UK - Blackburn- based HSL supplied lighting equipment, a Kinesys automation system and crew to the final leg of Snow Patrol's 2009 world tour, named Snow Patrol Reworked. This follows HSL's servicing of all the band's UK and European sections across the whole tour, which kicked off in January 09.

Mike Oates project managed for HSL, once again working closely with the tour's LD Davy Sherwin, production manager Wob Roberts and tour manager Neil Mather. Mike Oates comments, "It's been really interesting to see how Snow Patrol's show has evolved and changed over the year. Each section has been different, and of course it's been excellent working with Wob, Davy and Neil again - they are a great team."

Snow Patrol Reworked was a departure from their standard fi

USA - Loud Technologies (parent company of Mackie) has announced it has signed an agreement with Avid that licenses the use of Mackie's new Onyx-i Series Firewire Recording Mixers with Avid Pro Tools M-Powered 8 software.

To enable use with Pro Tools M-Powered 8, users will need to purchase the Mackie Universal Driver upgrade at www.mackie.com. Once the driver is downloaded and installed, the Onyx 820i, 1220i, 1620i and 1640i mixers can be used with Avid Pro Tools M-Powered 8 software.

"For years, Mackie customers have wanted to combine the familiar workflow of an analogue mixer with the world's most popular DAW," said John Boudreau, VP of Loud's Music Gear group. "Through our newly-signed agreement with Avid, Mackie's Onyx-i mixers now make this possible."

Chris Gahagan, senior vice president of products at Avid said, "Avid has made openness a key

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies has supplied a Chroma-Q Color Span LED cove lighting and wall wash system to the Brighton Dome for its Dome Foyer main bar. Situated alongside the venue's art deco style Concert Hall and part of a £22 million refurbishment of the facilities in 2002, the modern Foyer is used for a wide range of shows and corporate events.

Jason Ashdown, technical manager for Brighton Dome & Festival, approached A.C. Entertainment Technologies when the venue wanted to achieve an up light wall wash around the top of the Foyer, to provide mood lighting for events including comedy, classical, dance and other music genres. With plenty of natural light flooding the room from large skylights, brightness was a key criteria for lighting daytime events.

Ashdown considered several LED products before settling on the Chroma-Q Color Span. His chosen Color Span syst

Ukraine - The 2009 Junior Eurovision Song Contest recently wrapped up its seventh season, seeing its largest viewing audience in its history. An estimated 13m viewers watched 13 competing countries onstage, beaming alongside 22 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500 fixtures. The show was held on 21 November at the Palace of Sports in Kiev, the same location as the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest.

The show is a spin-off of the 52-year-old Eurovision Song Contest, produced by the European Broadcast Union (EBU). It is hosted by the public service broadcaster of the host country, which this year was NTU in Kiev. The show is the biggest song contest in the world for performers aged 10 to 15, who must each compose their own music and lyrics.

The theme of this year's show was Tree of Life, based on the artwork of Ukrainian folk art painter Maria Primachenko. Lighting des

Italy - A Proel Public Address and audio evacuation system complying with EN 60849 standards has been installed in Mantua at the new Thun store and logistic centre.

Thun, the Italian company well-known for its ceramic gift and home furnishing ranges, has chosen Proel's AVL Systems' products for its new 1,600sq.m store and its logistic centre which covers a total surface of 35,600sq.m.

Proel's PROEVAC evacuation system has been directly interfaced with the fire detection equipment whose sensors are distributed in various strategic areas of the facility. The system's rack-mount central unit, positioned in the mechanical room, controls the BMH and BMFIRE paging stations broadcasting calls, announcements or pre-recorded evacuation messages.

Each facility area or zone is equipped with specific EVAC speakers with redundant connections (A + B lines). PROEVAC systems and components

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The Netherlands - At ISE 2010, Calibre is unveiling the all-new HQView range of processors, which includes models capable of performing warp mapping and seamless soft-edge blending of multiple projected images.

"As a company, we have a very well-established reputation for providing ultra-dependable, ultra-high quality products in situations where people's lives can depend on the delivery of the right imaging at the right time," says Tim Brooksbank, chairman at Calibre.

"What is perhaps less well-known is that we also make many products suitable for applications such as corporate AV, where the emphasis is on raising the quality of multiple video sources to a uniformly high standard, and residential systems, where the usage may be more casual but the expectation of quality is getting higher all the time.

"Where the application is not mission-critical, it is

UK - 5 Star Cases was recently contacted to design and supply a complete exhibition display system and flight case solution for CPU Holders 4U and Pro Audio Stash.

From an initial brief from Pro Audio Stash's Rob Platt, the design team at 5 Star came up with some ideas and following some minor tweaks, the project was born, comprising two main product categories.

Pro Audio Stash distributes a range of 19" rack mount cabinets, both free standing and wall mounted, plus a host of rack-mounting accessories like plain panels, drawers, ventilation panels and castors.

CPU Holders 4U manufacturers and distributes a range of 'Under-Desk' CPU holders, laptop security drawers and cable management trays.

(Jim Evans)

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Cameo's P6 is a future-proof LED profiler with a powerful 600 W RGBACL engine and 16,000 lumens. It’s an energy-efficient replacement for 2.5 kW halogen profile lights in theatres and venues. With excellent light quality and natural colour rendering, it fits perfectly in theatres, musicals, TV studios, congresses, and live events.

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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Australia - Green Day is currently on their mammoth 21st Century Breakdown world tour which started in 2009 and is scheduled to continue towards the end of 2010. The band has just finished the Australian leg of the tour.

Featured in the lighting rig are 37 Martin MAC III Profiles. "The MAC IIIs do a really good job for the throw distances that we have as some of them are very long," commented Kevin Cauley, lighting director for the tour. "Our upstage truss is trimmed at 42ft off the ground so there are some very long throws required.

"This is the first show that I've used the MAC IIIs on and I think they're great. The effects wheel is awesome. It's just a really good, heavy-duty light and the crew has had no real problems with them. We've found that the lamps in the MAC IIIs are lasting a good five-hundred hours longer than Martin suggested. We were

UK - RCF has announced the appointment of Linton Smeeton to its UK sales organisation to strengthen the company's Commercial Audio Division. Smeeton, who has worked for RCF previously, was a founding director between 1990 and 2000.

Smeeton says: "It's great to be returning to RCF, the brand has grown so strong over the past decade and I'm really looking forward to being part of it."

RCF's Phil Price comments: "We are all looking forward to having Linton back on board with us, with his experience in the audio market he'll be a great addition to the team. During 2010, RCF will be introducing some major new products and systems to the Commercial Audio catalogue which will allow us to grow our UK network of solution providers. Linton will be concentrating particularly in these markets."

(Jim Evans)

In The Money - U2 had the most successful North American tour of 2009, according to music trade publication Pollstar. The Irish band's 360° stadium tour sold 1.3 million tickets in the US and Canada, worth $123m (£76.3m) overall. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band came second, with tour takings amounting to $94.5m (£58.6m). Elton John and Billy Joel's joint tour was the third most successful tour, with ticket sales worth $88m (£54.5m). Britney Spears and rock band AC/DC completed the top five with takings of $82.5m (£51.1m) and $77.9m (£48.3m) respectively.

Show Business - Recently honoured Status Quo are the hardest-working band in British music, according to a list compiled by the Performing Rights Society (PRS). The band performed to more than 250,000 fans at 27 arenas in 2009 - more than any other band. "Performing in

UK / USA - Following a hugely successful first joint venture fund raiser this year between Light Relief in the UK and Behind the Scenes in the States, the two charities are doing it again in 2010. And once again they have the full backing of award-winning designers Paule Constable, Ken Billington and Ken Posner, along with Light Relief's co-founder, Rick Fisher.

Established in 2007 as Light Relief Day and now renamed By Design Day, 24 April is the day that, each year, people in the professional lighting design business give back to help others less fortunate than themselves. The first 'joint venture' between Light Relief and Behind the Scenes raised £7,500 - £3450 for Light Relief and $5,700 for Behind the Scenes. The money came through a variety of channels, including a bucket collection among the audience of the London production of Hairspray o

UK - St Anne's Church on Alderney in the Channel Islands has long been central to island life, both as a church and more recently as a venue for concerts and events. Often referred to as the 'Cathedral of the Channel Islands' because of its size and grandeur, it has a capacity for a congregation or audience of up to 650 people, and makes the perfect setting for visiting choirs and bands.

With the church actively encouraging appropriate use of the church for outside events, a high quality sound system is imperative, but over the years it became increasingly difficult to hear and enjoy both the spoken word and recorded or live music over a system that was installed more than 25 years ago. When a bequest from a local island resident made money available for 'a project that would benefit both the church and the congregation', the sound system was top priority.

With local resident

Austria - In an introduction that couples AKG's wireless performance with Harman System Architect's ease of use, AKG recently updated its System Architect plug-in for the HUB 4000 Q to version 3.5 with the introduction of the Harman System Architect 2.1 release.

The professional digital wireless microphone system DMS 700 is now fully integrated into System Architect. Users have the ability to setup and monitor multichannel DMS 700 systems with tools such as 1 Click Setup, RF Monitor, Environment Scan and Offline Configuration. With AKG's 1 Click Setup, the frequency coordination of DMS 700 multichannel systems can be done with ease with just a single click.

The 1 Click Setup allows for optimal frequency coordination for all of AKG's wireless systems. With a single click, the algorithm completes a full frequency coordination by performing an environment/frequency scan, calculat

UK - Robe moving lights are at the core of the spectacular Brilliance installation in Blackpool, a major light art work consisting of six alluminium clad architectural arches traversing the seaside town's Birley Street, combined with additional lighting pods along the surrounding Church, Corporation and Clifton Streets.

The £3.5 million 'regeneration by light' scheme, commissioned by Blackpool Council, has been funded by the Northwest Development Agency, the European Regional Development Fund and Blackpool Council. The design concept was developed by Manchester based BDP, the lighting was conceived and programmed by Greg McLenahan of World Wide Lighting Design working in close conjunction with Blackpool's Illuminations department. The installation was overseen and co-ordinated by principal building contractors, J. McCann & Co (Nottingham).

Blackpool has historical

The Netherlands - Integrated Systems Events has announced the positioning of a Digital Signage Expert Showcase within ISE 2010. Co-located next to - and integrated with - a number of other attractions to form a larger Digital Signage Area in Hall 10 of the Amsterdam RAI, the Showcase is intended to show ISE attendees a complete signage system, with content creation, management, delivery and display solutions from a range of vendors, all viewable in a single location.

Mike Blackman, managing director, Integrated Systems Events, comments, "With over 250 digital signage exhibitors at our tradeshow and our DOOH Business Conference now firmly established as Europe's premier networking event for digital advertising, we felt the need to provide an additional Digital Signage Area for 2010.

"The Digital Signage Expert Showcase is a key element of this, and we believe i

UK - DB Systems has developed "a revolutionary solution that will help companies save money and reduce their environmental impact when exhibiting at events all around the world".

EcoXpress is a touch-screen based software solution installed on to DB Systems' hardware, either kiosks or regular PCs and screens. The terminals allow event delegates to browse exhibitors' literature onscreen, select what is most relevant to them and then email that information to themselves.

At present, delegates who attend events and exhibitions inevitably collect a library of brochures and various forms of corporate literature. Very often these items are lost, damaged, left behind, thrown away or don't contain the information that the delegate wants.

Oliver Richardson, DB Systems' sales director, says, "As a service supplier, DB understands that budgets are tight. One of the benef

Spain - What, for 14 years, was the European design centre for Audi - Seat and Volkswagen is now a cultural art centre that hosts many different events in the Barcelona region.

This cultural centre now houses a main room of about 700sq.m with a height of 4.7m and a banquet room able to accommodate up to 650 people. It also features a theatre hall with 520 seats, a large space that can be split into two smaller rooms, in case of need.

In accordance with the high quality required for all materials used in this cultural centre, the lighting system is provided by Spotlight.

Atrezzo has provided, through the Spotlight exclusive distributor for Spain, over 50 projectors from the PAR and Synthesis families, designed and constructed by Spotlight, the Italian manufacturer.

To light this multi-functional space different PAR 64 and projectors with Fresnel (Area 12) and PC lens (Vario

UK - David Fitch Services Ltd provided the large mirror balls for the recent series of Strictly Come Dancing - as it has done for all seven seasons of the popular show.

The largest mirror ball used on the show, which was broadcast by the BBC during autumn 2009, is a 54" (1.4m) diameter which has 92,350 mirrors measuring 8mm square. The company has two of these 54" mirror balls, and six 48" mirror balls, available for hire, as well as a large number of smaller models from 32" down to 8"as well as a series of unique mirror sculptures which can be seen on the company's website.

David Fitch warns: "It's important to remember how big these mirrorballs are, and to measure the get-in door and the route. And remember the flightcase. You would be surprised how many people forget and find that their mirrorball won't fit!"

(Lee Baldock)

UK - Visitors to ISCEx2010 will have the opportunity to network among the professionals from the sound industry and view the latest products during the ISCE's annual exhibition and seminar day at the Park Inn Hotel, Watford on 2 March 2010.

The seminars, which run alongside the exhibition, will provide the latest information on a wide range of topics. They are: The Regulatory Reform Order (Fire Safety) 2005 by Andy Scott of SigNET AC; The pitfalls of voice alarm contract project management, from specification to handover by Rupert Moon; Switching amplifier topologies - exposing the sub-classes by Anthony Smith of Current Thinking, and Digital audio networking - which technology?, by James Kennedy of Peavey Electronics.

Exhibitors who have already signed up include; Baldwin Boxall Communications, Cloud Electronics, Communication Technology, CUK Audio

UK - When Wendy and Jonathan Joseph were running Mama Stone's live music venue in its former location, they contacted Tad Barker at Tickle Music in London to provide a rental studio to a standard that would enable Wendy's daughter - the singer Joss Stone - to record an album.

But Mama Stone's duly became a victim of its own success. When the club's popularity outgrew its location in Wellington, and the council started to receive noise complaints from neighbours, the Josephs sought to upgrade the operation, moving to larger premises in the centre of Exeter.

This time they approached Tickle Music for a fully-installed public address system, including a Soundcraft Si2 digital desk. Once again the technical infrastructure needed to be equal to Joss Stone's performance criteria, since she would be opening the new venue.

Wendy and Jonathan Joseph spent in excess of £500,000

Turkey - Akalin Musik, newly appointed Turkish distributor for pro audio manufacturer Audient has just taken delivery of the first Zen high resolution mixing console to arrive in Turkey.

"We had known about Audient's brand reputation and product quality for a long time. It was seeing Zen at Messe Frankfurt this year that gave us the impetus to work with them," says import and project manager Seha E. Akbas.

Audient joins ranks with many other manufacturers already in the company's portfolio and with a history of 18 years in the business, Akalin Muzik now ranks amongst the biggest professional audio distributors in Turkey.

"The Audient brand is new to our market, but already we have had some great success with the range," reports Akbas, who ordered the Zen for stock and demonstration purposes. "Zen and monitor controllers are our priority at the moment

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