South Africa - The Roodepoort Theatre, until recently known as Promusica Theatre, have upgraded their lighting system to be on par with other Johannesburg mainstream theatres. The busy little theatre based on the Westrand, Gauteng, now has in addition, a grandMA2 ultra-light, 32 Philips Selecon Rama Fresnels, two LDR Canto followspots, two Robin 600E ColorSpots and a LSC DMX infrastructure.

"It has been a long struggle to obtain money for the purchase, and thanks to the City of Johannesburg, the upgrade was able to make progressive improvement to the theatre," said Loran Robertson, theatre manager. Robertson joined The Roodepoort Theatre 18 years ago when she was appointed stage manager, partly because she could read music at a time when the theatre mostly hosted operas. The theatre's lighting equipment existing fixtures were well pass their sell by date and it was bec

UK - British singer and rapper Example is looking forward to a busy summer, playing a wide variety of festivals and other live shows across the UK and Europe whilst also putting together his fourth studio album.

The Sennheiser equipment includes an ew 500-935 G3 microphone on Example's vocals; wired mics on the backline which include a 901 on the kick drum and 604s on auxiliary drums; six ew 572 G3 wireless instrument systems and ten sets of ew 300 IEM G3 in-ear monitors.

Monitor engineer Will Nicholson has been working with Example for over six years. "The 935 has the dynamic range to cope with an artist whose performance includes both rapping and singing and the transmitter's robustness means that, in a busy RF environment, I never worry about coverage or dropouts on our most crucial wireless transmitter," he says.

"The guitarist loves his wireless rig - he

USA - If you were lucky enough to get tickets to the Super Bowl this year, you might have walked past the landmark Nordyke & Marmon building complex on West Morris Street, now home for a global pharmaceutical company. A new eye-catching makeover to the 111-acre West Morris Street complex incorporates a fountain and the main headquarters building. Brought to life with custom visual displays of rich colours, with controls designed and integrated by Associated Controls + Design (ACD) of Indianapolis, LumenRadio CRMX wireless lighting control was critical to the project's success.

The main building's new visage is comprised of three main elements:

First, a beautiful west side centrepiece consists of a 90ft diameter fountain stocked with 192 colour-changing LED fixtures provided by Solid State Lighting. The control signal is distributed by a CRMX Outdoor Flex unit configured as a t

USA - High End Systems has announced the release of the TechnoArc automated luminaire. First shown earlier this year at the PLASA Focus: Austin tradeshow, TechnoArc represents the continuing growth of the company's automated luminaire product line.

Designed for a wide variety of small and medium scale performance applications, TechnoArc is a compact soft-edge luminaire with exceptional value and performance. A natural companion to the hard-edged Technospot, this full featured fixture is designed for club, stage, and studio applications where environmental durability and high quality output are required.

TechnoArc features smooth CMY colour mixing and a fixed color wheel. Following the professional lighting, large-exiting aperture trend, TechnoArc features a prominent 6.5" lens, 8° to 32° zoom, and over 14,000 lumen

Finland - Resonice was a seven-minute projection work created for the 2012 IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) World Championship games Opening Ceremony staged at Hartwall Arena, Helsinki. Lighting and concept designer Mikki Kunttu used two grandMA2 light consoles and an MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) for control.

Kunttu commented, "The main themes were firstly the history of World Championships and the history of Finnish ice hockey. The world of ice hockey has a lot of respect for its past and its many legends, so I wanted to underline this in the piece. I also wanted to add a fantasy-factor, which is where the skaters come in. Then the last part was a full-on fire and lightning-style scene with a certain gladiator thread to kick off the games - kind of what you would expect in this type of a show.

"Generally speaking the title Resonice tries

Germany - The Tempodrom in Berlin provided the setting for the 20th Duftstars gala. At this annual event, the Fragrance Foundation Deutschland distinguishes the fragrance of the year with the Duftstars award.

In recent years the event in the Berlin Tempodrom has risen to the status of one of the most important social gatherings of the year. For this reason the stars were packed pretty closely for this year's sold-out jubilee event, with the likes of Dita Von Teese, Werner Baldessarini, Cosma Shiva Hagen, Sonya Kraus, Jette Joop, Eva Padberg, and Jean Paul Gaultier rubbing shoulders on the red carpet. The event was hosted by TV star Barbara Schöneberger, whilst the musical highlights were provided by ex-Spice Girl Melanie C and Voice of Germany winner Ivy Quainoo.

To ply this demanding audience with sound of the highest possible quality and intelligibility

UK - Entec Sound & Light supplied full technical production - sound, lighting and video - and crew for the recent Big Comedy Night event for leading charity Scope at London's Hammersmith Apollo.

A stellar line up included a rare stand-up appearance by maverick alt comedian Ben Elton, who co-hosted the evening with pub landlord Al Murray, plus a host of other high profile acts including Doc Brown, Hal Cruttenden, Richard Herring, Robin Ince, Milton Jones, Francesca Martinez, Sally Phillips and Paul Tomkinson.

Entec was approached by event organiser Susan Dorrington of Scope, who was looking for a full technical solution for the show. Entec's Noreen O'Riordan project managed, and asked Phil White on-board to design the lighting. Entec's own Ryan Brown and Ed Hammond took care of video and sound respectively.

There was already a basic lighting plot in place when White be

UK - Adlib ampedit up for DJ David Guetta at his recent high-energy London Alexandra Palace show, over the Queen's Jubilee Weekend.

Adlib supplied Guetta's successful 2011 UK tour for production manager Alan Green and his FOH sound engineer Hassane Es Siahi also enjoys a close working relationship with the Liverpool based company.

Account handler Phil Kielty commented , "With The Queen's Jubilee Celebrations going on, an England FC football match and two huge David Guetta shows - London was THE place to be for the weekend & David's shows didn't disappoint . Will-i-Am did a guestspot which amazed the Chelsea FC guests. The sound, visuals and entire production were breathtaking ... with Alan and the Guetta team bringing a little piece of Ibiza to London at the other well known Palace that weekend."

For this gig, the audio system was collectively specified by a combin

Ireland / UK - Irish Lighting rental company Production Services Ireland (PSI) became fully embroiled in the weekend commemorating the centenary of the sinking of the world's most famous cruise ship - Titanic.

The ship - the largest afloat at the time - was built at the Harland & Wolf shipyard in Belfast from 1909 - 1911. She sank four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on 15 April 1912, after hitting an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland with the loss of 1, 514 lives.

PSI's Belfast and Dublin operations supplied lighting, rigging and crew to three major events to mark this seminal moment in maritime history.

The first was a series of gala concerts for the Titanic 100 civic commemoration and tribute programme presented by The Port of Cork at Cobh, County Cork - the last port of call for the ill-fated ship. The second was Titanic Sounds for MTV

UK - Utopian Leisure has opened its second Fat Buddha pan-Asian restaurant on a landmark site in the company's home city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

The operators have established many popular brands since being set up by local entrepreneur Bob Senior; Fat Buddha is the latest, and will occupy the site of the former Bar 55 Degrees, The Box and most recently Lineker's - situated on a roundabout directly under the building occupied by local radio station, Metro Radio.

Paul Dougherty at Blaydon Communications was brought in to provide the sound system at the two-floor venue, and his solution was an end-to-end RCF Media system, which he knew would remain unobtrusive - blending in with the interior design created by Colin Harvey of Belfast-based Barnes Mccrum.

Since the music is designed to be "calming and Asian based" through the daytime and early evening, moving to great

UK - Kidderminster-based Betalite has become the first UK customer for SGM's new Palco 5+ LED colour changer - an upgrade of the popular Palco 5. Eight of the new fixtures were sold by long-term SGM customers Gradav, via dealers Central Theatre Supplies (CTS) of Birmingham.

Noting the extreme brightness of the Palco 5+, Betalite's Murray Bridges placed some immediately onto a theatre production he was lighting at the Rose Theatre, Kidderminster, while four of the fixtures joined the GB Theatre Company production for outdoor use on their European Shakespeare tour. Bridges commented, "These fixtures are both dynamic and aesthetically superb - and we are delighted to be the first UK customers for them."

Betalite already have wide experience of using the similar Palco 3's - as have Gradav, who run between 50 and 60 (as well as SGM Giottos) in their hire fleet. "We t

UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light has launched a new website, intended to better reflect the wide range of work the company now undertakes across the entire spectrum of entertainment lighting.

Since the launch of the last White Light website in 2006, the company has grown dramatically. The company is now the UK, European or exclusive distributor for 20 of the world's finest lighting manufacturers, and offer products from many other manufacturers besides, says the company.

"Our last website served us well," notes Bryan Raven, White Light's managing director, "but as White Light has evolved and the web has evolved it was clearly time for something new. Given that lighting is a visual medium, our key aim was to make the website more visual as a showcase for some of the great projects we have been involved with; we think we've achieved that pretty w

Argentina - Blues and rock artist Joe Cocker shows no sign of stopping after close to 40 years on the music scene. His latest tour to promote his album Hard Knocks has taken on worldwide dimensions, with concerts held across Europe in 2010 and 2011, culminating with a series of concerts in South America and the United States in 2012. D.A.S. Audio was on hand at Cocker's concert in Rosario, Argentina, to provide quality sound at this much anticipated event.

Professional sound company Marti Audio headed the sound set-up at Rosario's sold out Salón Metropolitano. Company director Ariel Marti and his team of sound technicians once again placed their confidence in D.A.S. Aero Series 2 line array systems to bring top-of-the-line sound to an event of this size.

The team from Marti Audio deployed 24 sets of large format D.A.S. Aero 50 line arrays, dividing these three-way syst

UK - POLARaudio working in partnership with Saville Audio Visual were commissioned to design and install a customised audio solution for Leeds United's new conference suite at the Elland Road stadium.

The East Stand Conference Suite at Leeds United's Elland Road stadium is part of one of the UK's leading conference and event venues. The conference suites are presented on three levels. With capacity for 300 delegates on the second floor and four separate areas incorporating the upper levels, each suitable for 150 delegates, the venue is popular for business meetings and conferences and provides spectacular, panoramic views across the Leeds city centre.

Leading integrator Saville AV worked in conjunction with POLARaudio to provide a PA system for the five corporate hospitality suits in the new east wing extension. The solution provides each of the presentation rooms within the c

Israel UK lighting rental company HSL sent over 500 lighting fixtures and crew to the Dead Sea for the third consecutive year to service the 2012 Israeli Opera Festival at Masada, which premiered a brand new production of Bizet's Carmen directed by Daniel Oren.

HSL was again working for the event's overall technical production suppliers The Design Group from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in an operation co-ordinated by event technical director Eyal Lavee and technical production manager Elad Mainz from Stage Design, and project managed for HSL by Mike Oates.

Lighting for the stunning looking 'bare-stage' production was designed by Avi Yona Bueno (Bambi), Israel's best known performing arts lighting designer. The set was created by William Orlandi and the show directed by Giancarlo del Monaco both from Italy.

HSL's crew of Ian Stevens and Matt Brown worked on site with Israe

Voices Off - The 11-date tour for The Voice UK Live has been cancelled due to a lack of ticket sales. The gigs were due to feature eight of the show's finalists. The tour was to begin at the Bournemouth International Centre on 12 September and was then due to visit venues in Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, London, Glasgow and Sheffield. In a statement, a spokesperson said, "Unfortunately, The Voice UK Live has been cancelled due to lack of ticket sales. Customers are advised to contact their point of purchase for ticket refunds." The news comes as the show was criticised for failing to attract viewers.

Blown Away - Sir Elton John had to cut short his concert at a new seafront arena in Blackpool because of the threat of strong winds. Almost two hours into his set at the Blackpool Tower Headland arena, he told the 11,000 crowd they had to leave.

UK - Technical manager at NBF Productions and FOH engineer for Newton Faulkner, Patrick Hannan, has recently invested in a Soundcraft Si Compact 24 digital mixing console, supplied by LMC Audio.

Hannan is using the Si Compact on Faulkner's current tour of the UK and Ireland, and it's already proved a success in terms of set-up speed and efficiency. "Before we had the Si Compact 24, we were hiring a 16-channel digital console on a rolling basis, or turning up to shows to work with whatever the venue had available", explains Hannan. "With the Si Compact 24, our set-up is far more self-contained, giving us much better control, meaning we can get going almost immediately. In addition, the 24 gives us two layers rather than one which means we don't risk 'maxing-out' on our channel count, plus we get EQ on all channels, 14 aux buses and a host of Lexicon effects. It's b

UK - Duran Audio UK has recently supplied AXYS Scope T2115 (three-way full range loudspeakers) and AXYS B-07 (18" Subwoofers) to the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama for use in the Richard Burton Theatre, located on their site in the centre of Cardiff.

The Richard Burton Theatre is a 160 seat theatre complete with a dress circle and teaching gallery. The theatre forms part of the recent development at the RWCMD. This project has not only has transformed the look of the site, and added another iconic building to this architecturally rich area of Cardiff, but has also delivered the RWCMD dream of having their own world-class performance and rehearsal spaces on site. Students are now learning in a performance arts centre that is the hub of cultural life in the capital city.

The delivery of AXYS loudspeakers for the Richard Burton Theatre is a continuation of the relation

UK - HM The Queen's Jubilee Concert, organised by Gary Barlow, took place on Monday 4 June and featured rock royalty including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Cliff Richard, Sir Tom Jones, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sir Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Dame Shirley Bassey, Alfie Boe, Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, Madness (playing on the roof of Buckingham Palace) and many more. A special temporary stage was constructed for the event on and around the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace.

Britannia Row Productions were engaged to handle the audio production, and deployed systems to cover not just the concert but also the full length of The Mall, St James's Park, Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park (where an Outline GTO system was used on the Commonwealth Stage).

For the main concert area Britannia Row had designed and deployed a main system comprising 96 Outline Butterfly encl

Lebanon - Beirut is very much a hub for those from the Gulf state's looking to avoid the heady summer heat. A coast lined with some quality beaches, more Mediterranean temperatures and an expanding selection of open air nightclubs all help to tempt in an affluent summer set.

Jewel among these clubs is Pier 7, which nestles on a beach side location, overlooking the ocean. Operated by the local Crystal Group, the club has just opened its doors for the five month summer run after a multi-million dollar winter refit, which has included a full Inspired Audio sound system.

Specified in collaboration with Fouad Bechwati from Beirut based 21 dB acoustic consultants, the system included four drops of six Optima 8 array cabinets, combined with eight B215 and eight SB218 all flown from the central truss area. A further four SB218 were ground stacked while the venues stage had a further f

UK - Clear-Come reports that its Eclipse Median digital matrix intercom and V-Series key-panels played an integral role at the recent Diamond Jubilee celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's 60 years on the English throne. Delta Sound employed three Eclipse Median intercoms and more than a dozen V-Series user control panels to facilitate fast, reliable communications between the event's sound, lighting, pyrotechnics, security and stage-management production teams.

Coordinating the different activities that took place over the Diamond Jubilee weekend, including a concert featuring more than 30 performers, a flotilla on the Thames River and a royal procession from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace, was a massive undertaking. It required precise coordination and organization on the part of event organizers and production teams, which is why Delta Sound installed a 112-port Clear-Co

South Africa - Fly Piggy Fly, which has a new TV production house called Bay Studios (the first television studio in the Eastern Cape), recently purchased a Philips Strand 200 Series console, a Philips Strand 6 Pack Dimmer, and LED Wash light panels.

"Fly Piggy Fly is a young, vibrant production company based in Port Elizabeth," commented Dave Whitehouse from DWR Distribution. "This is their first lighting purchase. They always rented in gear and with P.E. not being very central, they would have to hire from outside areas." DWR Distribution supplied the order.

"We've been using the LED panels on a film for a client from Ethiopia," said Scott Kelly, partner and art director at Fly Piggy Fly. "The client wrote the script and provided the necessary funding, while we did the entire production side. It has been really great using the panels on loc

UK - A.C Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd's audio division has supplied a significant quantity of premium audio products - including DiGiCo, Yamaha, Soundcraft, Sennheiser Martin Audio, BSS, Denon and Sonifex - to UK based Insync Productions Ltd, to service their busy schedule of events.

Insync Productions is an audio visual supplier and provider of technical production, design and rental services, specialising in corporate and live events. As part of the company's policy, they like to keep their equipment inventory constantly updated with all the latest available technologies.

The supply included a new DiGiCo SD9 mixing console. This well regarded audio desk includes 24 motorised faders, a full complement of on-board processing and effects, dedicated and multi-function control knobs, electronic labelling and new quick-access buttons, making it suitable for mixing a wide

USA - After 11 seasons and an Emmy Award, lighting designer Kieran Healy continues to raise the bar for live television design with his dynamic and well-balanced looks on Fox's American Idol. This season Healy chose to keylight the three judges - Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez, and Randy Jackson - with the RevEAL LED Profile from Prism Projection.

"I chose the RevEAL LED Profile for the keylighting of the judges since the light provided me with a beautiful, flat field and for the fact that I could choose any colour temperature that I wanted-and maintain that balance," explains Healy.

"I am typically using them with a color temperature around 4,700-4,800K. We have a lot of different arc sources in the lighting design and that just averages it out. It is also easy to match the followspots, because you want all your keylights to match. Invariably the handheld

Latest Issue. . .