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UK - SGM's award-winning LED technology can be found in a diverse range of applications around the world - with its eye-catching 3D pixel tubes typically found zipping across dancefloor ceilings.

But in a completely unique deployment, 68 of the LT-200 2m tubes now form a pulsating sculpture in a brain science institute. This is at the heart of designer Bob Crowley's set for the new Tom Stoppard play, The Hard Problem at the Dorfman Theatre, part of the National Theatre on London's South Bank.

It was a YouTube video of a spinning cube that first set Crowley's creative juices flowing, and faced with the task of emulating this effect in order to represent brain pulses, the theatre's lighting operations manager, Marc Williams and control supervisor, Daniel Murfin tracked down SGM's 3D pixel tubes after visiting the PLASA Show, and seeing them displayed on the website of Madrix LED

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Germany - Deutscher Medienpreis - German Media Prize - is an award that has been given annually since 1992 by Media Control, a company for market statistics, to honour public figures.

A jury consisting of chief editors of leading newspapers and magazines decide on the winner with previous recipients having included Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton, Dalai Lama, Bono and George Clooney, and the event itself is high profile affair with specially invited guests. This year's recipient was Juergen Loew, the coach of the German national football team, in recognition not only of his role in their World Cup victory but also his leadership style, and as an ambassador of a modern and cosmopolitan Germany.

AE Sound & Light GmbH provide production duties, and in former years they have provided coverage with Martin Audio's W8LM Mini Line Array. But owing to the provision of a larger video scree

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South Africa - Johannesburg-based DWR Distribution will be hosting Avolites training sessions this month, with a one-day Titan One training session on 24 February, followed by a three-day Basic to Advanced course from 25-27 February. The training will be presented by DWR's Gareth Chambers.

Nick Britz from DWR comments: "Gareth Chambers hosts regular training sessions which are well received by the industry. He has a great knowledge on lighting and control, having formally worked in the rental market. He is also very passionate about sharing this knowledge."

The Titan One DMX USB Dongle allows the user to output one line of DMX with the full functionality of Avolites Titan Software. Users are able to access powerful features such as Pixelmapper, Quicksketch, Media Clip Select, Attribute Control-Blades and ShapeGenerator. Titan One allows unlimited usage providing unin

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China - Billed as the world's first indoor movie theme park, the highly-anticipated Wuhan Movie Theme Park in the Chinese city of Wuhan - four hours by rail from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou - has now opened its doors with Delta Media Server solutions powering huge displays inside three of the six digital theatre 'dark-ride' experiences.

The $690m three-storey theme park owned by Dalian Wanda Group - the Chinese conglomerate that controls the AMC cinema chain in North America - has six state-of-the-art immersive and multi-dimensional movie ride experiences which operators claim make it the first indoor movie theme park in the world. Theatres are spread over 100,000sq.m and include a 5D theatre, 4D theatre, Interactive Theatre, Space Theatre, Flying Theatre and an Experience Theatre.

Designed by Mark Fisher, creative art director behind the Beijing Olympic ceremonies, the Lo

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South Korea - Psy, a global viral superstar, recently played four sold-out shows at Seoul's 14,000-capacity Olympic Park Gymnastics Arena. Dubbed All Night Stand, the hometown shows were powered by a Meyer Sound Leo linear large-scale sound reinforcement system.

"The extended headroom and linear output characteristic of Leo is huge with Psy's music," says Park Dong Won, the singer's veteran FOH engineer. "The highs were smooth and natural, even when we pushed the levels, and the dispersion meant uniform coverage for every seat. I'm not just confident in specifying LEO, but also proud to use it."

The system comprised dual main arrays, each with 15 Leo-M line array loudspeakers flown over two Lyon-W wide-coverage line array loudspeakers as down fill. Twenty-four 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements were arranged in a directional array, with seven Mi

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USA - Every music festival offers fans a chance to get away from it all, but few do this quite so dramatically - or literally - as Jam Cruise and Holy Ship! Produced by Cloud 9 Adventures, these floating festivals serve up hours of live music on the decks of cruise ships plying their way through the warm Caribbean waters to exotic ports of call like Half Moon Bay, Bahamas and Roatán, Honduras.

The Design Oasis (Davie, FL) created an engaging environment at both nautical music fests with a lightshow designed by Cris Kuroda that's anchored by 72 MVP 12 LED video panels from Chauvet Professional.

"Jam Cruise and Holy Ship! both feature big-name artists, and both draw large crowds expecting to have the time of their lives," said Abbas Ritscher of The Design Oasis, the cross rental house that supplied the lighting and video gear for both cruises. "Cris and video eng

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UK - Electrosonic has expanded its facilities in Scotland with the opening of a second regional office in Aberdeen. The office in Cults, just outside Aberdeen City Centre, will be used to support its growing business in the city and the region.

The new Aberdeen office will provide local service and workshop facilities, stores, and a fabrication space. The Edinburgh office continues to offer a full set of services and has recently been refurbished.

Colin Lemmings, Director of Electrosonic's corporate business, commented, "Having worked in the Aberdeen area for four years, opening an office here is a natural progression for Electrosonic. The office is in a great location to serve our growing business in the oil & gas sector, as well as other new local clients in the region for whom it is a requirement that their supplier have tangible local resources."

For the past t

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UK - The Pound Bar & Kitchen has become the first evidence of the redevelopment of Canterbury's 600-year old jail after the local council awarded the lease of one of its famous landmarks to One Pound Lane Ltd. Part of the complex, that includes the Westgate Towers Museum, dates back to 1380.

Headed by lighting installation and interior design specialist Steve Allen (of Lightqube Ltd), the team of contractors has restored former police station cells never before open to the public, transforming them into private dining rooms as part of the atmospheric restaurant and bar, retaining original details such as the Victorian glazed bricks and cell doors complete with oversized locks and inspection hatches.

All these spaces required sensitive treatment in order to respect the heritage, and the technical infrastructure was dependent on a discreet, potent and aesthetic sound system. All

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UK - GV Multi-media has completed the rollout of Panasonic projectors at Kingston University, part of a £30m investment towards improving the learning environment and IT facilities.

One hundred and seventy Panasonic PT-RZ370 laser/LED projectors were installed by GV Multi-media, in lecture and seminar rooms across the University estate.

"Our academics love them," said Simon Harrison, acting pro-vice chancellor (operations) at Kingston University. "The projectors are fast start, so they can get the material up almost immediately. What's more, content looks great, exactly as our academics intended it to be presented.

"When choosing what projectors were right for the University, we looked at a number of factors such as brightness, image quality, supportability and value for money. Panasonic was the clear winner."

The project was won, initiated a

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Austria - It is 75 years of the Hahnenkamm Downhill and Slalom Races in the Austrian ski resort of Kitzbühel. The organisers of the Skiclub Kitzbühel rely on a partnership with the local rental company Murdock Event & Media who assembled a large production team for the event, sparing neither expense nor effort for this complicated audio challenge on the SlalomTrack and chose K-array loudspeakers which have proved reliable in extreme weather conditions at other key ski events such as the Val Viemme in Italy.

The masterpiece of this year's sound reinforcement design was the Firenze Series KH8 Line array touring speaker and powerful KS8 subwoofers. The team flew a line of six KH8 units and three KS8 units with four KH15s for side-fill.

One of the key advantages of the Firenze series is the software calibration and digital acoustic steering that allowed Klaus Hausherr K-array's

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Canada - Solotech has announced its expansion in Toronto with the acquisition of the assets of P.A. Plus Productions. François Ménard, CEO of Solotech, says the transaction will allow Solotech to add P.A. Plus Productions' sound system expertise to services already offered by Solotech in the greater Toronto area. The move will complement Solotech's offer in audio, lighting, video, rigging and scenery and will be an addition to the activities of Midnite Hour Productions, acquired by Solotech last November.

"This is our second acquisition in Toronto in the last three months. Toronto is an important market and we want our clients to have access to a diversified list of equipment as well as a team of experts with technical capabilities and creativity to answer their needs," explained Ménard.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Vaughan Sound has been awarded a place on a £100m university framework for the supply and installation of audio-visual equipment.

Following an extensive tender competition, the South Wales-based specialist integrator, founded in 1964, has become a preferred supplier for universities and colleges across Wales and South West England.

The agreement is in place from 2 February 2015 until 31 January 2017. It will see Vaughan Sound given the opportunity to provide a range of AV products and installation services to over 30 HEPCW and SUPC registered institutions across the two regions.

Managing director Paul Adams comments: "Winning a place on this university framework is very exciting for Vaughan Sound and the PAI Group as it provides the perfect pathway for us to develop long-term meaningful relationships with higher education establishments.

"At Vaughan So

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UK - Technical events specialists Broadsword Productions, Crossbow Media and TM Audio Visual (TMAV) have rebranded under one name, the Broadsword Production Group. The move makes things even simpler for clients, who can choose from a range of creative, technical and production event services from one organisation, the company says.

The trio of departments has worked in partnership for a number of years to offer a broad mix of creative, production and technical event services. A sharp increase in demand from clients for a more integrated approach combining all three services, was the main catalyst behind the re-brand, which coincides with the 10-year anniversary of Broadsword Productions.

"We were already working together as a tight unit, so it was a logical step to rebrand under one name. And what better time to do it than when we are celebrating our tenth year in busines

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South Africa - The first Robe BMFLs have been in action on a variety of events in South Africa, utilized by some of the country's leading lighting designers, the new multi-purpose fixtures have certainly been put through their paces on a wide variety of shows.

The very first South African based LD to use them was production designer Tim Dunn of Gearhouse South Africa (GHSA) on the Krone Music Festival at the Grand Arena, Grandwest Casino, Cape Town. The event is one of the most popular SA showcases for Afrikaans music, and this year Tim's in-the-round concept brought a new standard of presentation to the 5000 capacity venue.

Tim positioned the four BMFLs on trusses above the stage and used them throughout the show mainly for a variety of interesting gobo looks onto the white stage floor.

"It's an absolutely beautiful light," he declared. "I think Robe have lis

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Australia - Gearhouse Broadcast provided a complete broadcast system for the 2015 Australian Open, with its newly purchased Bel Digital MADI Monitor playing an integral part in the smooth running of a vast MADI network.

Held in Melbourne Park from 19 January to 1 February, the Australian Open is the first Grand Slam tennis tournament of the year. It sees all the major players, with Serbia's Novak Djokovic playing against the UK's Andy Murray in the final to win this key title in the tennis calendar.

Gearhouse Broadcast purchased the Bel Digital BM-A2-64MADI MADI Monitor to provide assistance with the installation and smooth running of nine networked audio consoles and associated stage boxes, which were connected via a central MADI router.

Crucially, the MADI Monitor was used extensively during configuration and setup of the system prior to the event, allowing the Gearhouse t

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Canada - The award-winning W-DMX technology by Wireless Solution Sweden AB was once again used on Canada's prestigious Grey Cup Halftime Show, held at the BC Place in Vancouver. The game decides the champion of the Canadian Football League. The halftime show was designed by Vancouver-based Electric Aura and featuring rock band Imagine Dragons.

W-DMX was hard at work high above the stage and over the audience. Production designer Robert Sondergaard of Electric Aura explains, "We used the W-DMX to get from the field level up to the jumbotron. We had some Martin MAC III fixtures there for backlight on the band and luckily there was 100 amps of power in there. There was no physical way to get cable there so W-DMX was the only option if we wanted these lights. We also had a number of moving lights high up in the audience. We used W-DMX to control these as there would have been n

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Israel - Located about 500m from the beach in Israel's fifth largest city, Ashdod, Leonardo Plaza Hotel got a stunning lighting makeover before it's opening in September last year.

LumenRadio's distributor in Israel, Danor Theatre and Studio systems Ltd, supplied and installed 13 units of Studio Due's City Beam LED 12 at the front façade of the hotel prior to the opening.

The City Beams have been fitted with integrated LumenRadio's wireless CRMX OEM DMX receiver modules allowing remote data control, which is especially useful for outdoor applications, for convenience of operation as well as saving on cabling. Going wireless also makes it possible to very easily move the units around the hotel area as needed.

The City Beam LED 12s are used to wash the columns of the hotel with a beautiful appealing variety of color effects. In order to wirelessly distribute DMX data to the C

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India - Two days in mid-November saw a festival dedicated to stringed instruments take place in New Delhi, India. Featuring acclaimed string musicians from around the world, a DiGiCo SD8 was on hand to tame the dynamics of a wide array of instruments.

The festival was founded and is organised by leading Indian violinist Sharat Chandra Shrivastava of world fusion band Mrigya. Its purpose is not only to perform different forms of string music from around the world, but also to showcase stringed instruments which are either rare or whose use has faded into obscurity.

"Originally inspired by Indian classical music and the fusion greats like Pandit Ravi Shankar and Shakti, Mrigya evolved a unique style of music signature that incorporates jazz, blues, rock, folk and other styles overlaid on Hindustani Classical. It was this fusion that led to the idea of Strings of the World,&

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UAE - The Nexo Soundcheck event is taking place in Dubai in February. In conjunction with V.V.& Sons, the Nexo distributor for the region, the French manufacturer will stage a special one-day ETC training seminar, followed by "a spectacular live demonstration" of its latest compact line-array products the Geo M6 and the STM Series.

Headquartered at the Intercontinental Hotel in Dubai Festival City, the Nexo Soundcheck will take place on 24-25 February, and everybody is welcome, subject to a free registration with V.V. & Sons.

On Tuesday 24, Nexo's training manager and concert sound specialist Val Gilbert will conduct a one-day ETC1 training seminar. ETC is Nexo's Education, Training and Certification programme, and the ETC1 module covers the fundamentals of Nexo philosophy and technology, from the classic point-source Alpha Series systems to the present-day flagship

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Germany - Ranked amongst the top five symphonic concert venues, Konzerthaus Berlin has recently installed the steerable Meyer Sound CAL column array loudspeakers in its Great Hall (Großer Saal). Blending inconspicuously into the hall's neoclassical architecture, the slender arrays are used for music reproduction as well as voice applications from concert narration and conductor commentary to emergency alarm systems.

"After modelling and measuring CAL's extended frequency performance, we were impressed by the system's ability to handle both speech and high-fidelity music reinforcement," says system designer and acoustical consultant Ralf Bauer-Diefenbach of Berlin-based MMT Network. "That has surprised many musicians who have heard it; they are amazed that such a small, unobtrusive system can sound so natural."

Several factors steered the venue toward

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UK - Stage One, the company currently constructing the UK Pavilion for the Milan 2015 Expo and who realised Thomas Heatherwick's spectacular cauldron for the London 2012 Olympics, has launched a new website (www.stageone.co.uk).

Designed to reflect the company's capabilities and reveal what goes on behind the scenes, the new website will showcase some of Stage One's most recent projects and the new direction of its creative construction and manufacturing services.

Working with designers, artists and architects, Stage One has evolved into a multi-faceted fabrication operation. The company manages the whole creative and creation process, from the brief to the big idea, on projects such as Olympic ceremonies, live events, sculptures, installations and specialist build projects such as the annual Serpentine Gallery pavilions.

Stage One sales and marketing director, Tim Leigh exp

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UK - Professional audio sales company LMC Audio has announced its first Wireless Mastered Seminar, held in conjunction with the Shure Academy European Audio Network and taking place at the Shure Academy Centre in Waltham Abbey, Essex on 3 March.

Presented by Tuomo Tolonen, Shure Distribution UK's Pro Audio Group manager and RF specialist, the event will take place in the LiveRoom at the Shure Academy Centre between 10.00am and 3.30pm, with a break for light refreshments.

This masterclass is aimed at all LMC customers and live sound users including FOH and monitor engineers, production staff, venue technicians, installers and anyone that regularly uses wireless technology. Across large, medium and small-scale event spaces, from stadium-sized concert venues through to compact corporate conference rooms, wireless systems make possible a vast array of sound reinforcement applicati

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The Netherlands - Fernando Lameirinhas is one of the most revered writers and performers of world music in the Netherlands, combining many different styles and influences into a unique palette of songs. Currently on tour with his latest project, Noir, a Yamaha QL1 is ensuring audiences enjoy every nuance, despite a very limited touring budget.

Although Portuguese by birth, Lameirinhas has lived in Belgium, later Holland, all his adult life. Working with bass guitarist brother Antonio and many other musicians, he has been a high profile part of the Dutch music scene for 40 years.

The current tour sees Fernando and Antonio performing with guitarist Daniel de Moraes and a pair of African musicians, drummer Udo Demandt and Mola Sylla on vocals, mbira and kalimba.

In recent years Lameirinhas has taken musical inspiration from people and concepts that particularly interest

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UK - Tenor Alfie Boe's career has only gained strong momentum ever since he was famously discovered polishing cars at Blackpool's TVR Factory at age 17. He recently undertook a major UK tour, where Martin Professional's newest MAC Quantum Profile fixtures proved that they are perfectly at home in live arena-sized productions.

Running from 29 November 29 to 13 December, 2014, the 11-show tour stopped at most of the UK's major arenas. Lite Alternative supplied lighting, with the rig including five Martin Professional MAC Quantum profiles and 15 Mac Vipers.

"We were trying to create a 1930s club scene," said John Ginley, Lite Alternative Project Manager and Alfie's Lighting Designer. "Alfie wanted to keep it Art Deco, with lots of shadows and shapes in the light. We decided to use the MAC Quantum Profiles and MAC Vipers together because they are both very efficient

  1. Usher UR Experience tours with GLP LED spots
  2. BCS Audio invests in L-Acoustics K2
  3. XL Video goes to Copenhagen for AIR
  4. Record numbers attend The Warehouse sound event
  5. Lucidity moves into lighting with Robe
  6. Lenny Kravitz goes wireless with Shure Axient
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