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UK - POLARaudio has announced the introduction of its new Dynacord Authorised Stockist Network. Retailers from around the country have been specially selected as centres of excellence for Dynacord Product.

A network of established MI retailers from around the UK have been appointed as Authorised Dynacord Re-Sellers. In this special arrangement the selected retailers will offer Dynacord customers a full and concise service. Each store will have exclusive access to the full Dynacord product range and will have specially trained in-house experts who can offer in-depth technical help. A range of display stock will be available for demonstrations and dealers will have substantial stock holding.

Dynacord Authorised Dealers already appointed include; Discotechnology, TR Music, HW Audio, MGD, Knight Sound and Light, Session Music, Electro Music Doncaster and The Music Station Swansea.

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USA - Initially established by Rev. Ellison Witherspoon and like-minded laity in 1957 as the New Light Baptist Church, the Baltimore church officially changed its name to New Light Church: Ministry of St. Luke 4:18-19, Inc., in 1990. But although the church - now located in Baltimore MD's historic Highlandtown neighbourhood - has altered its name and changed locations over time, their mandate of ministering to youth, particularly through music, remains at the very heart of their ministry.

Completed in mid-2009 and designed and installed by Adamstown, Maryland based, A/V system design/integrator, Connectivity Group LLC, the audio system now inhabiting New Light depends heavily on Tannoy loudspeakers to enable the church to continue to serve that mandate - in both speech and song - more effectively than ever.

The project, explains Connectivity Group's founder/owner John Saunders

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Italy - New from DTS Lighting is The Jack which is fitted with an advanced MSD Platinum 5R 189W discharge lamp, a wide excursion motorized zoom and ultra-fast & silent Pan/Tilt and functions (colour change, gobo change, focus, zoom, iris).

The Jack is suitable for a wide range of applications, such as concerts, special events, fashion displays, corporate events, television studios, theatres, shopping malls, libraries, museums, exhibitions, clubs, buildings, monuments, houses of worship, resorts, theme parks, sport facilities, says the company.

The Jack has been ergonomically engineered and thanks to its compactness and light weight (only 11 Kg), the unit is very easy to transport, install, and store. Thus making this unit suitable for rental companies, who want a quick and easy to install unit.

The Jack provides a powerful combination of sharp overlapping gobo projections (1

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Singapore - The School of the Arts (SOTA) is Singapore's first national arts school to offer an integrated arts and academic curriculum for students aged 13-18 years old. The vision of the school is to nurture Singapore's next generation of artists and creative professionals committed to the arts in a multi-cultural society.

Located in Zubir Said Drive, this school reflects the rich diversity of its artistic programme with three different performance venues: Theatre, Concert Hall and Studio Theatre. All three halls are suitably adorned with Clay Paky luminaires, which are used to enhance the performance and staging for certain plays and shows.

According to SOTA's lighting technician, Albert Wileo, "We got to know Clay Paky from the feedback from a couple of friends from the entertainment industry in Singapore. After we tested the demo set of Clay Paky 700 Wash and Alpha 7

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UK - The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance reports that it has become the first performance-based institution to receive accreditation by JAMES (Joint Audio Media Education Support), the industry-led recording, music production, song-writing, composing and performance course accrediting body.

Two courses at The Institute have initially been accredited; the BMus in Popular Music Performance and the Higher Diploma. The BMus is the pre-eminent degree course for musicians wishing to reach a professional standard of musicianship and build a sustainable career in the music industry and the Higher Diploma the foremost intensive 1-year course for musicians wishing to fast-track the development of their musicianship, playing and performing skills.

JAMES is recognised by the Creative & Cultural Skills sector as being a leading organisation involved with accrediting the industr

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USA - With its five schools and colleges, including the College of Arts and Sciences, Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, School of Communications, School of Education, and School of Law, Elon University is ranked by the U.S. News & World Report as the second best Regional University in the South. Among the various facilities on campus, Whitley Auditorium is home to a wide range of activities.

This multipurpose space serves as a venue for lectures, concerts, performances, weekly chapel services and is home to a Casavant pipe organ. After struggling with an inadequate sound reinforcement system for quite some time, University officials decided the time had come to correct the situation - and this decision led to the installation of a new loudspeaker system drawn from the Variant Series catalogue of D.A.S. Audio.

Greensboro, NC-based Audio & Light, Inc was contracted to

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UK - Interconnection specialist Harting presented the prize of an iPad 2 to Josh Lloyd, a design engineer at Britannia Row Productions, the lucky winner of a competition staged by Harting during PLASA 2011.

Harting used the PLASA 2011 Exhibition to feature its range of connectivity solutions specially tailored to communication and control applications in lighting, sound and automation systems for the theatre, concert and indoor/outdoor event sectors.

(Jim Evans)

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Ireland - For any lighting designer, setting the scene for three very distinct operas, as part of a busy repertory season, invariably presents its own set of challenges.

Such was the creative task for Declan Randall, lighting designer for Wexford Opera's 60th Anniversary season: "My rig has to be both flexible and reliable," he explains. "I'm keen to use new technology where appropriate and this year I decided to incorporate LED luminaires into my design."

Randall elected to use Philips Selecon PL3 LED Luminaires: "For me the application of colour and hue is one of my most critical design tools," he says. "Lighting three distinctly different operas: French opera La Cour De Celimene, Polish opera Maria and Italian opera Gianni Di Parigi, presented me with a variety of design challenges. The PL3s provided my 'get out of jai

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UK - London's Pulse hosted a stellar line-up of house DJs and more than 2000 house music fans at Soul Heaven, the leading party event in its genre. Top of the bill was Masters At Work DJ and beats master Kenny Dope, hard on the success of his summer anthem Be Your Freak, who had flown in specially for this rare UK appearance.

Pulse, also known as Bankside Vaults, is built into four spectacular interlinked brick arches, right beside Blackfriars Bridge in central London. Divided naturally into four areas, its primary space is equipped with a performance stage, recently used by Erick Morillo for a record-breaking crowd of 2,500 people, and Carl Cox.

For the Soul Heaven event, the club's Nexo Geo S12 line array system in the main room, which is augmented by a shoulder-high bank of RS15 sub-bass cabinets, had been ingeniously re-configured by installation company VibaSound t

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USA - Two indy bands, Passion Pit and The Glitch Mob, each featured High End Systems intellaspot automated luminaires in recent shows.

Andy Cass, LD for The Glitch Mob and lighting director for Passion Pit, was trying the intellaspots for the first time, and he ran them through their paces through a variety of show situations for both bands. Be it festivals, nightclubs, and 'on the rocks' at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, the intellaspots demonstrated their versatility in a variety of venues.

The Glitch Mob performs electronic sound fusion, playing laptop music together as an ensemble onstage. For their one-off at Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside of Denver, Cass pumped up the rig with 16 intellaspots. Placing them as floor fixtures, Cass said the units performed full beamage in the air. "They cut through a significant overhead rig and I did a little projection lighting back on the

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UK - West London rental company Entec Sound & Light renewed its 17 year acquaintance as a technical production supplier for the Bootleg Beatles on their latest UK tour - supplying lighting and audio equipment plus crew.

Entec project manager Noreen O'Riordan comments: "Entec has been associated with the Bootleg Beatles since 1994. The band and crew take great pride in producing authentic sound and visuals based on the original Beatles shows of the 1960s, creating a stunning atmospheric evening that appeals to all generations."

The band are known as the definitive Beatles tribute act as well as the longest running and most successful, having formed in 1980 and been performing worldwide regularly ever since.

To deal practically and efficiently with the different venues, both lighting and sound designs needed to be adaptable, and this was a key starting point for LD M

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UK/Finland - Sound engineer Matt Saunders relied on a variety of DPA microphones, provided by UK distributor Sound Network, for the Colourscape music festivals on Clapham Common, London, and in Turku, Finland, during its European Capital of Culture celebrations this year.

"I chose DPAs above all for their purity," says Saunders. "I've worked with the mics extensively in the past and I know they are extremely reliable and sound beautifully accurate. Their microdot connector system is very practical too, allowing me to use them with any of our motley assortment of radio mics. We try to use radio mics as much as possible for Colourscape, as cables mar the visual purity, not to mention the health and safety aspects of a performance space with total public access, and with DPA I know that I don't have to compromise quality for convenience."

Staged by Eye Music T

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UK - London- based automation specialist Kinesys has announced the first 2012 dates for their on-going product training programme, consisting of a series of two day courses and workshops covering the fundamentals of the technology and (in separate training sessions) both their Vector and K2 automation control systems.

The next two-day General Technical & Vector Control training course takes place on 11 and 12 January 2012 - for full details, please visit the Kinesys website (address below).

The training is held at Kinesys' new purpose designed facility, which has been created as an integral part of the recent expansion to the company's HQ in Hampton, West London, which has more than doubled the available square footage.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Organised by Gary Barlow and hosted by actor David Tennant and Radio One DJs Chris Moyles and Fearne Cotton, this year's Children In Need Rocks was held at Manchester's MEN Arena. Coldplay, Lady Gaga and Barlow himself were amongst a host of stars who performed on the night, many of whom used Sennheiser radio equipment.

Audio provider for the event was Delta Sound, who supplied a comprehensive array of Sennheiser products. However, such were the demands of the show that Sennheiser UK was happy to loan further equipment, providing additional support in the form of Mark Saunders and Andy Lillywhite.

Project manager for Delta was Steve Lutley who, together with Simon Hodge, had spent the summer manning the monitor consoles on Take That's Progress tour and was doing the same for this event.

"Sennheiser had provided such great support for the Take That tou

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UK - Currently training its fifth apprentice, Robert Simmons, lifting solutions provider Lift Turn Move, based in Bromborough on the Wirral, has already shown a commitment to training future engineers. This is set to continue with the announcement from director John Jones that the company will train a new apprentice each year for the next five years.

Simmons joined LTM in July at just 16 years of age, having just left school. Whilst still at school six months prior to joining LTM, he wrote to John Jones to ask about joining the company under the scheme. At the time there were no vacancies available but his initiative impressed, so when an opportunity arose, Robert was invited to interview and got the job.

Simmons joins Joe Griffiths in the workshop as the second apprentice currently being trained at LTM. Like Griffiths, he will be spending 12 months in the warehouse receiving

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USA - Free registration is now open for the PLASA Focus: Austin 2012 Professional Development Programme, a two-day programme of free educational seminars and workshops, running alongside PLASA Focus: Austin, on 22-23 February, 2012.

The programme has been designed by some of the industry's leading names and presents an opportunity for visitors to broaden their specialist knowledge and contribute to discussions about innovative projects and techniques, say organiser PLASA Events.

"Giving people the opportunity to develop their professional knowledge is key to the success of PLASA Focus: Austin 2012," comments PLASA CEO Matthew Griffiths. "We're creating an opportunity to talk about the choices behind major projects in the region, from the Austin City Limits studio and The Long Center for Performing Arts, to seminars as broad and far-reaching as the use of lightin

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UAE - Canford is opening a Dubai sales office. The company specialises in the provision of standard and custom professional audio, HD video, data and powering solutions to systems integrators, broadcasters and installers. The new office is a key element of Canford's strategy to move closer to their partners in one of their most important markets and will open before the CABSAT show, says the company.

The new Dubai office will enable Canford to provide close support to the growing number of key players in the regional industry with whom they are already working. It will also offer a platform to service some of the rapidly emerging East and North African markets.

"Canford has been operating within the region very successfully for over 20 years now. So much so that most of our top 10 export markets are in the Middle East," explained Canford CEO Leif Friestad. "Our

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UK - A total of eight BlackBox BBR64-MADI Recorders were used on the recent George Michael Symphonica Tour to capture 2 x 256 channels of audio in what is potentially one of the largest live recording projects to date.

A rack containing four BBR-MADI recorders formed part of the regular front-of-house setup, connected to the main DiGiCo SD7 desk. FOH engineer Gary Bradshaw was responsible for recording the shows onto sets of four 1TB Glyph hard drives, each set having the capacity to hold material from eight shows. In addition to their nightly recording function, and the additional capture of sound checks, the BlackBoxes were also used in Virtual Soundcheck mode for system set-ups, replaying material from previous shows to help balance and EQ the PA system at each venue.

"The BlackBoxes had no problem in recording all 256 channels over the length of the show," said B

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Australia - When scheduling conflicts prevented US lighting designer Don Holder from travelling to Australia to re-create his intricate design for The State Opera of South Australia's production of Moby Dick he quickly called on long time friend and associate Gavan Swift to oversee the process. One of Australia's most respected lighting designers, Swift first worked with Holder on the Australian production of Disney's The Lion King and later spent some time with Holder in New York as part his Mike Walsh Fellowship while he lit A Streetcar Named Desire.

Jake Heggie's Opera Moby Dick was originally commissioned by the Dallas Opera to commemorate their inaugural season in the Winspear Opera House in Dallas and consequently the production was first plotted on the house's new ETC EOS console. To make the transition as easy as possible the logical step was

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UK - SSE Audio have put their faith in Lake's new LM Series digital audio system processors - LM 26 and LM 44 - on recent tours by Arctic Monkeys and Example.

Both tours, which involved sell out dates across the country in front of thousands, allowed SSE engineers to work with the company's recent purchases of the new LM 44, integrating the units into their existing inventories.

Simon Gladstone, technical manager at SSE, said: "We used both the LM 26s and the LM 44s on The Arctic Monkeys tour. In the past, we would normally have used our old Dolby DLPs for such big gigs, but having the LM 44 allowed us to leave these out, which is testament to the capabilities of the new units."

SSE's engineer on the Arctic Monkeys tour, Mark Pantlin, had an LM 44 out front taking AES from an Avid Venue Profile digital console, and clocking externally from an Antelope Isochrone OCX

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UK - Professional audio and AV suppliers and 19" racking specialists Pro Audio Stash (PAS) has delivered a large custom design and manufacturing project for multinational internet hosting company, Peer 1.

St Leonards, East Sussex-based Pro Audio Stash is well known for its off-the-shelf product ranges for home cinema and AV sectors, and also for creating bespoke metalwork solutions for the AV and IT industries. It was approached by Peer 1 to design and build a specially tailored server rack and shelving system to house multiple Juniper SSG5 firewall devices for its new data centre in Southampton.

The design brief had three main requirements. Firstly there had to be a dedicated channel for each firewall to keep the units stable and upright. Secondly, the SSG5 power supplies all needed to be positioned at the back of their individual racks to enable good ventilation and be

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UK - Delta Sound, has taken delivery of 32 EMS-122w loudspeakers from EM Acoustics for its core rental stock. The EMS-122w is a wide dispersion, high quality passive 12" enclosure designed for applications which require a compact, powerful, full-range loudspeaker.

Delta Sound operations director, Jon Bell, explained his choice. "We needed to source 32 high quality 12" loudspeakers and flying frames within a very short lead time for a specific rental project. The speakers and amplifiers needed to be installed and working within a month and would remain in situ for another nine months working six days per week for 12 hours a day during that period. Obviously the bar was set pretty high from the outset, so we needed to know that whatever we invested in would be 100% reliable, and that we could count on the manufacturer to deliver on time."

"EM Acoustics t

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UK - Forty per cent up on target table bookings, the Event Production Awards has outgrown its original venue at Olympia and will now take place at the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane.

Senior event manager, Michelle Lewis said: "We're delighted with the response we've had. It's brilliant that in the first year we're so far ahead of expectations. It proves these awards are exactly what the event industry needs".

Nic Howden, editor in chief at Access All Areas, said: "The incredible buzz about the Event Production Awards is a testament to the quality of the judging panel, and the team that has worked so hard to bring it all together. The Hilton can comfortably accommodate the numbers, and it will bring another level to the evening."

The Event Production Awards are organised by the Event Production Show, Access All Areas magazine and The White Book

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Germany - Paderborn-based rental company Sound Linear has invested in a complete 45°N-12 monitor system, driven by NXAMPs4x4 with ES extensions. First outing for the new system is the Ina Müller Tour, starting mid-November in Germany and running until the end of March 2012. The tour is carrying 12x 45°N-12.

"The decision to add the 45°N-12s to our comprehensive Nexo inventory was made during the first demo we had from Reinhard Steger at a Nexo seminar last year. I think I can say, we were one of the first to make up our mind," says Kalle Hogrefe, director of Sound Linear.

Guido Sehrbrock, another director of Sound Linear and the monitor specialist in the company, agrees. "Having listened to the wedges perform well in many different applications, we have been watching their reputation grow, and were just waiting for the right time to invest."

  1. Innovason triumphs in tragedy
  2. PR XL 1500s light Russian rockers in Minsk
  3. ETC Eos in control in refurbished Bolshoi
  4. The Week in Lighting & Sound
  5. MDG partners with AED Distribution
  6. White Light sponsors TheatreCraft 2011
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