Robe - Leaderboard - 27 Aug25 - Jan26

Business

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Belgium - AED Rent has boosted its L-Acoustics inventory with the purchase of a substantial amount of new components. The company has added 96 KARA modular WST line source cabinets, 66 of the new ARCSII constant curvature WST line source cabinets, 50 SB28 subwoofers and 36 LA-RAK touring racks to their professional AV rental stock.

AED Rent account manager Koen Conaerts cites a number of different reasons for the investment, including this year's large-scale sporting events such as the 2012 Olympics and UEFA Euro 2012 football championship and, in general, to support their AV clients through a busy summer.

"This year is a special one, and there are a lot of L-Acoustics users that need more equipment," says Conaerts. "We can now provide them with that extra equipment. We specifically bought the LA-RAKs as we're updating our stock to the K-Standard; with a huge st

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UK - British rock/hardcore band Enter Shikari have been lighting up Hammersmith Apollo on the latest date of their current tour, before they embark upon a summer of festivals across the UK and Europe.

They have been lit by lighting designer Steven Bewley of Box Fresh Lighting, ably assisted by MA's grandMA2 desk, and a host of Clay Paky Sharpys.

A long time user of MA consoles, Bewley explains his reason for his desk choice. "I've progressed through the ranks of MA consoles, and the grandMA2 is easy to use, and allows you to programme a spectacular show quickly. It just works, and it does it seamlessly alongside the other kit we use on the show - for video and for sound. It's powerful, and the size of the desk makes it adaptable to smaller venues as well. It's a console I'm falling in love with as it's so configurable."

Bewley specified 40 Sharpys for the lighting

InfiLED - Banner - August 25

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UK - Unusual Rigging is providing the infrastructure to ensure that Cameron Mackintosh's spectacular new touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera flies around the UK without a hitch.

Newly designed for the show's 25th anniversary, the tour will visit 10 cities over the next 13 months, having opened at Plymouth's Theatre Royal in March to rave reviews.

"Phantom is an extremely heavy show, weighing in at more than 25 tonnes," explains Unusual Rigging's senior project manager Simon Stone. "There's one piece of scenery downstage that weighs eight tonnes and has to be supported by a separate mini grid secured to the building. The famous Phantom chandelier, which has to swing in a treacherous fashion over the audience, weighs 500kg alone! Plus there are a couple of huge automated trucks on stage with a combined weight o

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Australia - NIDA - Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art - is a centre of excellence in training for theatre, film and television. NIDA's primary role is to select and train exceptionally gifted young people at a tertiary level, preparing them for careers in theatre, film and television.

When it came to choosing moving lights for the students to train with, Philips Vari*Lite was the fixture of choice.

"We wanted to give the students experience of moving lights but they had to be good ones," commented Marcus Kelson, technical manager at NIDA. "Consequently we purchased four Vari*Lite VLX Wash Luminaires. These are used for student productions and also as a training tool within the lighting classroom. Plus, as they are a popular fixture we can also hire them out to users of our venues and thus generate an income.

"The VLX is very punchy, easily con

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France - Meyer Sound has announced the appointment of 44.1, based in the Paris suburb of Colombes, as the first French dealer for EXP cinema audio systems. 44.1 is one of four recent additions to the Meyer Sound EXP distribution network, which also includes ACS Distributions in Pomona, Calif.; Audio Intervisual Designin West Hollywood; and FTT (Film Ton Technik Hannsdieter Rüttgers GmbH) in Düsseldorf, Germany.

"In the past we have been frustrated by the limited sound quality of traditional cinema loudspeaker systems," comments Paul-Henri Wagner, owner of 44.1. "Now, with EXP, we have a modern speaker system that we really enjoy listening to."

Meyer Sound EXP cinema systems will be available through EXP dealers, including the Acheron screen channel and low-frequency loudspeakers, X-800C cinema subwoofer, HMS-10 surround loudspeaker, and Galileo loudspeake

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India - Loud Technologies announced the company's plans to "achieve a well-deserved position for its EAW and Mackie brands in India" at a recent reception in Mumbai.

Key to the Company's aggressive growth plans are two new distribution partners: Bangalore-based E&E Systems India Pvt, who will handle exclusive country-wide distribution for the Mackie brand; and Mumbai-based Vardhaman, who will handle exclusive country-wide EAW distribution. E&E and Vardhaman join Musik City, the exclusive Ampeg distributor, to complete Loud's sales force in the rapidly growing Indian market.

"The Indian market is every bit as dynamic as the country's rich musical culture and requires both innovative products and world-class service," explained Mark Graham, Loud's CEO. "We are honoured to add E&E and Vardhaman to our Indian market team and know they will invest significa

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UK - Liverpool- based sound, lighting and AV rental specialist Adlib celebrated the start of 2012 by fully inaugurating and moving in to its new warehouse in Speke, following another strong trading year and steady growth. This has more than doubled their existing space to over 50,000sq.ft.

The last 12 months has seen some serious construction and renovation work take place at the premises totalling an investment of over £1m including the property purchase.

The buildings and the existing one next door have been combined and optimised for Adlib's busy operation, with more room for all divisions of the company.

In addition to this, a further £1.2m was invested in new equipment last year to ensure that the current rental stock in all departments offers the latest, best and most popular technologies to Adlib's clients and projects.

Integral to the new warehouse is a

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USA - Founded in 1861 with close ties to Wheaton College, College Church has achieved a reputation as one of the most influential churches in America.

The stunning Georgian Revival-style building on Washington Street that the church calls home was built around two decades ago. It's an architectural gem that boasts high glass ceilings, soaring columns, and a U-shaped wrap-around balcony. The room's acoustics provide a wonderful complement for the piano, pipe organ, and choir that typically accompany most services. But that same architecture has represented a long-standing challenge for spoken-word intelligibility. As Greg Dieckhaus, President and CEO of Bolingbrook, IL-based Practical AV Solutions explains, the church has been through more than one attempt at addressing the issue.

"It's a gorgeous building, but problems with intelligibility and consistency of coverage have

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Germany - Quakenbrueck is a small idyllic town on the Hase River in Lower Saxony, Germany, which has played host to The Artland Bicycle Music Festival for the last two years. But this festival is different, very different. Power is very literally in the hands (or rather, the feet) of the spectators. "We take audience participation to a whole new level," explains Bob Giddens, member of The Artland Country Club Band and one of the principal organisers behind the festival."If people don't pedal, you won't hear anything!"

Giddens may be a musician and owner of a bicycle company but he freely acknowledges the concept of combining the two was not down to him. "In 2010 the American pedal power band, the Ginger Ninjas toured Europe bringing their own system with them. This system worked fine but it was heavy and it was hard to pedal enough energy to power the so

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USA - EAW recently announced the launch of their Red Certification training programme in support of their Powercube power and processing modules. EAW will award the Red Certification status after completion of a two-day seminar conducted at the customer's location. EAW President Jeff Rocha made the announcement.

"Powercubes deliver tremendous capabilities to owners of EAW mobile production line array systems," Rocha said. "Red Certification ensures that Powercube owners get the most out of these exciting, new products."

The Red Certification training seminar was designed by EAW technical training manager Bernie Broderick, a long time mobile production and concert touring veteran as well as an experienced instructor. Broderick will deliver the training seminars in North America and will work with EAW's world-wide Application Support Group members to deliver

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UK - Blackburn-based lighting and visuals rental company HSL supplied lighting equipment to the latest Katherine Jenkins UK tour, which was designed by Tim Routledge.

HSL's project manager was Mike Oates who says, "It was great to work with Tim and production manager Neil McDonald on this, especially as it was a bit different. It both contrasted and complimented all the other music tours in which we are currently involved with a classy design that looked great and was completely appropriate."

The show was smaller in scale than Jenkins' last outing which played arenas. This was a deliberate move to return to playing more intimate spaces like theatres and concert halls, with the focus totally on Jenkins' vocal performance, rather than lots of additional razzmatazz.

She was accompanied by the 32- piece National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anthony Inglis, and the t

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USA - For the 15th year in a row, a broad range of Audio-Technica microphones was selected to outfit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. A-T supplied over 50 mics to capture the audio for the 27th annual induction ceremony, which took place at the historic Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio, on 14 April 2012.

Inductees included Guns N' Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Donovan, Laura Nyro, The Small Faces/Faces, Beastie Boys, The Crickets, The Famous Flames, The Midnighters, The Comets, The Blue Caps and The Miracles. Freddie King received the Early Influence distinction. Non-performing honourees included Don Kirshner, Cosimo Matassa, Tom Dowd and Glyn Johns. The show will be broadcast on HBO on Saturday, 5 May 2012.

Audio-Technica's Artist Elite 5000 Series UHF Wireless System was used with the AEW-T5400 handheld microphone/transmitter for frontline vocals on per

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UK - White Light and Coemar are teaming up to offer the prize of six LEDko units for those needing to retrofit their outdated lighting package. The competition, in which you can submit a video or storyboard of your current lighting package was launched at PLASA Focus in Leeds this week.

The entry that is deemed most in need of, or having faced the biggest issues in their lighting, will be awarded the prize at the PLASA Show in September.

Entrants are encouraged to explain how the Coemar products will benefit them in their day to day use. The lighting package on offer includes Coemar's Reflection LEDko Full Spectrum, Reflection LEDko VariWhite 3000/7000 K and Reflection LEDko White3200 K with an option of one the following optics: Reflection Soft profile12/30° F Lens, Reflection Soft profile 12/30° PC Lens, Profile zoom 18/40° HDLens.

Submission deadline is 17Augu

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Tanzania - Billed as 'the friendliest festival on the planet', Sauti za Busara is the highlight of the annual music calendar in Tanzania. The East African event takes place over five days in February and this year attracted 400 musicians from across the continent. With a dedicated DiGiCo SD8 console at the Front of House position, an eclectic range of music was enjoyed by an enthusiastic audience.

The festival takes place on the island of Zanzibar, with the main stage at the historic Old Fort in Stone Town. Four consecutive nights of non-stop, eight hour live performances meant that using a digital console made a lot of sense. Purchased for last year's festival, the DiGiCo SD8 and MadiRack had been stored in a container for a year, but had coped very well with the tropical climate and monsoon rains.

"After been cleaned and tested at the end of last year's festival, the co

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USA - Brit Floyd's current North American tour features production by technology consultants FIX8Group (Stockport, Cheshire, UK) and includes a spectacular light show designed by FIX8's Neil Trenell.

At the centrepiece of this visual display are 38 Platinum Beam 5R moving head beam fixtures from Elation Professional. The Platinum Beams occupy a central position in the defining structures on the Brit Floyd set: a 16.5ft vertical circle of truss, flanked by a gigantic 84ft truss arch. Sixteen Platinum Beam 5R units are mounted on the truss circle, while anadditional 22 units hang from the arch. With this positioning, the Platinum Beams can shoot white or coloured beams in all directions, project gobo images, multiply their effects with the prism, or even wash the stage with the application of Frost. A dozen units of another Elation fixture, the Design Spot 1200C compact moving hea

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France - L'Autre Monde, the new show from Gilbert Gruss' Cirque Arlette Gruss, is currently touring France with four DMX-controlled Robert Juliat 1800W MSR FLO followspots to highlight its dazzling, fast moving acts.

Arlette Gruss promises its audiences a spectacle like no other with a top of the range show that encompasses trapeze artists, clowns, magicians, motorbikes and animals. With a six-month tour that takes in the towns of Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Rouen, Arras, Lille, Boulogne, Dunkerque, Valenciennes, Thionville, Mulhouse, Strasbourg, Colmar, Reims and Troyes, lighting designer Arthur Oudin needed a followspot that was small and tough enough to tour and versatile enough to be controlled with pin-point accuracy, as well as deliver top notch performance.

"The ideal unit proved to be the Robert Juliat FLO with a DMX controlled dimmer, shutter," says Oudin.

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UK - This year's Let's Dance television programme, raised over £1m for Sport Relief from calls and texts throughout the series. The show features a mix of celebrities performing famous dance routines to raise money for the charity.

The lighting rig featured 24 PixelSmarts and 10 SmartLine4s which were used to design five different themes over the five week series. The flexibility of the SmartLine4 luminaires created both wash and effects - and the PixelSmarts were mainly used for graphics and rotating icons.

Lighting designer Tim Routledge states, "The SmartLines were a fantastic addition to the previous year's use of the PixelSmarts. The integration of the cold white in the units gave us some fantastic sparkle on camera which we use by randomly chasing the cells within the units.

"We were able to create unlimited chases and looks with the units and we

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Denmark - With roots that date back to 1796, the historic Odense Teater in Denmark has recently upgraded to a Meyer Sound surround system based on the MINA line array and miniature MM-4XP loudspeakers.

The theatre principals had long awaited the opportunity to present plays and other programmes with the added dimension of an enveloping audio experience. "For a long time, the sound department at Odense Teater wanted to upgrade with a surround installation," says Bent Lohmann, Odense Teater producer. "In autumn 2011, every ounce of energy was put into establishing the new sound facilities in time for the Christmas show last year."

Kastrup, Denmark-based integrator Stouenborg was contracted to install the Meyer Sound system with the goal of creating a flexible system that would deliver a coherent and sonorous sonic landscape.

Usingthe MAPP Online Pro acousti

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USA - With the addition of Lab.gruppen C 48:4 amplifiers at the University of Minnesota's Ted Mann Concert Hall, the U of MN School of Music has dramatically improved the clarity and quality of sound within the venue.

Dedicated in 1993, and located in Minneapolis, MN's West Bank Arts Quarter, the 1,126-seat theatre/concert hall is a multi-purpose venue, hosting lectures, School of Music ensemble concerts, performances and master classes by the likes of the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and others, as well as a various community events.

"Because we need natural sound at both low and higher volumes, for both speech and music, subtlety is key," says Phillip O'Toole, U of MN Music Department technical coordinator.

In 2009, O'Toole noticed 'a scratching sound' coming from the hall's aging custom made centre cluster. "It was only noticeable at l

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UK - Triwave, Quadhorn, V65, V12, CF182 and Stealth Array feature throughout the feature film Streetdance 2 3D which was shot during the summer of 2011. The final dance sequence features a large ground stack of six Quadhorn Q218 and eight Triwave i10 in high pack mode. During filming the systems were used as playback so that the dancers could really feel the music. Vertigo Films commented on how good the systems looked and sounded during the filming which was over a month long.

Davies Roberts, CEO, Flare Audio, comments, "It was a pleasure to work with Vertigo Films on this new UK blockbuster feature film that's now just been released. The challenge for us was the rate at which the production progressed; simultaneous filming took place in various places in London during the height of the summer season which caused its own set of logistics issues for us. There was kit flying

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UK - Hertfordshire based The Security Training School Ltd (TSTS), has developed its new Pit training course.

"The problem with Pit crews is that even within established companies every manager has a slightly different way of doing something, simply because that's the way they've done it for years," suggests Josh O'Riordan, media manager at TSTS.

Accredited as a level 2 award by NCFE it is the first of its kind in the UK. The Level 2 Spectator Events Pit Operator award, that The Security Training School has created, aims to instigate a new standard of practice into the events industry and develop the learner's knowledge, skills and understanding required for working as part of a functional and safe Pit crew. TSTS state that their "main focus for designing and delivering the course has been to massively improve the existing training and practices found within the

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Italy - Panariello non esiste (Panariello does not exist) is a typical modern TV programme that freely mixes different genres and forges them into a show which is enthralling for both the guests in the studio and the viewers at home.

The director of photography Massimo Pascucci reports, "The concept of the lighting design stems from the need to strike a fair balance between the purely theatrical setting of the sets designed by Gaetano Castelli and the need to transform them into a sort of concert stage, in order to achieve spectacular effects during dances, acrobatic exhibitions and conjuring tricks."

The lighting consists almost entirely of Clay Paky units. In detail, 70 Alpha Profile 1500s are used for the orchestra, backstage and audience backlighting. Fifty Sharpys have been positioned vertically in mid-air on eight tubular structures behind the orchestra,

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Qatar - The Aspire Zone is the triumphant symbol of Qatar's sporting heritage. Spread over a 250 hectare site, the city has been designed to attract local and international sport enthusiasts alike. Embodying the spirit of the 2006 Asian Games, The Torch Doha is "a beacon of luxury and wellbeing offering a unique 5-star experience". At 300m high and with 360° panoramic views across the whole of Doha, The Torch is billed as "a haven for the discerning traveller whether they are sports enthusiasts, business leaders or health and wellness seekers".

AVTech, Paxt's distributor for Allen & Heath in Qatar, was given the task to meet and overcome the most complex applications and install a user friendly solution. AVTech decided to opt for Q-Sys developed by QSC, and an Allen & Heath iDR-8 matrix mixer to provide separate audio management and control.

In seven me

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The Netherlands - Audient distributor, Maarten's Sound & Vision is organising a workshop to be held at the SAE Institute, Rotterdam on Friday 27 April. Collaborating with Audient and Sonnox, the afternoon will be split into two with a view to introducing the new Audient ASP4816 compact console as well as Sonnox Plug-ins, and giving attendees an insight into recording and mixing from the perspective of industry stalwarts.

Kicking off at 2pm, Audient's Luke Baldry will be running a live recording and mix session with local band CrowdedBEATS. The demonstration will include general mixing tips and tricks for analogue in-line recording, whilst highlighting the benefits of working with the Audient flagship console ASP8024 as well as the more compact, recently launched ASP4816. The smaller desk will be connected to a multitrack HD recorder, giving visitors the opportunity to get hands

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