USA - The San Francisco Symphony (SFS) has implemented a new Meyer Sound Leopard linear sound reinforcement system in its home, Davies Symphony Hall.

While highly regarded for the orchestral acoustics, the hall's warm and reverberant characteristics pose a suite of challenges for its amplified events, which have evolved and diversified under the leadership of Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Now with Leopard, SFS can offer the same world-class experience it brings to traditional orchestral events to its range of amplified programmes, such as film series, pop concerts, Broadway favourites, and leading-edge contemporary music.

"Regardless of content, sound reinforcement should feel natural and undistorted and defined and clear so that you can focus on what is on stage," says SFS operations director Andrew Dubowski. "Leopard is an exponential improvement in ho

Ireland - Sennheiser has announced the acquisition of several business units of Professional Audio Ltd. (PAL) in Ireland. This new step in the development of Sennheiser's Irish operation follows a mutual agreement between Sennheiser GmbH & Co. KG and PAL, which among others sold Sennheiser products in Ireland.

Sennheiser already employs over 300 people at its manufacturing plant in Tullamore, where it produces headphones, headphone capsules, audiology products, studio monitors and products for the integrated systems sector.

"Ireland is an important market for us and we want to make sure that our customers there continue to be well supported," says Daniel Sennheiser, Sennheiser's CEO. "Drawing business for this territory directly into our global operation means that we are able to offer the same level of service that we offer everywhere else in the world. At the

UK - The Roland O.H.R.C.A M-5000 Live Digital Mixing Console was recently put through its paces as FOH console for the 'Club House' live music tent at the Somersault Festival in Devon. The opportunity to showcase the new live console to engineers working at the festival came from a collaboration with Darryn de la Soul, founder of the audio engineers' network and support service Soulsound.

Renowned Soulsound sound engineer Jose Ortega (also Quincy Jones Productions, Imogen Heap) was at the helm of the M-5000 for the majority of the performances. Describing his experience using the M-5000 for the first time, Ortega commented, "The M-5000 was quick to understand and has really good features that made my life easy."

Roland Product Manager Nico Suarez was also on hand for setup and to support the engineers for three days of back to back performances. Following the success

USA - Based in Santa Monica, California, fast-casual vegan restaurant Veggie Grill has taken off. The restaurant chain, which opened its first store in 2007 in Irvine, California, now operates over two dozen outlets in three states, focused on offering only plant-based food, with no meat, dairy, eggs, cholesterol, animal fat or trans fat.

Veggie Grill's management works hard to have every aspect of its customer experience reflect a sense of high quality and high standards, and that extends from the food to the background music. That's why virtually all of Veggie Grill's more than two-dozen locations - there were 28 as of the end of 2014 - now have sound systems from Bose Professional.

Depending upon an individual location's overall size and interior dimensions, a Veggie Grill restaurant will have anywhere from four to 16 Bose FreeSpace DS-16F, DS-40F or DS-100 surface-mount sp

UK - Fuelled by Green D+, Midas Productions powered the campsites, 21km of LED festoon lighting and a record-breaking disco ball at Bestival last weekend, generating more kVA but cutting costs and emissions in the process.

Situated at the top of the route into the festival arena, and visible from all the main campsites, Midas three-phase inflated Newsubstance's mirror tile-covered PVC bladder to 10.33m, 35cm bigger than the previous disco ball record holder, and kept it at size via a bespoke pressure management system.

Andy Dann, operations director at Midas, comments, "The Guinness World Record was a fantastic achievement for Bestival and it was a pleasure to keep the ball in shape and to bring Green D+ to the event for the first time."

Introduced to the market this year, Green D+ is cleaner on the generator than red diesel and produces 35 per cent less NOx and 85

UK - Thorpe Park Resort theme park in Surrey has recently been supplied with a complete EM Acoustics audio system based on the HALO-Compact line array system supplemented with MSE-218 subs, AD and AQ amplifiers and a number of just-launched M-C12 monitor speakers. The complete system as well as lighting equipment was supplied and installed by production solution specialists, White Light. The system was purchased largely to cater for Thorpe Park's busy outdoor events season which includes the monthly Ministry of Sound club nights and the Island Beats concerts over the summer.

White Light's business development manager, Jonathan Haynes, led the project. "After a number of onsite product demonstrations, it quickly became apparent that the EM Acoustics system was ideally suited to their requirements as it provided the flexibility they required in order to handle the wide variet

UK - On Thursday 1 October at the Oval Space, East London, the d&b audiotechnik GB team will present a new breed of point source loudspeakers.

The three-way passive V7P and V10P deliver 75° x 40° and 110° x 40° (h x v) dispersion characteristics respectively. Both loudspeakers feature an advanced hornloaded mid range section, which provides remarkable MF sensitivity. This MF performance, particularly in the vocal range, is where these compact V-Series cabinets excel. This endless vocal headroom make them suitable for applications which demand high sound pressure levels with full bandwidth capabilities from a single box solution.

The rotatable horn and wide range of rigging options make mounting in either orientation simple. The demonstration will explore the new point source system in all ground stacked and flown configurations. Attendees will also have the opp

France - DPA microphones played a central role in broadcasting this year's Bastille Day celebration in France, an event that ranks as the oldest and largest regular military parade in Europe.

In a tradition that dates back to 1880, this annual French national holiday parade takes place in Paris along the Champs Elysées. The event is broadcast across all major French TV channels, scoring around seven million viewers, and is also screened by a number of foreign TV channels. Approximately 100,000 people flock to watch the parade, which includes mounted and motorised divisions as well as flight squadrons, and of course a large amount of musicians.

French integrator BS Technology has traditionally covered the parade, and this year the company invited audio specialists Fréquence to look after the HF aspects of the event. Fréquence director, Julien Pérille

Belgium - Apart Audio has introduced the Product Selector, a digital and interactive product catalogue. The Selector helps customers having difficulty in finding the right product for their application and gives them a clear overview of the Apart product range.

The Apart product Selector is available on the web (www.apart-audio.com) and both for IOS and Android devices.

Says marketing manager Steve Van Hoof: "We are convinced that Apart Product Selector will become the preferred tool for all audio project designers anytime, anyplace, anywhere . . . making them feel comfortable in finding the right product for the right application in a very fast and accurate way."

(Jim Evans)

USA - Schoolhouse Audio-Visual, a Plano, Texas based systems design and integration firm, has brought new life to nearby Sojourn Church, by integrating Dante network from Audinate. Since launching the network, the 950-seat church has significantly elevated its routing flexibility and audio quality, pleasing everyone from parishioners to clergy and the church band.

Schoolhouse Audio-Visual was first hired to repair existing loudspeakers, and soon discovered that Sojourn Church wanted to bring a number of disparate audio components into a common system. For Blair McNair, systems project manager at Schoolhouse Audio-Visual, the choice was simple.

"Dante is the first and only networking system I have looked at to date that really makes sense out of the box," said McNair. "When looking at this project, it immediately dawned on me that I can incorporate wireless micro

UK - PLASA Show organiser PLASA Events has outlined the pro audio highlights awaiting visitors to the show this year, taking place at The ExCeL exhibition centre in London's Docklands on 4-6 October.

"We are seeing a definite shift from audio manufacturers and distributors towards PLASA as a viable event to launch a variety of new products, with the PLASA Awards for Innovation being a great place to showcase new technology," says Christopher Toulmin, Director of PLASA Events. "This year we have over 50 leading brands joining us from the pro audio sector with many new names joining that list."

Pro audio products and features at this year's show include:

A.C. Entertainment, AC-ET's Audio division, will provide hands-on demonstrations of the latest cutting-edge digital mixing consoles from a wide portfolio of leading brands, with exclusive demonstrat

Germany - Shure Europe, in collaboration with London's Academy of Contemporary Music and Metropolis Studios, has announced details of Vocal Mastery, a new competition designed to find the best up-and-coming vocal talent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Open to any vocalists in these territories, provided they are of legal age and aren't already earning regular income from vocal work, the competition will offer an exciting set of prizes to the five winners, who will be named Shure Vocal Masters in January 2016. Each will net themselves Shure equipment worth 1000 Euros, and will be flown to London for two days to attend a Masterclass at ACM Academy of Contemporary Music and a recording session at Metropolis Studios.

To enter, contestants simply need to upload their own song featuring a vocal performance to the competition web site, www.shure-vocal-mastery.eu, at any time b

Canada - The Parliament Buildings in Ottawa recently served as the backdrop for Northern Lights, a free outdoor sound and light show that brings to life key figures, events, and achievements from Canadian history. To provide an immersive surround experience, a 9.1 Meyer Sound Lyon linear sound reinforcement system was deployed to deliver narration, sound effects, and a powerful score supporting spectacular images projected against the 30-storey-high facade of the Centre Block and Peace Tower.

"Lyon is light, small, efficient, and performs beautifully," reports Jean-Sébastien Coté, NEO6 technical director, who co-designed the system with colleague André Biron. "For Northern Lights we need lots of throw as the audience is sometimes far away, and the center channel, mostly used for voiceover, has to cover a wide area."

The new Lyon-based s

Europe - Martin Audio has changed its distribution arrangements in the Nordic countries, appointing Norwegian based Elektrik Solutions as their exclusive representative, with effect from 1 September.

In so doing, they have reunited with °ystein Wierli, an experienced sound engineer and system tech, who for many years worked closely with the British manufacturer while at his previous company, EM Nordic.

Martin Audio had sought a company with a smaller portfolio to give the brand more focus, and at the same time increase market penetration in all their core sectors. Based in Drammen, and set up in 2010 as a full event technology and staging operation, Elektrik Solutions were considered the perfect option.

"Martin Audio products fill the entire spectrum within sound reproduction," commented Wierli. "It is one of the leading pro audio brands, recognised throug

UK - Sennheiser has teamed up with LSi to offer our online readers a chance to win an evolution wireless D1 microphone in a prize draw.

Sennheiser's evolution wireless D1 features automatic frequency management, easy operation and reassuring reliability. It prevents interference, using intelligent channel back-up to allow operation in environments where Wifi and Bluetooth are in use; Up to 15 compatible channels can be sued in the licence-free 2.4GHz frequency band; It is fully automatic: frequency management saves laborious searching for available frequencies; It offers integrated audio effects - equalizer, de-esser and automatic gain control . . .

Visit our Special Offers page to take part in this exclusive offer.

Worldwide - Audinate is to run a series of free, all-day events on Dante AV Networking, featuring presentations, training workshops and interactive panel discussions led by industry experts and the company's own product specialists. The series of events is supported by Focusrite RedNet.

Events are scheduled throughout the United States, Europe, Middle East and Asia, and are recommended for anyone involved with the design and installation of networked audio systems, including design consultants, system integrators and sound engineers.

Attendees will be able to meet with AV Networking World sponsors, ask questions, and get hands-on experience with their Dante-enabled products. Confirmed sponsors include AllDSP, Ashly, Attero Tech, Audio-Technica, Bose, ClearOne, Extron, Focusrite, Lectrosonics, NTP, RDL, Roland, Shure, Solid State Logic, Stewart Audio, Symetrix, Vue Audiotechnik

Spain - The prestigious CERES Awards Ceremony takes place each year in the stunning Roman Theatre of Mérida in Spain - a 2000 year old Roman venue still being used for live theatre productions.

Roland ProAV products have been supporting the event for the past three years but this year was the first time that a full Roland setup was specified with the new M-5000C controlling the monitors and the M-5000 at the heart as the FOH console. The Mérida Theatre has been home to the Festival de Mérida (Festival of Classical Theatre of Mérida) since 1933, the oldest of its kind celebrated in Spain. For the fourth year the CERES Award Ceremony took place at Mérida at the end of the run of ten summer productions at the theatre with the awards presented to those involved.

Mixing the live theatre production, broadcasting live for Spanish television and mixi

Italy - Since its debut edition in 1997, Brescia Summer Festival has hosted artists of the calibre of David Bowie, Joe Cocker, Elton John, Bob Dylan and Neil Young. This year's headliners at the event, staged in Piazza della Loggia, the Italian city's picturesque Renaissance square, were Billy Idol, Van Morrison and Anastacia, in Italy on a leg of her Resurrection World Tour.

As all the other artists on the programme, the Chicago-born singer, with her unmistakable raunchy voice, used an Outline sound system, put at her disposal by local rental firm Cipiesse, founded in 1979.

Festival audio chief Giancarlo Paladini, explains, "The PA was made up of nine Outline GTO C-12 modules per side plus three Outline Mantas on down-fill chores for the front rows of seats, which were close to the stage. We used eight DBS 18-2 subs per side, and four LIPF 082 on front-fill duty.

"

The Netherlands - Pro Media Connect has been appointed by British pro audio manufacturer, Audient as exclusive distribution partner for the Benelux markets. The company will manage all sales, service and marketing for Audient's full product range of mixing consoles, audio interfaces and preamps - with immediate effect.

Leon Padmos heads up the newly created distribution company. He explains, "The people behind Pro Media Connect are well known as successful sales and marketers in the pro audio business. This team was instrumental in the growth of Audient's business in the past and looks forward to continuing on this upward trajectory. In order to be a successful sales team, we need to have outstanding products and with Audient, we see great products with huge potential for the future."

Audient's Simon Blackwood adds, "The last 18 months have seen our business gro

Canada - Community has announced the appointment of CM Tech Group as its sales representative for Canada beginning 1 October.

CM Tech Group is a professional collaborative of three well respected Canadian independent manufactures' representatives: Connect West Marketing, covering Western Canada, BG Media Solutions Inc. for Central Canada and MM Technologie, for support of Eastern Canada. With this combination, CM Tech Group provides national coverage for a uniform line card of well-respected professional AV brands across all Canadian provinces.

"CM Tech is extremely pleased to represent Community, a brand with an outstanding reputation for innovation and quality," said Bryan Guidolin of CM Tech Group. "While Community has already enjoyed considerable success in Canada, we believe there remains tremendous potential, particularly in large or acoustically challengi

Italy - Allen & Heath has devised a new distribution strategy in Italy, recruiting Exhibo S.p.A. to manage the brand's installation, touring, rental and broadcast sales portfolio, and enabling existing partner, EKO Music Group, to focus on growth in the MI and retail sector.

"Allen & Heath's product portfolio is renowned for being diverse, covering the whole spectrum of audio mixers from pro touring to home studio and DJ. The strategic decision to split representation into two channels will enable our partner companies to expand the brand's reach in the specialist areas where they excel, and service our customers comprehensively," comments Allen & Heath's area European business development manager, Fred Cresson.

Based in Milan, Exhibo will offer a selected range of products such as dLive, GLD and Qu to professional users, while EKO, renowned specialists in MI, will b

UK - Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Paul Mac to the position of content creator. Based at SSL's UK headquarters, Mac will be responsible for a range of SSL's published content, including user stories, press releases, video content, and sales materials. He will also be the worldwide first point of contact for editorial enquiries across all of SSL's market sectors.

"We are very excited to have Paul join the team," explains SSL's head of marketing Dan Duffell. "Our in-house marketing team has grown significantly in the last couple of years as we address our increasingly diverse channels of communication with our customers. Paul has deep technical knowledge, is an excellent writer, and brings a wealth of experience in presenting creative, technical, and practical aspects of production, performance, and technology to professional users. He will sign

UK - Hit BBC show Mrs Brown's Boys has spent much of 2015 on a major UK and Ireland arena tour, with residencies in 12 cities. Although the roots of Brendan O'Carroll's sitcom lay in a theatre production as far back as 1999, the size of venues on the current tour has meant that production company Adlib has had to deploy a major Coda Audio system.

Taking in arenas in Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Dublin, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield, the How Now Mrs Brown Cow tour is running from March through to December. Adlib has been working with O'Carroll and his team for many years and has used Coda systems on previous tours, so they knew it was the right choice for the current shows.

The entire production is tailor-made to suit each arena, ensuring that audiences always enjoy the optimum performance. Because of this, the

USA - Dedicated to the celebration and preservation of American motorsports, World of Speed in Wilsonville, OR, is an educational museum featuring 53,000sq.ft of historic race cars, racing boats and motorcycles that tell the story of America's motorsports culture.

The museum's many exhibits and hands-on educational programs make good use of modern AV technology. Four 80-inch video screens with racing videos and music greet visitors at the museum entrance. A 150ft by 30ft video wall, entitled Zero to 1000 MPH, presents an exciting AV history of the world land speed records set at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

A Wall of Sound display, featuring classic guitars and vintage phonograph equipment, recalls the rock music songs that accompanied 1960s 'muscle cars'.

Delta AV of Gresham, Oregon designed and installed World of Speed's AV systems. Delta's Dave Garlett says th

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