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France - DPA microphones played a central role in broadcasting this year's Bastille Day celebration in France, an event that ranks as the oldest and largest regular military parade in Europe.

In a tradition that dates back to 1880, this annual French national holiday parade takes place in Paris along the Champs Elysées. The event is broadcast across all major French TV channels, scoring around seven million viewers, and is also screened by a number of foreign TV channels. Approximately 100,000 people flock to watch the parade, which includes mounted and motorised divisions as well as flight squadrons, and of course a large amount of musicians.

French integrator BS Technology has traditionally covered the parade, and this year the company invited audio specialists Fréquence to look after the HF aspects of the event. Fréquence director, Julien Pérille

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Luxembourg - Robe BMFLs are the latest major addition to the house lighting rig at the Rockhal in Esch / Alzette, Luxembourg.

The country's best known club and concert venue is located appropriately in the Avenue du Rock 'n' roll in the epicentre of the magnificent steelworks which once dominated the region of Esch-sur-Alzette, now the site of a 450m Euro redevelopment project to preserve the former industrial magnificence of the disused plant, in the process transforming the area into a bustling scientific and cultural centre.

The Rockhal, opened in 2005, is also the largest major concert venue in Luxembourg and regularly hosts a string of international artists who can play its 6500 capacity main hall, a smaller Club space for 1100 people or the 250 capacity The Floor.

It also has a Music & Resources Centre with an infrastructure of rehearsal rooms, a recording studio, a me

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UK - For the 2015 Rugby World Cup finals, 20 nations play at 13 stadiums across the UK, with the final being held at the national rugby stadium, Twickenham. In a tournament that is being watched by millions worldwide, this year, for the first time, White Light is providing the production support on the event.

WL's role in the Rugby World Cup is reflective of its recent expansion in the fields of audio and visual technology. Earlier this year, the company acquired video and lighting technology firm Shock Solutions - a forerunner in the field of LED lighting and audio-visual equipment solutions with over ten years in the industry. As a result, WL is able to offer a greater range of production services than ever before - as visible at this year's Rugby World Cup.

Andy Hook, founder of Shock Solutions and now technical solutions director at WL, comments, "This year, we've hel

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UK - The Rugby World Cup 2015 kicked off this weekend with 13 of the UK's most impressive stadiums all meeting international event standards n selected as match venues. Almost half of those exercised integrated LED video display systems designed, manufactured and installed by Daktronics.

Twickenham Stadium, the Home of England Rugby, features four Daktronics LED video displays. Two large displays measuring 167sq.m and featuring a 13HD pixel layout are supported by a further two 8.82sq.m displays with 10mm line spaced SMD LEDs. The screens can display one large image to highlight live video and instant replay, or divided into multiple sections for a variety of statistics, game information, graphics, animations and sponsor advertising.

The other match venues in London are, Wembley Stadium and The Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. These also deploy impressive visual solution

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Middle East - As the Middle East prepares for a busy event season Showforce has announced the addition of two new services to their portfolio of event support services. From this September the company will provide female event crew and technical support staff alongside their stage crew, technicians, production staff and promotional personnel.

With many events in the Middle East attended only by women, there is a need for can-do ladies who provide an extra pair of hands and ensure their successful delivery. Showforce's newly launched female event crew offer a team of experienced, friendly and resourceful all female event crew. Launched primarily to cater for private events, weddings and galas they can assist with set-up, decoration, operate lighting and sound desks, follow spots and other technical elements.

Ian Spendlove, Showforce's founder and chief executive comments, "

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Pastures New - War Horse is moving on to pastures new after a seven-year run in London's West End. The play, based on Michael Morpurgo's book, has been a major success since its award-winning puppetry first took to the National Theatre stage. The final performance at the New London Theatre will take place on 12 March next year. Morpurgo paid tribute to an "iconic play, but not simply a play, certainly not a musical, a show like no other, with puppets at its heart". He said, "It has moved millions in London and all over the world. How great to see the theatre always full of people of all generations, all caught up in the story playing out before them, in a show once called 'the greatest anthem to peace ever seen on a stage'." War Horse is the most successful play in the NT's history.

Cultural Ties - Shakespeare's Globe and the National Theatre ar

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UK - ArKaos PRO, pioneers in interactive video technologies, will exhibit at PLASA London 2015 on the stand of its exclusive UK distributor, White Light (C30).

ArKaos PRO will demonstrate the latest version of its MediaMaster software which has consistently remained at the forefront of the industry's creative projection and LED applications. MediaMaster 4.2 which was released earlier this year, adds an integrated Cue Player for reliable, accurate playback of visual sequences, and 4K support which enables three layers of 4K video to be played on servers with a Core i7 processor. MediaMaster 4.2 is available as a free upgrade to existing MM 4.x users.

An impressive ceiling of LED lightsources will be used to showcase MediaMaster 4.2 on the stand, alongside ArKaos LEDMapper, its all-in-one LED show control solution. LEDMapper delivers LED show control in three easy steps, working

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USA - Schoolhouse Audio-Visual, a Plano, Texas based systems design and integration firm, has brought new life to nearby Sojourn Church, by integrating Dante network from Audinate. Since launching the network, the 950-seat church has significantly elevated its routing flexibility and audio quality, pleasing everyone from parishioners to clergy and the church band.

Schoolhouse Audio-Visual was first hired to repair existing loudspeakers, and soon discovered that Sojourn Church wanted to bring a number of disparate audio components into a common system. For Blair McNair, systems project manager at Schoolhouse Audio-Visual, the choice was simple.

"Dante is the first and only networking system I have looked at to date that really makes sense out of the box," said McNair. "When looking at this project, it immediately dawned on me that I can incorporate wireless micro

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USA - Foo Fighters front man, Dave Grohl, has famously reclaimed the stage for the band's Sonic Highways tour, mounted on his own 'iron throne' after breaking his leg in a fall from the stage in Gothenburg in June.

The throne is adorned with a corona of 12 Ayrton MagicDot -R LED moving lights which are used by lighting designer, Dan Hadley, both as feature lighting and for illumination of the charismatic singer.

MagicDot-R is one of Ayrton's newest fixtures and the first professional LED moving head to feature a single 60W 4.5° RGBW LED source. Its totally round head fits within the diameter of its cylindrical base in all positions, allowing bold new configurations with barely a centimeter of space between two luminaires.

"When Grohl came up with the napkin drawing of the throne I knew, from seeing Ayrton's demo video, that the MagicDots were exactly what the throne

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UK - PLASA Show organiser PLASA Events has outlined the pro audio highlights awaiting visitors to the show this year, taking place at The ExCeL exhibition centre in London's Docklands on 4-6 October.

"We are seeing a definite shift from audio manufacturers and distributors towards PLASA as a viable event to launch a variety of new products, with the PLASA Awards for Innovation being a great place to showcase new technology," says Christopher Toulmin, Director of PLASA Events. "This year we have over 50 leading brands joining us from the pro audio sector with many new names joining that list."

Pro audio products and features at this year's show include:

A.C. Entertainment, AC-ET's Audio division, will provide hands-on demonstrations of the latest cutting-edge digital mixing consoles from a wide portfolio of leading brands, with exclusive demonstrat

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Kazakhstan - Belgian-based WIcreations, working for Italian production company Balich WS, was asked to engineer and fabricate the large, elegant and stylish 'Cup of Hospitality' for Kazakhstan's recent 550th anniversary celebration show in the capital Astana.

The event - attended by five heads of state, VIPs and dignitaries and 7000 public - took place in the new Ice Palace venue. For innovative engineering specialists WIcreations, the project followed hot on the heels of their work at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2015 European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, and WI's team of five was led by Yves Vervloet.

The cup was based on a traditional Kazak drinking goblet and was required to fit under the stage in a depth of just 500 mm from where it had to rise out of the floor, appearing as if by magic, be flown up and disappear into the roof of the venue.

Yves and the team

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Germany - Shure Europe, in collaboration with London's Academy of Contemporary Music and Metropolis Studios, has announced details of Vocal Mastery, a new competition designed to find the best up-and-coming vocal talent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Open to any vocalists in these territories, provided they are of legal age and aren't already earning regular income from vocal work, the competition will offer an exciting set of prizes to the five winners, who will be named Shure Vocal Masters in January 2016. Each will net themselves Shure equipment worth 1000 Euros, and will be flown to London for two days to attend a Masterclass at ACM Academy of Contemporary Music and a recording session at Metropolis Studios.

To enter, contestants simply need to upload their own song featuring a vocal performance to the competition web site, www.shure-vocal-mastery.eu, at any time b

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Canada - The Parliament Buildings in Ottawa recently served as the backdrop for Northern Lights, a free outdoor sound and light show that brings to life key figures, events, and achievements from Canadian history. To provide an immersive surround experience, a 9.1 Meyer Sound Lyon linear sound reinforcement system was deployed to deliver narration, sound effects, and a powerful score supporting spectacular images projected against the 30-storey-high facade of the Centre Block and Peace Tower.

"Lyon is light, small, efficient, and performs beautifully," reports Jean-Sébastien Coté, NEO6 technical director, who co-designed the system with colleague André Biron. "For Northern Lights we need lots of throw as the audience is sometimes far away, and the center channel, mostly used for voiceover, has to cover a wide area."

The new Lyon-based s

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World - Flight case and speaker component manufacturer Penn Elcom has invested close to two million pounds in new manufacturing plant and technology across the group's international operations in China, Mexico and the UK.

Over a million dollars alone has been ploughed into upgrading the powder coating lines at all sites, part of a planned reinvestment strategy in Swiss made Gema spraying equipment designed to increase efficiency and output worldwide for Penn to keep abreast of the current growing demand for its products.

The powder line installed at the factory in Guangdong Province, China, is completely new and replaces the previous one with the latest air cooled technology. This will enhance the working environment for the 30 employees as well as being more energy efficient, kinder to the environment and more cost-effective to maintain and run. The plant is also run on re-cy

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Europe - Martin Audio has changed its distribution arrangements in the Nordic countries, appointing Norwegian based Elektrik Solutions as their exclusive representative, with effect from 1 September.

In so doing, they have reunited with °ystein Wierli, an experienced sound engineer and system tech, who for many years worked closely with the British manufacturer while at his previous company, EM Nordic.

Martin Audio had sought a company with a smaller portfolio to give the brand more focus, and at the same time increase market penetration in all their core sectors. Based in Drammen, and set up in 2010 as a full event technology and staging operation, Elektrik Solutions were considered the perfect option.

"Martin Audio products fill the entire spectrum within sound reproduction," commented Wierli. "It is one of the leading pro audio brands, recognised throug

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USA - Attending a concert by the Australian Recording Industry Hall of Fame band The Church is described by many as an ethereal experience. That's to be expected from a group whose signature hit is the often-covered and widely acclaimed Under The Milky Way. Currently touring the US in support of their Further/Deeper album, The Church is remaining true to form, taking fans on an otherworldly journey, courtesy of some spacey guitar riffs that blend 12 string acoustics with electric instruments, surreal vocals and a dazzling celestial-like lighting display from Chauvet Professional's Rogue R1 Spot fixtures.

LD Victor Zeiser of Squeek Lights (New York) and lighting director Kirby Naylor are using eight of the LED moving fixtures in their touring rig. The positioning of the Rogue R1 Spots has varied depending on the configuration of the stage in the 25-city plus tour, w

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UK - London's O2 Arena, previously used for the 2012 Summer Olympics, is now a venue of the Rugby World Cup for a duration of seven weeks. For this event, The O2 has transformed into a canvas for the world's largest projection in terms of light output.

No fewer than 96 G-Spot IP65-rated LED moving heads from SGM now adorn the dome's canvas, joining forces with 68 video projectors covering the 1km circumference of the roof. The G-Spots provide a petal-shaped wash while the projectors combine to create a 360° video image. The interactivity of the project enables fans to have their tweets projected onto the venue by using the hashtag #WearTheRose.

This high-profile project is designed by Projection Artworks and the lighting element is designed and programmed by award-winning lighting designer Tim Routledge. HSL Group supplied the SGM G-Spots. Together with MD Simon Stuart, th

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UK - Sennheiser has teamed up with LSi to offer our online readers a chance to win an evolution wireless D1 microphone in a prize draw.

Sennheiser's evolution wireless D1 features automatic frequency management, easy operation and reassuring reliability. It prevents interference, using intelligent channel back-up to allow operation in environments where Wifi and Bluetooth are in use; Up to 15 compatible channels can be sued in the licence-free 2.4GHz frequency band; It is fully automatic: frequency management saves laborious searching for available frequencies; It offers integrated audio effects - equalizer, de-esser and automatic gain control . . .

Visit our Special Offers page to take part in this exclusive offer.

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UK - Aurora Lighting Hire has returned to the studio with award winning lighting director Chris Rigby for the new series of Alan Carr Chatty Man.

Recorded in front of a live audience at the ITV London Studios, Chris has used a variety of light sources across the stage to compliment the stylishly decadent set. Versatility is key throughout the installation, with proceedings staying clear and bright in Alan's sofa area, whilst the audience also remain illuminated. Additionally, a 'rock and roll' approach has been taken to lighting up the weekly musical performances.

To help keep things looking suitably glamorous, Aurora supplied an extensive LED package which has been integrated throughout the interview area. Pulsar Chromabatten 300 and Chromastrip X3s have also been incorporated to light up the set pieces, with Martin Aura Wash units hung overhead to provide additional w

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Spain - The prestigious CERES Awards Ceremony takes place each year in the stunning Roman Theatre of Mérida in Spain - a 2000 year old Roman venue still being used for live theatre productions.

Roland ProAV products have been supporting the event for the past three years but this year was the first time that a full Roland setup was specified with the new M-5000C controlling the monitors and the M-5000 at the heart as the FOH console. The Mérida Theatre has been home to the Festival de Mérida (Festival of Classical Theatre of Mérida) since 1933, the oldest of its kind celebrated in Spain. For the fourth year the CERES Award Ceremony took place at Mérida at the end of the run of ten summer productions at the theatre with the awards presented to those involved.

Mixing the live theatre production, broadcasting live for Spanish television and mixi

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South Africa - A theatrical performance of song and dance infused with African emotion and humour, made Elixir the Musical an absolute delight. The show opened in Mamelodi Community Hall on 19 August, to a large audience who experienced musical theatre in their own community hall.

The official opening was at the Breytenbach Theatre in Sunnyside on the 26 August and formed part of Tshwane University of Technology's Hello Community Theatre Arts Festival, sponsored by City of Tshwane, National Arts Council, Breytenbach Theatre, Blond Productions, MJ Event Gear, Blackmotion, DWR Distribution, Production Projects and 93.6 Tshwane FM.

TUT's Breytenbach Theatre in-house lighting equipment was utilised for the performance and included nine Robe Robin 600LEDWash, two Robe ColorSpot 250, 22 Longman LED PARs, Philips Selecon Pacific Followspot, six Philips Selecon SPX Profiles. Th

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Ghana - Lincoln Community School in the Ghanaian capital of Accra has taken delivery of a new dot2 core console, which will be used to control LED lighting in their multi-purpose hall, which is utilised for various sporting activities as well as to stage productions and general events.

Lincoln's high school drama and film studies teacher Iain Cowieson was searching for a company to deliver and install a new lighting system for the hall, and discovered DWR Distribution, MA Lighting's South African distributor, based in Johannesburg, on the internet. DWR technical African sales representative Johnny Scholtz just happened to be in Accra working on another project when the office received the call, so was able to visit immediately and access the situation.

He met Iain and the school's chief procurement officer Anthony Quainoo, who discussed their needs and invited him to propose a

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UK - Bristol-based technical solutions company Fineline provided lighting for four main music performance areas at the 2015 Somersault festival, a five day extravaganza of music, fun, food, discussion, debate and outdoor adventure located amidst the heart of South West England, in the picturesque environs of Castle Hill country estate near the north Devon coastline.

It was the second year that Fineline has been involved as a production supplier, following their very successful introduction to the event last year via Andy Cotton of TAO Productions. This year, the scope of their work was lighting the Main Stage, The Communion Stage, the Forrest Party non-stop dance experience and the Bandstand.

The Main Stage was 15m wide and housed in a tensile structure with no room to build a ground support system, so a grid had to be constructed between a triangular structure upstage and a b

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UK - TSG Policing's first major contract saw the company play a pivotal part in keeping the 600-acre, 200,000 capacity Great Dorset Steam Fair safe this month.

Brought in by the event's operations director, Julian Hubbuck, late in the planning process, TSG built a fast, fluid relationship with Dorset Police. The company's skill set, developed by a former senior training officer for the Met, clearly distinguished its role from conventional show security.

Over the Steam Fair's five days, TSG worked on a number of operations with the local force, cutting the event's impact on core policing off-site and serving as a testament to its capacity to deliver a viable, cost-efficient policing alternative.

Julian Hubbuck comments, "I was looking for enhanced response cover and TSG provided a very competent, highly trained solution."

TSG director, David Boswell, says, "M

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