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USA - Felix Lighting helped Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) celebrate its 20th anniversary with a large complement of Clay Paky lighting fixtures at its flagship Las Vegas Motor Speedway venue.

EDC is one of the biggest electronic dance music festivals in the world. The June 2016 Las Vegas event drew more than 400,000 revellers to three days of the top EDM DJs, carnival rides, art and circus-style performances.

La Mirada, California-based Felix Lighting was the lighting vendor for EDC's Kinetic Field, North America's largest scenic stage, for the third consecutive year. Felix Lighting has participated in EDC almost since its inception.

Felix Lighting hung 96 Clay Paky Sharpys onstage. "There were eight wings on the set piece, four to each side, and Sharpys were on the edge of every wing in quantities from seven to eleven," Karol says. "We also had some Sharpys on the flo

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USA - Beauty is big business in Florida, a state that follows pageants with a level of interest that is unmatched in all but a few places in the US. This year's edition of the Miss Florida pageant generated over $1m for host city Fort Lauderdale.

Recognizing the significance of the event, Abbas Ritscher of cross rental house The Design Oasis and lighting designer Charles Brennan wanted to create new and extra dynamic looks for the 2017 Miss Florida Pageant, which drew a sold-out crowd to the 1,167-seat Parker Playhouse. At the same time, they had to be mindful of budget and the relatively small size of the stage where the televised pageant took place. Taken together, these factors led to the selection of the Rogue R1 FX-B as a central fixture in their rig.

"We had 10 of the Rogue R1 FX-B fixtures in the rig, but to look at the lightshow, you would have thought there were m

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USA - The 2016 annual high school graduation ceremony for the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) - an online public community school- was staged at the Schottenstein Centre in Columbus, Ohio, where around 12,000 people watched more than 1,300 students graduate.

Lighting the event was Zachary Durban, who used 80 x Robe BMFL WashBeams and 28 Pointes supplied by Cincinnati area based Loud and Clear which delivered the event's technical production.

Zach regularly works with Loud and Clear as an LD and programmer, bringing his vast experience working on rock shows, theatre productions and corporates to a crossover event like ECOT. Shane Fisher, production and sales manager from Loud and Clear pitched an initial concept for the ECOT event, which he and Zach jointly developed into the production design for the show.

Loud and Clear produced the show for the first time las

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Chart Topper - The debut album from Viola Beach - the British band killed in a car crash in February - looks set to reach number one in the album chart. All four members of the band and their manager Craig Tarry died when their car plunged into a canal in Sweden. The Official Charts Company said Viola Beach's self-titled album was leading the chart by around 6,000 sales.

In June, Coldplay paid tribute to Viola Beach at Glastonbury by performing the band's song Boys That Sing as part of their headline slot on the Pyramid Stage. This week's official chart will be revealed on Friday.

Cats Criticised - British singer Leona Lewis has failed to impress critics in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway revival of Cats. The former X Factor winner was given the leading role of Grizabella after Nicole Scherzinger pulled out days before rehearsals were due to star

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USA - The Audio Engineering Society will celebrate the rich history of professional audio through a series of Historical Track presentations at the 141st International AES Convention in Los Angeles. Taking place Thursday, 29 September 29 - Sunday, 2 October 2, 2016, at the Los Angeles Convention Centre, AES Los Angeles will offer sessions covering the innovative and interesting histories of iconic recording studios, acoustics and technology design, sound reinforcement of historical events and more, curated by Historical Events chair Mark Gander of Hrman Professional Solutions..

AES Los Angeles Historical Events sessions are slated to include:

Political Audio: Sound for Past and Recent Presidential Debates and Conventions - A panel of industry professionals with first-hand experience working on past and present presidential events will come together to discuss the so

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USA - Held on the eve of the Kentucky Derby, Unbridled Eve pairs a VIP cocktail reception and dinner with live entertainment provided by celebrity musical artists. Located annually inside the Galt House Hotel Grand Ballroom, Marcus Cambron and his team at Visual Productions have been creating the evening's production design over the last 18 years working with a number of event sponsors. Knowing this year the organizers wanted to capitalize on the performance capabilities of LED video, Cambron turned to Nashville-based PixelFLEX who provided him with FLEXCurtain HD LED video technology to create an energetic and dynamic visual experience.

"Every year at this event our production design changes a little bit to keep the show engaging for the guests, and so this year we really wanted to use LED video to give the show a new look," says Cambron. "I first used the PixelFLEX technolog

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USA - Moapa Paiute Travel Plaza, located on Moapa Paiute tribal land less than an hour from the Las Vegas strip, has a 10,000sq.ft tent housing one of the largest collections of fireworks in the western US. It is also home to a "launch pad" located on a broad expanse of remote desert land, where customers can engage in pyrotechnic pursuits.

This Fourth of July, the plaza's fireworks were not the only things illuminating the sky at this unique plaza. Along with marvelling at the glare of multi-coloured rockets, the more than 70,000 fans who attended the Moapa Madness festival got to witness an intensely bright lightshow that included a collection of Chauvet Professional LED fixtures supplied by Kilroy's Lighting & Production.

Lighting designer Steven Brody used these fixtures to wash the stage at Moapa Madness, a two-day Fourth of July celebration that featured a nonstop pr

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World - Ovation of the Seas took its maiden voyage in April as the third Quantum class luxury cruise liner from Royal Caribbean International to feature an onboard Elation Professional lighting and video system. It follows the successful launch of Quantum of the Seas and Anthem of the Seas, both of which sail with a full complement of energy-efficient Elation Professional products.

Ovation of the Seas boasts the same lighting and video package template as the previous two Quantum class ships, says Christopher Vlassopulos, superintendent SLVR & architectural lighting for Royal Caribbean International. Christopher coordinated the design and specification for all the entertainment equipment in all three Quantum class ships' public spaces, including the entertainment lighting systems.

Christopher specified and designed lighting for the entertainment spaces on Ovation of the Se

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Norway - Stormen Concert House, the new home of the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra, has added a d:facto Vocal Microphone to its extensive stock of DPA microphones - all of which are regularly used for both recording and amplification purposes.

The new d:facto Vocal Microphone, which was supplied with a handle and an adapter to fit the concert hall's Shure wireless system, is proving so popular with visiting singers that Stormen is hoping to add more in the near future.

Located in the Norwegian town of Bod°, Stormen Concert Hall was designed by British architects DRDH and officially opened in November 2014. It replaces an older venue that was only ever intended as a temporary solution, although it actually stood for 23 years before the new building was commissioned. The concert hall has three different auditoria - a main hall with 940 seats, a small hall with 240 seats a

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Peru - The new Clay Paky Scenius Spot has landed in South America for the first time and is dubbed 'fixture of choice' by prolific lighting designer Mario Raez in the Peruvian staging of jukebox classic Mamma Mia! at the Teatro Peruano Japones in Lima.

Raez is the first lighting designer in South America to put the Scenius Spot through its paces, employing six of the units in his show. "These are great fixtures," says Raez, "Once I became familiar with their features and what they could do most of my design rested on them."

Raez was particularly impressed with the fixture's linear CTO filter, using it to recreate the light of the Adriatic coast where the production is set. "I have been a lighting designer for 30 years and the CTO in the Clay Paky Scenius Spot is one of the best I have ever seen," he states.

"The brief was to keep the lighting and stage design as

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USA - API reports that Loyola Marymount University is the most recent higher education facility to commission an API Legacy Plus console.

The custom 32 channel Legacy Plus will feature in LMU's Recording Arts programme, which focuses on production, post production, live sound, and music recording. The new console will familiarize LMU Recording Arts students with analog signal flow, preparing them for world class recording environments they are likely to encounter after they graduate. LMU students will be able to utilize the Legacy Plus this coming fall semester.

"We're proud to play a role in LMU's Recording Arts program," said API managing director Gordon Smart. "We're convinced that truly understanding signal flow while working with top quality analogue audio is an unbeatable combination."

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Blue Man Group, the performance company that has won an Obie, a Drama Desk and a Grammy Award nomination for its eccentric, percussive ruminations on the human condition, has popular productions in New York, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Berlin and Orlando. One of the most highly attended has been in Orlando, where the production has been performing at the Blue Man Group Theatre at CityWalk at the Universal Orlando Resort since 2007.

Most recently, that venue upgraded its sound system to an L-Acoustics Kara system, provided by Clearwing Productions' Phoenix office. The system upgrade in Orlando follows one in Las Vegas, which saw an L-Acoustics K2 rig installed at Blue Man Group's new home at the Luxor Hotel and Casino.

"The Kara system has been an excellent move for Orlando," says Blue Man Group sound supervisor Marcus Ross, who is responsible for Blue Man Group's aud

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USA - Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas is the holy grail of EDM events and America's largest dance music festival. This year, Insomniac Events organized a spectacular 20th anniversary celebration that included a newly designed and expanded Circuit Grounds stage lit with a lighting package that incorporated nearly 850 Elation Professional LED luminaires.

Held June 17-19 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the larger Circuit Ground Stage featured a massive 240,000 square foot arena-style stage with surrounding structures and accommodated twice as many people as previous years.

The 360-degree immersive design featured huge LED screen-topped structures, towers and bridges, along with the lighting and video to support it, the creation of production and lighting designer Steve Lieberman of SJ Lighting.

Hundreds of Elation Professional Colour Chorus 72 LED batten wash lights

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USA - When the two National Conventions were held to select the Presidential candidates for the Republican and Democratic parties, Powersoft was on hand to electrify the events.

First of all, 84 of Powersoft's K10 amplifiers occupied prime position in Cleveland during a whirlwind four-day event which saw Donald Trump formally capture the Republican party presidential nomination.

A little more than a week later, and across the country in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic party's nomination to run for President and again Powersoft was on hand to amplify proceedings in front of 4,700 delegates, who cast their ballots at the Democratic National Convention. This time 104 K10's were deployed.

These events marked the start of the U.S. general election, and for such historically and legally significant events, audio intelligibility was the paramount technic

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Germany - Allen & Heath's dLive digital mixing system was recently selected to manage FOH duties at the 58th annual Bad Gandersheim outdoor theatre festival in Germany.

More than 50,000 visitors attended the event, which is staged every summer against the backdrop of the town's historic church. For the third consecutive year, AV requirements were managed by Light-house G

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UK - The Pendragon Multi Sensory Centre in Northallerton, a specialist centre charged with making real differences to the lives of those with physical, mental and emotional difficulties, opened its doors for the first time on 4 July 2016.

The new multi-sensory centre is owned and operated by the Pendragon Community Trust, formed by a group of parents and carers together with other compassionate and committed professionals. Their aim is to fill the gap in day service provision for people with learning and profound disabilities, by providing a stimulating range of therapeutic and developmental activities.

The centre is dominated by a double height sensory area that combines stunning sound and light effects with specialist equipment such as bubble tubes, a ball pool and soft slide. The design and fit-out of the Centre was split between special needs company Mike Ayres Design

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USA - Held in downtown Hartford's Bushnell Park, the Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz festival takes place in the shadow of Connecticut's castle-like white marble state capital building with its glittering 257' high golden dome. The leafy park setting, evocative building and live music provide a special festival venue. On three nights in July, this scene was enhanced by the vibrant richly coloured images displayed on three large video walls created by Image Production Services, using Chauvet Professional MVP Ta8 panels.

The video walls served more than an aesthetic function. Given the large size of the crowds at this event (the 17th most popular jazz festival in the US and the biggest in New England) and the layout of the park, which was not designed specifically for large concerts, the video walls provided many of the 70,000 fans who turned out with their best view of the pe

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UK - As part of the Barclaycard presents British Summer Time Hyde Park series of live shows, Take That played a one-off outdoor show.

With the main stage lighting and rigging set-up supplied by PRG XL Video, lighting designer Tim Routledge was asked to provide a customised lighting design for the Take That show. He contacted PRG XL's director Music Group, Yvonne Donnelly Smith to supply over 450 additional fixtures to supplement the main rig.

He explains the brief behind his design, "The show was aimed to be a full celebration of summer festivals in Britain; from classical picnics in the park to Glastonbury, and everything in between. The band are well known for embracing production elements to make a full cohesive show and this one off show was to be no exception."

With budget in mind, and focusing on delivering the kind of show Take That are renowned for, Tim opted t

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USA - Eighth Day Sound, headquartered in Highland Heights, Ohio, with offices in London, Sydney and Los Angeles, has taken delivery of an additional 120 Adamson E-Series and 72 S-Series loudspeakers. The purchase is designed to meet the growing demand for Adamson sound reinforcement systems world-wide.

"The reason we decided to add more Adamson loudspeakers to our rental inventory is that we have found that world-wide marketplace acceptance and demand for the E-Series continues to grow," explains Jack Boessneck, executive vice president Eighth Day Sound. "It seems that every engineer that uses the system becomes an instant fan."

Eighth Day Sound became an E-Series partner in 2013 as one of the first sound companies in the States to join the Adamson network. The company added substantially to their inventory during the summer of 2015. This most recent purchase includes S-Se

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UK - Maestra London was asked to provide technical production and solutions by Quintessentially & Co for an event in Southampton Docks celebrating the relaunch of Cunard Lines' newly refitted and re-mastered flagship transatlantic ocean liner, Queen Mary 2.

A glass fronted marquee with a substantial terrace and panoramic views across the harbour was built along the dock in front of the 345m long vessel. Guests arrived, passed through the passenger terminal entrance and on to the boat, where they received a full tour of the new interiors before entering the marquee to enjoy the event hospitality.

The glass fronted design allowed a magnificent view of the boat and a snapshot into the glory of luxury cruise travel.

Maestra's team was project managed by Aisha Tarayan, Edwin Higgins was technical manager and Adam Jones worked on technical elements across all disciplines inc

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USA - Production company ON Event Services (OES) of Atlanta recently utilized 16 ImageCue servers in Washington D.C. for a long-time client. The event was staged as 'Mission Control' with a 15' x 45' (4.5m x 13.7m) main video screen using four blended Christie 20K HD projectors, six smaller screens with 7K projectors, and fourteen presenter booths each with a 70" flat panel display.

Each booth had its own unique Presenter logo video loop, and was switched to play the opening and closing overall event videos. Normally it would be a difficult challenge to route and switch 16 video sources to 20 different screen surfaces, and require a massive amount of cable. OES utilized 16 of the award-winning ImageCue DMX controlled image servers to play all media, triggered off of a single cue fader from the lighting console on a single DMX universe. This synchronized all video and lighting

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USA - Computer-based testing for the new Portable Power Distribution Technician examination is now available. ETCP needs as many candidates as possible to test by 23 August 2016 to obtain cut-score information on the new examination.

The first 25 candidates to apply will receive a free t-shirt with the new PPDT logo and their name if they receive a passing score. Because this is a new examination, score reports will be delayed during this time.

The ETCP PPDT certification is focused on the large population of industry workers in the roles of technicians, stagehands, portable power set/strike technicians, as well as facility maintenance personnel for a wide variety of venues. This certification targets the top two-thirds of people working with this technology at various types of facilities in the corporate, trade show, outdoor event, theatrical, and motion picture/televisio

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USA - New installations of Meyer Sound CAL column array loudspeakers are delivering clearly intelligible speech along with quality music reproduction in two acoustically problematic worship spaces, with one room also benefiting from a subtle acoustical re-balancing courtesy of a Constellation acoustic system.

Mounted snugly in niches flanking the altar, the custom colour-matched CAL 96 loudspeakers virtually disappear within 19th century Italian Renaissance Revival architecture of Mother of God Catholic Church in Covington, Kentucky providing a boost to the sound quality for the contemporary music.

At Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington D.C., what formerly was an unremarkable meeting and exhibit space has been exquisitely transformed - visually and aurally - into the Redemptor Hominis Chapel. Direct reinforcement of speech and occasional music is supplied by a

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Europe - Osram is expanding its activities in the entertainment sector and has acquired certain assets from ADB TTV SAS to continue its business operations. The acquired business will become an integral part of Osram's subsidiary Clay Paky.

ADB is a French company which specializes in lighting for theatres and TV studios based in Saint Quentin. The transaction was completed on 3 August 2016.

"With the acquisition of ADB TTV SAS' business and the highly reputable ADB brand, we will expand our position in the innovation-driven entertainment lighting market," said Hans-Joachim Schwabe, CEO of Osram's Specialty Lighting business unit.

Originally founded in Belgium in 1920, ADB TTV SAS has held a leading position for decades as a top supplier of lighting solutions for theatre and television studios. The company's product portfolio includes luminaires, dimmers and lighting c

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