USA - Shure Incorporated has announced that Rick Renner has joined the company as a regional sales manager. In this role, he will be responsible for managing sales for Shure in the Northeast US.

"It's great to have Rick on our team," said Jim Schanz, director of US field sales. "He brings a proven track record of successful sales experience in pro audio and extensive industry knowledge to our team, which will help us continue to grow our business in the US."

Before joining Shure, Renner served for seven years as regional sales manager and sales representative at Sennheiser Electronics Corporation. Before that, he was a staff recording engineer at Streeterville Recording Studios in Chicago.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Showorks Audio Visual, a provider of A/V services for major corporate events throughout the Northeast US for over 20 years, is enjoying the benefits of the Pro64 Aviom digital snake.

As the event staging company for a number of Fortune 500 companies, meeting and event planners and producers across the United States, Showorks is responsible for some critical projects, and reliability, efficiency and crystal-clear sound are always essential elements. With that responsibility in mind, the company chose a Pro64 digital snake to connect the stage to front of house and for signal distribution to monitors and recording.

"Aviom's Pro64 system is the simplest way of splitting audio between multiple consoles while offering a low noise floor in a design that's lightweight," says Showorks project manager Mark Allen. "It's a lot easier to run Cat 5 or fibre than a piec

UK - Marl is extending its reach into the street and flood lighting markets with the launch of what it believes is one of the world's brightest and most efficient LEDs from Citizen.

Available in the UK from Marl,the new Citizen CL-L233 delivers an intense 1335 lumens of white light from 13W at a colour temperature of 5000K. CL-L233 delivers this light over a narrow 120 degree beam, eliminating the well known light pollution caused by most street lighting technologies which emit light over 360 degrees.

According to Marl, this powerful new solution extends the potential of LED technology in applications such as spotlights for stadiums and concerts, security and perimeter lighting, and street and industrial site illumination. Marl's LED specialists will be developing LED assemblies based on the Citizen LED to address these market opportunities, providing a solution that delivers

Belgium - Glass and metal gobo specialist, Goboland has released its full catalogue as a free App for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. Named Black Steel Gobo Catalogue 1.0, the App is available with immediate effect and can be downloaded, without charge, through iTunes.

Users can browse the full Goboland catalogue of over 1200 designs from Goboland's Black Steel Collection, Premiere and Designer Collections. Each design can also be viewed as an enlarged single image for greater clarity.

Internet access is not necessary to view the collections and the application negates the need for cumbersome brochures and catalogues.

"The Apple iPhone is an incredibly popular and useful tool with which so many in our industry are already familiar," explains Goboland managing director, Ivo Dielen. "We feel it is the ideal format in which to present our gobo designs to

The Netherlands - Visual Productions' VisualDMX software lighting controller was selected by Dutch LED manufacturer TDE, when they were asked to supply and install the lighting and control system for a new large sauna complex. The Devarana in Den Bosch compromises of an approximate 50 room network of saunas, swimming pools, restrooms and treatment rooms, with Asian inspired, East meets West themes running throughout.

TDE selected VisualDMX software lighting control from Visual Productions to control the sauna's lighting as they required a system that could be programmed with numerous lighting effects yet provide a simple and safe means of customer control. They installed LED lighting within the venue including 2500 pieces of their LED strips from about 33cm each.

These, coupled with other mood lighting - including a fibre optic system for ceiling stars - were divided out acros

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UK - Entertainment technology providers and industry professionals from the UK event and music production industry have pledged their generous support in raising money for Cancer Research. By sponsoring Vibes for the Vines '09 - a one-day, music festival - with state of the art equipment and their own valuable time, they will ensure a memorable event for all.

On August 8th in a field in Horam, East Sussex, Gary Moore will top the bill, supported by Mo Foster and local legend Ray Russell. There will also be a special guest appearance by Geno Washington of The Ram Jam Band fame and Chris Difford from Squeeze.

Vibes from the Vines '09 follows the first hugely successful festival in 2006, when organizers raised an impressive £32,000 for Cancer Research UK. This year, with a much bigger show and substantially improved production facilities organizers will be loo

USA - Sir Elton John and Billy Joel have reunited for an extensive Face 2 Face tour. John and Joel are touring the US together in a show that sees the musicians play a series of duets on twin pianos, perform separately for an hour each, and then conclude the performance together on stage. The show includes some of their greatest hits along with a selection of rock 'n' roll classics.

Steven Cohen Productions, in conjunction with Epic Production Technologies and Syncrolite supplied a large lighting package that includes Martin MAC III Profiles, MAC 700 Profiles and MAC 2000 Washes with lighting control from a Martin Maxxyz and Maxxyz Modules. Video control for low resolution LED screens is from a Martin Maxedia Broadcast.

Production designer for the show is Steve Cohen. Lighting design is by Cohen and Mark Foffano. Foffano programmed for both artists and served as the ove

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Create new traditions – Cameo P6 - High Output Full-Spectrum Ellipsoidal

Cameo's P6 is a future-proof LED profiler with a powerful 600 W RGBACL engine and 16,000 lumens. It’s an energy-efficient replacement for 2.5 kW halogen profile lights in theatres and venues. With excellent light quality and natural colour rendering, it fits perfectly in theatres, musicals, TV studios, congresses, and live events.

With an LED life of 50,000 hours and low power use, the P6 cuts energy costs and supports the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ goals for climate neutrality by 2050. It also meets updated eco-design rules for lighting.

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UK - In addition to the changes with PRG's UK operation, PRG has announced that Martin Lubach has been appointed as the new managing director of Essential Lighting with immediate effect. Lubach, previously Essential's technical director, has been with the company for more than 12 years.

Part of Production Resource Group (PRG) since October 2008, Essential Lighting works within the corporate, exhibition, live event and hospitality sectors, providing lighting and Scenic LED equipment, digital media and visualisation services. The company has three divisions serving the production industry and lighting designers as well as other lighting companies through a dedicated dry hire team.

As part of the restructuring of PRG UK's management earlier this year, Martin Locket moved from his role as managing director of Essential to become group CEO. He commented: "Martin Lubach has bee

Italy - Gandalf Il Grigio (Gandalf The Grey) is a new, Lord Of The Rings-styled bar and karaoke club in Campobasso, central Italy. Popular with students, the venue's low ceilings and many hard, flat surfaces - plus the habit of its patrons of dancing on the tables - mean that the acoustics are challenging.

Supplied by La Cicala of Dragoni, near Caserta, the audio system was designed by one of Yamaha Musica Italia's consultants to overcome both the acoustic challenges of the venue and to provide an audio solution which delivered maximum versatility and an excellent price/quality ratio.

The heart of the system is a Yamaha DME24N digital mix engine, which takes feeds from four different audio sources, including background music from CD, the soundtrack of DVDs, karaoke vocals and audio file playback from a PC, via a Yamaha MW8CX eight channel USB audio interface and mixer.<

UK - The Compacta slip-on geared motors, manufactured by Framo Morat and distributed in the UK by R. A. Rodriguez, are designed for repeatable positioning and reversing tasks in stage technology. Their power to weight ratio is high and they are also lightweight, quiet running and exceptionally reliable, says the company. And with this sector very much in mind a new version of the Compacta has now been developed.

The Compacta AG60 and MR30 models are now available with a double brake to meet the industry's stringent safety standards. These products are suitable for powering the movement of stage curtains, lighting and stage elements.

As its name suggests Compacta is appropriate where space is at a premium. Its smaller dimensions and the low weight are achieved by the use of a spur and worm gear transmission combined with performance-optimised motors.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - Dynacord has unveiled the two latest members of its D-Lite family - the D12R and D12T weatherproof boxes. Both of these polypropylene cabinets are impervious to rough handing and inclement weather and the precise sound reproduction, lightness, and elegant, unobtrusive design of these newest D-LITE boxes make them suitable for a wide variety of sound reinforcement applications, says the company.

The D12R is a 12-inch, two-way, polypropylene cabinet for professional fixed installations (swimming pools, ice rinks, hotels, amusement parks, etc.) as well as small to medium-sized events. The box is equipped with an Electro-Voice DL12BFH 12" woofer (for the bass and midrange) and a Constant-Directivity HF horn [radiation pattern: 80° (horizontal) x 40° (vertical)] armed with the newly developed ND2 driver from Electro-Voice. The cabinet also features 300-watt (co

UK - Five 103" Plasmas were flown 10m in the air at Ricoh Arena, weighing in at an impressive 1,100kg, to relay the action for the annual Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants Conference.

The Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants Conference, produced by Buckmark Productions for the fifth consecutive year, took place at the Ricoh Arena and this year brought together more Whitbread employees than ever before.

With 2,500 attendees from the restaurant and hotel divisions of Whitbread meeting for the annual conference, Buckmark Productions had to redesign the conference set, creating an 'in the round' seating system with a circular stage in the middle.

Blue i Event Technology was commissioned to design and install the AV equipment required for the event and the new conference format posed new challenges. Ian Riley, project manager for Blue i explained, "Due to the sheer size of t

Singapore - Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay has added to its stock of Robert Juliat zoom profile lanterns with the recent acquisition of 16 x RJ 711 SX2 2500W tungsten fixtures. The latest consignment was supplied to the Esplanade by Robert Juliat's distributor, Total Solution Marketing Pte Ltd.

"The popularity of the Esplanade Concert Hall and the broad diversity of events presented here, make providing the venue's performance lighting an exciting challenge," says Esplanade's head of lighting, Milton Arnold. "We find that the demands on our capabilities are ever-increasing, so we turned to lighting manufacturer Robert Juliat, and local supplier Total Solution, to provide the followspots and front of house profiles which would ensure our premier venue keeps pace."

He says the RJ 711SX2 zoom profiles were chosen for the Concert Hall's front-of-house lighting

UK - Production Resource Group UK (PRG) has announced that David March will take on the role of Director of PRG Distribution from 1 July. David has substantial experience in the entertainment lighting industry, starting with a 12 year period with Vari?Lite, up to 1999. He has also worked for High End Systems and most recently as managing director of digital and LED lighting sales company, Projected Image Digital.

Production Resource Group UK's CEO, Martin Locket, added: "David brings considerable skills and experience to lead the team at PRG Distribution. He will be developing and expanding the opportunities for the business as we build on the success of the brands we sell".

PRG Distribution is the European master distributor for Vari*Lite automated lighting fixtures, and also distributes products from Lycian, Pathway and Seachanger, amongst other brands.

March wil

Belgium - Barco has revealed the world's first transformable LED screen for U2's latest world tour. With its 360° shape, the LED screen surrounds the band while performing and can change shape in all directions during the concert, For the third time this millennium, the Barco - U2 cooperation resulted in a revolutionary approach to video, this time totalling more than 500,000 pixels of video, making it the biggest LED screen ever used in concert touring. U2's worldwide tour kicked off 30 June in a sold out Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Spain.

The stage and show were created by long-time U2 designers Willie Williams and Mark Fisher. With the help of Chuck Hoberman and Barco their vision of a 360° moving video screen was turned into reality. Barco provided more than half a million transformable LED pixels (FLX), which are integrated into a transformable structure designed

UK - The latest Maximo Park tour was the first in the UK to feature one of MA Lighting's new grandMA2 consoles - a grandMA2 light - which was specified and programmed by Glen Johnson to run the lighting rig which was designed by the band's LD, Stevie Marr. The console ran the new grandMA2 software - the first touring show to do so.

Johnson operated the show for the first part of the tour while Marr completed his work commitments with Die Toten Hosen, after which he took over running the Maximo tour. All lighting equipment including the grandMA2 light was supplied by Blackburn-based Lite Alternative, having just invested in two of the new grandMA2 consoles.

Johnson says, "As soon as I touched the grandMA2 I liked the feel of it. It's neat and compact and the faders are just fantastic. They far surpass any previous motorised faders and in fact, you don't even notice that th

UK - The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has revealed updated designs for the UK pavilion that will represent this country at Shanghai Expo 2010; its theme being Better City, Better Life. Developed by one of the UK's leading creative talents - Thomas Heatherwick - the UK pavilion will provide "a dramatic demonstration of creativity and innovation in the UK".

The centrepiece of the UK's offering is the extraordinary pavilion building - a six storey high object formed from some 60,000 slender transparent rods, which will extend from the structure and quiver in the breeze. During the day, each of these 7.5m long rods will act like fibre optic filaments, drawing on daylight to illuminate the interior, thereby creating a contemplative awe-inspiring space. At night, light sources at the interior end of each rod will allow the whole structure to glow. The pavilion will

Switzerland DiGiCo has become a sponsor of the Montreux Jazz Festival. "We are up in the mountains, up with the cows and up in the sky," says festival founder Claude Nobs. "But for me it is so important that the Festival remains leading edge, that we adopt new technologies that bring improvements to the audience's experience.

"The introduction of FPGA design and the benefits for the engineers are quite impressive. DiGiCo are frontrunners in this change in audio processing and it is a great result for the Festival that DiGiCo has chosen to become part of the sponsorship programme."

DiGiCo had already won half the battle with Patrick Vogelsang, head of audio for the Festival, before he'd even experienced its consoles firsthand. "It's refreshing to me that the company is so in tune with the industry and the engineers' needs," he says. "When

UK - MTFX provided the special effects for the Twenty20 men's and women's finals at the Lord's Cricket Ground. As each team ran on to the ground they were accompanied by a series of CO2 jets 5m high set in to a chase sequence using a specialist DMX controller.

The cup lift for the England women's team was enhanced by further CO2 jets and large scale streamer effects using 14 streamer cannons, each holding 1 kilo of streamers.

For the cup lift for the winning Pakistani men's team MTFX also provided the CO2 jets and arena streamer effects, together with a display of pyrotechnics comprising comets, mines and jets and their new five-way Firedance system to provide a colourful choreographed finale.

(Jim Evans)

The Netherlands - Located close to the major conurbations of Amsterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag, Rotterdam and Leiden, the Levenstroom (Livingstream) church is a large format house of worship with a dedicated congregation. The church's recent move to a new building has seen it embrace the latest in audio visual technology to produce an all-inclusive experience for its worshippers and to spread its message via the internet, radio, television, DVDs and CDs - all of which are fully produced in house.

To achieve this, the church needed to undertake a major upgrade of its audio system, which has seen a pair of DiGiCo CSD5 consoles installed, one at front of house, the other in its integrated studio facilities.

"We had been using a 36 channel analogue console since 1992, but had issues with not having enough channels and were looking for a long-term solution, one which would be enoug

UK - Hire and Sales company Point Source Productions Ltd has been using Doughty PAR can floorplates for many years to speed the preparation of lanterns in its warehouse. During this prepping procedure, technical director Ben Marshall realised that, whilst the floorplates negated the need to remove the hook clamp from a lantern, this time-consuming action still had to be done when mounting the lantern on a stand.

To address this, Ben devised a hook clamp spigot adaptor which would overcome this problem. Like the Doughty floor plate, this handy widget allows the hook clamp, complete with wing nut and washers, to be slotted into a secure fixing, which is mounted on a standard spigot fixing. This is then simply inserted into the lighting stand to present an immediate solution to stand-mounted lanterns without the fiddly process of removing the hook clamp.

"Preparation time is

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