UK - After working with RG Jones' Martin Audio Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array (MLA) at Glastonbury Festival - as well as the smaller footprint MLA Compact at other events - David McEwan's vision was to fire it up in anger at the holy grail of London venues, the Royal Albert Hall.

And as long term recording and live engineer for Nitin Sawhney, the opportunity came when this British Indian musician, orchestral composer and producer announced his return to the famous London venue to perform work from his forthcoming album Dystopian Dream and a selection of material from his first nine albums.

McEwan approached John Carroll, MD of RG Jones Sound Engineering, and to his great delight the award-winning PA was made available within the production budget.

Rarely will MLA have had so many different sounds and voices pumped through it as Sawhney moves effortlessly through dif

South Africa - Three new Philips Strand Digital Wallracks, 24 x 2.5kw, have been installed at the Springs Civic Theatre in Ekurhuleni, South Africa. Along with Longman LED parcans, the equipment has been tried and tested in the production Prison Without Steel Bars, Changing Times and various school reviews recently.

While Ekurhuleni may mean "place of peace" in Xitsonga, the past seven months have been flat out for the team running the theatre. In the midst of it all a tender was awarded to DWR Distribution to supply and install lighting equipment.

"We have used the gear and so far we are totally happy with the upgrade," commented Dawid van Eeden, theatre stage manager.

"Philips Strand provided the most economical but reliable dimmers for this size theatre," said Dave Whitehouse of DWR. "We have known Dawie and Eduard Coetzee

USA - When Garth Brooks announced he was launching a world tour, Michael T. Strickland, chair of Bandit Lites, knew the production would be something special.

"Garth is, and always has been, an innovator," said Strickland. "He creates or recreates almost every aspect of the industry each time he tours. 2014 is no different! The massive, interactive lighting system that Dave and Garth have designed is second to none. It is simply stunning."

Lighting designer David Butzler, who has worked with Brooks since his very first tour, requested a fixture that, simply put, did not exist on the market: a bright single source RGBA in a small PAR 30 form factor with a very smooth dimming curve that looked good on camera.

"The intention was to design these fixtures to mount in various elements of the set," said Roth Edwards, Bandit's director of special operat

UK - The buzz around the aisles and stands of PLASA London 2014 has created an incredible atmosphere for visitors and exhibitors alike. The entertainment technology industry is full of brilliant characters, giving the industry its special personality. While the social side of the show has flourished, so has business, as exhibitors continue to launch new products and make important connections.

Green Hippo has chosen PLASA London 2014 for the launch of the Hippotizer v4. The company has taken the award-winning features of the Hippotizer v3, such as UberPan, Cross-Fade on Layer, Presets and Region Mapper success, and added new hardware and an array of key software features that will make the user experience better than ever before.

Raycom is exhibiting at PLASA London for the first time, using the show as a platform for moving into the live market. The company has built up an ex

USA - Lighting designer Saxton Waller selected a grandMA2 full-size with a MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) for two sold-out STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9) concerts at the famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, the lead up to the band's US cross-country fall tour. The console was provided by Brown Note Productions, Inc. in Thornton, Colorado.

The instrumental band STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9), which plays self-described post-rock dance music, is one of the nation's top-grossing tour acts with a heavy presence in the festival circuit. Their dates at Red Rocks preceded the start of their first tour in nearly a year. The tour will play venues in the Midwest and East, including Chicago, New York, Detroit and Pittsburgh.

Brown Note Productions, Inc. is a full-service audio, lighting and video production company specialising in touring, festivals and special events. It won

UK - The Technical Theatre Awards, which celebrate the achievements of people working behind the scenes, have announced their winners at a well-attended ceremony during PLASA London 2014 hosted by Kasper Holten.

Now in their second year, the Technical Theatre Awards (TTAs) were established to give due credit to the often unsung heroes and heroines that work backstage to make the theatre magic happen.

The winners are:

The Douglas Turnbull Award for Outstanding Achievement in Stage Management (Supported by Opera Holland Park)

Sharon Hobden

The Philips Entertainment Award for Outstanding Achievement in Lighting

Richard Rhys Thomas

The PRG Award for Outstanding Achievement in Production Management

Paul Hennessy

The Triple E Award for Outstanding Achievement in Flys & Rigging

Karl Meier

The Rigging Team Award for Outstanding Achievement

UK - Orbital Sound has announced that it is opening a new demonstration zone this month, in conjunction with loudspeaker technology company, Flare Audio. Equipped with the growing line up of Flare loudspeaker systems, this represents the first facility to provide a comprehensive London demonstration resource for the manufacturer, as a dedicated centre of excellence.

Orbital Sound's MD Chris Headlam comments, "As Flare's UK & Eire distributor, we can introduce the Flare concept to a much wider audience by setting up this new demonstration centre at our Brixton headquarters - complemented by having an expert technical team on hand in support. With such extraordinarily innovative design as Flare Audio, you need to be able to provide the right environment for people to listen and explore the range in detail.

"We are incredibly excited by what Flare has achieved, to the e

South Korea - The Incheon Asian Games in Korea is the largest sporting event in Asia - set on an Olympic scale, with around 10,000 athletes from 45 countries representing 36 sports.

For the 17th edition, both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies were held in the 62,000-capacity purpose built Incheon Asiad Main Stadium, with K-Pop stars and Gangnam Style singer Psy headlining the star-studded opening show.

With 'Diversity' as the theme, the large rental company Canlite drew on huge quantities of PR Lighting fixtures, deploying nearly 200 heads to perform specific tasks - comfortably the largest single brand represented. At the same time it met the specification of lighting designer, Han Soon Na, and his programmer Yoiung Gu Kang.

The inventory included more than 100 powerful PR 5000 Spot, Wash and Framing variants - many of them positioned, along with XR 330 Beams on the top of

Germany - This year, the Marbach state stud farm from Baden-Wuerttemberg celebrates its 500-year existence. The Marbach Classics Open Air, taking place in July, was the climax in the anniversary calendar of the stud farm.

The Ross ballet, consisting of 90 horses from various top European stud farms and 200 performers, fascinated around 7500 visitors in the Marbach Arena. The Württemberg Philharmonic of Reutlingen accompanied the spectacle with symphonic live music. Alcons Audio facilitated a perfect sound everywhere with the LR24 pro-ribbon line-array system.

dlp motive GmbH was entrusted with the sound for the event as technical supplier and put the Alcons LR24 pro-ribbon line array for their first time to the test. The LR24 is a larger line-array system that can both be permanently installed as well as be used in touring. It was developed for a 1:1 linear reproduction of th

UK - The 2014 Ryder Cup, held at Gleneagles, Scotland, marked Creative Technology's eighth European Ryder Cup and, by some margin, the largest and most complex in its 29 year relationship with the event.

The most visible element of Creative Technology's (CT) package was the numerous large screens positioned around the course, on the Opening and Closing Ceremony stages and in the three park and ride centres. A total of 21 screens ranging in size from 8m2 to 100m2 were installed; many in extremely inaccessible locations. The overall screen area totalled 750 m2, an increase of over 50% compared to the 2010 event held at Celtic Manor in Wales.

Pixel pitches of 8, 12 and 16mm, LED products were selected to match the display size and viewing distances, providing a consistent overall resolution, character size and subsequent text legibility. Independent feedback and switching of sour

The Netherlands - Built in 1877, Cinecitta is one of the most culturally significant buildings in Tilburg, Netherlands. Recently it underwent a €6m refurbishment which included the installation of a major Yamaha CIS series audio system.

It was originally built as a concert venue and coffee shop for the Royal Liedertafel Souvenir des Montagnards - a Dutch association, founded in 1845, to further broaden cultural objectives including vocal and instrumental music, opera and theatre.

Since 1916 the building has functioned as a cinema, as well as hosting concerts, theatre, exhibitions, lectures and presentations. It has hosted numerous high profile artists, including Vladimir Horowitz, widely considered to be one of the greatest pianists of all time.

Taking the name of Rome's high profile Cinecitta film studio in 1982, the building continues to be of major socio-cultural signifi

Romania - More than 100 Panasonic projectors have been used to create one of the world's largest architectural video mapping shows to commemorate the 555th anniversary of Bucharest.

The iMapp Bucharest 555 years anniversary event saw the 270m wide, 23.000m2 facade of the Bucharest Parliament Palace transformed into a giant outdoor theatre for the celebrations, which mark 555 years since the first documented mention of the Romanian capital.

The Panasonic PT-DZ21K projectors created the huge display by using edge blending and geometric mapping software to create a single seamless image.

"We chose the DZ21K mostly because of its size, and being so robust we were able to make stacks with lots of projectors," said Adrian Pochiscan, technical director of 360 Revolution, the company that produced the show. "We liked its resolution, its remote control capabilities fro

UK - Max Narula, a student at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, has won this year's Michael Northen Bursary (MNB), picking up a £500 cash award at a special presentation at PLASA London.

The Bursary is awarded annually to a student or recent graduate who has demonstrated strong, imaginative and creative lighting designs. It is organised by the Association of Lighting Designers, a professional body representing lighting designers in the live performance industry.

Northen was both a former Chairman and President of the ALD and the first credited lighting designer in the UK.

Each year an award of £500 is presented to a young lighting designer who has shown excellence in the field of lighting design. The project must be a performance-based lighting design in or out of the college environment. Two runner-up prizes of £250 each are also presented: an ETC sponsor

UK - Robe Lighting enjoyed its biggest, busiest and best PLASA show to date over four days at London's ExCeL Centre and also won its fourth PLASA Innovation Award for its new Bright Multi-Functional Luminaire (BMFL) high powered signature product.

"PLASA 2014 was awesome in every way!" declared the Czech moving light manufacturer's CEO Josef Valchar.

"We welcomed an incredible number of visitors on the booth every day, we met a wide selection of innovative lighting and visual designers all showing a keen interest in our products, we saw representatives from most of the leading UK rental companies ... and winning the Innovation Award was the icing on the cake! We could not have asked for a better show - it absolutely rocked!"

As well as all of the above ... PLASA 2014 was special for Robe in many other ways.

The 1000sq.m Robe Arena was the biggest physic

UK - The final day of PLASA London 2014 followed an evening of celebration and reflection, as the PLASA Awards for Innovation and Sustainability took centre stage. The winners were revealed during a special ceremony, held in the grand surroundings of Robe World - the lighting manufacturer's huge stand.

Industry/exhibitor reaction to the show was positive. Richard 'Fez' Ferriday, brand development manager at Cadac observed: "We have a constant stream of serous visitors who have been really knocked out by the new features in the new version 2.3 operating software for the CDC eight. Surprisingly we have had a lot of theatre people on the booth."

Mercedes Stevao-Boase, marketing and PR at Green Hippo said: "AC Technologies has a great stand space. It's been really busy, lots of overseas visitors from Asia to Eastern Europe."

Karl Christmas, sales & marketing

UK - The PLASA Awards for Innovation (sponsored by Lighting&Sound International) were presented on Tuesday 7 October, revealing the most ground-breaking products of PLASA London 2014. It was a night of celebration and remembrance, as the prestigious Gottelier Award was awarded posthumously to Clay Paky founder, Pasquale 'Paky' Quadri, who recently passed away.

Clay Paky's Chief Operational Officer, Pio Nahum, graciously accepted the Gottelier Award on behalf of his friend and colleague. The other nominees - Richard Belliveau, David Cunningham and Dr Christian Heil - withdrew from the running following the sad news. The lighting industry has lost a great character and a true pioneer.

Every year, PLASA recognises products that demonstrate progress, through attributes like a new style of thinking, an improvement in technical practice, new technology, materials or technique

The Netherlands - Out Board has appointed FACE.nl as the new exclusive distributor covering the Netherlands, of the TiMax2 SoundHub and TiMax Tracker audio processing, playback and showcontrol automation products.

FACE CEO Karel de Piere comments, "We are very happy to widen our Benelux distribution of the TiMax products which we already represent in Belgium for some years. TiMax fits well with our other high quality brands and suits perfectly our core activities in system solutions and integration."

The FACE team's broad skill set and in-depth experience across the live event and installation sectors are a good match for TiMax SoundHub, a scaleable audio matrix and playback server for system management, vocal localisation, sound effects, spatialisation and audio showcontrol in theatrical productions, events and venues as well as AV installations such as museums, the

Romania - With a floor surface of 350,000 sq.m, the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania, is the second world's largest administrative building. To celebrate the 555th anniversary of the capital city, the city cultural centre mesmerised a crowd of 100,000 with the world's largest videomapping projection ever made on an administrative building, using over 100 digital projectors.

Projection mapping specialist Maxin10sity was called in by local rental stager 360 Revolution to handle the colossal task of creating a videomapping as well as organising all content, acting as a curator for this artistic performance.

Each animation was a symbolic 5'55'', and boasted a staggering 23,000 sqm projection area. "For a project of this scale, 8K resolution quickly became obvious. We wanted the audience to experience this wow factor while at the same time create some emotion,&qu

UK - Suzanne Wynne of ShowTex has raised over £2000 so far for Macmillan Cancer Support by having her 43cm long hair shorn down to just 6mm on the final day of the PLASA Show. And the hair itself has not gone to waste - it was donated to The Little Princess Trust, which provides real hair wigs for both boys and girls across the UK and Ireland who have lost their own hair through cancer treatment.

Suzanne told LSiOnline: "Prior to the event I was quite overwhelmed to receive so many messages of support . . . doing this had clearly made people think, and some had even decided to do their own fund-raising, which is great. I also met one of the Macmillan ladies, Stephanie, who had been through cancer twice, and the way she faced it and embraced it was quite inspirational - I was in awe. I had bought a wig before-hand, but once I'd spoken to her and listened to what she'd

UK - A Martin Audio OmniLine system has recently been installed in the Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall (ICLH)) at Essex University using Van Damme cable supplied by cabled specialist VDC Trading.

Supplied by LMC Audio and installed by Scan Audio, the micro-line array system was identified as being the perfect solution for the application from the word go. A feature of the hall is that the 1000 seater auditorium can be split into two self-contained 500-seat spaces. The rear walls of the hall move - splitting the auditorium via a central removable divide when it needs to open up.

The installation was carried out by Surrey based Scan Audio. Scan's Dee Couchman specified the Van Damme cable. He said: "We have used Van Damme cable for many years and this project was no different. It has always been the cable of choice for us."

The system is primarily an AMX control with a Marti

UK - Blitz Communications, a GES Global Company, was named as the winner in the Creative Industries category of the LondonlovesExcellence Awards, a celebration of excellence and growth in business backed by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The judges praised Blitz | GES' work during the Olympics, and admired the way it had capitalised on that work to propel growth. They added, "Blitz | GES has made smart investments to accelerate performance and is a very well-managed company with a shining future ahead of it. Despite the tough economic climate, Blitz | GES more than doubled its revenue in the last four years and has grown from 80 to 115 staff while investing over £5m in new equipment and paying of £3m off debt."

The award was presented to Paul Hutton, managing director of Blitz | GES and Munir Samji, the outgoing executive chairman, at a cere

UK - Sennheiser UK has presented its second annual scholarship award of £1,500 to a Buckinghamshire New University Audio and Music Production student.

The scholarship is awarded to students based on their academic performance in their first year, and is part of an education partnership between the University, in Queen Alexandra Road, High Wycombe, and Sennheiser.

It was presented to Callum Paxton, who was among six students shortlisted who were interviewed by Phil Cummings, Sennheiser's marketing projects manager, and singer-songwriter Nellie Bell, who is sponsored by Sennheiser UK.

Callum, who is a second-year student, also received a Neumann TLM 103 microphone as part of his award.

He said: "The money will help to pay for recording equipment and to set up a covers band I will be playing with to finance my university studies.

Phil Cummings said, "All of

UK - The recipient of this year's Gottelier Award, given during the 2014 PLASA Awards ceremony, was founder and managing director of Clay Paky, Pasquale 'Paky' Quadri. The Award, which recognises members of the industry who have made significant and sustained contributions to the advancement of event, entertainment or installation technology, was given posthumously as very sadly Paky passed away on September 6th.

Following his death and as a testament to the huge respect 'Paky' had garnered over the years, the remaining Gottelier Award nominees, Richard Belliveau, David Cunningham and Dr Christian Heil, unanimously agreed to withdraw from the running.

Coming from humble origins the young entrepreneur Pasquale Quadri grew up in an extremely creative environment. The son of a magician he was raised in a small provincial Italian town. 'Paky' established Clay Paky in 1976 and in j

UK - AED Rent UK and AED Distribution who designed their 110sq.m sized stand around a shared lounge area for networking, report a positive experience at PLASA London 2014. "PLASA was a good show where we were able to spend quality time with many LD's, Operators, integrators and rental companies from across the UK," comments David March, managing director at AED Distribution UK.

"It was another key opportunity to communicate and explain the strong solutions that AED can offer to AV Professionals, going from Rent and Distribution, through Lease, Second Hand, Store and even the AED Studios. As Master Distributor for respected brands, we were able to discuss how we provide training and product support to truly underpin our customers so they can concentrate on their key strengths."

HOG Factor, which was organised and hosted for the first time by AED Distribution

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