USA - SHS Global's new office in Austin,Texas opened 1 September and includes a lounge area, demo room and sales space. It is located on the backlot of Austin Film Studios and is nestled in with companies like Fender, Peavy, Rooster Teeth Games, Electrofish films to name a few.

SHS Global has also rebranded itself to fall more in line with its new business model. A total website rebuild and new logo design was established to help convey the company's new vision.

"It was important for us to find a place that had good synergy and is deeply rooted to the entertainment community in Austin," says Leigh Anne Aiken, owner of SHS Global. " Our goal was to create a boutique space where clients, designers and production companies can come and source equipment, develop ideas and get product training from various manufactures."

Since 2005, SHS Global (formally Second

USA - Philips Vari-Lite has announced the '1 on 1 with Vari-Lite' video contest designed to challenge lighting designers, technicians, and fans worldwide to produce a one-minute video featuring one single Vari-Lite luminaire. With prizes that include a paid trip to LDI or Prolight + Sound, GoPro Cameras, and Vari-Lite SWAG packs, the winners of the contest will be selected by an independent panel of judges and all entries must be received by 17 October 2014.

"Knowing the high level of creativity that exists with lighting professionals worldwide, we are very excited to launch the '1 on 1 with Vari-Lite' video contest," said Brad Schiller, Philips Vari-Lite product marketing manager. "With the only requirement to use one Vari-lite luminaire as the main subject matter in a one-minute video, we are eager to see how each entrant pushes the boundaries of their own imagi

The Netherlands - Clay Paky GlowUp fixtures recently illuminated the 2014 performance of the Leidse Koorboeken (The Leiden Choir Book) concerts in The Netherlands, a series of musical performances based around the six choir books that are kept in the Dutch Leiden Archives, made in the sixteenth century and written for church. They make up Europe's largest collection of its kind. The concerts run for four days across The Netherlands and always attract large audiences.

For the fifth consecutive year Keylight has supplied the design and lighting hardware for the Leidse Koorboeken shows. Lighting designer Gary Yates of Keylight said, "Over the past two years Keylight has been fortunate to implement our stock of Clay Paky GlowUp fixtures to support our role as lighting supplier.

"The audience at each venue surrounded the stage 360 degrees for the "in the round"

Germany - An arsenal of three Avolites Media Ai S8 HD media servers have pumped out dazzling visuals for German rock band Böhse Onkelz (Bad Uncles) as they performed on arguably the largest stage ever constructed in Europe.

The iconic rockers performed a reunion gig at the world famous Hockenheimring race track, south of Mannheim, to 200,000 fans. On stage were four 35m high LED towers, spanning over one hundred metres, which were perfectly pixel mapped by Ai.

Roland Greil and Thomas Döhring of German visual production company Einstein and Sons supplied and controlled the Ai S8 servers, which were sending out multiple full 1080p HD feeds.

The three servers shared the management of live feed, pre-designed graphic content, IMAG feed, and pre-visualisation. Two further S8 servers were supplied by Einstein and Sons as backup. Lighting and set design was by Jerry Appelt.

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India - The Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences (SAIMS) situated at Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India, recently installed an Allen & Heath ZED-420 4 bus analogue USB mixer in its new state-of-the-art interactive seminar suite.

SAIMS provides a wide range of clinical diagnostic facilities and manages major surgical procedures including open heart surgery, neurology & neurosurgery, and knee & hip joint replacement. The Institute's building is also a teaching facility, housing all clinical and non-clinical departments, lecture theatres, fully-equipped labs, dissection halls, a museum, and a library.

Systems integrator, Audio Cratz, was appointed to fulfill the AV requirements for the new centre, specifying Allen & Heath's ZED-420 in the control room to manage the live audio requirements and also capture stereo recording and video feed from the operations.

The latest additio

UK - The fifth annual PLASA Riggers' Forum will be held on Sunday 5 October 2014 from 2pm - 5pm in the North Hall Gallery rooms at ExCeL London, setting the scene for the PLASA Rigging Conference, which takes place on the following day. With drinks, refreshments and lively debate on offer, the forum provides an opportunity for members of the rigging community to meet in an informal environment and discuss issues that affect their everyday working lives.

This year's Riggers' Forum will focus on a subject that has implications for everyone connected to the rigging industry - training. It's been widely recognised that training is a fundamental pillar of the industry, especially now the National Rigging Certificate is established. Routes to assessment are being developed, alongside courses that augment learning on the job, refresher training and product specific training for new sta

USA - Vibiana, originally St. Vibiana, Los Angeles' first Archdiocese Catholic cathedral and one of the city's few remaining nineteenth century landmarks, was beautifully transformed into a stunning full service event facility in the late 2000's, and more recently has been outfitted with a state-of-the-art Elation Professional LED lighting system.

Located in the historic core of downtown Los Angeles, Vibiana is a much sought after venue for weddings and receptions, performing arts, and events of all types. Its historical atmosphere, refined architecture and elegant Main Hall form ideal surroundings for any special occasion.

Because lighting in Vibiana's Main Hall consisted of simple non-dynamic white light, the venue had to rent in lighting equipment every time there was an event that required something extra. And when you do that costs can be quite high, says Adrian de Pamphi

UK - Serious Stages closed a busy 2014 festival season supplying stages and site structures to the inaugural On Blackheath festival, 13-14 September, 2014.

On Blackheath announced its arrival on the UK festival map this September with a colourful weekend site combining musical headliners Massive Attack, Frank Turner and Grace Jones, with culinary delights including Gizzi Erskine's Chef's Club and a mixture of family entertainment.

Promoter Harvey Goldsmith steered the content and managed the launch, with long term production director Jim Baggott managing the technical elements of the festival.

Baggott stated, "We wanted a stage that was versatile, that could be built very quickly in the three day window available to us. So we went to Serious Stages and decided on their 19m Supernova roof as the main stage. We've gone deeper than you'd expect for an audience of 15,000, m

France - In early June the peaceful, well-preserved medieval town of Saint-Jean-d'Angély in France and its iconic racetrack - a fast hillside circuit made even more exciting by changing soil conditions - played host to the FIM Motocross Word Championship France Grand Prix. This premier motocross racing event draws in huge crowds and D.A.S. Audio professional sound systems were on hand to provide robust, crystal-clear sound for the thousands of professionals and fans who descended on Saint-Jean-d'Angély for the MX1 and MX2 category races.

Full-range event organizer and show producer Carrement Prod was called in to design and rig the sound system for this massive event. Carrement Prod is a long-time partner of Axente, exclusive D.A.S. Audio distributor in France, and has grown to become one of the leading entertainment companies in the country with over 30 events in

The Netherlands - Flowsound is a fast-growing, dynamic rental company based in the The Hague area of the Netherlands. It is a company that operates throughout Western Europe and only invests in high quality audio solutions. With this in mind, it recently expanded its rental stock by adding a DiGiCo SD10 mixing system.

"After investing in an SD11i and SD9, plus D-Rack and MADI-Rack, in 2013 we saw an increasing demand for DiGiCo solutions," says Flowsound's owner, Floris van den Berg. "Engineers and sound designers specifically ask for DiGiCo products because they are very happy with the sound quality, the products' user-friendly and intuitive interface and their wide range of feature sets.

"We quickly decided to add an SD10 to our inventory due to our growing list of clients which include festivals, orchestras, musicals productions and corporate events. Wit

USA - The Tobin Centre for the Performing Arts, which opened on 5 September in San Antonio, will provide the community with a permanent world-class live entertainment venue.

The Tobin Centre repurposes the city's existing Municipal Auditorium, built in 1926, and includes the 1,759-seat H-E-B Performance Hall, the 250-seat Carlos Alvarez Studio Theatre for smaller productions, rehearsals and community use, plus an outdoor performance plaza. The façade of the original building has been retained, but behind the scenes the Hall takes advantage of 21st century technology.

The Tobin Centre's technical director Stefan DeWilde's designs for the new venue included a stage lift for the H-E-B Performance Hall, to be utilized for performer entrances and exits, reveals and scene changes. The lift will also be used for lifting grand pianos from their sub-stage storage, for resident and gue

USA - Even by LA standards, the 2014 BET Experience Concert at the Staples Centre was a star-studded affair, with the likes of Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige and Grammy winners Maxwell and Jill Scott gracing the stage for three glittering nights.

Visions Lighting of Brea, CA created a lighting design that looked right at home with this on-stage glitz by using a visually powerful combination of video panels, strobes, and moving fixtures, along with some unique "light diamonds" created with 64 Nexus 4x4 LED panels from CHauvet Professional.

"We rigged the Nexus panels in diamond shapes to create a different look and project an image of glamour in keeping with the character of this event," said Todd Roberts of Visions Lighting, which built the lighting and trussing system for the BET concert. "This was a big stage with big stars, so the lighting had to ma

UK - Hastings-based lamp and LED lighting specialist CLD Distribution has taken a major shareholding in bespoke lighting manufacturer Iberian Lighting - also based in Hastings - in a merger that unites CLD's rapid expansion into LED lighting technology with Iberian's experience in the design of specialist commercial and architectural products.

Iberian, this year celebrating 50 years of successful business, is renowned for designing some of the world's largest lampshades and custom feature lighting elements.

CLD has a fast-growing technical department dedicated to the development of LED lighting technologies and producing an increasing range of LED luminaires aimed at a wide range of commercial and industrial applications.

CLD's MD, Rob Platt states, "The merger amalgamates both these specialities. With CLD's strong sales force and Iberian's talented and imaginative crea

USA - The AES and OCA Alliance will be working together at the forthcoming 137th AES Convention in Los Angeles towards the ratification of the alliance's proposed Open Control Architecture as an AES public standard.

At the same time, the alliance will be exhibiting on the exhibition floor (booth 1152), explaining and demonstrating the benefits of the OCA standards-based control and monitoring architecture, with a live demonstration of control and monitoring across networked audio devices from different manufacturers.

OCA defines communications protocols for reliable and secure control and monitoring of AV device networks of 2 to 10,000 nodes. AES project "AES-X210" is currently working to render OCA into a ratified AES standard.

At the convention alliance members will be participating in panel discussions to increase the understanding of the benefits and impact of

UAE - Nicolaos M Kyvernitis Electronics Ent, the designated Shure distributor in the Middle East, has recently supplied UHF - R Wireless Technology to Almoe AV Production and Rentals, rental division of the Almoe Group of Companies.

UHF -R components acquired by Almoe include 10 UR4D+ wireless dual channel receiver units, five UR4S+ single channel receivers, 25 UR2 wireless handheld microphone transmitters with Beta 58A, twenty-five UR1 wireless body transmitters and 25 WL185 lavalier microphones.

Almoe AV Production and Rentals provides full audio-visual and production support services for conferences, events and exhibitions. Emerging as one of the leading AV Rental companies in the region, this division deploys state-of-the-art equipment, trained technical staff and the right creativity and imagination required for ensuring highly successful events.

"At Almoe, we prid

The Netherlands - Leading Dutch technical solutions provider Ampco Flashlight Rental has made another major investment in Robe products with the purchase of 55 x CycFX 8 fixtures, which were delivered by Robe's Benelux distributor, Controllux.

Marco de Koff, Ampco Flashlight's operations manager explains how they were impressed by the functionality of the CycFX 8 and the fact that the fixtures are "unique and versatile" and therefore would be ideal to have in their rental stock.

Already several of their clients and various lighting designers are enthusiastically embracing the CycFX 8, and so far, the units have yet to be spotted in the Utrecht based company's warehouse as they have gone from one job to the other in a virtually unbroken sequence.

De Koff likes the zoom feature of the CycFX 8 and the fact that they can be used for cyc and set lighting as well as for

UK - The PLASA Professional Development Programme (PDP) is renowned as a platform for sharing ideas and showcasing industry expertise. This year, the PDP will occupy two spaces at Excel London - the Audio and AV Theatre and the Lighting and Stage Theatre.

The PDP made its debut in 2010. Since then over 300 speakers have taken part in its panels, which have welcomed thousands of attendees. The programme's aim is to test theory, inspire debate and positively impact the different strands of the entertainment technology industry.

The Lighting and Stage Theatre is preparing to welcome a wide range of expertise and talent, from companies like Martin Professional, Theatre Projects, Marshmallow Laser Feast, IQ Magazine, The Backstage Centre and Avolites Media, and from organisations including ABTT and the Association of Lighting Designers.

Leading lighting manufacturer, Martin Profe

USA - Corner Entertainment is a recently-opened entertainment constellation located in Houston, Texas. It features a restaurant (Corner Table) a bar/nightclub (The Oak Bar), and a second wine and mixed drinks bar (1919).

Though distinctly named, the three concepts flow together, both physically and in the vibe that unites them. That vibe is perhaps best described as high-class, but relaxed. Though the aesthetic and the quality of the libations and cuisine might justify it, Corner Entertainment is decidedly not stuffy. Houston-based integration firm LoGo Audio Video Music designed and installed Corner Entertainment's high-performance, cost-effective audio system using two Symetrix Jupiter 8 fixed architecture standalone DSPs with smartphone control for the managers provided by Symetrix ARC-WEB.

"For small- to mid-sized installations, the Symetrix Jupiter is the only proces

UK - Battersea Power Station was the iconic background for part of this year's Totally Thames festival organised by the Thames Festival Trust featuring Carabosse, a French Fire Art company who deliver picturesque installations for audiences and passers-by throughout the world.

Illuminate Design hasworked with the Thames Festival Trust for the past eight years, helping to deliver a variety of events, predominantly the annual Mayor's Thames Festival in London.

This year, Jonathan Bartlett, production manager for the Trust contracted Illuminate Design to provide a complete service for the Fire Garden by Carabosse at the Battersea Power Station. The project brief included Site management, PA, and lighting the famous chimneys.

To tackle the task, Robin Shephard-Blandy, director for Illuminate Design chose the new SGM G-Spot. Robin said, "The G-spot was a perfect solution for

USA - Recently, the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) invited its members to attend the annual North American EtherCAT Plug Fest - held at the North American headquarters of Beckhoff Automation in Savage, Minnesota, USA.

For a period of two days, participants subjected their EtherCAT masters and slaves to rigorous interoperability testing, discussed open questions, and prepared the devices for future marketing. Additionally, the ETG shared exclusive information about prospective EtherCAT device test developments to the members.

The 2014 North American EtherCAT Plug Fest was also highlighted by the location of the two-day event. The Savage, Minnesota facility of Beckhoff Automation LLC also houses the North American EtherCAT Test Centre (ETC), which was accredited by the ETG at the beginning of 2014. The goals of the event were to test EtherCAT devices from the 35 participants fo

UK - In 2013 Le Maitre invested in increasing productivity at its pyrotechnics factory in Peterborough UK, in order to cope with demand. The pyrotechnic manufacturing process is a very labour intensive process and Le Maitre had reached almost full production capacity the year before.

The company therefore researched alternative methods, exploring different industries before subsequently identifying a completely new production process which can output a phenomenal 24,000 to 26,000 units per hour, regardless of diameter, and is now resulting in a terrific increase in capacity.

Moving from the previous moulded stars method to the new format has been far from straightforward. The production process greatly affects how the pyro behaves and the Peterborough team have had to spend a huge amount of time and resource in the careful adjustment of product composition.

Le Maitre confirm

Canada - On the shores of Lake Ontario, Queen's University's Isabel Bader Centre for the Arts - the newest addition to Canada's cultural landscape - is set to open its doors this weekend, marking the culmination of more than seven years of planning, design, and construction.

Theatre Projects collaborated with Snøhetta and N45 Architecture on the design of this 80,000 square-foot arts centre that will provide Kingston, Ontario with a state-of-the-art teaching facility, a world-class showcase for student and professional musicians, and a breathtaking architectural addition to the university campus.

The $65m centre, which combines historic preservation and modern architecture, features a concert hall, flexible theatre, orchestra rehearsal room, film screening room, film production studio, classrooms, and a full suite of support spaces.

The centrepiece of the lakeside art

UK - There has been a theatre on the site of Sadler's Wells since 1683. Christian Wallace is the technical manager for this, the sixth incarnation to bear the name of the original proprietor along with a nod to the health giving spring that still lie beneath the theatre. He explains the theatre's current remit: "Sadler's Wells presents all sorts of dance from Britain and from international companies, including tango, hip hop, ballet, flamenco, and contemporary dance. We present high profile and internationally recognised works so we need to provide the best possible equipment, which of course includes our lighting stock."

The current building was opened in 1998 and the majority of the lighting stock is now 16 years old. Wallace freely admits that, despite sustaining a rigorous maintenance programme, it was time to explore the newer, more advanced fixtures now on the ma

South Africa - As the worldwide launch of Robe's new long-throw 1700W BMFL Spot luminaire continues apace across all continents, two South Africa launch events staged in Cape Town and Johannesburg attracted nearly 200 people from multiple industry sectors, including all the major industry players in SA.

The two SA events were organised by Robe's SA distributor DWR, whose team of MD Duncan Riley and director Nic Britz was joined by Robe's sales director Harry von den Stemmen and technical sales manager Ond?ej Hegar. For the first launch event in Cape Town, Robe's CEO Josef Valchar also jetted in.

The Cape Town event took place at the Grandwest Arena, a venue chosen as it was important to demonstrate in a large space so guests could appreciate the power - a staggering 250,000 lux at 5m - and throw capabilities of the BMFL Spot.

A constant stream of visitors all day heard a bri

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