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UK - West London based lighting and visuals rental company Colour Sound Experiment continued its working relationship with Festival Republic by supplying production lighting designs and equipment to the Dance, Lock Up / Rock and BBC Introducing Stages at the 2013 Reading and Leeds Festivals.

Colour Sound also provided LED screen to the Dance stage and lighting for two silent discos and the Action Aid tent - and replicated all of this in Leeds. Additionally, two and half kilometres of Colour Sound's DMX controlled IMS LED Festoon was installed at Reading to enhance ambience and mood across the whole site. This element was nearly doubled from last year due to its massive popularity, particularly with the BBC, who recorded and broadcast the best of the event action.

As well as Reading and Leeds that same weekend, Colour Sound supplied lighting for the North and South (open air) S

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The Netherlands - Audio-Technica has confirmed it is again to provide wireless systems for conference and auditorium venues at IBC2013 between 12-17 September. A long-standing supporter of the IBC conference, this year sees Audio-Technica expanding its involvement with the event, supplying more wireless product and expertise than ever.

In addition to taking the lead in frequency planning and co-ordination for the entire conference, Audio-Technica will equip the IBC auditorium with 12 channels of wireless and microphones from its Artist Elite range. Wired microphone models including BP892 and BP893 headsets and gooseneck models from the Engineered Sound series will complement the wireless system in the venue.

The event's conference room will be served by Audio-Technica's new System 10 wireless, with a total of eight of the 2.4GHz systems providing coverage.

Alex Lepges, Audio

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USA / Mexico - Chauvet, a leading global supplier of entertainment lighting and trussing, announces the opening of a full-service subsidiary in Mexico, Chauvet & Sons de Mexico, following the acquisition of the assets of long-time Chauvet distributor in Mexico, Novelties. Chauvet & Sons de Mexico is a full-service branch office and distribution center for the Chauvet Professional, Chauvet DJ, and Trusst brands.

"We are very excited and honoured to be able to directly serve our customers in a market where Chauvet's brands are already known and valued," CEO Albert Chauvet said. The Mexican branch office is the second international branch office fully owned by USA-based Chauvet, which also fully owns Chauvet Europe, based in the United Kingdom. In other countries, Chauvet products are distributed via a network of authorized distributors.

Abraham Levit, who owned Novelti

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Aberdeen-based events and rental company, Granite City Events has invested in Highlite Internationals DMT P12.5 Pixel Mesh Video Screen. Company owner Barry Sheriffs says: "We have been looking at video/pixel wall screen products for a while now; it was brought to my attention about the new Highlite DMT P12.5 Pixelmesh, which is priced within the budget we had to spend, so a demo was requested".

Malcolm Burlow and Dave Drane of Highlite UK brought eight panels of the P12.5 screen to the Stonehaven warehouse to do a full demonstration. "It was great to see and also for us to use our current vision mixer and our HD cameras with it. We were very impressed with the quality, brightness and picture output for a Pixelmesh - it's exactly what we have been looking for."

Granite City Events has invested in 24 panels, with flightcases, rigging and Arkaos software. Sheriffs s

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UK - For many years Martin Audio has flourished under the memorable tagline, 'The Martin Experience'. But actually defining what that is, and what it means to the industry, has been less clear. After reviewing at length Martin Audio's increased profile in the industry today - and its ambition for the future - the company says it is about to unveil precisely what that 'experience' is all about.

James King, marketing director, explains: "After a lot of soul searching to define what lies at the heart of the brand, what quickly emerged was the importance of the audience experience. It's what the company has been doing for over 40 years, from enabling 'supergroups' of the '70s to be able to play to larger audiences and be heard properly for the first time, through to MLA and its superlative consistency of coverage.

"The audience is central to the industry's success, so cr

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Australia - The iconic His Majesty's Theatre, or 'the Maj' as it is affectionately known, is the only remaining working Edwardian theatre in Australia, and home to WA Opera. This stunning example of Edwardian era architecture is one of WA's most-loved heritage icons.

However celebrating history and all things antique should not stretch to the lighting department who were struggling with their old consoles.

"We had a Strand 550 and a 520i console for years and they were really at the end of their use-by date," commented Matthew Nankivell, head of lighting at His Majesty's Theatre in Perth. "More and more touring shows were coming through that couldn't use their show files with the Strand consoles. One of the main deciding factors on which console to choose was driven by the need to keep up with industry trends. Many of our shows have originated in a venue with an

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UK - Kinesys motion control and a Kinesys LibraCELL load monitoring system are both in action on the current Kings of Leon tour which has just finished its UK leg.

The automation elements are an integral part of the eye-catching set, lighting and production design created by show director Paul Normandale, while the load monitoring - including the new LibraRIG product - has been provided by Rigorous Technology to the tour's head rigger, Yose Lawson.

Normandale is known for his innovative and imaginative designs and stage environments and the design incorporates eight irregularly sized panels of 7mm LED screen upstage which move in and out to different positions and formats during the show.

This is achieved using 16 Kinesys-converted half-tonne Liftket motors and Vector control, specified by Normandale and provided by lighting contractors Lite Alternative. The LED screen is su

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UK - Shure Europe has announced details of its 2013 unsigned bands contest, Call For Legends. The winning band will pick up Shure equipment worth 3000 Euros, play a gig on one of the free stages at next year's prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and be given three days of free recording time at top London studio Kore with respected record producer/engineer Chris Kimsey at the controls. Chris will also mix the results, creating a finished EP for the winners.

The competition is open to any band in Europe, provided they have no current recording or publishing deal. Between 7 October and 27 December, entrants have to post one of their tracks to the competition web site (details below), together with a short video blog. Tracks posted must be original compositions (bands posting cover versions will not be accepted).

Once the competition has closed, Shure will w

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USA - PLASA has announced eight finalists in the sixth annual Rock Our World Awards, to be presented at the PLASA Cocktail & Awards Reception at LDI 2013. The Rock Our World Awards were created to honour ground-breaking achievement by PLASA members and to acknowledge the genius of both the creator of the technology and the designer or integrator who applies it in a real world environment.

The finalists for the sixth annual Rock Our World Awards are:

GBLOCK - Gallagher Staging and Productions, Inc.

GCT (Guy Cable Tensioner) - Tomcat USA.

Mbox Extreme Media Server as used on Oblivion - Production Resource Group.

TiMax2 SoundHub and TiMax Tracker - Out Board.

AsteraTouch - Astera LED-Technology.

dmXLAN v4 Software - ELC Lighting.

Royal Opera House Muscat - Theatre Projects Consultants.

London Olympics Opening Ceremonies.

W

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South Africa - Symetrix has appointed iLED to distribute all of its products, including the open-architecture SymNet Edge and Radius Dante networked audio signal processors and their associated AEC conferencing solutions, throughout South Africa.

In the 12 years since it launched, iLED has earned its clients' loyalty by providing expert advice founded on a commitment to continual education. iLED team members pride themselves on the depth and breadth of their AV knowledge, which includes all the latest cutting-edge solutions, as well as their ability to communicate that knowledge to clients.

"iLED is focused on educating members of the AV community in South Africa," said Mark Ullrich, international sales manager for Symetrix. "The company started iLED University in 2010 to offer free trainings on products, concepts, and techniques, and it has been a huge success.

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USA - The bold stage and presentation aesthetics for 2013 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) at the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, New York, took inspiration from the MTV Moon Man Award statue that received a special 30th anniversary makeover this year by New Jersey street-artist KAWS.

Lighting designer Tom Kenny worked the same style - blurring the lines between fine art and pop art - into multiple areas of the onstage lighting treatment, with 80 of Robe's new Pointe multi-purpose moving light fixtures, a vital element of his rig of over 1000 moving heads. These were supplied to the event along with 32 x Robe Robin LEDWash 600s and 20 x LEDWash 1200s by rental specialist, VER.

Robe's powerful, super-bright Pointes were positioned left and right of the stage and behind the VIP stage / seating area.

"I needed a big beam look and a wash light in the same position," explaine

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UK / Sweden - BlackBox Recorder manufacturer JoeCo has developed and supplied a quantity of new BlackBox industrial data recorders for Siemens Industrial Turbo Machinery AB in Sweden. Siemens are using the BlackBox Industrial Recorder (BBR-IND) units as part of a test campaign to assist in the measurement of their gas turbines.

The bespoke 24-channel, 3U rack-mountable systems are based on BlackBox Recorder technology. The units feature highly accurate and dc stable input and output circuitry, with additional software and hardware functionality specifically geared towards industrial data recording and measurement applications.

Greger Svanström, senior engineer in measurement technique/product development, who led the team specifying Siemens' requirement, said, "The BBR Industrial has proved a valuable tool for gathering large scale measurement data. The use of a standard

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UK - Shure radio microphones and in-ear monitoring systems were used extensively at the recent 2013 Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk. The festival celebrated local composer Benjamin Britten's Centenary this year with a spectacular production of the opera Peter Grimes set quite literally at the sea side - on a 50m wide set placed at the very edge of the Suffolk shingle, where the North Sea begins.

Richard Nowell Sound Services Ltd (RNSS) designed the audio systems this year at Aldeburgh, and were faced with a number of challenges for the Peter Grimes staging, of which coordinating an orchestra and a festival chorus live on a windy beach were just the start. The chorus and orchestra could see each other, but whether they would be able to hear each other was always going to be at the mercy of the elements to some extent, particularly the wind blowing in off the North Sea

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Brazil - Lollapalooza's return to São Paulo, Brazil earlier this year was made all the more successful by Electralight, in partnership with LPL Lighting Productions, and their use of Lightconverse visualization software. By employing an onsite custom 3D visualization studio at the iconic Jockey Club horse track, located in the heart of the city, valuable design and programming time was saved for a host of designers and operators whose top-talent bands took the stages of the three-day event.

With all three main stages virtually replicated in Lightconverse software running on individual workstations, show elements, including lighting, LED, video, moving truss and effects were made available for the particular stylization of each act much to the satisfaction of all concerned.

The main proponent for the onsite studio was designer Nilson Barros (Xuxa), known for his work on The Vo

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UK - West London based lighting and visual rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment (CSE) supplied lighting kit, two Kinesys automation systems and Vector control plus crew to the North and South open air stages at the 2013 Creamfields Festival, staged at Daresbury Estate Near Warrington over the August Bank Holiday Weekend.

Colour Sound's team led by crew chief Jon Rickets worked closely with creative and technical production specialists LarMac LIVE on the event, the UK's highest profile EDM festival. This year's line-up included open air stage headliners Avicii and The Prodigy (Saturday) plus David Guetta and Tiesto on the Sunday.

The North and South Stages were similar in size, supplied by Star Events, with the South stage PA / video wings being slightly wider. Colour Sound's production lighting design for both areas was created with reference to all the requirements of th

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USA - Thunderbolt Systems of Cincinnati, OH, a firm that specialises in sound reinforcement, lighting, video, radio communications, TV, concert touring, and special events, recently made a substantial investment in their business and to ensure the best audio performance for their clients, they selected loudspeaker systems from Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio.

Mike Stuckey is the president of Thunderbolt Systems. Being actively involved in everything from the daily operation of the business to sales and system design, Stuckey knows that without quality sound, there won't be much business. He also recognizes how critical efficient truck pack, system setup, and tear down are to the success of any event. This is why his firm purchased 24 Aero 50 three-way large-format line array enclosures, 24 LX-218 high performance subwoofer systems, 12 Aero 12A powered, two-way, mid-high line

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Australia - Simonds Stadium, home of the Geelong Cats, has become the biggest and most successful multi-purpose venue in regional Victoria. The third stage of the Simonds Stadium's redevelopment was recently completed with the addition of a new Southern Grandstand, increasing capacity to over 35,000.

Total Events Co were called in to design, supply and install the PA system for the new grandstand choosing JBL AWC all weather speakers for the Grandstand, JBL Control 25AVspeakers for the walkways and JBL ceiling speakers into the functions spaces.

"We installed 14 vJBL AWC129 speakers and sixteen JBL AWC82 speakers for the seating bowl and under balcony-fills," remarked Bill Busbridge, managing director of Total Events Co. "We chose them as they are robust, high powered and totally suitable for the application. They also fitted in well with the architects aestheti

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Sweden / Argentina - LumenRadio has announced a new partnership with TSD Group for distribution of the CRMX brand in Argentina. Run by Daniel Lema, the Buenos Aires based TSD Group has since 1994 been one of the leading suppliers for concert touring, theatres, permanent installations as well as television in Argentina. With an already impressive product portfolio including well-known brands such as Robe, SGM, Chamsys, Chromateq, the most important factor in TSD Group's choice for LumenRadio's CRMX wireless technology was the outstanding reliability. Another important factor was the possibility to offer customers an all-in-one package with products from manufacturers with the state-of-the-art technology.

"LumenRadio's commitment to manufacturing inventive, high quality wireless products is a perfect match for our aim to deliver superior products and support. The CRMX product

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Brazil - Brazilian singer Luan Santana had his breakthrough in 2010 with a best-seller album, before continuing to climb the Billboard charts with his second album. Already known for presenting some of the most expansive concerts, there was little doubt that the recordings of his recent show for the Luan Santana DVD would be over the top.

Consequently, lighting designer, Marcos Olivio, was presented with one of the challenges of the year. With the intention of doing a live concert and subsequently an electronic Rave ballad with Santana's band for recording, Arena Maeda in São Paulo was selected as the ideal location. "We believed that an audience of 10,000 people would be a great number for a 'comfortable' party," he says.

Spectrum Design e Iluminação supplies complete technology solutions for large-scale projects such as this, and the company excelled with an unp

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UK - Celebrated LD Vince Foster recently employed a battalion of Clay Paky fixtures to honour Queen Elizabeth II's 60 years on the throne. Foster used the Clay Paky fixtures to deliver a striking, yet flexible lighting design for the Coronation Festival Gala.

Held in the Gardens of Buckingham Palace, the event took place over four days from 11-14 July and was the Palace's first commercial, ticketed public event. Technical production company Hawthorn provided the full production services supplying over 150 Clay Paky fixtures including: Alpha Wash 1200, Alpha Spot HPE 1200, Alpha Profile 1500, Sharpys, Sharpy Washes 330, and Alpha Profile 700s for the main stage, while a further 16 Clay Paky Alpha Wash 700 were used to light the Palace itself.

The Gala featured an array of artists including The National Youth Orchestra, The Feeling, The English National Ballet, Katherine Jenkin

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India - The Guru Tegh Bahadur Memorial structure in New Delhi has been brought to life with a stunning light show - featuring fixtures from PR Lighting. The newly programmed show is the result of a design from the attraction's lighting director in conjunction with Modern Stage Service's Varinder Wadhwa.

This architectural marvel, situated on the main highway, gives an insight into the life and teachings of the ninth Guru of the Sikhs and the illumination has been described as "world class".

Modern Stage Service (MSS) - PR Lighting's Indian distributor - was brought in as a result of the company's long association with the show director, and Wadhwa specified 16 XR300 Beam and 12 PR-8802's. Mounted on both the ground and the structure itself, they are triggered into action daily after dark from an Avolites Titan Mobile in conjunction with a Dataton Watchout system.

T

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USA - Sensaphonics reports the completion another Gold Circle seminar for audiologists. The two-day course includes in-depth teaching sessions at Sensaphonics headquarters, plus a hands-on lab session with a live band, held at Mystery Street Recording Company, both in Chicago, all designed to teach audiologists to work effectively with musicians and sound engineers.

Audiologists gaining Gold Circle certification at the seminar, held 16-17 August, 2013, included: Ike Iheagwara of Manhattan Audiology in New York City; Paula Rivers of RK Audiology, Austin TX; and Noel Thayer of Bronxville Hearing Center, Bronxville NY.

The Gold Circle seminar teaches audiologists the specific skills required to serve musicians and those who work around them, including but going far beyond the taking of ear impressions.

"When a musician wants custom earphones, all they want are ear impressi

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USA - The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, located in Charleston, South Carolina, recently upgraded their sound reinforcement system with Tannoy VLS passive column loudspeakers.

The church has experienced many upgrades and renovations since the first cornerstone was placed in 1850. Unfortunately, none of the sound reinforcement systems seemed to solve the intelligibility issues caused by the highly reverberant space.

A traditional Catholic cathedral, the sanctuary is a long rectangular room with wooden pews that seat up to 1,200 parishioners. The room features beautiful stained glass, plaster walls, columns separating the main and side seating areas, and a small rear balcony, while the services are of a more traditional format, with a full choir and organ.

Joe Bennett, owner of Spectrum Sound located in nearby Summerville, South Carolina, was tasked with providing a sound

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Poland - Tommex Zebrowscy Sp. J. has completed the design and installation of a Community loudspeaker-based audio system for the new multi-use Mielec Stadium, in south east Poland.

Home to the Stal Mielec football team, the new stadium replaces the original which was built in 1953 and hosted numerous high-profile events like the European Champions Cup, UEFA Cup, and Polish national team matches, including FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championship qualifiers. Whilst providing a completely modern venue, the new stadium replicates the old venue's seating capacity of 30,000 and its format of an athletics track around the playing field to provide multi-sport facilities.

Two tiered stands flank the length of the stadium, with the main West stand also providing for 100m athletic events. The system designed by Tommex comprises 12 Community R.5HPT three-way, horn-loaded coaxial lou

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