USA - Miami-area production company, Drummer Boy Sound, has added an Allen & Heath iLive-T digital mixing system, comprising an iDR-48 MixRack and iLive-T112 Control Surface, to its hire stock.

Founder and CEO, Harold Cummings, comments: "I took an iLive-T system out on a couple of demos and was blown away with what it could do, especially for such a great price. Our roots are in live sound, and we do a lot of high-profile events around Miami. When I began using the console system at those shows, I can't tell you what a difference it made; small footprint, easy and fast to set up, no outboard gear - and it sounds fantastic."

One of the first events Cummings managed with his newly purchased iLive system was the National Day of Prayer at Miami's Faith Centre. The venue seats about 4,000 worshipers, and the event was also recorded by the Telemundo network.

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UK - Building on the successful Big Day Out events of the last two years, Shuttlesound is taking product demos to another level with the announcement of the first Big Day Outside over the second May Bank Holiday weekend. In conjunction with the Glastonbudget festival near Nottingham, a collaboration between the technical and performance sectors of the industry will allow Shuttlesound guests to demo three different Electro-Voice line array systems in a bona fide festival environment.

Glastonbudget is Europe's largest festival for tribute bands and new acts. Dubbed 'the Mecca of tribute', the event is now in its sixth year and will see more than 6,000 fans gather to see 130+ bands. With six stages on site, production services company OneBigStar has ample opportunities to set out the Electro-Voice stall on behalf of Shuttlesound. With XLC providing a fir

France - Aviom is providing several of its best-selling products to help streamline audio monitoring for the 10-piece orchestra for a new production of The Lion King at the historic Theatre Mogador in Paris. Co-produced by Stage Entertainment and Disney Theatrical, this presentation relies on an Aviom-based monitoring system to simplify the audio setup and workflow.

Sound designers Steve Kennedy and John Shivers specified Aviom personal monitoring gear for this project. The audio setup, which was provided by Dispatch, consists of a Yamaha M7CL digital mixing console with a 16-channel Pro16 A-Net Interface card installed. The A-Net card is connected to three A-16D Pro A-Net Distributors and 19 Aviom A-16II Personal Mixers to provide 16 channels of monitor mix content to the orchestra's 10 musicians as well as providing a monitor feed to the main audio desk. The production

UK - The chair of the Health and Safety Executive, Judith Hackitt CBE, has officially opened the new headquarters of PASMA, the trade association representing the mobile access tower industry in the UK and Ireland. Situated in the commercial heart of Glasgow, 7 Newton Place is the association's first permanent HQ and is home to its eight strong secretariat.

Unveiling a plaque to mark the occasion, and recalling her time as director general of the Chemical Industries Association (CIA), Hackitt acknowledged the contribution of PASMA and trade associations in general to advancing safety and best practice.

In particular, Ms Hackitt highlighted the long time cooperation between HSE and PASMA and the work of the association in promoting competency when working at height. She commented, "PASMA is a good example of what can be achieved when regulator and trade body work together

UK - RG Jones has been providing the sound for Raymond Gubbay's Classical Spectacular concerts for over a decade, and if there's one thing that's constant, said RG Jones' FOH engineer Simon Hodge, "it's that the audience's expectations for a loud, exciting and high quality experience keep on rising, year after year. And they do like it loud."

With over 200 musicians on stage for the recent Royal Albert Hall show, including a string section 50 per cent larger than that of the average orchestra, together with a large choir, military band and numerous soloists, the crew faced a phenomenal task long before a note was struck. Load-in at 3am was followed immediately by flying the PA - 16 cabinets per side of Synco by Martin Audio W8LC line array - to allow cabling and lighting rigging to follow. By 9am the stage was set. "Just as well," observed Hodge, "

UK - Northern Light is supplying and commissioning 72 ways of ETC Sensor dimming and a custom made house lighting control system to Northamptonshire's newest venue - the as yet unnamed theatre which will be housed within the £31 million Corby Cube development.

The Cube development - due to open in October - is a six storey, civic building which will form part of a new town square for Corby. The facilities include a 445 seat theatre, arts and studio spaces, a library, a bistro, council offices and chamber and a terraced roof garden.

Northern Light were approached by main contractor Mitie to provide dimming and control for the theatre's house lighting system.

Mike Percy, Northern Light's project engineer, says, "We've designed a bespoke control rack which features equipment from suppliers such as Pulsar and Global Design Solutions for operation of the theatre house

Europe - D&M Holdings has ended its fiscal year on 31 March 2010 and announced a significant improvement in profitability. The company reports increased market shares across all regions, earning many awards internationally for its new products. It has "strengthened relationships with channel partners and improved inventory management and operations; positioning itself for further growth in 2010".

In a consolidation of its brand portfolio, D&M is continuing its investment of resources in its core Denon, Marantz, McIntosh and Boston Acoustics brands, and has announced the discontinuance of Escient Vision. Escient's technologies and R&D resources are to be assimilated within D&M's core brands. D&M Europe, however, will continue to develop and market the Escient Zone CI integrated home control system, available exclusively through DMi.

D&M Europe will continue to grow it

UK - Playing for one week only at Glasgow's 1800-seat Kings Theatre, the latest production by The Paisley Musical and Operatic Society set a new benchmark for an amateur dramatics event. Reportedly costing over £100,000 to stage, The Producers took advantage of a cleverly-designed digital audio control system, using linked RSS M-400 desks supplied by Sono Vie.

The Paisley Musical & Operatic Society was able to use the original set from the West End production, and in all other respects aspired towards the highest professional standards for their show, retaining amateur status only in the sense of not being paid. Alan Beattie of Sono Vie, the production services rental company, points out that "members of the public assumed it was a professional production, which in technical terms it was."

With 30 characters moving on and off stage, the show deployed 32

USA - Turbosound's Flex Array has made a significant contribution to the success of the Winter Music Conference in Miami's South Beach, where The Shore Club hosted an impressive line-up of DJs.

The Shore Club hosted some of the most popular events of the well-established Winter Music Conference - now in its 25th consecutive year - with the main focus of attention being the Pool and Patio venues, where a line-up of DJs such as Carl Craig, Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Theo Parrish, DJ Hell, Peter Kruder, Metro Area, Christian Prommer, Roberto Rodriguez, Mark Farina and many more entertained the crowds of between 1,500 and 2,000 over four intensive days.

Following on from the excellent results achieved at last year's WMC, The Shore Club hotel and Miami-based event producer Tomas Ceddia of The Loud Minority were keen to bring Turbosound systems back again.

"

Germany - Attending the PL+S show in Frankfurt provided an opportunity for ETASound to close a deal with Nexo for a new Geo S12 line-array system, after a convincing one-time demo at SSE Audio Group's facilities earlier in the month.

Eddie Thomas of ETASound confirmed that he has ordered a total of 16 Geo S12 compact line-array cabinets, along with four PS15 in-fill and/or stage monitors, and power options in the shape of three NXAMP 4x4 amplifiers. Expanding his existing Nexo inventory, ETASound becomes one of the first rental companies in the world to offer the new RS18 sub, buying eight units after this latest Nexo subbass was released in Frankfurt.

SSE Sales handled the larger part of the transaction. "Buying the S12 package from SSE gave me the option to order bespoke flight cases and flying kit , and they will deliver the whole system complete and ready to go,"

South Africa - The Gearhouse South Africa Group has expanded its portfolio with the launch of Gearhouse Splitbeam. This joint venture between theatre services supplier, Splitbeam and Gearhouse SA is an equipment and technical solutions provider for theatre productions countrywide.

Alistair Kilbee, Splitbeam's business development manager, believes that the collaboration between the two companies fills a much needed gap in the area of theatre lighting supply in South Africa. Until now, rental companies stocked the "wrong type of equipment at the wrong prices for theatre productions," he states.

In addition to managing technical production services and requirements, Gearhouse Splitbeam benefits from a theatre-based and priced rental stockholding, serviced and maintained by the skilled and knowledgeable Splitbeam staff.

Kilbee joins the Gearhouse Group's Bezuidenhout

Austria - Located in the spa town of Baden, the Buehne Baden Theatre hosts a wide array of productions, from plays, operas and musicals to symphony concerts, big bands and rock concerts. It has recently taken delivery of a DiGiCo SD7T console.

A feature of this historic, 1700-seat theatre is its excellent acoustics, so any new Front of House console had to match the purity of sound. The SD7T does just that and, with its significant processing power and ease of use, has brought many other advantages.

"We specified the SD7T for its flexibility and good sound, while the enormously powerful cue list, combined with the aliases, is just what we need for theatre productions and musicals," says Joerg Humer, one of the theatre's two chief sound engineers.

"We needed a powerful desk with a small footprint and SD7T proved to be just the right tool," adds Joerg's fel

UK / Germany - KV2 Audio has announced the appointment of IAD (International Audio Distribution) as its new German distributor for KV2 Audio and KX Audio products. With the appointment made just prior to this year's Prolight&Sound Show in Frankfurt, the show offered a great opportunity for both parties to work together. The show also gave IAD the chance to spend some valuable time in the company of George Krampera, founder member and head of engineering at KV2, learning about the history, philosophies and technology statements of the company.

With an ever expanding product line and an hourly appearance at this year's Portable Sound Arena, the interest surrounding KV2 at the show was high, the company reports.

(Lee Baldock)

UK - The Birmingham based Cloud One Group who provide complete packaged solutions to the events industry and in addition have their own manufacturing operation have just reinforced it's already extensive Lab.gruppen stock with the addition of ten PLM10000QBPs.

Cloud One is no stranger to the Lab.gruppen brand and already has an extensive inventory of FP6000s and FP3400s. Their latest addition will give them another 100,000 watts of power at only 13.5kg per amplifier.

Paul Stratford, Cloud One MD, commented: "We are very pleased to have invested in the PLMs and to have strengthened our relationship with Lab.gruppen and John Hornby Skewes". He added: "Apart from the obvious power-to-weight ratio and reduced job preparation time we are very much looking forward to having a one amplifier solution that will be as much at home powering a double 18" sub as it is c

Qatar - Samsung was one of the official partners of the IAAF World Indoor Championships held in Doha, Qatar on 12-14 March. A Samsung Fan Zone was created in the Sports City outside the Aspire Stadium: part of this zone was the Samsung Cuboid, provided by UK-based LM Productions for client Cityneon.

The Cuboid was split into two areas - the Lounge and Promo area where nine plasma screens played promo videos and live feed of the Championships, plus camera demos.

The Visual Multimedia Area consisted of video projection, via three Sanyo DLP projectors, on three of the walls including two Wii gaming screens for visitors to play the new Summer Athletics 2009 Wii games. The other two walls showed Samsung sponsorship, sports advertising and archive footage. On the fourth wall were simple Samsung gobo projections. At night the Cuboid was lit up in an array of colours from LED batons p

Cyprus - Nicolas Kyvernitis Electronics Enterprises have sold the first Midas PRO6 Live Audio System in Cyprus to the Pavilion.

The mixed-use venue serves as a bar, a nightclub and also a corporate venue depending on the time of the year. In addition to its resident band, the Pavilion is host to many concerts from Greece with star attractions that require a mixing console that not only meets the demanding technical riders but which also provides the venue a flexible host of options and features.

"Currently, the Pavilion's equipment manifest includes a line array system and monitoring system representing a calculated investment for the future," says Richie Hiranandani, marketing manager. "The purchase of the PRO6 system is another step in this direction. The Pavilion can rest assured that they have invested in a mixing console that has the heritage of pedigree co

USA - Four of Renkus-Heinz's IC Live steerable line array systems are being used to create a natural ambience in the famed Mormon Tabernacle choir's main performance space in Salt Lake City.

Called one of the world's architectural masterpieces by none other than Frank Lloyd Wright, the Tabernacle has a domed roof that creates a remarkable acoustical environment that is arguably as much a part of the Choir's sound as the voices of the men and women themselves.

As their audience has grown, the Tabernacle's 6,000-plus capacity could no longer accommodate its legions of fans, and in 2000 the LDS Church opened the doors to its new 21,000-seat Conference Centre. But as Poll Sound's Deward Timothy explains, as majestic as the Conference Centre may be, for the singers themselves it cannot match the intimate acoustics of the original Tabernacle's dome. The situation is further complica

UK - Osram's COINlight-OSTAR LED modules and control gear have been specified by consulting mechanical and electrical engineers Michael Popper Associates and included in luminaires produced by lighting manufacturer Metro, to illuminate the f Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

The modules were specified to provide a high level of light output as well as long lamp life. It was essential that the modules come equipped with a long lifetime as the fittings are in an awkward location which makes re-lamping difficult.

The Crucible Theatre is a 980 seat auditorium that is renowned for its innovative theatrical productions and also hosts the annual World Snooker Championships. Over 750 Osram COINlight-OSTAR LED modules were installed in the main auditorium as part of a massive renovation project and overhaul of the complete Crucible site.

The original lighting for the auditorium starry s

UK/South Africa - Reporting in football parlance, GearSource Europe has scored three times in the run-up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup this summer. The first, a slow build-up with some interesting interplay, resulted in the sale of $200,000 of EAW speakers sourced from four prominent UK suppliers and sold to one of South Africa's premier rental companies. The recipients of this first strike are now the owners of even more KF760, SB850, and SB1000.

The second was a fast paced affair involving many KF730 speakers lobbed over the top to another of South Africa's finest - Strike two!

The third used a mixture of tactics involving yet more UK and European suppliers to provide a complete JBL rig, roof system and decking to another South African company. Strike three. Hat-trick. Match ball.

"We've been supplying several South African companies for a few years now, but these were t

Portugal - Coemar and Audium, a major Portuguese distributor of professional audio, video and scenic lighting equipment, consolidated their 10-year partnership at the annual presentation held at the Estoril Casino in Lisbon in February. Present at the exhibition were leading Portuguese lighting designers and rental companies.

Lighting designer Josè Rosado decked out the stage at the Casino using the new Infinity moving head fixtures.

For the Infinity range Portugal marked the last leg of a European presentation tour which concluded at ProLight&Sound in Frankfurt.

Co-starring on the stage at the Casino were the ParLite, StripLite, StageLite and CycLite units, part of the LiteLed range of projectors. Coemar used these to create a spectacular six-hour show.

(Jim Evans)

Thailand - Proel Group has announced the appointment of Kamol Sukosol Electric Co (KEC) to handle the exclusive distribution of all Proel products and accessories for Thailand.

Founded in 1974, KEC have been a pioneer in the Thai professional and consumer Audio field and have brought many well know international brands to Thai consumers over the years.

KEC foresees significant growth in Thailand's recording and broadcasting industry. This growth will ultimately require the support of quality audio equipment which KEC is positioned to offer. KEC's audio broadcasting group is divided into two subdivisions, each targeting different customer segments. Consumer Audio is focused on servicing the needs of individual consumer and small business users. The Kamol Pro Audio subdivision targets semi-pro and professional users.

KEC has built a solid network of over 100 provincial dealers

UAE - Tannoy has announced the opening of a dedicated regional office serving the needs of the Middle East market, to be headed up by Graham Lawton. The new office, operating as Tannoy Middle East, is based in the heart of Dubai's Media City development, a major hub for broadcast, music, marketing and creative industries throughout the UAE.

Establishing the new office represents a significant and highly visible step for Tannoy in developing its already expansive operations in the Middle East loudspeaker market, says the company.

Tannoy says it has experienced steady and continued growth in the installed sound market throughout the region in recent years. Many of the recent high profile developments, particularly in the UAE, feature Tannoy loudspeakers as an integral part of their AV systems. Prestigious projects such as the Burj Khalifa, Atlantis Resort, Mall of the Emirates,

Italy - The latest attraction for amusement fans in Southern Italy is called Miragica, Terra di Giganti, a large theme park open eight months a year and covering an area of 100,000sq.m.

Miragica boasts 19 attractions, which are a combination of shows and rides - some of which are 'firsts' - including a Launch Coaster and a 4D cinema, which are the largest in Italy.

The permanently installed sound reinforcement systems at Miragica are by Outline, whose staff also provided direct consultancy for the audio project's design.

Starting with the theatre, the main loudspeaker system consists of eight Outline Mini-COM.P.A.S.S. (four per side) and two Subtech 218 SP subwoofers (all self-powered enclosures). Four compact (self-powered) Micra II SP cover the front rows of the audience and four (self-powered) H.A.R.D. 115 SP are used as stage monitors.

For the Launch Coas

USA - With a never-ending schedule of gigs spanning the classic rock of Neal Schon, the progressive stylings of Todd Rundgren, and the artful excess of The Tubes, drummer Prairie Prince is seldom without a gig. This veteran percussionist and acclaimed visual artist is a founding member of both Journey and The Tubes, so his services are always in demand. And wherever he goes, his collection of beyerdynamic microphones go with him.

"I've been using beyerdynamic microphones for the past six or seven years," Prince says. "It started on tour with Todd Rundgren, who has an endorsement with beyerdynamic. It was hard not to notice how good my kit sounded, and everyone I talked to said they sound great out in the house as well. We used again last year on the New Cars tour, and I heard the same comments. Getting that kind of consistency when you're playing on a lot of diffe

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