USA - Theatre Projects is putting final touches on two unparalleled performing arts spaces: the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre and the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, as last-minute preparations continue for the 15 October grand opening of the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas.

As creators with Sasaki Associates of the original plans for the Dallas Arts District and as design consultants for the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Theatre Projects has spent over two decades involved in the planning and building of one of the US's most ambitious new centres for the arts.

"It's been an amazing journey working with the City of Dallas, the opera and theatre companies, and the Foundation since the creation of the Arts District in 1984," said Richard Pilbrow, Theatre Projec

UK - When Wembley Stadium decided to transform the VIP guest hospitality room for this summer's biggest concerts, they turned to entertainment lighting supplier White Light.

The challenge was to create a versatile design that could provide a calm but attractive feel to the room for the pre-show dinner and drinks, but then transform the space into an exclusive nightclub for the after show parties.

To achieve this, White Light's Dominic Yates used some of the latest technology from White Light's extensive lighting stock to create a design flexible enough to give the room a different feel for each concert, while dynamic enough to continue the excitement of the gig beyond the end of each show.

The design made use of the new Fusion672 LED panels, which allowed the creation of both dramatically changing lighting backdrops and corporate branding, with the 'Club Wembley' logo presen

Italy - New Sound Service chose Proel sound reinforcement systems for Tim Cup 2009, a major sports event attended many Italian football fans each summer.

The leading Italian football teams are the protagonists of this competition which is usually also the first opportunity for them to introduce their new players and line-ups before the start of the national championship.

This year, Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan competed for the Tim Cup at the Stadio Adriatico in Pescara, whose sound reinforcement system was complemented by a Proel Axiom system. The system chosen was made up of: 24 AX2265P AXIOM series vertical array compact speakers, 12 AX1115SP AXIOM compact subs, four Edge212P point source array speakers, four Edge121SP subs, six Proel PSW2600 amplifiers, four AXPACKK10 amplifier racks plus DSO digital processors.

"This event," affirmed Marco Lovato of New S

UK - Parents' attitudes to apprenticeships need to change in order to put young people on a planned, clear career path and help the audio-visual industry enhance its skills base over the coming decade, claims Paul Dougherty, managing director of Tyne & Wear-based Blaydon Communications Ltd.

Paul Dougherty has good experience of apprenticeships: 20 years ago he, along with managing director of Blaydon's sister company UK Time Solutions, Chris Routledge, started out as an apprentice, following in the 70-year tradition of the firm in supporting apprenticeships.

Dougherty says: "Apprenticeship provides a solid, technical career base and as Chris and I have demonstrated, can lead to senior management and the boardroom. One of the bars to young people taking up apprenticeship can be the attitude or parents who see a university education as the best career option for their child

Norway - Projector manufacturer, projectiondesign has announced a change in ownership to include Norwegian private equity firm Herkules Capital AS. The move follows the purchase of a 54% share in projectiondesign from previous main shareholder, Eker Group AS headed by Norwegian industrial designer Bård Eker.

projectiondesign has emerged as an industry leader in the creation, development, design and manufacture of high-quality projectors for specialist professional, industrial and private sector applications. The company currently has 135 employees, including in-house product testing, research & development in electronic, optical and mechanical system design, and has shown strong growth since being established in 2001.

"projectiondesign is an exciting growth company, and is an attractive opportunity for Herkules. We have been familiar with the company for some time now an

UK - Fifteen venues across the UK will open their doors to 13- and 14-year-olds from 15 October until 2 December 2009, for The National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural Skills' first interactive Offstage Choices careers events.

These events offer young people aged 13 and above a taste of the job roles available behind the scenes and offstage in technical theatre and live music events.

Pupils from local schools will meet and experience the work of a number of professionals including lighting and sound technicians, marketing and stage managers and designers, in venues from the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, up to the SAGE in Gateshead. Behind the scenes staff will share the tricks of their trade and experiences, working out of the 'spotlight'.

Offstage is produced by The National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural Skills (NSA), a network of industry speciali

USA - Thern Stage Equipment has announced the availability of its next-generation Clew Winch line sets. These improved line sets boast new features designed for superior performance and security, says the company.

These completely engineered systems eliminate the potential hazards inherent in systems using components from various suppliers that may not be designed to work together. In addition, standard clew winches now include dual compartment, grooved drums to accommodate redundant haul lines for enhanced security and load control. Winches also include a positive load holding brake and a lock-out function to provide secondary security by locking the drum to the frame when the load is stationary.

The new 2500 pound Clew Winch series, incorporates an improved gearbox design, to provide quiet and reliable performance. Worm gears are enclosed in a cast aluminium housing, and ope

South Africa - Rosco has supplied 90 linear metres of its black/white Dance Floor and a number of dance mats to Johannesburg's newly opened The Dance Space as part of a sponsorship deal with South Africa's The Dance Forum.

The Dance Forum has been a major force in South African contemporary dance for the past 21 years, facilitating major projects such as the 12-day FNB Dance Umbrella Festival, a dance platform for young artists entitled New Dance and a Young Choreographers Residency Programme.

In wide ranging future plans, The Dance Forum intends to develop a series of workshops, debates, collaborations, master classes and residency programmes for professional practitioners as well as encourage collaborations between dance organisations and choreographers across Africa and the rest of the world.

Yet throughout its existence there has never been one singl

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UK - Edirol is updating the R-09HR field recorder with free v2.0 software to include many features requested by their user base.

The new v2.0 software makes the unit an even more rounded and complete recording package, and includes some great additions for journalists, musicians, songwriters, hobbyist recorders, says the company.

The first big new feature is on-board wave editing. This means that an external computer is no longer needed to edit R-09HR recordings as both Divide and Combine features are included. This adds a level of 'in-the-box' flexibility that will benefit all sorts of users who will now be able to create professional edits on location - wherever they are.

A new chromatic-tuner has also been added with two display modes. This is designed for the many musicians who use the R-09HR to record live performances. Now they can tune up with the R-09HR before they p

Australia - Audinate has announced that its Dante networking solution, the Dante-MY16-AUD card, has won the 2009 EDN Innovation Award in Australia for Best Application of Field Programmable Logic. The Dante-MY16-AUD card is the latest in the series of advanced implementations of patent pending Dante networking solutions.

The Dante-MY16-AUD card uses a single field programmable logic device to offer a full implementation of Dante. The Dante-MY16-AUD is compatible with MY16 slots on all Yamaha mixing consoles, power amplifiers, and DSPs. The card, developed by Audinate, is available worldwide from Yamaha and its distributors.

"We are honoured to be recognised for innovation by EDN. We specifically chose the Xilinx FPGA implementation because it also gave us flexibility in the future to upgrade and enhance our Dante networking solution," said Chris Ware, VP of Engineeri

UK - Harman International has announced the successful completion of an advanced networked audio system at Turf Moor, the stadium of English Premiership football club, Burnley FC. The club management engaged acoustic consultants, AMS Acoustics and integrators ETA Sound to design and install a fully integrated PA/VA compliant public address system that would put Turf Moor system in the same league as Europe's leading stadium systems.

The resulting system, designed and controlled using Harman HiQnet System Architect features components from Harman Professional brands including JBL, Crown and BSS Audio.

AMS Acoustics had already implemented an earlier first phase upgrade last season to bring three stands into VA compliance. During the course of this exercise the capture of a full range of measurements was required and the resultant data, after analysis, was used as the cornerston

USA - Over the course of seven decades, the Sturgis motorcycle rally has grown from a small regional affair in 1938, into an all-out biker extravaganza.

The first Sturgis motorcycle rally in 1938 was a relatively tame affair, and remained so until well into the late 1960s, when films like Easy Rider and Hunter S. Thompson's book Hell's Angels fuelled the rise of the outlaw biker mystique. Since then, the festival has taken on a life of its own, and for a few weeks out of the year this pastoral community of 6,000 in South Dakota's Black Hills becomes the Harley Davidson capital of the world, with attendance estimates of upwards of 700,000 (slightly more than the population of the entire state).

On tap, for the musical portion of the festivities this year, were Aerosmith, George Thorogood, Toby Keith, Billy Squier, Lita Ford, Tesla, Hinder, Saving Abel, Buckcherry,

Germany - This summer, Berlin's State Opera (Staatsoper unter den Linden) presented the third Opera For All event (Oper für alle) to more than 50,000 spectators who filled the city's historic Bebelplatz. A Meyer Sound system featuring the Milo line array loudspeaker and the UPQ-1P loudspeaker provided sound reinforcement for the public simulcast of Richard Wagner's landmark opera Tristan and Isolde, followed by an open-air concert of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 and Romeo and Juliet Overture on the next day, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, the State Opera's general music director.

The free-of-charge classical music event was supported by Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, and was attended by German President Horst Köhler, who said, "Opera For All opens up opera to wide parts of the society. Opera must not only be high culture for the wel

USA - Tomcat USA has confirmed the return of its Hoist & Truss Workshop for the 2009 LDInstitute. Space is still available for the workshop that will take place on 18 &19 November 2009 in conjunction with the LDI Show in Orlando, Florida.

During the course of the ETCP recognised workshop, participants will receive training from industry experts. Day one consists of a full day of motor instruction taught by Herb Hart of Columbus McKinnon. During this, participants will disassemble and reassemble a one ton CM Lodestar and receive instruction on troubleshooting and maintenance.

Day two includes a half-day course on truss design, use and theory taught by Will Todd, product support manager for Tomcat USA plus a half-day course on fall protection led by Bill Sapsis, president and founder of Sapsis Rigging.

This is the first time Sapsis has taught a session in conjunction with the

UK - HSL supplied all lighting for the Stereophonics homecoming show at Cardiff Castle, Wales, last weekend - including eight of the new Robe Robin 300E Beam moving lights, which made their UK show debut, specified by LD Tim Routledge.

The gig celebrated the band's forthcoming album Keep Calm & Carry On, and Routledge was asked to light this and a warm-up gig at the Electric Ballroom in London following a TV special he designed for them last year at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, for which he won a Welsh BAFTA Award.

Blackburn-based HSL has supplied a number of Routledge's recent projects, and he was keen for them to also do this one. "The variety of kit that HSL has available is really impressive, as is their attention to detail and willingness to customise gear and accommodate non-standard requirements," he says. The project was managed for HSL by Mike Oates.

Austria - When German superstars Die Ärzte played two sold-out stadium shows in Linz, Austria, their lighting designer Lui Helmig spec'd 130 Robe moving lights as the main work-horses of the rig for the spectacular show.

Die Ärzte's live performances have a reputation for dazzlingly spectacular light-shows and this one was no exception. Helmig arranged the fixtures - a mix of ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200E ATs and ColorSpot and Wash 2500E ATs - across nine 'finger' trusses above the stage, and on a front truss.

On the floor were 12 ColorWash 2500E ATs and six ColorWash 1200E ATs, used for aerial beam work, effects and low level cross stage lighting - all adding a bit of additional drama and dimension to the stage.

The design also incorporated GLEC video screens hung in between the trusses, and Helmig tried to make the stage as open and accessible for sight-lines all around

USA - Bosch's Communications Systems Division has partnered with the NSCA Education Foundation to establish the Monte Wise Scholarship, an ongoing scholarship named in fond remembrance of Monte Wise - "one of the pro audio industry's great personalities and mentors" - who passed away on 30 September 2009. Monte was systems applications specialist, pro sound, for Bosch's Communications Systems Division.

"Monte touched many lives over the course of an exceptional career," says Daniel Nix, VP of sales, Americas, for Bosch's Communications Systems Division. "He was a mentor to many, and helped take hundreds of individuals and companies to the next level with education and technology. We were humbled by the amount of inquiries we received in the wake of his passing, from friends and colleagues asking 'Is there anything we can do?'

"The creation of the

USA - FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), the international governing body of football, announced yesterday the appointment of producer Kevin Wall and his company Control Room as executive producer of the Official Kick-Off Celebration Concert of the 20100 FIFA World Cup South Africa.

Kicking off the FIFA World Cup on 10 June 2010 at the newly-renovated Orlando Stadium in Soweto/Johannesburg, this historic three-hour live concert event will showcase the music, sport and visual pageantry of South Africa. The event will feature musical performances by major international superstars and popular African artists collaborating together, along with special appearances by past and present football legends, and will be broadcast to networks around the world. All net proceeds will benefit 20 Centres for 2010, the official campaign of the 20

UK - An RSS M-400 48-channel digital console, complete with Digital Snake, and Cakewalk Sonar and REAC software, has been used to record a live album for up-and-coming indie rockers The Joy Formidable.

Backstage at north London's Garage venue, Roland Systems Group technical wizards Martin Thomas and Simon Kenning had good reason to admire the super-compact footprint of the RSS M-400 digital console, which enabled them to fit an entire live recording set-up as well as two engineers and a three-piece band into a 10'x 8' dressing room.

The RSS technology maintained a low profile in the club. The use of a single S-4000 Digital Snake stage box meant that the live recording team caused less than minimal disruption to the venue and the band's FOH engineer, yet was able to capture a live performance in 48kHz 24-bit broadcast-quality audio. Using the S-4000 Digital Snake 'standalone',

USA - Introduced at the AES Convention at the Javits Center in New York City this week, Laser-Accurate microphone transducer technology from Schwartz Engineering & Design (SED) "revolutionizes the concept of the microphone".

David Schwartz, president of SED and developer of Laser-Accurate technology, believes that existing microphone manufacturers will be best positioned to take microphones to the next level by combining the Laser-Accurate technology with their vast design and manufacturing experience.

"Rather than start my own company again to manufacture products based on this technology, I see the benefit in letting already established professional audio manufacturers license it and apply it to their own designs," says Schwartz, who founded CompuSonics in 1984 and grew it into a leading developer and manufacturer of digital audio workstations and digital

Belgium - Square Brussels, a new event space in the Belgian capital, recently purchased Studer Vista 5 and Vista 5 SR consoles as part of the sound reinforcement system for its auditorium. Belgium-based company Play, based in Nazareth, installed the consoles, which were purchased through Studer's Belgian representative HeynenNV.

Square Brussels offers 13,500sq.m of meeting rooms, exhibition space and a state-of-the-art auditorium. The venue is in the heart of Brussels and is located only 300m from the Royal Palace and next to the Museum of Arts and the Royal Library.

"The Studer Vista 5 and Vista 5 SR with its Vistonics interface are highly intuitive and very easy to use, which is perfect because during a live performance, the operator should be totally concerned with making the sound perfect as opposed to worrying about which button he is pressing," says Jos Jorisse

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