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14 March 2016

Broadcasting from the company's showroom in the Czech Republic, Josef Valchar, CEO of Robe, described the BMFL as "The best fixture we have ever made".

"We have listened to the wishes and needs of lighting designers, rental companies and technicians from every corner of the industry, all around the world. We really believe we have created a product that will deliver both good short- and long-term returns on your investment."

"It is a big, powerful light or large venues, with a big, fat front lens full of light. Because of its relatively small size, it can be used for any application in TV, theatres or concert venues."

More than three years in development, the BMFL i

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14 March 2016

Osborne said: "Regional productions have dropped off over many years - even though the West End has been very strong in London - and I want to change that around. I want to make sure we get the benefit of our great theatre industry and our culture felt all over the country. More job opportunities for those working in the theatre sector as well as those working in the tourist industry

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14 March 2016

This year, long-time Primavera audio provider Twin Cam Audio specified L-Acoustics for five of the festival's seven stages. Right from the beginning, Twin Cam's technical director, Juan Cid worked hand in hand with L-Acoustics touring application engineer Frédéric Bailly, to jointly design all five stages.

Twin Cam chose Primavera to debut their newly acquired compact and lightweight K2 audio system. K1 along with K2 provided the one-two audio punch enabling them to offer a more powerful, accurate and versatile system than previously.

The core main stage setup (Sony Stage) was flown wit

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14 March 2016

Despite attracting top calibre artists and events, Brian Campbell, event services manager at the Odyssey Arena said, "The venue, which opened in 2001, is always looking at ways to evolve and to keep up with the demands of the events industry. We wanted to make ourselves more flexible, with smaller half hall formats and theatre formats, so we sought the help of the professionals and called in Unusual Rigging."

Working alongside drape company Acre Jean, the Unusual team, headed by Robin Elias, put together a spec for the installation of runner beams in the venue which could cope with the span be

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14 March 2016

More than 75,000 people attended Godiva 2014 to watch headline acts including Happy Mondays, Lightning Seeds, and Buzzcocks.

"The Sapphire Touch works well on a festival due to the many faders and easy to read touch screens," says Nyholm. "It's very intuitive, so any LD can use it within a few minutes of turning up. The many faders work well on a festival/busking situation, where you need to be able to grab anything very quickly."

Avolites' Sapphire Touch allows ultrafast programming with two wide screen touch monitors offering a huge workspace area, and 45 motorised master faders.

"The console features a very

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14 March 2016

The Fringe is renowned as a difficult taskmaster on both equipment and staff alike. A month of relentless hard work, with shows continually playing from morning through to the early hours of the following day, staff have to grab sleep where they can and equipment is invariably left powered up for the duration.

Add into that mix many of the venues are in 'found' spaces, or parts of university buildings, that aren't designed for live shows and the size of the task becomes even more apparent.

"It's a

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14 March 2016

According to manager of the Pro Audio Department, Igor Kovalev, the 12-year-old Moscow-based company will be providing Optocore solutions to their two core markets: sound reinforcement (theatres, concert halls, live events) and broadcast.

In addition to their formal distribution arrangement with Optocore, Audio Solutions say they are also working on a major project, using sister company BroaMan solutions for delivering scalable customised solutions for clients requiring SD/HD/3G video routing.

Kovalev states that adding Optocore to the company's brand portfolio was an obvious step. "It represents a good price/performance ratio when compared with other brands, along with amazing flexibility / scalability and extremely high sound quality. It will allo

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14 March 2016

The deal will see Prase Engineering, located in Venice, become the primary contact for all three brands in the country from September, with exclusive access to extensive library of Lab.gruppen and Lake amplification and processing products adding to their exclusive access to high performance loudspeaker ranges from Tannoy.

Ennio Prase, CEO of Prase Engineering, commented: "We have had a very strong working relationship with TC Group via the Tannoy brand for some time, so it is a joy to finally add products from Lab.gruppen and Lake to the offering for our customers. Both of these brands have a strong reputation for quality, and we look forward

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14 March 2016

The success of the PLASA National Rigging Certificate has increased the number of qualified riggers in the industry. Freelancers who wish to take the PLASA National Rigging Certificate at Level 2 have found it difficult to gain enough experience to get to the point where they are ready to be assessed because many venues won't allow them to work unless qualified.

The Trainee Rigger Scheme has been created as a result of demand from rigging companies, the Riggers Forum, venues, seminars and individual riggers who felt that extra help was needed to prepare new entrants to the industry to gain the levels of experience in order to register and achieve the National Rigging Certificate Level 2.

PLASA, are therefore developing a way in which those who wish to purs

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14 March 2016

Named in honour of the late Tony Gottelier, the industry innovator and commentator who passed away in 2006, the Gottelier Award is for our industry's product developers who have made significant and sustained contributions to the advancement of entertainment, presentation or installation technology - whether in audio, lighting, rigging, staging, or any other related field.

The nominees for 2014 are:

Richard Belliveau

As one of the co-founders of Texas-based lighting manufacturer High End Systems, and still leading the company's product developments today, Belliveau has been behind a long line of successful products from the company, from the Color Pro,

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14 March 2016

Handling the lighting for the project was PRG EML Productions in Utrecht. Under direction of production manager Martijn Roosen, W-DMX was used to create a wireless link between the Viskmart stage and Martini Tower, a church nearly 700m away. The network distribution was based on Art-Net with nodes and switches from ELC Lighting.

Martijn said, "ELC Lighting is always my first port of call on any job. I have been using ELC products for over seven years now - in fact we use them as

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14 March 2016

The station has a strong focus on cultural programming, such as a programmes dedicated to specific types of performance like wayang puppet theatre. Recently it has been broadening its horizons with reality shows, talk programmes and drama series'. For those reality shows and singing competitions a highly reliable and powerful lighting control solution was needed - a grandMA2.

Lighting designer Hadi Suroso specified a grandMA2 light: "Having used the console for the first time during the 2011 Southeast Asian Games in Palembang, it h

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14 March 2016

One of the distinctive features of Indian cinema is the importance given to song and dance in the plots - it is what gives the films their unique flavour and a primary reason for their popularity. Maintaining this popularity requires continuing excellence in sound track and background score production of which the audio engineering process is a key element. One of the leading figures in the field is KJ Singh (Kanwarjit Singh Sawhney), a recipient of many major industry awards for his audio engineering work.

KJ Singh is based in Mumbai and has had long and fruitful working partnerships with many figures in the Indian film industry, including A. R. Rahmann, t

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14 March 2016

Digital Revolution: An immersive exhibition of art, design, film, music and videogames, which opened on 3 July and which closes on 14 September, is described as "an immersive exhibition of art, design, film, music and videogames" and "the most comprehensive presentation of digital creativity ever to be staged in the UK". The exhibition will tour the world after its London run.

The BrightSign media player is normally deployed in digital signage applications. It is, however, characterised by its ability to deliver content to a screen with absolute accuracy and reliability, and this capability was critical for the designers of Digital Revolution, 59 Productions.

"We specif

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14 March 2016

"We bought 16 M'elodies to use as main arrays in our Cabaret Theatre, and that experience made me a big fan of Meyer Sound," says Mat Diamond, head of audio at Mohegan Sun. "So when it came time to upgrade the Wolf Den, choosing M'elodie again was an easy decision."

To cover the 300-degree audience area, the new system features two main arrays of six M'elodie loudspeakers each, two side arrays of four each, and four for front-fill. Four 700-HP subwoofers provide low end, with system drive and alignment provided by a Galileo Callisto loudspeaker management system. The system was supplied by HB Communications of North Haven, C

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14 March 2016

For the 2014 Where We Are Tour, FOH engineer Mark Littlewood and monitor engineer Ant Carr decided to add four Milab DC-96B's to the line-up.

Says Ant, "I'd never used Milab before we started rehearsals. Mark had put them on the input list for overheads and I was willing to give them a try. I like to build drum mixes in in-ears starting with the overheads, it's important to me to get a balanced mix of cymbals and drums without too much ambience outside of the kit and then mix in the direct mics. The DC-96B has such a smooth response and accurate pick up pattern, it g

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14 March 2016

Working for The Events Company UK, who handled the rigging and design, Blueprint decorated Size Records' Size Matters 10-pole big top with 400 x LT-200 SGM tubes and 130 x ILD controllers - spread over three separate grids.

The pixel-mappable 2m-long graphic tubes, loaded with RGB LEDs at 35mm pixel pitch, was specifically designed for Saturday night headliner, the Greek-Swedish DJ/producer, Steve Angello (of Swedish House Mafia fame) and his 'Size Records' family.

Reports Chris Morgan, "The Events Comp

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14 March 2016

Five microphones will be awarded to the five most "liked" submissions on Facebook, while the remaining 95 will be given to the people who, in DPA's opinion, come up with the best, most creative and most original ideas. An example of one of the ideas can be found at this YouTube video, created by DPA Microphones: http://bit.ly/1ll1KBQ.

By housing a d:screet 4061 Omnidirectional Miniature Capsule in a soft rubber necklace, DPA has created a microphone that anyone can use. There is no need to worry about attaching it to c

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14 March 2016

ELE instantly distinguished itself by offering what one reviewer described as "a classy alternative" to the typical late night club. At the same time, though, the club sizzles with EDM energy, featuring world class DJs and appearances by celebrities like Lady Gaga. Meacham's lighting design manages to highlight the elegance of the two-story club's architecture as well as its gold and silver decorating scheme, while also serving up a healthy dose of EDM attitude to its custom-designed DJ booth and dance floor.

"I designed the lighting so it became part of the club's architecture," said Meacham. "The lights work with the building's high-end features by doing things like wrap

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14 March 2016

"To get ready for Electric Castle, we travelled to many different festivals throughout Europe," said artistic director of Electric Castle Festival, Teodor Negrea. "I always pay attention to the sound. I have to say, once we got Set Up, a local d&b audiotechnik system provider on our team, we were able to bring our festival to the next level. Our audio was on par or better than any fe

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14 March 2016

Increasing demands to reduce Co2 emissions from fossil fuels calls for alternative energy production, and implementing a modern facility will allow Kara/Noveren to utilize the energy resources from residual waste that cannot otherwise be recycled. In line with Kara/Noveren's vision was for The Energy Tower to become a new Danish landmark. Naturally they wanted an energy efficient lighting solution to go with it so 112 Martin Exterior 410 fixtures and 78 Tripix 1200 LED strips were installed, controlled b

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14 March 2016

Taking place in the 20,000-capacity Mezaparks Stage, the show was Kings Of Leon's debut in the region, with a design centred on a vast 21.6m by 10.8m LED video wall which displayed a mixture of pre-made content and live camera feeds.

"As the Kings wanted a large video element I needed to consider which luminaires would be able to stand up to it," explains Normandale. "It was an easy choice - the VL3500 Wash and VL3015LT Spot are exceptionally bright and were able to offer tangible light against the wall, with the added bonus of the VL3015LT Spot's long-throw application."

With the show being outdoors, the powerful Va

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14 March 2016

Located adjacent to the main A12 trunk road, by the old Ford works, London's most recent Lighthouse roadside installation features its Impact 10 LED screen measuring 12.16m x 2.88m, controlled by the company's proprietary LIP-HDI M5 technology.

Commissioned by Outdoor Plus, the screen is mounted on a bespoke steel tower, designed, manufactured and installed by London-based SIS Digital. Outdoor Plus has commissioned a number of outdoor advertising screens using Lighthouse panels, including the iconic 'Twin Towers' East and West installations by the A13 and A4 respectively.

"Lighthouse LED screens are a tried and tested product, robust, resilient and they offer the level of f

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14 March 2016

The History Centre's 400-seat Woodruff Auditorium was planned as the venue for this programme, but significant upgrades were required to support that use. This led Cape Dixson Associates (CDAI), the Atlanta-based AV and acoustical consultant that has worked with the Centre on its audio and acoustical needs for 25 years, to choose a Panaray MA12 modular line array system from Bose Professional Systems.

CDAI had helped the History Centre upgrade the acoustics of the 1960s-vintage space when the auditorium was renovated in 2001; however, that renovation budget did not include upgrading the audiovisual