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14 March 2016

Holst worked directly with the artist (Adam Young) known as Owl City to deliver multiple different works of visual artistry throughout the year. Every leg of the 2011 world tour required a different equipment package and Host was more than prepared for the challenge. Known for his global hit Fire Files, Owl City embarked on a massive world tour in 2011. Holst created visually stimulating looks with every show, each steeped in LED technology along with unique trussing shapes and black lite and strobe effects.

Equipment used along the way included VL 2500 Spot

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14 March 2016

Having worked regularly with the artist since 2009 it was to prepare for the latest show, Wilde Kreatürken, which has been playing arenas up to 13,000 capacity (such as the Cologne Lanxess Stadium) that he needed to provide additional punch and creativity.

"It is particularly important when you are lighting a solo performer to create spaces in order to make the light visible," states Tobi. "You have to create several layers to achieve depth - both in the eye of the camera and the beholder."

Thorsten Sattler, key account manager, SGM Germa

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14 March 2016

The band played live sets on the Studiomaster / Carlsbro stand and on the Studiomaster sponsored outdoor performance stage with full Carlsbro backline, and a sound reinforcement system comprising a Studiomaster line array and MCX24 mixing console.

The band are purveyors of an authentic bottle-neck blues rock sound that belies their youth and east London origins; fused somewhere between Muddy Waters and Doctor Feelgood. PA on the stand was provided with Studiomaster JX15 active cabinets and a Studiomaster C4TX compact mixing console.

Following an exhausting performance sc

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14 March 2016

Managed and operated by SMG Europe, the Barbican recently reopened after a major £2m investment, and for their new in-house sound system, they went straight to local firm JSS Audio. The Barbican's technical team approached JSS's Jem Walker with their wish-list, knowing that with JSS's track record of consistently delivering top notch sound there for a wide roster of events, they could rely on Walker to recommend what he considered to be the best solution.

JSS immediately turned to their Lab.gruppen-powered HK Audio Cohedra Compact line array system when asked to demo their proposed solution.

With extensive experience of using their 'CoCo' in all types of venues and across most musical genres, JSS knew it would be suitable for the diverse programme

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14 March 2016

The concert was held at the Cape Town Stadium on 26 October and for the Johannesburg fans two days later, at The Soccer City Complex, FNB Stadium. A grandMA console was used for the event.

An enormous African thunderstorm the night before the Johannesburg concert certainly added a touch of apprehension and caused a four hour delay on the load in. However the Gearhouse team ensured the gig went ahead without a glitch.

(Claire Beeson)

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14 March 2016

Stageco applied its broadcast awards experience to provide the decking substructure for the MTV EMA curved stages, presenter platforms and camera platforms. Project manager Martin Beckers, along with a team of three Stageco supervisors, were based in Northern Ireland for 10 days to ensure the tight load-in and load-out schedules for the three trucks of equipment were adhered to.

This meant scheduling split 24 hour shifts at the outset, whilst also accommodating the ever-changing requirements of the show's producers throughout the event and in line with artist requests.

International project director Dirk De Decker worked closely with 2011 MTV EMA production manager Maggie Mouzakitis and designer Es Devlin in advance to plan the performance

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14 March 2016

Sonisphere, staged at Knebworth House, landed the best line-up prize following appearances from Biffy Clyro, Slipknot and Metallica. Paolo Nutini took the headline performance of the year for his performance at Latitude. The Secret Garden Party in Cambridgeshire took the best medium-sized festival prize, while Dorset's End Of The Road was named best small festival.

The Boss is Back - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are to tour in 2012, it has been announced. The singer said on his website that European dates would run from May to July,

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14 March 2016

The new facilities include an entertainment-focused showroom, an LED Application Centre and a space dedicated to more in-depth product demonstrations. The entertainment showroom, complete with light show, is a spacious area where Fairlight personnel can present the complete range of Martin entertainment products and conduct extensive product training. The LED Application Centre features Martin's growing portfolio of LED-based products with focus on colour temperature and surface illumination.

"This fantastic set up enables Martin and Fairlight to maintain a leading position in the Dutch entertainment mark

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14 March 2016

CT has committed to a spend of over US$ 11m across their European and US operations which will result in a phased delivery of a number of products based on the existing C Series platform but with significant technical enhancements developed by Barco in consultation with CT.

The first product, the C5, which will be available to CT at the end of2011, is a new black face, indoor display offering a 10% resolution premium over the most established 6mm products on the market. A flown weight of less than 40kgper m², integral concave and convex curving, no fans (resulting in silent operation) and Barco's NNI interface allowing full integration with the DX700 processing unit provide a sample of some of the technical features of the new products.

"The past couple of years, w

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14 March 2016

"Over the past few months we have sold a number of Tempest systems including wired systems to rental companies such as Sharp Eye Production, Mediakraft and the Dubai World Trade Centre of sizeable quantities," commented Amrith Verghese, ClearCom product specialist at NMK.

Chicco Hiranandani, business development manager at NMK added, "we wanted to make sure that we can support these customers so the management made the decision to invest in ClearCom's programme to become a certified service

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14 March 2016

The theatre, owned by Fundação INATEL, had an old dimming system which was badly in need of an upgrade; the question, says Luzeiro's commercial director Vitor Paiva, was how to fit all the new dimmer racks - which would serve the theatre's main stage - into the small space available.

"Teatro da Trindade has been our client for several years and came to us with a challenge," says Paiva. "In the end, we fitted over 264 channels of Sensor+ dimming into four dimmer cabinets.

"Sensor+ was a natural choice for the theatre technical director Carlos Garcia, who wanted a quiet, compact dimming system which would easily fit into the space. Meanwhile, the technicians insisted on easy access to dimmer information and state; easy r

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14 March 2016

ECA2 - a French-based company specialising in creating and producing major events and shows around the world - designed and produced Mangrove Groove show, with probably the world's largest aquatic stage which covers an area of 5,600sqm.

Every evening, up to 5,000 spectators can celebrate the return of the birds "in an amazing decor dedicated to the mangrove". The artistic and technological challenges represent the forces of nature, staging the four elements merged with the magic of captivating images, with water, fire, lighting, video and air effects, all entirely controlled and synchronized by a Medialon Manager PRO Show Control system.

Thanks to Medialon Manager Panel, free user in

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14 March 2016

James Gordon of DiGiCo will chair the meeting and introduce a number of members who will outline their own experiences, before things move to an open discussion to see how members can share information and how PLASA can provide practical support.

The meeting, which is free to attend, will take place in the Roberts Building at University College London from 4pm-7pm, followed, by Christmas drinks at a nearby pub.

If you'd like to attend or want further information, please e-mail feedback@plasa.org

(Claire Beeson)

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14 March 2016

For the past seven years the Belgian landmark, which accommodates an audience of 1,700, and hosts plays, operas, concerts, recitals and orchestras, has enjoyed a relationship with audio specialists Amptec, and it was to the house technicians that the Optocore platform was proposed as an essential component in the renewal of their audio visual infrastructure. However, first the company had to bid successfully for the three-part contract.

As a result, 10 months after Amptec arrived on site, the former master control room has been upgraded and repurposed with the installation of a multi-track recording and post producti

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14 March 2016

The next in-house event is a DMX and RDM Training Day which takes place on Wednesday 30 November (10am - 4pm) at the head offices in Harrow. Only a few places remain. All training days are free of charge and lunch will be provided.

Other scheduled Training Days are as follows, with more dates being added to meet demand: DALI Training Wednesday14 March 2012 10am- 4pm; Art-Net Training Wednesday 4 April 2012 9.30am- 1.30pm.

Following attendance by one of its lighting staff to a fully subscribed Art-Net Training Day in Harrow, London's Royal Opera House has invited Artistic Licence Engineering to train the rest of its Lighting Visualisation team onsite at Covent Garden. A date has

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14 March 2016

UK dates so far have included London's Royal Albert Hall and O2 Arena, three shows at the Liverpool Echo Arena, plus the festival shows at Glastonbury and the Isle of Wight. The 70-date 2011 Brit Floyd tour rolls across Europe this autumn and on into the UK and Ireland next spring.

The sound system fielded by ESS for the majority of venues is based on a 48-box Aspect rig, supplemented on occasions with Flex Array sub-rented in from colleague Turbosound stockist companies.

"Normally we're flying 24 Aspect TA-890H three-way mid/highs on three-wide bars with 19 TA-890L double 15" cabinets, and eight TSW-218 double 18" subs on the floor," says ESS's Ph

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14 March 2016

"Inter-M is a great brand in Korea and is expanding rapidly around the world." said Lee Ellison CEO for Audinate. "Inter-M has an aggressive plan to connect their wide variety of products into an integrated system using Dante."

"We believe having Dante in our systems gives us a definite competitive advantage" stated Wonho Lee, director of R&D at Inter-M. "We selected Dante because it provides us with an audio over IP solution today, and Audinate is the only company that can offer a viable transition path to AVB for the future."

Inter-M plans using Dante end-to-end throughout their systems, from Dante

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14 March 2016

The hard-touring guitarist has loaded all his cabinets with EVM12L speakers for years, and their full-bandwidth performance has become an essential element of his carefully crafted tone. Bonamassa and long-time tour manager/FOH engineer Warren Cracknell loaded three fresh 4 x 12 cabinets with more EVM12Ls for the latest tour, all set to do duty onstage alongside some newer additions to their EV inventory: multiple RE320 microphones.

"We loved the RE320s the first time we heard them," says Cracknell. "In fact we put them to work immediately, replacing the mics we had been using on Joe's cabinets. Just like the EVM12Ls in the guitar cabs, they have a warm, full, transparent character that captures the richness of Joe's sound perfectl

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14 March 2016

TechRig supplied the full technical and Robert Grobler, from the aforementioned company, was appointed lighting designer of the show which was staged in a multi venue structure on the M-Net grounds. The creative brief was received just over two months ago, and Robert was given free reign in terms of design. He approached the design from a theatrical perspective, the greatest challenge being the weight restriction of the marquee tent. "We did drawings, I had various meetings with the manufacture engineers, and the final outcome was to ensure the overhead stage did not exceed 4 tons," said Grobler.

The event, which included the video clips of earlier days, dancers and performers, w

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14 March 2016

Electrosonic's work supported Clermont, Florida-based entertainment design and production company WOW!Works which crafted AT&T Dolphin Tales, a sweeping 25-minute musical tribute to the beauty and grace of dolphins. The indoor show is staged in the new multi-function auditorium that seats 1,800 people and houses 1.8m gallons of water in four pools.

"The show needed to be a hybrid of show-controlled equipment and events, pre-recorded multitrack audio and video playback with a laye

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14 March 2016

The film, which features a star-studded cast including Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford is about a spaceship that arrives in Arizona, 1873, to take over the Earth, starting with the Wild West region. A posse of cowboys and natives are all that stand in their way.

The Hollywood crew shot the Absolution town scenes on location in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The action packed sequences involved an old west town, full of cowboys, horses and wagons, being invaded by aliens in low-flying spacecrafts firing lasers at the town. Mike Bauman was the chief lighting technician on the show, with Scott Barnes as programmer, using six universes of data. Five of the universes were run via five W-DMX Transmitters.

Barnes said, "

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14 March 2016

US-based Premier Global Production, who provided lighting services for the new tour, worked with lighting designer Scott Holthaus to fill his equipment needs. "We had just got 78 Sharpy fixtures, which are hot little items right now," says vice president of sales James Vollhoffer. "We were excited to add them to our inventory - it was time to make the investment since we see a demand building for them. All of ours are now on a boat heading for the European leg of the band's tour."

Holthaus continues: "Although we've never been into literal imagery, the set is a three-dimensional shape based around an asterisk. Everything radiates out into a

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14 March 2016

The Edwardian façade of the renowned Imagination Building, 25 Store Street South Crescent (just off Tottenham Court Road), has been dressed for the silly season for the 22nd year running, providing a spectacle worth a detour for the local community.

This year's lighting display, created by the global communication agency's in-house lighting designers, uses 150m of neon lights to illuminate the 12m wide red and blue Christmas bauble.

The introduction of LED lighting this year means the Christmas façade uses just one quarter the energy consumption of previous year's displays - using the same amount of power as one microwave oven. The lights will be on every day, from 6am to midnight, until December 29, 2012.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

Hosting the SEA Games for an unprecedented fourth time since its inauguration in Bangkok, Indonesia had high ambitions to once again be a perfect host and claim the trophy of being the most successful participating country. Careful planning went into choosing Jakarta and Palembang as host cities.

Planning for the Opening Ceremony started many months in advance. Lighting consultant Bernard Chew chose grandMA2 consoles for lighting control. Using grandMA2 on PC and grandMA 3D to plan and visualise the event, he was able to conceptualize the show and make necessary suggestions.

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