Games Over - The 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games formally closed with a much-lauded spectacular ceremony at Hampden Park. Kylie Minogue, Lulu, Deacon Blue and more than 2,000 performers brought the curtain down on what has been praised as the "best Games ever". The closing ceremony marked the end of an almost seven-year journey for Glasgow that began on 9 November 2007 when the city was awarded the Games. The focus will now begin to turn to what legacy the sporting extravaganza has left behind and whether it was worth the time, effort and huge amount of public money spent.

Fringe News - Thousands of performers from across the world are in Edinburgh for the start of the world's biggest arts festival. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe will see more than 3,000 shows staged across almost 300 venues. Several new venues will feature in the August extravaganza, to accommod

UK - HHB Communications has supplied Olympic Cinema with a DiGiCo SD11 digital mixing console for its live concert series.

Olympic Cinemas has transformed the former Olympic Recording Studios into modern cinema and performance theatres. Renowned engineer Chris Kimsey (The Rolling Stones, Peter Frampton, Duran Duran) began his illustrious career at Olympic and has now returned as the sound consultant and engineer for its live concert series and recording facilities.

Chris chose the powerful and feature-packed DiGiCo SD11 to provide 'front of house' duties for the live concerts. The SD11's compact size allows Chris to set up his mixing position in the middle of the cinema seating and a single network cable is used to link the mixer to the D-Rack stagebox.

Introduced to DiGiCo by engineer and Art of Noise member Gary Langan, Chris has found the SD11 to be a reliable, sonically

Spain - The Battle of the Flowers is the event which brings Valencia's July Fair to an end, a celebration that has been organised since 1871 and which consists of a month of events and activities focused on exhibitions of local products, music events and concerts.

This peculiar and peaceful battle of the flowers is a war in which participants throw more than one million clavellones (a type of flower) that form a huge and colourful carpet of flowers through the streets of Valencia that are part of the itinerary.

This year, the overall production of the battle of the flowers relied on 16 Work Pro speakers WPL 5A which were installed from the bridge of the flowers of Valencia to the roundabout General Elio, located next to Viveros Garden.

Additionally, among the material used for this event, there were two professional lifting towers by Work Lifters, in particular the LW 461 R

UK - This is an ex-Python. Bereft of life, it rests in peace, following the final sell-out Monty Python stage shows at the O2, which brought down the giant comedy foot with a resounding raspberry for the very last time on Sunday 20 July.

Behind the scenes, the last-ever theatrical presentation of the Python team's sketchbook was a high-tech affair, making extensive use of Shure wireless microphone and in-ear monitoring technology to ensure that every llama, lumberjack, albatross, crunchy frog, and mention of spam and excrementally runny camembert could be heard clearly - particularly on the final night, which was broadcast live internationally.

Responsibility for this not-inconsiderable task fell to the show's appointed sound designer, Rory Madden of live production and audio equipment hire company Sonalyst, who has most recently looked after the hit 2013 hit West End musical

USA - Xavtel Communications Inc has announced its registration with AVnu Alliance and was accepted as a promoter member end of July 2014.

This will allow Xavtel to be part of a worldwide group of companies to define the new standard of AV-Networking and to be able to integrate all relevant products for certification according to the AVB standards.

"We are in the process of starting our certification and hope to be ready to show our first certified hardware very soon, which will be another milestone for Xavtel, to be able to provide next generation audio video and conferencing solutions to our customers.

"With our V-Platform MIRA, we are already able to stream audio and video simultaneously over our 1Gbit Xavnet protocol with extremely low latency using our own codec, so the adoption process to the AVB standard should not take too long." says Romano M Cunsolo,

UK - White Light reports that more than 1,000 Core Lighting ColourPoint units have been sold since the product's initial launch. The company has experienced increased demand in recent months as production companies look for flexible lighting alternatives for events.

Most recently, Liverpool-based technical production company Adlib invested in 40 new ColourPoint fixtures, for use on the company's variety of events projects.

White Light's Jonathan Haynes worked with Adlib's Dave Platt to discuss Adlib's requirements and ensure that they could try out the fixtures before a decision was made. "We were looking for new technology that would look good and give us flexibility for our events," said Platt. "After seeing the ColourPoints in action, we placed an order with White Light."

Haynes explains the product's popularity, "Especially for event professional

South Africa - The first recorded pioneers to settle in Nelspruit - around 25 kilometers of the Kruger National Park in Mpumalanga - were the three Nel brothers. It is documented that they migrated to this tropical climate with their livestock in the cold winter months around the 1860s, and during those drawn-out travels became friends with the king of Swaziland.

Today in Nelspruit, Kyle Nel of AVS, coincidently with the same name as the Nel brothers, is making his own mark, using modern technology in a city where the main industry is forestry, citrus and tropical farming and of course the tourist attraction of the game reserve. He recently took ownership of two Robe Pointes and Prolyte Dex and Trussing, purchased from DWR Distribution.

"I've always had a keen interest in sound and music, and while I have no musical talent whatsoever, I have a natural ability with anythin

UK - A new real-time positioning technology - Crowd Connected - was unveiled at this year's Wireless Festival, giving promoters" unprecedented levels of crowd control data and enhancing the festival-goers experience with invaluable social media integration".

Winner of a Technology Strategy Board IC Tomorrow digital innovation challenge, the technology will allow a new generation of location-aware festival apps to deliver ground-breaking features for audiences, and a new level of behavioural understanding for promoters.

For Wireless, Crowd Connected used a combination of code embedded into the official iOS and Android Wireless mobile apps. The team then provided promoter Live Nation with a web-based console displaying a real-time crowd density heat-map overlaid on the Finsbury Park site map, and real-time occupancy and dwell time information for everything from stages

UK - CrossCountry Trains is using a variety of Novah's LED lamps at many of its offices/crewing operations nationwide. The Novah products, which include various lamps and flood lights, have been installed over the past few years, helping the company to save costs on energy and maintenance, where lighting has been upgraded.

The CrossCountry network is the most extensive passenger rail franchise in Britain. Stretching from Aberdeen to Penzance, and from Stansted to Cardiff, it calls at over 100 stations. Based in Birmingham, CrossCountry connects seven of Britain's 10 largest cities and delivers 295 services every weekday, equating to some 32m journeys a year. CrossCountry is committed to reducing environmental impacts and improving energy performance and is always searching for innovative products that ensure this happens.

Craig Lewis, managing director at Novah Limited, explai

UK - Over 500 Robe moving lights were right at the heart of the stunning Opening Ceremony lightshow designed by Tim Routledge for the 2014 Commonwealth Games at Celtic Park stadium in Glasgow.

The two hour highly visual show, produced by global brand experience agency Jack Morton Worldwide (JMW) and directed by David Zolkwer featured a cast of 2,000 plus special guests including Rod Stewart and Susan Boyle, offering a snapshot of the history, character, culture, industry, quirkiness and innate humour of Scotland. It presented the 4500 athletes from 71 participating nations to a live audience of over 40,000 plus around two billion TV viewers.

Among the Robe fixtures were 64 of the amazing new big lights - shortly to be launched worldwide - and 28 of Robe's new LEDBeam 1000s.

These were joined by 183 x Pointes, 100 x LEDBeam 100s, 98 x LEDWash 600s and 60 x CycFX 8s - all from

Italy - Spectacular environments, exclusive productions and international artists are the key elements of the Tones on the Stones Festival where the challenge is to enhance the aesthetic and historic values of the Palissandro Marmi quarry (Gruppo Tosco Marmi) in Crevoladossola (Verbano-Cusio-Ossola). The setting transforms the quarries into a vast stage.

Since 2007, the Tones on the Stones Festival has played host to performances which combine music, theatre and dance with the geometry and solidness of the quarry. For the last two years, the festival has been able to count on an exceptional partner: Clay Paky.

Clay Paky provided a wide range of lights this year: Alpha Wash 1500s, Alpha Profile 1500s, A. leda B-Eye K20s, Sharpys, GlowUp Strips and GlowUps. The Festival lighting designer Nevio Cavina was therefore able to take advantage of all the effects he needed to create wel

France - Amadeus' latest speaker system install is for the newly opened Les Quinconces in Le Mans. The building houses two theatres, one 830-seats and the other 120-seats, and features a full range of Amadeus speaker systems and subwoofers throughout the two concert halls.

Amadeus speakers installed in the theatres include the Diva XS, Diva XS 15 line arrays, and the co-axial PMX 12, PMX 15, PMX 15 S plus paired subwoofers for each room: ML 15 and ML 18. All of the Amadeus speakers at Les Quinconces are powered by Lab.gruppen amplifiers, utilizing both the company's C Series and the newly released IPD Series.

Twelve years after planning began, and four years after the first brick was laid, Les Quinconces in Le Mans was inaugurated on 26 April, 2014, in the presence of Stéphane Le Foll, French Minister of Agriculture, Le Mans Mayor Jean-Claude Boulard and Pascal Lelarge,

USA - To the college students and young urbanites who flock to it every weekend, Thalia Hall is one of the buzziest spots in Chicago, a place to kick back, down a local beer with friends, dine on some tasty food and enjoy national acts like Panda Bear and Goat as they perform on a stage illuminated by fixtures from Chauvet Professional.

That's also pretty much how things stood when this four story Romanesque structure opened in 1893 to serve the city's burgeoning Czech population as a concert hall and social hub --except musical styles were different back then and there were no LED fixtures! However, in between then and now was a dark period when Thalia Hall, which was modelled after the Old Opera House in Prague, stood idle for decades before being given new life by a couple of visionary Chicago entrepreneurs.

The "new" Thalia Hall is remarkably like its predecessor

USA - The First Wayne Street United Methodist Church in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, has a very traditional building with a very common problem: Terrazzo floors, brick walls, and drywall ceiling add up to a long reverb time and challenging speech intelligibility.

At the same time, those same characteristics are what give choral music and the church's pipe organ a special kind of warmth. In fact, they are what help draw crowds to the several organ and classical music events that the church hosts each year. It can be difficult to keep the church's message clear and articulate without affecting the acoustical properties that are a key part of this kind of traditional ecclesiastical architecture.

A RoomMatch system from Bose Professional Systems provided the answer. As it has done for scores of houses of worship with similar challenges, the RoomMatch system was able to precisely address th

USA - In a scene ripped straight from a fairytale or science fiction novel, 30,000 music fans found themselves streaming through Sherwood Forest while psychedelic lights guided their way to the Electric Forest Festival, only to have their travels rewarded with amazing musical performances and incredible lighting.

Co-produced by Insomniac Events and Madison House, the fourth annual Electric Forest Festival was held 27-29 June and featured music from legendary jam bands, rock bands, electronica and DJs. The weekend event at Double JJ Ranch featured access to a water park, yoga sessions, impromptu jam sessions, art installations, firework shows, spectacular lighting in the forest, and night after night of music.

Musical acts for this year's event included shows from The String Cheese Incident, Steve Angello, Umphrey's McGee, STS9, Moby, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Zedd, and Matt & Kim.

Ba

USA - San Antonio's (Texas) new Tobin Centre for the Performing Arts will open in September with a complement of grandMA2 consoles dedicated to both the H-E-B Performance Hall and the Carlos Alvarez Studio Theatre.

Rising behind the façade of the former San Antonio Municipal Auditorium along downtown's famed River Walk, the 1,750-seat multi-purpose venue will be the home of the San Antonio Symphony and other resident companies. It also plans to offer a diverse array of entertainment from comedy legend Bill Cosby and radio icon Garrison Keillor and The Prairie Home Companion to the Scottish Ballet's production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

The four-level H-E-B Performance Hall is the largest of the centre's performance spaces; the Carlos Alvarez Studio Theatre is a black box-style space with multiple seating options. Dealer Texas Scenic and rep Roy Harline are pro

Australia - Phillip Island Nature Parks' Penguin Parade has transformed their audio equipment with a new Apart system throughout the entire indoor visitor complex.

Tilmex undertook the refurbishment for the legendary facility well known for its dusk Parade as thousands of Penguins waddle up the beach at the end of each day, watched by scores of visitors since the 1930's.

Phillip Island can be a particularly wild and harsh coastal environment and made the extensive choice of IP rated equipment Apart manufactures an obvious choice for Tilmex.

A great variety of Apart product (Revampss, Audiocontroll12.8, Mask speakers, Column and Sphere speakers) was installed in areas such as the Theatrette, small retail area, large retail area, rear exit to the beach, Penguin World information area, Outdoor Walk Way and entrance, café, and bathrooms.

The client has commented on the

USA - "At the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, we have always considered sound a key element in the performance itself," shares audio engineer Russell Cowans. Joining the company in 2011, Cowans quickly learned that almost every element of the production is given artistic attention, much like the dancers themselves.

"Each detail must come together to compliment what the movement on stage is trying to convey. Every decision we make for the sound system goes to support that end vision. For audio, that means everything from volume level, allowing the dancers to feel their movement and be energized by the sound, all the way to equipment proportions, so as not to interrupt the sight lines to the dancers. It is about the whole package coming together, and it is amazing to work with a company who gives priority to that."

Along with providing regular classes at

International - When it came to creating a high impact floor package for the Queen + Adam Lambert world tour, lighting designer Rob Sinclair turned to the high output beam of the Clay Paky Sharpy. Using 23 of the luminaires provided by US hire company Upstaging, Sinclair created a dynamic floor package that matched the high-energy showmanship of the band.

"The lighting design on this tour had to start big and get even bigger," explains Sinclair. "It needed to do justice to Queen's extensive and wonderful production heritage. I needed lights that could deliver huge looks and which had the capacity and versatility to make those looks go even bigger."

The gold-painted set, designed by UK show architects Stufish, featured a 30ft square of WinVision 9 LED screens from VER and a giant automated 'Q' whose tail flipped down to create the show's B-Stage.

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UK - Star Events Group supplied structures for the BBC to produce its World War One Centenary commemorations coverage from the St Symphorien Military Cemetery in Belgium.

Working for HPower on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), Star provided a double-deck press centre, a screen support structure, a choir stage, and a host studio to the event.

Tez Sheals-Barrett, Star Events' project manager, comments: "The St Symphorien Cemetery is very small and the main brief from production manager Harry Guthrie was to make the structures as unobtrusive as possible.

"The cemetery exudes an air of grace which affected not just the event but the whole build and removal as well. The solemnness of the occasion meant we had to use all our skills to build functional structures, get them to look right and ensure that the cemetery infrastructure, and every blade

UK - With the seventh Knight of Illumination Awards (KOI) set to be held at East London's Troxy on 5 October, KOI organisers report "a fantastic level of nominations" in both the Concert Touring and Events and the Television categories.

Concert Touring and Events is judged by independent industry professionals from journalism and rental companies while the Television category, supported by the STLD, will again be judged by television industry professionals. The Theatre category, fully supported by the ALD, continues to be judged by professional critics from the National newspapers.

This year the organisers have further established the independence of the KOI Awards by opening a new level of table sponsorship to any company involved in the lighting industry. Companies from control to rental and all lighting manufacturers have been invited to join lighting and video d

UK - As the annual 'Wimbledon Fortnight' approaches each summer at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in south-west London, long-term contractors RG Jones Sound Engineering can generally be found putting the finishing touches to the latest upgrades to meet the club's evolving network and comms requirements.

As old equipment reaches end of life and more efficient digital solutions come onstream - as was the case when BSS introduced the Soundweb London digital DSP platform - so RG Jones' sales and installation director Jon Berry prepares a new specification which will underpin the club's future requirements.

However, this year a more radical overhaul was required with the relocation of the PA room in the Broadcast Centre - and this required him to specify a large number of Crown's new four-channel, energy efficient DriveCore Install (DCi) amplifiers.

In total RG Jones deployed 1

UK - For their recent production of Swallows and Amazons, Theatre by the Lake sought to trial a new energy-efficient solution for cyclorama lighting, and lighting designer and technical manager Andrew J Lindsay turned to entertainment lighting specialist White Light for options and advice.

White Light's Jonathan Haynes worked with Andrew to find the right fit for the production and the venue as a whole. Like most performance venues, Theatre by the Lake is taking energy consumption into consideration when deciding on future lighting fixtures. For Swallows and Amazons, Andrew was looking for an LED fixture that could deliver on energy efficiency without compromising on brightness or colour.

After surveying the choices, Andrew employed three Spectra Cyc 200s and four Spectra Cyc 100s for the production. "Having seen the Altman units on demo, I was excited to se

UK - XL Video supplied video solutions for studio recordings of Series 12 and 13 of the popular Endemol UK/Remarkable Television show, Pointless. The familiar Pointless set includes several video elements that are key to the quiz show, hosted by Alexander Armstrong and quizmaster, Richard Osman which is recorded at Stage 8 of Elstree Television Studios, and broadcast on BBC1.

For the questions screen, XL Video project manager, Jeff Bailey, specified one of XL's high brightness Barco HD-20 projectors, which fed the 3.2 x 2.32m screen. The high brightness unit, which supplies 20,000 Lumens, was selected to counter the ambient light on set.

For the game tower, which counts down the scores towards the much-sought-after 'pointless' answer, 20 tiles of XL's Barco NX6 LED product were utilised, depopulated from the standard rental frames and installed into a laser-cut c

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