China - Aviom, manufacturer of the Pro16 Monitor Mixing System, has announced that a digital snake consisting of five AN-16/i Input Modules, five AN-16/o Output Modules and three A-16D A-Net Distributors was installed for audio distribution at the opening ceremony at the 10th National Games at the Nanjing Olympic Sports Stadium in Nanjing, China. The Aviom gear was supplied by Acton Audio & Musical Instruments, (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., which is part of the Tom Lee Group.

"For the opening ceremony, more than 60 audio signals generated from the mixing console needed to be distributed to processors located 300m away," comments Jeffrey Lim, Aviom's international sales manager for Asia. "System designers Ruan Feng Audio & Lighting Company Limited decided against using a conventional analog snake system, choosing instead to use a distributed audio system from Aviom."

USA - Now in its ninth year, the Rock 4 Xmas Foundation is presenting its annual holiday tour, covering over thirty cities throughout the US. Again this year, Community Professional Loudspeakers is donating six of the company's M12 stage monitors for the events.

Founded in 1996 by Morrison Music and Production's Wayne Morrison, the Rock 4 XMas Foundation works to bring food, gifts and holiday spirit to less fortunate families by hosting the annual concert series. Past shows have featured performances by Bad Animals, Blue Oyster Cult, Randy Jackson, and members of Toto, Quiet Riot, Dio, Vanilla Fudge and many others.

"The annual Rock 4 XMas tour is a massive effort, and has grown bigger every year," remarked Morrison. "We'd never be able to pull it off without the help of our sponsors. Community has been a generous supporter of the organization, and we really app

UK - Windsor is rapidly becoming home to a thriving community of stylish bars and nightclubs, designed to standards more usually found in the capital, just 25 miles away. The latest addition to Windsor's nightlife is Bar Indigo, built underneath the arches supporting a railway line, with all the acoustic challenges to match.

Privately owned by local Berkshire entrepreneur Duane Clark, Bar Indigo comprises two discrete areas; a separate bar and chill-out zone at the front of the club, and a much larger bar and dancefloor at the back. The long tunnel-like shape of the club premises ensures a great architectural space, but also offered, "fairly foul acoustics" for sound installer Paul Knight of Ascot Audio.

"The reverb time is horrendous, like being in a cave," says Knight. "The only solution was to get everyone as near to a direct source as possible, so

UK - 100% Light is a brand new show launching in 2006. Running alongside 100% Design and 100% Detail, it will feature the very latest and best in architectural and contemporary lighting product.

50-60 selected lighting companies will exhibit, the majority new to the 100% brand. 100% Light is a selective show and all exhibitors will be vetted by the 100% Light Selection Panel, made up of lighting industry experts.

The 100% branded shows held at London's Earls Court, attract over 25,000 architects, specifiers, interior designers, engineers and lighting designers amongst the 36,000 visitors each year. Exhibitors at 100% Light will not only be able to build on this established visitor attendance, but meet new visitors only interested in seeing the best lighting product.

100% Light will be located between 100% Design in Earls Court 2 and 100% Detail in Earls Court 1. A comprehens

UK - Buro Happold engineers dominated this year's Teambuild competition taking home the overall winner prize as well as the award for best contract strategy.

The competition, run by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), sets a series of challenges for groups of up to six engineers under the age of 30 to test their team working skills. Each team has to provide the necessary, multi-disciplinary skills to cover all aspects of masterplanning, building design and construction, tested through completing five stages of a build project, based on a real site.

The winning team, named Imhotep after the architect credited with building the first pyramid in ancient Egypt, included Rachel Banham, Rachel Sandbrook, Ivan Chan, Ben Worth and Ruth Bailey, all based in Buro Happold London, and Alex MacLaren, an external architect.

"Congratulations to all our staff who took part,"

- Doha was the destination in November when Stage One worked for technical director, Adam Wildi and production company, The Bank, on the official opening ceremony of the 'Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence'. Built by the Government of Qatar, Aspire offers an enormous complex of sporting amenities, providing unparalleled facilities for training and developing student athletes.

Stage One was responsible for building the Paul Bonomini designed set for the opening ceremony, which highlighted the history of the region, including shipping and pearl diving. Students of Aspire played a starring role in the performance.

The set included several stages, a huge desert backdrop, billowing wave effects and the movement of a dozen aerial performers swimming 'underwater' across the set, using Stage One's Q-Motion control system. To achieve this, Stage One mapped each individual performers

UK - Weather Cluster is an ambitious multi-screen permanent video installation launched in November 2005 at the Clacton County High School. The installation is part of 'Coast', a major visual arts project which started in 2003. Over four years, a series of newly commissioned permanent and temporary artworks will be installed along and around the Essex Coast.

Hanging in the atrium of Clacton High School's new wing, Weather Cluster is a complex web of screens and data-cables, which resembles a 21st Century chandelier. This cloud of thirty screens emits weather conditions from around the world. Students from the school film weather conditions at every opportunity; these video clips form a computer database, which constantly searches the Internet to ascertain the local climate. As the weather conditions change, the computers broadcast the relevant video loops. Year after year, the d

Belgium - Following a busy spell of exhibitor bookings during the last two months including 3LCD and Belden, the organizers of ISE 2006, Europe's biggest trade show for AV Systems Integrators report that the event next February in Brussels will be twice the size of the 2005 show and is almost sold out.

Mike Blackman, managing director ISE 2006 is delighted, but not surprised by these figures. "The AV Systems Integration market continues to grow at an increasing rate, the outlook for new business is buoyant and we have more than justified our decision earlier this year to invest in a substantial increase in floor space at the Brussels Expo to accommodate the increase in bookings."

Visitors who attend will see a number of new displays, a comprehensive conference including a new manufacturer's forum and a series of displays in the Brussels Expo. The Residential Solution

USA - Theatrical Lighting Systems (TLS) has received the Parnelli Award for Regional Lighting Company of the Year at the 5th annual Parnelli Awards in Orlando.

Named after Rick "Parnelli" O'Brien, the awards honor both individuals and companies in the entertainment industry who keep it moving forward with the "four H's": Humanity, Humility, Honesty, and Humor. These qualities were the defining traits of Rick O'Brien, a renowned production manager and respected colleague.

The award banquet was held in conjunction with ETS-LDI, the industry's yearly product and services convention. Chip Monck presented this year's lighting awards. TLS David Milly said that receiving the award was a real honor, but having Chip Monck present the award was just as notable. Monck is a previous Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.

The award is voted on by

UK - Amnesty International's Protect the Human week was launched on 23 October 2005 at its newly opened Human Rights Action Centre. The new headquarters are in London's Shoreditch area of the East End. There was music from an all star line up including Starsailor, The Others, Dreadzone, Mark Moore from S-Express and an acoustic set by Kill City.

Protect The Human is major new initiative 'to get a million more people standing up for human rights in the UK' by 2010. During the weekend, AV rental company Mushroom Event Services supplied dramatic lighting for the new building, with a total of 60 2K Fresnels illuminating 30 windows across three floors. Each light was individually controlled and dimmed, giving a wide variety of colour and brightness at any window at any given time.

Protect The Human was written across the façade in 25Watt lamps hung from the roof with steel rope wh

UK/Spain - Switchcraft has strengthened its international representation by appointing Madrid based Magnetrón, S.A. to stock and supply its connectors, audio and video patchbays and cable assemblies to the broadcast and professional audio markets in Spain.

Stephen Waldron, Switchcraft's director of international sales, says: "Magnetrón is a very well established and respected supplier within its market place and we are very pleased to enter this new relationship that will increase the availability of our products and introduce the Switchcraft range to new customers."

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

UK - Color Kinetics products have been installed into recently completed projects for The Tonight Show, CNN's Washington DC Newsroom and The Situation Room, MTV Total Request Live, and The X Factor- one of the UK's top-watched entertainment programs with an estimated 10 million viewers.

Its systems will also vividly light the globally anticipated Final Draw ceremony for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which will be broadcast in 145 countries on 9 December from Leipzig, Germany.

These mark the latest in a growing number of high-profile television events and programs to apply ColorKinetics' LED-based systems as a practical alternative to conventional lighting methods in set design. Unlike conventional sources, they require no gels or filters to supplement fill and background lighting with colour. In the use of white light, they uniquely allow color temperature control to

Indonesia - ARX Systems, the Australian based manufacturer of Professional Audio Equipment has announced the appointment of PT Citra Intirama as its new distributor for Indonesia.

ARX's managing director Colin Park says: "PT Citra Intirama is very well known throughout the South Asian Pro Audio and M.I Industry as a well established and very professional Company. PT Citra Intirama's Eric Haslim and I recently finalized a distribution agreement after an initial meeting at the Frankfurt Pro Light and Sound earlier in the year.

The Indonesian Audio Industry is entering another growth phase and the company is looking forward to working with PT Citra Intirama which, with 12 Company owned stores and 300+ dealers spread across the Indonesian Archipelago, is the largest music and audio products distributor and dealer in Indonesia.

Alongside ARX, Jakarta based PT Citra Intirama

UK - Robe UK has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Robe Show Lighting, following last week's direct management takeover of the company by its Czech Republic based parent company, Robe Show Lighting.

David Srba, well known as Robe's highly proactive head of marketing, becomes the new MD of Robe UK with immediate effect, and will now be based in the UK. Srba also continues in his role of co-ordinating Robe Show Lighting's worldwide marketing.

Ian W Brown, who joined Robe UK in August 2004 continues as head of sales, working closely with his colleague Bill Jones as sales manager and Nathan Wan as Robe UK's head of technical services. All other aspects of the sales, office and support organization in the Northampton UK HQ remain the same.

The move is a key element in Robe Show Lighting's ongoing global expansion strategy. It also completes the restructuring of ROBE UK which be

USA - Rigging Seminars will conduct four classes in 2006. They are in Las Vegas 20-23 February, Las Vegas 3-6 April, Denver 5-8 June, and Seattle 9-12 October. Each class covers the principles and operation of both stage rigging and arena-style rigging. The most popular part of the course is the hands-on training.

The seminar is suitable for beginning and advanced riggers. It is for riggers, venue staff, stagehands, universities, production companies, consultants, engineers, and contractors. It can be used as preparation for some sections of the ETCP Rigging Certification test.

Rigging Seminars is the longest established entertainment rigging training program. It has trained thousands of riggers and is highly respected in the industry for the extensive knowledge of the teachers. Classes are taught by Harry Donovan and Jay O.Glerum, both working professionals with more than 40

New Zealand - Founders Theatre is home to a broad array of performances and gatherings for the roughly 160,000 residents of Hamilton and its neighbours in the surrounding Waikato region of New Zealand. Recently, the theatre's management decided it was time to upgrade the 20-year old sound system to a contemporary design that would, as technical officer Kelvin Ballard describes, "deliver consistent level and quality to every seat in the house, with both a high level of musicality and uncompromised clarity of vocal reproduction." The theatre settled on a configuration of three arrays built around 34 Meyer Sound self-powered curvilinear array loudspeakers provided by Hamilton's Audio Video Solutions under the direction of Hanspeter Frick, in consultation with Harley Richardson of Meyer Sound Australia.

"Events here range from international tours to very simple confer

UK - Fifty years after the release of their first recording, Don and Phil Everly are still packing in the crowds. On their current UK tour every show, from the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham to London's Royal Albert Hall, is sold out. Front of House engineer Dave Wooster is keenly aware that when people are paying £80 a ticket, it's very important to make sure the sound is absolutely right. "And the toys in my racks help me do that," he says.

Sound equipment for the tour, supplied by Capital Sound, includes a substantial compliment of XTA equipment, with the new DP428 audio management system playing a major role. "This is the first time I've used the DP428 in front of everything as the system driver," says Wooster. "We've got eight DP226s behind it, but the DP428 is driving the entire rig. We're using it to EQ the Martin Audio W8Ls on the main

UK - Lynnsport and Leisure Park, situated in seventy-two acres of parkland near King's Lynn in Norfolk, is one of the largest sports and leisure facilities in the country. At the heart of the centre is the Bodyworks Fitness Suite offering a full range of cardio-vascular machines, resistance equipment and free weights. The Sound Division Group recently won the contract to supply and install a sophisticated Tryka LED colour change lighting system with Pulsar control, a 24-station eight-channel Audeon wireless cardio entertainment system and numerous plasma and LED screens, plus an Abstract VRX Gladiator lighting system in the spinning studio.

The brief was to provide a thoroughly modern yet sympathetic environment for exercisers using the latest technology. However, it had to be a system that would be easy for untrained personnel to use and operate. To that end, Sound Division ins

Israel - Haoman 17 (Ha Oman meaning 'the artist' in Hebrew) is Tel Aviv's newest mega-club. The original Haoman in Jersusalem is universally acknowledged and consistently voted as the best club in Israel, yet the new Tel Aviv venue is billed as even bigger and more sophisticated than its famous forebear. Set in the trendy Florentine district of Tel Aviv, Haoman boasts a huge sunken dancefloor with elevated platforms, a live stage, five different bars and a secondary dancefloor separated by a peek-a-boo glass wall. At the heart of it all is a mighty EAW KF850 sound system installed by EAW distributor and systems integrator, Pro Touch Ltd.

According to Pro Touch's Shmulik Mazuz, the client evaluated no less than four audio systems from high profile manufacturers before selecting the EAW solution. "The customer already owns the most successful club in Israel, and he knows what

UK - Bloc Party has recently completed a successful UK tour and are currently on a 15 night European tour rigged out with a full selection of Evolution wired microphones. Featuring heavily in the mic line-up is the award-winning 900 Series which has won Sennheiser its fourth prestigious TEC Award in as many years.

Introduced in 2004, Sennheiser's 900 Series features a range of powerful transparent mics ideally suited for stage use with excellent transient response and feedback rejection. Bloc Party FOH engineer Pete Bartlett has chosen the e935 for Kele's lead vocals and explains, "The e935 has given me far greater definition on Kele's voice, crisp and clean, but it also copes easily with his wide range, and dynamic variations". An e935 and e945 are used by Matt and Gordon respectively on backing vocals.

The bass is miked up with the legendary all-rounder MD421, and

Europe - Following the successful pairing of an Electro-Voice X-Line array with Simply Red on their last tour in 2003, Britannia Row has supplied the same system for the Simplified tour of Europe. Once again mixed by front-of-house engineer Gary Bradshaw, the system uses left and right arrays of X-Line cabinets, each comprising eight Xvls high-output cabinets and four Xvlt 5° trapezoidals for the lower section of the array. A centre array uses eight Xvls plus three Xvlt cabinets, while Xi1152 full-range boxes are flown two-deep at the side of the stage, with two more on the ground; six Xsubs complete the picture.

X-Line is powered by 16 racks of amplifiers, each containing four P3000RL Precision Series units, all under the IRIS software management system. Electro-Voice says Britannia Row has been instrumental in the development of this powerful software tool, providing invaluab

UK - Artistic Licence is moving to a new purpose-built manufacturing facility. The new premises provide over five times the existing floor area, offering room for the next phase of expansion. The move follows many years of steady growth, the company says.

The new facility incorporates a permanent showroom, demonstration area and training rooms, while a new advanced manufacturing area allows the company to accept larger and more complex project commissions whilst also streamlining its standard product manufacturing process, they say. The addition of an integrated stores and despatch area will provide an even faster response time to customer orders.

The new premises are minutes from the company's previous office and within easy reach of the M1, M25 and rail and tube connections from nearby Harrow & Wealdstone Station. The move occurs between Friday 9 December and Friday 16 Decem

Sweden / UK - Following the appointment as exclusive European distributor for Colorado Springs-based Wybron Inc, PRG Europe is pleased to announce Spectra Stage & Event Technologies AB in Stockholm as the new Wybron dealer in Sweden, effective 10 December 2005.

Philip Norfolk, regional sales manager for PRG Europe, chose Spectra due to their strong sales organisation and high-profile productions, including the prestigious Eurovision Song Contest. "We are overwhelmingly excited about having Spectra as the new Wybron dealer in Sweden. This relationship will benefit everyone involved and gives us a strong force in such a vibrant market."

Keny Whitright, president and founder of Wybron, is equally pleased with the agreement. He commented, "PRG has a strong knowledge of dealers in Europe. I know in Spectra they have aligned Wybron with a company well-suited to promot

Ireland - Galway-based Alex Fernie PA & Audio Equipment Hire has consolidated its relationship with Fuzion by adding four Radian MicroWedge low-profile monitors to a hire fleet which already includes a substantial inventory of Nexo and Camco products (also distributed in the UK and Ireland by Fuzion).

Alex Fernie, who originally trained as a sound engineer in Germany, today supplies equipment to all sectors of the entertainment/corporate market. Earlier this year he acquired an eight-box Nexo PS10 system (plus subs) for servicing Druid Theatre's world premier and Irish tour of the Synge Cycle, and for general conference duties in the Radisson Hotel. He has now boosted his inventory with the addition of the Radian RMW-1108 8" mini MicroWedges.

The sound man was first exposed to the MicroWedge on system designer Dave Rat's Ratsound website, before gaining first hand

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