Italy - Robe LEDWash 1200s and LEDBeam 100s were specified by Italian TV lighting designer Sandro Carotenuto for the live shows in the latest Made in Sud comedy series. These were recorded in the 600 capacity Auditorium venue at the RAI TV channel's headquarters in Naples.

Made in Sud showcases the very best cutting-edge and emerging young comedy talent in the south of Italy, with the final episodes in each run of programmes recorded live.

Carotenuto - who has worked for RAI for 30 years and currently lights shows and events for their OB Unit all over Italy - used 35 LEDWash 1200s to illuminate the audience in this instance.

The 30 x LEDBeam 100s were used in two 6x9 matrixes either side of the upstage LED screens. They provided intense back-beam effects for certain camera shots - for which they were highly effective.

The Robe fixtures for this show were supp

UK - As the newly-located PLASA show opened its doors last week at London's ExCel Centre, Robert Juliat was happy to report superlative results. "The show provided an excellent forum to meet our many international partners from Robert Juliat's Family of distributors," says Robert Juliat sales director, Claus Spreyer. "We were very impressed with the range of visitors to our stand who came from almost every part of the globe including Eastern, Northern and Southern European countries, South Africa, Asia, South America, USA, Canada and the Middle East."

Exhibiting for the first time with Ambersphere Solutions, its new UK exclusive distributor, Robert Juliat revealed a bright, new-look stand design, complete with a range of startling pink TIBO fixtures. "The pink TIBOs succeeded in drawing a lot of visitors to the stand and generated much excited chat on th

Denmark - Over 120 pro audio distributors, dealers and opinion leaders from around the world travelled to Denmark last month for DPA Microphones' Partner Conference. The three day event brought guests through meetings and seminars in Copenhagen and at DPA's headquarters in Allerød as well as on a tour of DPA's production facility in Asnaes.

During the facility tour, guests were given an exclusive look at the processes involved in making a DPA Microphones product. Culminating in a live, hands-on workshop at the Nørrebro Theatre in Copenhagen, attendees were presented with demonstrations by a singer/actor and a band of DPA's collection of microphones.

"The conference was a huge success as it allowed those attending to really get to know the DPA Microphones," says Christian Poulsen, CEO of DPA Microphones. "The company has changed a great deal in rece

UK - Liverpool based Adlib renewed its long standing working relationship with No1 selling UK singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ellie Goulding on the latest UK leg of her Halcyon Days tour, to which they supplied a Coda Audio sound system.

Ellie Goulding's engineers are Oz Bagnall (FOH) and James Neale (Monitors). Oz specified the Coda Audio system, which once again proved to be a flexible solution for the wide variety of theatre and town hall venues.

It was the first time that Adlib has worked with Bagnall and also with tour/production manager Derek Fudge, proving a very positive experience all round. Adlib's crew - systems engineer George Puttock and stage monitor technician Alan Harrison - were also a big part of ensuring that Ellie Goulding's performance had the best possible live sound.

The system comprised 24 x Coda LA12, 16 x ViRay and 16 x SCPF spea

UK - A day of oversteering, clutch-kicks, engine revving, screeching tyres, shredding tarmac and adrenaline got the staff and regular freelancers of west London based lighting rental company Colour Sound Experiment pumped in a maelstrom of burning rubber and spinning donuts ... Ken Block and Keiichi Tsuchiya look out!

Around 50 people joined Haydn Cruickshank and the Colour Sound team at Bovingdon Airfield in Buckinghamshire where they energized with the Slide School Drift Academy (SSDA) headed by Alan Arnott and spent the day engaging in one of the most exhilarating and exciting divisions of motorsport - drifting.

This company's annual day out this year continued the extreme sport theme - in the past they have gone wake-boarding, indoor skydiving and indoor skiing. "It proved to be another fantastic day of fun and action," comments Haydn, adding that taking those wh

UK - Now in its 45th year, the Man Booker Prize continues to celebrate the best in fiction writing. 500 distinguished guests from the literary world gathered at London's Guild Hall on 15th October to attend the awards ceremony, where New Zealand's Eleanor Catton was the youngest ever recipient of the £50,000 prize for her novel 'The Luminaries'.

Blitz Communications delivered a complete set, staging and audio visual package for leading agency Four Colman Getty. Lisa Perkins, event manager, commented, "Tuesday night's event was a huge success and we are absolutely thrilled how the evening progressed. All the suppliers from the Guild Hall to AV company Blitz and Carly Rogers Flowers, were brilliant throughout and came together really well on the night."

Munir Samji, executive chairman at Blitz added, "It was our pleasure to support this prestigious event for

Israel - Wireless Solution Sweden AB recently teamed up with Israel distributor LED Lighting Solutions Ltd to provide W-DMX technology to the new highway entrance to Eilat City in Israel. Eilat is Israel's southernmost city, a busy port and popular tourist resort located at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on the Gulf of Aqaba.

Lighting designer Kobi Rozental specified 80 W-DMX units to deliver wireless DMX to colour changing streetlamps along the main highway leading to the city, at a distance of approximately 1 km (.6 miles). The streetlamps change colour in a chase, leading the way to the city. LED Lighting Solutions in Israel supplied all W-DMX equipment and lighting. Ory Yaffe of LED Lighting Solutions said, "We Could not install wires between the pillars, so wireless signal was the only option in this case. It works great and the signal is solid."

LED Lighting

UK - At PLASA London 2013 Shure Distribution UK (SDUK) announced the launch of the Shure Academy European Audio Network, a new educational and industry networking initiative aimed at all levels of the audio industry, from specialist integrators and contractors to retail sales teams and end users.

The new Academy will incorporate the existing training programmes run by Shure and integrate new workshops and seminars, delivered via a variety of media, including e-learning, webinars and hands-on instruction. In the UK, this brief will extend across the entire Shure Distribution portfolio and include training and certification for brands such as DIS, QSC, Radial and MyMix.

"We have always offered detailed technical training for our brands at the SDUK HQ in Waltham Abbey, and those events, such as Axient accreditation and Q-Sys training, will continue under this new umbrella,&q

UK - Kent- based Eclipse Presentations created a stunning production design and supplied the full technical package to realize it for the 2013 Attitude Awards staged at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Hosted by Matt Lucas and produced by Attitude, the award-winning gay magazine in association with Virgin Holidays, the glamour and the glitz was in full flow.

Eclipse's production manager Andrea Witt and project manager Nikhil Shah worked closely with Attitude's show producer Annie Bracken and Seasoned Events to ensure that everything ran like clockwork on the night and that the setting and environment helped make it a memorable night for guests.

The gala dinner and awards ceremony saw a star-studded line up of celebrities rock up, to see the likes of Daniel Radcliffe, Paul O'Grady and Cher collect their awards, together with a special guest appearance by c

China - Earlier this year, as part of the province's inaugural ICC Light & Music show, two of Hong Kong's two tallest buildings, the harbourside International Finance Centre (IFC) and the International Commerce Centre (ICC) in West Kowloon, were linked permanently via a new audio network controlled by the QSC Q-Sys networked audio platform.

Whenever a show is underway at the ICC, the new network passes music and control data from the ICC Control Room to synchronised LED fascia lighting displays and to a new sound system that includes QSC loudspeakers and amplifiers in and outside the IFC mall.

"Q-Sys was the only audio management system that could offer built-in audio playback and DSP, full monitoring of any input and control of the amplification and speakers, all down a standard fibre connection between the IFC and ICC, and with full redundancy and remote management func

UK - Some serious talent rocked up to support Unity the Stephen Lawrence Memorial concert at the O2 Arena in London including Rita Ora, Jessie J, Emile Sande, Beverley Knight, Ellie Goulding and Ed Sheeran, Plan B, Tinie Tempah, Labrinth, and Jamie Cullum. The stars performed to help mark the twentieth anniversary of the teenager's death in south east London.

Hosted by Nick Grimshaw and Reggie Yates, the concert was part of the SL20 Campaign which is celebrating Stephen's life with a series of awareness-raising events throughout the year. It was recorded and broadcast on BBC1 and an album of the live performances is also due to be released.

XL Video was asked onboard by promoters AEG Live to supply video production which was co-ordinated for them by project manager Gareth Jeanne. He worked closely with the AEG Live production team led by Kahren Williams and Keith Wood.

The s

USA - As one of the largest music festivals held in Colorado, the annual Country Jam features four days of performances by some of country music's hottest stars. With a 2013 festival headlined by Montgomery Gentry, Miranda Lambert, Kid Rock and Rascal Flatts, the event once again lived up to its reputation as one of the premier festivals in country music.

Before the award-winning artists could take the stage, it was longtime festival provider StagePro who oversaw the creation of all the production elements which included an all Vari-Lite automated lighting rig complete with 12 VL3015LT Spot, 16 VL3500 Wash FX, 16 VLX Wash, six VL880 Spot, and 16 VL3000 Spot Luminaires.

"This was a festival rig which was not designed for any one specific band," said Craig Ahneman, StagePro production manager. "As a full service production company, the one thing we fought for on t

Germany - The world-renowned Messe Frankfurt Exhibition Centre, which hosts international trade fairs annually including the IAA car show, the international Book Fair, the Frankfurt Musikmesse and Prolight+Sound, has installed a QSC-Sys audio networking system to manage the PA/VA systems in its Congress Centre, one of the most important buildings in Exhibition Centre.

Accessed by two custom paging stations based on TSC-8 touchscreen controllers, the Core 1000-based Q-Sys system routes audio to and controls no fewer than 15 QSC CX254 amplifiers throughout the building, fed by seven DAB-801 redundant amplifier switchers.

The Congress Centre Messe Frankfurt (CMF) houses conference and meeting rooms, and a large multi-purpose 2200-capacity auditorium (known as the Harmonie hall) that can be divided into as many as 15 segments, each separately addressed by its own PA feed if requir

Belgium - ArKaos Stage server was recently employed to create a spectacular 3D overhead video wall at Belgium's famous Pukkelpop Festival.

The annual Pukkelpop festival, held at Kiewit near Hasselt, is one of Belgium's largest alternative music festivals, attracting over 60,000 festival-goers and second in size only to Rock Werchter.

This 'progressive and contemporary' musical event plays host to around 200 bands on its eight stages over the three-day festival and showcases a wide variety of music that encompasses rock, pop, electronic, dance, hip-hop, punk and heavy metal. The eclectic line up for 2013 included top artists Eminem, The Prodigy and Nine Inch Nails and world-class DJs including Mark Ronson, The Magician and Boys Noize.

The opening night party to the 28th Pukkelpop was the ideal event for ArKaos, Belgian media server and software manufacturer, to show off the p

UK - In the four years since it began, The Great British Bake Off has become one of BBC2's most popular series. Lighting such a show may seem as easy as, well, baking a cake. But the simplicity of the show's concept belies the challenge that comes with rigging a set in the middle of a field, a challenge leading lighting supplier Stage Electrics stepped up to and conquered.

"The first series of The Great British Bake Off travelled around the UK and the logistical challenges involved were considerable," says Stage Electrics project manager Russell Payne, who has worked on the show since the very start. "A company that could handle the logistics of moving tents, lighting, power, etc, was needed. We do a lot of work with the BBC and, as one of only a few companies that have the infrastructure to supply what was necessary, the production company who produ

UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light is holding an online auction of surplus new and ex-hire lighting and AV equipment in order to make room for new incoming products. The auction, organised by Sweeney Kincaid auctioneers, includes more than 600 lots of new and used products from manufacturers ArKaos Pro, City Theatrical, Clay Paky, ETC, Martin Professional, Selecon, and many more. With everything from lighting fixtures and accessories to control desks and dimmers, the online sale is offering deep discounts for those quick enough to snap up a bargain.

Products range in condition from new products 'off the shelf' to ex-hire gear 'sold for spares' and could appeal to wide variety of customers including venues, rental houses, and events companies looking to complement existing stocks or end users seeking a particular piece of equipment. Detailed information and photos

Royal Visit - The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are to visit the National Theatre today, as the institution celebrates its 50th birthday. They will be given a backstage tour by outgoing director Sir Nicholas Hytner and watch rehearsals for forthcoming family show Emil and the Detectives. Their visit marks the anniversary of the first performance at the theatre

Peter O'Toole opened the venue on 22 October 1963, playing Hamlet under the eye of founder Sir Laurence Olivier. More than 800 productions have taken place at the venue in the intervening 50 years, including premieres of plays by Tom Stoppard, Peter Shaffer, Harold Pinter, Alan Bennett and David Hare.

During their visit, the Queen and Prince Philip will enjoy a musical number from Guys and Dolls, which was the first musical staged at the National, in 1982. The royal visitors will also visit the props work

UK - ETC's PLASA stand visitors queued up for demonstrations of the new ETC Source Four LED CYC last week. With the help of a desert scene cyclorama lent by the Design Realisation students on the Technical Theatre Arts programme at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, ETC's fixtures product manager Jim Uphoff and colleagues showed how one scene can be dramatically changed to match different times of day.

Five Source Four LED fixtures with attached CYC adapters at the bottom, and another five at the top, were controlled through an ETC Paradigm touchscreen to produce different colour mixes, each affecting how the scene was perceived.

At London's National Theatre, lighting director Neil Austin used a similar setup on Liolá, using Source Four CYC fixtures to create a very slow fade from cool blue daytime to warm orange evening lighting over the course of up to half an hour.

Els

Australia - Situated on level 3 of the Tattersalls Club, Doltone House Hyde Park is a new meeting and events venue boasting 5m high ceilings with an abundance of natural light via floor to ceiling spectacular windows and uninterrupted views of Sydney's Hyde Park.

The Hyde Park Ballroom is the main room which can be divided, via operable walls, into four smaller rooms, or any combination thereof, if required. The Manhattan and Avenue Rooms are smaller meeting spaces often used as pre-function rooms.

Fredon designed, supplied and installed all of the audio visual requirements for the venue working closely with inhouse AV company Microhire to design and develop a solution that would not only meet the needs of Doltone House's banquet staff but also Microhire.

When designing the system, Fredon took into account the venues main markets; weddings at the weekend and corporate events

UK - Pearce Hire has barely stopped for breath over the busy summer festival season, supplying an impressive array of events for long-standing as well as new customers.

One of those new customers is Loudsound, who contracted Pearce Hire twice over the summer to supply generated power and site lighting on the Field Day Festival in London's Victoria Park, and power distro for the XX's self-curated festival, Night & Day at Hatfield House.

Loudsound is one of the UK's leading independent festival production companies, providing event management across a number of large capacity festivals.

Dan Wilson, site manager for Loudsound at Field Day was impressed by Pearce Hire's detailed tender, competitive pricing and knowledge of how best to manage greenfield festival sites - a particular area of expertise for Pearce Hire.

"We needed to find a new provider for these important se

South Korea - Magic on Ice, the art, magic and conjuring show created by Steve Wheeler, sold out for 10 days at the Blue Square Theatre in Seoul, South Korea, with 20 shows and over 20,000 spectators.

The famous American magician, who lives and works in Las Vegas, started doing his travelling show several years ago to make a name for himself worldwide. Emiliano Morgia, the show's lighting designer in South Korea said, "We met in Dubai, where I worked on one of his shows, and he called me again for this one in the Far East."

The lighting rig included 24 Alpha Profile 1500s, 24 Alpha Spot HPE 700s and Clay Paky Sharpys.

"One interesting aspect of the pre-production was that I prepared everything at home with WYSIWYG. In particular, I connected up remotely with Steve Wheeler, who was also the creative director," Emiliano Morgia said. "We worked t

Belgium - Lighting designer Frederik Heerinckx of BlackBox Design was hugely anticipating his first chance to use Robe's new Pointe fixtures on a show .. and the occasion presented itself for the 2013 Beachvolley Deluxe Championships in Baal.

The annual three day event, which is organised by vzw Beachvolley Deluxe and a dedicated team of volunteers headed by Stijn Saliem, celebrated its 14th glorious year, welcoming over 200 teams and up to 1000 spectators a day ... to enjoy some superlative beach volleyball action. It sold out in 15 minutes.

Baal might be decidedly landlocked, but the spirit of the beach lived on ... complete with a fully sanded venue, volleyball courts and two large beach parties staged on the Friday and Saturday nights, complete with an all-action DJ line up.

Production values are high on the agenda at this event which features a StageCo stage, a speciall

France - One of the most famous monuments of the 'old city' of Lyon (Vieux Lyon), the Palais de Justice de Lyon, recently benefited from a new exterior lighting installation which uses an array of LED lighting fixtures from Ayrton to accentuate its architectural magnificence.

Ayrton, French specialists in intelligent LED lighting products for entertainment and architectural applications, has provided fixed installations for a number of historic monuments, of which the Palais de Justice is just the latest.

Inaugurated in 1847 and often referred to the 'Palace of the Twenty-Four Columns', the Palais de Justice de Lyon was classified as a Historical Monument in 1996 and is one of the finest neo-classical buildings in France.

To show its spectacular facade to its best advantage, lighting designer Jerome Donna from the Public Lighting Department of the City of Lyon chose a select

Czech Republic - The Czech Republic operation of global professional services company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has recently moved to a new, ecologically advanced headquarters in Prague. Its comprehensive meeting and conference facilities required a matrixed audio system that could reliably accommodate any requirement, meaning a Yamaha digital solution was the ideal choice.

The eight-storey City Green Court is the first building in the Czech Republic to receive Platinum certification by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), an international certification system for green buildings developed by the US Green Building Council. It includes a 2000m2 conference centre for use by PwC, its business partners and clients, which is also available to rent by other organisations for events ranging from large social functions to club gatherings, training, seminars and priva

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