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UK - Having previously been nominated for two Olivier Awards, it was it was third time lucky for sound designer Gareth Owen as he won one of the coveted awards for Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along. Gareth's choice of a Yamaha PM5D digital console for the show proved that his philosophy of 'the right tools for the right job' is a recipe for success.

"I'm not one to always use the same equipment - no 'cookie cutter' specs, if you will. I believe in picking the tools that are best for each production and not spending a lot of the producer's money on gear for the sake of it," he says.

"Merrily We Roll Along was all about sonic clarity and fast operation. It needed a straightforward system, just exactly what was needed to deliver a sound which was very clear and true to the original. Three of the main reason why I chose the PM5D was because it has

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USA - Rational Acoustics has announced the release of the fifth major version update for the Smaart v.7 measurement platform - Smaart v.7.5. This latest release includes significant feature additions, usability enhancements, interface modifications and important bug fixes. This is a free update and is recommended for all Smaart v.7 users.

Notable among the feature additions in Smaart v.7.5 is the addition of 'Target Curves' on RTA plots allowing ASCII traces such as the X curve (used in cinema tunings) to be imported into Smaart and displayed in a static position on the RTA plot to serve as a visual target or threshold for single channel measurements. A 'Quick Compare' feature has also been added for transfer function measurements which captures a copy of the top transfer function trace and stores the inverse in memory as a weighting curve, allowing it to be quickly applied as a

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USA - Though he was born in Pasadena, CA, vocalist / composer / performer Gerardo Ortiz was reared in Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico. These days, Ortiz is recognised as a stand-out artist in the Norteño-Banda, Corridos music genre and, in 2011, he dominated the Billboard Mexican Music Awards. Ortiz is presently on tour and, to ensure the best audio fidelity with consistent coverage, he relies on loudspeakers drawn from the Aero Series 2, Convert, and Road catalogs of Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio.

Los Angeles-based International House of Music, Inc. (IHOMI), a full service music and audio equipment supplier that services a wide range of customers from individuals to professional touring acts, recently sold the Ortiz tour a large D.A.S. Audio sound reinforcement system. Presently, the mains system includes 36 D.A.S. Aero 50 3-way, large-format line array modules powered by Lab G

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UK - The Health and Safety Executive has recently held a briefing meeting for interested parties within the entertainment industry to layout the changes to the 2007 Construction, Design and Management Regulations and their decision to include the entertainment industry within the scope of the new Regulations. The meeting coincided with the release of the 10 week consultation document which started at the beginning of April and closes on 6 June (D- Day!!!).

Please take a moment to read through this report and decide if this applies to you and your undertaking. The PLASA Technical Resources cannot stress how important it is that those who will be affected, read the consultation and comment on the proposals. If you do any work that sees you installing equipment within live events, theatre, exhibitions, conferences etc. CDM 2015 will apply to you and your work will fall under the sc

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Royal Record - London's Royal Albert Hall enjoyed a bumper year in 2013, posting record audience numbers of 1.71 million and operating income of £18.6m, up 10.4% on the previous year. The figures represent the most successful year of trading in the venue's 143-year history with 390 events driving a 7% increase in audiences. The venue recorded its highest ever operating surplus of £5.3m. The Hall's own promotions - which included performances of Carmen, Swan Lake and live orchestral accompaniment to films including Fantasia and Singin' in the Rain - generated £600,000 more in ticket sales than in 2012. The figures were released to coincide with the unveiling a new large-scale mural by artist Peter Blake featuring more than 400 artists who have performed in the hall since it opened in 1871.

Eurovision 2014 - The first of the Eur

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South Africa - A Martin Audio OmniLine micro-array, much favoured by houses of worship, has been installed in the 1500-seat Old Apostolic Church (OAC) Christian church at Mayfield Park in Gauteng, South Africa.

Audiosure, Martin Audio's territorial distributor successfully tendered for the work to install and commission a complete sound system in the new sanctuary, working from the OAC's specifications. OmniLine was central to the bid and the installation was carried out by their clients, JRTL Projects.

With Audiosure's Thys Venter overseeing the project, OmniLine first needed to meet a number of key criteria aside from the quoted specifications, including technical output, price, quality and warranty, before being chosen to handle the traditional twice-a-week service regime.

The design was based on a single central hang, comprising 12 OmniLine elements. In addition, eight M

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Denmark - The Danish city of Ishøj is implementing the four basic elements as part of an exciting renewal of its urban areas. SGM fixtures are playing a key role by illuminating the town centre building.

As one of the world's largest lighting design offices, ÅF Lighting is experienced in creating holistic lighting solutions manifesting the right balance between functionality, aesthetics and sustainability. With more than 30 years in the industry, ÅF Lighting was offered an opportunity to develop an overall lighting concept for the urban areas surrounding the town centre in Ishøj, revolving around the four elements: earth, air, fire and water.

The first part of the concept, implemented in 2012, was based on the element water. The square in front of the train station near the coastline has been furnished with feature and scenographic lighting in blue and green sh

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USA - "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn," wrote Benjamin Franklin. Chauvet Professional subscribes to this theory wholeheartedly, which is why the company sponsored a highly personalised hands-on lighting workshop recently at its new southern California showroom and learning centre.

The Chauvet Professional Concert Lighting Workshop gave students from four colleges in the Los Angeles area an opportunity to design a sequence to music of their choosing on the Chauvet Professional demo rig, working with GrandMA2 programmer Joe Spangler. Each student group got to work one-on-one with the programmer to light his or her song on an impressive rig that featured a variety of Chauvet Professional products including Nexus panels, different COLORado fixtures, Legend 230SR Beams, Q-Wash 419Z moving yoke washes and the entire new Rogue series.

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Slovakia - Rental and technical production company Q-99 has added Robe's new multi-functional Robin Pointes to its hire stock - bringing their full stock of Robe moving lights to nearly 500 fixtures.

Headed by the country's top TV lighting designer Martin Kubanka, Q-99 - which also provides video and audio solutions - has always been committed to making the very best technology available for all its clients and their events.

"We eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Pointe," explains Kubanka. "We all had high expectations, but when the Pointe was actually launched and we saw it in action for the first time ... it absolutely surpassed everything in all criteria."

Q-99 services numerous high profile light entertainment TV shows and events as well as concerts, theatrical productions and corporate projects. "We like to offer the latest technologies to o

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UK - The original production of the hit musical Billy Elliot, still running at London's Victoria Palace Theatre almost a decade after making its debut there, has moved the show's lighting to a new control system based around ETC's popular Ion control console.

The new desk has replaced a Strand desk that ran the show since it opened, continuing the trend of long-running shows updating their control systems to ETC products to ensure continued trouble-free performance night after night.

"Our previous desk served us well," comments the show's lighting designer, Rick Fisher, who won a Tony Award for his work on the show on Broadway and a Helpmann Award for the production in Australia, "but with the show continuing to enjoy success in London, and with new productions planned elsewhere, it seemed to make sense to move the show onto a newer platform that was rece

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Spain - Space Ibiza has marked its 25th anniversary by being crowned 'Best Club in the World' in the prestigious DJ Mag Top100 Clubs awards for the fourth time in seven years. The venue, which is highly regarded by clubbers and operators around the globe, has been home to a Funktion-One sound system since 2002.

Since opening in 1989, Space Ibiza has received a host of awards and has consistently impressed with its forward thinking operational and music policies. DJ Mag's 'Best Club in the World' prize is one of the most renowned awards in the nightclub industry. Winners are chosen through a public vote, making the recognition even more special.

The venue has six different areas. The 2,000-capacity main room, known as La Discoteca, features a Funktion-One sound system, comprising custom clusters of DS15s, R3SHs and R1SHs, along with F221 bass enclosures, and F88s with R3SHs in

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UK - 2014's Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT) at the Royal Albert Hall has yet again seen a string of hugely successful performances given by some of the world's most popular concert touring artists including Ed Sheeran, The Cure, Suede and Paolo Nutini along with an evening of comedy hosted by Jason Manford. As has been the case for many years Production Resource Group (PRG) provided a skilled team of expert crew along with a comprehensive lighting and rigging package.

The chock-full week of TCT events, which supports young people with cancer, has now been running for 14 years and is supported by a host of celebrities including rock legend Roger Daltrey.

Esteemed lighting designer for The Who, Tom Kenny, has designed the TCT show since its inception. "It's great that PRG supports me every year to deliver appropriate lighting for the diverse cornucopia of artists who play during

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Ghana - Charterhouse Production, the largest events management and one-stop production house in Ghana was set up over 11 years ago to produce a wide range of events across West Africa - notably Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and from corporate to concert work.

Helping them in some of their more high profile events has been the inventory of dynamic PR Lighting fixtures which they have been steadily building since opening their account with the Chinese manufacturer last year.

Among the show spectaculars have been Guinness Big Eruption Concert (Akon live in Ghana), Chris Brown Live In Ghana, Ghana Rocks and Malta Guinness Launch (P-Square Live In Ghana). But the most prestigious is the impressive Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMA14), which take place again this year on May 3rd at the Accra International Conference Centre. Once again PR Lighting fixtures, and particularly Char

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Denmark - After a very successful contribution to last year's Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden, Barco reports that it is to be the Official Technical Event Partner of the 2014 edition. During this week's semi-finals and finals in Copenhagen, 32 Barco projectors and three Encore presentation switchers, provided by rental partner Mediatec Solutions, will project sharp images and video, in crisp detail, onto the cube-shaped central stage.

Eurovision 2013 was an all-Barco show powered by a total of 60 Barco projectors, including 26 units of the high-brightness HDQ-2K40. That same HDQ-2K40 will now play a starring role in this year's Eurovision too. The 16 HDQ units will be combined with 16 HDX-W20 projectors to display the brightest images. Three Barco Encore presentation switchers will be used to control and map the video content.

This year's 35m x 20m Eurovision stage is

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UK - Bristol-based lighting and visuals rental company Fineline has been confirmed as lighting and rigging provider to four major festivals with more to follow.

Fineline's Rob Sangwell comments, "We are looking forward to a very busy summer and will be keeping all our regular crew on their toes! There's also a lot more exciting projects in the pipeline which are currently being finalised."

Love Saves The Day in Bristol returns for the third year to Castle Park in the heart of the city and for the first time Fineline have been contracted to supply lighting, rigging and LED screens for the Main Stage.

The line-up features Annie Mac, SBTRKT, Eats Everything, Jamie XX, Hercules & Love Affair, Neneh Cherry w/ Rocketnumbernine, Gentleman's Dub Club and many more interesting sounds to push the boundaries of aural and visual experience.

Says Rob, "We're delighted to

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UK - Richmond Event Management Ltd (REM) was delighted to steer the production management and logistical operation of the internationally recognised Park Street Slide in Bristol over the May Bank Holiday Weekend.

As part of the city's ongoing "Make Sundays Special " programme, designed to close the city to vehicles and turn streets into playgrounds , it was always going to be a challenge to close down a major part of Bristol's City Centre on one of the busiest public holidays of the year.

From 0500hrs, as Bristol's clubs and bars were emptying, the REM team began the logistics of closing down Park Street and starting the build of the temporary water slide. 65,000 spectators were counted in and out of the immediate viewing area and of the 96,000 who applied for the opportunity to slide, 350 members of the public were chosen via a ballot to take part in this unique occ

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UK - XL Video is supplying a large customised curved LED screen for James Blunt's current "Moon Landing" world tour, together with cameras and PPU, projection and crew.

The 9.5m high by 9m wide Pixled F-15 screen was specified by the tour's show's production designer Paul Normandale, who together with Lighting Director Glen Johnson and XL Video, started working with Blunt in 2005. This fourth world tour is by far the largest to date in terms of production.

The idea was that the onstage video should be curved at the back and offer the appearance at times that he's walking on it, and also be visible through the risers - which reflect the lunar landing pods. The overall vibe was to bring a spacey 'horizon' look to the video content, very much in the style and spirit of the 1970's moon landings.

Having a curved at-the-bottom screen also gives a different visual perspec

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USA - Visitors to Brookfield Office Properties' new corporate headquarters on the 15th floor of 250 Vesey Street in Lower Manhattan, New York, will be met with a massive and ultra high-resolution video wall. Composed of 36 ultra narrow bezel 55" screens, the video wall tells the story of Brookfield as a company, with stunning high resolution visuals and motion graphics driven by Dataton's Watchout multi-display system.

The video wall project was conducted via a partnership between Union Design, which created over an hour of original content, and Warren Z Productions, which conducted the AV installation and integration. The resulting video wall is in a 12 x 3 configuration that boasts a massive 23,040 x 3240 pixel resolution.

"Knowing the need for ultra-high resolution as well as the desire to highlight dynamic content, we knew we wanted to choose Dataton Watchout as

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UK / USA - Trade-only AV specialist PSCo is offering AV and IT resellers and rental companies an opportunity to win an exclusive VIP trip to InfoComm 2014 in Las Vegas, 18-20 June. The competition kicked-off on 4 March and will run until 30 May. Three winners will be picked at random and announced on 2 June via the PSCo website as well as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook channels. To enter, simply visit www.psco.co.uk/infocomm

"InfoComm is an event that has been overshadowed by ISE in recent years, but the level of new and innovative technology on show makes it a must see event," said Richard Bovingdon, sales director of PSCo. "As a trade-only provider we are offering all channel partners, whether Rental, AV or IT, the chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to InfoComm with PSCo. We value all our partners and want to offer everyone the chance to win one of the thre

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USA - The Public Theatre in New York City has been a symbol of culture and community since its opening in the 1950s. The theatre has facilitated a variety of performances throughout the years, and is committed to nurturing both artists and audience. From the world premiere of Hair, to the annual, and beloved, free Shakespeare in the Park, The Public Theatre constantly searches for new, creative opportunities to fulfill its mission.

In 1998, the non-profit organization in the heart of the East Village opened the 200- seat live performance venue known as Joe's Pub.

Joe's Pub at The Public is one of New York City's most celebrated venues for emerging and established performance artists. Named for Public Theatre founder Joe Papp, Joe's Pub plays a vital role in The Public's mission of supporting young artists while providing established artists with an intimate space

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UK - Electrosonic will provide corporate and oil and gas industries an in-depth look at the latest audio-visual and collaboration solutions at its Technology Day on 4 June at the AECC in Aberdeen. Over 30 leading technology companies are participating at this free event.

The event will give attendees a real insight into how state-of-the-art technologies can increase productivity and communication between teams, as well as how new collaborative technologies can improve business performance.

During the Technology Day, a member of the Electrosonic team will guide each visitor through the exhibition, visiting each supplier to discuss the new technologies and how they can be integrated into any current facility.

Unlike other technology exhibitions, the event will showcase full solutions as opposed to individual products. Attendees will have the opportunity to see complete, real-t

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New Zealand - AcousticDesign loudspeakers from QSC, driven by GX3 and RMX850 amplifiers, have been installed at a stylish new bar/restaurant in the Wynyard Quarter, a recently redeveloped harbourside area in New Zealand's second city, Auckland. The splendidly named Urban Turban wears its Mumbai influence on its sleeve, offering fine Indian cuisine and beers and a high-quality sound system in a top people-watching spot on the waterfront.

Local AV contractor Halogen Audio was asked to install some loudspeakers for the restaurant's external pavement areas. As a long-standing user of QSC products, and mindful of the restaurant's north-facing waterfront location, Halogen's Rick Senekal chose models from the QSC AcousticDesign series for their durable construction and ability to endure constant exposure to the wind, sun, salt air and water. After a short while, the venue's management

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UK - London Fields' new establishment, The Laundry, has just completed the installation of a Flare Audio X3/Q18 sound system for its sizeable basement event space and café/bar, to handle an eclectic mix of live music, club nights, cinema and screenings. The brainchild of Radiohead band member Ed O'Brien and businessman Raj Nayak, The Laundry brings together a host of creative and musical talent, comprising 26 separate creative areas including the basement and café/bar areas.

Raj's experience includes running a venue in Shoreditch, giving him a clear perspective on what he wanted from The Laundry's new sound system:

"We wanted a high quality sound with great separation that would also give us flexibility, in terms of its size and portability. With such a mix of events in the basement, we need to be able to move the boxes around easily and even store them when

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