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14 March 2016

Stageco's project director Dirk de Decker planned the custom built stage in consultation with the tour production manager Chris Vaughan, show designer Es Devlin and technical designer Malcolm Birkett.

Initial sketches for the stage were designed in October 2010 and final sign-off was only given in January, which left a very short time scale to create the materials for a show of this size. While Stageco's designs barely changed, the technical production and scenic elements continued to evolve and final information regarding weight loadings was provided with a short timescale, so Stageco created a structure with plenty of headroom in regards to its tolerances.

The main stage system was framed by a giant 'Big Man', who

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14 March 2016

Lighting for the show, designed by Nick Whitehouse with Steven Douglas touring as lighting director, relies heavily on Vari*Lite fixtures - 84 x VL3500 Wash, 84 x VL3000 Spot, four VL3500 FX and 30 x VL500.

"With the variety of lenses that we are using - both internal and clear external - we can get everything from two VL3500 Wash fixtures covering the whole stage to really narrow pin spots," remarked Steven Douglas. "The colours are also so rich. It's pretty much the same with the VL 3000 which both Nick

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14 March 2016

The venue, featuring contemporary casino, The Dining Room restaurant, bars and cocktail lounge has been reopened on two floors in Mayfair's Old Park Lane - 30 years after it closed - and now joins the portfolio of London Clubs International in a partnership with Playboy Enterprises International.

It is in The Cottontail Lounge, where the legendary playboy bunnies administer table service to their premium weekend guests, that two 5m diameter SGM LED ceiling starbursts, each comprising 866 tiny 34mm white LED balls, change the atmosphere by dramatically colour washing the venue through the spectrum of the rainbow. This is accompanied by a vertical SGM LED curtain at the rear, the reflection of which adds further depth and dimension to the space.

In total just under 2500 balls have

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14 March 2016

Last year, SSE used digital systems exclusively for monitors for the first time at many of the UK's top festivals. PM5D-RH consoles were deployed at the monitor positions of Download, High Voltage, Lovebox, Oxegen, Global Gathering, T4 On the Beach, Field Day, Summer Sundae and at both V Festival sites.

So successful was the change that SSE Hire is doing the same this year and has invested in five additional PM5D-RHs, bringing SSE's total inventory to 10, plus several rackmount DSP5Ds.

"The all-digital setups were a real success story last year," says SSE sales manager Alex Penn. "It was an easy decision to invest in further PM5D-RHs as our festival and touring commitments grow ever bigg

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14 March 2016

One of the youngest professional theatres in Slovenia, the National Theatre Nova Gorica has a repertoire of contemporary and classical plays and stages a total of six premieres per season, in addition to theatre and dance summer workshops.

"We proposed the Robert Juliat profiles to the theatre which was looking to update its stock of front of house profiles," says KSL's general manager, Bostjan Konic. "The technical staff tried them on site and agreed that they were the best product on offer."

All of the theatre's front of house profile spots have now been replaced by the Robert Juliat zoom fixtures.

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14 March 2016

The Royal Opera House bought Eos desks for their house performances in 2008, but needed additional desks to take the Royal Ballet company to The O2. While PRG (Production Resource Group) was called in to provide lighting and rigging rental equipment, they needed additional desks to supplement their stocks, which were out on long term productions. So they went direct to ETC in London, who were more than happy to help out for the week long run of rehearsals and shows.

Following several days of testing and demonstrations PRG provided a lighting specification based upon a lighting desig

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14 March 2016

This is part of a planned expansion strategy to have Penn-Elcom sales and distribution outlets in all of the major South American markets, and also in direct response to an increased demand for its products and services in these territories, says the company.

Both of the new sales offices have showroom and warehousing facilities offering a full range of Penn-Elcom products including flight case, racking and loudspeaker hardware, accessories and solutions to the professional audio industry, plus selected complimentary lines, including Fane speakers and Amphenol & Neutrik connectors.

Penn Elcom Argentina is located in Buenos Aires. The office is headed by Adriana Gallo and Diego Sot

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14 March 2016

The multi-room facility includes an outdoor deck and Tiki Bar, both of which are quite popular during warmer months. But as design consultant Mike Rapp of Bear, DE-based Sound Solutions explains, sonic issues arose even with many of the more reserved parties.

"For the most part, they only had smaller two and three piece combos playing outside, while the larger and louder bands played indoors, with the music pi

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14 March 2016

Concert production for the tour is being handled by Britannia Row Productions who deployed an Outline GTO-based system for the Royal Albert Hall, the second outing for the Italian manufacturer's new flagship technology in the venue.

The main system comprised L&R hangs of 12 GTO elements, with three Outline Mantas under-hung from each array plus three along the stage lip to cover the near-field. Side-hangs of 13 Outline Butterfly elements covered the bleachers while an under-stage array of Outline Subtech218 subwoofers provided low frequency reinforcement.

Britannia Row's Bryan Grant comments, "This venue is not the

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14 March 2016

Green Hippo's strategy includes sales manager Samantha Bailey spending time in Xian doing an intensive course in Mandarin before attending PALME Beijing with sales and marketing director James Heron back in May. Bailey comments, "One of the key issues we have found dealing with China is the language barrier. Learning to speak Mandarin, whilst certainly challenging, will reap long term benefits for the company and result in closer ties with customers in this region."

After a successful show, James Heron went on to conduct seminars with Chinese distributor Kupo and attended several key client meetings in Beijing and Shanghai.

Next month focuses on PALME Singapore where Green Hippo will be present at Broadcas

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14 March 2016

"It's great to collaborate with Meyer Sound and Solotech, both forward-thinking companies whose ability to adjust to their client's needs is in their DNA," says André Ménard, artistic director of the Montréal International Jazz Festival.

A longtime partner with Meyer Sound since 1992, Solotech has supplied Meyer Sound loudspeaker systems for entertainment and music icons that include Céline Dion, Michael Bublé, Leonard Cohen, Cirque du Soleil, and more. While Solotech has provided Meyer Sound equipment for the Montréal International

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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)

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

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

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14 March 2016

"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)