The Netherlands - Yamaha's Commercial Installation Solutions (CIS) range has been expanded with the DCH8 Digital Controller Hub, which allows multiple control lines for the DCP series Digital Control Panel units to be connected to a Yamaha MRX7-D signal processor or MTX series matrix processor.

The DCH8 functions as a relay device between the host device and DCP series, allowing a combination of star and daisy-chain connections. Power is supplied via the CAT5e cable from the host device, simplifying cabling and allowing flexible device layout.* Screw holes for mounting flanges are provided on both the rear and sides, for flexible mounting in a variety of situations.

The DCH8 will be on show with the full CIS range on Yamaha's Stand 3-A90 at ISE2016, which takes place at the Am

USA - Jack U, Steve Aoki, Zeds Dead, Flosstradamus, Big Sean and other EDM heavies are headlining the current Life In Color 'Kingdom' Tour, which is selling out venues in the US and UK. The set features a large replica of a lion, 56ft wide by 43ft tall, towering over the stage, with bright, blinking, moving eyes that are animated by Chauvet Professional's video panels.

"The eyes make the lion come alive and touch everyone in the audience," said Daniel Bouchard, production director of Life in Color, the popular festival, which this year is featuring the lion as part of its Kingdom theme. "We gave the lion a personality and a spirit, if you will, through the eyes. These are eyes that move and blink and change colours, so regardless of where you are, you feel their presence."

Bouchard and lighting designer Collyns Stenzel gave the lion its lively eyes by usi

China - The renowned Martha Graham Dance Company recently toured China, giving audiences new insight into 20th-century American culture.

For performances at the Shanghai Grand Theatre (SGT), lighting designer Nick Hung added a new dimension to Graham's classics by using numerous Source Four LED fixtures controlled by a Gio lighting control system. ETC's Chinese dealer, Hangzhou YiDaShi Lighting Equipment Co, also played a significant role in the event, by providing technical support for the show.

The programme at SGT, Three Masters of 20th Century Art, featured several of Graham's most prominent dances, including Chronicle, Deep Song, The Rite of Spring and Lamentation Variation. She created the pieces as a symbol of opposition to fascism and war. They blend three elements - lighting, music and dance - in a nod to artistic masters Pablo Pic

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ETC Ministar

ETC introduces the High End Systems Ministar, a game-changer in our automated lighting product line. Ministar brings exceptional versatility and performance at an affordable price point; with a compact footprint, punchy output, and a professional feature set, Ministar fits the spec and budget for small to medium-sized venues.

UK - Allen & Heath's new dLive mixing system appeared at London's O2 arena recently, with King Charles supporting Mumford & Sons on their UK tour.

King Charles front-of-house engineer Jon Lewis employed a dLive S3000 console with an A&H DM64 mixrack for FOH, with an Allen & Heath GLD Chrome mixer handling monitor duties. Powerful beyond its diminutive size, the 20 fader, 12" touch-screen equipped S3000 allows for up to 120 fader strips and extremely fast workflow.

With credits including Roni Size, The Feeling and Clean Cut Kid, Lewis is a fast-rising UK FOH engineer, with extensive experience of Allen & Heath's existing iLive mixing system. And he describes the dLive as being "on another level. From the build quality to the GUI to the flexibility of the console, everything's taken a huge step up. But it's also extremely intuitive - we only had a day's rehearsal wit

UK - TG Baker (Sound) has carried out a complete overhaul of the PA system at New York Stadium in Yorkshire, home of Rotherham United FC (aka 'The Millers'), using a Harman stadium sound solution comprising of JBL loudspeakers and Crown amplification. Although the stadium has only been open since the start of the 2012-13 season, various shortcomings with the sound system were identified which had led to complaints in relation to the system's overall quality and intelligibility.

A new tender document was drawn up and TG Baker (Sound) bid successfully. Director, Jason Longworth explained, "We conducted a complete system health-check, following which we were then contracted to replace the entire control system with four separate networked rack positions, using a dual redundant copper backbone, together with the upgrade and replacement of all of the main bowl and concourse lou

UK - Award-winning acoustics and theatre consultants, Sound Space Design and Anne Minors Performance Consultants have combined to form Sound Space Vision. The move formalises their long-standing working relationship and will continue to build on their success in performance, education and assembly spaces, as well as broadening their reach within the built environment.

Sound Space Vision enhances the rapport between performers and audiences, combining excellent spatial and technical design by AMPC with superb acoustics from SSD. Popular with audiences and operators, their performance environments are held in high esteem by artists. The creative, dynamic team includes specialists in acoustics, lighting, sound, stage engineering and audio-visual design to provide a complete acoustics and theatre consultancy service that touches all the senses.

Anne Minors Performance Consultant

UK - A ground-breaking new degree course in live sound production has been announced by Britannia Row Productions Training (BRPT), the skills training operation set up by one of the UK's leading audio rental houses, Britannia Row Productions. This unique degree course will give students an intense and comprehensive guide to everything they need to prepare themselves for a career in live sound production, the company says.

The programme is the result of a long period of discussion and planning between BRPT and South Thames College (STC). The Course will be run by STC and validated by the University of Northampton, with BRPT's industry professionals delivering the master class lectures throughout the course. Validation is scheduled for the end of March 2016. Student loans of up to £9,000 per year are available for the course to meet course fees. Students can apply now for places o

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Strictly FX Highlights

Strictly FX was founded in 1996 by industry veterans Mark Grega and Ted Maccabee. Our expertise and knowledge of the world’s leading pyrotechnic, laser, and flame manufacturers allows us to curate astonishing live events. With over 500+ shows performed a year, there’s good chance you’ve seen some of our work!

Germany - The German Rock & Pop Music Association's annual Rock & Pop Award competition, supporting Germany's young musicians, has been hugely influential for over three decades. This year the 33rd edition took place at the 4300-capacity Siegerlandhalle in Siegen.

PR Lighting's German partner, Focon Showtechnic, was brought in by technical production company, BST Becker Studio Technik, to provide PR Lighting's PR5000 Spots and Beams to add further impact to the show. These met the requirement of the light designers, Claudia Cronauer and Christian Conrad. Focon product manager, Jens Ottenhus says: "They were looking for powerful moving heads, with an accurate and sharp projection that also delivered a good all-round performance.

"The PR 5000 Beam, which formed an important part of this lighting design was extremely bright, and did a great job. It delivered high outp

UK - Lighting designer James Bawn has employed the Clay Paky SuperSharpy to play an instrumental role in a range of recent architectural projects, including projecting light over vast distances from the iconic Victoria Tower in Huddersfield and a special one-night installation at the Halifax Transmitting Tower.

Yorkshire-based roofing company Ploughcroft commissioned Bawn to create a stunning light show at the Halifax tower to celebrate reaching a huge milestone in energy saving for homes, schools and businesses across the county. Named Ploughcroft Eco Northern Lights, the light show saw the 45.7m (150ft) tower illuminated in vibrant hues and stunning textures.

"I added the SuperSharpys, which were sub-rented from Dry Hire Lighting via HSL, to deliver an aerial dynamic to the design," says Bawn. "The fixtures didn't disappoint - everyone was very please

On The Campaign Trail - Adele has issued a statement to distance herself from Donald Trump, after he used her music at his rallies. The Republican presidential candidate, whose slogan is "Make America great again", has recently been playing Adele's hit Rolling In The Deep as his "warm-up" music. "Adele has not given permission for her music to be used for any political campaigning," her spokesman confirmed.

It is not the first time Trump has been criticised for appropriating pop songs. Lawyers for Aerosmith star Steven Tyler sent Trump's campaign a cease-and-desist letter last year, after the politician played the band's hit single Dream On at numerous rallies around the US.

Politicians using songs by musicians who do not support them has been a thorny issue for decades, since Bruce Springsteen castigated President Reagan for plann

Canada - Chroma-QColor One 100 premium performance, IP65-rated LED PARs have provided a powerful yet energy-efficient lighting solution to beam bold colours, soft pastels and stunning whites onto the massive exterior façade of the Toronto Power Generating Station - playing against the background of the national historic site at Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

, with millions of sparkling lights making up beautifully illuminated displays. Recently, the organisers have made a concerted effort to utilize only power-saving LED technology for their lighting designs.

Shear Display was the contractor responsible for the design and implementation of the installations along the Winter Festival of Light. One of the major elements of the Festival was a sound and light show on the exterior of the Toronto Power Generating Station - a majestic building adjacent to the Niagara River, fash

Italy - The ancient Roman amphitheatre in Verona was the magnificent setting for Intimissimi on Ice, a sumptuous evening of music and dance on a vast iced stage that covered nearly half the arena floor. Designed in the classical amphitheatre style, the two-thousand year old stone structure is elliptical in shape, with the outer walls standing about seventeen metres in height. The audience was seated in the remaining half of the arena floor and on seating built into the steeply tiered bleachers of the original structure. Beautiful and atmospheric certainly, yet presenting quite a challenge for sound reinforcement.

Why was d&b ArrayProcessing deployed here? Davide Carlotti, Education and Application Support at d&b audiotechnik Italia explains. "To begin with, ArrayProcessing was chosen for its help with performances in this sort of environment. It was the first time f

UK - Set on a 30,000sq.ft industrial site in High Wycombe, Rush UK's first Trampoline Park incorporates a series of jumping activities - with wall-to-wall interconnected trampolines, climbing challenges, two dodgeball courts, two basketball hoop lanes, a gigantic foam pit and a ninja challenge course.

Combined with children's birthday party rooms, corporate events, teenage disco nights and fitness classes, all activities function under a roof supported by Martin Audio's new CDD (Coaxial Differential Dispersion) premium installation loudspeakers.

This solution was recommended by the AV integrators, Penguin Media Solutions. Their director of operations, Dylan Thompson, said it was vital after seeing other sound systems struggling for clarity in similar environments, that this lively, reverberant hall - with 16,000sq.ft of net usable space - was installed with products fit for

The Netherlands - Audinate has announced that 275 manufacturers have now adopted Dante, the industry-leading audio over IP networking solution, and that more than 675 Dante-enabled products are now available worldwide. This represents a dramatic 145% increase in the number of commercially available products since ISE last year.

To celebrate this unprecedented growth, Audinate will bring its popular #DanteEverywhere social media contest to ISE, giving attendees the chance to win a variety of prizes by finding Dante partners exhibiting at the show. To participate, attendees just take photos of the "Dante Spoken Here" signs at any of the over 80 Dante partner booths and post them to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram using the hashtag #DanteEverywhere. Prizes include free Dante T-shirts, Dante Via software and Bose QuietComfort 20 acoustic noise-cancelling headphones. Get mo

The Netherlands - Avid will showcase its latest award-winning live sound consoles at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2016, including the modular and scalable, Avid VENUE | S6L, and the compact Avid VENUE | S3L-X. In the 10years since Avid first introduced the VENUE live sound mixing system, the family of consoles has become one of the most trusted and requested live sound systems in the world.

Powered by Avid Everywhere, VENUE | S6L and VENUE | S3L-X are tightly integrated with industry-standard Pro Tools and functions as the perfect front-end to the Avid MediaCentral Platform, the most fluid end-to-end media management and distribution platform in the industry. On stand 7-M215, Avid will deliver hands-on demos of both systems, showcasing the integration for streamlined recording and playback functionality.

A fully modular, scalable live sound mixing system, VENUE | S6L deli

UK - Backstage Academy has seen several new appointments over the past few months, gearing them up for the next phase in their expansion, application for university titleship, and to meet the needs of greater student numbers.

Managing director Paul Barton has been working in the events industry since he was 15 in a wide variety of sectors ranging from events structures to production, site management and sponsorship across Europe, the UAE and Southern Africa. Paul's last industry post was with GL Events as site manager for London's 2012 Olympic Rowing and Canoeing events at Eton Dorney. Paul's career in education started in 2008 at the University of Exeter where he launched the first Events Management module in any Russell Group university, building it from 35 students to 350.

Associate dean, Paul Walters has 15 years' experience in Higher Education with a focus on the event

USA - J. R. Clancy has added two people to its technical and project management staff.

Felix Garcia has joined JRC as a controls engineer. In this position, he designs and draws electrical circuits for control systems, and tests and troubleshoots the circuits, processors and communications networks of installed equipment. Garcia tests equipment including motors and starters before they are shipped to the customer, and he trains end users in the operation of JRC's control systems.

Originally from Cuba, Garcia earned his degree in electrical engineering in Cuba, and worked for an oil and gas manufacturer in Mexico before moving to upstate New York.

Joe Sheppard returns to his native Auburn, New York, to take the position of standard systems project manager at JRC. Most recently, he served as technical supervisor at the Centre of the Arts at George Mason University, where he

UK - TSL Lighting has acquired London-based rental company Point Source Productions. The move will see both companies' teams and rental equipment combining at TSL's premises during February 2016. Point Source's rental, projects and operations staff have also joined TSL. Customers will retain the same point of contact, levels of quality, service and value for money, say TSL.

Hire manager John Beer comments: "This is a huge step forward for our customers, myself, Ian and all the team joining TSL from Point Source. The operational systems, warehouse space and extra products available are a huge advantage to the markets and clients that we serve. We will continue to provide dry-hire, projects and trade rental, locally and nationally."

The owners of TSL Lighting, Sam Tamplin and Martin Locket, added: "We are pleased to welcome the staff and customers of Point Sourc

Finland - International theatre consultancy practice, Theatreplan, has recently completed a major reseating project for the Finnish National Opera House in Helsinki. The original seats were installed in 1993 when the opera building was completed. After meetings with the Opera and inspection of the auditorium, Theatreplan's Neil Morton recommended a full reseating rather than refurbishment.

The ergonomics of the original seat were designed for a relaxed seating position with a seat height lower than normal for theatre seats. This resulted in the sightlines from the seats at the front of each of the three tiers being less than ideal. Furthermore, after more than two decades' service many of the seats were beginning to show signs of wear and tear; the foam on many of seat pans had collapsed and several of the components were loose including the frames so that the seats were no lon

South Africa - A 'Fall Arrest & Basic Rescue' course will be hosted at DWR Distribution from 22-24 February 2016. This will be of interest to riggers and technicians, tower climbers, workers on elevated platforms and site managers - any person who may share in conducting a possible rescue, the company says.

The three day course has been approved by SETA, SAQA, DOL, Eskom, Vodacom, Cell C, MTN, MSN, Huawei Technologies Africa, ZTE, Anglo Coal & Platinum and Exxaro. Delegates who pass this course will receive a certificate valid for three years.

Delegate requirements include: A certified copy of ID document; Valid Medical Certificate stating fitness for work at height (valid for at least 3 months from training date); Learners must be proficient in English Reading and writing, up to the level of Grade 10; Delegates are welcome to bring their own harnesses and rigging gear.

T

Italy - Popular Italian comedian Angelo Pintus was joined on stage by Clay Paky Sharpys for his recent tour. The show featured Pintus's simple, natural humour, his musical skills and his talent as an impersonator. Last year's show at the Mediolanum Forum marked the beginning of a period of technical cooperation between Leader Sound and Angelo Pintus's production team. Lighting designer Gianluca Brunelli put together a lighting rig for the over 60 tour dates in various theatres and for the show at the Forum.

Brunelli decided to put a few Sharpy units on the stage floor: "They were placed on the set as side-lighting in fixed positions for much of the show, and remained motionless until the scenes where Pintus describes changes in the situation. These are usually comical situations."

The outdoor tour dates, in public squares, meant it was necessary to use reliable, po

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