducted seminars offering tips and tricks designed to simplify and enhance the day-to-day work of those in the industry. Opportunities for discussion are another important element of the Road Show concept, so time was set aside for detailed consideration of the needs of, and questions posed by, individuals attending the events.

"The tour was highly successful," reports Natalia Petrukhina, Dealer Centre's marketing manager. "In view of the fact

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Belgium - Martin Professional has ended its long time distributor relationship with EVDV Trade of Belgium due to the Belgian company's recent insolvency. As a consequence, effective immediately, Martin Professional will serve its Belgian customers directly via a local sales and service network administered by Martin Professional EMEA, Martin's headquarter-based regional sales organization.

Martin EMEA Vice President Villads Thomsen commented on the change, "It is unfortunate that a highly valuable partner like EVDV could not overcome the economic challenges, however I am confident that with our new sales structure for Belgium we will be able to develop the Belgian market further and grow business together with our customers."

Taking over sales responsibilities in the Belgian market is Martin Professional South Europe commercial director Martin Fournier, who will work

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Germany - Hamburg Airport claims to be the world's oldest airport still at its original location, with its first flights taking off in January, 1911. Exactly 100 years later, the airport celebrated by hosting live music and presentations on five stages. Carrying the festivities to 3,500 attendees were Meyer Sound systems featuring the new MIna line array loudspeaker provided by Blue Noise of Hamburg.

Staged in the airport's cavernous (6,200 m2) Terminal 1, the event featured a 30-minute show on airport history along with performances by artists hailing from the airport's far-flung destinations. According to Blue Noise managing director Hendrik Rogel, the combination of a highly reverberant space and simultaneous programmes on multiple stages presented an extraordinary challenge. "The terminal is made of metal, glass, and marble," he notes, "so we had to avoid send

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USA - The chimes that ring out every 15 minutes across the campus of Penn State Schuylkill in east-central Pennsylvania create a soothing environment for the staff and 1,000-plus-strong student body. The Technomad Schedulon playback and recording system is responsible for this atmosphere, acting as an audio master control unit for the university's public address system.

The Schedulon playback and recording system gives PA system operators the freedom to schedule automatic playback of audio files while maintaining a high level of manual control. According to Vince Mitchell, IT support specialist at Penn State Schuylkill, the unit's networking capabilities and automatic playback of user-defined schedules were a perfect fit for the university's needs, while the inclusion of manual playback options added a special touch.

"The Schedulon allows me to build schedules and upload

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UK - 2011 marks the fourth successful year for Hi-Lights in tendering for the provision of full technical services for NewcastleGateshead Initiative at their major meetings. The appointment means that Hi-Lights will work with NGI on their Annual General Meeting in December and Full Members and PR/Marketing and Convention Bureau meetings in April and September.

Scott Rowland, general manager comments, "We're really looking forward to working with NGI and the Convention Bureau again this year. Working on the members meetings is a great opportunity for us to meet and speak with other members and give them a taste of what we do. Following the success of last year's AGM at Northumbria University's Sport Central we can't wait to transform the venues chosen for this year's meetings.

"Hi-Lights has worked with NGI on many events in the past including Bambuco, the World Cup H

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USA - Tomcat's 18TH Annual Truss, Hoist & Rigging workshops were "a great learning experience" for more than 60 students that came from across North America to receive training, reports the company. The hands-on training took place through classes, live practice sessions, as well as after class discussions with the instructors and Tomcat's staff, including a guided tour of Tomcat's factory. The participants also enjoyed the West Texas hospitality provided by Tomcat's staff.

"Tomcat is honoured to have provided training to the professionals that attended the workshops. We hope they had a positive learning experience during all the workshop activities and that they will take this knowledge and put it into practice in their daily activities and to safely working in the entertainment technology environment," stated Stefano Rosellini, general manager of Tomcat.

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UK - The Royal Shakespeare Company has invested in six new grandMA2 light control consoles, together with two MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) and 10 MA 2Port Nodes as part of a complete update of their lighting control systems at the newly refurbished Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) and Swan Theatres, both in Stratford-on-Avon.

MA Lighting was chosen after a comprehensive two-year evaluation period, which included extensive 'field trials' and involved the RSC's head of lighting Vince Herbert plus his departmental team of 18, including programming specialists, operators and technicians.

Three of the new consoles are deployed in the RST and The Swan. In both venues, the first one is the active desk, the second is for backup and media server programming, and the third is located in the stalls, used for focussing and tech sessions plus for offline work during non-technical period

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USA / Spain - Audinate and Red Rocks Audio SL have entered into an agreement to incorporate Dante technology as the default digital networking solution for all Red Rocks Audio future products and designs. The first of these products is scheduled to launch by Q4 of 2011.

Located in Santiago de Compostela, in the Northwest of Spain, Red Rocks Audio historically has specialized on three main areas of product development; DSP processing, Class D amplifiers and switching mode power supplies. Red Rocks Audio SL was launched in 2001, focused on Pro Audio + lightning rental services and recording studio equipment sales and service.

"Dante was chosen because we demand a long term solution with no compromises. Support and performance were also an important key factor in our decision to go with Dante" says Jose Manuel Tasende, Red Rocks Audio's owner & main designer. "Audi

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USA - On Thursday 24 February 24, 2011, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama marked Black History Month at the White House with a celebration of Motown music. The event took place in the East Room at the White House, and Chris Anderson, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based Anderson Audio, was asked to spec the project.

The Motown event is the latest in the music series, In Performance at the White House. Performers included Smokey Robinson, Sheryl Crow, Seal and John Legend, among others, and several Motown legends were in attendance. The event was broadcast on PBS on Tuesday 1March.

Anderson stated, "The East Room is approximately 80ft by 40ft, and all the speakers need to hang from trusses ringing the room at about 16-18ft. The room has some sound issues, and to complicate things even further, there are three huge crystal chandeliers hanging f

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UK / USA - Orbital Sound reports that it has supplied the Da-Cappo DA-12 single-ear micro microphones to Qdos Entertainment, a key supplier to US-based Celebrity Cruise Line. The Da-Cappo microphones have been deployed on two of the company's Millennium-class luxury vessels, with the plan to upgrade all four in the fleet during 2011.

Qdos Entertainment is the name behind some of the lavish 'own brand' shows that are an integral part of the Celebrity Cruise Line experience. The high-end audio equipment used on-board in the 900-seat cabaret style auditoria is the responsibility of Qdos Entertainment's Steve Jonas. He selected the Da-Cappo DA-12 single-ear units to meet the demands of the Broadway-style and cabaret productions on board. Featuring an average of four to six singers, 12 dancers and an eight-piece band, the shows are typically high-energy hour-long productions.

"

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Sweden - Romme Trotting racetrack in the city of Borlänge has taken delivery of one of the first RHAON (Renkus-Heinz Audio Operations Network) installations in Sweden.

Robert Nilsson, from Swedish design and installation company DAT AB, which was awarded the design and installation contract, says, "We were called in for an AV meeting as part of their complete restoration of the horse owners' room. I made a presentation of all the benefits a RHAON controlled sound system would have, not only for the horse owners' room but on also on the whole race track, and he was very quick to agree."

The horse owners' room, located within the race track's main building, is exclusively accessible to trotting race horse owners. It provides an excellent view over the race track's finishing line through tall windows, and has a relaxing lounge area and a snack bar. The race track owner

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UK - Visitors to PLASA Focus: Leeds 2011 - which takes place on Tuesday 19 & Wednesday 20 April at the Royal Armouries Museum - are invited to take part in an expanded series of seminars presented by some of the industry's leading names.

The two-day Education & Learning Programme proved a major success last year and this year PLASA Events have added a new strand of product demonstrations and training to the popular mix of case studies and seminars. The sessions run alongside a two-hall exhibition of new technology and are free to attend.

Kicking off the case studies is the RSC. The RSC's Vince Herbert, Jeremy Dunn and Adam Harvey - responsible for lighting, sound and stage automation respectively - will be joined by Jonathan Porter-Goff from Stage Electrics in a session entitled Build a Theatre, Rebuild Another and Refurbish a Third. This will be an opportunity to learn

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The Netherlands - LumenRadio has appointed Rolight as the exclusive representative for their CRMX products in the Netherlands. Rolight is one of the country's largest distributors with a lineup of brands including MA Lighting, Philips, Zero88, State Automation, Coolux and their own Admiral Lighting.

"We are very excited to take on the CRMX wireless lighting controls as they perfectly complement our other brands. The superior reliability, as well as the features offered by the CRMX technology, will allow our customers to take their indoor and outdoor installations to the next level," says Rick Jannink of Rolight. "We are especially enthusiastic about CRMX SuperNova and its RDM controller functionality which brings wireless bi-directional control and feedback to many of our current products. We believe RDM is the future of both Entertainment and Architainment instal

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UK - Isle of Wight-based Big Screen Media, specialists in indoor and outdoor large format LED and digital display solutions, were commissioned by luxury department store Harrods, to supply and install LED screens as part of the store's January to February window displays.

Big Screen Media specialise in providing effective digital display solutions by offering a wide range of high quality LED and digital signage displays and equipment to suit all applications. Recently, the company won a prestigious contract with Harrods of Knightsbridge to supply and install several large LED screens as part of the store's iconic window displays for January and February.

Sarah Southgate, Harrods head of window design, commented: "Harrods is at the forefront of luxury and innovation in window display and design. Our latest displays have incorporated advanced LED technology, and in doing th

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