India - This year, Martin Professional showcased products at the PALM Expo for the first time. Held from 2-4 June at the Bombay Exhibition Centre in suburban Mumbai, the exhibition, now in its eleventh year, is an important step in increasing Martin Professional visibility in the region, says the company.

Abhishek Guha, Martin's country manager in India, commented on the show, "Clients were extremely happy to get their first look at the Martin Professional line of lighting and video displays. The Martin booth featured a simple design that was optimal for showing the individual performance and effect of each product very nicely. We stayed busy and were very happy with the response."

Key products on display included the LC Series of LED panels, MAC 101, MAC 350 Entour, MAC 250 Beam, MAC III Performance, MAC 301 Wash, M1 lighting console, Maxedia media server, Ether2DMX

Sweden - Late May saw Swedish truck body manufacturer SKAB Group treat its employees and their families to a remarkable company party. With DiGiCo SD8 and SD8-24 consoles mixing the performances, the party went with a swing, not to mention some heads-down boogie.

Falkenberg-based Hire Sound Sweden was appointed by event management company 2e Group to provide sound reinforcement for the party, which took place in Falkenberg's Falkenhalle. The event was for 550 SKAB employees and their families, celebrating the fact that the various parts of the group have totalled 100 years in business.

"The plan was to put on a really grand show," says Hire Sound Sweden's Tobias Larsson. "In total over 100 professionals worked to realise SKAB's vision - to create the greatest corporate party ever."

The entertainment was shrouded in secrecy right up until the moment that e

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies' audio division has supplied a high performance new Meyer sound system to Lancaster University.

The fully portable PA is based in the new environmentally friendly Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA) building, a £10m development that now houses all the university's arts related courses including theatre, music, film, art, theatre, visual and design studies - which were previously dispersed around various areas of the campus.

The supply was co-ordinated by A.C. Audio's sales manager, Peter Butler - who is based at the company's Leeds office - and the university's music technology officer, Dr Rosemary Fitzgerald. It was specified by senior lecturer and head of the music department Takayuki Rai, who is also a prolific composer, a highly respected electroacoustic specialist and talented performer working with interactive c

UK - Since winning The X Factor in 2008, Alexandra Burke has established herself as part of the British pop scene, with her brand of high-energy dance routines and up-tempo songs. She has now embarked on her first UK tour, All Night Long, taking in such venues as Hammersmith and Manchester Apollo, Brighton Centre and Cardiff Arena. Sennheiser microphones and IEMs have become an integral part of her touring rig.

Baggy has been performing monitor engineer duties for the chanteuse since her emergence from the television talent series and explains why her Sennheiser equipment - which includes SKM 5200 with an MD 5235 capsule as her main vocal mic, as well as wired microphones such as e901 and e 904s for drums and e906s for guitars, with the band and Alexandra also using ew 300 IEMs - has become such an important element for her shows.

"Sennheiser has been workin

Denmark - When the TietgenSkolen school in Odense began its search for a new large-scale media display solution, dnp partners, Audio-Visuelt Centrum, Denmark recommended dnp's Supernova Infinity optical front projection screens to the architect who was leading the search.

Morten Rasmussen, key account manager at Audio-Visuelt Centrum (AVC), explains, "The new screens were intended mainly for displaying computer presentations and TV programmes. A traditional fixed-frame screen was one option they considered, but the architect objected to the blackout blinds this would require. A better solution was therefore needed."

Destined for use in a newly built amphitheatre/stage on the school's site, the main challenge was finding a screen that would enable quality viewing in this brightly lit area.

Morten Rasmussen continues, "From experience, we knew that dnp's Superno

Conference Cancelled - The In The City music conference, set up by the late music impresario Tony Wilson in Manchester almost two decades ago, will not go ahead this year. The event was founded by the Factory Records supremo and partner Yvette Livesey as a music industry symposium and a platform for the best new bands. Oasis and Coldplay are among the acts that got exposure there while unsigned. Ms Livesey told the BBC she was taking a year off to get married and start a family, but pledged it would return in 2012.

Reunion Blues - Paul Simon has told Sky News he hopes to be re-united on stage with Art Garfunkel for a final farewell tour. The singer said he would "like to sing with him one last time and maybe do 10 or 15 shows and then say goodbye". However, the reunion may not happen immediately as Garfunkel has been suffering from vocal chord pare

USA - Clay Paky lighting has featured prominently at the world's largest festival of electronic music held in Miami, Florida.

The 13th Ultra Music Festival drew well over 100,000 techno fans to Miami's Bicentennial Park in late March, expanding to a three-day format for the first time. The event, which has developed a huge following among techno and electronic music fans, featured more than 300 DJs and numerous bands performing on six stages. Headliners on the main stage included The Chemical Brothers, Duran Duran and Tiësto.

Other stages included the Live Stage, Carl Cox & Friends, UMF Korea, Root Society and the Heineken Dome.

Steve Lieberman from SJ Lighting Inc. was the lighting designer for the main stage and festival at large. He selected an array of Clay Paky fixtures, supplied by AG Light and Sound Inc., and worked alongside Patrick Dierson to program the Carl Cox A

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET)'s lighting division has supplied over 30 new GLP Impression Spot One LED fixtures to London rental company Colour Sound Experiment. These were delivered for the start of their mega busy summer festival season, which included lighting several stages at last weekend's Glastonbury 2011.

Recently shown at PLASA Focus by AC-ET (the exclusive UK and Ireland distributor for GLP) the latest addition to the r Impression LED range is a high powered, fully featured, moving head spot fixture which uses a potent 400 Watt RGB LED chipset for the lightsource.

This latest sale marks Colour Sound's third major investment via AC-ET in fixtures from the GLP Impression range, boosting its inventory to now include the Spot One, 120 RZ Zoom and original Impression 90 LED fixtures.

The company's Haydn Cruickshank explains that with clients' numerous fes

UK - Black Light reports that, thanks to investment in new stock, it can now provide an even better service to both its hire and events customers. At the same time, the company's latest hire price list can now be downloaded from its website.

Among the new items in stock are products such as the Tiger Touch and Powercubes, both from Avolites. The Tiger Touch is a lightweight and powerful lighting controller. Powercubes are a complete dimming, mains and data distribution solution in one box.

"When you look at all the new products we have added to our stock it shows that we are committed to providing our customers with the hire technology they need at the right price," says Calder Sibbald, Black Light's events manager.

Among Black Light's other new hire stock are Strand 3 Packs. These provide 5KW dimming and complement the company's 5KW lantern stock. Black Light has

Italy The Wind Music Awards 2011 - featuring the major stars of Italian music, were held in the evenings of 27, 28 and 29 May in the Arena di Verona.

The director of photography Carlo Valagussa, along with F&P Group production, placed a long line of Coemar Infinity ACL S on the stage to create background lighting effects.

The Infinity ACL S were chosen for their power and have a high light output which is equal to that of a 1200 W projector, with low power consumption (300W). Equipped with a rotating and indexable 'aerial effect' and a beam ranging from 1.7° to 6°, they are also suitable for backlighting effects and strobe, wood light, moon flower effects.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Adlib's specialist sales division - also a 'certified provider' for L-Acoustics - has sold a Kara PA system, fully flight-cased and complete with LA8 amplifiers, to Newcastle based sound, lighting and AV rental company Nitelites.

The sale comprised 24 Kara loudspeakers, eight SB18 subs, eight SB28 subs, eight LA8 amplifiers and a full set of Adlib designed flight cases for the Kara, bumps (flying cradles) and amp racks, plus all the associated rigging and accessories to enable the system to be flown or ground stacked as required.

Nitelites is a well established and leading North East rental operation, and the deal cements a long standing and very positive relationship between the two companies. This has developed in particular over the last seven years and seen healthy cross rental traffic in equipment as well as the exchange of resources and knowledge.

The Kara deal wa

UK - London's latest new musical offering, the new show Betty Blue Eyes, is using lighting documentation tools FocusTrack andSpotTrack to accurately record every part of the production lighting.

Based on the film A Private Function, and starring a remarkable pig called Betty, Betty Blue Eyes is produced byCameron Mackintosh, directed by Richard Eyre with musical staging by Stephen Mear and designs by Tim Hatley. The show's lighting is by Neil Austin, Tony and Drama Desk-award winner last year for Red on Broadway, and Olivier-award winner this year for The White Guard at the National Theatre.

Left with little room for lighting by the scenery, Austin designed a versatile rig based around a core of moving lights: 11 Vari-LiteVL3500Q framing spotlights, 24 ETC Revolution tungsten framing spots,13 VL2500 Wash washlights, and 10 DHA Digital Light C

UK / Netherlands - Prolyte Group has announced that Unusual Group has signed up to be a dealer for the full range of Prolyte Group theatre products in the UK.

"The range of theatre products that Prolyte Group supplies is the perfect addition to the range of products we already offer," states Denis Bramhall of Unusual. "The fact that these products have been tried and tested in many theatre productions worldwide, combined with the knowhow and expertise that Prolyte can support us with is very important to us. We strive for optimum reliabilty".

ProLyft brand manager, Michiel van der Zijde, adds, "We started talking about this cooperation more than a year ago. Being able to provide Unusual with the right products for the field they excel in is just what Prolyte Group is all about."

(Jim Evans)

UK - Following the success of the Yamaha Commercial Audio open days, hosted by Stage Electrics at its Bermondsey premises in January, the company has organised three further events across the country.

The additional open days will allow a wider range of engineers to get 'hands-on' with Yamaha's digital audio products, with experienced Yamaha and Stage Electrics staff on hand to demonstrate and answer questions.

The new dates are: 6 July at Stage Electrics Tyneside (Gateshead); 7 July at the Midland Arts Centre, Birmingham; 29 September at Stage Electrics Bristol headquarters.

Each event takes place from 10pm to 5pm and will provide demonstrations and tuition on a range of Yamaha audio products, including the M7CL and LS9 digital mixing consoles, the SB168-ES stage box, Ethersound and Dante networking protocols.

Designed to give both prospective and existing users a focused

France - On the occasion of its television debut on TNT and to mark its new positioning within France, the financial information radio station, BFM Business (NextRadioTV group), was outfitted with an ultra modern set. A core part of the decor, the Christie MicroTiles video wall reinforces the visual experience that focuses on financial information.

After 10 years on the FM band, BFM became BFM Radio in order to minimize any confusion with BFM TV, a continuous news channel that is also part of the NextRadioTV group. At the end of the first half of 2010, BFM Radio was broadcasting on some 30 frequencies in France. In November of that year, BFM Radio became BFM Business, a "media outlet unlike any other in the world" according to its CEO Alain Weil. BFM Business is distributed via all ADSL TV packages and on TNT in Paris. The channel targets high-level professionals, part

Honduras - Latin America has long been a strong market for Adamson touring systems. Recently a wave of permanent installations have been taking place, and the very first for the tiny Central American country of Honduras was installed recently. The Caribbean paradise's capital city of Tegucigalpa lies 3248ft above sea level, thus moderating temperatures in this city founded on top of a native Mayan settlement in 1578.

CEAD (Centro Evangelista de las Asambleas de Dios/Evangelistic Centre of the Assemblies of God). is a church which was founded 14 years ago, and it has set-out a mission to change lives. Today that vision is pursued by Pastor Miguel Montoya and his wife Jacky, in their church which seats 2600 and holds up to 5000 people, who gather at two weekly services. The pastor is someone who has taught them to dream big, and to fight for them. One of those dreams was to get to

Czech Republic - Projection Partnership turned to its hire fleet of Christie HD10K-M projectors, when asked to support global pharmaceutical company, Lundbeck A/S on its recent International sales & marketing meeting at the Prague Hilton.

Working alongside Lundbeck A/S' above the line advertising agencies and content providers, the 1920 X 1080 high-definition projectors met the complex multimedia challenges, under the direction of Graham Grimshaw, director of g2-Live Ltd, to give the audience a 360 degree visual experience in an enclosed oval environment.

Projection Partnership's brief was to supply a system capable of projecting onto a 5:1 aspect ratio curved three-screen centre display. Measuring 13.75 x 2.75m and edge-blended to provide a resolution of 5400 x 1080, the addition of a further two 1920 x 1080 side screens provided a total resolution of 9240 x 1080.

These two

UK - Theatre professionals, technicians and stars of the future were introduced to The Backstage Academy at the ABTT show in London, exhibiting together with partner LS-Live for the first time at the show.

The launch of the Academy's new fast-track foundation degree in Live Events Production, produced in partnership with the University of Bolton, caught the eye of many prospective students looking to start their studies this September.

Based at the LS-Live headquarters in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, Backstage Academy will offer students a state-of-the-art learning environment in which to study short courses in backstage skills and all manner of technical and creative arts, as well as the one-year foundation degree.

The course (currently subject to validation) is a ombination of newly written material produced in line with industry experts and existing courses by manufacturers

Australia - Lighting designer Dave Jackson of Phaseshift Productions specified over 40 Robe moving lights - including 24 of the new Robin 600 LEDWash 'wonder lights' for the 11th Annual Bruce Lynton BMW Charity Ball - a major event on Australia's Gold Coast social calendar.

The event was held at RACV Royal Pines Resort, the look and feel of which was boosted for the occasion by the illumination of the building's massive main foyer by six Anolis ArcPad Xtremes, positioned inside, on the mezzanine above the main foyer, covering an area of about 600 square metres, and creating a special festive atmosphere. All lighting equipment was supplied by Phaseshift Productions.

The night began with a spectacular fireworks display to welcome over 600 guests including special invitees, naturalist Terri Irwin and Senator Mark Furner.

The 24 Robin 600 LEDWash fixtures were lighting the main

Greece - ARX Systems, the Australian based designer and manufacturer has announced the appointment of Athens based Audio & Vision as their new distributor for Greece.

ARX managing director Colin Park said, "We're excited to be working with the Audio Vision team in Greece, they're enthusiastic about the possibilities for ARX and our products amongst their extensive client base.

"Audio Vision are an expanding force within the Greek Pro Audio Industry and are in close contact with Greek Audio Professionals across the installation, live sound and broadcast market sectors."

After more than 12 years servicing the professional audio industry Audio Vision now distribute product ranges including DPA Microphones, Nagra, Switchcraft, Tasker, Audac, Coolux, CM Columbus McKinnon and Swefog.

(Jim Evans)

UK - The ABTT Lighting Product of the Year Award went to ArcSystem, GDS's new LED house-light system. The award was presented to Richard Cuthbert, director of engineering for GDS. The judges were impressed by the wireless dimming performance of ArcSystem, a bespoke fitting manufactured for new build and retrofit existing tungsten lighting in auditoria and front of house locations.

ArcSystem from GDS is a new concept that provides a low energy future proofing solution for auditoria house lighting, says the company. ArcSystem is a LED based, fully dimmable unit with a warm white tungsten colour output. The system is designed to emulate a filament fitting in its dimming response and is one of the first LED products to be dimmed to zero without snapping.

Richard Cuthbert commented, "We are honoured to receive this recognition from ABTT. The R&D department continually strive t

UK - Manchester based lighting rental company DBN supplied the city's new Parklife live music festival for the second year running - this time co-ordinating equipment for all four stages within the main arena. DBN was working for their regular client, Ear To The Ground, who also production manage regular, locally based dance party phenomena, Warehouse Project.

Parklife was again staged in PlattFields Park Manchester, and this year, the main headliners were Two Door Cinema Club on Saturday and Chase & Status on Sunday, plus an impressive array of others including Mark Ronson (DJ set), Annie Mac, Kelis, Katie B and numerous others.

The project was managed for DBN by Nick Walton, who also created a production design for all the stages with which DBN was involved, based around accommodating the specific requirements of headliners and visiting LDs.

Both headline bands on the Main

Spain / Italy - D.A.S. Audio has announced the signing of an exclusive Italian distribution agreement with Parma-based Audiosales.

"We are delighted to have Audiosales on board in Italy," says D.A.S. Audio's business development manager, Claus Behrens. "We have developed a very close rapport with company owner Stefano Rocchi during the past few weeks and it is clear to us that Audiosales is the perfect match to develop our business in Italy. Their focus on the D.A.S. Audio brand will benefit D.A.S. Audio's broad base of existing Italian customers and provide an unparalleled level of sales and service for the future. We see the market for D.A.S. Audio products expanding greatly from its already strong position."

"D.A.S. Audio wanted a more specialized and dedicated approach to the sound reinforcement and installation businesses in Italy," notes Ste

Germany - As the members of the German band Phrasenmäher announced their plans for a 2011 club tour and CD release, sound and event company LR. Audio was busy designing the sound system for the band to take on the road. Hired by Phrasenmäher to run the show, LR.Audio chose an Aviom Pro64 Digital Snake "to ensure quality sound for each performance and to eliminate the hassle of interfacing with the fixed gear of each venue at which the band typically plays".

In order to provide a better control of the audio mix, LR.Audio utilises two Aviom 6416m Mic Input Modules to run audio to the Yamaha LS9 front of house console. The engineer then has the ability to create crisp sound mixes, which are distributed to the venues' speaker systems through an Aviom 6416o Output Module. Two 6416Y2 A-Net Interface Cards serve as the I/O to the console and give the engineer control of the

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