USA - Auralex Acoustics has been on active duty in Iraq in support of the United States Army's 10th Mountain Division Band. With approximately 40 members, the 10th Mountain Division Band was deployed to Camp Victory, Iraq earlier this year. Auralex Acoustics took on the challenge of assisting the band with occupation and acoustical renovation of its new rehearsal space.

The band's mission involved transforming an old swimming pool into an acoustically balanced rehearsal facility. The greatest sonic anomaly involved early reflections off the plaster walls surrounding the pool, which is kidney shaped with curved walls, making it difficult to predict the angle of reflections. Sound was reflected in every direction with little attenuation due to the hard wall surfaces. Intelligibility

Spain - VMB has announced the appointment of Avix Tech as its exclusive distribution partner for South Korea. The company has placed a substantial initial order including both Line Array systems, ADP series and towerlifts.

Avix Tech made contact with VMB in PLASA 2008 and recently displayed and demoed the product at last month's KOSOUND.

Avix Tech president Chang, Joo Hong said: "I am very pleased to have been able to introduce the VMB speakers to the Korean market through KOSOUND. It was a very successful launch for us in Korea."

VMB's export manager, Ben Sinclair commented: "We are really pleased that Avix Tech is going to take over the distribution for Korea. It has all been very sudden. We made initial contact at PLASA and within six weeks we received them here in Spain for meetings, signed the contract and were over in Korea demonstrating the product at K

Canada - Club manager Todd Williams describes Canada's On The Rocks Nightclub and Bar in Fort St. John, British Columbia as an uptown, big city themed club in a small town setting. That big city feel is due in large part to a Martin lighting effects package of smartMAC moving heads and Mania series effect lights.

The venue, a former restaurant converted to nightclub use, lies in British Columbia's sparsely populated north and features the biggest dance room in a 350 km radius.

Spaced evenly around the perimeter of a 21' x 21' truss suspended 16ft above the club's dance floor are Martin smartMACs, Mania SCX600 scanners and Mania EFX700 and Mania EFX800 effect lights. Surrounding a cluster of 17 mirror balls at the centre of the truss are Atomic strobes and Mania EFX500 effect lights.

Dispersed around the club's ancillary areas and providing a splash of wall décor are M

UK - When Coldplay decided they wanted 'Magic Balls' for their Viva la Vida World Tour, XL Video turned to Pufferfish to provide a custom solution. Pufferfish designed and delivered six new 'PufferSphere XL' touring units within the space of two months.

Lighting designer Paul Normandale was tasked with devising a new means of integrating the visual components for the current Viva la Vida tour.

"For my part the band's desire for a viewing surface without the use of LEDs, was an interesting challenge, and one for which the Pufferfish system of internal projection provided a unique solution," states Normandale. "It allows not only media content, but also live relay footage (via the Hippotizers) in large scale arenas worldwide."

In all, six PufferSpheres were commissioned for the tour, forming a major part of the overall visual design as well as

Dubai - UK-based event company TAO Group has won the contract to consult on Dubai's new multi-purpose venue, The Palladium.

The Palladium, built at a cost of AED120 million (US$32.6 million), will be the first venue of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa, edicated to cater for a wide array of events.

Raymond Gaspar of ICE - International Communications and Entertainment, awarded the prestigious contract to TAO Group to consult on the technical fit out of the venue, stewarding and medical appointments, traffic and pedestrian planning, occupational safety and to prepare technical specifications to ease the attendance of touring production.

General manager of The Palladium, Raymond Gaspar said, "This venue can be set-up in a variety of creative ways to suit any event theme and size. We will provide all the elements to facilitate the work of promoters and event org

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UK - Skins 3 is coming to e4 soon, and the programme's creators are looking for some bright young things to help them with a very special project. They'll be creating an online mini-episode of Skins that will feature some of the series 3 cast - and four very important behind the scenes roles still need to be filled.

The producers are looking for a writer, director, costume designer and production designer to join the team. No experience is necessary as the Skins creators will be mentoring the winners and providing support. Not only that - they get to join the set of series 3 for paid work experience. The mini episode will be screened online in 2009.

Entrants need to be between 18 and 23 years old and the closing date for all four competitions is Tuesday December 9th at 6pm.Directors: Skins are giving one budding director the opportunity to ge

Germany - An L-Acoustics V-DOSC system has been used for the 35th anniversary show of Höhner, a German folk music band, at the 14,000-capacity Lanxess Arena, Cologne.

The concert - Wenn Nicht Jetzt Wann Dann (If Not Now Then When) - which featured special guests Guildo Horn, DJ Ötzi and the Kölner Symphonie, was televised by German broadcaster WDR and recorded for a live CD. While popular across Germany, the band are enormous in their hometown of Cologne and sing in the local dialect of that region.

Cologne-based PA rental company Event-Solution put together a large and complex L-Acoustics system to cover the stalls and lower balcony of the arena.

Event-Solution's Jochen Gotzen used 12 V-DOSC line source cabinets per side as the main PA system, with a total of 20 dV-DOSC compact line source speakers: three per side as down-fills and seven per side as out-fills.

T

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With an LED life of 50,000 hours and low power use, the P6 cuts energy costs and supports the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ goals for climate neutrality by 2050. It also meets updated eco-design rules for lighting.

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UK - LSI Online has learned that the organisers of the Beachdown Festival in Brighton have not paid an estimated £30,000 in bills, more than three months after the event. Nick Love, a Brighton-based site manager, contacted LSI Online to say he was still owed £3,000, and said he was "incredibly disappointed" for himself and his team.

Brighton's Evening Argus newspaper reported yesterday that "at least a dozen businesses involved in the Beachdown Festival have complained they have either not been paid or their cheques had bounced since the event in August".

Many of the businesses involved are angry that tickets for Beachdown 2009 went on sale last month despite the unpaid bills. However, the organisers have said they will be able to pay people once they receive an expected tax rebate.

Winner Plant in Worthing provided fork-lift trucks to

China - The well-established Beijing International Hotel (BIH) is a 916-room 5-star hotel located on Chang'an Street, in the central area of foreign affairs and business in the city. This summer, the BIH has turned several floors of its multi-storey building into a conference destination; out of a total construction area of 33,128sq.m. has been carved a number of flexible meeting venues, including a 2000sq.m banqueting hall and a 625sq.m theatre.

Collaborating on the design of the new Centre were the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design and the American firm of Heitz-Parsons-Sadek, which specialises in high-end hospitality interior design. The installation of the sophisticated AV and communications systems was completed by China Construction Third Engineering Division. Corp.

China Construction has a long-established working relationship with TICO, the Chinese distributor

Canada - PA Plus provided live sound reinforcement for Heaven's Rehearsal a multi-denominational musical event that featured a house band, full orchestra and five-hundred member choir. The event took place at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

PA Plus utilised 80 Crown I-Tech amplifiers to power the large format JBL VerTec line array. "In order to maintain both group and independent control over all the arrays, we chose to use the Crown I-Tech amplifiers along with HiQnet System Architect software to provide all the required processing," stated Mark Radu, systems engineer of PA Plus.

"We tuned the basic 30,000 seat system within System Architect and stored it as a preset. As we added array sections to attain coverage up to the full 55,000-seat capacity, the system was re-tuned and saved as a preset. The Crown I-Tech amplifiers and System Architect gave us all

UK - A co-production between the BBC and Metropolis Music, the 2008 BBC Electric Proms was staged last month at London's Roundhouse and featured a broad spread of contemporary music acts.

All lighting was supplied by High Wycombe-based Siyan for the third consecutive year. Lighting director Bryan Leitch utilised 16 i-Pix BB7 LED wash lights and 20 BB4s. Leitch came up with an original design concept that was developed by himself and Nick Whitehouse who produced all the technical drawings and programmed the show together with Leitch.

The design was shaped to fit the natural architecture of the building, accentuating the curves and spheres of the quirky Victorian former train-turning shed. The creative goal was to provide a dynamic multi-layered visual backdrop for the myriad of artists appearing over five all-action days of performance, including headline slots by Oasis, Burt B

UK - Having successfully made an impact at the Academy in Sheffield, Nexo's Geo D line array technology has again been chosen by installers Adlib Audio as the house system for what is now known as the O2 Academy in Oxford.

The Academy in Oxford, which was opened just 15 months ago, recently asked Adlib Audio to install a new front-of-house PA in its main venue, capacity 1,020. The club required a brand-name system that would support its endeavours to attract a strong calibre of international touring artists to the city.

Roger Kirby, Adlib Audio's sales manager, describes the unusual room acoustics of the Academy's main room. "It has a very low ceiling, and is a long, asymmetrical shape, which makes it quite a tricky proposition acoustically. After our experience with Nexo's D10 cabinets at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and in the Academy in Sheffield, we felt that the v

Netherlands / Belgium - Fred Heuves, CMO of the Ampco Flashlight Group, has announced his retirement from the Group, effective 1 January 2009.

In a statement to company staff, industry colleagues and the media he said: "After working in the entertainment industry for more than 30 years, of which the last 18 years have been within the Ampco Flashlight Group, I have decided the time has come to slow down and make room for the talented new generation within the Group, and I've therefore decided to leave the company on 1st January 2009.

"It has been an exciting period and looking back at how we started and what has been accomplished, not only in the industry in general but also within the Ampco Flashlight Group in particular, I feel a modest pride for all of us in this industry and in the Ampco Flashlight Group."

Fred's roots in the industry reach back to 1976 wit

USA - Harman International Industries has formed a marketing relationship with musician and producer and Quincy Jones to explore and evaluate opportunities for licensed and co-branded products in the consumer, automotive and professional audio fields. The partnership is intended both to celebrate Jones' rich contributions to the music industry and the impact of Harman audio technologies in the recording, broadcast and entertainment fields, says the company.

Jones will also make a number of appearances at Harman-sponsored events and contribute his personage to various corporate and brand-level marketing activities.

"Quincy's passion for excellence in the entertainment field is a natural complement to our own respected audio brands," said Dinesh C. Paliwal, Harman's chairman and chief executive officer. "His iconic status and musical genius pair strongly with Harm

UK - Stage Electrics has launched its new and improved website. The new site has been designed with a clear and easy to navigate style which is more customer focused and user friendly.

New additions to the site (www.stage-electrics.co.uk) include case studies detailing the range of completed Stage Electrics projects from educational installations to West End shows. There is a new look web shop with over 4,500 items available.

(Jim Evans)

UK / Portugal - Following the release of its Chimera, a hybrid valve/solid-state preamp, earlier in the year, Sontronics has launched the Sonora, a two-channel solid-state preamp. Designed and developed in the UK, and manufactured by the company's team of engineers in Portugal, the Sonora is a dual-channel preamp/DI with two discrete solid-state channels, capable of "delivering the highest standard of audio reproduction at an amazingly low price" the company says.

Sonora's size makes it ideal for studio recording and as a portable front-end in live performance and stereo recording applications outside the studio. Its ultra-linear frequency response has been honed to a variance of just ±0.1dB from 20Hz to 20kHz. It also boasts 60dB of distortion-free headroom and 60dB of gain, transparent signal integrity, very fast transient response and electronically balanced ins an

USA - Crown Audio has appointed Vincent Tan to the position of business developer for the Asia region. In this role Tan will be responsible for supporting the sales within the region and working closely with the customer base. He will report to director of marketing for installed sound, Brian Divine.

Previously, Tan served as an engineering manager for Spectrum Conferencing, which specialises in providing integrated conferencing and professional audio visual solutions. In this role Tan was responsible for the management and direction of the post sales department, where he led a team of four engineers in providing after-sales services.

Commenting on his appointment, Tan said t, "I'm extremely excited to begin my new role with Crown. Through previous positions I've become familiar with Crown and many of the other Harman Professional brands."

(Jim Evans)

UK - Tannoy has announced the launch of the i9VP vandal proof loudspeaker. A development of the Tannoy i9, the i9VP (Vandal-Proof) is a tall, slim but ruggedly built loudspeaker equipped with four 100mm (4") low frequency direct radiating drive units and three 25mm (1") titanium dome tweeters, partially horn loaded and arranged as a line source.

Designed for use in acoustically challenging applications where wide but controlled coverage is required, the dispersion characteristics of the i9VP (Vandal-Proof) direct sound into the desired space while minimising ceiling reflection from above. This makes it suitable for high quality speech reinforcement in highly reverberant or expansive spaces such as transportation hubs, convention centres and retail malls. The solid metal housing and protected cable run make this product especially suited to outdoor/public spaces where t

USA - As the oldest outdoor music festival in the United States, Chicago's Ravinia Festival boasts a rich history dating back more than a century. The festival runs from May through October, making it less of a typical festival and more of a semi-permanent summer venue. Performances ranging from the Chicago Symphony to Sheryl Crow and Tony Bennett attract 600,000 visitors a year to join in the celebration at Ravinia Park, located in the north-eastern suburb of Highland Park.

Mike Gotshall, owner of Chicago-based wireless provider A Sound Choice, oversaw the audio needs at the festival this year along with IATSE Local 2 FOH engineer Norm Kruger. Gotshall also partnered with New York's Masque Sound to provide self-powered Meyer Sound Mica and M'elodie line array loudspeaker systems for Ravinia's two main venues.

"My relationship with Masque enables me to take on the bigger

New Zealand - Selecon has launched launch a completely redesigned website (www.seleconlight.com ).

Navigation around the wide range of product information and support together with the extensive technical and educational resources that the site contains has been made simpler and easier, says the company.

New back-end enhancements allow for a more flexible operation of the Selecon site with a new 'search' function on products by either family name or luminaire type via the Support section in the main menu bar. This function is a one-click way to pull a quick overview, lighting calculator, specifications, downloads, related products and accessories together in one place for the product which is of interest.

(Jim Evans)

France - L-Acoustics has appointed Jamie Gosney as technical manager for the UK, joining the company's UK sales manager Stuart Down, and sales coordinator Nathalie Prade.

Gosney has three decades' experience of working in the pro audio industry in a career that spans systems operation and design, sales, installation and even set-building. Previous companies which Gosney has worked for include Autograph Sales, Imagination, Amber Sound, ATM Flyware and the SFL Group.

"I am really thrilled to be part of the L-Acoustics team in the UK," says Gosney. "I love the products and really believe in them; they just sound lovely. I believe our customers will benefit from Stuart's sales experience and my background in system design and installation."

Adds Stuart Down, "Myself and the team in France all welcome Jamie to the family. Having him on board is a great st

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