Installation

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USA - Oxford, Ala.-based Sound Solutions recently completed the first house worship installation of the new Electro-Voice EVA compact line array at Centre of Hope Church in Anniston, Ala.

EVA was selected to upgrade the sanctuary sound system at Centre of Hope, to better serve the church's steadily growing congregation and meet the needs of its weekly services and in-house Christian rock band.

"The space is about 90ft wide by 120ft deep, and seats around 1,000 people," says Joey Hutto of Sound Solutions, "and contains some quite reflective surfaces, including a tile floor, a small balcony, and a metal ceiling. We needed to provide the sonic power and intelligibility they needed, along with highly controlled coverage and long throw; we also wanted to avoid the added expense of delays. Line array was the obvious answer, and our EV Rep Steve Land (EDA Pro Group) to

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Taiwan - Fantasy Sound International and Proel have provided the sound at Kaohsiung Arena, which will be one of main stadiums for World Games 2009.

Located in the Kaohsiung City in south Taiwan and constructed in 1998, Kaohsiung Arena is one of the biggest domes in Taiwan. Currently occupying an area of 56,000sq.m, the multifunctional sports arena has a seating capacity of 15,000.

On 28 September 2008, the Kaohsiung Arena was officially opened after a lievely traditional Chinese Lion-Dance and all the guests saw the Proel Speakers making their debut at the Arena.

The City Mayoress, Ms. Chen welcomed all the guests in the grand opening ceremony and stated, "This arena will be a place not only for sports but also for concerts, speeches and even arts exhibitions in the near future. Apart from that, the sound system in this building is terrific."

Proel Sound Reinforc

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UK - On Wednesday 14 October the Royal Albert Hall will open the doors to a new venue, the transformed Elgar Room.

The Elgar Room will now incorporate built in technical facilities and the flexibility to "match any event requirement". From late night and intimate gigs to after show parties, comedy nights, cabaret and theatre performances, the redesign has created a versatile room in which a variety of events can be accommodated. The new room already has a number of events lined up to take place ranging from after show parties for Elton John and Monty Python's Not The Messiah to a comedy night with Patrick Monahan and the next instalment of the Royal Albert Hall's HUSH series.

The £1million renovation sees the original floor to ceiling windows restored as the room's raised flooring is removed to create one large space - increasing its maximum capacity to

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Polished Performance - Sir David Attenborough brought the 115th BBC Proms season to a close on Saturday night by playing a floor polisher as a musical instrument. Sir David was joined on stage at the Royal Albert Hall in London by pianist Stephen Hough on the vacuum cleaner. Comedian Rory Bremner also took part in the performance of Sir Malcolm Arnold's piece A Grand, Grand Overture. The eight-minute work has parts for two other vacuum cleaners, four rifles, an organ a and full orchestra.

For the first time, the Proms finale was screened via satellite to cinemas on every continent of the world. The BBC said the two-month classical music festival had been the most successful yet with a 32% increase in under-16s attending. Proms director Roger Wright said the event had included "outstanding and inspiring music-making".

Goodnight Vienna - The tribute conce

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Sweden - More than 50 vessels have sailed in the fleets of the Viking shipping companies since regular ferry traffic began in the Baltic Sea in 1959. Today, Viking Line's award-winning fleet of seven vessels, with an eighth under construction, combines the luxury of modern cruise ships with high-capacity vehicle decks. Viking Line has been using Lab.gruppen amplifiers for almost 15 years and has just added a further 10 4-channel C Series amplifiers to their inventory which are to be installed into the new vessel.

Viking Line has become one of Lab.gruppen's best customers for C Series amplifiers, due in large part to the enthusiasm for the brand of Viking Line's AV Coordinator, Jouni Sironen, and his 16-strong team of technicians. The total inventory across the six ships currently fitted with Lab.gruppen and the new vessel to be delivered in early 2010 numbers around 200 and incr

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The Netherlands - This summer, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the Dutch Royal Family unveiled the Hermitage Amsterdam, a multimillion-dollar museum complex designed to bring awareness to its world-famous parent in St Petersburg.

Transformed from a 17th century nursing home, Hermitage Amsterdam fuses aesthetic elegance with modern audio technology to offer a heightened experience as visitors journey through the remarkable art collection of Russian heritage. Using Meyer Sound's compact loudspeakers, Duivendrecht-based audio provider Audio Electronics Mattijsen (AEM) has given life to a pristine aural environment while preserving the architectural integrity in Hermitage Amsterdam's main church hall, auditorium, and ambient Neva Restaurant.

"The Hermitage is an exceptionally dynamic and interactive gathering place," says Eric Mattijsen, CTO and system designer at

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Spain - Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) promoter, Bellator Fighting Championships commenced broadcasting nationally in the United States as of April 2009 through an exclusive television agreement with Spanish language sports channel ESPN Deportes. Ballator's championship fights are also broadcast to countries around the world through a collection of broadcast agreements. The surge in interest has resulted in Bellator's events being televised every Saturday from a variety of locations around the US and for every event, the sound reinforcement system of choice is drawn from D.A.S. Audio's Aero catalogue.

Miami Gardens, FL-based Beach Sound was contracted to provide sound reinforcement for the Bellator Fighting Championships. With its existing inventory already committed to a variety of tours, the contract with Bellator prompted Beach Sound owner Andre Serafini to invest in a new line arr

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UK - Promoting the understanding and appreciation of British film and television for over 75 years, the British Film Institute's (BFI) screening facilities in London are some of the best in the world. And, having recently added a Yamaha DME64N digital mixing engine to its technical inventory, it has taken a major step towards future-proofing the integrity of its audio facilities.

The DME is installed at the BFI Southbank facility (formerly the National Film Theatre), which screens over 1,000 films a year and caters for a wide variety of film formats, including being the only public cinema in the UK still permitted to show the potentially hazardous nitrate film.

The BFI prides itself on the quality of its screenings. "Cinema is about the whole experience," says freelance cinema consultant / technician Ed Mauger, who plays a key role at the facility. "The prints o

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USA - Design and consulting firm Arup is expanding its theatre consulting business with the appointment of Robert Young. As senior theatre consultant, he will lead West Coast theatre design operations from Arup's Los Angeles office.

The team, led by David Taylor and Jim Niesel, is currently involved in developing projects across the US and abroad. These include the Sydney Opera House Western Venues renovation, the development of a theatre for Baryshnikov and The Wooster Group, the re-development of the Minneapolis Northrop Auditorium and a unique music recording and performance venue in Willamsburg, Brooklyn.

David Taylor, leader of Arup's Arts and Culture business in the Americas said. "Rob is a respected member of the theatre community. His presence within our regional team and energetic leadership in Los Angeles is another step in the global growth of our expert practi

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India - Following the success of his revolutionary design and installation in matter, the super club located in London's O2 Arena, Dave Parry is now returning to India to set up a sister company, Most Technical India, with his two new business partners: ex-Avolites and event organiser Isa Sapin and Indian entrepreneur and promoter Arjun Bahl.

With a reputation for visionary ideas and ground-breaking innovations, Most Technical India will be providing a unique design and specification service for the emerging Indian market. Most Technical has already designed some of the best nightclubs in the world such as Fabric and Matter in London, and Elevate in Delhi.

The current projects are in Mumbai with the soon-to-be-opened Comedy Store and in Hyderabad, South India, where Most Technical India is currently designing a nightclub in one of the boutique hotels owned by Apeejay Surrendra

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UK - Offering views over the city, London restaurant Galvin at Windows (on the 28th floor of the London Park Lane Hilton) opened in May 2006.

With chef Chris Galvin at the helm, the restaurant quickly became one of the most talked about in London, as patrons either headed right into the restaurant or left into the elegant cocktail bar on exiting the lift.

However, the one aspect of the bar's infrastructure that was found wanting was the sound system, and in due course general manager Fred Sirieix decided that in order to complete the perfect atmosphere this would need to be upgraded. "The old ceiling speaker system was not sufficiently powerful for our private events and there were 'pockets' where there was no coverage," he said.

Sirieix had worked with the Sound Division Group in a previous guise - back in his days as general manager of another London bar/restaura

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UK - Built in 1844, and the third oldest Roman Catholic church in Belfast, St. Malachy's has been dramatically redeveloped, with between £3.5m- £4m committed to the restoration of the brickwork and plasterwork, complete with marble altar, mosaic floor and magnificent 'wedding cake' fan-vaulted ceiling.

Closed for 15 months while the renovation was carried out, when parishioners returned they also found a new QSC sound system, which they discovered not only blended in with the white aesthetic but delivered an intelligibility which they had not imagined possible.

A pair of white polystyrene AcousticDesign AD-S282Hs, yoke-mounted vertically onto the sanctuary walls on either side of the altar, provide the dispersion for both the gallery and ground floor seating tiers, while a pair of outfacing high-output AD-S82H speakers (using the IntelliDock intelligent mounting sy

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Malaysia - FBT's Modus and Verve Speakers have been installed in the Xin Fu Yuan Methodist Church in Sibu, Sarawak, East Malaysia. One of the largest churches in Sarawak, the Xin Fu Yuan has 30 over branches in Sibu and 70 other branches throughout Sarawak.

The installation, which completed on 23 August, featured FBT active line array systems and Verve loudspeakers, plus various Modus loudspeaker cabinets including 40A, 15A and Sub A.In addition, FBT active monitor speakers were installed in the main hall and the balcony areas. All the FBT loudspeakers were supplied by Pana Micro Electronics Sdn Bhd.

Dennis Law of Pana Micro Electronics Sdn Bhd, who is the system integrator of the church, commented that the sound reproduction from the speaker system is like 'live' performance. "Some church members thought that the speakers were not in use or not turned on, as the performa

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USA - Working with Wilson Butler Architects and acoustician Jaffe Holden, Theatre Projects has created a new home for the performing arts in downtown Richmond, Virginia. Their work includes the restoration and renovation of the Carpenter Theatre for large-scale productions and the adaptive reuse of a local icon, the Thalhimer's department store, into Dorothy Pauley Square, a home for local artists.

"We're thrilled that this is going to be a dynamic new hub for all kinds of local community arts programmes and a magnet for larger scale-touring productions," says Theatre Projects' project manager, Jules Lauve.

The centrepiece of this new complex is the newly renovated 1,800-seat Carpenter Theatre. The theatre has been restored and re-built to accommodate Broadway size and scale touring productions and to accommodate uses for symphony, dance, and opera.

Built in 1928 a

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The Netherlands - The De Flint Theatre in Amersfoort has chosen an XLD Electro-Voice line array system with NetMax DSP/IRIS-Net software control and supervision, placing it in the forefront of audio technology in the Netherlands.

De Flint formed a project team to aid in the decision making process of upgrading its audio system. Their main concern was to find a system that would deliver excellent audio quality to all areas of the theatre. The team consulted theatre management, technicians and product users for advice on choosing the right system. Several leading competitors presented their systems to the team and they were particularly impressed with the dynamic headroom, sonic performance and rider friendliness of the Electro-Voice system presented by E-audio Benelux.

Chief technical director Klaas Spoelstra notes the simplicity and versatility of the system: "The EV syst

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UK - During the summer recess, Digital Village put the finishing touches to a complex recording and broadcast studio (with editing facilities) for South Thames College, completing the first stage of a major project.

The company had already provided a JBL/Crown sound reinforcement infrastructure, for many of the College's other suites and studios in the building's new ultra-modern wing earlier this summer. This had sensitively been tied in to the College's original 1926 Grade II-listed building in Wandsworth by main building contractors BAM Construction.

JBL in-ceiling speakers and Crown amplification have been used throughout - but it is the complex switching and routing requirements of the 12 studios that have made the College a suitable environment for BSS Audio's new generation of Soundweb London DSP's.

The new wing represents part of an overall £100m investment by

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Spain - The Teatros del Canal, a new multipurpose performing arts complex in downtown Madrid, marks another triumph for renowned Spanish architect Juan Navarro Baldeweg. The bold exterior statement of angular glass and stone carries over into the interior, where visual aesthetics are complemented in the aural domain by the performance of Meyer Sound's self-powered M1D and M'elodie line array loudspeaker systems in the Main Theatre and the black-box Theatre Configurable.

According to Ramon Pérez of RPS Broadcasting, the consultant on audiovisual technologies for the project, initial plans for all-Meyer Sound systems had been sketched before he was contracted as the audiovisual consultant, and he quickly concurred. "I've worked with Meyer systems in the past, and I've been impressed by the excellent size/weight-to-power ratio, the precise directivity, and the phase coh

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UK - Bradford Theatres have purchased a Haulotte Star 10 Vertical Mast for use in one of their city centre venues, the Alhambra Theatre. The Alhambra Theatre seats 1400 people and is regarded as the North's premier touring venue, hosting a range of large scale entertainment from ballet and opera to variety and comedy, musicals, drama and Yorkshire's biggest pantomime.

The Alhambra's Theatre's technical electrics manager wanted to improve safety at the theatre where they were using a tallescope for working at height. "We chose the Star 10 because it is driveable at full height, carries two people and is about 1 tonne lighter than other machines we looked at suitable for our stage floor. Haulotte also changed the speed setting on the machine to enable us to drive it slower so that we have greater control in difficult areas like the edge of the orchestra pit."

The Star

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Philippines - ASL Intercom systems can be found right across the globe, in a wide variety of performance spaces - from the biggest concert halls through to schools and colleges. Two of the most recent installations of the latter type have been in the Philippines, at System Plus College in Angeles City and La Salle College of Saint Benilde in the capital Manila.

Systems Plus College is a non-sectarian private school offering a wide range of courses for students. Supplied and installed by ASL's Philippines distributor, Mandaluyong City-based Stage Craft International, a stage communication system comprising six BS15 belt packs, six HS1/D single muff lightweight headsets and a BS181 power supply has been installed in the main college auditorium.

Stage Craft has also supplied a large system comprising 16 BS15 belt packs, 17 HS1/D single muff headsets and a PS279 twin-channel Maste

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Saudi Arabia - The inauguration of the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has taken place in Saudi Arabia. Stage One was invited to join the event's creative team by Simon Ransom, technical director for Filmmaster Events, providing their set building and automation expertise to create a dramatic theatrical experience on a stage over 80m wide.

Stage One was asked to provide six giant tracking front projection screens, each a different shape and size, with the largest 14m high by 10m wide. They also provided two 20m long back wall screens, a further screen that lifted and another that folded down. All of these screens overlapped to form a collectively massive tracking projection surface.

"These were the biggest screens that I have ever seen in over 25 years in the industry and once in place they formed an awesome sight," said Steve Dolan, pr

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UK / USA - PLASA (headquartered in the UK) and ESTA (headquartered in North America), two of the leading bodies worldwide for those working in the live events, entertainment and communications industries, have signed a Letter of Intent to merge.

The announcement comes on the back of long-term strategic reviews conducted by both Associations who believe that uniting as one body will lead to a stronger voice for members, the enhancement of existing initiatives and an expansion of the range of benefits and services.

The proposed merger has the full backing of both the ESTA Board of Directors and the PLASA Executive Committee who voted on the proposal this Summer and who will formally recommend the move to their respective memberships, subject to due diligence being completed successfully, during the Spring/Summer of 2010. If both memberships vote to go ahead, the first stage of t

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UK - The Pavilion, one of Glasgow's oldest and best loved variety theatre venues, has recently overhauled its FOH system with a pair of Tannoy VQ 100 full-range loudspeakers. The new VQ 100s add a new level of clarity, definition and presence to the performances within the historic 1449-seat auditorium and have gone down well with both cast and audiences since they were installed during the summer season.

Having first opened on its corner site at the top of Glasgow's Renfield Street in 1904, the Pavilion Theatre is a rare example these days of a privately run performance venue that has carefully retained its period character, having avoided any significant renovations or acoustic treatments that would ruin the décor and atmosphere of the auditorium.

This was an important consideration when the venue management sought to upgrade the audio system. Discretion was key, with

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USA - Theatre Projects is putting final touches on two unparalleled performing arts spaces: the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre and the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, as last-minute preparations continue for the 15 October grand opening of the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas.

As creators with Sasaki Associates of the original plans for the Dallas Arts District and as design consultants for the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Theatre Projects has spent over two decades involved in the planning and building of one of the US's most ambitious new centres for the arts.

"It's been an amazing journey working with the City of Dallas, the opera and theatre companies, and the Foundation since the creation of the Arts District in 1984," said Richard Pilbrow, Theatre Projects' founder and chairman emeritus. "It's been our privilege to guide the theatrical design to c

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UK - When Wembley Stadium decided to transform the VIP guest hospitality room for this summer's biggest concerts, they turned to entertainment lighting supplier White Light.

The challenge was to create a versatile design that could provide a calm but attractive feel to the room for the pre-show dinner and drinks, but then transform the space into an exclusive nightclub for the after show parties.

To achieve this, White Light's Dominic Yates used some of the latest technology from White Light's extensive lighting stock to create a design flexible enough to give the room a different feel for each concert, while dynamic enough to continue the excitement of the gig beyond the end of each show.

The design made use of the new Fusion672 LED panels, which allowed the creation of both dramatically changing lighting backdrops and corporate branding, with the 'Club Wembley' logo presen

  1. Proel Axiom system reinforces Tim Cup 2009
  2. NSA presents 'Offstage Choices' events
  3. Harman HiQnet scores at Turf Moor
  4. Adlib installs sound at Band on the Wall
  5. New headquarters for Scottish Ballet has Harlequin floors
  6. XLD reinforces Cedarville chapel
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