USA - The Joint Training Initiative of The ESTA Foundation and USITT has announced Theatre Rigging and Digital Sound Board Training Sessions to be held at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio. The event will be hosted and produced by the Ohio Northern University Freed Centrefor the Performing Arts.

This three-day schedule of courses is designed for entertainment technicians at a basic to intermediate level. The Digital Sound Board session will be held on Friday, 8 January, with the Theatre and Arena Rigging sessions being presented 8-10 January, 2010.

The sound courses will be conducted by Todd J. Mitchell and Cliff Fuller of Great Lakes Sound in Toledo, OH. The rigging courses will be taught by Bill Sapsis of Sapsis Rigging, Inc. in Lansdowne, PA.

(Jim Evans)

Denmark - The iPhone MAXRemote from Martin Professional is a personal assistant to remotely control lighting devices straight from an iPhone or iPod touch. It is billed as "the ultimate remote tool for the Martin Maxxyz lighting console and Maxxyz PC".

MAXRemote discovers remote lighting devices automatically and allows for manipulation of fixtures, presets, channels and more when users connect to a Maxxyz.

Multi-touch belts in the parameter view allow for manipulation of DMX values with precision. A pan/tilt control even allows for control of a moving light's pan and tilt via the iPhone or iPod touch's built-in accelerometer.

Users can control colour values in both CMY and RGB modes with support for Lee, Rosco and GAM filters. Users can also trigger cuelists with Go, Pause and Release commands. An offline mode allows anyone to experience MAXRemote without the need

USA - Wybron has announced an update of the Gel Swatch Libary application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Along with the addition of hundreds of new filters, Gel Swatch Library 1.5 allows users to access a map of dealers in their area.

Geographical information for Lee dealers across the United States can be accessed from the user's current location or zip code, with users able to call or email those dealers with one touch. Dealers from other parts of the globe, including Canada, will follow.

The updated application is available for download immediately - as of 1 December. Users who have already purchased iSwatch will find that their libraries will update automatically through the Apple App Store.

* The week of 7-11 December kicks off the third leg of the Wybron Mobile Showroom, with stops in the Orlando and Miami areas. "This is a terrific opportunity to get some face ti

Mexico / Columbia - The Electro-Voice team recently visited Mexico and Colombia for two IRIS-Net software certification training sessions - presented for the first time in Spanish. The sessions were lead by George Georgallis, EV's senior technical support applications specialist, with translation by Nicolas Betancur, inside sales engineer - Latin America, with assistance from sales managers Juan Montoya (Colombia) and Ernesto Montañez (Mexico).

"These were our first Spanish-speaking IRIS-Net certification sessions in Latin America," reports Juan Montoya, "and the response was simply fantastic. The classrooms were full of audio pros eager to learn more about this uniquely versatile and powerful software platform and all its related hardware, along with the business advantages of working with EV and Bosch."

"We were pleased to welcome technicians from s

UK - The Thursford Christmas Spectacular in Norfolk embraces a major Yamaha audio system. Just a couple of miles from villages rejoicing in the names of Great and Little Snoring, Thursford has been home to a remarkable evocation of yesteryear since the 1930s when George Cushing - born and raised in the village - started to buy up steam-powered traction engines and road rollers as they were being replaced by the internal combustion engine. This expanded to fairground organs, merry-go-rounds and, famously, the fourth largest Wurlitzer organ in Europe.

Now run by a charitable trust and attracting many thousands of visitors per year, since 1977 the Thursford Collection has put on an annual Christmas Spectacular. Produced and directed by Cushing's son John, managing director of the Collection for over thirty years, the Christmas Spectacular runs from early November until just before

Hong Kong - The 8,000sq.m Hong Kong Space Museum has recently renovated the Stanley Ho Space Theatre. The theatre, sheltered beneath the museum's famous egg-shaped dome, is part of the planetarium area of the museum.

Integrated by PCCW, a Medialon Control system is part of the cutting-edge digital planetarium system installed in the Stanley Ho Space theatre.

The Hong Space Museum, which hosts a diameter of 23m hemispherical projection, is one of the first planetarium in the world to possess a fully automatic control system in its theatre. It has also been the first to have installed an OMNIMAX film projector in Asia.

The Sky-Skan Definiti 8K full dome system is driving 6 sets of Sony T110 SXRD video projectors for impressive full dome moving pictures, and many others advanced audio visual devices.

Inside the theatre, the Medialon system coordinates the e:cue based LED ligh

China - Lighting designer Sha XiaoLan of Beijing-based practice Feng Shang Shiji specified 159 Robe moving lights for the colourful and energetic Ocean Fantasy musical show, a central feature of the new Olympic Sailing Centre Theatre in Qingdao, China.

The 700 capacity new build theatre is right on the new waterfront development at the seaside city of Qingdao in China's eastern Shandong province, which hosted the 2008 Olympic sailing competitions.

The nightly Ocean Fantasy is a fast paced, humorous five-chapter performance created by Mr Wang XiaoLe, relating a series of stories from the sea and capturing some of the culture and history of the local area which is also famous for its beer. The show has already become a big hit with tourists and the locals.

Lighting is a key imaginative tool for the narrative, helping to create a diversity of environments and loca

UK - HSL supplied lighting and video equipment plus crew, and designed a bespoke DJ booth for two recent sold-out performances by The Swedish House Mafia at London's Brixton Academy.

The shows were presented and produced by Cream and Loudsound Events and HSL was working for technical co-ordinators, BPM, who also supplied pyro and lasers.

SHM Management's Amy Thomson's brief to BPM was to have the 'biggest and best' show possible. BPM worked closely with HSL to design a full show based on a four section lighting rig, action-packed with strobe pods, moving heads, specialist LED products and three large video wall sections.

HSL's Mike Docksey project managed for the Blackburn-based company, working closely with BPM's Adam Murray. Dave Lee was asked to produce an exciting and fresh visual design concept which incorporated both lighting and video elements that could be run, impro

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Denmark - A large quantity of DPA microphones were used for the opening ceremony of WOMEX, a world music festival staged in Copenhagen. Held at Danish Broadcasting's new Koncerthuset concert venue, The Great Nordic Night featured artists from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Samiland and Greenland.

Torben Sminge, an experienced live sound engineer working mainly with acoustic music, knew exactly what to expect when asked to handle sound for the ceremony. "Firstly I had to deal with lots of instruments with very low acoustic output, such as violins, acoustic guitars, mandolas, and ethnic Nordic instruments like the n°gleharpe and hardanger fiddle," he says. "These were instruments that I needed to amplify a lot while still keeping them sounding very natural and 'acoustic'. This introduces the problem of feedback from stage, especially in thi

Denmark - Alcons Audio has announced that Ascon Trading A/S from Aalborg has been appointed the sole pro-ribbon partner for Denmark.

Established in 1988 by Knud Eskildsen, the company is active in the music, installation and pro-audio market, with established brands such as Midas, Tascam, and Klark-Teknik.

Torben Laursen, in charge of pro-sales, comments, "The first thing that struck us when listening to the Alcons speakers was the total lack of listening fatigue, the "in the face" vocals and the smooth response above 10kHz. It offers a three-dimensional experience with stereo width and depth that we haven't found anywhere else and this has been proven on every shoot out we've done so far. We love selling something that's different from the rest: Not because of hidden settings and compensations in DSP's but due to the nature of the products and that's the real b

UK - On December 9 and 10, PRG Distribution are inviting lighting professionals to the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden, to see if they can tell the difference between a traditional incandescent or halide fixture and the next generation Nemo Li-FI Plasma source from Seachanger and the VLX LED Wash Luminaire from Philips Vari*Lite.

With a menu of numerous pastel and saturated colours, PRG Distribution challenge you to tell the difference between incandescent, halide, plasma and the phenomenal output of the LED VLX.

Sessions are available on both dates at 10.30am, 12.30pm and 14.30pm. If you'd like to attend, please visit the web address below for more details, or email sales@prgdistribution.com to book your place.

The Royal Opera House are also offering a unique opportunity to the first ten guests to confirm their attendance to get a behind the scenes tour and look

UK - Baldwin Boxall this week held an informal drop in event at The Old Bank of England in Fleet Street, London. The celebrations went well and new voice alarm products were welcomed. The products included the new BVRD2M4 DSP-controlled routeing matrix and the BVRD microphone controller. Both products have just been put into production and Baldwin Boxall is already experiencing high demand for them. Also being demonstrated was the Unitouch touchscreen control paging station.

The BVRD2M4 four zone voice alarm router is the latest addition to the VIGIL EVAS range of DSP-controlled routers. It is a four zone voice alarm router with dual outputs. Retaining many of the features of the well established EVAS BVRD2M router, the new router is small enough to fit alongside a VIGIL2 amplifier and power supply in one 19" mainframe.

The BVRD microphone controller has been designed spe

UK - SFL Group has installed an L-Acoustics line source system into the Dominion Church, based in a renovated 1930s Art Deco cinema in Wood Green, North London, using Kudo large format and Kiva ultra compact cabinets.

L-Acoustics' UK technical manager Jamie Gosney met the Dominion Church's technical manager Eben Awuah on hearing of the renovation project back in January. The church had been meeting in a room under cinema's balcony, which was already equipped with an L-Acoustics coaxial system, and it was time to expand into the rest of the building.

"Although it was clearly in the early stages of renovation, walking into the building was breathtaking as it's a perfect example of Art Deco architecture," says Gosney. "We discussed the church's audio requirements and it became clear that high sound quality and versatility were essential as music concerts and confer

USA - Total Structures reports great interest at the recent LDI in its RSC Lightlock which was making its US debut.

The RSC Lightlock now gives designers the ability to dampen the natural tendency for moving lights to twist in reaction to the fixture's pan movement, allowing the light to hit the focus point without swinging back and forth. Live Design awarded the RSC Lightlock the Best Debuting Product Award in the Rigging and Staging category. The award, presented during Saturday evening's festivities on the show floor, recognizes the RSC Lightlock for "increasing the range of uses for moving head lighting fixtures, while reducing the amount of rigging equipment needed to place fixtures within facilities and productions".

For the team at Total Structures, the response from attendees reinforced what they already believed. "When people come back three or f

USA - The Minnesota Orchestral Association (MOA) has appointed Sound Space Design to serve as acoustical consultant for the expansion and renovation of Orchestra Hall, Orchestra President and CEO Michael Henson announced yesterday. The acoustical team, led by Robert Essert, will be responsible for ensuring that Orchestra Hall's current acoustics are preserved throughout the renovation, for making onstage acoustical modifications and for advising on lobby acoustics.

Sound Space Design, founded by Robert Essert in 2002, has designed acoustics for performing arts venues across the world, including the newly-opened Winspear Opera House in Dallas, Toronto's Koerner Hall and London's Menuhin Hall.

Orchestra Hall is well-known for its symphonic acoustics, which were originally designed by Cyril Harris. "Bob Essert and Sound Space Design will be involved in every decision that we

UK - The Royal Albert Hall was the backdrop for the launch of the Clay Paky Alpha Spot HPE 1500. It is the top spotlight in the Alpha range, to which other models have also recently been added: the Alpha Profile 1500 beam shaper and the Alpha Wash 1500 washlight.

The demo took place on 20 November 2009, in two parts: the first entailed a "live" show, presented by Durham Marenghi using the rig put together for the Classical Spectacular, which took place the same week at the Royal Albert Hall. The Classical Spectacular is produced by Raymond Gubbay and has now nearly reached its twentieth year (the anniversary will be celebrated in 2010). It is a blend of classical music with a light show.

LD Durham Marenghi, has always been very attentive to technological progress, and often uses innovative technology for his own work with big names in the music business

USA - Flamingo Audio Owner Brad Walker comes from a music recording background, and his company still does plenty of that at their Seattle-area facility. But their real bread and butter these days comes from systems installation and live sound. As Walker puts it, "The installation work keeps us smart, and the live sound work makes us fast." And for a company that has to cover as many categories of events as Flamingo Audio - from concerts to corporate, from government to tribal - the EAW NTL720 self-powered line array loudspeaker system has been a versatile solution.

"We really like the physical form factor of the NTL720, as well as the way it sounds," says Walker, who notes that the NTL720's compact dimensions, flexible mounting possibilities and scalable deployment let it be used in a wide range of situations. For instance, at the Kitsap Arts & Crafts Festiv

USA - The new Dallas Cowboys stadium has opened its doors, and with costs in excess of $1 billion it is one of the most advanced sports and entertainment venue in the world to-date. The audio/video system not only features the world's largest HD on field display, but several offerings from Community Professional Loudspeakers.

Fans are welcomed to the stadium by 84 R.5 all-weather loudspeakers mounted to glowing light poles on the sidewalks surrounding the building. The R.5s provide live announcements and pre-recorded playback material and were selected for their "weather serviceability and high output in a small package". The shape and colour of the R.5 enclosure also closely resembled the lighting fixtures making them the perfect choice for the application.

Inside the stadium, Community i2W8 full-range two-way boxes ring the main seating bowl and provide under-balco

UK - based flight-case manufacturer 5 Star Cases has recently strengthened its partnership with DJ equipment specialists Pioneer, supplying 3000 cases for the popular Pioneer Pro440 DJ system console.

In the last 18 months, 5 Star has supplied over 3700 Pro440 cases, all finished in a striking red laminate. When Pioneer recently launched a Limited Edition 'piano black' CDJ-400 and DJM-400 featuring cool blue LED illumination, Paul Beardsall of Pioneer Europe NV, once again contacted 5 Star, wanting a new look case to compliment this special equipment release.

An initial order of 1000 blue cases was delivered to Pioneer's Belgian distribution facility in Melsele in early November, followed by a further 2000 units, scheduled for dispatch between December 2009 and January 2010. The option for a final delivery of more units will be made in February, bringing the Limited Edition ca

UK - Adlib Audio is supplying The Specials with sound equipment and the crew of James Neale and Richy Nicholson for their current UK tour.

Adlib was chosen to be the audio supplier by tour manager Mike Darling, with whom they have worked on several seasons of Ibiza Rocks and other projects.

Neale and Nicholson are working with the band's engineers Marcos Ferrari (FOH) and Pete Abbot (monitors) on a tour that ranges from small arenas and to provincial theatres. So the primary requirement of the system was that it be exceptionally flexible.

The main FOH speaker system is L-Acoustics V-Dosc (specified by Ferrari), however Adlib are also carrying some dV-Dosc and Arcs cabinets for the larger shows. In the largest configuration, this is set up as main left and right flown hangs of 8 V-Dosc cabinets and a under hang of three dV-Dosc per side.The flown side hangs consisted of six d

USA - Martin Professional scored a hat trick at the second annual ESTA Rock Our World Awards coming away with two best in category accolades and a special recognition award. Martin's P3-100 System Controller won Best Product of the Year while the Grand Mosque won for Best Project of the Year. The judging panel, headed by Mike Wood, also voted a special award to the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

The 2009 Rock Our World Awards were presented at ESTA's Annual Dinner on Thursday evening 19 November in Orlando, Florida, just prior to the opening of the LDI show. The awards recognize groundbreaking achievement by ESTA Members in new products, product applications, or projects. According to ESTA, the awards were created to acknowledge the genius of both the creator of technology and the designer or integrator who applies the technology in a real wo

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