China - The new Mingshan Stadium in the Ya'an City of Sichuan is one of the most significant construction projects to take place following the devastating Lushan earthquake of 2013. The audio installation, incorporating Community R Series loudspeakers, was led by locally-based integrator Chengdu Eagle Huang Technology Co., Ltd., while EZPro Sound & Light Technology Co., Ltd. provided system design services and product supply.

Mingshan Stadium is a truly multi-purpose venue suitable for hosting sports, entertainment, conferences, exhibitions and other events. The stadium covers an area of 4,000sq.m and can accommodate 2,500 people. At its centre is a basketball court with a flexible arrangement of fixed and movable seating stands.

Mr Lian, technical manager of EZPro, explained the acoustics of the venue and the choice of the loudspeaker system, "It is a large stadium with a

USA - In an evening of moving musical tributes and memorable live stage performances, audio manufacturer Sennheiser came through to deliver reliable wireless audio for the duration of the 58th Annual Grammy Awards. With more than 18,000 celebrities and music fans in attendance and a viewership of more than 24 million, featured artists including Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, Adele and The Weeknd each delivered performances using Sennheiser wireless microphone technology, with Taylor Swift performing the show's opener Out of the Woods on a Sennheiser Digital 9000 system.

Sennheiser user Ed Sheeran scooped up two Grammy Awards for Thinking Out Loud: one for Song of the Year and another for Best Pop Solo Performance. Meanwhile, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson won Record of the Year and Best Pop/Duo Group Performance for their blockbuster Uptown Funk. Among the evening

UK - West Midlands-based Central Presentations Ltd (CPL) supplied full technical production - video, sound and LED lighting - to the 2016 SEMTA Awards, staged in the Ballroom at the Park Lane Hilton hotel in London.

The Senior Skills Council for Science, Engineering & Manufacturing Technologies (SEMTA) is a not-for-profit organization specializing in engineering training in the UK, and this prestigious annual Awards event recognizes excellence within their various nationwide apprenticeship schemes.

CPL worked for the third consecutive year alongside Redditch based production company Eclipse Communications. The production design was a collaboration by Lee Gruszeckyj from CPL and Dave Bowring from Eclipse. This year's host was business journalist and BBC Breakfast co-presenter Steph McGovern.

"It was great to pool forces and work together with Eclipse," commented Lee.

Mexico - A massive, all-Meyer Sound system of more than 600 loudspeakers recently supplied seamless coverage for a festive crowd of over 300,000 that converged near the Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec for an open-air Holy Mass with Pope Francis. Held across a sprawling event site temporarily constructed on a vast rain catchment plain known as El Caracol, this was by far the largest event of Pope Francis's five-day visit to Mexico.

"We have had excellent results using Meyer Sound to ensure the best possible listening experience for the public, so we decided to use Meyer Sound speakers exclusively for this event," says José Antonio Ru

UK - Sam Simon-Norris has joined Sound Network as assistant sales manager to help the company keep up with the continuing growth over the last two years. Sam started work at Panic Music studios while studying music performance at university and developed an affinity with the technical side of sound while playing in numerous bands, gigging and recording in studios around London.

After three years at Panic he then joined LMC Audio Systems and applied his energy and enthusiasm to expanding on his audio knowledge. This included a range of interesting installations at universities around the country as well as taking popular east London venue Oval Space from their first digital desk, through to a complete digital Midas FOH/MON setup. Sam joined the DPA Microphones distributor in January and has spent his first two months networking and training, culminating in a visit to the DPA Mi

Europe - Genelec has announced that its popular 4000 Series loudspeakers are now available as part of the BIMobject library. This move allows AV designers and architects to include the Genelec loudspeakers in any building information model to help in the design and planning stages of a project. Users will now be able to add the loudspeakers into digitally built models in building design software such as Autodesk Revit, ArchiCAD and Google Sketchup.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a means by which everyone can understand a building through the use of a digital model. By modelling an asset in digital form, it enables those who interact with the building to optimize their actions.

BIM is rapidly becoming an important part of the planning and execution of construction projects. As a result of this new deal, Genelec's 4010, 4020, 4030 and 4040 loudspeakers can be seamle

South Korea - Pohang city is located in North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea, about 300km far from Seoul to the southeast. The city is well-known for steel making with three leading manufacturers based there.

In addition, there are some old and very important churches in Pohang. Among these is Pohang First Presbyterian church which is over 110 years, founded in 1905. In the beginning, they had a small space for worship, they moved to the current place, and built a new building in 2007. For preparation of 110th anniversary celebration in 2015, they started the renovation including the sound systems from last September.

The size of the main sanctuary in Pohang church is 37m by 30m and the capacity is 2,500 seats.

Avix, the Korean distributor for Portuguese manufacturer NEXT-proaudio, recently installed a NEXT-proaudio sound system within the church's main sanctuary, th

UK - Following a competitive tender, Adlib was recently appointed by Glasgow City Council to supply a new loudspeaker system to the Royal Scottish National Symphony Orchestra's new home, the RSNO centre.

The impressive new venue forms part of the Royal Concert Hall complex in the heart of Glasgow's vibrant city centre.

The new auditorium was developed by the Council's in-house design team led by architect Kerr Robertson. It is adjacent to the main Concert Hall (home of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra) which opened in 1990 as part of the city's year as European Capital of Culture.

The overall complex features a 600-seater auditorium, a rehearsal space and learning centre, a recital hall and performance space that will be also used for classical and choral recording as well as for folk and other amplified music events.

Following a detailed site survey and subse

Korea - Indie band, Standing Egg, embarked on a recent national tour with Allen & Heath's dLive digital mixing system and ME personal monitoring system, supplied by rental company, G Audio.

Formed in 2010, the band has three members, known as Egg No.1, Egg No.2, Egg No.3, plus a host of renowned guest vocalists. I>.

Based in Busan, G Audio is a renowned rental company, which selected the dLive S3000 Control Surface with DM32 MixRack for FOH, and ME monitoring system comprising ME-1 mixers for each musician and a ME-U hub, from its hire stock.

"Using dLive was a refreshing experience, the design is optimal and versatile for every engineer and live mixing application. dLive has a lot of useful features; additional inputs and outputs are available by connecting the DX32 expansion rack, and Dante, Waves, and MADI cards can be inserted to give dLive networking options. More

Fettes Brot back on the road with MLA

Germany - Six years after Martin Audio's MLA system made its world deb MLAut with veteran Hamburg hip hop band Fettes Brot, the system's first adopter - Complete Audio's André Rauhut - has just completed another successful tour of duty, this time supporting the band's Teenager vom Mars tour.

Although the tour originally kicked off early in 2015 using largely local PA, the production values were ramped up towards the end of the year when Fettes Brot played venues ranging from around 3,500 to 15,000.

The Berlin-based production company based its rig design around a core of between 7 and 10 MLA cells per side, plus MLD Downfill - and depending on venue size, they also carried 12 x MLA Compacts for out-fills in the larger venues. Along the front of the stage, 14 MLX were set up as a broadside cardioid array.

In six years And

USA - Since their beginnings in 1997, The Passion Conferences have served to bring college students together for worship with a line-up of concerts and speakers. In the 10 years since the organisation was founded events and tours have been held around the US and the entire world. This year the conference was held simultaneously at three venues in two different cities all linked together to share content by an Optocore digital fibre network. The three-day conference saw attendance at more than 40,000 people with six bands and six guest speakers to entertain the crowds in all three cities.

Rat Sound Systems from Camarillo, CA is a leader in providing state of the art sound reinforcement systems for major productions around the world. They were hired to provide the staging for all three venues. Each venue had an identical system: three DiGiCo SD7's with four SD Racks and a Mini R

Germany - Together with existing management, Ardian, the independent private investment company, is acquiring d&b audiotechnik GmbH (d&b) from the investment companies Odewald & Compagnie and COBEPA.

d&b specialises in acoustic systems and has operations worldwide. The participation in d&b is already the 13th investment by Ardian LBO Fund V, which is capitalized at

UK - John Hornby Skewes who started work in the UK musical instrument and pro audio industry in January 1960, and in 1965 founded John Hornby Skewes & Co, has announced his retirement.

"Now, after 56 years of activity, I am retiring from business," says Skewes. "On 31 March 2016 I am resigning as executive chairman of the company, and on 30 June 2016 my wife Madge and myself will be retiring from the board of directors.

"I take this opportunity to thank all the many employees, customers, suppliers, support service providers and members of the press who have worked with me over all these years. Without this support, John Hornby Skewes & Co Ltd would not have succeeded. My wife and I are very grateful.

"The company continues as a family owned and family run business with our son-in-law and daughter - Dennis and Linda Drumm - heading up a board of dedicated and experience

UK / USA - With the NAMM announcement of DiGiCo's Stealth Core2 upgrade, you will soon be able to upgrade your current SD9 with the latest processing and application code. This upgrade will be an option for the company's SD series digital mixers and is due to be released this summer across the range.

Whilst the external architecture of the SD9 remains in its familiar form, Stealth Core2 will open up a massive additional amount of processing ability, thereby taking the complete range to a new level of processing and flexibility.

"Being able to expand not only the features, but the audio processing in the SD range consoles, is really allowing our customers to gain more value from their existing and future investments," confirms James Gordon, managing director, "In fact, we are even going to apply discounts to the upgrade to make it even more accessible for all our existing c

UK / Germany - Following six years of development, British loudspeaker manufacturer, Funktion-One, has chosen Prolight+Sound Frankfurt for the launch of Vero - a new, large format touring sound system. The company will also debut the Evo 7T Touring loudspeaker and F132 bass enclosure at the show.

The impetus for Vero germinated from frustration with the declining standard of audio quality in the live environment, coupled with an understanding that the industry's ergonomic expectations demand a system that can be flown quickly and easily, and with minimal crew. In answer to this, says the company, Tony Andrews, John Newsham and the Funktion-One team have designed a system that is conveniently arrayable and boasts a new level of performance characteristics relating to sound quality, efficiency and directivity.

Vero is a complete system, with each element specified or designe

USA - Originally constructed in the late 1960s, the Abilene Civic Centre is a spacious, multi-purpose venue with a live performance theatre, an exhibit hall and a large conference centre that can be subdivided to accommodate as many as four simultaneous events.

In part because of its age, the conference centre's audio system did not meet the voice intelligibility or audio quality expectations of its many banquets, meetings, press conferences and other events, especially those that involved modern presentations or musical performances. Thus, in 2015, the city decided to upgrade the audio system. And, they wanted a system that would provide both highly intelligible voice reinforcement and high-quality music production.

The city contacted Jerrold Stevens, of consulting firm Marsh PMK, who designed a highly flexible system with wireless iPad setup and control. Simple events ca

UK - Kent based audio specialists Panache Audio Systems has become one of the latest hire companies to recognise the benefits of adding KV2's True Point Source ES Systems to their hire inventory.

KV2 Audio reports that a shoot-out with other manufacturers' products led to Panache taking delivery of an ES System - supplied from stock held in KV2 Audio Europe's Harrogate warehouse - less than a week after the demo concluded.

The ES System - comprising two ES 1.0 mid/hi enclosures, four ES 2.6 2x15" subwoofers and two EPAK 2500R amplification and control units was supplied with bespoke magnetic carts, flying frames and patch panel.

Panache also chose to invest in a pair of the recently released ESD 5 ultra compact passive 2-way 5" enclosures as a front-fill / delay solution.

Speaking about the initial demonstration and what exactly prompted Panache to replace their ex

USA - Aiming to become a regional destination for concert entertainment as well as gaming, Choctaw Casino Resort in Durant, Okla. has opened the Grand Theatre, a multi-purpose venue featuring one of the largest Meyer Sound Leo Family line array system installations in North America. Since opening with a sell-out show by Aerosmith, the Grand Theatre has hosted acts such as Kiss, Kid Rock, Boyz II Men, and Kenny Rogers.

"Listening to Leo is really like listening to a very high quality stereo system, with that level of imaging and detail," reports Doug Ebey, audio-video manager for the theatre. "What impresses me most is that we can get full, in-your-face concert sound and still stay within our preferred level limit, which we cap at 100 dB. Everyone has been thrilled with the performance of the system."

Leo Family loudspeakers were chosen for the 3,000-capacity venue by the L

Finland - AV Marketing Finland and Apart Audio nv have joined forces to further strengthen the position of the Apart brand in Finland. AV Marketing is now the exclusive Apart distributor for Finland.

"We are excited to welcome Reijo Lehtinen and his team as our exclusive distributor for Finland. We are convinced that this will join us in our vision to grow the market in a sustainable way. We share the same vision on professionalism and dedication towards our customers and the audio business," says Kris Vermuyten, sales & marketing director at Apart Audio.

"Apart Audio is a very welcome brand to fulfil our product portfolio to Finnish AV dealers. Apart is already a well-known brand in Finland and we are remarkably thankful to continue with this success. I'm convinced that together with our existing dealer network we are able to continue and even grow sales in our region," s

Ireland - Designing and implementing commercial audio systems for venues ranging from hair salons, to tattoo parlors, to restaurants is a challenge embraced by Sounds Good Ltd. Headquartered in Dublin, Sounds Good Ltd. became the first dealer for VUE Audiotechnik throughout Ireland approximately one year ago. The resulting partnership has yielded several interesting installs by Sounds Good, all of which feature VUE loudspeakers.

Drawing upon 20 years of experience, Ed Rice, founder of Sounds Good Ltd., established his new company in 2012, developing it into a diverse one-stop shop that provides equipment, consultation and installation for venues ranging from retail outlets, pubs and restaurants, to theatres, exhibition halls, and corporate events.

According to Rice, Sounds Good Ltd. chose to represent VUE because they appreciated "the sound and build quality, and value of

USA - The Blue Angels, the famed Navy aerial demonstration squadron that's wowed airshow audiences since 1946, recently improved the range and reliability of their wireless audio system with antennas from RF Venue and design from Atlanta-based In Concert Productions.

The Blue Angels' routines are carefully choreographed, highly precise movements that partially rely on radio communication between pilots in the air and a pilot on the ground, who in turn communicates events to the announcer.

"Back in 2013, new members for the Blue Angels wanted to get closer to the spectators on the ground while they were performing," explains Jay Rabbitt, president of In Concert Productions, Inc. and Air Show One, Inc., the provider of specialized airshow PA systems and air boss communications equipment at shows across the USA.

"The announcers used to stand on a platform and did not move

UK - Yamaha Music Europe has appointed Alex Warren as a new Commercial Audio sales representative for the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Alex has worked in in professional audio since graduating in 2009 with a degree in Music and Audio Technology. Gaining considerable experience in both sales and hands-on technical installation, he has also been proactive in learning about the different pro audio markets and their business models.

He started with Yamaha at the beginning of February 2016 and has spent a number of weeks working closely with UK & RoI sales manager Terry Murphy, fully familiarising himself with all aspects of the role.

"Alex has brought knowledge, experience and enthusiasm, which we believe is the ideal combination for both Yamaha and our customers," says Terry. "Having worked with him for several weeks, I know he is an exceptional addition to the team. I loo

USA - The appropriately named Independence Bowl has been played every year since 1976 (the United States Bicentennial) and has become a much-anticipated staple of the end-of-year bowl season. Independence Stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana hosts the contest, which currently pits an AAC conference favourite against an ACC conference favourite.

The stadium holds 63,000 fans and is routinely packed to capacity on the big day. The stadium's owners ripped out the sound system in anticipation of the 2015 game, and YESCO Electronics replaced it with two Danley Jericho Horns, a Danley BC-415 subwoofer, and several Danley SH-96 loudspeakers for fill.

"We replaced their old scoreboard with new state-of-the-art scoreboard technology, and the 20-year-old sound system had to go with it," explained Marty Masewicz, a YESCO A/V systems engineer who operates out of the company's Logan, Utah

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