UK - Rental company HSL continues its busy concert touring season supplying lighting and video projectors to the latest leg of the Brit Floyd UK tour - a new show celebrating the musical legacy of progressive rock band, Pink Floyd - which plays London's O2 Arena this coming week.

Brit Floyd under the musical and creative direction of Damian Darlington boasts a Floydesque style lightshow which is equally as original in its own right, has been co-designed by Dave Hill and Neil Trenell, with Trenell going out on the road operating.

The project is managed for HSL by Mike Oates who says, "Supplying a Pink Floyd show of any description is a lighting company's dream, considering they were such great technical innovators and responsible for evolving the whole concept of integrated

USA - Delaware -based Main Light Industries has added Clay Paky Sharpy moving beam lights, Alpha Profile 700, and Alpha Spot HPE 1500 fixtures to its growing inventory of rental equipment.

Main Light, which serves all lighting markets from theatrical to touring, has become one of the largest rental houses in the US. After initially purchasing Sharpy fixtures earlier this year, the company has reinforced its Clay Paky offerings by acquiring the Alpha units.

"The features and quality of the Clay Paky fixtures uniquely position them in the market," notes Randy Mullican at Main Light. "We like the speed of the Sharpy - the unit is extremely fast and the beam projects out of the Sharpy incredibly far. They have no problem cutting through 1500-watt fixtures on stage."

Mullican cites the low noise level of the Alpha 700, which enables it to be used in theatre en

UK - White Light, the exclusive UK distributor for the Robert Juliat range of lighting fixtures, has recently supplied 18 of Juliat's Lancelot 4000W followspots to two other lighting rental companies, HSL and Neg Earth.

With a 4kHTI lamp and a beam adjustable from 2-5?, Lancelot is a followspot designed for the largest of venues and biggest of shows, giving a high output and a precise, controllable beam over even the longest of throws. This made it the perfect choice for shows by JLS - which HSL supplied from 12 of their newly purchased units - and Take That, which Neg Earth supplied from their new stock of six Lancelots. Lancelots are also in use on Shrek at London's Theatre Royal Drury Lane and on The Wizard of Oz at The London Palladium, as part of a rig supplied by White Light.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Infusing the excitement and atmosphere of a big rock show into a largely speech based national meeting can be a daunting prospect. "During the awards segments of the show the dBC weighted reading reached 106-108 dB SPL," said sound supervisor Chas Gerber of Gerber Acoustics.

"The programme was underpinned by lots of upbeat dance music with plenty of low end." Add the 37,000 highly motivated sales people for Primerica that thronged the reverberant confines of the Atlanta Georgia Dome and it's not hard to imagine the challenges facing Gerber. "With two cross stage lecterns for the presenters reading off the award winners' names, I needed to be extremely careful."

Gerber Acoustics has managed the audio responsibilities of this annual presentation before, and called upon the services of frequent collaborator Florida based Beachsound to provide a

Austria - The Donauinselfest - or Danube Island Festival - is a huge, free annual event that attracts millions of visitors to Vienna each June. This year, rental company Concept Solutions provided two DiGiCo SD8s for the Festival's Front of House and monitor duties, supplied to them by DiGiCo's Austrian distributor, TON Eichinger.

Concept Solution's Raphael Rupprecht explains what was involved at this truly massive event. "This is a three-day festival featuring open-air stages around the island," he says. "We started working at 9am every day, bands arrived at 10am for soundcheck and the show itself ran from 3pm to 12pm. It was a huge workload - we had to set up our standard backline, plus the individual amps and instruments for each band and sometimes there were as many as four drum kits on stage waiting to be miked up - but all acts ran smoothly and the overall m

South Africa - Stage Audio Works exhibited for the fourth consecutive time at Mediatech, which took place from the 20th to 22nd July at The Coca-Cola Dome in Johannesburg. The stand's impressive aluminium double tier design showcased Stage Audio Works' manufacturing division - Stage Plus Engineering, Total Fabrication trussing and the impressive Tour Step staircase with all the components designed and machined and fabricated in-house and proudly South African.

Total Fabrications is manufactured under licence by Stage Audio Works in Africa, making this world-renowned truss design more easily available to the local market. The obvious benefits for local customers with local manufacture and back-up service, is that expensive international freight costs will be eliminated and time delays will be all but eradicated.

Members of the team were also spinning Black and White on the stan

Australia - For a couple of weeks every June, Sydney is transformed into a spectacular canvas of light and music as the Vivid Sydney Festival takes over the city after dark.

The festival features a rich international programme of music and arts events including a spectacular 3D illumination of the Sydney Opera House and an outdoor exhibition of interactive light sculptures.

This year also saw the launch of Skyscraper Illuminati, a theatrical transformation of Sydney's Circular Quay, in which the district's large facades are brought to life each night with choreographed light shows that play throughout the evening.

Behind the illuminations was Sydney-based 32 Hundred, one of Australia's most innovative event lighting and audio companies.

When 32 Hundred's managing director Iain Reed discovered that his company had won the tender to design, install and operate the production

UK - Nick Gray from London- based creative lighting design practice Renegade was commissioned to design a scheme for the recent Yojhi Yamamoto Fashion In Motion live catwalk show in the Raphael Gallery at London's Victoria & Albert Museum.

Gray was working for show producers Bacchus, a regular client with whom he works on many London Fashion Week events, and for whom he also recently lit Lagos Fashion Week in Nigeria and a concert performance by Beyonce. He has also previously lit a Fashion In Motion show at the same venue for Kenzo

The high profile Yamamoto event featured some classic men's and women's creations from the acclaimed Japanese designer which were also part of a major retrospective exhibition of his work on show at the V&A.

Gray's brief was open other than that the producer's preferred to work in a daylight colour temperature. He also decided to add in a

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UK - Pixled will launch its new F-9 LED surface at the 2011 PLASA Light & Sound show at London's Earls Court Exhibition Centre in September.

This capitalises on the "phenomenal success" of the fully flexible - bends both ways - Pixled F-6 surface that was launched at last year's PLASA.

The design and architecture for the 9mm pitch F-9 features all the same dynamic characteristics that have proved so popular with the F-6 - high resolution, light weight, very easy to build and set up, curvable in both directions - both concave and convex.

F-6 and F-9 modules can be mixed and fitted together if desired in the same quick-lock touring frames. These utilise the rapid hanging and footprint system that has proved such a winner for touring and temporary installation environments.

Like the F-6, F-9 is also available with standard Pixled or super-HD resolution Mitsubishi pr

UK - British mixer manufacturer Allen & Heath, will be exhibiting on stand 1-E9 at the forthcoming PLASA show in London.

The company will be showing various control surface and MixRack components from its iLive digital mixing family, as well as the range of audio networking possibilities such as MADI and Dante, and additional control options including the Allen & Heath PL Series remote controllers, iLive Editor software, iLive Tweak app for iPhone and the MixPad app for iPad.

Also on display will be models from the Xone DJ range - including the Xone:PB patchbay, Xone:S2 installation mixer and Xone:DB4 FX mixer - as well as the ZED USB compact mixers and GS-R24 recording mixer.

(Jim Evans)

USA - EAW has appointed John Speck to the position of marketing director. Speck has a long history with the company, having served on the marketing team from 1995-2000 and as an outside consultant in the years since. His return was announced by Jeff Rocha, EAW president. Speck brings with him a deep well of expertise, including keen technical knowledge and finely honed communication/writing skills, which will help him to develop an ongoing strategic vision for marketing EAW, says the company.

Rocha states, "It's very rare in our industry to find a person who can both understand an innovation at the technical level and also communicate that innovation in a compelling, non-technical way. John is such a person, as he proved over and over during the 1990s. Because John was such an important part of our marketing team in the 1990s, he already understands what works for us. In fa

Russia - PA rental company the Live Sound Agency has deployed its L-Acoustics K1 WST line source system at Rock on the Volga, a one-day festival in the city of Samara.

Among international artists to appear at the festival were Finnish singer Tarja Turunen, UK rock band Skunk Anansie and Russian artists Aquarium, Kipelov and Peter Mamonov.

The Live Sound Agency's engineer Vitaly Grinevich deployed two hangs of 16 K1 cabinets with two hangs of eight K1s for out-fill, and two hangs of six K1-SB subwoofers per side flown behind the K1s. A further 16 per side SB28 subwoofers were ground stacked beneath the K1 system. There were also six delay towers with six V-DOSC cabinets each.

According to Grinevich, this configuration allowed all 220,000 audience members to enjoy optimum sound right across the festival site.

On stage, monitoring was provided via 18115XT HiQ active stage mon

Australia - Audinate Pty has elected David Krall as chairman of its board of directors. His election as chairman comes at a time of rapid growth for Audinate, completing its most recent fiscal year (ending 30 June 2011) with almost double its revenues from the prior year. Krall originally joined Audinate's board of directors earlier this year. He also currently serves as executive chair of QSecure in addition to serving on the board of directors of Progress Software.

"Audinate's board of directors is integral to our ability to execute our growth strategy, and having someone with David's industry background as our chair will be a tremendous asset," said Lee Ellison, president and CEO of Audinate. "David Krall's diverse background in developing companies who are in the start-up's high-growth phase, as well as large publically traded companies, will be a major benefi

UK - At next month's PLASA Show, with the introduction of its latest model, the SL50, Stageline launches a new range of mobile stages, the Light Series. The Light Series will add other cost-effective and light-weight mobile stage solutions to Stageline's product range.

The Stageline SL50 portable stage measures 6.1m by 4.9m (20' by 16') and features a fiberglass roof, light & sound rigging, full banner capability and an option of two roof heights. It can be towed by a SUV or pickup and sets up in 30 minutes, says Stageline.

"The reduced trailer dimensions make it very easy to park in tight locations. With the new SL50, owning a Stageline mobile stage is within everyone's reach and delivers a fast return on investment."

(Claire Beeson)

USA - Prism Sound has consolidated its relationship with producer/engineer Leif Mases by taking on US distribution for his entire Mases Electronics Maselec range of analogue dynamic processors and custom consoles.

Prism Media Products Inc, Prism Sound's US sales and distribution company, already markets the Maselec Master Series MEA-2, MLA-2 and MMA4-XR processors. Under the terms of the new arrangement, Prism Media Products Inc will now also market the MLA-3 multi-band compressor; the MPL-2 peak and frequency limiter; the MDS-2 high frequency limiter (De-esser); the MTC-2 and MTC-6 mastering consoles.

"This new arrangement allows both companies to exploit the excellent synergy between our product ranges," Leif Mases says. "My relationship with Prism Sound has always been mutually helpful and it makes perfect sense to develop this in the US by using PMPI for my

UK - GDS is to launch the highly anticipated LiteWare G3 at this year's PLASA show and will exhibit a number of other new products.

GDS will exhibit its "most exciting product range to date" at PLASA 2011. A recent teaser-ad campaign for the new LiteWare G3 has caused quite a stir within the industry.

PLASA will see GDS showcase all seven of its i brands: LiteWare the original Wireless battery uplighter incorporating LiteWare G3, HO and UL, the SMConsole, CueSystem TCPIP programmable ethernet based cue light systems, MOBAL tester the original and award winning automated Socapex tester, the BluesSystem utilising BlueBeam and Dome and MainsSystem.

In addition to this GDS will show its new ARCSystem a retro-fit, fully dimmable LED auditorium house light system that replaces incandescent fittings for any size of venue using a control system that can integrate with any

UK - Showsec ensured the safety of the audience at the Batman Live world premier at Manchester MEN Arena, and the VIP party hosted in Manchester Cathedral on 19 July, 2011.

Rehearsals had taken place over three weeks in June at Capital FM Arena in Nottingham, another venue where Showsec is the contracted security partner. With huge media interest producers demanded the specifics of the show, including the plot, remained a closely-guarded secret. Showsec was engaged to ensure the venue remained a closed set throughout rehearsals, with only members of the production crew and cast having access.

Prior to the opening night an audience of 4,000 guests were specially invited to the Manchester MEN Arena; a final opportunity to fine-tune aspects of the production and ensure the venue staff understood how Batman Live differed from other shows.

Tim Chambers, Showsec's project m

Germany - From June 15-17, Straubing provided the setting for another edition of Dynacord's MI Dealers' Academy. This year the Dynacord team led by Frauke Jungbluth (sales manager Europe), Martin Traut (senior product manager), and Andreas Köstlinger (tech support) welcomed 40 participants from the EMEA region.

The programme for the two-day course of seminars included a presentation of the new PowerMate3 powered mixers, a practice-oriented 'hands-on' session and a special workshop on signal processing. Köstlinger presented inter alia the CMS mixing consoles and a variety of different types of loudspeaker in EVI Audio's Demo Hall.

"These 'hands-on' sessions are always very popular with participants as they are continuously picking up new tips and tricks," says Frauke Jungbluth. "Naturally Martin Traut's traditional amp show was another highlight of the Academy.

UK - Line 6 returns to the PLASA Show to showcase its new XD-V digital wireless microphone systems, further demonstrating the company's commitment to serving the professional audio industry.

Exhibiting on stand 1-J12, Line 6 will be showcasing the expansion of the microphone family, which now includes two new models, XD-V30HS and XD-V70HS headset microphone systems. These augment the award-winning XD-V30 and XD-V70 handheld and lavalier systems.

XD-V70HS digital wireless system consists of a lightweight, discreet and fully adjustable headset with an omni-directional condenser microphone.

XD-V30HS digital wireless system features a robust uni-directional condenser microphone attached to a durable headset, which is ideal for fitness instructors, business presentations and environments with high levels of ambient noise.

As the switchover to channel 38 fast approaches, Line 6

UK - The newly developed LD EQ215 is a stereo 15 band graphic equaliser in standard 19"/1U rack format designed for professional live and studio applications. It offers the most common features such as 2/3 octave bands, 20 mm faders, ISO frequency meters, a switchable 50 Hz low cut filter, a ± 12 dB input gain range and an EQ Bypass switch.

Andrew Richardson, managing director of Adam Hall UK comments, "This is a great unit that will stand the rigours of everyday life and another example of great price performance ratio from LD Systems."

The XLR and 6,3 mm jack Neutrik connectors provide flexibility and quality. The rugged construction of the unit (metal housing, high quality faders) will provide a long lasting and reliable operational life. The cost effective LD EQ215 gives you full control of your sound, says the company.

(Jim Evans)

Europe - GearSource Europe's dedicated truss and rigging business, UsedTruss.com has secured massive stocks of ex-rental Prolyte truss for immediate delivery, further expanding the range of products offered.

Usedtruss.com was established four years ago to provide a dedicated one stop shop for the rigging and trussing community looking for quality 'named brand' equipment at very competitive prices.

"We work very closely with most of the leading manufacturers and rental companies in the industry and have built up an excellent reputation in the four years we have been developing this market," said Usedtruss.com's Amsterdam based, Benjamin Hollenberg.

"By constantly improving the way we work, and by keeping costs to a minimum, we have given manufacturers the possibility of securing sales they might not have in the past. And that is exactly why we have now added th

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