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UK - The industry stepped up at PLASA 2014 to care for its own by supporting Behind the Scenes UK, the new charity that will provide financial assistance to entertainment technology professionals in need due to serious illness or injury.

Fundraising kicked off on Sunday evening at the Knights of Illumination Awards Ceremony when Clay Paky's commercial director Pio Nahum presented a cheque to lighting designer Rick Fisher for Behind the Scenes UK. Pio explained to the large gathering that one of the last things approved by the late Pasquale Quadri was this generous contribution to the new charity.

On Monday afternoon, ETC's Fred Foster presented the cheque from the proceeds of the iRFR app which continues to provide an incredible income for the charity on both sides of the Atlantic. Tuesday saw Rosco's Mark Engel present a cheque for the proceeds from the sale of Roscolux Light

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UK - Soundcraft's UK and Eire distributor, Sound Technology reports that both its award-winning Vi6 FOH console, and the latest addition to the Vi range - the Vi3000 - have both rocked the festival circuit this summer.

The Vi6 was deployed by premier hire company, Adlib, on events including Creamfields, the Liverpool International Music Festival, Kendall Calling Festival and the Wakestock Festival.

Now firmly established on riders, the Vi6 has been acclaimed as one of the easiest to use, most ergonomic, user friendly and best-sounding large format digital consoles around. Thanks to the integration of a proven DSP engine and algorithms from sister firm, Studer, the audio quality is crystal clear. The Vi6 also boasts an incredibly tactile "where you look is where you control' operating philosophy. The world-class effects and processing from Lexicon and BSS sets the Vi6 apar

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UK - PLASA London 2014 welcomed visitors and exhibitors to ExCeL, London for the second consecutive year on 5-8 October and impressed with a ground-breaking show floor, an inspiring education programme and a host of important announcements. While exhibitors revealed their latest product innovations, the organisers uncovered plans for the future of the show.

Speaking at the PLASA Awards for Innovation and Sustainability 2014, held on the penultimate day of the show, PLASA's CEO Matthew Griffiths revealed some of the changes for 2015, which will redevelop the scope and delivery of the event. Under the leadership of Christopher Toulmin, PLASA's Director of the Events Division, the show is being remodelled to become a PLASA Member-focused event: developments will include moving from four days to three days, introducing a new floor plan concept, expanding the education offering and i

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UK - For the first time in the UK, d&b audiotechnik GB is offering an open invitation to their Sound System Optimisation seminar. Each seminar runs for two days and invites participants on a journey through the theory and practice of acoustic measuring, adjusting and fine tuning.

Attendees should have a good understanding of sound system design, setup and tuning along with a confident understanding of basic electroacoustic principles in order to take full advantage of this seminar. This is a practical course that guides participants through the precise process of measuring and adjusting a sound system. Beginning with a good sound design and making it better. Starting with good and ending with great.

This is a busy two day seminar, delivered by the Education & Application Support (EAS) team at d&b audiotechnik GB, under the direction of the doughty Oran Burns. Participants are

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The Netherlands - Tivoli Vredenburg is a new and architecturally impressive venue in the heart of the beautiful Dutch city of Utrecht. Equally impressive is its technical infrastructure, which features an array of DiGiCo mixing consoles as part of its extensive audio system.

A merger of former venues Tivoli and Vredenburg, both successful in their own rights for the past 30 years, Tivoli Vredenburg has been constructed around the existing Vredenburg theatre and concert hall, now known as the Grote Zaal or Great Hall, which remains in its original form.

The new building houses four additional rooms, Ronda, Pandora, Hertz and Cloud Nine, each of which plays host to different types of musical styles, with each designed by a different architect. Combining such disparate designs could have made the overall venue feel disconnected, but a cleverly thought out, cathedral-like foyer br

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UK - Hawthorn recently worked with lighting designer Declan Randall, to provide an additional lighting package and video projections for Indika, a new musical dance spectacular. The production tells the story of India throughout the years using the medium of dance. The premiere of the first UK production of Indika had a hugely successful run at the new CAST Theatre in Doncaster, from 26 September to 5 October. The production will tour the UK in 2015.

Randall took full advantage of Hawthorn's Wysiwyg Suite, pre-programming the whole show prior to its one week production fit up at the CAST Theatre. Hawthorn was also contracted to provide technical support for the installation. The lighting package supplied included a range of Clay Paky fixtures including Sharpy, Sharpy Wash and Alpha Profile 800s.

The production featured classical Indian choreography to an original

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UK - Cover band The Ultimate Eagles are celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Eagles' album Hell Freezes Over by touring the UK beneath an Elation lighting rig of Platinum Beam 5R and Platinum Spot 5R Pro moving heads.

This is The Ultimate Eagles' fifth and biggest tour, and second using Elation lighting equipment. Pacific Sound & Light of Birmingham has supplied the lighting package for the When Hell Froze Over tour with lighting design by Nick Jemicz of Lighting Through Design.

"I have always been impressed with the CMY capabilities of the Platinum Spot 5R Pro as it is such a compact fixture," Nick says of the compact, energy efficient CMY colour mixing fixture that can be used as a spot or wash light. "The beams offer stunning, bright airborne effects with a good selection of color that I required for the design."

Mounted on an upstage

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UK - Islington's famous Sadlers Wells Theatre is often called London's dance theatre. Initially dating from 1683, today Sadler's Wells not only promotes but also commissions and produces outstanding dance. However, in order fully enjoy a performance of dance, it is important that the audience enjoys the music in equal measure. To that end, installation specialists Scanaudio recently upgraded the theatre's induction loop system for the hard of hearing.

Since the introduction of legislation requiring public spaces to provide for all kinds of disabilities, induction loop systems have been installed in most public buildings and, over time, have become more and more sophisticated.

The Sadlers Wells system features two Ampetronic multiloop drivers, one MLD7 and one MLD9 which, are connected to low loss loop arrays installed along the seating rows of the rear stalls and first circle.

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UK - Jazz Funk band Incognito celebrates its 35th anniversary this year and to mark the occasion the band was recently filmed at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire for a live concert DVD.

To ensure that the sound was as a tight as possible, Incognito's percussionist Joao Caetano took along his own selection of DPA microphones including four d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphones and a stereo pair of d:dicate 4011A Cardioid Microphones, which were used as overheads for the recording.

"Normally I use d:dicate 4011A cardioid microphones for studio work and rely on the d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphones for live performance, but on this occasion we were recording audio for a DVD so I supplemented the line-up with the d:dicate 4011As because I wanted to capture the best sound possible," says Caetano. "Our front-of-house engineer, Chris Lewis, was very happy that I had broug

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Brazil - For the Brazil arm of Fox International Channels (Fox Brasil), coverage of this year's World Cup tournament also signalled the move from analogue to digital broadcast production.

Temporarily deployed in the broadcaster's studio at International Broadcast Center (IBC) in Rio de Janeiro, the Lawo audio consoles, routing system and video devices that made the move possible have in the meantime been relocated at Fox Brasil's permanent broadcast facility, also located in Rio.

The Lawo equipment comprises a Nova73 HD, which serves as the central audio router, a 48-fader mc² 56 MKII console and two further mc² 56 MKII consoles with 32 faders each. In addition, four Vpro8 video processing devices from Lawo's video product line serve as embedder and de-embedder units at the heart of the broadcast centre.

The shift to digital was prompted by the need for greater flexibility

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France - At the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris, September saw the 20th anniversary re-opening of the updated Great Gallery of Evolution space featuring an install of site-specific custom-designed Amadeus speakers.

The museum install features an assortment of Amadeus speaker and sub-woofer models to offer the public a Hi-Fi audio experience throughout the vast museum. Merging Technologies, Solid State Logic and Flux also added key ingredients to the new museum install to control the Amadeus speakers.

Amadeus' director of R&D, Michel Deluc, and designer Bernard BYK, created completely new speaker and subwoofer configurations for the massive, over 180-speaker, sound system install at the National Museum of Natural History.

The new speaker design has extended the Amadeus PMX Series with a super-compact 4-inch coaxial driver model, the PMX 4. Bernard BYK and M

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UK - Robe Lighting celebrated its 20th anniversary in style at a special gala dinner event staged in their Robe Arena booth one evening during the 2014 PLASA Expo in London's ExCeL Centre.

The dinner featured a keynote speech by CEO Josef Valchar, an after-dinner speech by Patrick Woodroffe, followed by live entertainment from comedian and magician Paul Zenon. It was enjoyed by 300 Robe 'friends and family' including many who have been instrumental in the company's success.

Says Josef Valchar: "The dinner was a fantastic way to unite so many people who are and who have been involved in our journey".

The Robe story started from humble beginnings in 1994 when Josef and his business partner Ladislav Petrek founded the company and started making their own lighting and effects fixtures. In that relatively short space of time, Robe has become one of the world's leading m

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UK - Edinburgh-based Black Light has continued its work with one of the UK's leading football clubs by outfitting Arsenal's flagship shop with the latest in sound and AV technology. The success of the project at the Armoury store showcases Black Light's technical expertise and creativity and the fact that its team can deliver exceptional installations that bring interactivity and excitement to the retail environment.

"This project was the second time that we have worked on a retail project for the club," said Phil Haldane, who led Black Light's installation team. "Our client for the job was 442 Design and, as we'd worked with them before on the club's shop at Brent Cross Shopping Centre, they were confident in our technical and creative abilities."

The brief for the project was to install sound and AV systems throughout the newly refurbished Armoury store.

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UK - UK projection specialists QED Productions have outdone themselves once again by taking on one of the most challenging projection mapping projects to date for the Branchage Festival, held on 24-28 September in Jersey.

For this ambitious film festival finale, QED Productions teamed up with Radiophonic Workshop, who performed a specially commissioned live score, and NOVAK, who provided the animations. In keeping with the theme of this year's festival 'Make Your Own Island', QED Productions decided to make their own island using projection mapping, with the iconic St. Aubin's Fort as its centre-piece.

Said QED Director Paul Wigfield: "From start to finish the challenge was extreme. At first we didn't even know whether it would be possible. We had to cover the whole island otherwise it would not have looked impressive enough when viewed from such a distance and at high ti

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UK - Brighton-based pro audio, video and lighting integrator, Penguin Media Solutions, has recently completed an extensive installation into the University of Kent's new student bar, bistro and live venue, Cargo.

Head of Hospitality for the University, Keith Williams, wanted a system that offered quality, reliability and, above all, versatility. A complex noise management study had been undertaken, so strict guidelines also had to be adhered to from the initial design, through to final delivery.

"We wanted to offer Cargo a simple, versatile but eminently capable system," says Penguin's Director of Operations, Dylan Thompson. "By using quality components throughout, we were confident that we could provide a solution that provided just that."

The multi-purpose nature of the venue required inputs in various locations for DJ, live and daytime background music

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Tunisia - The renowned International Festival of Carthage is a celebration of classical music jazz, folk, theatre, film and ballet that takes place every year in the ancient city of Carthage in Tunisia. Since 1964, the event has been staged in the ancient theatre of Carthage. The next festival event, taking place in the months of July and August 2015, is to be supported by the new Lawo mc²36 mixing console.

Lawo's Tunisian partner Pro Audio and Light (PAL) - the company responsible for light and sound systems for this festival in recent years - closed the deal on a 40-fader mc²36 for the festival's FOH position at IBC 2014. This will see a flightcase version of the RAVENNA/AES67-enabled console and two stageboxes delivered in spring 2015, when the preparations for the Festival of Carthage reach their peak.

"My guys at home in Tunisia followed the launch of the mc²36 at

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Switzerland - ARX Systems has appointed Tonspur AG as their new exclusive distributor for Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

ARX's MD Colin Park said: "Tonspur are a well-known and respected Swiss distributor, here at ARX we're looking forward to working with Hansjürg Meier, Eddy Broquet and the team at Tonspur.

"They're very enthusiastic about the possibilities for the growing ARX digital and analogue product range amongst their extensive client base throughout Switzerland and Liechtenstein."

Tonspur's founder Hansjürg Meier said, "ARX fits perfectly in our portfolio to help our Livesound, Corporate, Broadcast and Studio customers."

Founded by Hansjürg Meier in 1989 Tonspur AG was initially a production facility with two Studios and rental & distribution divisions.

In the early 2000s Tonspur decided to concentrate on product distribution and desi

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Denmark - Although still only in the initial phase for Fredericia Theatre's production of Disney's The Little Mermaid - The Musical, production designers Anders D. Jensen and Jens Frausing already had their eyes on SGM's LB-100 LED Balls; lighting designer Christian Vigs° had introduced them to the IP65-rated RGB pixel strings at one of his designs for the Kolding Light Festival - set in a much different outdoor environment. The production team was keen to use them in their attempt to reinvigorate theatre scenography, and once implemented, the result has lived up to all their expectations.

More than 600 LB-100 - each measuring 0.85m and containing seven RGB semi-transparent LED balls - are driven by 18 SGM TLD-612A, run by a Hippotizer Rackoon and suspended from the roof as a curtain wall in different lengths with a maximum of 6m. Decorated with small pieces of cloth,

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USA - As a resource for system integrators, consultants and front-of-house engineers, Bose Professional will be hosting one-on-one demo sessions of their RoomMatch Progressive Directivity Array loudspeaker systems at Wild Bills, the premier concert venue in metro Atlanta on Tuesday 28 October, through Thursday 30 October 2014.

The Wild Bills sessions are an extra-special opportunity, with plenty of time for attendees to mix live multitracks on an installed RoomMatch system. And attendees will have a chance to have discussions with Bose Professional Systems engineers. Snacks and refreshments will be available.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Avolites' fully featured, dual wide screen Sapphire Touch console is controlling ceiling panels of LEDs in theatre company Paines Plough's portable Roundabout Theatre. Premiering at this summer's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the theatre has since popped up in towns across the UK.

Lighting programmer Peter Small specified the Sapphire Touch to programme, control, and pixel map the 627 LEDs in the complex panels built into the touring venue's roof.

"The Sapphire Touch is excellent for programming Roundabout because of its speed - a lot of the console's features and hardware come together to allow this but a few that stand out are the large, bright, responsive touch screens, the 45 motorised faders (all electronically labelled) as well as the very well laid out programming section," says Small. "It also has advantages for us such as being able to handle the 13 u

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USA - The multiple capabilities Lightconverse 3D Show Platform continue to expand with the recently released version 56.

First up in v56 are new functions for fixtures, including precise 3D volume Focus calculations for beams and beam footprints, accurate Frost calculation covering the complete range of depth for LED modules, Gobo Edge abilities, Objective Mapping for Shapes (RGB rings, segments, etc.) and added Pixel Shift functions for High End's Shapeshifter instrument.

The latest version additionally adds further enhancements to its integration with 3D Multimedia Glasses and Head Tracker support, which allows users and their clients to be completely immersed in a 360° Virtual World of their show or event - a definite way to bring clients onboard quickly!

LC's powerful Render Engine has been augmented also, including more detailed beams, higher quality HDR (High Dynam

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UK - Pearce Hire continues its long-standing support of the Showman's Show by confirming their presence at the exhibition on 22-23 October. Pearce Hire has regularly participated at the Showman's Show because it offers an important platform for promoting their expertise in the provision of services for the outdoor and special events market.

Pearce Hire offers over 30 years knowledge providing power, lighting, audio, staging, project consultancy and production services to the outdoor and indoor event, festival, entertainment and corporate event industries. The Showman's Show at Newbury Showground happens at a convenient lull at the end of the busiest summer season on record for Pearce Hire. It is an important platform for the promotion of the full range of services offered by Pearce Hire, and a chance for the team to network with current clients and discuss plans for the next 12

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USA - Diggerland USA is the country's first construction-themed adventure park, allowing children and their families to operate real construction equipment in a safe environment. The 14-acre park is located adjacent to its sister attraction, Sahara Sam's Oasis, in New Jersey in the suburbs southeast of Philadelphia.

Spellcaster Productions of nearby Hammonton, New Jersey designed and installed the system on a very tight timeframe; from land clearing to opening took just six months. An Ashly Audio ne24.24M modular Protea matrix processor outfitted with 12 inputs and 12 outputs provides all of the equalization, delay, ducking and routing for Diggerland USA, and seven Ashly KLR-3200 amplifiers power the park's seventy-plus Community loudspeakers. Ashly's networked neWR-5 wall-mount user control allows staff members to adjust input and volume within a given zone, and Ashly's iPad ap

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UK - Steinberg Media Technologies has announced upcoming workshops in the UK. Together with Yamaha and sE Electronics, Steinberg has scheduled tour dates from Poole in the South to Perth up in Scotland.

As a part of the ongoing Steinberg Training Centre education programme, these interactive education events feature critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Martyna Wren, session and touring drummer Emily Dolan Davies (Tricky, Becky Hill, Bryan Ferry, The Hours) and multi-instrumentalist, producer and Cubase expert Andy Schrav (Peter Andre, Delta Goodrem, Paper Aeroplanes). Over the next month the artists will visit South and City College in Birmingham, Derby University, Edinburgh College and Perth University and run a series of customized workshops for enrolled students.

In addition to supplying top-quality artists, the manufacturers will also provide a collection of the latest m

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