UK / Italy - Outline has successfully launched its Openarray 3D Software. Training seminars were held during PLASA09 on its stand, to train and show system engineers and sound designers the advantage of having a three dimensional software programme that can predict the results expected from either a live performance or an installation of its products.

The intention of releasing an 'alpha' version is to gain the experience of system engineers consistently working in the field. Building on the success of V.I.P. (Vector Implementation Protocol), the idea is to have the engineers contact the company with a "wish list" of additions to the software that would assist them in the future.

Openarray has in its user files at present the three line array products from Outline, namely Butterfly, Mini-COM.P.A.S.S. and Mantas. By the end of this year all the subwoofer products will

Spain - Mamma Mia is in its fifth year of international touring, having been seen by over three million people in Cape Town, Zurich, Dublin, Beijing, Taipei, Berlin, Paris, Lisbon, Pretoria, Dubai, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv, Riga, Shanghai, Helsinki, Bratislava, Prague, Glasgow and Budapest - and is now on tour throughout Spain.

Lighting designer Howard Harrison and associate lighting designer Pia Virolainen used a grandMA full-size, a grandMA light and three MA NSPs (Network Signal Processor) as well as grandMA 3D for pre-visualisation.

Pia Virolainen comments, "The central issue here was to make the show tourable whilst retaining the original look of the show. We reduced the number of conventional units quite considerably and adjusted the moving light rig accordingly. The back cloth is now lit by led battens instead of striplights and ETC pars - this proved to be ver

UK - Audio, video and lighting design and installation specialists, TMC have recently been awarded with the ISO 9001 status.

The decision for the application for ISO 9001 accreditation has been driven by the increased number of large scale projects that TMC has been asked to become involved with. Since TMC's involvement with the Governments' Building Schools for the Future Initiative, requests have been "flooding in" for TMC's expertise to design and install sound systems, architectural lighting and interactive visual effects for numerous construction projects.

Working with some of the leading property development companies and highly respected architects, TMC chose Keighley based BTAL and began the process for the accreditation in March of this year.

Natasha Fishwick of TMC commented: "Achieving the ISO9001 status has been an important development for

UK - MIPRO's new ACT digital wireless radio system has become the system of choice for UK dance act Chicane.

Chicane sound engineer Tim Peeling knows how difficult it can be to provide the best sound in constantly changing environments. He discovered the MIPRO digital system through UK hire company Concert Sound: "I was interested in it because it's digital and 'future-proof' and because of the rejection."

"I was really happy with the sound of it. The lack of compander works really well: I don't have to worry about the dynamic range. Every other condenser microphone I've used has been very wide open. With this, I can set it up with a very low input gain on the microphone so its sphere of collection is very small and I don't have the trouble of a wide open vocal mic on stage. I don't have to savagely EQ the vocal just to get it stable without feedback; I can EQ t

UK - Robe REDWash 3-192 LED wash fixtures are at the hub of a spectacular lighting special effect on Massive Attack's latest UK and European tour. The rig has been designed by Robin Haddow and all lighting equipment is being supplied by Blackburn, UK based HSL.

It also includes 15 Robe ColorSpot 250ATs, which are attached to the bases of 15 custom Barco O-Lite video columns which join together to make a 15m wide by 3m high upstage screen.

It's very much styled as a back-lit show, however there are also eight Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 700E ATs positioned on stands and flightcases on both sides of the stage. These deliver the front, side and required key lighting.

The REDWashes are attached to eight custom designed trussing sections - fabricated by HSL to ensure that rigging them during the get-in is a fast and efficient operation. The eight vertical truss sections all sit

The Netherlands - The Airborne Museum 'Hartenstein', in Oosterbeek, has reopened after an extensive renovation including Richmond Sound Design's SoundMan-Server Virtual Sound System software. The Commissioner of the Queen and the commanders of the British and Polish paratroopers officially opened the museum on Sunday, 20 September 2009.

The entire museum was renovated and extended with the addition of The Airborne Experience (September 1944). This exhibit, which leads the visitor from the para-landings, through the streets of Holland, to the 'Bridge too Far' at the Battle of Arnhem, is unique in Europe.

Concept designers Tinker Imagineers were asked to bring the battle back to life in the newly constructed 900 square meter basement. Entering this subterranean extension of the museum you are immersed in the war events of September 1944. Historical guns, impressive sets,

France - Robert Juliat reports that it has moved its Greek distribution channel to the professional lighting and electrical company, P. Vassiliou SA.

Based in Athens, P. Vassiliou SA is set to focus its attention heavily on the Greek theatre and architectural markets and to expand Robert Juliat's presence in these markets.

The team from P. Vassiliou recently underwent extensive product and after-sales training at the Robert Juliat headquarters near Paris where they were brought up to speed on what Robert Juliat has to offer.

"We chose P Vassiliou SA as our new dealer because it is a very professional company which focuses closely on the product ranges it choses to represent," says Robert Juliat sales director, Lionel Garraud. "This means that, not only are the sales team well informed on all of the Robert Juliat range, but they are dedicated to providing their

Germany - E/T/C London's Ross Ashton was invited to create a video projection art work on the Germania statue located in the Niederwald Landscape Park, near Rüdesheim am Rhein, Hesse, Germany, as part of the 2009 Rheinpartie Festival of Light.

Ashton's carefully crafted mix of colour and precision lighting transformed the imposing 38m tall monument, built to commemorate the foundation of the German Empire after the Franco Prussian war in 1883, into a symbol of European peace and harmony.

Ashton was first approached at the beginning of the year to contribute a work to the festival by its curator and co-ordinator Helmut M. Bien, who already had Germania in mind as a site. Says Ashton "It was a huge honour to be invited to the Rheinpartie, and even more so to specifically be asked to work on a such a key site with the historic and strategic relevance of Germania.&quo

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

Italy - Over 1.2 kilometres of Milos M290 Trio system trussing was used to construct the support structure for a massive projection screen in Verona Arena for a special gala evening celebrating 40 years since Spanish tenor Placido Domingo's debut in the north Italian town.

The fan-shaped screen was located behind the stage covering the back seating tiers, and reached right up to the full height of the top of the venue. Its total surface area was an impressive 2,160sq.m.

Fondazione Arena di Verona is a Roman amphitheatre dating back to 30 AD. The task of designing, supplying and installing the projection screen into this performance space was trusted to rigging and trussing rental company Decima Italia from Padova.

One of the many challenges they faced was ensuring that the installation had minimal impact on the natural architecture. The screen also had to be positioned milli

Australia - Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons sold 175 million records worldwide - all before they were 30. And now their story is being told in Jersey Boys at Melbourne's Princess Theatre, with the help of lighting designer Howell Binkley and Bytecraft Entertainment. In Australia, Hugh Hamilton is acting as both associate lighting designer and production electrician.

The star of the show, from a lighting point of view, is a giant 'stadium with six lighting towers' made up of 144 ETC Source FourPARs. These hold custom donuts (gel frames that limit the size of the aperture of the light after the lens) fabricated to create an impression of perspective for the luminaires, which were placed upstage, facing the audience.

"The bank of 144 Source FourPARs, along with some strobes, looks amazing and is an epic look in the show. It comes at the end of the first act, as The

UK - London-based LD Peter Mumford used Martin Professional's high-brightness EvenLED RGB LED panels on the new opera Prima Donna at the Manchester International Festival.

Mumford used 111 EvenLED panels to light a large cyclorama for the opera which played at the Palace Theatre. "I particularly wanted to use EvenLED for Prima Donna to achieve a perfectly even cover using a rear projection cyc behind a painted glass wall and have the possibility of numerous colour changes and 'wipes' of color," Mumford commented.

"In the finale aria of the show entitled Feu d'artifice I was able to animate an abstract 'fireworks display' through another huge glass window and the result was very beautiful." Working with Mumford was a team led by production electrician Keith Johnson and programmer Victoria Brennan.

Festival technical director Jack Thom

USA - Rock legends Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood recently reunited to tour North America: Escondido, California-based Sound Image provided the pro audio equipment, including a selection of JBL VerTec line arrays powered by Crown amplifiers, all fed sound by Clapton's long-time live sound engineer Robert Collins at front-of-house.

A sell-out reunion date at New York's Madison Square Garden last year paved the way for the 2009 "Two Legends, One Live Experience" tour, which spanned 14 cities in 20 days, beginning at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey and culminating at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. The nightly set list included several songs from the classic 1969 album Blind Faith, which Clapton and Winwood recorded with bandmates Ginger Baker and Rick Grech.

The live sound reinforcement system for the just-completed tour included a total of 84 VerTec

UK - Students at south London's BRIT School's technical theatre course need to learn on a lighting control desk which will be able to handle the most complex, multi media filled rigs, yet simple enough to get to grips with as part of their course. And it needs to be one which they might go on to use when they start working professionally. When Andrew Smith, the school's technical manager, started looking for a replacement desk last September, he settled on an ETC Eos and its smaller sibling, Ion.

For the final assessment show of the year, 18 year old BTEC National students Ben Couch and Chris Burnage directed and programmed the lighting and AV on the Eos and Ion, working on discrete software partitions. Both have used lighting control desks before, but found that the additional functionality which ETC's desks offer has made their projects much easier. Couch explains: "The p

On The World Stage - Robbie Williams' comeback concert for the BBC Electric Proms will be broadcast in cinemas around the world. The concert on 20 October will be beamed live to almost 200 screens across Europe. It will also be shown later in Australia and South Africa. Williams said: "It's very exciting to think that a one-off performance I play in London can be seen simultaneously by people all across the world."

The proms concert will be the singer's first major show in three years. It will also be broadcast on Radio 1. The high definition screening is being billed as the largest live music cinematic event of its kind in Europe, and has been put together by BBC Worldwide. The commercial arm of the corporation recently beamed The Last Night of the Proms into cinemas around the world.

Glastonbury sells out - Tickets for next year's Glastonbury F

UK - A collection of artists used Lumacoustics YrWall digital graffiti wall recently to create individual and detailed collaborative works which in turn were beamed onto an entire building using two state-of-the-art projectors. YrWall allows users to create graffiti digitally using a modified spray can on a three metre wide screen.

Central Presentations Ltd (CPL) supported Lumacoustics by providing the hardware to create "the world's largest graffiti wall". CPL supplied technical support as well as Barco FLMHD20 projectors, Barco DVI matrix switching equipment and fibre optic links to ensure top quality signal paths around the outdoor site on the Harbourside in Bristol.

The project involved firing two projectors side by side to cover a 26m x 10m canvas across the Lloyd's headquarters building. The system primarily was driven by Lumacoustics' custom software YrWall wh

UK - Manchester- based lighting company DBN has completed the installation of the house lighting rig at the iconic Manchester live music venue, Band On The Wall.

The landmark 300-capacity venue on 25 Swan Street in the Northern Quarter of the city centre dates back some 200 years and has been associated with live music for much of its rich cultural heritage. The name comes from the 1930's when musicians used to perform standing on precarious platforms strapped to the wall.

It has been completely renovated, restored and just reopened by operators Inner City Music with the help of a £4m combined award from the Manchester City Council, Arts Council England and the Lottery Heritage Fund, to transform the venue into a 21st century centre of music with strong community ties.

DBN's Nigel Walker completed the design. An important part of the brief was that they wanted a retro

UK - Nottingham-based hire company, Merlin PA, recently purchased an Allen & Heath iLive-T system, comprising an iDR-48 MixRack with iLive-T112 Control Surface, to add to its touring inventory.

"The day we received the system I took it straight out on a rock show with only 30 minutes prep time, half of which was spent unboxing everything," reports Merlin PA's Graham White. "I played around with the effects and scenes and got 100% confident with the system within an hour. The show ended too soon, I was enjoying myself."

Since its debut, the iLive-T has mainly been used for the global promos, shows and live appearances of former Destiny's Child star, Kelly Rowland.

White has also taken advantage of iLive's control flexibility. When confronted with limited FOH space in a Nottingham nightclub, he says, "There was no room for a mixing console in the tiny

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

USA - Women vocalists considered to be the cream of the crop by the VH1 cable television network inaugurated the newest major event venue outside of Manhattan in late September.

The women, including Miley Cirus, Sheryl Crow, Jennifer Hudson, Melissa Etheridge and others along with host Paula Abdul, performed a three-hour live concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music before attending an after-show party at the neo-Romanesque styled Williamsburgh Savings Bank, a Brooklyn landmark since its completion in 1929.

Standing at 512 feet and renamed One Hanson Place, the structure is the tallest building in Brooklyn and second tallest on Long Island. The tower is fitted with a four-sided clock, the largest in the world until 1962, and is capped by a gilded copper dome. The building was named a historic landmark in 1977.

The upper floors have recently been converted from offices to hig

The Netherlands Long time Sound Projects dealer Live Music installed the third Sound Projects system based on DreamLines in a year. This time, it was in the totally renovated former iron-factory Drufabriek complex in Ulft. The new complex houses not only the new theatre and a music & dance hall but also a music school, practice rooms for bands, a library, a gallery, meeting rooms and a restaurant.|

The theatre as well as the pop auditorium has been provided with DreamLines. In the Pop&Dance Hall, the DreamLines are augmented by two SP2-10 bass horns per side. Concealed pairs of SP3-15s are also deployed and there is an extra set of SP2-10 at hand for special events.

The other auditorium is built as a traditional theatre. Here also DreamLines are installed, with one SP3-15 on the floor per side. MD live music Bart Smits comments, "All audio elements are interchangeable and

Australia - Jands Production Services has purchased 62 Crown MA9000i touring power amplifiers. "We were looking for a new, lightweight, high-powered amplifier and we've had a long history with Crown as we've always been happy with their products," remarked Jim Straw, JPS' general manager.

However, JPS still put the Crown MA9000i amplifiers through rigorous testing before deciding upon the purchase: "We did some listening tests and the overall majority picked the 9000i amplifiers over the other amplifiers we were listening to," added Jim. "We decided to replace a number of amplifiers driving some of our boxes with the 9000i's and we've been very happy with them."

Several of the MA9000i amplifiers are installed at Sydney's Luna Park where they run the JBL VertTec 4888 speakers and 4880 subs. More have been placed into JPS's monitor systems powering

Denmark - DPA Microphones has released The Human Kind, a corporate endeavour to support environmental causes by creating local jobs and improving the climate globally. Working closely with Danish energy company SEAS-NVE, DPA has released The Human Kind to raise money for Greening Your Future, a reforestation project in Durban, South Africa.

The Human Kind, which is only available as a download, can be purchased from all the usual portals. More information about downloading the track, and the project itself, can be found at www.thehumankind.dk. The project is also being sponsored by Danish music distributor Gateway, which has uploaded the song free of charge for global distribution.

The idea of getting involved in environmental concerns and make a commitment to a charity project which can make a difference was inspired by this year's COP15 United Nat

USA / UAE - Philips Vari-Lite has announced that its newest Middle East distributor, VTI, has successfully sold 100 units of the Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash and VL3000 Spot luminaires to Gearhouse Staging Connections for use throughout future installations in the region.

Gearhouse Staging Connections will put their new luminaires straight to work - first for use by Think Flash in Abu Dhabi, and then as part of the automated lighting package for a series of high profile events at the new Palladium Theatre in Dubai.

"The Middle East market, led by concert activity in the United Arab Emirates, has become more and more sophisticated over the past 10 years and the expectations of the client base have grown significantly," stated Peter McCann, managing director, Gearhouse Staging Connections.

"The operating conditions in this market are extreme with temperatures up to 50

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