Russia - VUE Audiotechnik has announced the latest addition to its growing global network, VUE Audiotechnik Russia, a new company to provide sales, distribution, marketing and technical support for VUE products throughout the region. VUE Russia's office is open and has already supplied technical design support for major installation projects as well as support for VUE loudspeaker rental applications.

VUE Russia will provide local customers full access to VUE's US, Asian and German staff, products and technical offerings that include high definition network ready loudspeakers and line array systems, and system integration tools. The office will offer all VUE branded products in Russia, as well as Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

Nikolai Vorobev, brand manager for Russia and CIS will head the VU

Hungary - A key component of Capital Sound's busy summer festival schedule is the annual visits to Hungary, where they provide technical infrastructure for the Sziget Organisation at three major gatherings.

For several years they have serviced the back-to-back four-day Volt rock festival in Sopron, before trucking the equipment two and a half hours south east from the Austrian border to Balaton Sound, which takes place on the beach of Zam

Europe - Yamaha's TF series of mixing consoles has brought the best digital mixing technology to the widest possible user base, its intuitive TouchFlow Operation coupled with Yamaha's renowned audio quality, flexibility and reliability. Now, with the launch of TF-RACK, the TF series mixing is even more flexible and convenient.

Ever since Yamaha launched its first digital mixer, the DMP7, in 1987, the company has strived to provide digital mixing technology for the widest range of applications. Yamaha digital mixers are available for every application, from small events and venues to large-scale concerts and festivals, music production, commercial installations and more.

The TF series was a landmark product, ushering in a new era of intuitive operation and fast, flexible setup that is equally accessible to everyone from first-time users to seasoned audio engineers. TF-RACK

Poland - The first World Youth Day (WYD) was held in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican by His Holiness John Paul II in 1984 as a response to his invitation for an International Jubilee of youth on Palm Sunday.

300,000 young people from around the world gathered that first year and it has become the tradition that every Palm Sunday WYD is celebrated in a different city around the world. This year, the event held in Brzegi near the Polish city of Karkow and DiGiCo consoles helped form the backbone of the massive audio system provided by Polish rental company Gigant Sound.

With over 2m people attending, the day included an address from Pope Francis, prayers and concerts featuring a 100-strong symphony orchestra and a 300-strong choir plus soloists on the main stage, as well as various bands on the second stage.

"Three SD5s were deployed at the main stage Front of House po

Taiwan - One of the most popular open-air music events, Hohaiyan Rock Festival recently took place at Fulong Beach, Taipei, Taiwan. The event began in 2000, and is annually organised by the city government. This year, MSI Japan Taiwan operated for the first time with Martin Audio's flagship MLA loudspeaker array, given the system its open-air debut in Taiwan (having previously been used by MSI Japan Taiwan indoors).

Many of Taipei's most popular artists performed at the beach side location, which is an attractive site for the audience. And for the sound system, the engineering team needed to make a special effort.

The main hangs comprised 19 MLA and a MLD Downfill on each side, and side-fills were formed of six MLA elements and two and MLD. Six MLX subs were flown and three ground-stacked MLX in a cardioid pattern were staggered in three positions on each side of the stage

Europe / USA - Having completed the design of Coldplay's all new, Wigwam built control system, digital design specialist Alex Hadjigeorgiou, along with account manager, Chris Hill, have taken the technical design lead for the fibre infrastructure on the band's latest trans-Atlantic tour, A Headful of Dreams.

Working alongside the band's head of audio, Tony Smith, they had already incorporated a number of Optocore devices into the DiGiCo console topology - but have now taken the journey further by embracing the new Route66 AutoRouter from technical partner, BroaMan - the first audio consultant to do so.

"The main objective was to design a system that would allow a d&b audiotechnik array processed system to be built in modular fashion and be scalable - as some shows require extra ring delays," explained Hadjigeorgiou.

The new Route66 AutoRouter provides a more elegant so

Belgium - Rental company VDB-PA has deployed its new Nexo STM modular line array systems at the Pukkelpop festival. Now the second largest festival event in Belgium, Pukkelpop's eclectic musical line-up discovered Nexo systems on three out of the 10 stages.

The three-day festival has been going for more than 30 years, and is now one of Europe's greatest music events. Pukkelpop selects its 300 musical acts from the alternative fringe, and presents the different genres across 10 stages. This year, VDB-PA was responsible for the Shelter stage (hard rock/metal), the Club stage (pop/rock/hip-hop) and the Castello stage (electronic music), using NEXO STM and GEO systems.

This year, VDB-PA has made a major investment into Nexo's STM modular line array technology, purchasing 18 sets of STM M46 and B112 main and bass cabinets, together with 24x STM S118 subbass cabinets. This inven

UK - The new Gravity stands, an Adam Hall Group brand, were deployed at Jazz Open Hamburg 2016. The stands delivered on their promise of stability and user-friendly handling during the shows of top acts like Grammy winner Omar Sosa among others.

Jazz Open Hamburg is one of leading jazz festivals in Germany. Since 1996, musicians from Hamburg and musical guests from around the world present the current jazz trends on the two days in July - in front of up to 10,000 music fans each year. For the 21st edition of the legendary festival, the visitors enjoyed concerts by Grammy winner Omar Sosa, jazz piano player Jacob Karlzon and the NDR Bigband.

In addition to the musical stars, a small stage detail drew a great deal of attention: the Gravity stands. On both days of the festival the stands ensured stability for the artists' performances - and convinced with their user-friendly

Europe - This year's Shure EMEA band contest is aimed at talented young bands who are great live performers. The Call for Legends - Live competition will run from 1 September to 22 December via the dedicated website (call-for-legends.eu).

All bands within the EMEA region - Europe, Middle East and Africa - irrespective of genre can participate. All they have to do is upload a band profile in English and an accompanying YouTube video to prove their live performance skills. In addition to receiving Shure gear worth 5,000 Euro, the winning band will perform at one of the world's most famous festivals, the Montreux Jazz Festival. Plus, a professional video crew will be present to film the entire Montreux performance, a copy of which will be provided to the winning band as a memento.

A live performance demands a great deal of any artist. There is no chance to re-record anything,

Italy - Music has designated Prase Engineering, as its distributor for Midas, Klark Tenik, Lab Gruppen, Lake, Tannoy and Turbosound.

"The new addition of Midas, Klark Teknik and Turbosound to our existing portfolio has re-awoken us, and our customers, who are completely thrilled to have access to even more award-winning products produced by Music." commented Ennio Prase, CEO of Prase Media Technologies. "We thrive on truly getting to know our customers and this makes for an ideal relationship with Music - it is built of 4,000 people who believe in exactly the same values as we do."

Chris Hinds, senior manager of Touchpoint Europe at MUSIC added, "Music looks for partners that live and breathe our core values. Prase offer an outstanding customer experience with an after sales support which is second to none. They are already doing amazing work in Italy so this is just the v

India - Two Indian PA companies, Systematic Inc. in Bengaluru and Naamdhari Entertainment Systems in Telengara, have recently added Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing systems to their hire stocks.

Provided by Allen & Heath's Indian distributor, Sun Infonet, both companies selected the flagship S7000 Surface with DM64 MixRack as part of an upgrade to their hire inventories.

"Our team recently expanded, and the technical demands of our clients has increased in recent times, so I needed to invest in a new digital board, and Allen & Heath was the obvious choice," explains Systematic Inc.'s owner, Vinod Bangera. "I have been using Allen & Heath mixers for more than 15 years, starting with the GL3300 and the ML Series, and I always loved the pre amp of the analogue mixers.

"However, the main reason I chose dLive was the 96k processing capability, and during testing, I was ve

UK - Writer, storyteller and composer Daniel Marcus Clark, working with producer and digital performance maker Becca Gill, curated six different music and event journeys across the Dartington Hall estate near Totnes in Devon.

Dubbed 'After Dark' these annual concerts are held in secret - the audience contacted via text message and given a series of clues that would take them across the estate, unbolting doors, through maze-like hallways, searching down woodland pathways and exploring the unseen parts of the Darlington Hall.

With performances by The Mountain Firework Company, Adem, Fiona Bevan, Moulettes, Oh Pep and Laura Moody, the concerts were held over a series of weeks during the summer.

"I chose the acts for After Dark because I loved their music." says Daniel. "All of them are artists I've met either on the road, at festivals or at gigs from all corners of the gl

South Africa - Rivers Church in Sandton, a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, has recently built itself a new home and in so doing doubled its capacity for services. The new church can accommodate 3,000 congregants; the sanctuary is fan shaped with a single balcony and in many ways conforms to the current trend in contemporary church architecture.

By engaging Stage Audio Works the church solved a classic dilemma at the same time, as head of sound for worship music, Andrew Illgner explained, "Our pastors André and Wilma Olivier, never wanted it to be two churches, those at the front feeling fully engaged, and those at the back, a little removed. So it's in how we address our audience where the benefits of ArrayProcessing have proved such a discernible difference."

ArrayProcessing (AP), an advanced line array optimization tool from d&b audiotechnik, was not yet ava

UK - The Warehouse Sound Services helped this year's Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) achieve high end sound across the summer season after designing, installing and engineering the sound for over 30 different shows across the festival. The Warehouse Sound Services, once again ensured the festival's various sound reinforcement requirements were comprehensively covered.

Over 500 loudspeakers, 20 digital mixing desks and 100 radio microphones were used to provide stunning sound on a range of high profile shows. The Warehouse provided a range of diverse audio solutions for the spectacular opening & closing shows at the EIF as well as a diverse range of shows across the Festival's calendar from 5-29 August 2016.

As a lead partner supplier to the EIF, the company provided the audio solutions for Alan Cumming's residency at The Hub, Sigur Ros at the Edinburgh Playhouse, Ba

UK - There is something completely different about to happen at PLASA 2016... A new experiment, The Exploratorium, is a maze where the participants show off both their technical expertise and their imaginations.

The simple, interactive, entertaining and educational experiments contained within The Exploratorium prove a concept, demonstrate a principle and wow visitors with a bit of science. There will be axe heads and horns, Virtual Reality and prisms, experiments on perception and even a 'Brain Transfer Machine'.

One highlight of The Exploratorium is The Sideshow, a bit of virtual and magical fun, hosted by Ryan Metcalfe from PreeVue, producers of photo-realistic 3D models for theatre productions and live events using the latest CAD and VR technology. "This is a fantastic opportunity for us to be able to demonstrate this brand new technology in a way that allows vi

The Netherlands - Community Professional Loudspeakers has announced the appointment of Tau Audio Solutions as its distributor for The Netherlands. Started in 1997, Tau is a leading distributor with an established portfolio of quality audio brands, including Ashly, Clockaudio, Audix Microphones, Contacta and Baldwin Boxall Communications.

Arjen Bezemer, sales engineer for Tau Audio Solutions, said, "We are very pleased to be distributing Community. The brand has an excellent reputation for quality and reliability and its wide range of outdoor, distributed and engineered systems greatly enhances the solutions we can provide to our customers. We see great potential for the products in The Netherlands and look forward to working with the team at Community."

Community's EMEA sales manager Jamie Ward added, "Tau is a really strong fit for Community as they focus purely on supply

UK - Music, owner of Tannoy, has stated that it remains committed to Scotland and will continue to build the Tannoy Prestige as well as other high-end loudspeakers in the country. The company which already builds current Prestige models at its manufacturing plant in Coatbridge, is considering to relocate to a new plant following large investment from parent company Music.

The new facility will also see substantial investment in innovation and production, as well as a museum and show room for the brand's 90-year heritage. Tannoy will celebrate its 90th anniversary this year and has been based in Scotland since the 1970's.

Uli Behringer, head of Music, commented, "We are excited about the future of Tannoy and we believe we have developed a sound strategic direction to protect its rich history and heritage. Tannoy was facing great economic pressures and we believe that our pl

UK - Shure Audio Institute UK is hosting a Digital Wireless Seminar at two of the UK's leading audio trade shows, PLASA and BPM Pro. The seminar will cover recent changes to the RF landscape and explain how digital wireless systems help to secure a positive future for wireless microphones.

Entitled "Wireless Mastered - RF & Digital 2016" the seminar also features a digital wireless question and answer session. By tackling common digital myths, Shure will establish fact from fiction in what has become one of the pro audio industry's most misunderstood topics.

Tuomo Tolonen, Shure Pro Audio Group Manager comments: "RF spectrum for use by wireless microphone operators has changed a lot over recent years. From the digital TV switchover to the rise of mobile phone ownership - demand for clean spectrum is greater than ever. Digital wireless systems have a lot to offer in

India - Powersoft will exhibit a full range of their innovative solutions at InfoComm India 2016 (Bombay Exhibition Centre, Mumbai, 12-14 September).

Visitors to their booth (#D55) will see the eight-channel Ottocanali and process controlled X Series, with its new worldwide compatible three-phase power supply. They will also show Deva, the new multimedia/multifunctional device that integrates solar power, bi-directional wireless A/V communication, lighting and an efficient Class D amplifier in a compact, weatherproof enclosure.

As at Prolight+Sound 2016, Powersoft will place the focus on end-user application rather than highlight the products' technical specifications, and as was the case in Germany they will have a control desk dedicated to Armon

UK - In a crowded festival season, trying to establish a new concept within a relatively untested site in central London can prove hazardous.

But in initiating the new Sunfall Festival at Brockwell Park, promoters NVS called on the tried and trusted triumvirate of sound engineering specialists RG Jones Sound Engineering, their premium Martin Audio MLA Multi-cellular Loudspeaker PA system and experienced production company, Whole Nine Yards.

It is a team that for the past five years has serviced the two other events in the NVS Promotions portfolio - the back-to-back Dimensions Festival and Outlook Festival in Pula, Croatia. And once again, the result was an outright success.

According to RG Jones' crew chief and project manager, Steve Carr, the underlying idea at Brockwell Park was to run the festival until 9pm (the "Sun" element) and then decant the crowds into surroun

UK - The M Series developed by console manufacturer Midas, is experiencing a flood in popularity amongst audio professionals in the UK. As a result, Midas has revealed plans to rocket availability of the series by appointing Electrovision as an additional UK dealer.

Based in Merseyside, Electrovision has a long-standing relationship with Midas' parent company Music and now adds to an already impressive line-up of products from Turbosound, TC Electronic, TC Helicon, Behringer and Bugera.

"Midas' expertise in making affordable, rock-solid and reliable consoles is unrivalled, so having the M Series is very important to us and will allow our customers to enjoy the ultimate mixing console experience," commented Kevin Roche of Electrovision.

"Midas' success is in its award-winning PRO Series preamplifiers, advanced digital technology and industry-leading ADC and DAC converte

Australia - Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett has just finished a solo tour of the country in support of his new album A Version of Now. On the East Coast, JPJ Audio supplied a FOH control and monitor set up as well as some extra wedges for a couple of gigs.

FOH engineer Colin Ellis mixed for Midnight Oil in the nineties, returning to mix for them at a couple of large charity events. With the band expected to reform and tour in 2017, this tour could be described as a bit of a warm up.

"I believe that Peter Garrett wanted me to do the tour," commented Colin. "We had production rehearsals in Sydney including a small show for friends and family. For the tour, we decided to use in house PA's which worked alright. However, none of the systems were amazing and it was the first time in many years that I used non line array systems!"

At Canberra Theatre, Peter's home

UK - Lock N Load Events' annual South West Four (SW4) Bank Holiday Weekend festival on Clapham Common this year reached new sound thresholds set by Lambeth Council, as Capital Sound again set to work with their award-winning Martin Audio MLA multi-cellular system.

Working for the third consecutive year with promoter Andrew Mattle, the remit for MLA has slowly extended from main stage, where drum & bass kings Rudimental and veteran techno specialists Chemical Brothers headlined, into the three support tents.

Capital account manager Martin Connolly confirmed that while the MLA family was again featured in all areas, the MLX subs were deployed in two different formats, namely a broadside cardioid array on the main stage whilst stages 2 and 3 had cardioid stacks under the hangs. On Stage 4, four WS218X subs were set each side on stage in an end-fire configuration - all of whic

Canada - British loudspeaker manufacturer PMC Speakers has appointed Systemes Guinois as its distributor in Canada, with exclusive responsibility for representing PMC's entire pro audio loudspeaker range.

Based in Montreal, Systemes Guinois is one of Canada's premier professional pro audio outlets, catering for all broadcast, post production, educational and pro audio needs.

With demo facilities on site, Systemes Guinois is well placed to showcase PMC's products and currently holds an extensive demo stock of twotwo nearfield speakers and IB1S-A and IB2S-A active full range monitors.

"PMC could not be happier to be partnering with Francois and the Systemes Guinois team to support the growing demand for PMC professional speakers around the world," says PMC's export sales manager Chris Allen. "The effort and investment they put into the brands they represent is unequalled

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