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Italy - The famed Salone dei 500 of Palazzo Vecchio has long held great importance for the city of Florence. Measuring 54m long, 23m wide, and 18m high, it is the largest and most important room in terms of artistic and historic value in the old place and the largest room in Italy made for a civil power palace.
Originally built during the Renaissance to host meetings for representatives of the democratic government of the Florentine Republic, or the Great Council of 500, the Salone dei 500 has changed overtime to accommodate every owner of the palace, transforming from a hall commemorating important battles with artworks to be commissioned by the two greatest Florentine artists of the time, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, to the boardroom of the Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, where he received ambassadors and gave audience to the people.
Richly decorated and wildly p

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UK - Switzerland-based Schertler Group has appointed Systems Workshop as UK distributor for its Arthur modular mixer. The Oswestry-based company will act as a showroom and distribution centre for the mixer, which has attracted a steadily growing list of international users during the 12 months since its release.
Arthur offers musicians and engineers a customizable mixing solution for live and studio applications. The mixer’s input and output modules can be assembled in virtually any combination or order, from a basic compact setup with a vocal or instrument preamp and L/R Master, to a DJ / keyboard mixer with stereo inputs for keys and playback devices, right through to a large multi-channel studio configuration with multiple mic and instrument inputs and aux sends. The mixer can be directly connected to a PA system and can be expanded over time as required, or as new modu

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UK - Prolight Concepts Group has taken on exclusive UK distribution of Kuzar Systems, a Spanish company located in Valencia, dedicated to the design, manufacture and distribution of lifters and lifting accessories for the lighting and sound industry.
Designed for the professional user in the event and rental industry, Kuzar lifters are manufactured in Europe to both BGV C1 and CE (2006/42/CE) standards, and are also backed by a two-year warranty. The lifters feature ‘KAT’ locks that offer two positions, one for raising the lifter and the second for locking the lifter while static at height for increased safety.
Each lifter features high quality, AL-KO winches loaded with steel cable and are available in either telescopic vertical lift for truss and lighting fixtures or front-loading for lifting truss and compact line array systems. When not in use the lifters pack

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Germany – Following the overwhelming success of the company’s US-based online shop, ETC has opened a new online merchandise store to serve its followers outside of North America (shop.etcconnect.eu). Launched in response to popular demand, this European venture enables fans to purchase branded ETC items wherever they are in the world.
The new online shop is packed with high quality merchandise, branded with the distinctive ETC logo, including T-shirts, jackets, bags, polo shirts, hoodies and travel mugs. Those in the know will be thrilled to hear they can also get their hands on the much-coveted Source Four USB flash drives, says the company.
“ETC fans in North America can’t seem to get enough of ETC swag and we’ve started to see a similar trend in other regions,” says Rosi Marx, ETC’s European marketing manager. “Our dedicated followers across Europe h

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USA - Although the recent total eclipse of the sun dominated headlines another celestial-themed event also attracted crowds in August. Moonrise, the annual EDM festival held at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course, drew fans to its four stages where an array of Claypaky fixtures supported a line-up of DJs, bands and rappers.
Moonrise 2017, which grew out of the Starscape rave in Baltimore, marked its fourth year at the Pimlico location. It ran from noon to 11 pm on 12 1nd 13 August. David Hauss, of Denver-based Hauss Collective, served as production designer and production coordinator, designing the festival and handling production management for the fan-filled weekend. Light Action Productions in New Castle, Delaware was the lighting vendor.
Hauss tailored the lighting rigs to meet the needs of each of the four stages. The Stellar Stage exclusively hosted D

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UK - Sheffield based Bring Me the Horizon (BMTH) embarked on their first arena tour of the UK in the latter part of 2016. The tour came in the wake of a year of successes for the band, during which they released a fifth LP That’s The Spirit and played just before Metallica on the main stage at the Reading and Leeds Festivals.
Kicking off at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena, the tour represented the band’s largest gig to date. It saw other live shows played in Birmingham’s Barclaycard Arena, London’s O2, Sheffield Motorpoint Arena, and Manchester Arena, before wrapping up at Glasgow SSE Hydro.
d&b has long been a fixture at BMTH gigs, with the technology a favourite of front of house engineer Oliver Hutchinson – particularly the subs and the overall high quality of sound delivered.
“I am a huge fan of d&b and would happily never use anot

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USA - The deadline for ordering 2017 Behind the Scenes Holiday Cards is just one week away. These cards were created especially for Behind the Scenes and are a great way to spread holiday cheer while bringing help and hope to your colleagues in need. The order deadline is 29 September - so place your order now at www.behindthescenescharity.org/holidaycards!
Three card ordering options are offered: personalised cards with a company logo and custom message, card packs of 10 with a standard greeting, and electronic versions for delivery by email. All proceeds benefit the Behind the Scenes charity which provides financial assistance to entertainment technology professionals who are seriously ill or injured.
This year’s designs are particularly evocative of the season and include the work of four students - Taylor Brooks, William Gerton, Delayne Henderson, and Cassidy Wo

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UK - Free to attend, the d&b Software and system fundamentals workshop covers all you need to know about the d&b workflow and system basics. Realising the best sound possible is unimaginable without the d&b software toolkit, a key component in the planning, optimization and control of any d&b system.
With a focus on the d&b software programmes, ArrayCalc for simulation, and R1 for remote control, the workshop is completely dedicated to the workflow methodology. Beginning with ArrayCalc, the session will guide you through the steps for simulating line array or point source systems, opening your project data in the intuitive R1user interface, and finally sending all relevant settings to the d&b amplifiers - with just a few clicks of the mouse.
The dates are: Tuesday 10 October – Dublin, Thursday 12 October – Belfast and Wednesday 25 October

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Europe - This month Metallica begins an extended European tour, shredding the continent through May 2018. While the music is Metallica’s own brand of traditional metal, lighting technology and control has come a long way since Metallica’s first gigs. The tour uses 50 Solaris Flare LED fixtures, and DMX distribution based around four ProPlex IQ Two 1616 Ethernet-DMX nodes, all supplied by Premier Global Production (PGP) of Nashville, Tennessee.
“The Flares are used 99% of the time for blasting the crowd,” says Geddy, PGP’s design manager. “Located atop the main centre cube structure and cable bridges, we’re hitting the audience all night with whites and saturated colours. About one-fifth of the Flares are the new brighter Q+ version, which we find mix perfectly with the original Flares.
“The Q+ Flares can be calibrated to match the earlier generation uni

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USA - Located in Downtown Jacksonville, Florida, Daily’s Place is an outdoor amphitheatre connected to the south end of EverBank Field football stadium, and shares space with a "flex field" indoor practice facility for the Jacksonville Jaguars. As a multipurpose venue, the ability to ensure quality sound throughout the space was a crucial consideration for facility management. To address this challenge, loudspeakers from the Artec-300 series and HQ series product groups of Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio were placed into service.
Florida Sound Engineering Co, also of Jacksonville, FL, provides AV design, installation, and service of commercial audio and video systems for churches, theatres, ballrooms, stadiums, and other facilities. The company was contracted to install the new sound reinforcement system at Daily’s Place. Neil Cooper, senior project manager, handles s

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UK - Adlib supplied sound, lighting and rigging to two main arenas at Creamfields 2017 - CF03 (Armada / Mega) and CF05 ‘The Curve” - plus CF10, the all-important VIP and hospitality area.
The four-day festival was staged at its regular site on the Daresbury Estate near Warrington. Adlib was working directly for creative production specialist LarMac LIVE.
On site, the Adlib crews were led by Hassane Es Siahi (Hass) who also designed the audio in CF03 and Adlib’s Kevin Byatt who was project manager over all of the disciplines.
CF03 (this year co-hosted by Armada and Mega) is a large tent built on a slope presenting immediate topographical challenges in getting even sound coverage. Added to this, the tent skins were swagged - hammock style - over the king poles, creating further reflections, so dealing with the sonic detractions involved conscientious detailin

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Poland - Robe Actor 6 and PARFect 100 LED fixtures are installed as part of the architectural lighting at the Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw, one of the most significant Roman Catholic buildings in the country.
The Temple is in the final throes of construction bringing to fruition an idea that was first inspired in 1791 - shortly after the adoption of Poland’s first constitution.
The building project got properly underway in the trendy developing Wilanów district in the south of the Polish capital in 2002 - designed by architects Wojciech and Lech Szymborski.
Its capacious interiors – based on an 84m square base with four entrances - and imposing 60m high reinforced concrete columns that form the nave, culminate in a rotunda gallery and a central glass dome at the top, all making high visual impact and defining the space.
The pale coloured rend

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UK - The 40th anniversary of the PLASA Show saw its refocussed direction paying dividends, with an increase in visitor numbers, a sold-out show floor and a 25% increase in the number of audio companies exhibiting. Exhibitors reported continually busy stands and a high quality of visitor across all three days, with a particular increase in the number of international attendees, whilst visitors were pleased with the number of brand new products on show and the content rich seminar programme.
“The quality of the people was bang on,” says Mick Hannaford from the show’s platinum sponsor, Robe. “The amazing thing from our point of view was the amount of lighting designers attending, especially on the Sunday, and not just from the UK, but mainland Europe, too. It was a really impressive. Undoubtedly, the move back to West London is making that happen. Every time I looked, t

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UK - This month’s London Design Festival 2017 sees the global launch of Tord Boontje’s new collection of chandelier and crystal lighting components, designed exclusively for Swarovski Crystal Palace in his 15th year of collaboration with Swarovski. The installation includes a highly innovative soundscape which was created in collaboration with sound artist Manabu Shimada and is presented via a surround sound system provided by Yamaha.
Yamaha audio equipment is bringing the unique interactive sound design to life. Visitors and people around the globe can tweet to alter the composition of the music by using one of the following hashtags on Twitter to change the soundscape: #crystal #light #reflection #water #swarovskicrystalpalace #tordboontje
The installation is accompanied by a quadrophonic, surround soundscape, delivered by four Yamaha VXS3F loudspeakers and a VX

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UK - Canadian pop megastar Justin Bieber’s Purpose world tour made just two stops in the UK during 2017, one of which was a sold-out show at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium in June which drew ‘Beliebers’ from throughout the UK and Europe.
London-based Capital Sound Hire were the audio contractors for the event and supplied a bespoke system design using Outline’s flagship GTO family of products designed by Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Perreux, who already had the Cardiff stadium stored in his OpenArray acoustic measurement files. Capital had of course worked frequently at the stadium before with major pop acts including Take That, and a last-minute decision to close the roof did not necessitate major changes to the basic system design.
The main and side hangs comprised 15 of the 2x15-inch GTO elements with one GTO-DF down-fill at the bottom of each hang, in add

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USA - Country music fans got a glimpse of the future on a warm August Georgia night at the Lady Antebellum Pavilion. There on stage, performing solos and as a group, were six budding talents visiting from Nashville. Having written hits for some of country’s biggest names like Luke Byran and Florida Georgia Line, the sextet was there to chase the dream, as performers. Supporting them with some colourful, evocative star-worthy looks was a John Berret designed lightshow that utilized 35 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by Quest Sound & Productions.
“People familiar with country music know that quite a few stars got their starts writing music for established artists,” said Berret. “The musical talent on stage was pretty awesome. My goal was to give them a look that reflected their talent as well as their potential. I wanted to evoke the stardom yet to come.”<

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Germany - Ahead of the Sturmfahrt tour to promote their new album, hardcore fans of Eisbnrecher (Icebreaker) flocked to their own festival under the name Volle Kraft Voraus ‘Full Force Ahead). Billed as Eisbrecher and Friends, the band invited artists like Lord of the Lost, Combichrist and And She Came into the Ratiopharm Arena in Neu-Ulm to join them for the occasion.
Rain Age was technical service provider for the high-profile event, while LD Martin Heining is also one of the long-time associates of Eisbrecher. "I've been supporting them for a long time and am responsible for the set and lighting design as well as for the special effects at the shows,” he reports. “It was only logical to work together with them on this festival as well.” In fact, it is becoming almost a full-time job for Heining, because the upcoming Sturmfahrt tour and his commitment to VNV Nation

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UK - Philips Lighting has announced that its support of London's Arcola Theatre in staging the popular Grimeborn opera festival helped the venue with its ambition to become carbon neutral. At the same time, the lighting rig also providing lighting designers with a dynamic, beautiful and consistent quality of light.
Arcola Theatre aims to become the world's first carbon neutral theatre, so being able to use low-energy, high-quality LED stage lighting fixtures from Philips Entertainment Lighting contributed a significant advantage to the production of Grimeborn. Arcola estimates that the inclusion of Philips Lighting's LED technology in the Grimeborn lighting rig delivered a 36% power-saving.
Philips Selecon PLprofiles and Philips SL BAR wash lights augmented Arcola's existing lighting equipment. "This dramatically reduced our power consumption," say

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UAE - You can't miss the latest attraction at The Dubai Mall: the new curved video wall above the Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo measures a stunning 700sq.m with 1.7 billion pixels on 820 OLED displays. Behind the scenes, you'll find Dataton's award-winning Watchout multi-display production and playback system, Watchnet manager software and Watchpax 4 servers delivering high-resolution content for the mall's estimated 80 million visitors.
The new video wall at The Dubai Mall, unveiled by Emaar Entertainment in August 2017, takes digital signage into a whole new realm and has already earned a hat-trick of records, in partnership with LG: largest OLED screen, highest resolution video wall and largest high-definition video wall.
Dataton’s Watchout multi-display system and compact Watchpax4 media servers handle content production and delivery, while LG’s flexible

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Poland - Clarity and transparency were the key reasons why sound engineer Tomasz Klimkiewicz chose DPA microphones when he was recently tasked with amplifying a series of concerts featuring traditional Polish Lenten cantos.
“I didn’t want the true sound of the instruments to change in any way,” Klimkiewicz says. “For example, the drums had been tuned by the drummer and I wanted the microphones to capture that exact sound. I chose DPA because I knew that their microphones were capable of delivering the clarity I was looking for.”
Entitled For Every Soul, the concerts featured unconventional arrangements of Lenten cantos that, while not as well-known as Christmas carols, are equally rich in beautiful and poignant melodies.
With a project of such emotional intensity, Klimkiewicz was keen to keep the aesthetics as clean as possible by not allowing t

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South Africa - To cater for theatre productions Priscilla Queen of the Desert (South Africa & Hong Kong Season), The Sound of Music (Asian tour 2017/18) and Evita (South African & Asian tour 2017/18), South African based Gearhouse Splitbeam, a theatre equipment rental company, has invested in 90 additional Prolyft motors and six controllers supplied by DWR Distribution. Alistair Kilbee is the managing director of Splitbeam and writes on his experience with the brand and why he went this route.
“I have always liked the Prolyft brand and this purchase made sense as we already had a stock holding of 57 Prolyft motors (1 Ton & ¼ Ton). The new acquisition, consisting of 85 Prolyte Prolyft Aetos 1 Ton and five Prolyte Prolyft Aetos 2 Ton, all in cases, along with six Aetos Pro range low voltage 8-way control, fits in nicely with our current stoc

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UK - SLX has announced the launch of its new student bursary scheme. The scheme is aimed at second and third year lighting design, technical and event management students across England and Wales, providing five successful candidates with equipment, support and opportunities throughout the academic year.
SLX has supported and sponsored students in many ways through its history, employing student casuals, offering sponsorships and apprenticeships across the business.
Jo Sunners, business development manager at SLX describes the inspiration behind the scheme: “We’ve decided after a few months of consulting with drama schools and industry professionals to launch a new way of supporting the next generation of talent in our industry, something myself and SLX are extremely passionate about. I’m really excited to work with and support the successful applicants in the

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UAE - Dubai Opera, located in what is claimed to be 'the most prestigious square kilometre in the world' in Downtown Dubai, has recently purchased 37 x Claypaky A.leda B-EYE K10s as part of a technical upgrade to the event space's lighting rigs.
Dubai Opera is considered a masterpiece of contemporary architecture. The 'dhow-shaped' building, designed by architect Janus Rostock, houses a flexible, 1900-seat venue which can be transformed into a theatre, concert hall or 'flat-floor' event space.
"Dubai Opera is a first-rate venue and we present and produce top-quality performances," explains Geoffrey Wheel, technical director of Dubai Opera. "Our audiences expect a high standard, and as such we always strive to be the best. We therefore invest in the very best equipment and this is demonstrated in our stake in the Claypaky brand. Its products are of an excellent quality."

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Europe - Depeche Mode’s Global Spirit Tour sees the band crossing the globe in support of Spirit, their 14th studio album. During the European leg alone, the boys will play to 1.5m fans in 32 cities in 21 countries. And at each venue a pair of Hippotizer Boreal Media Servers will provide the technology required to manage the show’s video playback.
SRae Productions, the full-service design and production company owned by Sooner Routhier and Robert Long, takes charge of the tour lighting direction for Anton Corbijn’s production design. Commenting on the Global Spirit Tour, Sooner described some of the duties she and her team demand of the Hippotizer gear: “For Depeche Mode, the Hippotizer is a playback machine. We used the system for IMAG effects on the rear wall. We also used the colour block system in some way, shape or form. We trace the screens to give them
  1. MA service training for DWR technical team
  2. Hawthorn at the double at Norfolk Showground
  3. SJP creates forest of light with ChamSys
  4. Nexo line array at cultural heart of Tahiti
  5. Tromsø's KulturHuset chooses Alcons LR18
  6. Undefeated! The PAL Label Challenge at PLASA 2017
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