UK - Two of Audient's compact Zen mixing consoles were chosen for the extensive new music recording facilities at the King's Cross Centre, part of London's Westminster Kingsway College, which are now operational.

"The opportunity to re-equip and upgrade the studio equipment on this level is a very rare thing, particularly in the education sector, so it had to be done right," says Grant Leslie, music technician at Westminster Kingsway College, and specifier of all studio equipment including the Audient desks.

"The Zen was the logical choice for us as it had exactly the features that we were looking for as well as the renowned Audient sound quality; there was nothing else on the market that came close to ticking all the boxes. I've worked with Audient products before and love the smooth, clean sounding preamps and signal bussing, the Zen certainly doesn't disappoi

France - The Stade de France in St Denis, Paris, has successfully completed the installation of a new Nexo sound reinforcement system, which replaces an older Nexo system, the first elements of which were installed in 1997 when the Stade was erected, in time for the World Cup football in 1998.

Purpose-built for events as well as its primary sporting engagements, football and rugby, the Stade de France is an 80,000+ capacity venue. Its distinctive elliptical design, by architects Aymeric Zublena, Claude Constantini, Michel Macary and Michel Regembal, is distinguished by the immense floating roof, which never touches the stands, resting instead on 18 pillars. Another aspect of the stadium's design is the cushion of air that allows the lower stands to slide out in approximately 72 hours, depending on the different configurations needed, allowing the stadium to be reconfigured to ho

Austria - Lighting designer Helmut Krammer used over 100 Robe fixtures - a mixture of moving lights and units from Robe's LED series - for the 2011 Summer Night Concert, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra in the Baroque gardens at Schönbrunn Palace, which created a stunning backdrop.

The event was attended by 150,000 people and broadcast by ORF to approximately 60 other countries.

Krammer's challenges included lighting the area being used to stage the event, creating a sense of spectacle, illuminating the orchestra in an appropriate way for both broadcast and live audience, and generally bringing additional magic, and ambience to the performance with the lighting, some of which was required to cover very wide distances.

The lighting rental company for the event was film and TV specialists LGL Lichttechnik from Vienna, and the Robes were supplied by Q-99 f

Off Stage - Phantom of the Opera sequel Love Never Dies is to close on 27 August, it has been confirmed. The announcement comes a little over a year since Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical first opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London's West End. The show opened to some poor reviews, and after substantial rewrites, was relaunched nine months later. Although the new version gained a better critical reception, it failed to perform at the box office.

A fresh production of the show opened in Melbourne, Australia, at the end of May with far more positive press. In an interview earlier this month, Lord Lloyd-Webber attributed the show's failure to his being treated for cancer during production, which meant he was unable to give it his full attention. "With hindsight we should have said, 'Let's put the whole thing on hold until I'm 100% again'. Frankly I wasn't feeling v

China - At this year's Palme Beijing exhibition, Shanghai based lighting and video company Kupo Shanghai Co welcomed Green Hippo director James Heron.

Arranging speeches and seminars at the show, Kupo, who have been working with Hippotizer for several years, presented the range of media servers to existing and potential clients. Various projects done with Hippotizer in China, such as the Nissan stand at the recent Shanghai International Automotive exhibition, and others from around the world, were showcased to illustrate Hippotizer's capabilities.

Targeted mostly towards technicians from the AV sector, James Heron presented Green Hippo to this specialised market, highlighting the company's 10 year history and the products flexibility and functionality as an all-round toolbox for any event.

The presentation and seminars were a complete success and to keep the momentum going H

UK - A grandMA2 light was specified by lighting programmer and operator David Horner to control moving lights and media for the 20th annual British Academy Cymru Awards (Welsh BAFTAs) held at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff. The event was hosted by Sian Williams and Jason Mohammed and celebrated the best of the nation's television, film and interactive industry in 26 programme, craft and performance categories.

The lighting and visuals package for the show was co-ordinated by gaffer Gafin Riley who is based in Wales, assisted by Bernie Davis. The lighting designer was Andrew Cottey, and programmer David Horner was asked onboard to plot and operate the moving lights and Hippo Critter media server feeding content to an upstage LED wall.

The grandMA2 light was supplied by MA Lighting UK, and Emma Ralphs, the main lighting programmer from Cardiff's St David's Hall venue which has

UK - Le Mark reports that its portable dance floor, EventFloor has been selected by the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama for their four new rehearsal studios.

The £22m development which also includes a 400-seat concert hall and 160-seat theatre is due for competition within the next few weeks.

The two 120m2 polished wood rehearsal studio floors will be protected by Le Mark's EventFloor during student events. RWCMD's technical manager Simon Denman-Ellis says, "We were so impressed with the flooring, we may even use EventFloor on the main stage in the new 400 seat concert hall."

(Jim Evans)

UK - Creative lighting and rental company Colour Sound Experiment kicked off a potentially record breaking summer festival season run by supplying lighting equipment and crew to four major festivals - Rockness in Inverness, the re-launched Glade in Norfolk, Get Loaded In The Park in Clapham, London, plus the VIP areas at the Isle of Wight Festival.

Some of Colour Sound's latest purchase of 32 GLP Spot One LED moving lights from A.C. Entertainment Technologies also had their first outing at Rockness.

For Rockness, Colour Sound produced a production lighting design for the main stage of this popular event staged on the shores of Scotland's most famous Loch, which was based on the spec's of the three headline acts - Kasabian (LD Nick Gray), The Chemical Brothers (LD Paul Normandale) and Paolo Nutini (LD Jason Hyne). All three also bought in their own specials packages, of which N

UK - Canadian electronic dance star, Deadmau5 was the latest artist to provide a workout for Martin Audio's Multicellular Loudspeaker Array (MLA), when he played to 26,000 people in London's Victoria Park - his first ever headline outdoor event and only English festival of 2011.

It was the second year of the London Electronic Dance Festival (LED) - and since Deadmau5 is a client of Capital Sound Hire, the London based sound production company were brought in by the consortium of promoters (Cream, Goldenvoice and Loudsound) seizing the opportunity to fire up the MLA system outdoors for the first time.

"We knew how the system sounded indoors, but I wanted to evaluate it outside, and see how it would fare in propagation tests," said Capital technical manager Ian Colville. "Thanks to the tight micro-control the system can be programmed to enable the sound to taper o

USA - On 15 June at the InfoComm show in Orlando, Xantech presented Bensalem, Pennsylvania-based firm APA Music& Pictures with a special plaque commemorating the two-millionth installation of Xantech products and thanking them for their years of Xantech use.

The recent installation was performed at Mount Laurel, New Jersey's Twelve Thousand Building Conference Centre, housing training room and boardroom spaces for TD Bank. Xantech products, including the WIC1200Web Intelligent Controller and CWTC1010.4-inch Wireless Touch Controller, now form the foundation for the A/Vdistribution in several rooms in the building.

The ceremony was attended by APA's VP of sales and production Dave Pedemonti; Xantech president Graham Hallett; and Xantech director of business development Rick Seegull.

Pedemonti stated, "We are very proud to have completed Xantech's two-millionth installati

France - The festival Jazz Sous Les Pommiers takes place every year in Coutances, in the Manche department of Normandy, and has done since 1982, when the event was set up by Thierry Giard and Gerard Houssin.

Today, the eclectic line-up ranges from New Orleans jazz to electronic musicians, and from local artists and street performers to superstars. With 37,000 spectators breaking last year's attendance record the scene was set for this year when the event celebrated its 30th anniversary with the return of many artists who have previously played the festival, and a finale comprising a 'Crazy Parade' through the Coutances town centre.

With so many venues in use, an advanced network was required for the week-long festival, with appearances by Eric Bibb, Jamie Cullum, Charlie Musselwhite and Malted Milk.

This included an Optocore signal distribution system, provided by sound engi

UK - Download Festival became one of the first European festivals to be provided with a full Versarray 212 system as Peavey kitted out its Jagermeister stage from 10-12 June. Peavey will continue to provide the same rig to Jagermeister stages up and down the UK at a string of this year's major summer festivals.

Although the amount of boxes may vary depending on the size of individual stages, the core Peavey set-up comprises two hangs of Versarray 212 mid/high enclosures, with Versarray 218 subwoofers providing low frequency reinforcement beneath the stage. Crest CV-20 56 Premium and HP-Eight (40 frame) consoles are deployed for FOH and monitor work respectively; and all power is provided by Crest Pro 9200 and 7200 amplifiers.

Upcoming festivals include Sonisphere at Knebworth on 8-10 July, where The Defiled will headline the Jagermeister stage; Splendour Festival in Nottingham

UK - Comedian Dara O'Brian this week returns to BBC2 screens to host the tenth series of the topical panel show Mock The Week! The game is influenced by improvised topical stand-up comedians, with several rounds requiring players to deliver answers on unexpected subjects on the spur of the moment.

Richard Martin Lighting supports lighting designer Dave Davey's design. The design brief set out for Davey when he first joined the production, was to "make the set look colourful without spill onto Projection screens". To achieve this he opted for VL1000TS' "All hanging, focussed on to backing flats".

When asked about his choice of fixtures Dave said, "The VL100TS is the right tool to apply colour and texture to the Mock The Week! set to enhance all of the backings and the main desk."

(Jim Evans)

UK - The joint celebration between Northern Light and White Light to mark their fortieth anniversaries was enjoyed by hundreds of industry players on Wednesday 15 June.

Held during the ABTT Theatre Show, the party took place at a pub close to the exhibition venue and was well attended by the two companies' customers, suppliers and manufacturers alike.

John Simpson, White Light's chairman, said, "As we suspected, our industry pals were all too happy to have a drink or two provided for them to celebrate our fortieth birthdays! It was great to see so many customers and colleagues in one place, helping us to toast our four decades of success."

John Allen, director at Northern Light, added, "Having known John since we founded our respective companies in 1971, I very much enjoyed reminiscing about our early days and observing the next generation of the entertainment

Germany - At the 56th Eurovision Song Contest 2011 Final against a rig of over 5500 fixtures, lighting designer, Jerry Appelt, chose a total of 15 Robert Juliat followspots to pick out the performers against the dynamic set during the rehearsals, two semi-final shows and the all-important Final.

Six Robert Juliat Aramis 2500W HMI DMX and four Robert Juliat Lancelot 4000W HTI followspots highlighted the main performers from front of house positions during each number, with five Robert Juliat Victor 1800W MSR followspots used as backlight from truss seats suspended behind the stage.

The show needed followspots that were powerful enough to pick out the performers amid the quantity of light put out by over 2000 moving lights and vivid video backdrops. All the Robert Juliat followspots were provided by Cape Cross of Cologne.

(Jim Evans)

UK - PLASA's recent AGM and Members Lunch drew over 170 members and guests to Kings Place Concert Hall in London for a day focusing on developments since PLASA merged with ESTA and the wider issues of product copying, radio spectrum and Technical Standards.

The AGM featured presentations from PLASA's Acting Chair Ed Pagett, Treasurer Martin Hawthorn and CEO Matthew Griffiths, covering the early stages of the merger and operational and financial reviews of the past 12 months. In the year since the merger was first voted for by members, PLASA has restructured its membership, run new-style elections, introduced a more representative Governance structure with Regional Boards and an international Governing Body and launched new services and research projects.

Whilst the merger was a key focus of the day, it was not the only subject under discussion and in a lively Q&A session follo

Germany - Sennheiser electronic GmbH published its financial statement for the business year 2010 yesterday. The audio specialist has increased turnover to 468.2m Euros, compared to 389.9m Euros last year. This corresponds to an increase of 20.1% and is the largest turnover in the company's history.

Profit increased from 3.8m Euros (in 2009) to 22.6mEuros. Volker Bartels, spokesperson of Sennheiser's Executive Management Board, stated that "All product groups and all markets have contributed to this positive result." He added, "One of the important factors which contributed to this result was the revival of the professional side of our business and the highly positive growth at the end of the year, particularly in the consumer segment. Now we have to stabilise this dynamic growth and further expand our business."

The largest part of the company's turnover c

USA - To provide a comprehensive system for distributing of the audio signals and establishing a comms infrastructure at this year's Tony Awards the production companies Firehouse Productions and Audio Intercom Services provided a versatile solution. The system comprised RockNet digital audio network including Studer Vista 5 console integration, Artist digital matrix intercom and Performer digital partyline from Riedel Communications.

The 65th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre were broadcast live on CBS television. One of the major challenges of this year's ceremony was the new location as the event was moved from the Radio City Hall to the much smaller Beacon Theatre. This meant that the equipment that usually would have been installed next to the stage, now needed to be installed in trucks and tents outside the venue resulting in a more complex setup.

For providing the live

UK - Northern Light's ongoing 40th birthday celebrations continued at the ABTT Theatre Show with a raffle to win a bottle of 1971 vintage single malt whisky.

Many, many people entered the draw to be in with a chance of going home with the 1971 Speyside single malt from the Macallan distillery, but there could only be one winner.

At 4 pm on Thursday 16 June, PLASA's Ruth Rossington kindly did the honours and drew the winner - who was Anne Valentino, ETC's EOS product line manager.

(Jim Evans)

Spain - Ibiza Rocks is a summer-long festival of live music that has run annually since 2005. And this year Prolyte Group was commissioned to supply a branded version of its performance platform, LiteConsole, to create a striking visual impact as part of selected live shows and DJ sets. The newly crowned Ibiza Rocks Bar, where the LiteConsole will be based, is steeped in moments of Ibiza history.

As the original home of the Ibiza Rocks live gigs, it was largely responsible for reintroducing guitar based music to the island, and the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Babyshambles, and Kaiser Chiefs have all performed on stage under the Ibiza Rocks banner. The list of DJs to grace the bar also reads like a who's who of dance music; Zane Lowe, Annie Mac, Calvin Harris, Doorly and Eddie Halliwell have all made regular appearances.

Ibiza Rocks approached Prolyte Group back in March

USA - PLASA Events, an operating division of PLASA - the lead international membership body for those who supply technologies and services to the event, entertainment and installation industries has announced its first regional event in North America. PLASA Focus: Austin 2012 will be held 22-23 February, 2012 at the Renaissance Austin, Texas.

Modeled after the highly successful PLASA Focus: Leeds (UK), which recently broke previous attendance records in its third year, Focus: Austin will bring together members of the entertainment technology community to do business and network in a relaxed and friendly setting.

The two-day show will be reasonably priced for exhibitors and free to registered visitors. A unique hard wall booth package-including furniture, power and lighting-will level the playing field and give exhibitors a simple and affordable exhibiting experience. The show'

China/Sweden - LumenRadioreports that it is starting a CRMX wireless revolution campaign in China. After the successful launch of LumenRadio's CRMX at PALM Expo Beijing 2011, and with the completion of several prestigious government installations, the time has now come to bring CRMX to the larger and rapidly growing Chinese lighting market, states the company.

"CRMX has been recognised worldwide as the premium brand for wireless lighting controls, and has recently proven its superior reliability in the most challenging of installations," says Steven Cai at Leafun. We are proud to bring the benefits of the CRMX technology to the greater Chinese market. We have numerous new government and other high profile projects in the pipeline and will have three dedicated sales and support people working to drive the CRMX wireless revolution in China. We will also immediately start

UAE - The Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi has been illuminated in spectacular fashion using Martin Professional colour changing luminaires. The bridge, which soars to a height of 60m and stretches 842m, connects mainland Dubai to the island of Abu Dhabi and acts as a gateway to the city.

Ideas for illuminating the Sheikh Zayed Bridge began over a decade ago when colored illumination was promoted by Nour Assafiri, CEO of Martin Middle East, to the Municipality of Abu Dhabi. They liked the idea and accordingly asked the bridge's prestigious architect Zaha Hadid to consider the concept.

Named after the country's former president, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the bridge features a captivating illumination of dynamic lighting from 204 Martin Exterior 600 and 130 Martin Exterior 200 colour changing luminaires, as well as 956 Martin Cyclo 01 linear fluorescent luminaires.

A

UK - The John Hornby Skewes & Co Event 2011 is being hailed as a resounding success. A record number of attendees from the pro-audio, rental and PA sectors turn out to see, hear and test out new product, watch artists play, mingle with a number of industry stalwarts, and go home with extra profits, says the company.

Attendance at Event 2011 was up by 20% on last year, and it really showed, as the two marquees, the demonstration theatres and outside areas were bustling throughout.

Visitors were entertained by live music across two stages delivered through HK Audio Elements PA with musicians including Bob Henrit, Bad Company's Dave 'Bucket' Colwell, Thomas Blug, John Verity, Jamie Mallender, Paul Rogers Band guitarist Paul Guerin, and virtuoso blues guitarists/ chanteuses Chantel McGregor and Clare Free. JHS very own Gav Coulson hosted the JHS Rock All-stars, as MC, MD, bass pla

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